A grouping of random sunsets
Do you agree that every calendar is just a construct made to contain and categorize the un-containable flow of Time?
The 7-day week is the contemporary fashion of tracking time, with evidence of it going back to 6 century BC in Babylonia. I currently rely on the Gregorian calendar of 1582. The whole shebang attempts to follow the course of the lunar cycle.
The lunar phases change from 6 to 8 days between full, half waxed, new and half waned stations. It’s roughly a 29 period of days to each lunar month cycle. An old Jewish book says that “the Moon was created for the counting of the days.”
Painting of the full moon in Switzerland, two years ago.
But who has been watching the sky? I find myself too absorbed in the details of each week and losing sight of the bigger picture. As I lay out the month in calendar form, I see holes and calls for action. I see weekends and weekdays.
If we truly understood ourselves to live in the higher power, to be divine examples of love and goodness, could we abandon this idea of the weekends and weekdays? Could we reframe the week to reflect our goals of relationships and our desires for wholeness? If I did that, as an experiment, where would the week change? Each day would be about a meditation- because I am flawed and need discipline.
Perhaps the weeks would be thematic and cyclical? Questions arise. What waxes, what wanes, and where are the celebrations? And where does work fit in? There would be a week of filling up- of working and gathering, followed by the full moon week of celebration, ritual, and gratitude. Followed by the week of waning, letting go, flowing without struggle, and then the week of austere meditation, meeting the dark, and confronting the hard work ahead.
A lunar calendar!!! I like it.
Watch for my free pdf download of an October moon guide
It’s what I have been pondering for years. Now I am excited to share what I’ve been working on in my studio. My lunar collection, where each piece- a wood disk painted in acrylic and sealed with archival UVA protective varnish- is a repeating phase of the moon. On the back- which is drilled for hanging at multiple orientations- are written phrases for meditation inspired by the depicted lunar phase.
Each is one of a kind and precious.
It’s never too late to try something new. The moon is waning.
Stay tuned for the sale starting October 14 and ending October 24th, which coincides with my annual #arteastdutchess open studio event.
Keep looking up and soon you may visualize a whole new way to count time!
