Free plan
The 260 day count the Maya have kept for more than two thousand years, and still keep.
The Tzolkin runs twenty named day signs against thirteen numbered tones, and the two wheels turn together until they return to their starting place 260 days later. Every day in that round is a compound: a sign that says what kind of day it is, a tone that says what force is moving through it. The count has never stopped. Daykeepers in the Guatemalan highlands are counting it this morning, on the same day you would find in a Classic period inscription, which is why the Tzolkin is the oldest calendar in continuous use anywhere in the Americas.
Read for a birth, it names the day you arrived rather than a season or a star. That is the difference between this and the zodiac: it does not ask where the sun was, it asks which day it was in a count that never restarts. The day sign is your character in the count, the tone is the pitch at which you play it, and the Lord of the Night and the Haab month around them place you in the wider year.
One of 20 archetypal energies; the character of the day you were born.
Imix is the crocodile drifting in the first waters, the world before form. Born under this sign, you carry the instinct to nourish beginnings: ideas, people, whole undertakings still soft and unshaped. Trust what stirs before it has a name. Your work is to feed the new without demanding it explain itself yet.
Ik is the wind, the breath that animates. You carry the gift of spirit moving through voice: words, ideas, inspiration that arrives unbidden and asks to be passed along. You are meant to communicate, and the wind is not always gentle. Learn when to speak like a breeze and when like a gale.
Akbal is the night, the house of darkness where dreams do their quiet work. You were given eyes that see inward. What others fear as uncertainty, you can enter as a dwelling. Trust your intuition and the images that come in sleep: they are not noise. The dark is where your best answers ripen.
Kan is the seed, dense with everything it will become. You hold concentrated potential: talents packed tight, waiting for the right soil and season. Your task is not to force the flowering but to choose where you plant yourself. Ripeness comes to those who tend their ground patiently and aim, like the seed, at one true target.
Chicchan is the serpent, pure life force moving along the spine of things. Your body knows before your mind does: instinct, appetite, the electric sense of yes or no. Do not be ashamed of that vitality; it is sacred. Learn to let energy rise when it is ready, and to shed old skins when they grow tight.
Cimi is death, but hear it rightly: the great transformer, the humble letting-go that makes room. You have an old soul's ease with endings, and people sense they can bring you their losses. Surrender is your teacher, not your enemy. Whatever you release with grace returns to feed what is still growing in you.
Manik is the deer, and the healing hand. There is medicine in what you do with your hands and your presence: a steadiness that calms rooms and mends what is torn. Like the deer, you are alert, gentle, easily unseen. Choose your tools deliberately, and remember that healers must also let themselves be tended.
Lamat is the star, the rabbit, Venus rising over the field: abundance that multiplies through delight. You carry a natural harmony that draws people in, and play is not your distraction but your method. When you enjoy the work, it prospers. Beauty made freely and shared freely: that is how your light travels farthest.
Muluc is water offered up: the raindrop, the tear, the vessel poured out at the altar. Feeling moves through you in currents, and your gift is to let it flow rather than dam it. What you give returns purified. Offer gratitude first; emotion honored becomes clear water, and clear water restores everyone who drinks.
Oc is the dog, keeper of the loyal heart. You love with a steadiness that does not calculate, and you guide others through dark passages the way the dog guides souls: by staying close. Companionship is your medicine and your compass. Choose your pack with care, for you will give them everything you have.
Chuen is the monkey, the artisan who weaves time itself. Curiosity is your craft: you pick things up, turn them over, and make something no one expected. Your playfulness is intelligence in motion, not a lack of seriousness. Begin many threads without guilt, but honor the ones worth weaving all the way through.
Eb is the human, the road that climbs like a staircase through a life. Your sign honors free will: nothing is fated for you that you do not walk toward. You are also the harvest: the one who gathers what effort has ripened and shares it. Keep the road open for others; that is your quiet greatness.
Ben is the reed, the skywalker: the pillar joining earth and heaven. You are built to explore the space between what is and what could be, at home neither entirely on the ground nor in the clouds but in the crossing. Take the first step into unknown territory; others find their courage watching you walk.
Ix is the jaguar, the shaman moving silent through the night forest. You perceive what hides beneath surfaces: motives, currents, the sacred pulsing under ordinary things. Mystery is not a problem for you to solve but a terrain you inhabit. Guard your solitude; your power gathers in quiet, and the earth itself speaks to you there.
Men is the eagle, whose gift is the long view. From high enough, tangled situations resolve into pattern, and you were born with that altitude of mind. Vision is your service: see for those still in the valley. But remember to land; the eagle's sight matters only when it returns to touch the earth.
Cib is the warrior of inner wisdom, the old flame the ancestors keep lit. Yours is a quiet courage: grace under pressure, intelligence that listens before it strikes. The counsel of those who came before is unusually near to you; sit still and you can hear it. Forgive old debts, your own included. That is the warrior's deepest victory.
