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Imix (Imox): The First Day Sign of the Maya Calendar

Prepared by the Mayan Astrology Calculator editors · Sources below · Reviewed 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1

Quick answer. Imix is the first of the 20 named days in the 260-day Maya calendar, called Tzolk'in in Yucatec and Chol Q'ij in K'iche'. Daykeepers in highland Guatemala call it Imox. Its standard glyph is a waterlily blossom, which epigrapher David Stuart traces to the mythic Water Serpent, a being of water and sustenance. The label "Crocodile" comes mainly from the Aztec day Cipactli. In the modern Dreamspell system the same slot is called "Red Dragon". [1][2][3][5]

Is Imix your day sign? Enter your birth date

Imix at a glance
Position in the 20-day cycle 1 of 20 [2]
How often it returns Every 20 days; a specific pairing such as 1 Imix returns every 260 days [3]
Yucatec name Imix (same in 16th-century and modern spelling) [2]
Possible Classic-period reading Ha'? or Baah? (tentative) [2]
Highland Guatemala (K'iche') Imox; Ymox and Ymux in colonial calendars [4]
Possible Ch'ol name Nachan, "first / primordial snake" [1]
Central Mexican (Nahuatl) counterpart Cipactli, usually translated "cayman" or "crocodile" [1][6]
What the glyph depicts A waterlily blossom, abbreviated from the Water Serpent [1]
Haab' days it can share Only day 4, 9, 14 or 19 of a Haab' month [2]
How we calculate it GMT correlation 584283, proleptic Gregorian dates [8]
Dreamspell alias (modern, José & Lloydine Argüelles, from 1987) "Red Dragon", seal 1; a separate system with a different count [9][10]

Your day sign is only half of your birth signature. The number from 1 to 13 is the other half.

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Where Imix sits in the 260-day count

The Tzolk'in pairs 20 day names with the numbers 1 to 13. Both run at once, so the count goes 1 Imix, 2 Ik', 3 Ak'bal, and so on. A given pairing, such as 1 Imix, comes back only after 260 days. [3] Imix is listed first by convention, and Kettunen and Helmke's workshop handbook starts its tables with "1 Imix". [2] That is a convention for writing the cycle down. K'iche' lists often start from B'atz', and the highland 260-day renewal ceremony falls on 8 B'atz'. [3][5] Someone born on 1 Imix and someone born on 8 Imix share a day sign but not a number.

What the name Imix may mean

Nobody is sure what imix means. Outside the calendar, the word shows up only in the colonial Books of Chilam Balam, in the names of directional world trees called imix che'. Translators often render these as "abundance trees", each carrying the color of its direction: red east, white north, black west, yellow south, green center. [1]

Stuart proposes that imix and imox come from a Proto-Mayan root for "breast" (Yucatec im). He points to a Mam vocabulary from Guatemala's Academy of Mayan Languages, which links the day Imx to the word for "breast". [1] He presents this as his own interpretation; it would tie the name to nourishment, like the abundance tree.

K'iche' speakers hear the name differently. Anthropologist Canek Estrada Peña found that the daykeepers he interviewed knew no exact etymology for Imox. They usually connect it with the similar-sounding root mox, "left", which Christenson's K'iche' dictionary also glosses as "crazy". [5][7] One daykeeper told him Imox "is the nawal of water, but almost as if it wanted to say crazy". [5]

The glyph: waterlily, Water Serpent, and the crocodile question

Since J. Eric S. Thompson's 1950 study, scholars have recognized the standard Imix sign as a waterlily blossom. [1][6] Stuart argues that the blossom is an abbreviation. The full image is the Water Serpent, a primordial snake of water whose headband carries a waterlily, often with a fish nibbling at it. Scribes later reduced the serpent to its forehead flower; the same head also wrote ha', "water". [1]

Where does "Crocodile" come from? Mostly from Central Mexico. The Aztec day in the same position is Cipactli, often translated "cayman" or "crocodile". Thompson, influenced by Cipactli, read Imix as an earth crocodile whose back formed the surface of the world. [6] Stuart disagrees: the Maya Water Serpent "is never shown as a crocodilian", and "crocodile" comes from the Nahuatl system. [1]

The picture is not entirely one-sided. Estrada Peña points out that some inscriptions write Imix with a reptile head lacking a lower jaw, the way crocodiles were drawn in other Mesoamerican styles, and that crocodilian beings appear in Maya creation and flood myths. [5] A contemporary Guatemalan source he quotes also equates Imox with lagarto. [5] On this site we therefore treat "Crocodile" as a cross-cultural alias with a real but debated history, not as the meaning of the Maya day. Many websites, including earlier versions of this one, used it as the main name.

