The Mayan Calendar and Spiritual Evolution

Kenneth Johnson is the author of Jaguar Wisdom: An Introduction to the Mayan Calendar, the only available book written with the assistance of traditional Mayan Daykeepers. In an article for Parabola Magazine, Johnson explains how the Maya used the Mesoamerican Sacred Calendar to compute large cosmic and historical cycles using a system of reckoning called the Long Count. The Long Count is one of the greatest achievements of Maya civilization -- a unique and visionary effort to mathematically quantify and define cycles of emergence. In Maya cosmology, the world is constantly developing in a state of emergence, and hence unstable. Therefore it must be maintained through a mutual divine-human interaction. It is only through the prayers of human beings and their spiritual behavior that the world's equilibrium is made possible. This idea of humankind's spiritual evolution lies at the heart of the history of the cosmos as the Maya understood it