The Seuna calendar: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 23:47, 8 November 2008

In the Seuna calendar, the cycle of the moon is completely ignored. The year is divided into 5 parts which I have called "months" all through the following article but which might just as well be designated "seasons".

Also I have been calling the 4 year period that the Seuna CULTURE observe a "calendar". This is quite accurate in that the SEUNA word for "calendar" involves everything we mean by calendar. But it also has the meaning "a 4 year period of time", and this is the sense that is meant most of the times that you come across the word.

I have used the word "century" to mean a 128 year period of time. Since the human lifespan seems to assymptote as it approaches 128, the SEUNA word "century" can sometimes be translated into English as 'generation'.

Actually each locality in the SEUNA world breaks down the year into various "arc"s ("earth.arc"s in full). This is best translated as season. The timing, length and names of these "arc"s depend on local weather, local growing seasons, local cultural activities etc. For example acorn.arc might follow rain.arc and be followed by salmon.arc.

Building up from days to a century

There are 8 days in a week. They are;-

sun.day, leaf.day, river.day, sea.day, star.day, moon.day, tree.day and cloud.day

There are 8 weeks in a month. They are;-

white.week, green.week, orange.week, skyblue.week, yellow.week, blue.week red.week and black.week

There are 5 months in a year. They are;-

jupiter.month, venus.month, mercury.month, mars.month, and saturn.month

There are 4 years in a calendar. They are;-

happy.year, healthy.years, money.year and wise.year

There are 32 calenders in a century. They are numbered.

The naming of days, weeks, months and years

There is a seperate name for every day within a calendar. For example happy.mercury.green.leaf.day refers to one day within the four year calendar period. However rarely would you come across a day defined with such precision. Normally leaf.day or green.leaf.day would be heard in conversation. Seldom would you hear mercury.green.leaf.day and outside of ceremonies and official documents you would never hear happy.mercury.green.leaf.day.

As with days, so with weeks. There is a seperate name for every week within a calendar. For example happy.mercury.green.week refers to one week in a calendar. But you would hardly hear anything but green.week in conversation.

And the same with months. There is a seperate name for every month within a calendar. happy.mercury.month refers to one month in a calendar but you would hear mercury.month talked about oftener.

And of course the years are referred to as happy.year, healthy.year, money.year and wise.year.

The spandays

We also have span.days

A month has 8 span.days.

A year has 5 span.days outside of its months.

A calendar has 1 span.day outside of its years.

Every century one span.day is dropped.

The naming of spandays

When talking weekly one would just say span.day

When talking monthly one would just say;-

white.span.day, green.span.day, orange.span.day, skyblue.span.day, yellow.span.day, blue.span.day, red.span.day, and black.span.day

When talking yearly one would just say;-

Jupiter.span.day, Venus.span.day, Mercury.span.day., Mars.span.day, and Saturn.span.day.

(of course you would also have Venus.green.span.day, Mercury.yellow.span.day etc. etc. as well)

When talking in terms of calendars one would just say;- calendar.span.day

Time keeping

Year 2000 had 365.242,192,65 days

Every year is shorter than the last by 0.000,000,061,4 days

By adding one day every calendar we get a 365.25 day year

If we then drop one day every century we get a 365.242,187,5 day year (very close to the actual year length)

Before 2084, the actual year will be bigger than the calendar year – after 2084 the actual year will be smaller than the calendar year

For this reason midnight, 22 Dec 2083 is designated the start of year 1.

Month/Planet/Shape association

You will have noticed that the months share their names with the five visible planets. That is Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn (in order of distance from the sun).

In order of occurence in the year ... Jupiter, Venus, Mercury, Mars, Saturn

They also share their name (@???, m???, y???, j???, f???)with the five platonic solids.

Mercury ... tetrahedron (4 sides)4₈

Mars ... hexahedron (6 sides)6₈

Venus ... octahedron (8 sides)10₈

Saturn ... dodecahedron (12 sides)14₈

Jupiter ... icosahedron (20 sides)24₈

Festivals

The months each has a different festival associated with them. Which festival falls on which month depends upon which part of the world you live in. The following is the festival calendar for Northern Europe. The festivals occur at the begining of every month : always starting in the first week and sometimes extending into the following week. They all start on different days of the week.

The jupiter.festival

In the middle of winter (the 22nd of December), jupiters.month starts. The jupiter.festival is the most important one of the year. Officially it is about the passage of time and religeon.

Even though eating and drinking are involved in all the five festivals, the jupiter.festival has the most looked-forward-to parties and feasts. It usually lasts for 4 days.

The venus.festival

venus.month starts on the 5th of March. The venus.festival themes are music and poetry. People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various music and poetry competitions.

The mercury.festival

mercury.month starts on the 17th of May. Officially it is about indoor sports and boardgames. This festival often involves getting together with old friends again and can entail quite a bit of partying. Often journeys are undertaken to meet old acquainances. Also there is a big exchange of letters. Everybody that is condidered a friend should be sent a letter with the last years news (only friends that don't live close by of course). People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various events.

The mars.festival

mars.month starts on the 28th of July. The mars.festival is all about outdoor competitions and sporting events. It is a little like a cross between the Olympics games and the highland games. People gather at various regional centres to compete and spectate in various team and individual competitions. However care is taken that no regional centre becomes too popular and people are discouraged from competing at centres other than their local one.

