Solstice, cycles, and the Mayan calendar

Friday was Solstice, the shortest, darkest day of the year. And it was simultaneously the moment when the days started getting longer, when the light began to return. It’s easy to understand how rituals grew up around this time of year. For weeks, even months, it seemed like the sun was leaving, dropping out of the sky to the south. How could we, being creatures who cherish and depend on light, not celebrate when it seemed to have changed its mind and started climbing back up the sky?

Not surprisingly, virtually every civilization has marked this moment in some way. Around the world, ancient calendars and other forms of time keeping showed some awareness of this change in the cycle of the days. Southwestern US Indians built structures that were perfectly aligned to this date, and, as we learned from endless coverage this year, the Mayans recognized 12-21-2012, Friday’s Solstice, as a key moment in their calendar.

I’m sure you all heard about the (supposed) Mayan prophecy that the world would end on 12-21-2012. This “prediction” became an excuse for end-of-the-world parties (including among high school kids, as I learned from the local filling station attendant, who had waited on several groups of such drunken revelers). And, as a website dedicated to this prophecy informed us, it also inspired thousands of people to flock to a mountain in France that was supposed to open up, revealing a space ship piloted by aliens that would take people away at the end of the world. Some folks traveled to an alternative safe place in Turkey.

Experts in Mayan culture, on the other hand, tell us that the Mayan calendar does not predict the end of the world. It predicts a new beginning.

The Mayan calendar is actually very complex. It’s based on several nested cycles, one within another, going back to the mythical beginning of the world, about 4111 B.C.E. on our calendar. One of these cycles is about 360 days long, similar to our year; another is about 52 years long, roughly a generation. And then there’s the “long count” calendar, which chronicles a cycle about 3000 years long. This is the calendar said to promise the end of the world. The long count does indeed mark 12-21-2012 as a special day—the transition from the first long-count cycle to the second. (Interestingly, after the fact, the website devoted to the end of the world now describes the day as a transition instead.) The next such transition will occur in about 4772 C.E., so it’s pretty safe to say we won’t be here for it.

Part of the discussion about the end of the world was the suggestion that the prophecy actually predicted the end of the world as we know it. This interpretation was favored in part, I imagine, because there’s a song to fit. In part because when it comes to the end of the world, the phrase “as we know it” is easier to swallow than the word “forever.” Perhaps in part because in some sense, every year, every day, every minute is the end of the world as we know it. No moment is ever precisely like any moment before it—if only because this moment is already a part of my past by the time the next one arrives. And in part because some people had somehow learned a more accurate interpretation of the Mayan calendar that recognizes this concept of ongoing cycles and renewal.

The Mayan calendar and our misunderstanding of it tells us something about ourselves. About how easily we accept misinterpretations of other cultures’ beliefs and artifacts, interpretations that obscure the wisdom those beliefs carry in favor of drama. About how easily we accept misunderstandings “sold” by folks who know how to market crises. But also, if we can step back from the hype, there’s something about the common threads that connect cultures and belief systems within cultures. And the threads that connect those beliefs with the world we all inhabit.

Like this notion of cycles. Solstice, the return of the light celebrated in some form across the centuries and across cultures, is at once the end and the beginning of a solar “year.” The Mayan calendar marks the end of a long count cycles and simultaneously the beginning of another. Cycles are like that. Life is like that. I often think of life as a sort of treadmill, with each generation fading into the one before and the one after. One generation slips off the front end, but the treadmill is never empty. There isn’t even a gap in the flow of generations because the generations flow into one another, each is both one generation and the next. Just as Solstice is simultaneously an ending, a transition, and a beginning.

We had a Solstice gathering on Friday night with a group of friends. We lit a lot of candles and dimmed the electric lights. We shared poems, writings, music, and personal experiences that spoke of darkness, light, and renewal. We talked (and talked and talked) about all kinds of things—about community and religion, about finding “light” in oneself, inspiration in music, hope in love, and comfort in the promise of home. About the “resurrection” that comes from the meaning and hope we leave behind us as we pass. And we talked about life and death. About the painful loss of beloved pets and dear friends, and about the new  baby recently born to other friends. We even talked about the Mayan calendar and its message of renewal. Without, I think, ever mentioning “cycles” per se, we talked about the cycles of our lives and of “life” beyond our lives.

Western cultures are so enamored of the notion of the self-contained individual. I wonder what we miss by thinking of ourselves in this isolated way. It’s true that if I focus on my self, I can identify a beginning and an end. But if I focus on cycles and on communities, then that demarcation disappears. Sure, beyond a certain point, my self-contained individual self won’t be here to witness the continuation of these nested cycles or the ongoing life of these communities. I’ll have stepped off the end of the treadmill.

But the Mayans had it right, I think: seen from the perspective of 3000 years, the moments that seem like endings are simultaneously beginnings, transitions. And there is no end to that.

Otherwise

Tuesday, I learned that a friend of mine had died. So on Wednesday, she was very much on my mind when the following poem by Jane Kenyan appeared in my email box, beneath a signature block. 

 "Otherwise"
 
 I got out of bed
 on two strong legs.
 It might have been
 otherwise. I ate
 cereal, sweet
 milk, ripe, flawless
 peach. It might
 have been otherwise.
 I took the dog uphill
 to the birch wood.
 All morning I did
 the work I love.

