Nawal Imox
Crocodile / Water · Day of the cosmic mother. Creativity, dreams, intuition.
The nawal Imox, also searched as Imix, is the Maya day sign of the Cholq'ij associated with crocodile / water. In short: Source, primal water, the unconscious deep. Day of the cosmic mother. Creativity, dreams, intuition.
You are tuned to frequencies others cannot hear. Imox people carry the energy of primal water: intuitive, creative, and connected to the deep. You sense what is happening below the surface before anyone else can name it. The lake itself carries Imox energy, and if you have ever felt inexplicably at home near water, this is part of why.
Your gifts are imagination, empathy, and an almost psychic sensitivity. You think in images and feel in currents. Artists, healers, and visionaries often carry Imox. You are built for creative work, for understanding people, and for seeing possibility where others see only what is.
The challenge of Imox is that the same depths that give you vision can pull you under. You can disappear into anxiety, other people's emotional weather, or dreams that never land. Ground yourself deliberately: physical work, time in nature, simplicity. Your intuition is a reliable guide only when you are not overwhelmed by it.
What does the nawal Imox mean?
The nawal Imox, also searched as Imix, is the Maya day sign of the Cholq'ij associated with crocodile / water. In short: Source, primal water, the unconscious deep. Day of the cosmic mother. Creativity, dreams, intuition.
| K'iche' name | Imox |
|---|---|
| Yucatec / public variant | Imix |
| Commonly searched as | Imox, Imox, Imix, imox, maya nawal, nahual maya, nahual, maya day sign, maya zodiac |
| Calculate your date | Use the Maya nawal calculator |
Your nawal is only half of a day in the Cholq'ij. Every sign is paired with a number from 1 to 13 that changes its intensity and timing. This is not a Maya zodiac of 12 fixed signs, it is a living 260 day count. See how the 13 numbers work, or calculate your nawal and your number.
Go deeper: the documented teaching
What Imox represents
Imox is the nawal of water, the original substance of possibility out of which every living thing and every cycle takes shape in the Maya Tzolk'in. It gathers together lakes, rivers, rain, homecoming, and the settling of a troubled mind or spirit. This first pass draws its meaning chiefly from the Komon Tohil K'iche' daykeeper tradition, and keeps the Yucatec/Classic naming and the separate Dreamspell seal language apart from that core meaning.
Its strengths
- Intuitive and creative, with a natural capacity to work through emotional or domestic conditions that feel unsettled.
- Carries a Traditional day/nawal meaning that can later be paired with a coefficient running from 1 to 13.
Its shadow side
- Can be dragged into disorder, absence, or turmoil once the waters lose their container.
- Treating this as a fixed, universal template for Maya personality would go beyond what the source material actually supports.
Its path forward
Work with homecoming, stability, and firm boundaries around emotional weather. Within the wider calculation, the day/nawal ought to carry the core Traditional meaning, with the coefficient shaping how strongly or when it lands.
Where traditions differ
In K'iche' the sign is written Imox, while Yucatec and Classic-era public sources record it as Imix. The gloss given in the English source field reads: water, sea, river, lake. Dreamspell assigns a separate seal label to the same index, and that should not be used to define this node's meaning. The Komon Tohil source lists day meanings in a table that begins with B'atz', whereas GMT calculation may instead run an internal sequence beginning with Imix/Imox.
What does the Imox nawal mean in the Tzolk'in?
Imox opens the traditional Cholq'ij as its first day sign, the seed that the entire 260 day cycle grows out of. Its watery symbolism is deliberate rather than accidental: Maya cosmology places primordial water before the world takes its shape. The Popol Vuh itself begins in darkness and water, and Imox carries that same quality of possibility before anything has been decided. Whatever enters this field can become almost anything, yet without a container it can just as easily dissolve away.
Komon Tohil ties Imox to rain, to homecoming, and to the household understood as the first shelter of wellbeing. The intuitive and creative gifts trace back to how fertile a watery field can be: creative potential in abundance, but only worthwhile once it has somewhere to flow. The turbulence named in its shadow is the very same water once a storm sets in, force without any direction to carry it.
How Imox connects to the other nawales around the lake
Imox comes directly after Ajpu, the Sun Lord who closes and crowns the cycle, and it comes before Iq', wind and breath and the movement of spirit. Passing from sun fire, through water, into wind is the breath that starts the whole cycle over again.
Lake Atitlán stands among the most powerfully charged places in the Maya world for Imox: a high altitude lake with no surface outlet, cradled inside a volcanic caldera, and prone to sudden afternoon squalls driven by the Xocomil wind. The lake is itself an Imox body: held in, deep, fertile, and capable of turning turbulent without warning. Try the Nawal Calculator to work out the next Imox day in the current cycle. For how the 13 tones interact with this opening day sign, visit the Tzolk'in Tones hub. Ceremonies honouring the lake's waters remain most active at Santiago Atitlán, which holds the deepest ceremonial history tied to the lake.
Nawal Imox: frequently asked questions
What does the nawal Imox mean?
The nawal Imox, also written Imix, is one of the 20 day signs of the sacred Maya calendar, the Cholq'ij. Source, primal water, the unconscious deep. Day of the cosmic mother. Creativity, dreams, intuition.
How do I find my nawal? Is Imox my Maya day sign?
Enter your birth date in the nawal calculator. If your Cholq'ij day sign comes out as Imox, that is your nawal. This is not a Western horoscope with 12 star signs, it is a Maya calendar birth day drawn from a 260 day cycle. Use the nawal calculator to work out your own day sign and number.
Are Imox and Imix the same day sign?
Yes. Imox is the K'iche' spelling kept by the Ajq'ijab' (day keepers) of Lake Atitlan, and Imix is the Yucatec variant you will see used elsewhere. Both names point to the same day sign within the 260 day count of the Cholq'ij.
Sources and further reading
This page draws together published academic and ethnographic scholarship. It presents the living K’iche’ tradition through documented sources rather than as insider authority.
- Komon Tohil (K'iche' Day Keepers Collective), The Meaning of the Days
- Dr Diane Davies, The Maya Calendar Explained, Maya Archaeologist
- Barbara Tedlock, (1992), Time and the Highland Maya
Is Imox your nawal?
Enter your birth date to calculate your Cholq'ij day sign, your number and your path for a deeper reading.