Maya * Aztec Astrology Report

Introduction - The Astrology of Time

The most important time cycles in ancient Mayan and Aztec astrology are those of the day, 9-days, 13-days, and 20-days. Additionally, years are counted also, in groups of 4 and 13. Each day is then part of several other cycles, so no two days are exactly the same. Your Maya/Aztec horoscope below shows exactly where in each of the cycles you were born. Each category below examines a specific cycle and a specific aspect of your personality. Keep in mind that our personalities are complex and contain many contradictions. All of us present a different "face" depending on who we meet. The delineations below will reflect this, but they will also give you a clear picture of who you really are. The true value of astrology lies in self-knowledge, the first step to wisdom.
 
 

Your Most Personal Traits -- The Day-Sign of Your Birth

Serpent: You are the kind of person who is always noticed, yet others rarely understand you. Few ever get to know you really well. You are hard to pin down -- you either project an aura of mystery, or you are just simply charismatic in some way and manage to attract a number of followers. You are often found on one stage or another -- or attracting attention by lurking in the shadows. Leadership comes naturally to you, in part because of your ability to "psych-out" or subtly influence others. You are quite strong, physically and mentally, and are capable of living under very stressful conditions. One of your weaknesses is in not nurturing yourself enough.

Your emotional power is remarkable. Others do not want to be in your way when you are angry or upset. You are strongly affected by your feelings and are occasionally overcome by them -- in a sense, you "wrestle with the serpent." You sense a need to let go of your control over yourself from time to time, but this may be dangerous should you underestimate the depth of your feelings. For some Serpent personalities a needed and more or less socially acceptable emotional release comes when under the effects of alcohol. Uninhibited, you have the potential to undo yourself and hurt others, though you do would never intend to do so consciously. One of the effects of this character trait is shown in the periodic upheavals in relationships and family matters that you tend to experience. When your powerful emotional energies are harnessed, you can be quite constructive and creative, pouring out products or performances without any apparent need for rest. There are some Serpent types who are apparently calm and steady but experience upheaval and crisis in life through others. If this is the case for you, then you may be projecting this characteristic, not internalizing it.

It is possible that you have a noticeable sex-appeal, or you are sexually frustrated, or both. The key factor here has to do with personal centering. When your mind and body are in balance, your naturally deep reservoir of primal emotional energies flows and becomes enticing to others -- who then respond to you sexually. You are a natural performer, sexually and otherwise, with a sense of the dramatic. You also have a tendency to keep the act going well after the curtain has come down.

You are probably regarded by others as being of high intelligence and very well-informed. You tend to be interested in subjects that involve strategy and transformation, like advertising, investments or psychology. Internally, you are not entirely comfortable with who you are and may need to work on self-acceptance. In this regard, you may have some experience with therapy, or have become something of a therapist yourself. Because you are so deeply in touch with the process of change and transformation you try to learn as much about it as you can.

While you are intellectually comfortable with the notion of change and transformation, you often hang on to the past until it becomes unbearable -- and then you change your life all at once. In this regard you are an extremist. One subject that both frightens and attracts you is death. You may have been through some powerful emotional upheavals connected with death in some way, such as the experience of the death of someone close to you. At worst, you could be somewhat obsessed with death. The death of a relationship or a project in which you have invested much emotion may have also affected you deeply. It is important that you learn to acknowledge, understand and value this powerful part of the life experience. It is the lesson of letting go.

The Aztecs called this fifth of the twenty day-signs Coatl, meaning serpent or snake, and it was symbolized by the head of that animal. It was considered a powerful sign and was associated with the water goddess Chalchihuitlicue, a goddess of sudden storms and the unexpected power of nature. But there was another side to this goddess, one that stressed the primal beauty of nature as well. In Serpent the ancient Mexican astrologers were probably trying to capture in a symbol the powerful forces of change and transformation against which no human could resist.

The personality of your day-sign is reflected in the planet and sign emphasis in your Western astrological chart. You probably have one or more of the following signs prominent in your birthchart: Aries, Gemini, Leo and Scorpio. These symbolize your personal power and active mind. Another way of symbolizing the same thing in your chart would be for the planets Mars, Mercury, Sun and Pluto to be emphasized. Finally, your magnetic effect on others is probably shown by a strong Uranus.
 
