The Mayan Calendar and the Cycles of the Goddess
The Mayan Calendar and the Cycles of the Goddess
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| Humanity’s path towards retrieving the Mayan calendar system really started with the Harmonic Convergence, August 16-17, 1987, when large numbers of people in the West turned out for a spiritual celebration. This celebration had the distinction of falling on the first two days of a traditional Mayan tzolkin (260-day) round, such as befits a new beginning. Although he was not alone, José Argüelles was the main promoter of the event and in the seminal “The Mayan Factor”1 outlined several important ideas that would later be seeds for elucidating the meaning of the Mayan calendar system. Among many other things he emphasized the non-physical nature of the Mayan calendar system: “Naturally, most Mayan scholars are puzzled by what appears to be the use of 260- and 360-unit “calendar” cycles that do not correspond in any precise way to perceivable astronomical or organic planetary cycles” (page 73). Although both Frank Waters and Peter Balin some ten years earlier had suggested that the Mayan calendar system had a real relevance for the spiritual evolution of mankind, Argüelles brought this insight to a much higher level. The contours of a cosmic plan became visible. In the subsequent years, in a reversal of these previous thoughts, Argüelles ignored the non-physical cycles and with his wife Lloydine developed a calendar system, which was dubbed the Dreamspell/Thirteen Moon calendar and represented an adaptation to the physical year of 365.25 years. Thus, I feel it is all the more important to clarify the differences between the calendar systems that we are proposing and why I instead favor a prophetic calendar system that is based on non-physical cycles. I feel in fact that there is overwhelming evidence that only a non-astronomically based calendar system can guide humanity’s path towards Enlightenment. While the issue of what is the true tzolkin count has been extensively discussed in the past the same can not be said about the idea of dividing the solar year into thirteen moons of 28 days each plus one “day out of time”. Essentially this calendar system then seems to have been based on the premise that 28 days should correspond to the feminine cycle. It may be time to ask if this is correct. Regardless, it deviates from the traditional Mayan way of counting months. On ancient steles we may see that the duration of their months alternated between 29 and 30 days, a way of counting months that incidentally for a long time has also been used by the Jews. What then is the duration of the true feminine cycle? Why did the ancient Maya follow a moon cycle averaging 29.5 days rather than 28? A full moon cycle is 29.53 days and in ancient mythologies the full moon is almost invariably associated with a female goddess. Among the Maya this goddess was called Ixchel and in Babylon she was called Ishtar, who was said always to menstruate on a full moon. This raises the question of why, if ancient mythologies associate the female cycles of ovulation and menstruation with the full moon cycle of 29.5 days, why do modern doctors often say that it is 28 days? Medical and biological textbooks will mostly state that the female cycles typically have durations of 28 days, with a range of variation between 21 and 35 days. In practice there is however often a considerable variation between different women and also over the life-time of an individual woman. Yet, we may still ask what is the duration of the natural female cycles and what determines their duration. Most animals have estrus cycles of a very different length and so, why would the human female be special in having a cycle paralleling that of the full moon? Upon closer study, it turns out that 28 days is not the true average of the natural female cycle. In the modern world the female cycle is disturbed above all by the existence of artificial lights and the use of artificial hormones on a scale that has left no woman unaffected. It is thought that the many moon-mimicking light sources, probably including TV and computer screens, has perturbed the female cycle and generally shortened it. It is however obvious from these disturbances that it is the light of the moon, in other words the full moon cycle of 29.5 days, that the female body is responding to. Women desiring more regular menses are in fact sometimes recommended to sleep with lights on at certain days. Some also use this to attempt to precipitate ovulation. The point to realize is that the female cycle responds to light. The above is anecdotal, but there is also scientific evidence to support that the natural female cycles of ovulation and menses are 29,5 days long. The most extensive studies that have been conducted to determine the period between menses in fact came up with mean values of 29.5 days for these2,3. A study of great relevance also measured the duration of menstrual periods in rural China, where artificial lights were virtually non-existent4. This study confirmed the same duration for the female cycle, 29.5 days. What was especially interesting about this study is that the urinary levels of hydroxymelatonin, an excretion product resulting from the activation of the light sensitive hormone melatonin, were in fact measured over the course of the full moon cycle and found to correlate with it. The case was thus closed and the relationships between the full moon cycle, a light sensitive hormone affecting the onset of menses and the duration of the menstrual cycle itself was established in a setting that was much closer to natural conditions than that of most of the modern world. Considering this, it is not really possible to argue that the natural female cycle is 28 days. The data instead show that the female cycle is linked to the full moon cycle of 29.5 days, and it makes sense that in many cultures, including Native American, women have gathered at full moons and that their periods have been synchronized then. This is consistent with the mythologies everywhere in ancient times that the female cycle was linked to the full moon. Almost all pre-patriarchal cultures had a goddess associated with it. Also, the best measure of the average duration of a pregnancy is 265.80 days, which is almost exactly 265.77 days corresponding to nine full moon cycles of 29.53 days. This is hardly accidental. In a large study of 510,000 births it was thus further found that births were more common on days of full moons than on other days. The authors concluded: ”Biological and medical scientists…would take a step forward in scientific thinking and teaching if they abandoned the use of the fictitious 28 day ”lunar” month and if they adopted the view that human gestation is 9.00 + 0.01 synodic lunar months from conception (or ovulation)….and that the ovulatory or menstrual cycle is 1.00 + 0.01 such months in length”. 5 This quote indicates that even before (1959) the duration of the female cycle had been seriously disturbed by the contraceptive pill and other hormonal preparations the idea was already around that the female cycle was 28 days although this was in obvious conflict with the existing data. One might ask why. Leonard Shlain6 argues that the exact correlation of menses and full moons in ancient times was the root of the first development of a marker of time. If nothing else, the words moon and menses have the same root. Very possibly there has later been an inclination on the part of males to deny the magical link between the female cycle and the full moon cycle and so in modern medicine the idea of a fictitious 28-day cycle came into existence. Regardless, it seems clear that it is the period between full moons that is the natural female cycle. Since the erect woman of the human species could actually face the moon, and had a pineal gland that was affected by it, she came to be the only female with an ovulation cycle corresponding to the full moon. A calendar that would be an expression of the natural female cycle, unaffected by the artificial light and hormones of the modern world, would then really be the traditional Mayan way of counting moons. Their moons alternated in length between 29 and 30 days and went from full moon to full moon. Such a calendar, of course, would not be a prophetic calendar, but an endlessly repeated cycle. Yet, it is a natural female calendar related not only to ovulation, but also to gestation. It is unlikely that in the modern world the female cycles would ever again be synchronized by the full moon. The number of sources of artificial light as well as hormonal preparations prohibit this together with the increasing spread of toxic substances that mimic hormonal effects. Nonetheless, it may still be important for women to know that they have a magical link to the full moon and its goddess. The traditional Mayan moon calendar alternating between 29 and 30 days seems to serve such a purpose well, while a 28-day cycle will suppress this link.
1. Argüelles, J., The Mayan Factor, Path Beyond Technology, Bear and Co, Santa Fe, NM, 1987. Carl Johan Calleman has a Ph.D. in Physical Biology from the University of Stockholm and is a noted toxicologist. Carl Johan Calleman
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