Other magickal calendars

[Anibis]

There are other magickal calendars. The Chinese, for example (which I do knot know), and of course the famous Mayan Calendars. I have a few more as well which I plan to introduce at an appropriate time. For now, though I'd just like to open discussion on other calendars...

The Mayan calendar movement is the most well known. My own work with calendrics was influenced by contact with the 13 Moon Calendar Change Peace movement, based out of this (http://www.tortuga.com/) site. When we look at the magickal calendar here, we see a very sophisticated, powerful solar/lunar calendar with a fairly large following, and a mathematically solid foundation. This Dreamspell/13moon calendar is NOT the classic mayan calendar. THe classic mayan calendar is what we know as the 'long count' and has been kept for centuries. According to the long count, time is divided into great ages, in particular, 5 great 5200 year cycles. The total is of course 26000 years, the same number as in the platonic 'great year' caused by the precession of the equinoxes. It is this cycle which sets back to 0 on the winter solstice 2012 AD. The Dreamspell is a recent development, coming out of the work of a Mexican art historian named Jose Argüelles, who saw fit to combine the 260 mayan sacred count, the Tzolkin, with a 13 moon calendar similar to the ancient druidic calendar in which there are 13 'months' of 28 days, and an extra celebratory 'day out of time', held on July 25, in this case (the rising of sirius). Every 52 years, there are 13 extra days for celebration, which serve to re-calibrate the calendar in the same way leap years do.

When I first found out about this movement, I found it thrilling, since several years before, I came to the realization that calendars were the magickal keys to piloting time. What I discovered however is that despite the elegance of this count, I was unsatisfied with the notion that the world need one 'true' time to unite everybody. For one thing, the dangers of homogenous consolidation are obvious, but more pertinent, I think was the fact that, while the 13 moon movement was calling for a total switchover 'right away', mandated by God and his prophets, it seemed to me to be alienating itself by claiming the calendar to be supremely true, it made itself hard to take seriously, and not a little bit like a cult. Lets look at this a different way: calendars are a human made device which achieves a certain effect. End of story. We need no glamourous prophetic drama, what we need is a sensible way to express our time. While a calendar that demands that it become universal in order to succeed calls upon itself what I consider to be an impossible task, I would like to propose a more possible task: Proliferation of micro calendars. MASSIVE proliferation of microcalendars.... the thing here is monopoly: a calendar entails a monopoly of time. It seems to me that the best bet for the Dreamspell, for the long count, for the TC, or for any other calendar for that matter is to encourage people to think about time, what it means to mediate it, how one goes about constructing it, and how we can get creative with it. I support the Dreamspell, and I support other efforts to forward alternative time structures... the shape of the calendars you follow influences the shape that your soul grows into... The Thoth count is essentially this argument, and this understanding interacting with the formula of abrahadabra a few very convenient sets of numbers: namely 88s and 11s... What you need for a calnedar is simple: a regular cosmic oscillation of some kind whose starting point can be identified. Read the old background post on the Thoth Count for a clearer description of how one would do this.

All this being said, I have worked out a way by which the TC can 'resonate' magickally with the Tzolkin, by way of a particular way of treating the TwinStar. An earlier thread addressed this and I wish to raise it now, particularly for people who may be reading this with an understanding of the Tzolkin. Check it out (http://forums.abrahadabra.com/showthread.php?t=335). This is a preliminary thread, which I hope will draw in other knowledgable calendricists, so anyone who cares to enlarge this discussion, please feel free to do so. Dreamspell codebreakers welcome!

-Anibis

[Naomi]

I think that was really well written Anibis, you bring up some great points. I love the idea of running on the mercury year too, it's just the most awesome 1337 idea I have heard of in a long time. It's also very complicated. I can see this turning into a huge new branch of specialty magic....chronomages navigating time. From what little I've worked with this Thoth count system I've enjoyed it immensely, it gives comfort and structure to my day and helps steer my focus without forcing me into dull routine - it's more like a new reason to party or put a new spin on everyday business.

I don't have anything new to offer really, native americans are notoriously terrible at keeping track of time.