 

Your Deeper Self -- the 13-day Week of Your Birth

You were born on the thirteenth day of the 13-day period beginning with 1-Reed. Beneath your surface personality you are a person of integrity and a strong sense of self. You feel that you are, or could be, important and you seek to constantly improve yourself. You have a strong need to conquer your enemies and to achieve your objectives. Because you are direct about getting what you want, others see you as assertive, a person who takes the initiative. While you make a good teacher and role model, you should also be aware of your tendency to be somewhat self-righteous and overconfident of your own opinions.

You are a deep thinker, though somewhat rigid intellectually. You also have a good intuition and possibly psychic abilities. You are drawn to contemplating the nature of life philosophically and you may have an interest in this subject or literature. You find the problems of social life, relationships, and cooperation to be a great challenge and you rush in to solve them. Your philosophical understanding of life is the framework against which all problems are examined -- but not all problems are solvable by an internally consistent intellectual model. You must learn to be more accepting of the contradictions and inconsistencies of human life. When you do this your universe expands dramatically.

Both Serpent and Reed are signs of the East, a direction symbolic of action, self-interest and self-realization. Your sense of self is intense and influences your thinking, feeling and even those around you. Some may find you dominating, others charismatic. How you use your knowledge and power is critical because you can make a big difference in the world around you.
 
 

What You Share With the Others of Your Birth Year

You were born in the year called 12-West. It is in the West that the Sun leaves the sky and disappears beneath the earth. It is the point where day is changed into night but it is also the point where day and night merge. The implication here is that the West is a direction symbolic of both transition and merging, a point of balance between two worlds. In a general sense, those born during this year stride along boundaries, one foot in the past and one in the future, one foot that is their own, one that is part of another. The energy of the West is balancing energy.

In a very general sense, relatedness is a challenge for you and all the others born this year. As a group you find it necessary to become skillful in handling relationships and dealing with other people in general. Diplomacy and counseling abilities are your strong point. Your ability to weigh alternatives will eventually lead you to good judgment and fair decisions, but if you take to long to think, you may be perceived as indecisive. The style of those born on this year is not so dramatic as it is sensitive to the needs of others and genuinely concerned with progress in the area of relationship -- personal and collective.

The number 12 preceding your direction indicates that you are driven to express yourself in many areas and on many levels. The energy of your direction needs to be focused to be most effective and productive.
 
 

Your Deepest and Darkest Motivations -- the Night Lord

You were born under the seventh Lord of the Night. The goddess Tlazolteotl (Tlah-zole-TAY-ot-el) is your ruling deity. She was a confession goddess, one who was said to consume a person's sins, particularly their sexual sins. She was also a goddess of purification and healing. The symbolism of this goddess suggests that you are a person who may struggle with strong, socially unacceptable, urges.

Your desire nature is very strong. You also have a strong investment in presenting a socially acceptable face to the world. How do you reconcile these opposing needs? You cannot repress your urges to power, or sexual urges forever, eventually you must face this conflict directly. Perhaps you have "sinned" or simply said or did something that is against your better judgment. You will need to settle the imbalance somehow, if only for your peace of mind. A kind of penance, or self-inflicted punishment, may be your typical reaction to this kind of situation. Or maybe you never do anything "wrong," but hold many unsociable thoughts. Perhaps you bury yourself in work in an attempt to deny your deeper urges. Often times, this kind of repression makes you become a fanatic about order and cleanliness. You want at all costs to be in control of your outer world, because your inner world is not so controllable.

You are strongly motivated by relationships, partnering, and working with the public. You are indeed a very social person and you judge yourself by your company. You are also motivated by aesthetics, comforts, or material security. You like the finer things of life, or at least have more than a casual appreciation for music or art. All of this is in contrast to your deeper urges. Be careful what you say or do if you lead a public life.

Your inner conflict is great and so you need to heal yourself from time to time. You need to be more accepting of who you are, and especially be accepting of your darker urges. Repressing them makes your life worse. No one is perfect. Don't hide part of yourself under the rug. Find ways to creatively explore your deeper urges such as through art, or through psychotherapy. When you heal yourself, you will become a healer of others.
 
 

Your Patterns of Relationship -- The Phase of Venus

You were born with Venus in its Evening Star phase. According to the Maya, this is a 250-day period when Venus is visible after the Sun sets. This phase follows the Superior Conjunction phase and precedes the Inferior Conjunction phase.

For you, feelings and emotions arise after an action has been taken. In making judgments, which you do very well, you evaluate what has happened against the background of society's rules and values. You instinctively understand the power, and perhaps the correctness, of the world as it is and has been. The values and morals of the past are important to you and your vision is one that has probably been strongly influenced by tradition.

