For those of us who live by our datebooks, time seems to manage us more than we manage our time.
We use the Gregorian calendar, which doesn't track natural cycles like lunar months and change of the seasons. Its original purpose was to mark out the symbolic Christian year.
The Mayan calendar, or the Mayan Count of Days has been in use for over 2,500 years. It's actually a series of interconnected calendars based on planetary movements that projects backward and forward in time, spanning 5,000 years into the past and 3,000 years into the future. There are many cycles in this calendar system and the next major era ends on the Winter Solstice - December 20th in the year 2012. A new era begins on the 21st.
What happens at that time, or why the Count of Days includes a countdown to that particular date is a mystery. The Mayan time systems challenge us to think about how we use our time, and what may come in a new era.
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