to Leap or not to

That’s a question, if not the question.

Happy Leap Day everyone!

By a fortunate coincidence (amazing how many of these keep turning up), the Leap Day occurs during theAbysmal 13-month Calendar’s Rabbit Year, which is determined by the glyph from the 260-day calendar that falls on the Dec 21 new year. Just so we’re clear, Dec 21 2023 was 12~VIII (Rabbit). Dec 21 2027 will be 3~VIII (Rabbit), 2031 will be 7~VIII, 2035 will be 11~VIII and so on.

The Leap Day is observed as part of theAbysmal Calendar’s Fixed and Scintillating Years (see All the Years for details). These calendars keep aligned with the Seasons, i.e. the Solstices and Equinoxes, and to do so, we observe this periodic Leap Day. With the Fixed Year, the Leap Day is a blank – it falls between the weeks, isn’t part of any month, doesn’t bear a colour, number, or glyph from the 260-day calendar. It’s a hoppy holiday. In the case of the Scintillating Calendar, a colour is assigned to the Leap Day, but none of the other measures. Today’s colour is green (East). This scheme is what lead to the 256-day calendar.