I think it would be neat to have a clock on my wall that told me the year and day of all of the planets with the corresponding Tarot...it's too hopelessly complicated for me to even begin thinking about working something like that out so I hope I can wait for you to invent one with all of the calendar experts who will inevitably gather here. :D

[Anibis]

Ah, all I can say to that is that Aboriginals are the MASTERS of time. It's just that they had it going Qualitatively, while the predominant system is quantitative. So you aren't adept at showing up for work at 9:00AM. Big deal... the tragic annihilation of aboriginal worldviews has resulted in that perspective: 'Indian time' as a kind of loose, inneficient model. BULLSHIT. It's just that it is a qualitative measure.. I respect that much more... Time IS about personal quality of moments, rather than an abstract transferable numerical measurement... I guess I'm just trying, within the 'Western' tradition to achieve that... I have a direct magickal link to all of North American colonized culture... but not to the Native perspective, and that's the way it will stay.... I have no right to that... In fact, I would like to see it re-emerge as dominant, at least in this continent. DO you know who the Beothuck are? I'd like to honor them, and let them re-incarnate... They are the great lost ghosts of the land I live in... Anyhow... THis is a ramble but a true one... I can't pretend to be aboriginal: I'm a Scottish, English, Irish, French mutt, but I would much rather see the TIME of the native people come out as the brilliant, and true mode of relation to time that it was... Can we suck our externalized tech back into ourselves, and begin to build a technology based of mind, rythme, and weave? At least we have a chance with the discussions playing out in these forums...
-Anibis
And it won't be all about Tarot either... MANY different magicks will get their stake in re-coding time... And we will need it, because if my hopes are right, the presuppositions we hold about Time are going to melt very soon. Quetzcoatl, indeed. In deed.

[Naomi]

Ah, all I can say to that is that Aboriginals are the MASTERS of time. It's just that they had it going Qualitatively, while the predominant system is quantitative. So you aren't adept at showing up for work at 9:00AM. Big deal... the tragic annihilation of aboriginal worldviews has resulted in that perspective: 'Indian time' as a kind of loose, inneficient model. BULLSHIT. It's just that it is a qualitative measure.. I respect that much more... Time IS about personal quality of moments, rather than an abstract transferable numerical measurement... I guess I'm just trying, within the 'Western' tradition to achieve that... I have a direct magickal link to all of North American colonized culture... but not to the Native perspective, and that's the way it will stay.... I have no right to that... In fact, I would like to see it re-emerge as dominant, at least in this continent. DO you know who the Beothuck are? I'd like to honor them, and let them re-incarnate... They are the great lost ghosts of the land I live in... Anyhow... THis is a ramble but a true one... I can't pretend to be aboriginal: I'm a Scottish, English, Irish, French mutt, but I would much rather see the TIME of the native people come out as the brilliant, and true mode of relation to time that it was... Can we suck our externalized tech back into ourselves, and begin to build a technology based of mind, rythme, and weave? At least we have a chance with the discussions playing out in these forums...
-Anibis
And it won't be all about Tarot either... MANY different magicks will get their stake in re-coding time... And we will need it, because if my hopes are right, the presuppositions we hold about Time are going to melt very soon. Quetzcoatl, indeed. In deed.

This is a complicated topic, and one I hear from time to time. As you may know I have no regard whatsoever for racial pride, (I'm native american and hebrew) though I do give credit where credit is due, simply because the vast solar system currents tend to localize visibly as race, by the very nature of incarnation. (in my opinion) No I don't know who the Beothuck are?

Quetzelcoatl, for instance, was a deity of a culture feared by all of the close surrounding tribes we know today here in North America. One of the Southwest tribes, I don't recall which, referred to the Aztecs as the "evil ones". They were simply better at life. They held the spiritual depth of today's native americans, and the brilliant spark of fire I see most strongly exhibited in Western culture.

I think we need to form an amalgam of strengths, not try to step backwards. In my honest opinion the ancients were not nearly as advanced as we are today, despite all of their formidable knowledge.

It's selfishness that kills it. Knowledge must be shared or the people who try to hold onto it will be burned. There are examples of this in the current century - the Jews, the Hopi - in ancient times, Egypt and Greece. What we view as profound amongst the native tribes is only shattered fragments of something much grander and awesome - something the Aztec tasted, as well as the Romans and the Sumerians. Many of today's aboriginals cling to their little traditions stolen from other bigger systems like starving dogs fighting over scraps of meat. It's sad, really. I've honestly been fortunate enough to view a broad range of North American traditional rituals up close - including more private family affairs. I think I'm supposed to swear a vow of silence about some of them, but to quote Crowley:

"All of this secrecy is very silly."

India is unique, I think, in having such a generous spirit...I had always thought she would be rewarded for that, and I think the coming century will prove that the gods do indeed smile upon spiritual generosity, something native americans have much to learn from in their blind pride. Native medicine workers are much rarer here than they are in India, I assure you. There is a great spiritual vacuum on the reservations...no tribe is immune from it. Not even the glorified Hopi.

So now after that long roundabout explanation (yeah its a native thing - and I DO think you can understand) what I mean to say is the time mastery focus will come to us quite easily if we form an amalgam of knowledge from every continent and race willing to participate, and that the end result will be beyond the wildest dreams humanity has ever witnessed.