 At noon I lay down
 with my mate. It might
 have been otherwise.
 We ate dinner together
 at a table with silver
 candlesticks. It might
 have been otherwise.
 I slept in a bed
 in a room with paintings
 on the walls, and
 planned another day
 just like this day.
 But one day, I know,
 it will be otherwise.
 

It’s a beautiful, deeply conscious poem, noticing each minute the privilege of that moment. And I suppose the last line, “But one day, I know, it will be otherwise,” could mean all sorts of things. It could refer to, say, a change of job, a change of partner, a change in health, retirement. In fact, I guess it could refer to life. We all live always knowing that “one day … it will be otherwise.”

But coming on the day it did, the poem spoke to me of the inevitably of death. Each day, I go to sleep planning another day … but one day, it will be otherwise. This time, it was a friend’s “otherwise,” and my response to her death reminds me that one day it will be mine, too.

I met my friend through my work as a volunteer, a sort of “buddy,” with Boulder County Aging Services. From the first day I met her, I loved her spirit, her wit, her determination to be as engaged in her world as she could be—this despite a progressive illness that was stealing her physical abilities and would eventually diminish her mind as well. That first day, we spent a couple of hours talking, getting acquainted. In that conversation, I got my first glimpse of her sense of humor as she told me stories about her life and her kids. Like, about their embarrassment (which disguised delighted pride, I quickly realized) at her playful, unfettered approach to life. Once, traveling on a mountain road with her kids, she took a pit break next to the car. One son said (I imagine him rolling his eyes in jest), “I wish I had a proper mother.” “What would that be like?” she asked. “A mother who wears white gloves and plays Canasta.” She laughed and drove on. I learned so much about her from stories like that—and she had many.

That initial conversation also gave me an idea of what an active, engaged life she had led before she got sick—“back when I was alive,” she said. As I left that first day, she gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. Definitely not something my family has ever done, even with one another, but it seemed right and welcoming. I soon learned that this is the standard Dominican greeting and farewell for family and friends. Once, she asked me why I didn’t say hello to her when I arrived. “But I did,” I insisted. “You didn’t kiss me.” I got it: No hello (and no goodbye) counts without a kiss on the cheek. I left hoping we would become friends.

On our first outing together, we went to the senior center to see what programs there might catch her fancy. We signed her up for a simple fitness class (“Sit ‘n’ Fit”) that seemed suited to her ability and interest, and then for lunch at the center on the two days the class met. Leaving the building, she seemed quiet, and I asked, “Are you exhausted?’” She answered, very quietly, “I’m excited!” And I thought, “I love this woman!” It fit so well with my own wish to stay engaged and alive as I age. How could I not love someone who shared that wish?

I took her to the fitness class the next day, planning to drop her off at the class and return later for lunch. I sat beside her in the exercise circle before the class began and asked if she was OK. “I’m scared,” she said. My instant reply, “I’ll stay.” Now, I have to admit that some of my reaction comes from my own wish to be needed—after all, how better to stay visible? But I also loved her willingness to share this range of emotions—“I’m excited” and “I’m scared.” It was a great match. She was energetic (insofar as her disease allowed), witty, loving, enthusiastic, smart—just what my soul craves. And she seemed to like and trust me. Perfect.

And so began nearly two years of bi-weekly exercise classes followed by lunch at the senior center. Over the past year, I have seen her health declining. She complained more often about not feeling well, but she still wanted to go to exercise class. “If I don’t go, I’ll do nothing,” she said. “That’s worse for me.” Conversations had always been hard for her because her disease meant that her ability to speak lagged way behind the thoughts she wanted to express. Over time, this had become more noticeable. Plus, it was harder and harder for her to show any sort of facial expression, and that bothered her. Try though she might, she could barely force a slight smile for a picture. In fact, I didn’t realize how much her physical appearance had changed until I compared two pictures I have of her—one taken at last year’s holiday party at the senior center and the other at this year’s party. Last year, the smile came easily. This year, it was faint. She reminded me (and others) that this was “the mask” that characterizes her particular illness.

I saw her last Thursday for the annual party. We ate junk food together. (She loved chocolate. She said she ate chocolates because opening them was good exercise for her fingers.) And I took her picture with the fire chief, who stopped by to visit. (She loved firemen. She always said that she liked to fall because then the handsome firemen would come help her up.) Then I dropped her off at her home, saying two goodbyes as we always did—once inside, with a kiss on the cheek, and then again as I stood outside the door, our palms touching through the screen. I said I’d see her Tuesday. Instead, Tuesday was the day I learned she had died.

So now it’s Thursday, a week since we last met. I went to the visitation today and saw her lying in her coffin. Some folks say that this experience provides “closure.” Perhaps the reaction is cultural or regional or dependent on one’s religion. But I didn’t grow up with “viewings,” and the few I’ve attended did not bring closure for me. Her lifeless figure didn't feel like the woman I knew—whereas the picture to the side, the one with just a hint of a mischievous smile, did. Tomorrow is the final service, and my time with her will be over.

Just last Thursday, I saw her. We joked, talked about her plans for Christmas, and ate chocolate. Tuesday, “I got out of bed on two strong legs,” planning to see her … but it was otherwise. Inevitable perhaps. But it makes me really sad.