Don't count the days

A lot of people merely think of the just completed year as the number 2005 and the New Year as another ho-hum numeral, 2006. For many, it's simply add one to the old year's tally and off we go again--and the common calendar of dates in boxes tends to reinforce this monotonous routine. However, a year is not just another number--no matter what the standard Gregorian calendar says--rather, it's an entirely new relationship between a multitude of cycles and events.

How to better expand our relationship to time through an understanding of the biological world in which we thrive? The ECOlogical Calendar, illustrated by Antenna, a California-based experimental theater group, and distributed by Pomegranate Communications, is designed to reorient us to the natural environment's rhythm over the course of the four seasons and to allow us to better understand our place within this vast universe. This calendar is attractive, educational, inspiring, and enlightening, as it celebrates the change in seasons in astonishing graphics (on four heavyweight, full color, 12" x 36" panels), showing seasonally visible stars, phases of the moon in relationship to meteor showers, tides, the cycles of plenty and privation, and ratios of darkness to light. There are extensive notes on ecologies and how organisms cope with their seasonally fluctuating environments. The days, dates, weeks, and months of the Gregorian calendar appear here, too, providing a steadying reference until you're ready to break out of calendar prison and take that big step toward reconnecting with planet Earth.

The ECOlogical Calendar ($14.99) will teach you when and how to find the brightest stars and planets, when Earth is nearest the sun (you're in for a surprise), and why the longest night is seldom the coldest.

Here's a quick learning-curve sampling: During the last half of 2005, Venus, the so-called Evening Star, continued to appear just after sunset. It will slip out of the night sky on Jan. 8, and not return until Dec. 8. So, 2005 was a good Evening Star year, but 2006 will not be. Take heart, though, since Mercury will pass in front of the sun on Nov. 8, an event that will not be repeated until May 9, 2016.

For more information on this timepiece, visit www.ecocalendar.com.

COPYRIGHT 2006 Society for the Advancement of Education
COPYRIGHT 2008 Gale, Cengage Learning