The 13 Moon calendar tracks a solar year, the earth’s orbit around the sun, over 365 days. Each ‘moon’ is a 28-day month, and reflects the lunar phases as well as the menstrual cycle, a woman’s natural calendar. Harmoniously, 13 moons of 28 days each makes 364 days, plus one day between years named the ‘Day Out of Time.’
The 13 Moon year begins with the rise of Sirius at dawn on July 26, and ends the following July 24. In the Northern Hemisphere, it opens with the promise of harvest in summer, an energy set at abundance, rather than the scarcity and darkness of winter. Like a hero’s journey, we set out from a place of security and high sunlight, moving through the shadows and longest nights of winter solstice as entrance to our own unconscious and the dreamtime. Ultimately, we come through these challenges into lighter days and a circular return to the beginning, enlivened by a transcendent vision quest and its views.
As the 260-day Tzolkin count is formed of 13-day ‘wavespells’, the 13 Moons represent a larger wave cycle, so that every year we pass through is experienced as a fractal or an actual building and breaking wave. The following descriptions are of the annual wavespell of 13 Moons, each moon representing a stage in a perfect spiral of initiation, accomplishment and liberation.