Caban is the earth in motion: the tremor, the drifting continent, the mind of the planet thinking. You navigate by synchronicity: meaningful coincidences are your trail markers. When life rearranges itself abruptly around you, it is steering, not punishing. Keep moving with the ground rather than bracing against it, and you will always find your way.
Etznab is the flint knife and the obsidian mirror. You reflect people back to themselves with unsettling accuracy, and you can cut cleanly through pretense where others hedge. Truth is your element: wield it as a healer uses a blade, to free and not to wound. Keep your own mirror polished; clarity begins at home.
Cauac is the storm: thunderhead, downpour, lightning that clears the heavy air. You are a catalyst: where you arrive, stagnant things begin to move. This can feel turbulent from inside, but understand it as generosity; storms are how the sky waters the fields. Let your intensity break droughts, and give yourself calm harbors between them.
Ahau is the sun, the lord, the flower fully open: the last of the twenty signs and their completion. You carry an instinct for wholeness: work feels unfinished until it shines. Warm others without asking whether they deserve it; that is what suns do. Your enlightenment is not an escape from the world but a flowering within it.
One of 13 creative forces that shapes how your day sign expresses.
Tone one is Magnetic, the opening of the thirteen-day wave. It asks a single question: what is your purpose? Like a lodestone, this energy draws to itself everything the journey will need: people, resources, resolve. Under it, do not scatter. Name one intention clearly and let it begin pulling the world toward you.
Tone two is Lunar, where the purpose set on day one meets its first obstacle. Do not be discouraged: polarity is how intention learns its true shape. This energy stabilizes by testing: yes against no, desire against doubt. Face the challenge squarely and name what stands in the way. Naming it is half the crossing.
Tone three is Electric, the spark that sets purpose in motion through service. Two points now make a current: energy flows, and it flows best toward others. Under this tone, activate: take the first real action, form the bond, offer what you have. Movement dedicated to something beyond yourself carries a charge that solitary effort never finds.
Tone four is Self-Existing, where intention takes on form. Four corners make a foundation; this is the day the dream gets walls, measurements, a workable plan. Define your terms. Ask how, exactly, and answer honestly. Limits set now are not cages: they are the shape that lets something real stand up and hold weight.
Tone five is Overtone, the gathering of power at the wave's first crest. What began as a quiet intention now finds its voice and takes command. Claim your resources: skills, allies, time. Stand at the center of them without apology. Radiance is not arrogance when it serves the purpose you set out with.
Tone six is Rhythmic, the wave finding its stride. After the surge of gathering power comes the art of pacing: organize, balance, distribute the weight so nothing carries too much. This energy loves the steady drumbeat: equal parts effort and rest, giving and receiving. Order your days well and momentum will keep itself.
Tone seven is Resonant, the exact midpoint of the thirteen-day wave. Here you become a channel: six days behind you, six ahead, and you are the still string that both sides vibrate through. Listen more than you act. Attune yourself to the purpose set at the beginning and let inspiration pass through you to others.
Tone eight is Galactic, the tone of integrity. The question it poses is simple and demanding: do you live what you believe? Here the wave asks your actions and your values to harmonize, so that you become a model rather than an argument. Walk your word today. Alignment, once felt, is its own quiet authority.
Tone nine is Solar, the great pulse toward completion. Intention, tested and refined for eight days, now surges with real force: you can feel the finish from here. This energy realizes: it moves the nearly-done into being. Gather your will and push, not frantically but like the sun climbing, certain of its noon.
Tone ten is Planetary, the tone of manifestation. What was seed on day one stands finished in the world: visible, usable, real. This is the harvest of the wave: perfect what you produce, polish the details, and let the work be seen. Completion honors everyone and everything that carried the intention this far.
Tone eleven is Spectral, the liberation after the harvest. Whatever the work gathered that it no longer needs now dissolves: scaffolding, tension, old identities. Do not cling; release is not loss but lightening. Let structures fall away and feel how much energy they were holding. What survives this tone is what was truly yours.
Tone twelve is Crystal, where the lesson of the wave becomes clear enough to share. What you learned alone now belongs to the circle: cooperate, teach, dedicate the gain to something larger than one life. Like crystal, this energy is transparent and structured at once. Gather with others and let understanding take communal form.
Tone thirteen is Cosmic, the completion that is already a threshold. The wave ends here, and its whole journey condenses into presence: you carry everything the thirteen days taught, without needing to hold any of it tightly. Endure, rest, be. Tomorrow a new wave begins; today, simply arrive where you have been traveling.
Each day sign belongs to a cardinal direction with its own character.
East is where the sun is born, the direction of beginnings and the color red. Your sign faces the dawn: initiation comes naturally to you, and your energy is strongest at the start of things. When life feels stalled, begin something, anything true. You belong to the moment when light first touches the horizon.
