Aztec and Maya Calendar
In the tonalpohualli, the sacred Aztec calendar, Wednesday May 24, 2017 is:
Xihuitl:
solar year
5 - Calli (house)
Xiuhpohualli:
365-day calendar
12 - Ochpaniztli (XI)
Long Count:
Mayan calendar
13.0.4.8.15
(Correlation: Alfonso Caso - Nicholson's veintena alignment [adjust])
The significance of this day
Day Cuauhtli (Eagle, known as Men in Maya) is governed by Xipe Totec, God of Seedtime, as its provider of tonalli (Shadow Soul) life energy. Cuauhtli is a day of fighting for freedom and equality. It is a day of the Warriors of Huitzilopochtli, those who sacrifice their lives willingly to keep the present age, the Fifth Sol, moving. It is a good day for action, a bad day for reflection. A good day for invoking the gods, a bad day for ignoring them.
The thirteen day period (trecena) that starts with day 1-Atl (Water) is ruled by Chalchihuihtotolin. These are 13 days of instability and unexpected events, of accidents and coincidences: these are good days to gamble a little on a long-shot; bad days to gamble a lot on a sure thing. Every day rollercoasters between all-good and all-bad, between rapture and terror. This trecena advises the priest-warrior to perfect the art of shapeshifting: only by mimicking the nature of water do we become an agent of change rather than a target of it. The purified heart casts no reflection in the smoking mirror.
Aztec facts
In the years after the conquest of Mexico, the xiuhpohualli (solar calendar) became tied to the Julian calendar as used by the Spaniards. This effectively introduced a leap year to the Aztec calendar every four years (this site provides the pre-conquest calendar).