Imix in ancient Maya texts

Imix dates appear throughout Classic Maya inscriptions. Stuart highlights one that fits the abundance theme: a jade vessel from Burial 116 at Tikal refers to the sprouting of a primordial cacao tree on the day 9 Imix. [1] In Thompson's 1950 tally of Classic monument dates, Imix was second only to Ajaw, with 47. [6] Estrada Peña notes that the Classic patron gods of the day were the Pawahtuns, old deities who held up the sky at the four corners of the world. [5]

How Imox is understood today

The 260-day count is still kept in highland Guatemala, where calendar specialists, the Ajq'ijab' (daykeepers), use it for ceremony and guidance. [3] Published records vary by community and period:

  • 1854 manuscript. The calendar of Vicente Hernández Spina lists Imox as a "bad day" on which daykeepers prayed against their enemies. [4]
  • 20th-century fieldwork. Weeks, Sachse and Prager, summarizing Bunzel (1952) and Tedlock (1992), describe Imox as "symbolic of the hidden forces in the universe made manifest in insanity". [4]
  • Water and rain. Contemporary K'iche' sources quoted by Estrada Peña call Imox the nawal of water, seas, lakes and rain, and a day to ask for rain. [5] Stuart notes the same "water nawal" description in a modern Achi vocabulary. [1]
  • "Madness" in a wider sense. Estrada Peña explains that this "madness" covers uncertainty, poor decisions and anguish, tied to the idea of the left side. [5]

We are not daykeepers, and this website does not replace one. Our reports are modern reflective writing that uses the water and sustenance imagery above. They do not predict events and are not traditional teachings.

Traditional Imix vs Dreamspell "Red Dragon"

"Red Dragon" comes from the Dreamspell, a modern system that José and Lloydine Argüelles began in 1987 and published as a kit in 1990. [10] It borrows the 13 × 20 structure but differs from the Maya count in two ways:

  1. A different count. Dreamspell fixes 26 July 1987 as "Kin 34, White Galactic Wizard" and skips 29 February. [10][11] The traditional count includes every day.
  2. Its own names and meanings. Seal 1 is "Dragon", colored red, with the keywords Birth, Nurtures and Being. [9] These are modern Dreamspell meanings, not Maya ones.

10 Oct 2026 is 1 Imix in the traditional count; Dreamspell calls it Kin 45, Red Rhythmic Serpent. The next Dreamspell "Red Dragon" day, 26 Oct 2026 (Kin 61, Red Solar Dragon), is 4 Kaban in the traditional count. [Link: Dreamspell vs traditional converter → /dreamspell-vs-traditional-maya-calendar]

Colors, directions and "elements"

  • Direction. Prehispanic Mesoamerican calendars assigned the days to east, north, west and south in turn, which puts Imix in the east. [5] Contemporary K'iche' practice is different: it places Imox in the north, the "left hand of the sky" (umoxq'ab' ri kaj), and marks it with white candles. [5]
  • Color. "Red" comes from pairing the east with red, as the colonial Yucatec texts on the imix che' trees do. [1] That pairing for individual day signs is a modern reconstruction. Dreamspell also colors this seal red. [9]
  • Element. Some charts, including earlier versions of this site, give Imix the element "water". We found no traditional source that assigns Greek-style elements to day signs. It appears on this site only as a labeled modern convention.

Upcoming Imix days

Calculated with the GMT 584283 correlation, the same method as our calculator, as of 10 October 2026: [8]

Gregorian date Tzolk'in (traditional) Haab' Dreamspell, for comparison only
10 Oct 2026 1 Imix 14 Yax Kin 45, Red Rhythmic Serpent
30 Oct 2026 8 Imix 14 Sak' Kin 65, Red Cosmic Serpent
19 Nov 2026 2 Imix 14 Keh Kin 85, Red Resonant Serpent
9 Dec 2026 9 Imix 14 Mak Kin 105, Red Magnetic Serpent
29 Dec 2026 3 Imix 14 K'ank'in Kin 125, Red Galactic Serpent
18 Jan 2027 10 Imix 14 Muwan Kin 145, Red Lunar Serpent
7 Feb 2027 4 Imix 14 Pax Kin 165, Red Solar Serpent

The date tables use your local date when JavaScript is available. Without it, they stay at the 10 October 2026 snapshot.

