When I was 17, I was up late one night messing around on the internet. The TV was a few feet away, as was my Mom who was sleeping on the couch. The volume was low, but I could still hear the show on the national geographic channel. I could hear yes but I wasn't actually listening, that was until I heard very unsettling things being said. The show was all about the end of the world possibly taking place in December of 2012. I immediately stopped what I was doing at the computer, spun my chair to face the TV, and became more and more horrified by the second. This trivial little event in my life sparked the beginning of years of fear to come. I remember distinctly how I counted up from the current year to 2012.. I'd be about 25 when this show claimed the world "could" end. Asteroids, Nuclear Holocaust, Alien Invasion.. there are many prophecies as to what might occur in this year. But the year specifically is the one thing each prophecy still has in common.

It's not dying that scares me. I'm aware I am mortal and like every creature I know of, I will die someday. Maybe even tomorrow. What scares me is death in mass. Some movies that scare me the most are the ones where death takes place in mass, notably the movies I was shown in grade school about the Holocaust and the gas chambers the Jewish were packed into. They watched each other die. I know some are of the belief this event didn't even take place but it's difficult to dispute it when people who were there are still alive to tell their horrific tales today.

Just as the end of the world in this year is prophesied,  so to is a great change. I've yet to find anything saying both happen together though, it's usually a question of one or the other happening. Well you can bet your ass I jumped right on the prophecy of great change as opposed to a doomsday prediction. I read a lot about the "Noosphere" (noah-sphere). The literature was complicated for me to grasp, but I came away with a simple way to describe it. 2012: The Year Earth Becomes Self Aware. Not that our planet isn't already showing signs of being more just an object with an ecosystem but this would be the year it completes growth of it's own fully functional mind. Not unlike that of a human's.

It's hard to believe any one particular prediction. They are all massive on any scale and they all scare me to bits. If there IS a hell, would I go there? What if we become nothing when we die? How does a fragile human answer these questions? I decided to try meditation.

I was nude. Not for the meditation but because I had been sleeping that way and gotten up in the middle of the night. I actually felt like it might help, or maybe I was just too lazy to stumble through the darkness and find some clothes. So I sat down and got comfortable. I didn't go for the cliche meditation position but instead shifted around until I barely knew I was actually sitting. I closed my eyes, took a few deep breaths, and let a random scenic image pop into my mind. I was walking in a jungle and funny enough I was naked there as well. I could hear nature and what sounded like the ocean off in the distance. Perhaps a beach I couldn't see through the thicket of vines, wild flowers, and tons of trees. Because the environment was random (not one I made any effort to conjure up) I took careful note of the colors around me. I thought they might be significant in some way. There was lots of green mostly in dark and bright shades. I only looked straight ahead of me for some reason but I saw deep reds in my peripherals. I walked along and took deep breaths. I smoked for a very long time and don't take the most fulfilling breaths of air anymore but during this meditation my breathing was deeper than ever and felt so refreshing. In the jungle I asked my questions. They weren't clear but more like jumbled up half sentences with a confusing flurry of subject change. There in my meditation, I didn't have to ask one question at a time. They seemed to all roll out almost at once. I heard nothing answer me but I felt something. A calm and soothing feeling washed over me. Sort of like a hug from my Mom. I was content just to ask my questions and I didn't require answers anymore. I didn't feel alone though. Perhaps it was another part of me that was there or maybe something else. When I felt at peace I opened my eyes. As I opened them I saw an image only long enough to just make out what it was. It looked to me like the head of a feline. Not small like a domestic cat, or large like a tiger, but more like the slender more sleek facial structure a cougar or a panther has. Does it have meaning? Was it just my imagination? I was in complete darkness during this meditation and I've certainly never made a conscious effort in the past to think of large cats or seen them on the back of my eyelids. It was just the outline. A very cool blue outline of the feline features on a black background.

I am a Pisces and it just so happens to be the Age of Pisces. I feel something inside setting me apart from other people. Not making me better or worse but just different. I've felt it since I was a very young child. All at once I feel stronger than most and weaker than most. Deeper than most and denser than most. Two complete opposites in one body struggling to find harmony. For a person who tries to see life in shades of gray not shades of black or white I often wonder why inside I can't get the black and white near enough to mix. When I hate something I hate it passionately and when I love something I love it so much it makes me cry (even something as trivial as a video game cutscene).

Back to the main reason for this song in my sphere. If the world ends or changes for the worse in 2012, what will happen to me? What will happen to you? Have you ever wondered? Well maybe you should. Maybe we all should.

If I wake up alive on January the 1st, 2013 I expect I will go outside and kiss the ground. Maybe even slip a little tongue in there.

 

Edit- I almost forgot to add that Karl is here for the weekend. I missed him so damn much. Going to snuggle him right now!

Sphere shut down in 10.. 9.. 8.. 7.. 6.. 5.. 4.. 3.. 2.. 1