There is a sense of inevitable compromise in your life, possibly a reaction to your awareness of having been strongly imprinted by society, culture or your parents. One result of this may be seen in your stance towards the powers that be. It is possible that deep down you are troubled by your conditioning and how it causes you to evaluate and interpret the world in a certain way. But this is very subtle and most of you will only notice this pattern in a general way, far more obvious when viewed over the course of a lifetime.

One positive manifestation of evening star Venus is that you may become, consciously or unconsciously, successful due to the fact that you personify certain family and traditional values. In extreme cases, you could become a hero, a person who represents what your society truly believes in. It is through participation with the traditions and cultural definitions of reality that you achieve emotional satisfaction and success in life.

Your Days of Peak Experience

You will probably find that your experience of life becomes more intense about five days before the peak date and then builds. Keywords displayed next to the dates are a suggestion of how to focus your energies.
 
 

Critical day list for George W. Bush (born Jul 06, 1946)

Report start date: Jan 01  2002
Report end date:   Jan 01  2007

Critical Day         Phase      Day No./Name   Direction      Keyword

Sun Jan 13 2002        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Tue Mar 19 2002         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Thu May 23 2002         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Sat Jul 27 2002         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Mon Sep 30 2002        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Wed Dec  4 2002         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Fri Feb  7 2003         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Sun Apr 13 2003         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Tue Jun 17 2003        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Thu Aug 21 2003         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Sat Oct 25 2003         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Mon Dec 29 2003         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Wed Mar  3 2004        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Fri May  7 2004         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Sun Jul 11 2004         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Tue Sep 14 2004         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Thu Nov 18 2004        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Sat Jan 22 2005         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Mon Mar 28 2005         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Wed Jun  1 2005         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Fri Aug  5 2005        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Sun Oct  9 2005         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Tue Dec 13 2005         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Thu Feb 16 2006         3/4       13 Flower      South         share
Sat Apr 22 2006        Full       13 Serpent     East          rebirth
Mon Jun 26 2006         1/4       13 Dog         North         struggle
Wed Aug 30 2006         1/2       13 Eagle       West          focus
Fri Nov  3 2006         3/4       13 Flower      South         share

Background - The Nature of Maya/Aztec astrology

All of the Mesoamerican civilizations, Olmec, Toltec, Maya, Zapotec and Aztec, used essentially the same astrology. Although the names of symbols varied, the concepts remained the same. Because the Aztecs were the predominant civilization at the time of the Spanish Conquest, we have chosen to use their symbol names in this modern reconstruction of the Mesoamerican astrological tradition.

At the core of Mesoamerican astrology are the 20 day-signs. Like the 12 signs of the Western Zodiac, these are signs descriptive of both personality and possibility. In other words, the signs can be used to describe a person, or they can describe an event. In the Western 12-sign zodiac, the signs are sections of space spread across the sky along the path of the Sun, Moon, and planets. The Maya/Aztec day-signs are very different. They are based on time and are actually names of days. Each sign lasts only one day, until it comes up again twenty days later. Like our 7-day week, which is astrological and named for the planets, the Maya and Aztecs used a 20-day week for astrological purposes.

There is no presently known reason why the Maya and Aztecs used only 20 signs. Perhaps they had discovered an important biorhythm or cycle. But besides the 20-days, they also used a 13-day cycle (or sign) and these intertwined with each other. While the days of the 20-day cycle each have a name, the days of the 13-day cycle are numbered from 1 to 13. If you start both cycles together, the first day of the 20-day cycle coinciding with the first day of the 13-day cycle, it will take exactly 260 days for all possible combinations of day and number to occur. This period, 260 days, is the length of the sacred Mesoamerican astrological calendar that this program is based on.

The 20 day-signs each have a name and a symbol. The names of these with a brief meaning are listed below.

Alligator (east) - protective and dominating.

Wind (north) - agile, clever and multifaceted.

House (west) - deep, thoughtful and conservative.

Lizard (south) - active, dynamic and sexual.

Serpent (east) - powerful and charismatic.

Death (north) - sacrificing and helpful.

Deer (west) - cooperative and nomadic.

Rabbit (south) - clever and playful.

Water (east) - emotional and imaginative.

Dog (north) - loyal and helpful.

Monkey (west) - clever and demonstrative.

Grass (south) - careful and useful.

Reed (east) - knowledgable and crusading.

Ocelot (north) - intelligent and secretive.

