Rhythmic

This is the sixth of the thirteen numbers, or tones, that combine with the twenty day signs to build the 260-day Tzolk'in. In living Maya daykeeping the coefficient is simply the number six, waqib', falling near the middle of the thirteen-day trecena, a point of flow and steadiness. The name recorded here, Rhythmic, and its keyword of balance and equality belong to the modern Dreamspell system of Jose Arguelles, a New Age framework from the 1980s distinct from traditional Maya practice; the daykeepers of highland Guatemala reckon by the number itself, not by these invented names. The authentic element is the coefficient six and its place in the pairing of thirteen numbers with twenty day signs that generates the 260 distinct days of the sacred count.

The sixth of the thirteen numbers that combine with the twenty day signs to generate the Tzolk'in's 260-day count, marking the sixth day of its trecena, past the midpoint of the thirteen-day cycle and moving toward its later days. Contemporary K'iche' daykeepers, the ajq'ijab' of highland Guatemala, read the trecena as a whole, not just its individual days in isolation, when interpreting a person's birth date or performing a ceremony, since the number and the day sign together, and the day's position within its own thirteen-day trecena, all contribute to the traditional reading rather than the number carrying a fixed meaning independent of context.

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

Six is written as a bar and a dot. Beyond the notation, the sixth day of a trecena has no special standing, and this is worth saying plainly, because popular treatments of the count often assign a distinct character to each of the thirteen numbers as though the tradition supplied one.

What the sources actually record is thinner and more interesting. The Classic inscriptions give the coefficient as a numeral and nothing else; the codices use numbered days as coordinates in almanacs and tables; and living highland practice reads a day principally through its sign, with the number modifying rather than defining it, higher numbers generally understood as stronger. That is a graded scale, not thirteen separate characters.

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.

Rhythmic, the modern name for this coefficient, comes from Jose Arguelles's Dreamspell of 1987, a system that assigns each of the thirteen a fixed quality and a name. That assignment is the Dreamspell's own and should not be read back into the Maya count.

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