There is a great deal of nonsense that has been written about the Mayan long count. It has been claimed (most egregiously, in a Discovery Channel TV series) that it will 'come to an end' in the near future, and along with it will arrive a Mayan apocalypse, a pole shift, earth change, cosmic convergence, whatever. Given the completely cyclic nature of the long count, this is an idiotic characterization. Once any given cycle ends, another begins, endlessly. The full long count is currently only at baktun 12; there are still 8 baktuns (or about three thousand years) before it turns over. The current Katun will increment about ten years from now (13.0.0.0.0 will be on December 21st, 2012). However, there is no reason that date should be any more cosmologically significant than the end of the common era millenium was!

Mayan Calendar at Sacred Texts