The Art of Transformation

All of a sudden, we wake up and rub our eyes to find ourselves at one of the most strange and thrilling junctures in history. The economic meltdown is humbling, if not humiliating, for our financial elites, and even the overbearing pundits of Fox News and CNN have lost their swagger. A beautiful and dignified African American couple sweeps into the White House on the promise of "change" and "hope." Meanwhile, the masses explore new communications tools and technologies that could transform global society, leading to rapid collaboration and mass activism.

When the husk of ordinary reality crumbles, it is a great time to be an artist, survivalist, prophet or seer. When nobody knows what is going to happen next, the field is wide open for new visions and radical alternatives. Personally, while I feel a little bit nervous about what the future may hold (the day after the market dropped 777 points, I bought myself two Swiss Army knives and a week's worth of canned food), my deeper sense is that many of us have been waiting for this time much of our lives.

I am the author of Breaking Open the Head, on psychedelic drugs used in shamanic ceremonies, and 2012: The Return of Quetzalcoatl, on the prophecies held by many indigenous cultures about this time. The Classical Maya civilization in the Yucatán Peninsula was highly advanced in many ways. Over a thousand years ago, before their own culture vanished mysteriously, they isolated December 21, 2012 as the end of one "World Age" and the beginning of the next. In a Rolling Stone profile of me that came out in 2006, I predicted "the collapse of our socioeconomic system in about 2008," and was mocked for suggesting this. I made my prediction by correlating the time cycles of the Maya with trends in our culture, which is unsustainable and insanely wasteful.

As a species, we are facing much bigger problems than the crash of the financial system. We are dangerously overtaxing ecosystems and resources. 25 percent of all mammalian species -- maybe all species in general -- will be extinct within 30 years, at present rates. All tropical forests will be gone in 40 years. 90 percent of the large fish have been removed from the oceans. We have reached "peak oil" where supply contracts as demand increases, meaning that cheap energy will soon be a thing of the past, despite the current volatility of prices. As climate change accelerates, agricultural land shrinks. This summer, we may see an increase in world hunger leading to riots in many parts of the world.

Generally, the media presents the end of the Mayan calendar on December 21, 2012 as a doomsday deadline. Increasing numbers of people seem to be expecting destruction as we approach that date. My view is different. I think the prophecies point to a window of opportunity, a chance to change society and develop new patterns of behavior, on a species level. It is entirely possible, however, that if we don't evolve from competition to cooperation, the human species will not survive.

The type of adversity we are facing calls for a rapid development of social awareness and collective intelligence. Obama's victory will be meaningless unless it leads to a movement where people participate directly, remaking their communities and their lives. Oddly enough, this means that you and I need to step up.

Since this issue is devoted to L.A., it's worth noting the power of media, story and spectacle to shape the ideas and behavior patterns of the multitudes. What if the concept of what's "hip" in the near future changes from dissolute nightlife to harmonizing with the planet's life cycles, salvaging wrecked ecosystems and communities, and serving something much vaster than individual cravings? What if our media stops enforcing materialism and starts to promote different ideals, such as conscious activism and spiritual attainment? If this happens, how fast can we shift to a different way of life? As with all natural processes, the waste and junk of the past provides the compost for new life to spring forth. With the doom-spiraling of the American Dream, artists, musicians, visionaries and storytellers have an amazing opportunity: We can create a new "Universal Dream" -- of a global society based on compassion, nonviolence and equitable sharing of resources -- and transmit it across the earth. Whether or not the Mayan calendar end-date of 2012 has any validity, we should do this immediately -- as soon as now.

Daniel Pinchbeck is the author of the recently released Toward 2012 Perspectives on the Next Age (Tarcher/Penguin).