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Dreamspell Kins
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Origin 1987-1990: developed from Argüelles's The Mayan Factor (1987) and published as Dreamspell in 1990.
The 260 kins of the Dreamspell are the combinations of twenty day signs and thirteen tones in a modern calendar devised by Jose and Lloydine Arguelles and published in 1990. It borrows the structure of the Maya tzolkin but uses its own correlation to the Gregorian calendar, its own names for the day signs, and a leap-day rule of its own, so it does not agree with the count kept in Maya communities. It is presented here as a contemporary system, distinct from the traditional tzolkin.
Facts
Overview
What Defines This GroupingThe 260 day-units of the Dreamspell, a modern count that borrows the tzolkin's 20 x 13 structure with new names and meanings. It is NOT the Maya calendar: the genuine Maya reckonings are held separately as the haab months and the Long Count units. 1 Size of the Traditional Set260 kins (20 solar seals x 13 galactic tones) 1 Contested Use
Contested or Appropriated Modern UseWidely received as "the Maya calendar". It is not: its day-count uses a different correlation from the 260-day tzolkin that Maya day-keepers in highland Guatemala have kept unbroken, its seal and tone meanings are new, and Maya calendar specialists reject the identification. 1 Origins
Origin Period1987-1990: developed from Argüelles's The Mayan Factor (1987) and published as Dreamspell in 1990. 1 Creator / OriginatorJosé Argüelles and Lloydine Argüelles. 2 Learn More
The 260 Kins of the Dreamspell
The two hundred and sixty kins of the Dreamspell are the combinations of twenty day signs (the "solar seals") and thirteen tones (the "galactic tones") in a modern calendar devised by Jose and Lloydine Arguelles and published in 1990. It borrows the structure of the Maya tzolkin (twenty signs, thirteen tones, a 260-day cycle), but uses its own correlation to the Western calendar and its own set of names and meanings.
Each kin combines a seal and a tone into a daily archetype, and the Dreamspell is used by its followers for personal reflection, synchronisation and a "thirteen moon" calendar reform, as part of a wider New Age movement.
A modern system, not the Maya count
The Dreamspell is a twentieth-century creation and differs in important ways from the traditional Maya tzolkin still kept by day-keepers in Guatemala: it does not follow the same day-count correlation, and its meanings are new. The atlas treats it as a modern revival inspired by the tzolkin rather than as the Maya calendar itself, and notes the distinction, which its own presentation often blurs.
The entries describe the kins, seals and tones and their meanings. The Dreamspell draws on the tzolkin day-signs and tones treated under the Maya calendar, and belongs among the Modern Revivals.
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