No Wheel, No Glory, The Maya.

RusticMusic

RusticMusic

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Ok, I don't get it. The Maya who , in between rituals involving styleized executions , happened to figure out a pretty accurate (series) of calenders (365.25 days long Vs. modern day caesium clock ((which is 0.0002 seconds longer))) The long count , used to calculate long periods of time (why did the maya need this?) the Long counts basic unit was 20 days, 360 days (18 basic units ) was a 'tun' , 20 tuns was a 'katun' , 20 katuns was a 'baktun' which is 144,000 days (i see this number all over the place..) and 13 baktuns equalled a "Great Cycle".
They also invented zero..!!! How can this be...forgive me if I overreact to the significance of the number zero, (romans , greeks did'nt have this number) but I'd say modern science would be screwed without it.
This was a great , albeit brutal civilization. How then could they not have grasped the concept of the wheel...? I read somewhere that a mayan childs toy was discovered which rolled on two wheels. Kind of like the string of ducks that anglo children used to play with. IF they did have knowledge of the wheel, why then did they not use it? I guess one explanation could be the terrain, no sense building chariots only to get stuck in the rainforest.
But what about in there great cities, surely the wealthy would have like to parade about in a cart of sorts. I just cannot figure out a decent answer. And I probably never wheel.

Rm.
 
RusticMusic said:
(series) of calenders ...They also invented zero.. How then could they not have grasped the concept of the wheel...? I read somewhere that a mayan childs toy was discovered which rolled on two wheels. Kind of like the string of ducks that anglo children used to play with.
Click to expand...
Namaste RusticMusic...

Could it be need?

Mayan Calendar round...and made of stone they must have been rolled to where they needed to go.

Zero...round.. wonder which came first the zero, the wheel or the calendar?

wheels on toys...so they had wheels...and they had slaves an abundance...

wheels would make slaves lives easier...no good.

wheels on chariots would be bumpy without shock absorbers...no good.

Slaves to carry wealthy in parades and if the ride rough sent off to sacrifice...good.

no need for wheel. after all use of same might have been considered desecration to calendar and the almighty zero...

ps, the moniker, do ya play the jug, the washtub base, the washboard, banjo...I'm a wonderin...
 
Slaves were cost effective. (Always an error in the long run).

I got some pretty cool stringed things here, RM. Psalter, mountain dulcimer, etc. And you?

InPeace,
InLove
 
Thank you for such a quick reply , I do play music with just about anything I can get my hands on ,guitar , banjo , dulcimer , even tried a sitar once (moveable frets?!!??) all with equal fervor but I always rely on the six-string.

I think it's possible that the wheel might have been "off limits" so to speak , the Maya I've found were one of the most peculiar civilizations. I think I'll probably emerse myself in the study of there culture for a bit , what little I know is not enough!
R.m.
 
RusticMusic said:
Thank you for such a quick reply , I do play music with just about anything I can get my hands on ,guitar , banjo , dulcimer , even tried a sitar once (moveable frets?!!??) all with equal fervor but I always rely on the six-string.

I think it's possible that the wheel might have been "off limits" so to speak , the Maya I've found were one of the most peculiar civilizations. I think I'll probably emerse myself in the study of there culture for a bit , what little I know is not enough!
R.m.
Click to expand...
The Mayan's were cleaver, a we bit bloodthirsrty-but nothing on their successors (Aztecs). I even read that they had an Earthquake detector (great big pools of water it staggered layers that covered quite an area) and apparantly using this thing they could detect quakes all over the planet-maybe even predicting them. Now if that's true...
As for the wheel I'd go with your theory of terrain.
 
PLEASE check this out. A lecture from 2005 about the Evolution of Consciousness by way of the Mayan Calender.

//http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-8689261981090121097&q=evolution+2012&hl=en


There is a second part, and also I did'nt know where to post this , but check it out.


"....based on Dr. Calleman's break thru discoveries of the structure of the Mayan Calendar as it relates to the Evolution of Consciousness. "Ian takes a complex subject such as the Mayan Calendar and makes it very easy to understand on a personal level." He also clearly points out how the Schedule of Creation can be tracked when one looks at past historical events and relates that information to what to expect in the near future leading up to 2012...."

R.M.
 
It's difficult for us to understand other cultures and civilizations when we are so enmeshed in our own. I'd like to reverse the viewpoint though, and take a look at our present-day civilization--specifically American culture, since it's what I know--through one possible lens of Mayan culture. After all, the Maya were advanced in their understandings of astronomy, mathematics, and perhaps the nature of space and time. With much the same suspension of disbelief and awesome curiousity that allow us to ponder the possible "shift of ages" of 2012 (that's one way I've heard the 2012 phenomenon described), we can fancy some Mayan stargazer and mystic having a vision of 21st-century American society. Let's eavesdrop:

"I don't get it! The Americans have at their fingertips wonderful marvels of technology--a strange magic which they call 'science' and which makes every Earthly whim tangible. Look--they need light inside their homes in the middle of the night, and they flip a switch! They would like to talk to a friend in a faraway place, they pick up a device which they call a 'phone,' and communicate instantly! They are able to preserve their food for weeks at a time using boxes they call 'refrigerators'--and with 'freezers' they can store any food at winter temperatures indefinitely!

