Pages

Monday, January 2, 2012

Our First Snow ???

www.NaBloPoMo.com

Winter has not really come to my corner of the world yet. Oh, I know what the calendar says, that it is already January, But winter does not really begin for me until we have measurable snowfall, and that has not happened as of yet. It is supposed to begin snowing here in the afternoon. We shall wait and see.

Did you ever wonder why someone, somewhere doesn't realign the calendars and the seasons? You know, have the winter solstice be the  first day of winter as well as the first day of the year, and be divided into three months equal to the number of days until the spring equinox.Then first day of spring would be the first day of the fourth month, the first day of summer would be the first day of the seventh month, as well as the summer solstice. The autumnal equinox is largely overlooked anyway, now it could be accorded equal status. The first day of the tenth month.

A scholar I am not, but I seem to recall from my addiction to the written word, the calendar as we use it is a result of politics more than science, and it is out of whack. Why else would we need a leap year? Indigenous peoples across the globe marked the passage of time by the skies and the climate for who knows how long  before Caesar Augustus (or which ever Roman emperor it was) had to screw it up for us all.

Then the Catholic church had to get involved, in their quest for world domination and the way years are counted was changed. The whole thing is just enough to make a woman's head hurt. My first husband used to say he didn't try to read the Bible, or really think about religion much at all because it made his brain hurt. I can sort of understand that - it is like when you look at the night sky with a telescope, or lean back too far in a recliner. You get all disoriented.

I am a simple person, and just think it would be easier and more logical if ideologies did not predicate the way entire civilizations function day to day and mark the passage of time. And don't even get me started on time zones and daylight savings time! Did you know that Samoa (not to be confused with American Samoa) changed time zones and did not have a December 30, 2011, because it put them on the other side of the International Dateline? There should be one clock, placed at one of the magnetic poles, that set the time for everyone.

Did you know that the time zones in the US were set by the railroads back in the 1800's? An arbitrary determination made by a bunch of businessmen that set the tone for an entire country. Sound familiar?

Well, that is enough rambling and ranting for today. The snow is here - if we have a measurable amount I will post pictures.

1 comment:

  1. The equal points between the solstice and the equinox do fall on the first of the month -- February, May, August, and November. These four points were also very important in the Pagan calendar. But the shift from 10 to 12 months did kind of make things a bit crazy (and it must have been Cesar since he got two months named after him that throw everything off). My favorite is that Atlantic Canada (Newfoundland) is 1/2 an hour earlier than Eastern time -- that is the craziest.

    ReplyDelete