Unorthodox Thoughts

For many modern observers, it seems such a silly thing that ancient humans once worshipped the Sun.

If you examine Sun worship more closely, there are some interesting relationships of nature that the ancients may have passed down to us through myth.

Cultures who practiced Sun and nature worship observed, recorded and tried to predict the movements of our moon, stars and planets of our solar system for thousands of years.  Watching the sky would have been one of the most natural and available things to do at night, especially if you are a priest trying to predict the optimum planting and harvest cycles.

Sun as Creator God – In the universe, only three elements are naturally occurring; hydrogen, helium and lithium.  In the case of light elements such as boron, cosmic rays are involved in their creation.  For heavier elements such as gold, the energy of a supernova is required for their creation.  Humans, and all known life, are made up of elements that can only be fused together in a star.  In this regard, the ancient Sun worshippers were correct that the Sun is a creator and a catalyst for life.

Observing the Sun, and perhaps guessing that it is a creator is one thing, but predicting how it will behave is akin to prophecy.  Central to ancient religion was the ability to predict the eclipse of the Sun and the Moon as well as the position of planets; which were tied to omens and religious dogma such as the movement of the planet Venus.  In doing so, control could be exerted over commoners who would continue giving their power to the priest-class in return for the world not ending.

Around 1600-1500BC, the Olmec civilization sprang up in what is now Mexico.  The Olmec culture is responsible for many of the Mesoamerican technologies such as rubber, the number zero, advanced agriculture and rituals also found to be practiced by the later civilizations such as the Maya.  Some think their greatest innovation is the Long Count Calendar because of its accuracy over time.  One of the amazing things about this calendar is that it accurately predicts the axial precession of our planet every 26,000 years.

According to the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar, the current world/era we are living in is the Fifth Sun.  This Fifth Sun (or era) started in September 6, 3114 BCE and is predicted to end in December of 2012.  The calendar and texts aren’t actually saying the world will end according to most scholars, but that the Fifth (cycle or era of the) Sun will end.

These are the Five Suns and their associated myths as passed down, to which I have added my own take on what this calamity may correlate to within the geological record in parenthesis:

• Nahui-Ocelotl (Jaguar Sun) – Inhabitants were giants who were devoured by jaguars.  started ~25,000BCE (Extinction of Neanderthal and perhaps the presence of great cats such as the Saber Tooth Cat)
• Nahui-Ehécatl (Wind Sun) – Inhabitants were transformed into monkeys and destroyed by hurricanes.  started ~19,500BCE (Last Glacial Maximum)
• Nahui-Quiahuitl (Rain Sun) – Inhabitants were destroyed by rain of fire and only birds survived.  ~13,300-8,200BCE (Collapse of the North American, Siberian and European ice sheets)
• Nahui-Atl (Water Sun) – This world was flooded turning the inhabitants into fish. A couple escaped. 3,114-8,200BCE (Holocene Epoch melting, see my posts below about Flood myths)
• Nahui-Ollin (Earthquake Sun) – The world will be destroyed by earthquakes. 3114BCE – next solar cycle? (less solar activity is associated with more volcanoes and earthquakes)

In the Solar Cycles 1749 – 2040 Chart depicted, changes in the Sun’s radiated output are associated with periods of global warming and cooling and can be seen in the Dalton Minimum and End of Little Ice Age minimum.Every 11 years, our Sun’s north and south poles switch their polarity in a natural process.  This pattern has been observed for hundreds of years.  Until recently though, it was thought that the poles always switched at the same time.

May 2012 polar shift, Hinode / NASA

The Japanese research project called Hinode has changed our understanding of this 11 year solar pattern.  For some reason, our Sun’s poles are becoming asymmetric.  The last time this happened around the year 1600, the Earth went into a mini Ice Age with the coldest period being from 1645 to 1715AD.  “Right now, there’s an imbalance between the north and the south poles,” says Jonathan Cirtain, a space scientist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Ala., who is also NASA’s project scientist for a Japanese solar mission called Hinode. “The north is already in transition, well ahead of the south pole, and we don’t understand why.”

This change in the Sun and associated reduction in solar spots (activity is lowest in more than 100 years) is reinforced by many scientific observers.  Could this have anything to do with our ancient Mesoamerican Sun Myths?  The Mayan and Toltec cultures were so concerned that they sacrificed tens of thousands of people to stop the end of the Fifth Sun.

Looking at the NASA projections for solar cycles 24 and 25, and the fact that the Sun’s global conveyor has slowed down dramatically; it is interesting to think that just maybe the Mesoamerican’s saw something in the patterns of nature they preserved in their mythos.  Solar cycle 24 is predicted to peak sometime in late 2012 or early 2013.

Read more about it by following the links in this post yourself and comment if you please on the content.  For all intents and purposes, there is no reason to believe that solar cycle 25 will be lower than the Maunder Minimum unless the Mayan and other Mesoamerican cultures were correct about the end of the Fifth Sun.

UPDATE – 5/10/2012 – Another version of the Mesoamerican Long Count Calendar was just discovered in Guatemala that continues on past the 13th Baktun.

(NOTE: This content was produced primarily for entertainment of the author and the readers of this blog.  I have tried to verify all of the information contained here and have added links to reputable sites supporting the data and interesting patterns as well.)

Tags: maya, mystery, myth, nasa, poles, solar minimum, sun god