And Happy Lamas to our friends in the Southern Hemisphere. I hope you are having a plentiful harvest.
I was just reading up on Chinese New Year. The Chinese calendar is Lunarsolar. Which means they have lunar months but try to keep them in line with the solar year (like the Jewish calendar* but unlike the Muslim calendar which is totally lunar). Chinese months begin on the Dark Moon (not the full or the first crescent). And the days begin at midnight (not sunset or sunrise).
The first month of the Chinese new year in the current Han calendar is the dark moon closest to the Vernal Commences. Which (as near as I can figure) is set to Feb 2 (Gregorian calendar) by a day count from the Winter Solstice. Technically they divide the time between winter solstices by 24 (twice as much as a zodiac sign). Since the Gregorian calendar (our current calendar) is designed to keep the spring equinox as close as possible to March 21st this is sort of handy.
So, this year the Chinese New Year is Feb 18 (the dark moon closest to Feb 2).
Our current calendar could be called a strict solar count with arbitrary "months" that were once associated with lunar months. Apparently the Roman calendar was a political football that got kicked around a lot for reasons that have nothing to do with astronomy of the seasons. The Romans sometimes counted years from the founding of Rome. But usually they counted how may years into the current consulship (usually seven). Julian tried to fix things, but after the fall of Rome everybody started messing with the dates. Individual kingdoms would count the years from the coronation of the current king. And some places liked to start the new year on the spring equinox. So the new year would being on March 21, instead of on Jan 1 or even at the beginning of a new month. When the US accepted the Gregorian calendar adjustments George Washington's birthday not only changed dates but changed years.
George Washington was born in Virginia on February 11, 1731, according to the then-used Julian calendar. In 1752, however, Britain and all its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar which moved Washington's birthday a year and 11 days to February 22, 1732.
People tend to take calender dates for grated but they are totally arbitrary and indeterminate. We may feel that we have good reasons for counting days and years the way we do but other people have had just as good of reasons to count differently.
*Tishri 1 (Rosh Hashanah) was Jewish Year 5775 beginning sunset September 24, in 2014 and will be Jewish Year 5776, sunset September 13, 2015
Source: invocation-rituals.blogspot.com
