Dear Editor,

This coming Friday, December 21, is going to be a momentous occasion in the land of the Maya. The twentieth katun of the current thirteenth bakun is coming to an end.

Such an event will not repeat itself until 5,125 years in the future. The Maya will be celebrating our version of what was our Y2K.

On December 31, 1999, at midnight, we closed the tenth century of the second millennium.

On December 21, 2012, Maya time reverts back to zero. In small change, we count time like this: 24 hours is one day, 365 days is a year, one hundred years is a century, and 10 centuries make a millennium.

The Maya count time like this: 24 hours is a day, they called it a kin. 365 days is a year, they called it a tun, and twenty years makes a katun, like our century, and twenty katuns makes a baktun, like our millennium.

On December 21, 2012, the Maya are closing the 20th Katun of the current 13thbaktun. Nothing apocalyptic, nothing cataclysmic, nothing catastrophic, nothing tragic, nothing traumatic, will occur on that day.

If anyone was putting any high premium on bad omens on that day, perish the thought. It will not happen.

Wilfrido Novelo