What’s your sign—Mayan style? Free reading PLUS signed copy of Zero Time

For this week’s giveaway, we have two "grand prizes," but everyone's a winner with a FREE Mayan astrology reading. We’re leaving the literary world and delving into secrets of the cosmos. Are you with me?

For years, I’ve had a passion for astrology and Mesoamerican culture—that’s the Mayans and Aztecs. So, you can just imagine how excited I was to discover How to Practice Mayan Astrology by Bruce Scofield and Barry C. Orr!

Ever since I learned about Mayan astrology, I kept picturing a studly Mayan guy with huge jade earplugs leaning over a red-robed priestess and saying, “Hey baby, what’s your sign?” You won’t see that scene in my just-released historical fantasy novel, ZERO TIME, but one of the characters does practice Mayan astrology.   

So, you may ask, what’s different about Mayan astrology? Well, a lot. According to Scofield and Orr, “the major difference between Western and Mayan astrology is that Western astrology interprets sky events (i.e. astronomical cycles, eclipses, planetary alignments, etc.) spatially” while in ancient Mexico, “the same sky events were interpreted in terms of their significant influence on the period of time in which they occurred.”

From a layman’s perspective, the Mayan Day sign is like your Sun sign in Western astrology. What I like is that two people who have the same Sun sign usually have different Day signs, which just seems more accurate. For instance, my fellow Writers’ Lens contributor Brad Cook and I are both Leos, born one day apart (Aug. 12 and Aug. 13), though I’m about a century older. (Maybe it just feels that way?) His Day sign is 8 Ocelot (Maya: 8 Ix) while mine is 8 Flower (Maya: 8 Ahau).  

This brings me to how everyone’s a winner in this giveaway contest, thanks Scofield and Orr. Just go to www.onereed.com and click “FREE Sample report” on the Maya-Aztec Astral Report page. It asks the standard questions: your name, birthdate and email address.

To make things more interesting, if you’d like to see the real deal--your full Mayan astrology report that's a complete personality delineation about 10 pages long--leave a comment or question on The Writers' Lens Blog between Nov. 7 and Nov. 12, 2011. Please include your email so I can reach you if you win.

To celebrate the release of  ZERO TIME, I’m also including a signed copy in this giveaway!

The more comments you leave, the greater YOUR chance of winning the contest prizes--your full Mayan astrology report AND a signed copy of ZERO TIME. The winner will be chosen after midnight on Saturday and the announcement made on Sunday, Nov. 13.

Thanks for entering, and be sure to check out the rest of this week’s posts. I’m continuing the celestial focus on Wednesday with some research tips!