Aroostook Skies:
The Mayan apocalypse
By Larry Berz
I am grieved to see the morbid fascination and unlearned allegiance scores of people attribute to the upcoming cosmic catastrophe heralded by “scholarly” interpretations of the Mayan calendar cycle.
As popular science trains our brains to know more about the depth and power of astronomical phenomena, the less we seem to understand about the Universe and our role within it. And because we just can’t seem to grasp the reality of a realm measured in light years and mega-volts and “look back” time, we retreat to either the cozy comfort of fundamentalism or the wondrous escape of pseudo-science. Admittedly, much of modern astronomy seems incompatible with daily life in Aroostook County or other terrestrial locations. But it’s time to grapple with facts and face some uncertainty.
Even within the relative proximity of the solar system itself, we are confronted with places, and speeds, and distances that don’t personally compute. How do I claim that that bright November star we call “Jupiter” really is a cyclonic sphere of incredible chemicals wallowing about 1/2 billion miles from Caribou on a casual 12-year journey around our star? Do we deny those numbers and those mechanics for the sake of our bruised ego? If we accept those numbers beyond the official pronouncements of our middle school textbooks, what do we do? What can we do? Obviously, none of us plan to spend Christmas sending postcards from icy Europa or Ganymede, or Callisto or any of Jupiter’s 67 satellites.
Moreover, we are mostly faithful, dedicated hard-working people. We go regularly to church and offer up our requests and prayers diligently. We care about our kids, our homes, our April 15th responsibilities and minimizing our personal debt, financially speaking. And yet we live in a peculiar, unstable era where we dimly grasp or sense the potentiality of tomorrow. And yet we lack the nerve and the will to commit ourselves to tomorrow. No one in 2012 knows how to communicate or create tomorrow. We’ve invested in an economic framework, which denies tomorrow or even our ability to dream about tomorrow through today’s enablement. We sadly seem retrenched to buttress up against the cold realities facing us all,
And we grudgingly “slide back into the cave, broke” as proclaimed by spokesman Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson recently.
So the appeal of ending the world on December 21st seems in a weird way perfectly acceptable to many. Yes, some think, it’s just what we deserve. We can even avoid global responsibilities and blame the challenges of today upon those old Mayans and their kooky calendar.
Besides, there’s no one around to defend those silly Central Americans anyways. They just vanished in the overgrowth 1,000 years ago or so when their pre-John Deere excavators, back-hoes, and lawn tractors ran out of corn gas. And the combination of these astronomical catastrophic elements just add luster to our demise: Milky Way wonder alignments engaging titanic black hole bursting, triggering gravitational goo-goo. What’s a concerned citizen to do? What channel do I select?
Well, I’ll tell you what to do. We’re going to choose to laugh. Yes, to laugh. Because December 22nd will arise. And you may need to shovel your driveway, and feed your rabbits, and make your bed anyways. And shave, and shower, and you know what else. And you will open your Bible and read what you need to read to receive the daily encouragement to do your utmost for His highest. And you will work hard and shop hard and play hard and take it for your lot, and go on.
And you will embrace what our best hearts tell us: “For this old world still keeps spinning round. And I still love you.” You will go to the library and read about Jupiter and Neptune. You will become both literate and skeptical and add new dimension to your faith. And you will buy your son and daughter a telescope and watch those pinhead satellites dance around Big Daddy like I do. And maybe we will all meet together under the stars and dance like David danced.
We could even invite a Mayan along to cheer him up.
Larry Berz of Caribou is director of Easton’s Francis Malcolm Planetarium and astronomy instructor at the Maine School of Science and Mathematics.