Eagle (west) - free and independent.

Vulture (south) - authoritative and wise.

Earthquake (east) - intellectual but practical.

Knife (north) - self-sufficient but romantic.

Rain (west) - helpful and healing.

Flower (south) - loving and artistic.

You may have noticed that each of the signs is connected to a particular direction. The signs of the east are initiating and forceful. Those of the north are intellectual and critical. Signs of the west are cooperative and compromising. Signs of the south are emotional and reactive.

The day-sign a person was born under is the named day that occurred on their birthday. It delineates their most obvious personality characteristics and traits. A person is also born during one of twenty 13-day periods, periods that begin with a day-sign linked to the number 1. The 13-day period delineates their more subtle, possibly subconscious, personality qualities. It shows their deeper instincts and yearnings. The combination of day-sign and 13-day period yields a quite complete personality description, perhaps as good or even better than does the Western 12-sign zodiac. It should be said that these two signs represent only a partial reconstruction of what was once a more complex system. The rest, including signs ruling the year and the hour of birth, have been lost or completely recovered and made workable.

Because the day-signs signify general meanings and themes as well as personality configurations, they were used by the Aztecs for divinations. Like the I-Ching, a random drawing of beans or stones would allow a reader to find one of the 260 sign/number combinations and thus an answer to a question. Even today, the 260-day astrological calendar is used by Native American daykeepers in remote parts of Guatemala and Mexico. The divination section of this program utilizes computer technology to randomly select the sign/number combinations that may yield insights into a question asked.

Because the Maya and Aztecs did not have a developed writing system, and because most of their astrological knowledge was destroyed by the Spanish friars, little was known about this great product of theirs, and other Mesoamerican, cultures. The delineations used in this program were arrived at after several years of historical investigation, deep thought, and trial and error experimentation. Long lists of persons famous or known to the author, yet born under the same day-sign, were compared with each other. Eventually, this process led to some key concepts about each of the signs and the results, in the form of personality descriptions, are found in this program. The meanings for the signs when used in divinations were extrapolated from this information also.

We hope you find Maya/Aztec astrology to be not only interesting and fun, but helpful and a source of insight into your life.
 
 

The Year of Birth

East: creative/mental -- fertile/abundant

North: violent weather -- barren/dry/cold

West: wild/losses/illness -- cloudy/evil

South: good business/health -- variable

A second factor is a cycle of 52 years. In this longer period, 13 repetitions of the basic 4-year cycle are counted. As each year arrives, it is identified with a number and a direction. Four cycles of 13 years each make up the 52-year calendar round or Xiuhmolpilli.

Not all ancient Mexican cultures applied the cycle of years the same way. There was a lack of consensus about which year was linked to which number. The Aztecs used Reed (east), Knife (north), House (west), and Rabbit (south). The Classic Maya used Caban (east), Ik (north), Manik (west), and Eb (south), which correlate with Earthquake, Wind, Deer, and Grass. During Postclassic times the pattern was changed. The Classic pattern is used by the Quiche Maya who have kept the astrological traditions alive in Guatamala. The author believes that the year correlation established by the Classic Maya and continued by the Quiche Maya works.

Four and eight-year cycles have been found in nature by cycle researchers, a strong suggestion that there may be a real material basis to the cycling of the years. It is also interesting to note that the Olympics and United States presidential elections are held in the same year, years that are ruled by the east, according to the Quiche. Further, the Chinese cycle of 12 years correlates with this pattern if you look at it as three groupings of a 4-year cycle.
 
 

The Lords of the Night

The Lords of the Night are not a calendar per se, but a kind of symbolic cycle. The Maya linked the Lords to the Long Count. We know that on August 11, -3113 the ninth Lord was ruler. Start ing from this date we run a 9-day cycle along with the day-signs which allows the program to find the ruling Lord of the Night for any date. The 260-days of the tzolkin do not mesh perfectly with the 9-day cycle and it takes 9 cycles of 260 (2,340 days or 6.4 years) before the same combination occurs again.

Much less is known about how the Aztecs used the cycle. It appears that they ran the 9-day cycle against the 260 days and had the last two Lords ruling the last of the 260 days. In this manner the cycle would start again at the same place. In Maya/Aztec Astro-Report we have chosen to follow Maya usage.

Some writers have suggested that the Lords of the Night are actually a division of the nightime hours. Like the planetary hours of Western astrology, the night was divided into 9ths with the 5th Lord's rule centered around midnight. In this line of reasoning the day was divided into 13 hours.
 
