The Beginning of the Cycle

Are we entering a new time?

Among Jose Arguelles’ most compelling insights, he investigated the calendar as a crucially important social technology that defines a particular civilization or community’s relationship to time. The calendar is, Arguelles realized, a meta-programming device for the human mind. Generally, we don’t notice this or think about it — the programming happens subliminally.

The calendar is a bit like the baseline in a jazz or pop song. As we listen to the melody or concentrate on the song’s lyrics, we may not even be conscious of the bass’s regular pulsation, yet it provides the underlying structure and rhythm. Without it, the song would collapse into noise.

The calendar used across most of our current global monoculture is the Gregorian calendar, introduced by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, which was a revision of an earlier Roman calendar, the Julian (formulated by Julius Caesar In 46 BC, modifying an older version). The Gregorian calendar has some bizarre idiosyncrasies. For one thing, we follow months that are completely disconnected from natural cycles.

The word “month” derives from the word “moon.” Months were originally meant to be “moon-ths,” attuned to the waxing and waning of our local satellite, which affects the ocean tides as well as women’s menstrual cycles. Some 2000 years ago, the Romans made a switch from a calendar that followed the lunar cycle to one based on a quite arbitrary division of the year into twelve (unequal) parts.

Lunations occur close to every 29.6 days, with some variation. There are thirteen lunations in a year. Yet our calendar consists of twelve months, and these months are made up of arbitrary numbers of days, ranging from 28 to 31. Our months, therefore, have no relationship to the lunar cycles.

Why did this happen? And why does it matter?