The saturn.festival

saturn.month starts on the 10th of October. The saturn.festival is all about the family and relations. The preparation of good food is especially important during this festival. Often journeys are undertaken for family visits and ancestors ashboxes are visited if convenient. This is the second most important festival of the year. People tend to take a quite some time of work if travelling, three days if receiving guests and two days if not receiving any guests.

The passage ceremony

A few weeks after the jupiter.festival, rites are held mark and celebrate various milestones in the life of an individual. In particular people who have attained the ages of 4, 20 and 64 during the past year, publicly celebrate that fact now. Among the customs followed is the gift of new clothes to the celebrant.

Time reckoning through the day

The unit of time is equal to 24 hours. The day begins at six o'clock in the morning. To make appointments, people say "I will meet you at .544" or just "I will meet you at 544"(acailaula). Note that between .544 and .545 is 2.8 minutes so to say "I will meet you at 544" is accurate enough for arranging most human affairs.

For describing approximately when something happened during the day, we have eight periods : "pre"abai, abain, again, adain, alain, acain, asain and akain. Each of these time periods is equivalent to three hours. They can be further defind by the prefix "early", "mid" and "late". So "mid"adain defines a time from 4 o'clock in the afternoon to five o'clock at night.

The word for midday is simply agai. The word for midnight is simply asai. These can be given the prefixes "pre" and "post" to divide the day into four periods. 6 o'clock in the morning is called ??. There are also terms for sunup/dawn and sundown as these vary with time of year and with latitude.

The name for the period that the sun is up is ai"day" The name for the period that the sun is down is hau"day" The name for the period 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. is hai"day" The name for the period 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. is au"day"

The clock

At midnight the ‘hour’ hand stands at the bottom and procedes anti-clockwise (at least in the northern hemishere). The ‘hour’ hand only sweeps out one revolution in 24 hours. Both the red and the black arms do not move incrementally but both move one slot (1/64 th of a revolution) at a time. The black arm moves every 22.5 minutes and the red arm moves every 21 seconds.

Every town has a clocktower and the clocktower will have four faces at the top, each face displaying a clock similar to the one below. The clocktower is surmounted by a green conic roof. Backlighting and lighting from under the roof is provided for each face. There should never be any numbering.

Old Stuff

A week is called towaŋko. we have a rainbow.day

towa = token or totem or icon

sai = colour

ai, geu, suna, nela, kio, nelau, hia, hau = white, green, orange, skyblue, yellow, blue, red and black

ko = a circle or cycle round

towaŋko = token-cycle

saiŋko = colour.round

Index

@@ Line 127: / Line 127: @@
 A few weeks after the '''jupiter.festival''', rites are held mark and celebrate various milestones in the life of an individual. In particular people who have attained the ages of 4, 20 and 64 during the past year, publicly celebrate that fact now. Among the customs followed is the gift of new clothes to the celebrant.
-== How the day is divided up ==
-At midnight the ‘hour’ hand stants at the bottom and procedes anti-clockwise (at least in the northern hemishere). The ‘hour’ hand only sweeps out one revolution in 24 hours. Both the red and the black arms do not move incrementally but both move one slot (1/64 th of a revolution) at a time. The black arm moves every 22.5 minutes and the red arm moves every 21 seconds.
+== Time reckoning through the day ==
+The unit of time is equal to 24 hours. The day begins at six o'clock in the morning. To make appointments, people say "I will meet you at .544" or just "I will meet you at 544"('''acailaula'''). Note that between .544 and .545 is 2.8 minutes so to say "I will meet you at 544" is accurate enough for arranging most human affairs.
+For describing approximately when something happened during the day, we have eight periods : "pre"'''abai''', '''abain''', '''again''', '''adain''', '''alain''', '''acain''', '''asain''' and '''akain'''. Each of these time periods is equivalent to three hours. They can be further defind by the prefix "early", "mid" and "late". So "mid"'''adain''' defines a time from 4 o'clock in the afternoon to five o'clock at night.
+The word for midday is simply '''agai'''. The word for midnight is simply '''asai'''. These can be given the prefixes "pre" and "post" to divide the day into four periods. 6 o'clock in the morning is called ??. There are also terms for sunup/dawn and sundown as these vary with time of year and with latitude.
+The name for the period that the sun is up is '''ai'''"day"
+The name for the period that the sun is down is '''hau'''"day"
+The name for the period 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. is '''hai'''"day"
+The name for the period 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. is '''au'''"day"
+== The clock ==
+At midnight the ‘hour’ hand stands at the bottom and procedes anti-clockwise (at least in the northern hemishere). The ‘hour’ hand only sweeps out one revolution in 24 hours. Both the red and the black arms do not move incrementally but both move one slot (1/64 th of a revolution) at a time. The black arm moves every 22.5 minutes and the red arm moves every 21 seconds.
 Every town has a clocktower and the clocktower will have four faces at the top, each face displaying a clock similar to the one below. The clocktower is surmounted by a green conic roof. Backlighting and lighting from under the roof is provided for each face. There should never be any numbering.