Today marks the New Year for 3 of the fixed year solar calendars, i.e. the 365-, 363-, and 361-day calendars. Below you can download the 11-month calendar, which is the only calendar that begins today that has regular months (33 days in this case).
Year 11 (12~Rabbit) by 11 months 33-day month, 3 x 11-day week Jun 22 2023 to Jun 20 2024 Fixed Year 11 (12~VIII) pdf
365-day Binary Year
On the calendar above, today is a yellow day at the very top. The days progress clockwise.
the longest Northern Day, the longest Southern Night
The Solstice marks the end of the Solar Year for odd-numbered calendars (365-, 363-, and 361-day calendars), and also the end of the first semester for even numbered calendars (364-, 362-, and 360-day calendars).
Next year, Jun 21 2024 is theAbysmal’s Leap Day.
So many reasons to celebrate, and they can all be encoded into the calendar.
Today marks yet another of theAbysmal Calendar’s interlocking New Years.
This past year I’ve been developing a novel calendar system, which divides the year into 363 + 2 days. The 363 days are divided into 11 months of 33 days each. Each month is made up of three weeks of 11 days. There are also three terms of 121 days.
The first day of the year is today, Jun 22 (21 in a leap year).
It’s Northern Winter and Southern Summer. How do you figure a global calendar?
The question of the different ways we experience the year has been an interesting challenge, but fortunately, the Sun and Earth provide us with a complementary reflection.
13 months shaded for daylight Northern Hemisphere
Above we have the 13 months of the Year for the Northern Hemisphere. The Year begins at the bottom at the Winter Solstice (dec 21), and progresses clockwise through the year.
13 Months shaded for daylight, Southern Hemisphere
Above, the equivalent calendar for the Southern Hemisphere. The dark days of Winter stay at bottom, so the Year begins at the Southern Solstice at top, and progresses counter-clockwise aka widdershins, throughout the year.
In the North, if we face the path of the Sun, then we face South. The Sun rises in the East (to the left) and sets in the West (to the right) describing a clockwise direction.
In the South, if we face the path of the Sun, then we face North. The Sun rises in the East (to the right) and sets in the West (to the left) describing a counterclockwise direction.
I imagine a global game of catch, where at the Summer Solstice, we pass the sun back over the Equator, where our counterparts pass it back at the Winter Solstice.
The point being, I don’t understand Christmas, or any Winter Celebrations, that take place at the height of Summer (Australia, New Zealand, I’m looking at you).
But local customs aren’t for me to understand, just to enjoy or avoid, depending on the details.
Have a happy year, regardless of when it begins, how long it lasts, and how you dance it.
Experimenting with possible calendars. There’s lots to play with.
I’ve been tinkering for a while with the various ways we can organize the 365 days of the year. I’ve been focused on the 13-month calendar which divides the year in several ways: 52 x 7-day weeks, which can further be organized by fortnight, month, quarter, and semester; 28 x 13-day weeks, which can further be organized by double, house, quarter, and semester.
There are any number of ways to divide the year: the Gregorian’s irregular 12 months, the more regular 13 months of the Persian calendar, the lunar months of any number of systems, the various market weeks of diverse systems (2-day weeks all the way to 20-day weeks). What else is possible?
I’ve discovered two possible structures: one that reflects the change in daylight throughout the year in the higher latitudes, and the other that is simply an ongoing experiment in trying to evoke a little chaos.
We’ve laid out an imaginary grid over the Earth, which we measure in degrees, minutes, and seconds. Above marks one of the centres of North America, in the territory of Dakota, Lakota, Santee, and/or Yanktonai peoples.
In very rough terms, we use this coordinate system to pinpoint any given location on Earth (and along with elevation, in all three dimensions). Our place in this grid is also a guide as to how we experience time.
Rethinking Time 