“And so it goes,” Kurt Vonnegut once said. Today is the day in which the Mayan calendar comes to an end. Some have said that this day coincides with the end of the world. And some have also said that this day coincides with the end of the world as we know it.

For some time, I’ve been imagining the end of the world in all its various permutations because (some would say) I have a very active imagination. I’ve been envisioning all kinds of things happening, things that are beyond the realm of comprehension of my less imaginative counterparts. (This is the downside of being right brained). What

I’ve been imagining is akin to a nightmare I had many years ago – I woke up and the world around me was in flames. I then experienced the essence of terror.

Today, I took Tinni for a walk, then Pete and I took Hrimmi and Siggi for a walk. Then Pete and I respectively rode Raudi and Signy. And so, once again, I had a lot of time to think about the supposed last day of life as we know it, and what might happen.

At one point the phrase “the beginning of the end” came to mind. I began mulling it over because I think that this is what we’re now dealing with here. There isn’t going to be an immediate end – that is, a cataclysmic event in which we’re all nuked, incinerated, or carried away by 100 foot high waves. This would be too easy an out. A few minutes of intense, indescribable pain, and it would be all over. Poof.

I think that instead that there might be a less immediate end. This end could be more slow and excruciating. Right now what happened last week in Newtown, Connecticut is on everyone’s minds. This is an example of the sort of things that are indicative of a gradual and extremely painful decline. We all suffer when we see the manifestations of societal collapse, but to varying degrees—it depends on how close to the epicenter one actually is. “We have met the enemy, and he is us,” Walt Kelly’s Pogo once said. What happened at Newtown was not a terrorist attack, perpetuated by “outsiders” but rather, it was an inside job. And like outside jobs, inside jobs are happening all over the world.

I’d prefer to think that the beginning of the end might be the dawn of a new era; that is, one in which there is an actual shift in spiritual consciousness. I believe that this is dependent upon the mindset of each and every one of us. We are all connected. We are all one, or so says Dr. Bronner on his Castile soap containers. The earth is our mothership. We can continue to keep the mothership afloat by focusing on the positive and honoring the light within, and the light within others.

We may have to rely heavily on both our imaginations and our intellect in order to bring about positive change. Gun control is a good example. Rather than say that it’s unrealistic to assume that people will voluntarily give up guns (or that countries like ours will cease to manufacture weapons and selling them to other nations), we first need to repeatedly tell ourselves, it can be done. It can be done. It can be done. Beyond that, I really, right now, have no idea.

Next: 375. 12/22/12: Conversation with Peache