calendars

[arethinn]

Some of you may remember from a good while back that I was trying to think about a ritual calendar that would keep good track of both the sun and the moon. The conclusion I reached was that this was fairly impossible; thousands of years of people trying to figure it out have resulted only in having to throw out the moon (usually - e.g. the Gregorian calendar) or the sun (e.g. Muslim calendar) and stick with the other as the main governor of timekeeping. I was perusing the Encyclopedia Britannica entry on calendars this morning over breakfast and discovered that the vagaries of the modern Gregorian calendar had inspired two types of "fixed" calendars: the International Fixed Calendar, and the World Calendar.

The International Fixed Calendar deals with the problem of the unevenness of months by having 13 months of 28 days (the extra month is called Sol and placed between June and July) with an extra day at the end of the year that has no date and no weekday designation. Additionally, in what we call "leap years", another day is added after the last day of June. This calendar, like the Julian calendar, allows holidays with fixed dates to fall on the same day of the week every year; every month begins on Sunday and ends on Saturday. This calendar doesn't easily divide into quarters for business purposes, however.

The World Calendar uses four quarters of 91 days each, again with an extra day having no date and no weekday at the end of the year, and intercalating a day in leap years. The months in each quarter are 30, 30, and 31 days long. This of course does neat quarters, but has uneven months which make dates shift weekdays as our current calendar does.

Obviously one would have to choose the flaws that bothered one least, but what I like about both of these calendars is the true "days out of time" that occur in both of them. Modern Pagans often like to try to think about some day of the year as being the "day" of "a year and a day" (for example the day after Hallows, or the Winter Solstice), but of course it has an actual date and a weekday and you have to kind of pretend. I think if one got used to one of these two calendars, especially if brought up with it from childhood, that the idea of "time out of time" would have a lot firmer root. I think it would be really interesting.

This does, of course, present some interesting problems for babies born on such a day! Maybe it would become another one of those "signs of a born witch" we have a number of in folklore.

Comments

[tyrsalvia.livejournal.com]

Wow, neat. I like time-out-of-time.

[twopiearr.livejournal.com]

and then just to further complicate things, you are aware of the movement for the 28 hour day (http://www.dbeat.com/28/)?

[arethinn]

Ugh. That would really throw me off. My sleep-wake cycle likes to happen during the same general period of time (naturally, I gravitate towards sleeping around 4 am and getting up at noonish). Having it cycle around with the periods of light and dark in my sleep being different would drive me batty. And 10 hour workdays? no thanks! I have a hard enough time enduring 8. I prefer more shorter periods rather than fewer longer periods (I always preferred 5-day 1-hour classes rather than 2-day 2.5-hour classes).

[shalora.livejournal.com]

(I always preferred 5-day 1-hour classes rather than 2-day 2.5-hour classes).
Thank you! I'm the same way. All my friends at school think I'm nuts (and it doesn't matter now that I'm in clinicals anyway), but it is so much easier for me to stay focused for several short periods of time!
I don't suppose any of that is due to having mild ADD... ;)

[arethinn]

Actually it would devide up very nicely into quarters, every 13 weeks

*shrugs* I was just quoting the encyclopedia article. I didn't check it myself.

[arethinn]

Read this a little more closely now - I think what they meant by "easily divide" is that it's desirable to have the quarter days line up with the start or end of months, which wouldn't be possible with a 13-month calendar.

[ihlathi.livejournal.com]

The Balinese have some pretty complex calendars that keep track of hundreds of cycles. Maybe try looking that up?