[Anibis]

Hear hear! Put so eloquently! Although I hadn't looked at it that way, it does make sense There IS a drive to hide your spark, to keep it secret from the world and out of reach, and yet, when you share it, it tends to be rewarded greatly...

I would tend to think though that the spiritual void on the reserves has alot to do with the fact that reserves are static places... Up here in Labrador there are a people called the Innu (NOT Inuit). They were nomadic until the 50's when the government basically 'bought' them villages and sedentarized them. Then the social problems kicked in, and they are EXTREME. The first generation became very alcoholic, and the second addicted to solvents, to the point where there are very few people in that culture left who know the traditional ways, even though the process of disintigration is less than 60 years old. One thing that is interesting though is that most of them still speak their own language. Trouble is, it's a language based on verbs that is actually dehibilitating in a city/settlement situation. It dispaces them from that environment. I heard of a court case involving a rape, in which the only thing the lawyers we able to determine about the case was that it happend outside the courthouse! (I'm not sure how big an exhaggeration this is, but, yeah... you get the idea). In the wild, they have an exceptionally accurate language, I am told. There is an Elder of one of the communities that takes people out on the old Innu trails every year, and I gather that it is a healing experience for the kids who when they are IN the communities are often getting into very nasty drug abuse... Anyhow, excuse the off topic rant, but I am fascinated by the subject, and actually know very little... The Beothuck were the 'Red Indians' of Newfoundland. (they painted their bodies with Ochre, and so actually were Red). They were completely exterminated, and though their blood may have mixed with the Micmac, their culture was lost. THey are the lost ghosts of this island. THe last living surviving Beothuck was 'Shawnadithit', a woman who left us with what we do know of the Beothuck through drawings and writing (Whe was captured and educated in English. Strangely enough when she died, Her SKULL was transported to England, and actually blown up by the Nazis during the Blitzkrieg.... Friggin bizzare....

Well, I have veered right off topic, just trying to unravel my thoughts on what you have said... Back to Calendrics... he he he...

(As much as I do feel for and am haunted by the treatement of the aboriginals... I'm still a white Westerner with his own tradition: much like you described: amalgamating different perspective. I often get a sort of creepy vibe off of white people playing as natives, and that's not my thing, but I feel something... a responsibility... just to be respectful, and help to the degree that I can and am asked...)

-Anibis

[Anibis]

So now after that long roundabout explanation (yeah its a native thing - and I DO think you can understand) what I mean to say is the time mastery focus will come to us quite easily if we form an amalgam of knowledge from every continent and race willing to participate, and that the end result will be beyond the wildest dreams humanity has ever witnessed.

Wow and how... I think the idea of re-coding time is a great proliferation fo different ways may well be one of the bast ways to accomplish this. I can imagine hitting a 'critical mass with this sort of thing, and then all of a sudden every different community on earth will be working out their own calendrics... a forest of times... out of which much great wisdom will arise, traditions will hybridize, and cross polinate.... Maybe this is naieve, but it is an attractive goal to me... I like variety, difference... I think that somehow we can achieve one-ness by going in the direction of diversity...
-Anibis

[Naomi]

Wow and how... I think the idea of re-coding time is a great proliferation fo different ways may well be one of the bast ways to accomplish this. I can imagine hitting a 'critical mass with this sort of thing, and then all of a sudden every different community on earth will be working out their own calendrics... a forest of times... out of which much great wisdom will arise, traditions will hybridize, and cross polinate.... Maybe this is naieve, but it is an attractive goal to me... I like variety, difference... I think that somehow we can achieve one-ness by going in the direction of diversity...
-Anibis


No I don't think it's naieve at all, I think the hidden jewels of the future lie in the sands of rethinking of time, DNA and physics, particularily as they relate to artificing technology such as robotics, and spaceships. And you know, if you can imagine it, it will happen, especially if the road is already clear to that goal, and especially if you occupy certain authority gateways....:p

I'll post more on the native americans, when I get some timeto go indepth on it in a new topic. :} I view the decomposing state of native affairs only as another alchemical process, through which they must go. This world was never kind.

It would be very cool if we could get some more calendar experts on here.

The only calendar I really pay attention to is the Chinese calendar of the four elements/12 animals. I told Kuroyagi last year I wanted to add two new animals and upgrade all of the other animals to higher forms. Once I get my current painting project complete, perhaps the time will be right to expand that far out idea. That's the extent of my calendar ambitions though. :)

[Anibis]

I found this (http://www.amazon.com/tag/calendrics) resource page on Amazon, and it has some very interesting books.
-Anibis