Change is the only constant, as the old proverb goes. The Maya calendar is one of the best maps of how humanity evolves through the changes that the Cosmos puts us through. It is particularly ingenious of the originators of this system that the count of days matches the cosmic design of the human body.
It is clear that most humans have twenty digits to count with. This is reflected in the 20 glyphs used in the “uinal” cycle of the tzolkin. This creates what is known as a vigesimal counting system, as opposed to a decimal system based on ten digits. Each of the 20 glyphs is a unique archetype of human experience; some are animalistic traits like crocodile, dog or monkey, others are natural phenomena like wind, earthquake or night.
There are also 13 numbers the Maya count daily alongside the uinal glyphs, like cogs in two gear wheels, and they are as much archetypal as they are numeric denotations. The origin of the 13 count is much more difficult to discern because our modern calendar and time keeping systems are centered around the number 12. Thirteen is part of the Fibonacci sequence. That makes it a very important number when we look at natural phenomenon throughout the universe. It is also the number of major joints in the human skeletal system.
When you multiply 13 by 20, you get 260, and every number and glyph combine once every 260 days in the tzolkin cycle. This Friday, March 28 (on the Gregorian calendar year 2014), we will come to the combination of the number 11 and the glyph Ik, which connotes wind, breath, and spirit. Eleven represents the potential for change.