The Greeks commonly dated from the First Olympiad in 424 Aries (776 BC), while the Romans dated from the foundation of the city of Rome in 447 Aries (753 BC). However these were not fully institutionalized and often varied locally. Moreover under the Roman empire, the Greek east was not willing to assimilate its dating to the Roman custom, so that how dates were handled depended upon where in the empire you were, giving rise to some confusion. After the empire came to be dominated by Christians, they addressed this issue by imposing a dating system based upon the birth of their founder, Jesus (B. 1200 Aries), which superceded both the Greek and Roman dating systems, and became standard throughout the Christian-dominated Western world.
As Pagans of course, this system of dating based upon Jesus is not necessarily suitable to us. Also, the larger part of history pre-dates Jesus’ birth imposing an awkward “BC/AD” split which requires backward dating of events preceding Jesus birth, and gives an effect of disconnection from pre-Christian history. In recent years many Pagan scholars have attempted to create a new dating system relevant to Pagans, but most of these have been such extreme revisions as to be unworkable in the real world. It was to address this situation that the Correllian calendar was created, with its 1600 year Zodiacal Ages so timed as to coincide for practical use with the Christian dates, yet distinctly different. But we have discussed the Correllian calendar in depth in Lesson 1:3 and so will only comment here on our opinion that it is a logical Pagan answer as the next step in calendrical dating.
OK –now that we have gone through the dry, boring stuff, let us get on to the fun stuff –magical calendars and how to use them!
Magical Calendars – Calendrical “Astrology”
In Lesson 2:2 we discussed Astrology as it is most commonly thought of: the study of the divinatory meaning of the perceived positions of stars and planets relative to a particular place and time, especially but not exclusively a person’s birth. We also discussed the fact that while Astrology appears and is generally considered to be based upon the positions of stars and planets as they appear from the Earth, this is in fact not so. The Precession of the Equinoxes has long since changed the actual position of the stars used in Astrology, which positions were unique to specific places on the planet anyway: consequently even Astrology as we normally encounter it is based not upon any actual positioning of the stars and planets, but upon measurements of time which have been marked and are represented by those essentially symbolic positions. This is to say that Astrology is actually about time, mathematical notation, and numerology –not really much about stars at all. Stars are just the symbols the ancients used to represent the patterns in time they were observing, because at the time they appeared to coincide.
This does not matter too much in relation to Astrology when spoken of in the ordinary sense. But there are many other forms of Astrology beyond the one we would consider “ordinary” which have little or no relationship to the stars or planets. We are all familiar with the Chinese form of Astrology, which is often found in simplified form upon placemats of Chinese restaurants, but is in fact an ancient and complex system –one which is clearly based upon patterns in time rather than the perceived position of stars. Chinese Astrology reckons the divinatory nature of a given day and hour not by any positioning of stars, but by the movement of temporal cycles. The Aztec calendar, familiar to all from the famous “Sun Stone” or “Calendar Stone” which is often featured on placemats of Mexican restaurants, functions in the same way –interpreting dates according to their place in the temporal cycle.
This is also true for the Correllian calendar, which while it does not appear on anyone’s placemats (yet) is also based upon the study of patterns in time revealed through numerology, rather than having any relationship to the stars –though it does use Zodiacal terms to symbolize these patterns.
Understanding this idea –that with any form of Astrology we are really looking at an analysis of patterns of time- will help us to see why the term “Astrology” is applied to magical calendar systems such as the Asian or the Central American “zodiac” even though at first they appear quite different in structure from what we might consider “ordinary” Astrology.
The magical uses of calendars have been important all over the world and at all times. These purposes include both divination, especially as applied to birthdate, but also the selection of appropriate times for important rituals and personal events. In the paragraphs below we will examine several magical calendrical systems from around the world. We will begin with the best known, the Chinese Hsia calendar.
Chinese Hsia Calendar
The Chinese system of calendar-based Astrology is by far the best known. Though it has its origins in China, it is in fact used through most of Asia. Almost everyone is familiar with at least some aspects of it –though most know only the animal signs which make up the so-called earthly Branches.
The Chinese calendar is a Lunar calendar based upon 12 Lunar months of 29 or 30 days, plus an intercalary 13th month added every three years to keep the Lunar calendar relatively in line with the Solar year. Each year begins with the first New Moon in Aquarius.