Tick tock, tick tock, it's not long now until that hallowed date: the end of the Mayan long-count calendar. Should we be freaking the hell out, battening down the hatches, quarantining ourselves in our basement with industrial quantities of freeze-dried food? Of course Hollywood's fear propaganda machine tried to have us believe it's a doomsday whereby our planet is consumed in a Fukishima-on-steroids tsunami, but the reality is much different. Put your hysteria on hold.

In pure and simple astronomical terms this winter solstice represents the culmination of a 25,800 year cycle of the precession of the equinoxes. Every 72 years, our planet wobbles on its axis by one degree, hence the zodiac's meandering journey through the cosmos. On this day the winter solstice sun will align with the galactic equator. As 5th Dimension sung, this is the dawning of the Age of Aquarius.

In cultural terms the tiresome doom-and-gloom connotations stem from misguided interpretations of the calendar. It never meant, 'the end of the world', moreover, 'the end of the world as we know it.' "This time represents a shift of consciousness, not a literal catastrophe," friend and author of 2012, The Return of Quetzacoatl, Daniel Pinchbeck told me.

And he's correct, the Maya's intricate Baktun calendar tracked not just time, but the evolution of consciousness which can be measured in the form of a 13 stepped pyramid. For them the 21st signifies a tipping point of humanity's consciousness awakening into a more enlightened state. What was once hidden shall be revealed. 'Apocalypse' doesn't even mean catastrophe, it means the 'uncovering'. No, we're not going to wake up on the 21st and 'boom' we're all Buddha, it's a gradual process and looking around, we're in the throes of it now.

Every week, a scandal exposed here, government corruption uncovered there. We now see that fiat currency is fraudulent and (crony) capitalism is a broken, doomed model. Everything rotten is percolating to the surface, failing in front of our very eyes and there is a seismic shift in peoples awakening to the Machiavellian machinations of those holding the puppet strings. The global anger, uprising, dissent, protest and non-compliance in reaction to this is case in point.

But our awakening isn't simply socio-political and financial, it's spiritual too. "I think more people are awakening to their own connection to the cosmos and discovering their psychic nature," explains Pinchbeck. "We are also awakening to our responsibility for the earth, and the need to evolve new social practices that are cooperative and compassionate. I think this will lead to profound changes over the next decade as people self-organise to deal with climate change and other threats."

It wasn't just the Maya which pointed to 21 December 2012; the Hindu's Kali Yuga cycle also ends and the Hopi Indian's prophesied about this time too. But again, not an end date - a transitional one; a rebirthing. Like the oruborous, the serpent symbol which ate its tail, they knew life and man's consciousness was cyclical. Strange coincidence that ancient cultures knew about this time independent of one another? Or did they really know something? In our spiritually impotent technological race to the top, we dismiss ancient scriptures and teachings as myths and fantasy rather than having wisdom and relevance.

As Orwell's prophetic police state grid is expanding exponentially across the Western world, as we continue to invade sovereign countries and drone innocents under the false guise of 'humanitarianism', as the criminal banks continue their wealth transfer (theft?) from the poorest and vulnerable to themselves, as we allow swathes of the Amazon to be destroyed for oil development, it's time for change. Fast.

I am heading up the recently established London arm of the global Evolver movement. We are a growing community of people who are keen to help stimulate change, discuss ideas and drag seemingly esoteric topics kicking and screaming from the fringe to analyse them with a critical yet curious eye. We will be hosting events and talks in the New Year. I invite anyone who is interested in exploring what's really going on behind the big curtain of global society to visit our website or join us on Facebook and Twitter.

It's not doomsday knocking on our doors on the 21st, it's just the world's wonder and woes trying to wake us from our rat-race and reality TV comas.

Anyway, to summarise; no, they didn't just 'run out of stone'.

Follow Ellen Grace Jones on Twitter: www.twitter.com/EllenGraceJones