Ben, the Day Sign Behind It

The corresponding Maya day is B'en, associated with green or growing maize and with the reed, and by extension with the household and with the maize plant standing in the field. The Aztec equivalent day is Acatl, reed. Some readings connect it to the world tree and the maize plant as an axis, which is presumably the thread by which Arguelles reached a sky-walking pillar, but the connection is his rather than the sources'. In modern K'iche' practice the corresponding day Aj is associated with the home, with children and with the cane or staff of authority. The Dreamspell reading of exploration and space is a considerable distance from either.

Ben is the thirteenth of the twenty authentic Tzolk'in day signs, its imagery the reed, growth and the home; the living K'iche' daykeeping tradition knows the corresponding day as Aj, meaning reed or cane, a name closely aligned with Ben's own sense. In the directional scheme, Ben belongs to the east and the colour red, opening the Tzolk'in's fourth four-sign directional set. Arguelles's Solar Seal 13, Red Skywalker, departs furthest here from the borrowed name's original sense: "Skywalker" has no basis in Ben or Aj's reed and growth imagery, and is instead an invented name reflecting Arguelles's own space-age interpretive framing.