The last couple of days before 2012 begins, and this has been Armageddon week on the History Channel. Most of the shows have been repeats of things in previous years, but they still get me to thinking. What is actually around the corner.
This little stretch of time, especially, with so much happening in my own life and in the lives of those around me, seems to just drive home the point. Something really big is happening, and it's not at all clear what that thing is. Big, earthshaking and ambiguous, all at once.
I've often heard the saying, as above, so below, as within, so without. To me, that couldn't be more true. The turmoil I see in the lives of so many people around me seems both personal and global at the same time. I just got word this evening that a family member is quite ill. No details yet, at least nothing that I want to share on a blog. But lots more will be happening in the next few days, I'm afraid.
And then, there's the ubiquitous job changes. I've heard several people close to me telling me of the same thing I just experienced - that they think their jobs are in jeopardy. In spite of the propaganda I have been hearing about how the economy is picking up, and about how companies are hiring, etc., I still hear people saying they are worried about being laid off from their own jobs. So we're still not out of the woods - not by a long-shot.
So, where is this all going? That's the question I've been asking for years, now. Is some fundamental catastrophe going to occur on 12/21/2012? Or is it simply another day in the quickening pace of change? At the moment, my bet is that it will be a combination of things - and the winter solstice, galactic alignment, and all that other stuff, will be simply a mile marker in the ongoing progression of increasingly momentous current events. But those events will be mostly human-made.
The biggest of these is the change of climate. My own bet is that this will hit the fan in the next year or so. The sudden cascade of events seems too far along to reverse now. This has never been more apparent than it was this evening as we took the dogs for a walk. Last year at this time, we had a couple feet of snow. This year, we almost didn't need a coat on. It's above freezing outside. In fact, I talked with a couple of neighbors who were working on their car, wearing shirtsleeves (I didn't think it was that warm, but still...).
It reminds me of the calm before the storm - such as in Whitley Strieber's Global Superstorm scenario. Is the prediction of the key-master in his narrative actually going to come about? Will we then have a sudden "Younger Dryas" episode in which the ice age suddenly resurges? I guess we can really only wait and see. It will be the ultimate experiment in climate physics, with the fate of civilization hanging on the outcome.
Still, while I could well be wrong, I doubt events will be that dramatic. My own bet is that Christmas of 2012 will come and go with no great global disaster. Yet at the same time, the world will have fundamentally changed - perhaps without us really being aware of its magnitude. And I suspect that once again, people like me will spend another evening, perhaps tuning into something on late night TV. Who knows, maybe it will even be another rerun of Armageddon Week on the History Channel.
