only disturb the ecclesiastical calendar, but most of the proposed plans would destroy the continuity of the days of the
week and upset the system of planetary hour rulerships which is almost as ancient as the recording of time. The seven
days of the week represented the quadrants of the Moon's period in an age when time was reckoned almost entirely by
the Moon. Methuselah's great age of 969 years was doubtless that many lunar months, then called years, which if
reduced to Gregorian years as we know them would make him around 79 years of age.
The all but universal division of the year into twelve months, and of the Earth's annual orbit into twelve arcs, appears to
be a recognition of the changes in equilibrium that take place during the traversal of the circuit: a moving body (the
Earth) bent into an orbit, by the attraction of a gravitational center (the Sun) which also pursues an orbit around a more
remote gravitational center (the center of our Milky Way galaxy). Present astronomical opinion places this center at a
remote point in the direction of 0° Capricorn, which is also the direction of the Earth's polar inclination. This suggests
that it may not be merely the Earth that oscillates, causing the pole to describe the circle from which results the 25,000-
year precessional cycle, but the entire plane of the Earth's motion. This would be analogous to the Moon's intersection of
the plane of the Earth's orbit at the Nodes, at an inclination of 5°, thereby producing a three-dimensional motion. The
Earth's orbit may even be inclined to the Sun by the amount of the polar inclination making the equinoctial points the
Earth's nodes of intersection with the plane of the Sun's orbit.
In any event in order that the calendar shall coincide with the seasons it must bear a fixed relationship to the Vernal
Equinox, for in the last analysis the unit by which the year is determined is the Earth's orbit as measured from one
Vernal Equinox to the next. The few moments of time represented by the discrepancy between a complete circle and the
precession of the point of reference is the only figment of time actually thrown away and unaccounted for in any
calendar.
If we must have calendar reform, it would be far more practical to make the year begin at the Vernal Equinox, and so
allocate the days among the months that the first day of each successive month shall coincide approximately with the
ingress of the Sun into each sign. This could be accomplished by 12 months of 30 days each, with a 31st day after the
2nd, 4th, 6th, 8th and 10th months, and on leap years after the 12th month; and by making all the 31st days holidays or
moratorium days, hence not to be included in any calculations of interest, rent or other legal considerations. The legal
year would consist 360 days, and computations be thereby greatly simplified.
If some one February were ordered prolonged by 20 days, February 48th to be followed by March 1st on the day of the
Vernal Equinox, it would reinstate September to December as respectively the 7th, 8th, 9th, and 10th months, and end
the year with February 30th, or on leap years, the 3st. The holidays could readily be celebrated on these moratorium
days, and even the Fourth of July could preserve its name and character and still be observed on the moratorium day that
preceded the first day of July.
There would be no advantage in making Easter a fixed date, and its determination under present rules could still be done
as readily as is the date for the Jewish Passover. Such a reform would, however, result in great psychological gain to the
peoples of the world. Some claim, on Biblical authority, that the year should begin on the Summer Solstice, and that by
dedicating to the Creator the middle of the 3 days when the Sun hangs motionless, the year will divide into 2 halves of
equal size, each consisting of 182 days - the first half feminine and the second half masculine.
The importance of a New Year point of beginning is to be seen in the manner in which in all ages the advent of the New
Year has been celebrated with festivities.
Babylon, in 2250 B.C., celebrated New Year at the Vernal Equinox, with an 11-day festival, Zagmuk, in honor of their
patron deity, Marduk. The Egyptians, Phoenicians and Persians celebrated it at the time of the Autumnal Equinox. Until