The Sacred Count of Days
The Maya view time as both linear and cyclical. Intricate mathematics and sacred geometry is woven into their calendar systems that stretch into infinity. Time is both now and forever.
The Cholq’ij, or sacred Mayan calendar, is a lunar calendar created by the ancient Maya that is still used to this day by Mayan elders, spiritual guides and day keepers in Guatemala and Mexico. We can apply it to our everyday life to connect with and employ the distinctive energy of each day, as well as to celebrate auspicious days and milestones in our lives.
Every day of the Gregorian calendar corresponds to a Mayan day sign and number. The Mayan day sign and number on the day of your birth are your nawal. This word from the Nahuatl language (also spelled nahual and nagual) refers to a guardian spirit or a protective shape-shifting being that resides in an animal, an element, or another embodiment.
Throughout your life, you carry the energy of the sacred day on which you were born, or your Mayan birthday, day sign, or birth sign. It is known as your awach q’ij (face of the sun) and consists of a number between 1 and 13 combined with one of the 20 nawales (adding up to 260 unique possibilities).
Each number and nawal has unique traits. It is thought to determine your personality, gifts, strengths, potentials, and challenges. It is calculated based on a well-known and widely accepted correlation algorithm of the Cholq’ij to the Gregorian calendar. From this date, several other calculations were made to create your Mayan cross.
The sacred calendar translates the elements of the Mayan creation story into 260 days, a cycle of roughly nine months, which is equal to both the gestation period of human life and the growth cycle of corn from planting to harvest. Each nawal and number is connected to a part of the human body. The 20 nawales are said to represent the 10 fingers and 10 toes of the human body, and the 13 numbers represent our 13 major joints (ankles, knees, hips, shoulders, elbows, wrists, and neck).
Practical Mayan Astrology
Everyone is born with abilities that empower us to cultivate our gifts through intelligence and heart-centeredness. In this way, we grow as humans and are better able to support both ourselves and the community. We all have the choice to know ourselves better and discover our mission and purpose in life as well as the freedom to take on this mission.
By living with the sacred Mayan calendar on a daily basis, we tune in with the elements and rhythm of nature. Greater understanding of the universal wisdom of the Mayan cosmovision and ancient Chol q'ij calendar system gives us focus and direction in our lives to know our talents and gifts. Slowly but surely, the energies of the Mayan calendar help us to raise our consciousness so that we may descend deeper into our soul's journey here on earth.
The Cholq’ij offers a perspective of time that helps us to become fully present in the moment, which we access primarily through the heart rather than the mind. The Mayan elders say that time moves like a serpent through the energies of the Cholq'ij calendar and serves as a guide for our awakening and evolution as human beings.
The sacred Mayan calendar serves as a roadmap that helps us align with the energies of life that move through us. When we consciously find ways to bring the energies of the nawales into our days, we begin to open up to the forces of creation, which shows up in synchronicities and deeper self-realization.
With time, the nuances of how the calendar affects your life blossoms as you follow the sacred count of days and notice the cycles and patterns. For instance, It has taken me around seven years of study and practice to feel like I am living with the calendar in a truly meaningful way. Ultimately, it’s an invitation to know yourself better—and it only works if you work with it and follow it with a certain level of devotion and discipline.
Practical ways to align with the energy of each day of the calendar:
Meditate on the nawal and its energy first thing in the morning
Set an intention for your day based on the nawal
Participate in a Mayan fire ceremony
Perform a simple candle ritual
Affirmations
Journaling
As each cycle spirals in time, we become more in tune of the energy of each day and learn and grow through our experiences, practices, and relationships.
My personal connection to the sacred calendar
I’ve been studying the sacred Mayan calendar since 2015 when I started working at Villa Sumaya and attended my first fire ceremony. Since 2017, I have been blessed with the honor of interpreting (from Spanish into English) dozens of Mayan fire ceremonies and hundreds of personal readings, primarily alongside a Mayan spiritual guide or daykeeper (Aj Q’ij) called Tata Thomas. I love how each ceremony is unique, yet they all have threads of commonality woven through them, just as each human being and each moment is both unique and the same. (Here’s the long story of my connection to the sacred calendar.)
The guide who leads the ceremony may be a man or a woman. Most are Mayan by blood, although there are some foreigners who study with a lineage and go through the rigorous initiation process to become daykeepers. Spiritual guides work with energies and read the messages in the fire and in the natural world around us.
The ritual begins with the creation of a beautiful mandala in the fire circle, involving a design drawn in sugar that represents the nawal (energy) of the day, topped with fragrant copal (frankincense), colorful candles, tobacco, candies, flower petals, and an assortment of other offerings.
The Aj Q’ij then leads us through the count of days, touching upon each nawal, expressing gratitude, giving offerings to the fire, and setting intentions. The spiritual guide may invite participants to interact with the fire in specific ways—some verbal, some physical, some silent—and to toss in offerings of incense, chocolate, seeds, and candles for the ancestors and nawales throughout the ceremony.
In recent years, I have deepened my studies of the calendar through reading books, attending fire ceremonies with various leaders, and following and flowing with the energies in my own life on a day-to-day basis. I’ve led or co-led several week-long retreats that weave yoga and the sacred Mayan calendar and cosmovision. In early 2024, I took two courses with Mark Elmy of The Four Pillars to learn more about the calendar and how to give these readings..
Acknowledgements
I bow in thanks to the Mayan elders and day keepers who have shared their wisdom with me.
Ma’tiox, ma’tiox, ma’tiox to the Mayan elders I have been blessed to learn with, to the Heart of the Earth and the Heart of the Sky, the Heart of the Water, the Heart of the Fire and the Heart of the Air, and to the Great Creator Ajaw. Thank you for sharing this ancient wisdom. I am grateful to the mystical powers of Lake Atitlan and the ancient wisdom held by the memories of these lands.
I am grateful to my teachers—including but not limited to Tata Thomas, Nanas Rosalia and Ixquik, Mark Elmy, and Wendy Stauffer—for sharing their knowledge of the sacred calendar and their kindness and wisdom with me over the years. Any mistakes within this report and these interpretations are wholly my own.
