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Tuesday, October 16, 2007

In Between Days: Thoughts turning with the calendar


Back in 1582, Pope Gregory XIII proclaimed a new calendar that corrected a flaw in the Julian method of date-keeping that previously held sway. The older misaccounting of years caused a lag that resulted in the loss of a day almost every century. The Gregorian made solar amends by dropping leap days for centuries not divisible by 400 (for example, in 2000 there was an extra day, but in 2100 there won't be).

Adding to the bitterness of the corrective pill to be swallowed, Gregory struck the dates Oct. 5 through 14 of 1582 from the historical record. Many contemporary folks felt cheated of 10 days of their lives, and balked at the idea. It took the stubborn Brits, along with their colonies, until 1752 to fall into step with the rest of Europe. The Russians required a revolution before joining in the fun in 1918.

I've always been fascinated by the history of the Western reckoning of time; trying to synch our increasingly irregular quotidian cycles to the natural rhythms of the world and universe. We often fool ourselves that we're masters of temporal passages. We sprinkle our leap years with extra days to compensate for imprecise measure of the sun's annual sojourn. We push clock hands forward and back pretending to control the sun's rise and fall.

There are times when skipping ahead into the future might seem a blessing. In the midst of difficult seas, we all want to fast forward to a smoother patch of water. It's usually those in between days that offer us the best opportunity for growth, however, and the hardships of the journey enable us to savor the safe harbor of a destination reached.

In many ways we reside in an in between time now; a threshold moment where technological advances are making possible great social shifts. We stand paused in the doorway between two worlds afraid to step into the seeming darkness that lies ahead. There's a great temptation to turn and go back, but that door is closed and locked behind us. We can best light our way forward with a creative vision fueled by hope rather than fear, using the torch of our imaginations to discern the new possibilities.

The Mayans had their own calendar, and it tracked our world's turning until December 21, 2012. On that date, which they defined as 13.0.0.0.0, we're supposed to enter a new world age. There's some debate about the exact significance of this end date (see The How and Why of the Mayan End Date in 2012 A.D.), but I choose to look at the prophesied rebirth as more metaphorical than physical. Dramatic changes are in store for human kind. Whether the transformation proves positive or negative will depend on our choices in these in between days.

In Between Days
by The Cure

Yesterday I got so old
I felt like I could die
Yesterday I got so old
It made me want to cry

Go on, go on, just walk away
Go on, go on, your choice is made
Go on, go on, and disappear
Go on, go on, away from here

And I know I was wrong
When I said it was true
That it couldn't be me and be her
In between without you, without you

Yesterday I got so scared
I shivered like a child
Yesterday away from you
It froze me deep inside

Come back, come back, don't walk away
Come back, come back, come back today
Come back, come back, why can't you see?
Come back, come back, come back to me

And I know I was wrong
When I said it was true
That it couldn't be me and be her
In between without you, without you ...

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you ask 100 people on the street, I`m affraid to say how many would remember if normal day time is (right now) 11:45 am or 10:45 am.

Religious point of view, certain things still happen on Iulian calender time. And I don`t point to only majority of ortodoxy (as number of practicants, the majority).

I don`t have the tools to measure if missing days are correctly removed from new calendar (gregorian) or not. yet I can question the good will of a religious based change enforced by pope institution.
Same pope institution which killed Giordano Bruno, which stoped for centuries science progress, which granted paid "God forgiveness", which granted to spanish and portughese death-and-live rights for new discovered lands (Siracusa treaty, I think), ... and so on.

As far as I know, pope institution were in a moment of mass loosing catolics practicants in favour of lutheranism and made peace with science(?) just to regain control ..

if you haven`t yet seen "Zeitgeist", spend 2 hours to watch it - right side bar on my site, miscelaneous area, first link.

MAYBE you`ll find an "explanation" about year 2012 .. :-P

Francis Scudellari said...

Hi Valentin,
No arguing the point that the papacy has had a pretty nasty history, especially in relation to science and the abuse of its power.

I will check out Zeitgeist ... when I have a free 2 hours :). I want to learn more about the Maya calendar. The movie "The Fountain" had an interesting discussion of Xibalba, and it peaked my interest. According to that article I linked to, there will be an interesting astonomical event on Dec. 21, 2012 that corresponds to the Mayan myth of the Tree of Life.

Lisa McGlaun said...

Francis,
This is all so interesting. My in-laws took a trip to Mexico recently and toured the Mayan ruins. They came back talking endlessly about the end of the Mayan Calendar.

I want to stand with you and believe that the speculation is about a metaphysical change, a giant leap forward in humanity, not destruction.

People love to through out doomsday prophecies. I have five children that I'd like to see live long full lives so I choose not to read or believe in the validity of such ramblings.

If there is demise in our future it will be brought on by us turning back (as you said) and being afraid to walk forward into the unknown.

Best Wishes,
Lisa

Francis Scudellari said...

Hi Lisa,
I agree completely. I really believe in the power of the human imagination to shape our future. If we keep creating dire images of the future, that's what we'll probably end up getting. If we focus instead on positive outcomes, and invest our energy into shaping the world we want, I know we can get it. That's why I like blogs like yours that focus on the good things people are doing.

Jennifer Jones said...

Hi Francis...

Very nice post!

I have this fascination with the Mayan Calandars.. what amazes me is how our ancestors knew the skies... it was the source of myth, the origin of the mystery.

Sometimes I sit and try to imagine what it would have been like to sit there and look at the stars without knowing what they were... I mean seriously, they most likely invisioned them as some little fire in the sky.

And yet, we realize how intimately they knew the skies...

And out of their oneness with the skies came our stories.

I have a sense we have separated ourselves from this connection!

Ohhh and I'm with Val... Zeitgeist is pretty intriguing! :-)

Jen

Francis Scudellari said...

Hi Jen,
Well, I guess I better check out Zetigeist sooner rather than later. We in big cities feel particularly cut off from the stars as we can't see much of them due to the light pollution surrounding us. I do think that's a big loss, and I personally would like to learn alot more about them. The Maya's ability to read the skies and project the heavenly movements is amazing. I'm looking forward to Dec. 12, 2012 to see what happens.