Time Out of Time: The Maya Calendar

by Carlos Cedillo

Editor’s Note: My old friend Carlos Cedillo, who has contributed to Planet Waves as an artist and writer, will be doing a column on the Maya calendar each Wednesday afternoon. Now that 2012 is supposedly over, the calendar systems of the ancient Maya are mentioned less but are no less beautiful or meaningful. Like many, I’ve been curious about this calendar system, and it will be great to have Carlos on board. Please put your questions and comments in the comment area below — Carlos will be reading them. One other note: I’ve written just one article about the Tzolkin or short-count; for years it was the ‘lost article’ in the Planet Waves archives, and it turned up recently. Here it is, for now without any graphics, published 11 years ago tomorrow. –efc

The Maya calendar is one of the most innovative systems for calculating units of Time that has ever been created.

A portion of the Mayan calendar.
The Tzolkin.

One of its most interesting features is that it does not appear to have been connected to any cycles of the Sun or the Moon. Instead we see cycles of different numbers running together like gears in a giant interdimensional clockwork. It is a calendar based on the human body, our 20 digits and our 13 major joints: two ankles, two knees, two hips, two wrists, two elbows and two shoulders and our neck.

This system was not used by only the Maya, but was in use or at least known about far into North America. There remain traces of the “Maya” calendar in medicine-wheel motifs used by most American Indian tribes to this day and its influence even appears on the Great Seal of the United States as an eagle holding 13 arrows.

It is said that there are 17 different Maya calendars that they keep track of all at once. Many of those cycles are the large numbered long-count cycles that have been counted back as far as 16.4 billion years ago and can be counted forward into the future.

At the core of all the Maya calendars is what is known as the Tzolkin, or sacred count of 260 days. This sacred cycle itself can be further broken down into smaller cycles and also expanded and multiplied to see into the near future.

For now let me create a little glossary of terms and concepts I will be using often:

Tzolkin — 260 day sacred calendar round.

The four directions — in the Modern Maya calendar system we use colors to designate each of the four compass directions, red for the East, white for the North, blue (or black) for the West and yellow for the South. 260/4 = 65.

Uinal (winal) — is a period of 20 days each represented by a glyphic totem character. The character of each day could vary between different cultures that used the calendar. For example, the day Imix can be a crocodile or alligator, or a turtle. Batz (chuen) is a monkey or a thread, but in the Cherokee version of the calendar that was known as the day of the racoon. There are 13 uinales in one tzolkin round.

Trecenea — a trecena is a period of 13 numbered days. There are 20 such periods in a tzolkin. Trecenas run in tandem with uinales. The tzolkin begins with 1 Imix/crocodile, and it ends with 13 Ahau/sun.

The Hybrid eclipse of November 3, 2013, fell on the tzolkin day 9 Earthquake. ‘Noj’ in the Highland Maya dialect and ‘Caban’ is the Yucatec Maya from the root word ‘Cab’ meaning “bees”. ‘Noj’ means thinking good thoughts/thinking bad thoughts. ‘9’ is the level of completion, interconnectivity and what some may call ‘Christ-consciousness’.

This day’s theme is about aligning your thoughts with the Schumann resonance field (7.83hz) around the Earth. That is to say, recognizing with your body that you live on a planet, and learning to resonate with its presence.

5 thoughts on “Time Out of Time: The Maya Calendar”

  1. Welcome to Planet Waves, Carlos, and thank you. This piece has combined to inform my ignorance, inspire further work, and collate some deep mysteries that your words have shaken loose from my past. There is no way for me to adequately express the depth of my appreciation in words at this time, so please accept my thank-you until those words may come.

  2. Hi Carlos,

    A clock based on the human body and cycle function gears sounds so interesting. I am looking forward to hearing and learning more…thank you.

    I am not sure if the specific date, tzolkin day 9 Earthquake aligns, but the day’s interpretation you gave was so beautiful and struck me.

    November offered me a very personal theme of really feeling fulfillment of role –of being gently, lovingly, but intently shook up to, “You see– here you have seen the true value of you, ‘worker bee’.”

    In recognizing the great importance of fulfilling ‘calling’. In forgiveness and offering grateful acceptance is what my little expression in wholeness through compassion can be.

  3. I’m excited and interested to read your column, Carlos. Just as we have many ways for measuring mass or other tangibles and intangibles, it’s good that we pay attention to other ways of measuring” and interpreting “time”.

    If we were not standing on earth, or were travelers in space/time, certainly other tools would be necessary than the sun and moon.

    Thanks for your introduction to this ‘different than our normal’ way to contemplate the world.

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