TRINPsite: Book of Symbols: A Quaternary Metric Calendar

5.2.1 A QUATERNARY METRIC CALENDAR

The day that a life partner, a parent or child, a friend, or someone else one has loved or known well, dies or is cremated or buried, is a special day. Yet, it is a personal special day, that is, a day which is different from all other days for a particular person or group of people. Such a day must not be confused with a day which is special for suprapersonal reasons. Every planet revolving around the Sun or a sun, and rotating on its own axis has such suprapersonal special days.

On Earth a year is the period of about 365¼ solar days required for one revolution around the Sun. This year has two equinoxes (when the Sun is said to cross the equator) and two solstices (when the Sun's distance from the equator is greatest and it returns). During the equinoxes day and night are of equal length everywhere on Earth; during the solstices the difference between the length of the day and that of the night is maximal. Equinoxes and solstices thus divide the solar year in four equal parts, that is, quarters. Each quarter starts on what must naturally be called "a Sunday", that is, an equinoctial or solstitial quarter day.

Custodians of rather lunatic, ancient calendars may want us to believe that an equinox or solstice need not fall on a 'Sunday' at all, but could fall on a Monday or other day of the week, and that it even need not fall on the same date every year. They then refer to a collection of archaic calendars which are solar, lunar or some mixture of the two, and in which what is called "New Year's Day" does not have any connection with nature whatsoever. In these calendars the solar year is divided into twelve months of 28, 29, 30 or 31 days without any relationship between the day of the month and the day of the week. The one most widely used in the past (and for the early reader up to the present) is a calendar which was introduced by an imperial government and later altered one time by the duce of a then-powerful, 'national transnational' temple organization. Most names of the months of the religious-imperial calendar in question are either of an exclusivist (imperialist) or of a supernaturalist (polytheist) origin. And those which are meant to simply refer to the ordinal number of the month are wrong (like September, that is Seventh Month, for the ninth month). Needless to say that not only the quarter days, but also the first day of the year and of each month can fall on any day of the week according to this religious-imperial calendar, and so can every other day of the month. Those who are glad to use such a crackpot calendar and who are willing to defend this historically deformed freak of culture for perpetuity may still label it "a system", just as they used to call, or still call, the collection of gallons, stones, miles and inches "a system". Unfortunately, since such obsolete calendars (and units of measurement) cannot be taken seriously, apart from the fact that they are not, and have never been in universal use, we must first devote some time to the method for determining the dates of the observance of special days.

The nearest integer to 365¼ is 365; the nearest integer that has nontrivial positive divisors divisible by 4 (the number of quarters) 364. (364= 4x91= 7x52= 13x28.) If each quarter is to have a whole number of days, three quarters will therefore consist of 91 days and one of 92 days (containing the one day more than 364). Ninety-one days is only divisible into 7x13 or 13x7 days. At least one quarter will have to be at least one day longer, so we have a choice between 7 periods being 13 or 14 (if not 15) days long and 13 periods being 7 or 8 (if not 9) days long. As the number of periods of irregular length is relatively smaller in the latter case (1 or 2 out of 13, instead of 7), we will choose a standard of 13 periods of 7 days. Since we have no reason to deviate from traditional usage here, we will continue to call the period of seven days "a week". (The alternative of taking a period of 13 days as the smallest subdivision of a quarter longer than a day is also less attractive, for it would leave us with 7 'months' of normally as many as 52 days or 14 'months' of normally only 26 days.) Hence, a regular calendar year contains 51 weeks of 7 days and 1 week of 8 days. Because the irregularity is kept to a minimum by spreading intercalary or extra days evenly over the whole year, a leap year should contain one more week of 8 days (instead of one week of 9 days). The total number of weeks being 52, the equivalent of the traditional 'month' is a period of exactly 4 weeks. There are thirteen of these months: 12 months of 28 days (once every four years 11 of 28) and 1 month of 29 days (once every four years 2 of 29).

From the point of view of one year in isolation one might say that the best place for the extra day in the one eight-day week is at the end of the year. But from the point of view of years succeeding each other, and continuing to succeed each other, this is not correct. Because among these years there are leap years which require a place for a second extra day (or a second eight-day week). If we do not want to upset the equal distribution of days over the quarters of the year more than absolutely necessary, then that day will have to be located in the middle of the year, which will only break up the regular (non-leap) year system. By always having an eight-day week at the end of the second quarter, however, the regular succession of days in a standard year is not affected when the intercalary day is added at the very end of the year in a leap year. Moreover, with the fixed extra day exactly in the middle of the year in Equatorial Month the balance between Northern and Southern months, too, is fully maintained.

