New to the Codex

Start Here

Seven days to begin, and the few things worth knowing first

The Codex Calendar is a year of 13 Moons of 28 days, beginning at the spring equinox, with one Breath Day (and sometimes a Witness Day) outside the count. The real Moon, the Sun's eight stations and four daily breaths ride on top. You do not need to give up the ordinary calendar: write both dates, and let the Codex be the one you feel.

Ask one question instead of "What day is it?": Where am I in the breath?

Your first seven days

DayPracticeTime
1Find today's Codex date on the Calendar and write it beside the Gregorian date.5 minutes
2Learn the four-count breath: in for four, hold for four, out for four, hold for four (often called box breathing). Practise it morning and evening.5 minutes
3Look up your sunrise, noon, sunset and midnight times on Today's Breath. Take one breath at sunrise.5 minutes
4Take one conscious breath at each of the four hinges.4 breaths
5Find the Moon in the sky, or look up where it is. Write its phase.5 minutes
6Read today's question and write three sentences in answer.10 minutes
7Look back over the week. Which hinge was easiest to keep? Which did you miss?10 minutes

One breath, four words

The same four-part breath runs through every scale of the Codex. This is the single sequence used throughout the site and the book.

1234
LetterYodHehVavfinal Heh
Breath phaseInhalePauseDescentStillness
Your breath (4-4-4-4)breathe inhold, fullbreathe outhold, empty
Daily hingesunrisesolar noonsunsetsolar midnight
Week of each MoonIdentifyAcceptEmbraceLet Go
Season (north)springsummerautumnwinter
Sun's longitude0°–90°90°–180°180°–270°270°–360°

Twelve and one, thirteen and one

In Breath Awakens, twelve archetypes are held together by a thirteenth point, the still centre A'tharion-Keshariel, while Shekhinah dwells around the whole. Each archetype lives at one of twelve chakras in the body, from the crown to the earth-star below the feet and, twelfth, the heart of the heart, where the Architect+, A'tharion-Keshariel, keeps the still centre. In the calendar the pattern grows by one: the twelve archetypes and their chakras take Moons 1 to 12, Shekhinah becomes Moon 13, and the still point returns on the Breath Day as a fourteenth point. The sky makes the same move. A year holds about 12.37 lunar months: twelve and a remainder. The remainder pushes the count to thirteen, and the leftover fraction of a day becomes the Breath Day.

Good to know

Next year has a Witness Day

Year 2 (from 20 March 2027) is a Witness Year. Its Breath Day falls on 18 March 2028 and its Witness Day on 19 March 2028, before Year 3 begins on 20 March 2028 at the equinox. Witness Years come about 8 times in every 33 years.

Dates before 2026

Year 1 began in 2026, and earlier years count backward as astronomers count them: Year 0, Year −1, and so on. Someone born in the summer of 2000 was born in Year −25. A negative number is not a judgement; it simply counts the breaths before this spiral began.

In the Southern Hemisphere

The Codex keeps one shared calendar for the whole Earth, so the year still begins at the March equinox, which is autumn in the south. Station names follow the northern wheel. Follow the practice that fits the season you are actually living.

Global or Local

Codex Global reads the equinox, the Solar Stations and the Moon's phases at Giza, so everyone shares one date. Codex Local reads them at your own longitude, so a Station may land a day earlier or later. Your daily hinges are always for your own place.

Names you will meet

Breath Day
Day 365, after the thirteenth Moon. It belongs to no Moon and no week: a day to schedule nothing.
Witness Day
Day 366, added only when the next equinox falls 366 days after the last.
A'tharion-Keshariel
The still luminous centre in Breath Awakens: the twelfth chakra in Dream Moon, and the still point the year returns to on the Breath Day.
Shekhinah
A Hebrew word for the indwelling presence of the divine, given to Wisdom Moon, the thirteenth.
The Architect+
The twelfth archetype, whose Egyptian name is A'tharion-Keshariel, at the heart of the heart; given to Dream Moon. Breath Awakens gives it the hero's-journey stage "Master of Two Worlds".
The twelve chakras
The twelve living centres of Breath Awakens, one breathed in each of the first twelve Moons of One Breath, All Ages.
Solar Stations
The equinoxes, the solstices and the four cross-quarter days between them: eight moments, at every 45° of the Sun's path.
Lunation Spiral
The real Moon, counted from 1 to 235 over 19 years from the New Moon of 19 March 2026.

Measured and meant. The astronomy here is measured. The breath phases, archetypes and still point are a symbolic reading, offered as a practice rather than a claim about physics. The Why Codex? page and the book mark each claim as established, contested or symbolic.

Begin with today's breath