Many of the ancient calendars such of those of India, had months with lengths of 30 days. The original Roman calendar had ten months in the year of either 30 or 31 days. The winter period was without formal length and was called Intercalaris. When it ended, Martius or March began. March was named after the Roman god of war and it was when taxes for war campaigns were collected based on the spring crops that were planted. This is why our current fiscal year still ends on April 15th, and that is why our taxes are due then. It was around 800 B.C. when Romulus, who was thought to be the first Roman king, made extensive changes to the month lengths, assigning 29 days to some and 31 to others. Shortly after Romulus’ death, a priest observed the sky and “called out” when there was a new moon, which evolved into our word for month. The word “Kalends or Calends” means calare (to announce solemnly, to call out). This lead to the invention of the word calendar-as applied to the whole cycle.
In 713 B.C., Numa, the king who followed Romulus, added January and February to the original Roman calendar of only ten months. The first five months were named after Roman Gods but the last five months were named after Latin numerical names. The addition of January and February shifted the names of the other months so that they no longer made sense. This left us with Quintilis, meaning the 5th month which was shifted to the 7th month. Sextilis, meaning the 6th month was shifted to the 8th month. Septembre meaning the 7th month was shifted to the 9th month. October, meaning the 8th month was shifted to the 10th month. Novem, meaning the 9th month was shifted to the 11th month. Decembre meaning the 10th month was shifted to the12th month. These names had little association to anything that was happening in nature. Alternatively, some Native Americans named months (moons) for animals that appeared during that season, or for things that related to planting, hunting or gathering.
In the year 153 B.C., Rome changed the first month of the calendar from March (the month of the god of war) to January 1st. This was because the military leaders felt that there was not enough time to train the troops for the summer war campaigns. In 58 BC, Julius Caesar began the campaigns that led to the Roman annexation of the whole of Gaul which wiped out the culture that was developing Stonehenge which was based on the Sun cycle. Many of the Celtic tribes that lived east of the Rhine were conquered or moved to west of the Rhine. Eventually the only remaining tribes were in Ireland and Scotland. The Celts first appeared in history in the 9th century BCE. The Celts, were made up the various tribes, called ‘Galli’ by the Romans, and ‘Galatai’ or ‘Keltoi’ by the Greeks. Both terms meant ‘barbarian’ which would support the idea that they previously lived east of the Rhine because part of Germany is called Bavaria. Perhaps their ancient roots were connected to a proven ancient migration from Bengal India. Perhaps the word Galli is connected to Bengali or Gallic. At the height of their power, their territory stretched from the British Isles to Turkey. The Celtic beliefs were slowly destroyed by Christianity. Saint Patrick (who was captured by the Celts as a boy) is alleged to have personally burned close to 180 Irish books written in the Celtic language. This set an example for Christian zealots who destroyed every piece of Druidic literature they could find. The Druids were the Celtic Priesthood who had three divisions: the Bards (poets), who wore blue robes; the Ovates (prophets & philosophers), who wore green; and the priests, who wore white. For clans entirely dependent on the volatile natural world, the oral stories were an important source of comfort and direction during the long, dark winter.
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© Copyright2009 Kelly Sabota-O’Donnell
Many cultures developed astroarchitecture which evolved from tracking the Sun and the clockwork of the heavens. The Sundial was the first clock and measured time by the position of the Sun’s shadow from the center post, called the gnomon. It is inclined to the horizontal at an angle that equals the latitude of the sundial’s location. Some Egyptian obelisks may have acted as the gnomon of Sun dials. On Harris Island, Ireland, is a druid stone circle with a stone in the center that reads Clack-na-Greine, which translates as “the stone of the sun”. Sun worship eventually led to the understanding of how the heavens controlled the time of nature’s cycles, and operated like turning wheels. This eventually led the ancient Greeks to develop the complicated Antikythera gear mechanism in 150–100 BC and astrolabes that eventually evolved into the modern mechanical Clock.
Astrolabe Model
Astrolabe looks remarkably like Yggdrasil
These early clocks operated like astrolabes and were designed to produce a continual display of the current position of the sun, stars, and planets. For example, Richard of Wallingford’s clock, dating to 1330AD, consisted of a star map rotating behind a fixed rete. Many medieval astronomical clocks, such as the famous Orloj clock at Prague, use an astrolabe style display, with a projection of the ecliptic plane. Time itself is something critical and intrinsic to the Great Mystery. Clearly the clock reveals a divine and intelligent design to life. This is not the intelligent design as referred to by Evangelical Christians, but a scientific design that includes evolution. Therefore to align with nature’s design one must align with the natural forces of the energy of the sun and the solstices cycle of time. If we do not believe that mankind’s consciousness has evolved since the beginning of time until this moment, we can not believe that he can become more conscious in the future.
It is time to reflect on mankind’s relationship to time. Without the Earth’s rotation around the Sun, how would we know what time it was? No matter where you are on the planet, you are moving at the orbital speed of the Earth, which averages about 67,000 miles per hour. The earths rotational speed on the equator is about 17miles per minute. Our unifying force is time which has a sacred element to it that is universal to all peoples in all times. In retrospect, we can understand how our primitive calendars were created based on the Sun cycle, because of the need for planning for agricultural cycles, hunting and migration cycles, for divination or forecasting events, and for celebration of religious and civil events. Calendars link mankind with the cosmos and have a sacred status as a source of social order and cultural identity. Unfortunately, the Gregorian calendar is used to coordinate business, social appointments, politics, production, nationalistic celebrations and religious events, but sadly it is disconnected with the natural and celestial cycles. This is the primary reason that is it critical that mankind think about and study history of how time itself is represented and used by man.
© Copyright 2009 Kelly Sabota-O’Donnell
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