Time flies

tick tock, a new year beckons, open the door and meet it with magic

Dear word explorer,

First: a massive thank you for subscribing to my newsletter, especially to the newcomers this year. I’m adding an extra squeezy hug to my paying subscribers. I appreciate your support: you may be physically distant but you are close to my heart!

2024 is vanishing with every letter I’m typing, and with a neat conjuror’s trick 2025 will appear on our phones and dashboards in a few hours. Yet, there are many other calendars around the world which reckon the years differently.

For instance, using the Maya Calendar Converter from the Smithsonian Institute I notice that the 1 January 2025 comes out as 13.0.12.3.14 in their long count. It’s a sophisticated system for measuring time, with their creation point being 13^th August, 3114 BCE (in our calendar). Their long count breaks down to:

13 baktun - 13 X 144,000 days = 1,872,000 days
0 katun - 0 X 7,200 days = 0 days
12 tun - 12 X 360 days = 4,320 days
3 uinal - 3 X 20 days = 60 days
14 k'in - 14 X 1 day = 14 days

Plus, the day and month comes out as:
Tzolk'in Date: 4 Ix
Haab Date: 17 K'ank'in

I’m no expert, so I defer to the information from the Maya Archaeologist website, by Dr Diane Davies. The Sacred Calendar (Tzolk’in) consists of 260 days, which is calculated from the permutation of 13 numbers with 20 names. Interestingly, 260 days, ‘approximates the human gestation period, as well as the time it takes for a maize plant to come to fruition’. Each of the twenty names is associated with a spirit companion, referred to in the past as a Way but known now as a nahual/nawale.

Ix comes from the word ‘jaguar’ or Ix-B’alam, a sacred animal among the Maya for its power and sovereignty over the jungle.

The solar calendar of Haab contained 19 months which consisted of 18 months of 20 days and a final month of 5 days (Wayeb).

The system was arranged as three wheels: the 13 number wheel and 20 names wheel that makes up the Tzolkin calendar, which then interacted with the 365 Haab wheel. They rotated together to create a unique combination cycle that takes 52 years to complete. This is known as the Calendar Round.

It’s hard to wrap your mind around it so here’s a video demonstrating how it works:

This system remains in use today among indigenous peoples in countries like Guatemala, where sacred facilitators known as K'iche' Day Keepers track the calendars and offer rites for their people.¹

On top of all of this, there was a system that assigned rulership of one of the nine Lords of the Night over every night. Each lord was associated with a beneficial or poor omen. Due to the destruction of much of the records of the Maya, we possess the glyphs for the Lords of the Night but not their names. So they are simply referred to as G1 through G9. According to the Calendar converter the 1 January 2025 will be ruled by G2.²

From the Maya at Mexicolore web site.

Tomorrow will be Wednesday, 1 January, 2025, and of course we have mythological associations with these dates too.

Wednesday comes from Old English Wōdnesdæg and Middle English Wednesdei, the 'day of Wōden'. This refers to a popular Northern European deity known as Odin. His name derives from Wōðanaz and can be translated as 'lord of frenzy', or as 'leader of the possessed'. He was the one-eyed ruler of the Æsir, the Norse gods, and was ridiculously multi-talented. He was a battle leader, a poet, a magician, a shapeshifter, and conjurer of the runes. The poetry collection, Hávamál, written from about 900-1000 ACE, is translated as ‘Words of Hávi [the High One]’ and is attributed to Odin.

Among the sayings and stories is an ordeal Odin completed in order to obtain the runes, a magical alphabet capable of great power. This demonstrates Odin’s essential need for knowledge, and that even gods must endure struggle to gain true insight.

I know that I hung,
on a wind-rocked tree,
nine whole nights,
with a spear wounded,
and to Odin offered,
myself to myself;
on that tree,
of which no one knows
from what root it springs.

Bread no one gave me,
nor a horn of drink,
downward I peered,
to runes applied myself,
wailing learnt them,
then fell down thence.

Translation by Benjamin Thorpe, 1906.

It was not the first time Odin endured much to know more. He gouged out his own eye and gave it to Mimir, a shadowy entity whose vast knowledge of the universe derived from the waters of a well he guarded. Once Odin handed over his eye, Mimir dipped his drinking horn into the well and offered Odin all the information he could swallow.

This is only a taste of Odin’s stories. He wields a spear named Gungnir which never misses its target³ and is often accompanied by the wolves Geri and Freki. The ravens Huginn (Thought) and Muninn (Memory) fly throughout the world and tell him tales of Midgard. He rides the flying, eight-legged steed Sleipnir … who is the equine offspring of the trickster god, Loki, when he had shapeshifted into a mare.

An illustration of Odin on Sleipnir, holding his enchanted spear Gungnir, from an Icelandic 18th century manuscript.

Emphasising that Wednesday is a day designed for mystery, it translates in French to mercredi, in Spanish to miércoles, and Italian to mercoledì, which comes from the Latin dies Mercurii or the 'day of Mercury'.

Mercury is a multi-faceted Roman god, associated with magic, gambling, merchants, communication, trickery, shapeshifting and the ability to enter any realm he (or she) wishes. He is tightly associated with the Greek god Hermes, who shares many of the same attributes, and they are both aligned with the earlier god Thoth, the ibis-headed Egyptian god of magic, writing, and science.

What an auspicious start for the first day of 2025!

If we turn to January, that is named after the Roman god Janus, the dual faced god of beginnings, gates, transitions, time, doorways and endings. He was the first god given homage at the start of rites and journeys.

A small Temple to Janus stood in the Roman Forum near the Basilica Aemilia which contained a statue of Janus. Its doors were known as the ‘Gates of Janus’, and were closed in times of peace and opened in times of war.

Janus is the acknowledgement that the seed contains the blueprint of its final unfurling.

Thus, tomorrow, on the day of fresh starts, write your intentions for the coming 365 days with excitement and joy. Aim high and cast your die.

No doubt your plans will have derailments and obstacles, since life has a habit of stressing our resiliency.

Stay the course and keep your attention upon your goals, and you will enjoy the gifts you earned.

Happy New Year, and may all your wishes come true in 2025!

Bust of the Roman god Janus, print, 1569.

1. Approximately seven million Maya live in their homelands of Mesoamerica and across the globe. The ancient Maya had one of the most advanced civilizations in what we now refer to as South America. They created a complex written language of hieroglyphs and understood the mathematical concept of zero.

2. Documents survive for the later Aztecs which give a title for each of their nine lords of the night.

3. Fans of Irish mythology will note the similarity between Odin’s Gungnir and the god Lugh’s Spear of Assal, which according to the Lebor Gabála Érenn always hit its mark when cast with the incantation, ‘Ibar’ and would return to Lugh’s hand safely with the command, ‘Athibar’. Depending on what text you read, the spear he possesses is called Areadbhar, or ‘the Slaughterer’.