The Timewave.  The timewave is a theoretical model developed by Terrence Mckenna showing a series of cycles.  The cycles are arrived at from an analysis of the patterns in the I-Ching.  The I-Ching is a system of 64 hexagrams, each hexagram an alignment of broken and solid lines.  The I-Ching has been used in divination, each hexagram associated with poetic imagery the interaction of multiple hexagrams provides insight and wisdom.  John Cage throws the I-Ching to remove his conscious artistic self from the process of generating musical structure.  Terrence and his brother Dennis identifed a  pattern in the second order of difference in the King Wen sequence of the I-Ching which they worked out over a couple of years and a few mathematical models to arrive at the Timewave.  The earliest articulation of this idea is in the book Invisible Landscapes.

The insight that Mckenna arrived at was to see this as a pattern of 'novelty', increasing and decreasing over time.  As the timewave progresses, the cycles become shorter and steeper - massively more novelty introduced in ever shorter time frames.

At the end of the timewave is the hyperspatial object we talked about yesterday.  This hyperspatial object acts as an attractor, generatinbg novelty with the end result of increasing interconnection.  (The connection between novelty and Interconection/Information is for a different post).

The relationship of the cycles is true at all scales, from the enormous to the tiny.  The analytical challenge is to find points of increased novlety - or points of regression in novelty - and line that up with the peaks and troughs of the Timewave.  It could be across a day.  Across a lunar cycle.  Or in the most famous case, against the Mayan Baktun cycle ending this Friday at 6:10am EST. 

The timewave is internally coherent.  We can use the language of actual real mathematics - not just archeo-mathematics.  It is fascinating.  But the reason the Timewave is fascinating is not because there is a measured prediction of the end of time.  Goodness, who would take something like that seriously!

The Timewave is fascinating because it comes wreathed with the aura of its orogony.  McKenna talks about it as a Big Idea.  The Timewave is something that he pulled from the psychedelic state, a big fish from that big ocean.  The idea isn't for everyone to believe in, or to care about or even to discuss - although many people do all three.  What I think  McKenna is getting at is that there are many Big/Bigger Ideas out there waiting to be netted. 

Orogony is really a geologic term describing the creation of mountain ranges through the forces of plate tectonics - but that's the scale and endeavor required.  There are many true and beautiful "Smaller Ideas"  that come to us relatively easily. The capacity to swim deep and pull back something like the Timewave is part of the skill of the Shaman.  Our calling is to gain whatever degree of the skills, the werewithal and the bravery to go out there and find something.

Winter Solstice 2012 is a chance to move out farther than I've ever gone before, knowing that there are also others out there.   Maybe we are sharing in a Jungian Projection.  I don't know if the end of the Timewave actually triggers a change in environment.    Perhaps enough people meditating, dancing, watching the stars all at the same time will shift things up a bit.  Like Jung said about UFOs, it's the psychic projection that is powerful, not the originating object. 

All we need is the right meme. 

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