The Maya maintain many calendars including the Day Count Calendar which records a new "sun" or era every 5,200 years and was said (by non-Maya) to end on December 21, 2013. Don Alejandro Cirilo Perez Oxlaj, the keeper of the Day Count Calendar, is a 13th generation Maya Kiche spiritual leader and head of the National Mayan Council of Elders of Guatemala.

The Mayan Long Count Calendar records the evolution of consciousness over 16.4 billion years from the beginning of creation. The 9 steps of the calendar show levels of consciousness. The calendar is beautifuly explained in The Mayan Calendar and the Transformation of Consciousness and The Purposeful Universe: How Quantum Theory and Mayan Cosmology Explain the Origin and Evolution of Life by Carl Johan Calleman.