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The Breakthrough Celebration of May 2:

The katuniversary of the Harmonic Convergence

by

Carl Johan Calleman

The upcoming Breakthrough Celebration on May 2 (11 Ahau) has a special significance. It is then exactly a katun (20 tun periods of 360 days = 7200 days) since the celebration of the Harmonic Convergence, August 16-17, 1987. In the prophetic Mayan calendar system the katun was a very important time period and we know for instance that the ancient shaman kings of the Maya would celebrate when another katun had passed in their lives. Even if this may seem very alien to modern people there is no astronomical basis for the katun whatsoever and its importance derives from the fact that this is a rhythm inherent in divine creation in the great cosmic scheme. Also individual events, like births of individuals, however create a katun-based rhythm and this is true also for the Harmonic Convergence.

For those of us that remember the Harmonic Convergence it was an event that relatively rapidly caught on in the US in the summer of 1987 until a few days before it many were buzzing about it. José Argüelles had been the chief campaigner partly through his book The Mayan Factor. While few really knew what to expect this event was in fact the beginning of a more large-scale resonance among people to the idea that we were living in a time plan for evolution driven by spiritual energies. It also meant the first emergence of the Mayan calendar in modern times as a matrix for this evolution. The days August 16-17, 1987 were celebrated in a wide variety of ways and it had the great appeal of a unity in intention combined with a variety in expression. Certainly most were not aware of the background in the Mayan calendar but were drawn to it anyway. Many at this time reached states of contact with a higher reality and some experienced the event as an opening to a spiritual revival of the planet. Even people who did not actively participate have shared that synchronistic with the Harmonic Convergence they experienced callings for their life to take a new direction. To me personally, who was at the Bahamas at the time following a Loving Relationship Training, it meant an experience of the beginning of a period of rebirth as a Mayan and a path to a message about the Mayan calendar system.

It should be pointed out that the Harmonic Convergence was recognized as a significant event also by some indigenous groups including Mayans. Initially the dates for this event was brought to the attention of a few seekers including Argüelles, by the late Tony Shearer, a Native American and it deserves to be pointed out that these dates were based on the true Sacred Aztec-Mayan calendar. While Shearer had made a small mistake - thinking that the dates August 16-17, 1987 were 13 Ahau and 1 Imix - they were in fact 1 Imix and 2 Ik, the two first days of a Mayan tzolkin round of 260 days. I will not go into here how I myself see the larger context, which made the Harmonic Convergence to a significant spiritual event. Suffice it to say that the beginning of a tzolkin round is enough of a reason to celebrate a new beginning.

It turned out that the new energy that was entering at Harmonic Convergence was not only enthusiastically experienced by spiritual seekers, but also became the beginning of the dissolution of the East-West bloc polarity that at that time had been dominating the world for about 40 years. Thus, a wave of democracy swept not only the Eastern bloc, but also large other areas of the world and as the last katun of the Planetary Underworld began on February 11, 1992 the Soviet Union had collapsed (December 1991), the EU and the Maastricht Treaty had been instituted (February 1992) and the first web page had been posted (August of 1991). The final katun of the Planetary Underworld began based on a network of communications hitherto unknown and great enthusiasm emerged in a world of relative peace (after the first Gulf War) which upheld few barriers to contacts between people. I must say however that on my own part I was disappointed already at the time by the way the Eastern European countries and the Soviet Union lost their previous freedom from commercialism. The new world born from the new katun  in 1992 did not incorporate the best of both worlds, and the downfall of the barriers happened entirely on Western terms.

Nonetheless, the Harmonic Convergence certainly marked the beginning of an opening to the new world that would manifest at this katun shift. It also meant the emergence of a new broader spirituality that was more cosmic in nature. I feel it should be noted that the dates May 2 and 3 of the current year are perfectly in phase with the Harmonic Convergence (the actual katuniversary of August 16, 1987 is May 3, 2007) and that the Breakthrough Celebration continues the calendrical tradition that the Harmonic Convergence was conceived in. Hence, I feel we should celebrate also this katuniversary in the spirit of an opening, a preparation leading into the large-scale peace meditations that will occur around the midpoint of the Fifth day of the Galactic Underworld, May 22, 2007. Major spiritual movements and organizations working with the transformation of consciousness will then partake in  celebrations (see www.commonpassion.org) with the common theme of peace - being peace and radiating peace - in order to create a harmonic coherence in the world. Participating organizations to date include the Club of Budapest, World Peace Prayer Society, Unity Institute, Global Consciousness Project, Institute of Noetic Sciences (Shift in Action), Global Peace Foundation, Deeksha Community, megaHRgroups, Mayan Calendar Portal, Mayan Calendar Code, Infinity/Affinity Global Coherence Project and the Lovers of Jerusalem (with James Twyman).

Hence, I feel that at this critical time at the midpoint of the Fifth day of the Galactic Underworld we may celebrate peace in the spirit of the Harmonic Convergence and that its katuniversary on the Breakthrough Celebration of May 2 may be experienced as an opening to this spirit. What I mean by the spirit of Harmonic Convergence is the diversity in unity. Although a broad range of organizations are participating in a common peace celebration they do so based on their individual creativity and by using the spiritual practices they feel at home with themselves. Obviously, this kind of creativity and diversity should be encouraged also for the many individuals that will want to create their own unique expressions of peace, but do not belong to any particular movement or organization.

Carl Johan Calleman, Ph.D. is the author of The Mayan Calendar (Garev, 2001) and The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness (Bear and Co, 2004) and has the web page www.calleman.com (see also www.maya-portal.net). For the Breakthrough Celebration see www.breakthroughcelebration.com and www.commonpassion.org.