North is the direction of the ancestors and the clear white light of wisdom. Your sign faces the place of counsel: you refine, purify, and think in long spans of time. When decisions press, step back into coolness and stillness; your answers come from elevation, the way mountain air makes everything sharp.
West is where the sun goes to be transformed, the direction of the inward door. Your sign faces the evening: endings, depths, and the fertile dark are your territory. What others call loss, you know as passage. Trust the descent: the sun that sets in the west is not dying but traveling, and it always returns changed.
South is the direction of ripening, the warm yellow country of harvest and abundance. Your sign faces the fullness of things: you are here to bring efforts to fruit and to share what matures. Sweetness is a serious calling. Tend what you have planted and let it come all the way ripe before you gather it.
The colour family of the day sign: red initiates, white refines, blue transforms, yellow ripens.
Red is the color of the East, of blood and dawn and first fire. A red day sign initiates: it carries the raw energy that starts things moving and does not wait for permission. In you this is vitality and courage at the root. When you hesitate too long, remember your color: you were made to begin.
White is the color of the North, of bone and breath and winnowed grain. A white day sign refines: it takes what the red beginning set in motion and purifies it, keeping only what is essential. In you this is clarity and the courage to simplify. Cutting away is not coldness: it is how spirit stays light.
Yellow is the color of the South, of ripe maize and afternoon light. A yellow day sign completes: it gathers what red began, white refined, and blue transformed, and brings it to harvest. In you this is the gift of fruition: patience with slow ripening, generosity when the crop comes in. Finish things; that is your magic.
Black is the colour of the West, of the setting sun and the fertile dark. It is the transforming station of the cycle: what has been gathered goes underground to be changed. Where blue holds sky, black holds depth. Days in this colour ask you to let something dissolve rather than push it forward, trusting the work that happens out of sight.
Nine Lords of the Night, in a cycle of their own, each colouring the day it governs.
G1 opens the cycle: a night of beginnings, quick and bright, that favours the first step and forgives its clumsiness.
G2 is the night of the pair: what is done with another goes further than what is done alone, and disagreement is information.
G3 is the night of the hearth: warmth, shelter, and the patient work that keeps a fire going. Slow, and meant to be.
G4 is the night of the four directions: order, measure, and the ground under things. Good for laying foundations, poor for improvising.
G5 is the night of the centre: the still point where the four directions meet, and the choice that cannot be delegated.
G6 is the night of the underworld's mouth: endings, descents, and what must be released before the next thing can be carried.
G7 is the night of the seer: dreams speak plainly, patterns show themselves, and what is glimpsed now is worth writing down.
G8 is the night of the maize: growth in the dark, nourishment, and the quiet confidence that what was planted is rising.
G9 closes the cycle: the night the epoch began under, the lord of completion, ancestors, and the long view. What ends here ends well.
The 365-day civil year: eighteen months of twenty days and the five days of Uayeb.
Pop opens the Haab year: the mat, the seat of authority, the month of beginnings and of taking one's place.
Uo is the black conjunction: the frog, rain waited for, a month of gathering strength before the field is worked.
Zip is the red conjunction: the month of the hunt and of Zip, the deer god; alertness, provision, and knowing the terrain.
Zotz is the bat: the month of the cave and the night flier, of sensing what cannot be seen, and of the dark that protects.
Tzec is the month of the skull and the bees: honey gathered, the sweetness that comes from patient tending and from what has died.
Xul is the end, the dog: the month that closes a passage, loyalty, and the companion who walks you across.
Yaxkin is the new sun: first green, renewal, the light that returns after the passage. A month of fresh starts made in full view.
Mol is the gathering: water and community, the month of collecting what belongs together and of the rain that fills.
Chen is the well, the black storm: depth, the source underground, and what is drawn up from it in a season of rain.
Yax is the green storm: the new, the fresh, the first of things; a month of growth that has not yet been tested.
Zac is the white storm: clarity after rain, the month of the frog and of things washed clean and seen plainly.
Ceh is the red storm, the deer: harvest and the hunt returned, a month of abundance that must be shared to be kept.
Mac is enclosure: the month of the closed house, of counting what was gathered and keeping it against the dry season.
Kankin is the yellow sun: the earth and the underworld's dog, the month of ripeness and of the sun at its fullest weight.
Muan is the owl: the messenger between worlds, the month of rains that come from far away and of news that arrives at night.
Pax is the drum: the month of music and of war, of the gathered rhythm that moves many people at once.
Kayab is the turtle: the month of the slow and the sheltered, of what carries its house and is not hurried.
Cumku is the granary: the year's last full month, of stores laid in and the epoch's own birthday; completion before the nameless days.
Uayeb is the five nameless days: outside the year, unlucky and holy, when the ordinary rules are suspended and nothing is begun.
Your chart in this tradition, drawn and named. No card to start.