 

The Cycle of Venus

According to the Dresden Codex, an ancient Maya manuscript that is one of the most authoritative sources on Maya astronomy and astrology, the cycle of Venus began when its rays first appeared in the twilight of dawn. This event usually occurs several days after the Inferior Conjunction of Venus with the Sun. The Inferior Conjunction is so-named because Venus, the lesser body, passes in front of the Sun, the greater body. In this conjunction, Venus, which disappears in rays of the Sun for over a week during this time, comes closest to the Earth. The Maya allocated exactly 8 days for this phase of the Venus cycle. After its heliacal rising, the second phase of the Venus cycle, its phase as a morning star, commenced. The Maya allocated 236 days to this period.

As Venus ends its time as a morning star, it once again disappears into the rays of the Sun. As it moves to conjoin the Sun again, it does so at its greatest distance from Earth. The conjunction in this part of its cycle is called the Superior Conjunction, because here Venus passes behind the Sun. The Maya allocated 90 days for this third phase of the cycle, a phase where Venus is not visible. After it re-emerges from behind the rays of the Sun, Venus begins its phase as an evening star, a phase for which the Maya allocated 250 days. These four phases of the Venus cycle, 8 days, 236 days, 90 days and 250 days add up to 584 days, the full cycle of Venus. The duration of these phases is a symbolic approximation of the astronomical facts, which actually vary somewhat from cycle to cycle.

The Maya and Aztecs believed that the cycle of Venus depicted the experiences of the god Quetzalcoatl in his descent to Earth. The first rising of Venus as a morning star symbolized his arrival on Earth. During the morning star phase Quetzalcoatl was overcome by desire and lust and committed sins; he pushed against the boundaries of society. During the disappearance of Venus at Superior Conjunction, a warlike athletic duel with the Sun took place and during the evening star phase, Quetzalcoatl, now fully sober, walked the Earth until his sacrificial death during the Inferior Conjunction. He was then reborn as the new Venus and the cycle began again.

This report calculates the phase that Venus was in at your birth according to the figures used and recorded by the ancient Maya. For each phase, the program offers a brief interpretation of the possible significance of Venus, symbol of both impulsive personal desire and collective social values, in your life.
 
 

Maya/Aztec Predictive Techniques

In the modern world where the individual comes first, experience has shown that dividing the 260-day cycle into fourths beginning from one's birthday reveals "critical" points that mark shifts or changes in personal matters. In many cases rather extreme events do occur precisely on one of the critical days, in others the effects occur a few days earlier. In some cases the effects are more subtle or psychological in nature. In understanding these critical dates it is helpful to view them from two perspectives, cycle and direction.

From your birthday, every 260 days represents one completed cycle in life. If this cycle of 260 days is divided by 4, or quartered, four sets, or "seasons," of 65 days is the result. Using the symbolism of the Sun/Moon cycle as a model, the occurrence of the birth day-sign is like the New Moon, the beginning of the cycle and a time of personal centering and new, barely conscious, beginnings. 65 days later corresponds (symbolically) to the first quarter, a time of crisis that demands action and adjustment. The midpoint of the cycle, 130 days, corresponds to the Full Moon, a time of separation or perspective. 195 days from the start of the cycle compares with the third quarter, a time of crisis requiring conscious choice.

The second perspective on the critical days is to recognize that each of the four dates in the cycle corresponds to one of the four directions. These are listed below.

East: Alligator, Serpent, Water, Reed, Earthquake. These are points that emphasize the need to be creative, to do something new and to move forward.

North: Wind, Death, Dog, Ocelot, Knife. These are points that may indicate crisis and the need to protect oneself from negative energy. The mind is under pressure during these times.

West: House, Deer, Monkey, Eagle, Rain. These are points of encounter with others, times of sharing and loss of ego. Relationships are important now.

South: Lizard, Rabbit, Grass, Vulture, Flower. These are points of strong feelings and emotional extremes. These may also be times of accomplishment and activity in the outside world.

Combining cycle symbolism with directional symbolism gives deeper insight into the patterns of the critical days. For example, if a sign of the north coincides with one of the quarters, a stressful time might be expected. If a sign of the west coincides with the opposition, important developments in relationships may be a prominent theme. A keyword has been given for each of the combinations that may suggest the direction in which the energies and trends are heading around that time. Experience has also shown that the effects of the critical days often become apparent several days before the exact day computed in this report.