CHICHEN ITZA, Mexico - Thousands of mystics,
hippies and tourists celebrated in the sunshine of southeastern Mexico
on Friday as the Earth survived a day billed by doomsday theorists as
the end of the world and a new era began for the Maya people.
New Age dreamers, alternative lifestyle gurus and curious onlookers from around the world descended on the ruins of Maya cities to mark the close of the 13th bak'tun -a period of around 400 years - and many hoped it would lead to a better era for humanity.
After the sun went up in Mexico and the world continued to spin, visitors to the Maya heartland gave thanks.
"I just feel love for everybody and I just feel reverent," said Stacey Gill, a 27-year-old radio show assistant from North Carolina dressed all in white. "I feel completely at peace and in stillness. Today I feel it in full force."
The end of the bak'tun in the 5,125-year-old Long Calendar of the Maya had inspired pockets of fear around the globe that the end was nigh or that lesser catastrophe lay in store.
However, to the people congregating in the imposing ruins of the city of Chichen Itza, a focal point for the celebrations in Mexico, it was quite the opposite.
"It's not the end of the world, it's an awakening of consciousness and good and love and spirituality - and it's been happening for a while," said Mary Lou Anderson, 53, an information technology consultant from Las Vegas.
Fears of mass suicides, huge power cuts, natural disasters, epidemics or an asteroid hurtling toward Earth had circulated on the Internet ahead of Dec. 21, 2012.
A U.S. scholar said in the 1960s that the end of the 13th bak'tun could be seen as a kind of Armageddon for the Maya. Over time, the idea snowballed into a belief by some that the Maya calendar had predicted the earth's destruction.
A few minutes before the north pole reached its position furthest from the sun on Friday, a spotlight illuminated the western flank of the Temple of the serpent god Kukulkan, a 100 foot tall pyramid at the heart of Chichen Itza.
New Age dreamers, alternative lifestyle gurus and curious onlookers from around the world descended on the ruins of Maya cities to mark the close of the 13th bak'tun -a period of around 400 years - and many hoped it would lead to a better era for humanity.
After the sun went up in Mexico and the world continued to spin, visitors to the Maya heartland gave thanks.
"I just feel love for everybody and I just feel reverent," said Stacey Gill, a 27-year-old radio show assistant from North Carolina dressed all in white. "I feel completely at peace and in stillness. Today I feel it in full force."
The end of the bak'tun in the 5,125-year-old Long Calendar of the Maya had inspired pockets of fear around the globe that the end was nigh or that lesser catastrophe lay in store.
However, to the people congregating in the imposing ruins of the city of Chichen Itza, a focal point for the celebrations in Mexico, it was quite the opposite.
"It's not the end of the world, it's an awakening of consciousness and good and love and spirituality - and it's been happening for a while," said Mary Lou Anderson, 53, an information technology consultant from Las Vegas.
Fears of mass suicides, huge power cuts, natural disasters, epidemics or an asteroid hurtling toward Earth had circulated on the Internet ahead of Dec. 21, 2012.
A U.S. scholar said in the 1960s that the end of the 13th bak'tun could be seen as a kind of Armageddon for the Maya. Over time, the idea snowballed into a belief by some that the Maya calendar had predicted the earth's destruction.
A few minutes before the north pole reached its position furthest from the sun on Friday, a spotlight illuminated the western flank of the Temple of the serpent god Kukulkan, a 100 foot tall pyramid at the heart of Chichen Itza.
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