Today is 05 Marx 53 ASE.
Many years ago, I created a new calendar to replace the grossly-erroneous Christian calendar of Pope Gregory XIII. The Gregorian calendar was based upon religious precepts rather than upon astronomical observations. Consequently, it did not serve a multi-ethnic population which existed on Planet Earth, and still doesn’t. My Universal Calendar corrects that mistake.
First of all, New Year’s Day will fall on the Vernal Equinox, i.e. the first day of Spring. I chose that day because we humans should celebrate life in its many forms. Life is a never-ending cycle: Birth, growth, death, re-birth – generation after generation, world without end. I could have chosen the Winter Solstice when, our primitive ancestors believed, the Sun was re-born and the daylight hours increased. But because Winter represents death and dying, it is better to think positive.
The Universal Calendar consists of 13 months of 28 days each. The Chas does not fear the number 13 which is a hold-over from ancient superstitions. Each month contains four weeks of seven days each. Now, dear reader, if you remember your basic mathematics, you know that 13 x 28 = 364. Aha! you may shout, “The Chas is not quite right in the head, because everyone knows that the solar year consists of 365 ¼ days.” The Chas has foreseen this discrepancy. An extra day has been added to the Universal Calendar; it is called “Mid-Year’s Day,” and it occurs between the end of the second week and the beginning of the third week of the seventh month. This day will be devoted to charitable activities. And because the solar year does have 365¼ days, Leap Year’s Day has been retained, occurring at the end of every fourth year of the Universal Calendar rather than at the end of February. This day will be devoted to leisure activities.
The names of the months in the current calendar will be discarded and replaced by either numerals or by the names of the greatest thinkers throughout history. The Chas prefers the latter. The names of the days of the week in the old calendar have been discarded because they derived from Roman and Norse mythology and replaced by numerals, with the exception of the aforementioned Days.
Lastly, an appropriate Year One will follow an important event recognized by all of humankind. I chose 1969 (old reckoning) because it followed a series of social and political upheavals in 1968. Currently, we are in the month of Marx 53 ASE (Age of Social Evolution). I could have chosen the year after the Russians launched Sputnik (1957) in which case the date would be Marx 64 ASE, Age of Space Exploration.
New Year’s Day, the Autumnal Equinox, and the Summer and Winter Solstices are designated as world holidays when all economic activity is discouraged so that humankind may reflect upon more philosophical matters. If anyone wished to celebrate some other holiday for personal reasons, that is their choice; but those would not be included on the Universal Calendar.
The new calendar, as one can see, is free of sectarianism and parochialism, the basic faults of all previous calendars. It can be used by anyone anywhere in the world, no need to wrack one’s brain in a complicated conversion process. Scheduling one’s daily routine can be trying at times using the old calendars, because a given event falls on a different day of the week year after year. With the Universal Calendar, a given event falls on the same day year after year.
FYI, the Winter Solstice which The Chas observes scrupulously is now behind us, 21 December in old reckoning – 24 Darwin 53 ASE, new reckoning, which is the third day of the fourth week of the 10th month in the Universal Calendar. That other holiday is behind us; it fell on 28 Darwin, but it is not so predictable.
A belated Happy Solstice to you, dear reader.
Just a thought.