The calendar here described is not a haphazard product of political or religious history, but is founded upon natural measures of time. Therefore it may be called "a metric calendar". Properly speaking, it is then 'metric' because it relates to (natural) measurement, not because it would relate to the meter as a measure of length. Yet, in a looser sense there is a relationship between the metric calendar and the meter or the metric system. Firstly, the meter was originally the ten millionth part of one fourth of the length of a meridian. This meridian is an earthly measure of length, as a solar year of 365¼ days is an earthly measure of time; and this meridian was first divided into 4 (not 10 or 100) equal parts, as we ourselves have also first divided the year into 4 (almost) equal parts. Secondly, the metric calendar stands to a calendar such as the religious-imperial one as the metric system stands to a series of weights and measures such as the old imperial 'system' of square feet, fathoms, scruples and suchlike. Given that the meridian was first divided into four equal parts, the metric system of weights and measures is a decimal system. Unlike this system the metric calendar is quaternary in that four quarters make up a year, and in that four weeks make up a month. (A predecessor of the religious-imperial calendar tried to be decimal: it used to have a year of 300 days, divided into 10 months. Much later a competitor of the religious-imperial calendar was introduced which had decades of 10 days, but its decimal regime did not reach further than this. Having 12 months of 3 decades the 5 complementary days were set aside for political celebration. No wonder that calendar did not last much longer than one decade of 10 years.)

The first day of the year, New Year's Day, should be a Sunday. Of the four Sundays we shall assume that it is the Solstitial Day which is the Midwinter Day in the northern, and the Midsummer Day in the southern hemisphere. (The other Solstitial Day could be chosen instead, but this choice has the practical advantage that the new New Year's Day will be relatively close to the old New Year's Day of the still most frequently used religious-imperial calendar.) Granting that this New Year's Day is the first week-day of the first week, all other days of the year can now be determined by one figure indicating the number of the week (from 1 to 52) and one figure indicating the number of the week-day (from 1 to 8). For example, if X is the year, X.10.5 refers to the fifth day of the tenth week. This day is always the fifth day of the week, whatever year it may be. The metric calendar is a calendar of fixed week-days: the anniversary of any event always takes place on the same day of the week. (This disposes of the loony diaries which were, or still are, good for one particular year only, and which show on what days of the week dates will fall in the new year. Such diaries did, or still do, at the same time remind the general public of religious and political, supernaturalist or exclusivist holidays, and sometimes of no less than the birthdays of the members of a whole family revered by subservient nationals who seem to have nothing on the agenda more worthy of attention. It also disposes of so-called 'perpetual' calendars, since the metric calendar itself is perpetual.)

Strictly speaking, months are superfluous. Yet, it is easier to locate 1 out of 13 divisions in the mind than 1 out of 52. For this reason we shall introduce names for the thirteen months of the metric calendar. Even tho we reject all onomastic supernaturalism and exclusivism (or imperialism), no new morphemes are needed for this purpose in the present language: two ancient morphemes will suffice, namely Yule and Lent. The original meaning of Yule is yellow or light. It was used to refer to the return of the light after the winter solstice. We will now employ Yule for the whole quarter succeeding a Solstitial Day. The original meaning of Lent is spring(time) and this is approximately the meaning it still has when we employ it to refer to the quarter succeeding an Equinoctial Day. That is to say, a so-called 'Northern Lent' is the period between winter and summer in the northern hemisphere (which succeeds the vernal equinox), and a 'Southern Lent' the period between winter and summer in the southern hemisphere (when it is fall or 'autumn' in the North). Similarly, Northern Yule is winter in the northern and summer in the southern hemisphere, while the order is reversed in Southern Yule.

By adding Early, Mid- and Late the part of the quarter a month is in can be indicated. Hence, Northern Early Yule is the month (always 28 days) of the first four weeks of the year, Southern Late Lent the month (28 or 29 days) of the last four. Months which lie partially in a Yule quarter and partially in a Lent one should not be called "Yule" or "Lent", however. Those containing an Equinoctial Day can also have Equinoctial in their names: Northern Equinoctial (Month) if belonging to the first six, Northern months, Southern Equinoctial (Month) if belonging to the last six, Southern months. It goes without saying that the one month (the seventh) between the Northern months which represent the northern hemisphere and the Southern months which represent the southern hemisphere should be called "Equatorial (Month)". So the metric calendar reflects, as it were, a catena extensionality ranging from the extreme, polar north via the equator to the extreme, polar south. Also in this respect it is the first universal calendar of humankind; of humankind on Earth, that is.

