As we pass on through to the new year (20/20) and a new decade (the roaring 20’s) we     are reminded of age-old doomsday projections and apocalyptic prophesies. During my years on this planet, I have lived through my share of great dangers:

1969 The Last Days

In winter, every Saturday at 5 AM a bus left the parking lot of my Sacramento high school school filled with rambunctious teenagers primed for a day trip to the Sierras for downhill skiing adventures on the powdery slopes at Sugar Bowl, Squaw or Heavenly Valley.

In the fall of 1967, cable was strung for two new chair lifts to bridge the slopes of California and Nevada then in 1968, Boulder and Dipper chairs started running, turning Heavenly Valley into America’s largest ski paradise.

Although there was always an anticipation of the “big one” The Last Days of the Late, Great State of California published in 1968, stoked the fear. In Curt Gentry’s novel the state suffers a Richter 9 magnitude earthquake and the populous coastal regions west of the San Andreas Fault sink into the Pacific Ocean. 

Psychic Edgar Cayce tied prophecies of earthquakes and volcanic blasts to the Bible, “These changes in the Earth will come to pass, for the ‘time and times and half times’ are at an end, and there begin the periods of readjustments.” Cayce saw that these “birth pains” as higher consciousness and soul growth and that life on Earth would ultimately prevail. AMEN!!!

Whipped up by predictions of imminent seismic catastrophe, on the day forecast as THE day, with a group of hearty friends, I took the ski lift to the top of Heavenly mountain so that we could, at the appointed hour, witness the shake then slide of California into the sea. We would take our stand on the edge then jump back just across the state line into Nevada and be saved from destruction.

High on the mountain top, huddled together against the blistering wind, we waited, waited for the groan and quake. 3:15…3:20… 3:30… The time was ticking by. No show. By dusk we realized we better head back or we might not ever find our way back down the mountain and that would be the real catastrophe.

1987  Harmonic Convergence

                                                                                                                                                               On August 24, 1987 it was by happenstance that I had just completed hiking the Inca Trail arriving at Machu Picchu the morning of the Harmonic Convergence. The trip was not timed in hopes of joining with the HC believers. On the contrary, the night before we had camped at the Sun Gate (Inti Punku) so that we could descend into the sanctuary arriving at the sacred sun stone before the tourist buses arrived. Expecting a crowd of other intrepid HC hikers congregating to witness the great shift in the earths’ energy, helping to facilitate the coming New Age of world peace, to our amazement at sunrise there was nobody there. Nobody! So we celebrated our good fortune, rambling the grounds without hordes of eager tourists with cameras shutters clicking or the humming, chanting, drone of dancing and hugging convergers. The earth didn’t make a monumental shift that day, but I certainly did. It might have been the altitude or maybe it was just the thrill (and exhaustion) at having arrived after the arduous terrain of the trail, either way I felt harmonically realigned, resonantly attuned and converged.

 

1999 Y2K

Y2K IS shorthand term for “the year 2000” commonly used to refer to a widespread computer programming shortcut that was expected to cause extensive havoc as the year changed from 1999 to 2000. Instead of allowing four digits for the year, many computer programs only allowed two digits (e.g., 99 instead of 1999). At midnight of 1999 we watched our computers screens waiting for catastrophe. 12:15…12:20… 12:30… The time was ticking by. No show. Our fears were for naught so we sent celebratory e-mails dated January 1, 2000 announcing: we made it through!!!

 

2012  Super Bato Saves the World

In 2012 Electric Works with Enrique Chagoya published Super-Bato Saves the World an edition of slot machines featuring talking skulls, cataclysmic fireballs and even the likeness of Chagoya with a serpentine body. Replete with graphics that spoke about discontent, environmental catastrophe and the end of the world. To appease the State Gaming Regulators, Chagoya even designed coins for use in the machines with “2012” stamped on them along with the motto: “Life is a dream, then you wake up.”

December 21, 2012 was regarded as the end-year of a 5,125-year-long cycle in the Mayan Calendar. Various astronomical alignments and numerological formulae were proposed for this date and New-Agers held that it would be the start of a period during which Earth and its inhabitants would undergo a physical and spiritual transformation which would incur both destruction and new growth. As part of the fun, we said, “if the super jackpot is won, the world would be saved.”

At the opening reception, we knew we were saved when a little girl pulled the lever and won the jackpot. NO fire and brimstone destruction, no Armageddon, lots of bells and whistles went off and a shower of coinage. Super Bato had saved the world—just look around. It was going to be a glorious kingdom come.

Crisis averted!

 

20/20 and Onward:

There are long lists of failed projections; of bad things that did not materialize. Some of the highlights include Professor Portia’s Predictions:

1968: Overpopulation Will Spread Worldwide

1969: Everyone Will Disappear In a Cloud Of Blue Steam By 1989

1970: America Subject to Water Rationing By 1974 and Food Rationing By 1980

2000: Children Won’t Know what Snow Is

These days fear-mongering continues to be the weapon of choice.  It can immobilize and can strike us into submission. Do not heed the politicians and the pundits call. 

The descent into darkness has passed once again and the light is coming back like it has done over and over again, for 4.5 billion of years. The planet continues spinning on its merry way.

Just find your spot and get on with it — doing the important work that you were put here for — to love one another and do unto others and to the planet as you would do to yourself.

Nuf said,

FEAR NOT.