Maya astrology: Tzolk'in and Dreamspell

Where it comes from. The Tzolk'in is the ritual calendar of Mesoamerica: 260 days, born of 20 signs combined with 13 numbers. Attested as early as the first millennium BC, it structured the whole of Maya civilization, together with the Haab, the 365-day solar calendar. It has never ceased to be kept: the ajq'ij guides of the Guatemalan highlands still count it today. The Dreamspell is a creation of José Argüelles, initiator of the Harmonic Convergence of 1987. Published in 1990, it rewrites the meaning of the Tzolk'in for a more personal use.

What it draws on. The date of birth alone: neither the time nor the place. Each date receives a kin, from 1 to 260: a seal, one of the twenty archetypes, and a tone, from 1 to 13, the way that seal acts. To these are added the oracle, the four kins that surround one's own and balance it, and the wavespell, a thirteen-day cycle that gives it its place within a movement.

What it is for. To describe the character through qualities rather than traits: a power, a color, a role in a cycle. The color of the seal places them in one of the four Dreamspell families: red initiates, white refines, blue transforms, yellow ripens. The tone tells their way of acting, from the impulse of the first to the completion of the thirteenth. The oracle shows what guides them, what supports them and what challenges them. Each personal year and each return to the birth kin mark a new turn of this cycle.

The Dreamspell skips February 29. It therefore does not coincide with the traditional count, which has never been interrupted.