The following table gives the complete list of the thirteen metric months with their names and the approximate equivalents in the old religious-imperial calendar already referred to. (The dates do not apply to leap years and names of an exclusivist or supernaturalist origin are not shown.)

METRIC CALENDAR				RELIGIOUS-IMPERIAL CALENDAR
months			weeks	RELIGIOUS-IMPERIAL CALENDAR

1	NEY	Northern Early Yule	1- 4	22 XII (December) -18 I
2	NMY	Northern Mid-Yule	5- 8	19 I-15 II
3	NLY	Northern Late Yule	9-12	16 II-15 III
4	NEM	Northern Equinoctial	13-16	16 III-12 IV
5	NML	Northern Mid-Lent	17-20	13 IV-10 V
6	NLL	Northern Late Lent	21-24	11 V-7 VI
7	EQU	Equatorial (Month)	25-28	8 VI-6 VII
8	SEY	Southern Early Yule	29-32	7 VII-3 VIII
9	SMY	Southern Mid-Yule	33-36	4 VIII-31 VIII
10	SEM	Southern Equinoctial	37-40	1 IX-28 IX (September)
11	SEL	Southern Early Lent	41-44	29 IX-26 X (October)
12	SML	Southern Mid-Lent	45-48	27 X-23 XI (November)
13	SLL	Southern Late Lent	49-52	24 XI-21 XII (December)

Note that the first Solstitial Day is New Year's Day (or New Year Solstital Day) and the second one Midyear's Day (or Midyear Solstitial Day), which is Midsummer Day in the northern and Midwinter Day in the southern hemisphere. To indicate the month to which a week belongs, the abbreviation of the month can (but need not) be put in front of its number. X.NLY10.5, for instance, designates the fifth day of the tenth (year-)week of Northern Late Yule. (The 10th week of the year is the 2nd week of the month of Northern Late Yule, but this number does not play a role in any notation.) Northern Late Yule is then the most detailed description: one could also say "Late Yule", "Northern Yule" or "Yule". Confusion is not possible, because there is only one week in the year with the number 10. (In codes numbers of weeks, and also of months, lower than 10 should be preceded by 0: 01, 02, etc.)

It will come in handy that week-days have names too. Obviously these names should, then, be based on their ordinal numbers (rather than, say, on the names of local gods or monarchs). And such names are already available; they only need translation. They are: Primidi, Duodi, Tridi, Quartidi, Quintidi, Sextidi, Septidi and Octidi, which may be translated as Primo(day), Duo(day), Trio(day), Quarti(day), Quinti(day), Sixter(day), Septer(day) and Octer(day) respectively. (Other adequate translations or names may be used instead.) Now X.10.5 is the 10th Quinti of X, that is, the year X's tenth(-week) Quintiday. As an extra indication one may (but need not) say "the 10th Quintiday of (Northern) (Late) Yule". The Octerday is the 26th-week Octer (of Equatorial Month). This is Midyear's Eve. In a leap year this first Octerday is followed, half a year later, by a second: the 52nd-week Octer (of Southern Late Lent), that is, New Year's Eve. It is only for these intercalary days that first is not the same as first-week and second not the same as second-week. (It should be kept in mind that in this notation the name of the day is used with the number of the week, and not the name of the month with the number of the day.)

For the early readers of this Model it is not yet known what will be the last day of the era of state religionism; only that the era of denominational or ideological inclusivity should start on the first day (of Northern Early Yule) that the Sun will pass the solstice after the abolition of the last political form of denominational or otherwise ideological exism in the world. (Similarly, the early readers' provisional calendar starts on the first Solstitial Day after the end of the Second World War, so long as no third world war has begun and ended.) The first Solstitial Day succeeding the last Monday or other weekday of the officially denominationalistic or ideologically exclusivistic era will be the New Year's Day of the year 1: EI 1.01.1, that is, the first Primoday of the year EI 1. Hence, on the day when the Sun will pass the solstice for the first (or second) time after a universal regime of denominational or general, ideological inclusivity has been established on Earth, on that 'holy' Sunday, clocks in all civilized lands should ring in the year 1 -- symbolically, if not literally. Then, humankind as a whole will finally see the old, exclusivist system out and the new, inclusive system in.