Every Imix in this run falls on day 14 of its Haab' month, consistent with the rule that Imix can only land on day 4, 9, 14 or 19. [2]

Imix with each of the 13 numbers

Each number links to its page.

Imix and relationships

Our compatibility tool compares two full birth signatures with a modern reflective method, not a documented historical Maya formula. [Compare two birth dates → /compatibility]

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FAQ

Is Imix the same as Imox? Yes. Imix is the Yucatec name and Imox (also Ymox, Ymux in colonial manuscripts) is the highland Guatemalan name for the same position in the count. [1][4]

Is Imix the crocodile sign? Partly by analogy. "Crocodile" translates the Aztec day Cipactli. The Maya Imix glyph shows a waterlily from the Water Serpent, though crocodilian beings do appear in some Maya creation myths. [1][5]

What does Imix mean? The meaning is uncertain. Proposals include "abundance" (from the imix che' trees), a root meaning "breast" (Stuart), and, in K'iche' hearing, a link to mox, "left". [1][5]

Is "Red Dragon" the same as Imix? It fills the same slot in Dreamspell's list of 20 seals, but Dreamspell runs a different day count, so a Dreamspell "Red Dragon" birthday is usually not an Imix day. [9][10]

Why does another calculator give me a different day sign? It may use the Dreamspell count, or a different correlation constant (584285 instead of 584283), which moves results by a day or two. [8][12]

Is Imix the first day of the year? No. The Tzolk'in has no months and no New Year's Day; Imix is listed first by convention. The 365-day Haab' is a different calendar. → How we calculate

Sources

  1. Stuart, David. "Day Sign Notes: Imix / Imox." Maya Decipherment, 14 Aug 2025. https://mayadecipherment.com/2025/08/14/day-sign-notes-imix-imox/
  2. Kettunen, Harri, and Christophe Helmke. Introduction to Maya Hieroglyphs, 17th rev. ed. Wayeb, 2020, pp. 49, 51, 56. https://www.mesoweb.org/resources/handbook/IMH2020.pdf
  3. Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian. "The Calendar System." Living Maya Time. https://maya.nmai.si.edu/calendar/calendar-system
  4. Weeks, John M., Frauke Sachse, and Christian M. Prager. Maya Daykeeping: Three Calendars from Highland Guatemala. University Press of Colorado, 2009, pp. 3 (Table 1.1), 12–13. https://www.upcolorado.com/media/acfupload/9780870819969.pdf
  5. Estrada Peña, Canek. "Anima' ri cho, anima' ri plo: Imox y el agua entre los k'iche'." Estudios de Cultura Maya 45 (2015): 191–224, pp. 193, 196, 201–203, 208–211. https://www.redalyc.org/pdf/2813/281336894007.pdf
  6. Thompson, J. Eric S. Maya Hieroglyphic Writing: An Introduction. Carnegie Institution of Washington, 1950, pp. 70–73, 92 (Table 7).
  7. Christenson, Allen J. K'iche'–English Dictionary. FAMSI, s.v. "Imox", "mox". https://www.famsi.org/mayawriting/dictionary/christenson/quidic_complete.pdf
  8. Mayan Astrology Calculator. "Calculation Methodology and Cultural Scope." https://mayanastrologycalculator.com/methodology
  9. Foundation for the Law of Time. "Learning the 13 Galactic Tones and 20 Solar Seals." https://lawoftime.org/infobooth/sealsandtones.html
  10. "Dreamspell." Wikipedia (citing Argüelles & Argüelles, Dreamspell kit, 1990). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dreamspell
  11. Argüelles, José. Rinri Project Newsletter II.2.1. Foundation for the Law of Time. https://www.lawoftime.org/pdfs/Rinri-II-2.1.pdf
  12. Van Stone, Mark. "2012 FAQ." FAMSI. https://www.famsi.org/research/vanstone/2012/faq.html

Reviewed: 10 October 2026 · Calculation: gmt584283-proleptic-gregorian-v1 · Corrections: contact us