Part 2 of Tonalpohualli and 2012, an update that series creator Enrica Jang wrote for the 2010 Kickstarter campaign, discussing the mythology behind AZTECA. AZTECA was successfully funded on Kickstarter.com in August of last year, after 86 grueling days of fundraising wonder. In the end, 45 wonderful people contributed the funds to make the series possible, and we still owe a huge thank you to those folks.
This post was previously available only to Backers of the project. Now, as we’re in production of issue #3 and putting the final touches on the trade, we’re sharing the updates with everyone! Though the project campaign was funded, you can still take a look at how the campaign evolved last summer by visting the AZTECA page on Kickstarter.com.
Alright, so Part 2 of 2, discussing how 2012 enters into AZTECAn mythology…
The Aztecs sacrificed a variety of innocents to their gods according to ritualistic calendar in the belief that the world is forever caught in a recurring cycle of birth and destruction but that human sacrifice appeases the gods. But 2012 is a significant year: the ancient Calendar Stone, the origin of the circular “Aztec Sun” (see below) ends Dec 21, 2012. (Note: For those of you out there wondering whether it’s a Mayan or an Aztecan mystery, the answer is both.) The Calendar Stone is twelve foot wide circular slab of stone, three feet thick, weighing 25 tons. That sucker goes back a long, long way. As it turns out, though, this final date in 2012 also coincides with a significant cosmic event:
“[O]n the winter solstice in the year 2012, the sun will be aligned with the center of the Milky Way galaxy for the first time in about 26,000 years. This means that whatever energy typically streams to Earth from the center of the Milky Way will indeed be disrupted or enhanced. On December 21, 2012 at 11:11 p.m., [the] Calendar’s “Long Count” will mark the end of a 5,126-year era…the end of another long cycle of birth and destruction.” From www.theunexplainable.net
Do you believe? There’s a wonderful web article by astronomer Karen Masters of Cornell University that happily debunks this astro-prediction of great cosmic shift. But appreciate the wonderful ambivalence in the notion that some mystical stream of energy flowing from the center of the galaxy will either “disrupt” or “enhance” the Earth on that day, pick one. Like standing next to a microwave might expand or explode your breast implants. Awesome.
Few people outside of a nuthouse believe that things we do and sacrifice on Earth will convince a pantheon of gods not to derail the grand mechanism of the cosmos. Even fanatics and zealots focus their energy on their standing in the afterlife rather than stewardship on the Earthly plane. Personally, I wonder if our collective (sub)consciousness just gave up and decided that the cycle of atrocity and history of painful existence on so much of this planet put us beyond our own ability to save ourselves. We still pray and ask for guidance, just not for global guidance. The world is ending anyway.
This is why Nicho’s sacrificial offerings are anachronistic in an age where people have little faith in man’s ability to change himself, much less the cosmos. The character’s ethos and mythology is going to be revealed in a subsequent book, but the heart of AZTECA’s universe hinges on this idea: if what we do on Earth could effect the cosmos, what have humans been unwitting party to all this time?
If no one believes any longer in these ancient gods of destruction, if we don’t worship the old ones, do they still exist? Neil Gaiman and Stephen King suggest that not all sacrifice is conscious. That there are modern gods and very, very ancient gods that receive sacrificial offerings in this modern age, in ways that we don’t even recognize as offerings. A car bomb. A mass shooting. Genocide. Decades of war and terror. Blood spilt accidentally on purpose in the name of some twisted ideal of mind or fetish. I too imagine these acts and lives lost feeds something. Something malevolent and powerful. And old. The only thing missing is a little chanting. Then again…news stories and other media zip around the planet within a matter of seconds, crying far and loud, repeatedly, over a constant electronic hum. Close enough?
Following this line of thought, the world may have been obliviously, relentlessly sacrificing innocents to some angry, feisty supernaturals for some time. *cue the eerie music* What exactly have we been feeding? And if we’re headed for a cosmic showdown, to what do we owe our pending demise? And can Nicho stop it? Can anyone?
Guess we’ll find out. Call it the Final Solstice. On December 21, 2012, our planet will be literally aligned with the very heart of Milky Way Dark for the first time in 26,000 years—picture a great big blue eyeball peering dead straight into the infinite abyss! Will this be the dawning of new light and energy on Earth, or the eve of our destruction? MUAHHHHAHAHHAH!
P.S. I hope that all of you are here on that day with me, both to see and read all about it!
We’ll continue to post updates and other KICKSTARTER fun here. Leave your comments below!