Tone 4, Kajib'

Kajib' means four. The 4 falls into none of the three Momostenango bands: it is not one of the gentle numbers, the measured ones or the intense ones. Even so, it appears alongside the low numbers in an old rite: on 1, 2, 3 and 4 Kej, the lineage's unborn children are sown at the founding shrine.

Being even, the 4 sits on the side of the balanced numbers. And one ajq'ij today singles it out, together with 13, as one of the most important numbers in the count.

The 4 is the number that stands on its own.

This ajq'ij sees the 4 as duality folded over on itself: day and night, cold and heat. It joins the four directions of the world and four forces she calls hearts. They belong to the sky, the earth, the air and the water.

The idea has deep roots. There is a record, as early as the colonial period, of what the number four meant among the Maya customs that endured.

There is also a solar reading. The day, which is the sun itself, splits into four: daybreak, midday, sundown and midnight. Read this way, the 4 tends to be the number of wholeness, in which everything finds its point of balance.

Four corners, and the world does not tip over.

People born on a 4 day tend to have many resources at hand and to draw strength from being whole: they have a little of each corner and do not depend on just one.

In practice, this often looks like the person who has a plan for every surprise and knows how to make do with whatever is at hand. The care is to leave room for what does not fit the plan.

Like every tone, the 4 adds to the nawal of the day and tends to give it balance and solid ground.

With four corners, you have somewhere to lean.

Each nawal falls on tone 4 once every 260 days. Open any of them to read its page.

• 4 Imox
• 4 Iq'
• 4 Aq'ab'al
• 4 K'at
• 4 Kan
• 4 Kame
• 4 Kej
• 4 Q'anil
• 4 Toj
• 4 Tz'i'
• 4 B'atz'
• 4 E
• 4 Aj
• 4 I'x
• 4 Tz'ikin
• 4 Ajmaq
• 4 No'j
• 4 Tijax
• 4 Kawoq
• 4 Ajpu