The day 5 Tijax can be see in its best aspect as a day of healing work. While all Tijax days are known for healing, this is particularly the day to get down to business. It is time to focus on removing the diseased or unbalanced.

Likewise, any work to bring divinity or beauty into the world today may bring a beneficial outcome.

Tijax days can be very dualistic, representing both days of conflict and division, and days of healing and unification. Today we see this energy combined with the number 5 suggesting that either option may be hard work.

The energy of the nawal Tijax gives rise to a day of decisive action, where the obsidian blade is wielded in the hand. Herein lies a problem. This blade is double edged, and just as one side brings healing, the other brings war. Tijax has an argumentative side and today could be a day when its quarrelsome nature may emerge, particularly regarding work.

If you decide to set your mind on achieving something, the chances are that you will succeed in your quest. Just remember that this sharp blade lends itself to a sharp tongue too. By using the discerning nature of Tijax, you can ensure that you pick your targets carefully to avoid collateral damage. Your goal is to bring the divine to the world. This does not have to involve a trail of destruction.

Solstice

The solstices are very important points of the year energetically and ceremonially. What we call Winter solstice here in the northern hemisphere is perhaps my favourite. At home I love to make ceremony with the midwinter sun rising over the lake. It is a beautiful event. It reminds me of the return of the light to the world as our days begin to get longer.

This year, the solstice falls at a rather strange time in the Americas at least. It site between the worlds, falling at 04.27 UTC, which is 22.37 of the day before in Guatemala. This could certainly be seen as a time between the worlds, where the energies of 4 No’j and 5 Tijax are both active. The energy of the solstice is often focused on the return of the light and for many the world we live in feels like it is getting darker each year.

If we were to gather the energies of 4 No’j and 5 Tijax together we could see a combined focus for ceremonies held at this point of the day and year. On the one hand it is to ask for practical, straightforward solutions from 4 No’j. We don’t always need a complicated solution, sometimes there is a down-to-earth answer, we just need to find it. On the other hand, with Tijax representing healing, puricication and discernment, and the 5 representing work, it could also represent our need to call for the energy required to put our work into those ares. Perhaps the return of the light can bring the discernment to find a practical solution.

The Nawal Tijax

The nawal Tijax represents an obsidian (or flint) blade. How the blade is used depends on the intention of the person wielding it, a warrior or a surgeon. These would seem like opposite ends of the spectrum, but where Tijax is concerned the aim is the same – healing and purification.

Tijax is the nawal of the holy warrior. In the Mayan book of creation , the Popol Vuh, the first act of the hero twins was a mission given to them by the Heart of the Sky to rid the world of the false gods Seven Macaw, Zipacna and Earthquake. By destroying the false gods, the twins brought balance to the world, and helped mankind, they brought healing to the world. They cut out that which caused disease, exactly as a surgeon would do.

Tijax is celebrated as a day of healers, particularly what could be seen as the masculine aspect of healing. It is a day of crusading, of standing up for what is right, the healer who refuses to give up on finding a cure. Tijax gives powers of discernment and refinement. Just as the surgeons scalpel cuts away disease and the warriors blade dispatches the evil, the sculptors chisel creates beauty by remodelling the base material. This is a day of alchemy, both internal and external, turning the ordinary into the divine.

The Number Five

The Sacred Mayan calendar is said to be a calendar of human life. It can be seen as a microcosm of the human body. The number five is one of these parts. It is representative of the hand with its five digits. It is with our hands that we work, and with what we earn we pay our debts. Five is also a number that relates to the sacred fire where we pay our debts with offerings and prayers. Five might be so busy working that it fails to remember what it is working for. It can also signify that what it is attached to becomes work, or is “hard work”.