Mayan astrology is really an extension of Mesoamerican efforts in general. The Aztec people were working on the same general sort of thing as well, so the distinction is perhaps overly fine a point to make.
Mayan astrology doesn’t focus primarily on planetary observation. It does involve things like that, especially tracking the star Venus, but the order and symbolism behind it has more in common with the western tarot than it does western astrology.
There were different degrees of emphasis placed on each stage of the spiritual order. This is certain to the point that, in the end, they ceased revering their war god who was symbolized by the jaguar. The spiritual order was a map of both time and space as they understood it, with 13 day weeks and 20 day months, and each day followed an orderly progression both with a symbolic correspondence and a numeric correspondence. They believed that the day of the sacred week you are born on has a strong influence on your personality and destiny as at each stage the creation process is played out on an ongoing basis. The calendar both served to track their schedule of rituals as well as the proper order things should be kept in on the land itself.
I think I was born on a Tuesday. In the Mayan system there is no Tuesday. In the European system, though, you would have been born on the day of Odin, the shaman/war god.
I think I was Thursday. Thursday has a bit more easily perceived connection. Thor was storms and fertility, and of course things get a bit vague as even that calendar has had a lot of shifts and debate over the proper names involved.
I was definitely a Wednesday child. Another name for Wednesday is mercredi, if I’m not mistaken. Mercurie’s day, the god of communication and trickery which could also be seen as applied psychology. People have never been too fond of psychology even before it was an organized discipline.
I was also born during Merc retrograde. That might explain the social withdrawal. Mercury is normally outgoing, so retrograde would be hiding.
So, the days of the Mayan week also corresponded to their caste or guild system. The correspondence, as usual, is fuzzy, but the day of the jaguar was also the day of the warrior and the sorcerer.
The purpose of the Mayan calendar was to keep the social and spiritual order. Their rituals served as a necessary duty, or “tax” if you will, in order to keep the powers that be able and willing to keep nature working in the way it should.
So, 13-day weeks, but 20-day months… They must not have been basing this on lunar observations. Not strictly on lunar observations, no. They were big on tracking Venus, but they followed a great many cycles. Their year had 18 months.
War was a ritual practice undertaken to obtain sacrifices to honor their covenant with the gods. There would be no genocide or anything like that. It wasn’t undertaken for political reasons, more like filling a grocery list in a way. They held their wars to gather their sacrifices, and their fallen would serve as sacrifices in the other communities, and through this trial by combat they would honor the god of war as well as have sacrifices to offer all of the gods.
Your thoughts are welcome. Be well friends.
Travis Saunders
Dragon Intuitive
~science,mysticism,spirituality~