Hollywood's Take on 2012

Disaster movies are a hallowed and longstanding Hollywood tradition. No surprise then that the 2012-related movies that have been released to date are heavily disaster-oriented. In this sense, 2012 apocalyptic thinking and Hollywood have the perfect symbiosis.

The first 2012-themed movie from a major studio I watched was "The Day the Earth Stood Still”, at the recommendation of James O’Dea, one the speakers at our recent conference “Understanding the 2012 Phenomenon”. The movie was a remake of the 1958 original. There was the mandatory disaster theming, of course, for our apocalyptic viewing pleasure but in terms of what I’ll call “enlightened content” at least the movie wasn’t objectionable and had its fair share of thought-provoking moments.

More recently, “Knowing” with Nichloas Cage, was recommended to me by Alan Dougall, my Tai Chi teacher and an avid moviegoer. It’s rife with 2012 themes and in my opinion very well crafted from the standpoint of reasonably structured narrative drama (not always the case these days as the notion of plot becomes more and more malleable.) The story line revolves around a professor of astrophysics at MIT who journeys into the (for him) strange new territory of prophecy and prediction i.e. the realm of purely intuitive knowledge. The disaster vehicle in this case is a massive solar flare that wreaks considerable earthly havoc. (Curiously, despite the role of intervening aliens, the film is being widely discussed on a number of Christian web sites.)

One important and worthy documentary that’s been done on the Shift is “2012: Science or Superstition”, a carefully crafted and well-balanced inquiry that features interviews with Daniel Pinchbeck, John Major Jenkins, and other well-regarded 2012 explicators. Annette has been in touch with one of the co-producers Ralph Bernardo and because we both think highly of the work, on Thursday August 20, The Emergence Project will host a screening of "2012 Science or Superstition" at the Lily Pad in Cambridge, MA. We hope you can attend. (http://www.theemergenceproject.net/events.htm#20090820)

Re-enchantment and the Kali Yuga

Morris Berman and William Irwin Thompson are both cultural historians of amazing but also somewhat forgotten import. Much of my own background in exploring 2012 themes comes from reading both over the years, especially Thompson’s work (and, by the way, his books are not easy to find these days…which tells us...what?)

Berman wrote several groundbreaking works including the “Re-enchantment of the World” and “Coming to Our Senses” (and thanks to Howard Rheingold for pointing me towards his work). "Coming to Our Senses" is, among other things, a brilliant deconstruction of the suppression of the Divine Feminine over the course of history.

Re-enchanting the world and moving “back to the future” are both phrases that resonate for me with respect to the 2012 themes that Annette Farrington and I are exploring in our work at The Emergence Project. Life in the downwards spiral of the Kali Yuga, the last in a succession of Hindu world ages, has become decidedly grim although there are beautiful creative flashes to be found everywhere in the green shoots of the new paradigm poking through.

So at least part of the work ahead is indeed to find ways to re-enchant and restore vibrancy and creativity to our cultural life as well as a sense of magic and mystery to our appreciation of the universe vs the grey overlay of technocratic reductionalism that we’ve come to experience (and unfortunately in many cases accept) as the status quo. The current predicament reminds me of this poem from Whitman:

When I Heard the Learn'd Astronomer

When I heard the learn'd astronomer,
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,
When I was shown the charts, the diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,
When I sitting heard the learned astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture room,
How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,
Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time,
Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.

-- Walt Whitman

Are 2012 Themes Becoming Too Broad and Losing Focus?

I had an interesting conversation with Mayan scholar John Major Jenkins about the notion that the meaning of 2012, as it starts to slowly feed into the mainstream, might become such a large tent that its core messaging and deeper spiritual meanings might become essentially vaporized by a double whammy of media minsinterpretation and a tendency to inadvertently lump together any number of spiritual practices and methods under its umbrella. I agree wholeheartedly with John that this is not only possible but likely.

There are already early indications. For example, self-empowerment guru Wayne Dyer now is offering his first feature film. It’s called “The Shift” but curiously appears to have little to do with 2012 and according to his web site, it was renamed from its earlier moniker "Ambition to Meaning". Also in the mix is the fact that Dyer’s publisher is Hay House who is sponsoring a number of 2012 events around the country. This is a difficult and complex issue since the trend is likely to continue and the only solution appears to be the constant application of mindfulness and discernment.