Resonant

This is the seventh of the thirteen numbers, or tones, that combine with the twenty day signs to form the 260-day Tzolk'in. In living Maya daykeeping the coefficient is simply the number seven, wuqub', and seven stands at the exact centre of the thirteen, a place of balance and attunement in the rhythm of the trecena. The name recorded here, Resonant, and its keyword of attunement and inspiration belong to the modern Dreamspell system of Jose Arguelles, a New Age overlay from the 1980s that is distinct from the Maya calendar and not part of traditional daykeeping. The daykeepers reckon by the number itself. The authentic element is the coefficient seven and its role in the interlocking of thirteen numbers with twenty day signs that produces the 260 unique days of the sacred count.

The seventh of the thirteen numbers that combine with the twenty day signs to generate the Tzolk'in's 260-day count, marking the midpoint of its trecena, the thirteen-day period within which this is the fourth day counting from the centre in either direction. Seven recurs as a significant number elsewhere in Maya tradition independent of the Tzolk'in specifically, notably in the Popol Vuh's account of the Hero Twins' underworld trials in Xibalba, though scholars caution against assuming every appearance of a small number across different Maya sources reflects one single, unified numerological system rather than separate traditions that happen to share culturally significant numbers.

Sources Time and the Highland MayaBarbara Tedlock with Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013Jose Arguelles

Seven is written as a bar and two dots, and it stands at the centre of the thirteen, with six numbers below it and six above. Seven recurs in Maya narrative in a way the neighbouring numbers do not: the Popol Vuh names Seven Death among the lords of Xibalba, and Seven Macaw is the false sun the Hero Twins bring down.

Those are calendar names. One Death and Seven Death, One Hunahpu and Seven Hunahpu, carry numbers and day signs in exactly the form a Tzolk'in day takes, which is one of the clearest indications that the K'iche' narrative and the day count belong to a single system of thought rather than merely coexisting.

Maya numerals are written with a dot for one and a bar for five, and the coefficient of a day is written in exactly that way in the inscriptions, set beside the day sign in its cartouche. The system is positional and includes a sign for zero, which is why the Long Count can be written as a string of places, but within the 260-day count no number above thirteen ever occurs and the notation stays simple.

The term Resonant, used for this coefficient in contemporary popular literature, is from Jose Arguelles's Dreamspell of 1987. It is a modern coinage; the Popol Vuh names are Maya, and the two should not be run together, since the first is an invention of the twentieth century and the second is a sixteenth-century transcription of an older tradition.

Sources Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An IntroductionJ. Eric S. Thompson with Dreamspell: The Journey of Timeship Earth 2013Jose Arguelles