"But I don't get it, because they are brutal and insensitive and have no reverence for life. They sacrifice innocent lives in strange lands by horrific mass killings using steel birds that drop fire on the living--and they seem to do this without thinking, even as the events are filtered, dulled down and simplified, into their very homes where they eat dinner and raise children. These killings are carried out in the name of 'freedom,' and even their God is often invoked. Yet it seems to me that the motivation is plain: they seek to dominate other people so that they can suck the resources and labor from their lands.

"The Americans' irreverence extends beyond these resource wars, though. In packed slaughterhouses they keep the animals which they will eat and those that provide them with milk and eggs. Often these same cows and chickens that give the Americans milk and eggs to sustain the people's bodies spend their lives in mostly one spot, hooked to machines*, injected with or fed strange foods that make them produce more milk, more eggs. When they are no longer useful, they are chopped down where they stand, slaughtered, and their bones, gristle, guts, and brains ground into 'meal' which is then placed into cans and fed to the domesticated animals kept in the Americans' houses!

"I just cannot find a decent answer to this senselessness and brutality, and probably never will understand."

*This Mayan finds this ironic since many of the American people often spend their time sedated and sedentary, putting drugs into their bodies and nearly hooked up to machines that entertain them.

......

There's some speculation or evidence that the Mayans sacrificed nobles and the winners of their ball games, and that sacrifice was considered an honor, maybe because in being a sacrifice, a person was helping perpetuate the cycle of life and creation (according to the Maya's understanding--not ours).

I think a good starting point in trying to wrap one's head around this or any foreign culture is to put our assumptions and values aside. Then it might be possible to see something beautiful, noble, and magnificent in other cultures. And if we really keep our eyes, hearts, and minds open, we may learn something surprising, something that takes us blessedly out of cultural conditioning.
 
Hi Rustic,

I did watch a bit of that video and found it pretty interesting, but then it got hung up about thirty minutes in, and I haven't gone back to check it out.

I'm familiar with the dazzle surrounding 2012 and definitely count myself down with the camp that believes humanity is about to undergo a quantum shift in consciousness. I've been thinking about this idea of the evolution of consciousness a bit lately, and find myself believing more that it must be a revolution of consciousness that we experience. Revolution is a good word, because it indicates both a dramatic movement and re-structuring as well as a simple, physical act of revolving.

If consciousness (and perhaps space and time, too? Not sure about those...) is infinite, then it would stand up to reason that whatever awaits humanity over the ridge of this evolution of consciousness is really nothing that hasn't been done before, somewhere, in some time and space. As individual souls, perhaps some of us have experienced this shift in consciousness "before" (or "after," for that matter!!) in the vastness of infinite universes. But that's a speculation for a different thread.

This idea that we are about to undergo a revolution in consciousness is immensely exciting. My feeling is that, being in the nature of revolutions to return to points that we have touched on before, the nature of this particular revolution will take us into a more planetary consciousness--one where we feel more, rather than think, where the felt experience of living in the present moment begins to return us to an awareness of interconnection and our innate intimacy with the planet and all beings that manifest on Earth.

It's a beautiful dream and one that has been lived before by many (indigenous) people--including, perhaps, the Maya.

The state we are finding ourselves in upon waking, though, is one where we have scarred our lines of connection to the planet by marring and eradicating indigenous sacred traditions. The ones that have survived in some form will serve as guideposts and starlights for us to explore the darkness of our altered environment, but ultimately, we are going to need imagination, courage, and big big hearts in order to get the human race back on line as empathic, living limbs of planet Earth.

'Tis a grand adventure that awaits. :)
 
Pathless ,
Are you still about? I have been away for months would love to continue this discussion. Your reply was very uplifting!
 
Hi...Pathless, I totally agree with your post #9, just very slow in getting to it. It's happening as we speak. I see it as a shift away from the material nature of being to a spiritual nature of being. Different words, same meanings. Yep...the native and indigenous peoples knew the truth, and the "white devils" have been punishing them way too long just because of what they are/were.

flow....;)
 
RusticMusic said:
They also invented zero..!!! How can this be...forgive me if I overreact to the significance of the number zero, (romans , greeks did'nt have this number) but I'd say modern science would be screwed without it.
Click to expand...

Sorry to disagree but the first recorded use of a Mayan symbol for 0 was in 36 BC but the Indians had been using a system for some time before that. They began with a space, which developed into a full stop. This was adopted by the Arabs (who still use a full stop as a zero in their numeric system (out of interest the number '0' in arabic is our 5 - just to confuse us)). The Arabs then brought it to Europe.

However the ancient Greeks had a huge philosophical argument going for ages, that said zero could not be a number because a void could not be something. So they were aware of what we call zero.
 
For those of you who got bogged down with the length of the two previously posted videos explaining the significance of the Mayan Calendar and the "long count", here's a video that is a derivitave work based upon the above lecture videos. It is shorter in length has lots of nice visuals, music, and messages regarding universality and our oneness with nature at all levels.

flow....:)

YouTube - The Mayan Calendar - Welcome to evolution 2012
 
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