{"id":7834,"date":"2020-12-21T07:46:13","date_gmt":"2020-12-21T07:46:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/?p=7834"},"modified":"2020-12-21T07:46:13","modified_gmt":"2020-12-21T07:46:13","slug":"december-21st-a-happier-new-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/2020\/12\/21\/december-21st-a-happier-new-year\/","title":{"rendered":"December 21st \u2013 a Happier New Year"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It's the winter solstice today \u2013 at 1002 in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rmg.co.uk\/discover\/explore\/when-winter-solstice\">Greenwich<\/a>. \u00a0This is the day I look forward to more and more as I get older; the day when the world begins its new year even if we humans are forced to wait for January 1st to appease the gods of market place and calendar. \u00a0It's a day for remembering that we are part of Nature: New Year Day for everything but us. \u00a0What a pity we cannot just fit in.<\/p>\n<p>The two solstices and equinoxes are astronomically determined (not fixed exactly as they wobble around across a couple of days) and\u00a0occur on\/around June 21st and December 21st. \u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/explainingscience.org\/2019\/12\/13\/the-evenings-are-drawing-out-already-2\/\">Explaining Science<\/a> examines all the technical stuff. \u00a0The equinoxes occur in March and September, as you know.<\/p>\n<p>The dates are all very close to the\u00a0traditional quarter days: March 25th, June 24th, September 29th and December 25th when workers were hired and debts settled. \u00a0From medieval times in England and Wales the quarter days coincide exactly with four religious festivals:<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Lady Day \u2013 the Feast of the Annunciation,\u00a0March 25th<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Midsummer Day \u2013 the Feast of St. John the Baptist,\u00a0June 24th<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Michaelmas \u2013 the Feast of St. Michael and All Angels,\u00a0September 29th<\/p>\n<p>\u2013 Christmas Day \u2013 the Feast of the Nativity,\u00a0December 25th<\/p>\n<p>The cross-quarter days come in between the quarter days: Candlemas (2nd February), May Day (1st May), Lammas (1st August), and All Hallows (1st November).<\/p>\n<p>The obvious question is, why weren't these important feast days fixed to the astronomically significant dates? \u00a0Well maybe they were before all the calendar shifting took place in 1582 (Julian to Gregorian) and before that in Julian times themselves in Rome when there was also significant reform. \u00a0See <a href=\"https:\/\/www.roger-pearse.com\/weblog\/2009\/12\/08\/was-the-winter-solstice-on-25-december-in-the-julian-calendar\/\">this<\/a> for a detailed discussion of a complicated issue.<\/p>\n<p>It's all too much for me; anyway, I'm taking a rest from the world of blogs between now and Twelfth Night. \u00a0It's to be hoped that this will involve more reading than scribbling; more walking than typing.<\/p>\n<p>A Happier New Astronomical Year to you all.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It's the winter solstice today \u2013 at 1002 in Greenwich. \u00a0This is the day I look forward to more and more as I get older; the day when the world begins its new year even if we humans are forced...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":237,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7834","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-comment"],"acf":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7834","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/237"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7834\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.bath.ac.uk\/edswahs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}