Discussing Calendars and a Look At Some of My Wall Art for 2022

The year is ticking down, less than 48 hours until we're in a new one. Years and calculating them with calendars strike me as odd today. Indisputably, the seasons move onward, from the season of heat towards that of cold and back again. Plants sprout, grow, bear their fruit and then die. It's an annual cycle that is echoed in our own life cycle, as it progresses from birth towards death. Nobody escapes the cycle. Nobody can step off the wheel and then back onto it again at will. 

I've been buying the "Witches' Calendar" for more than 
a decade. I love the art in these - all woodcuts and 
color. The artist is incredibly talented and I adore looking 
at the art every morning. 

The actual calendar that most of us use is a construct, and rather a bit of a mish-mash at that. It was a calendar started by people so long ago that their names and tribes are lost in the depths of time. Over the centuries it was molded and altered by conquest, edicts and science, until we have the calendar that most of the world uses now. The months are named differently in each nation, but December 30th is the equivalent in French, German, and even Telugu (although I can't put their alphabet into my own character set). 

"Gardens of the Spirit" calendar is another one I've used 
for more than a decade. Each month features a beautiful 
portion of a Japanese garden as well as an adage for 
thoughtful life. I absolutely love this calendar. 

There are differences, of course. Our standard Gregorian or Julian calendars are a solar calendar. Many other calendars are lunar (Buddhist and Islamic). The Gregorian calendar is 10.8 minutes shorter than the Julian calendar, and that difference mounts up over the years and centuries. The Jewish calendar is a lunar/solar calendar. When I was young, one of my relatives in Israel sent me a Jewish calendar every year. I was always a bit bewildered by it. We are currently in Year 5782 of the Jewish calendar, which rolls over in early September. 

I've been getting this one for the past few years. I love the 
concept and style of good environmental art, and since 
Andy Goldsworthy doesn't have a calendar, this is the 
closest I've been able to find. It always has lovely installations. 
Environmental art is almost always fugitive - not art for 
the millennia, but sometimes art for as short as a few 
hours. That's part of the joy in art of this type - it's 
not museum art, it's art for the sake of creating art. 

Having a strong calendrical cycle allows for more accurate communications between people. Instead of "I'll drop by to visit you twenty suns after the Innundation begins", you have I'll see you on April 20th. It's easier to plan within a codified structure, and it is one more foundational stone for a government to establish a toehold within a culture. One of the first things any conqueror would do was to replace the calendar system with one of his own (if they were different). That new system, combined with new coinage, a new language, and sometimes new festivals, would cement the position of the conqueror into firm governance. 

DH loves the art of Royo, a Spanish artist who paints beautiful 
women with sensuality and more reality than the more plastic 
faces and eyes that others tend to portray. I make sure I get 
him a Royo calendar every year (some years it can be a hard 
one to find). 

So as we all get ready to change to new calendars on Saturday, think about how convenient this framework and structure has made our lives. We can set appointments, celebrate annual occasions, keep track of this and that, and generally plot our own course on the River of Life. I'm looking forward to my new calendars - all that uncharted space waiting to be filled with the detritus of my daily life. Have an excellent Thursday and I'll be back tomorrow.