We have come into this year of 2012 with so many dreams, desires and hopes for change. We want a better world, and have been given a bit of promise that this is what is to come, what the end of the cycle of the Mayan Calendar is perhaps about.

We’ve been told by “experts” that this is the time when we will “ascend”, when there will be great change and we will finally live Heaven on Earth.

Yet looking around us, at a world in chaos, how can that be? Does this world really seem to be on a path of enlightenment? And how do we, as individuals or as a collective whole, actually get there?

If, in fact, there is anything different, what does it really mean to us? How do we “work with” it?

From the beginning, the Mayan people have described the Sacred Calendar as a cycle of evolution, as a plan for the Universe. If we study it we can see that it has indeed followed an evolutionary path. It is also evident that each cycle of the calendar is exponentially shorter (and faster) than the one before and cycles that originally took billions of years now happens in 20 days! And at the same time, everything builds on the foundation of all the previous cycles that have come before. It is really quite amazing.

As this calendar completes it brings us to a space where time no longer exists, it is no longer linear. Perhaps it truly never was, and now our perception of linear time is falling away. Things that happened just yesterday may feel disconnected with where were are at today, and when we look back at a few months, or a year ago, it may feel like another life altogether.

So the Mayan Calendar truly is the “end of time” because it is the “end of our relationship with time as linear”. When we can loosen our ideas of the construct of time we are able to flow with this change much more smoothly.

That is the first step.

Another thing to realize is that energy is much more available to us, just as in an energy vortex. We are now living in that increased energy of the vortex all the time. The energy spins, as it does in the eye of a hurricane, all around us.

How do we work with this powerful energy? The solution is quite simple, and very personal, each of us must find our Core. We have to know ourselves at the core level and tune into that knowing on a regular basis. When we learn to truly live from that place everything becomes easy in our lives, our choices come from that place and what may seem like a whirlwind of chaos to others becomes crystal clear to us. It is like we are in the eye of the hurricane, and the storm abates through the power of that clarity.

This touches on another key that the Mayan Calendar teaches us. In order to arise to the top of the pyramid, the highest level of the calendar, we must know ourselves. One of the steps along the way is working our way through the smoking mirror, the power of illusion. We must practice seeing through the illusion of the material world, seeing through the illusion of the words and dramas of the people around us, and seeing through to the heart of what is real. We practice that first by looking at ourselves. We use everything in our life as a mirror to show us that reality. These are the tools we have attracted to us for our lessons. Our challenges are our greatest opportunities here. We may have our world turned upside down as we find our way to our truth. See it for the blessing it is and learn from it, embrace it and through this chaos you are reborn.

Only after we have done this work for ourselves can we begin to change the world around us. We must have this personal strength and knowing of ourselves if we are to be of any help to the world around us and affect it in any way.

The world changes as each of us change. From that place of inner knowing and loving ourselves, we then can support others to find their truth. We do that through love, compassion and understanding. We don’t change another by thinking we have the lessons for them, that it is up to us to teach another their path. We help others by seeing each other in the same way that God sees us, seeing each other as another God, as another self.

In the Mayan words, “In Lak’ech , Ala K’in” … “I am another you, you are another me.”