This is a day on which life experience empowers leadership or resolve issues. However, it may be important to understand where those experiences are useful and where they are not.
In order to fulfil a position of leadership within our community, we have to use our life experience. That is often the reason for which leaders are chosen. Their life experience and skill set fit the challenges faced by the community. The energy of this day strongly suggests reviewing and collating the experiences of life in order to move forward. This may represent something like being invited to join a committee as an experienced mentor in a particular field.
However, the determination associated with the nawal Kej may become inflexibility when it comes to the attachment to “the way it has always been done.” Strength is built on experience. But, understanding how to adapt those experiences to become relevant as society evolves is the real goal. The day 12 Kej has a very strong energy, with regard to both the nawal and the number. This energy may bring you determination, but be aware of where determination becomes stubbornness.
You may find that a walk in the wilderness, or other connection with nature, acts as a very positive recharge for your energy. It may help you to balance the strength of this day and assist with decision making. Possibly it will bring some perspective to the more determined ideas. This might be especially true if that forest is one familiar to you from your past. Perhaps a journey in a familiar wilderness will remind you of something that in turn brings you strength.
The Nawal Kej
![Xbalamkiej, patron of the day Kej one of the hero twins from the Popol Vuh. From the Dresden Codex](https://i0.wp.com/thefourpillars.net/wp-content/uploads/2016/02/Xbalamkiej.jpg?resize=474%2C743&ssl=1)
Kej is possibly the strongest of the nawales, it is powerful, but in a different way to Kan. Kej is energetic, lively and determined. It is the nawal of nature, of the wilderness and it is this power that it draws on. The animal totem of Kej is the deer, but if you have fragile, new-born Bambi in mind, think again. This is the majestic stag, standing on the mountain surveying his domain. Whilst most nawales are not necessarily engendered, Kej is most definitely masculine. Both men and women that carry Kej as their nawal have great strength, although the men tend to hide their strength more. Kej women are particularly driven, resourceful and brave, sometimes to the point of being rather dominant. All radiate an aura of nobility, people tend to look to them to lead.
Kej is the nawal of the Mayan “religion”, a day of spiritual leaders, of shaman and of priests. It is these leaders who understand how to read the messages from the natural world, who help to keep our existence in balance with nature. It is a day to connect with the wilderness and draw the power of the natural world into you, to harmonise and replenish.
The Number 12
The number 12 is the penultimate number. In some ways it can be seen as the last Earthly number, the number 13 representing the spirit world. We travelled through the mortal world with 1 through 6, then the other world with 7 through 12. In this way 12 can be seen as a point of bringing all of the experiences into one bundle for presentation to the spirit world as we step into 13. As such, the number 12 brings a wealth of experience into one place, it is rather like writing an autobiography. It is totality, all that is, brought together.