 The days lengthen and shorten their lenght as the sun and the moon perform their steps in the sky. The cycles of these two stars mark from the beginnings of time the changing seasons and their recurrence, and affect our lives. Every day. No wonder that even the oldest timetables have as its gauge the cycle of the sun and moon. And it's not surprising that many ancient calendars were considered sacred. The Sun and Moon were worshipped as gods in many ancient cultures and for this reason the calendar was considered a sacred instrument used to govern the social life of different communities. The most ancient known calendar was found in the caves of Lescaux, in France. We have evidence that 20.000 year ago the Cro-Magnon primitives humans knew the moon phases. In the territories of the Fertile Crescent, already 5000 years ago the Babylonians discovered the circular movement of the time and had divided the circle into 360 degrees, and they made the math to extract the days, weeks and months from this number. We owe to them the origin of the astrological calendar and the modern division of the year that influenced the creation of the horoscope as we know it. Other peoples and countries who developed interesting calendars were the Maya that created a very complex calendar, the Aztecs who left us in their calendar named "Piedra del Sol" (sun stone) a fine example of sculpture and a testimony of their rich culture at the same time, the Celts that used calendar which influenced our current Gregorian calendar, used in many countries of the world. The union of wisdom and curiosity with human energies and cosmic forces give us each year the opportunity to renew our cycle of life with love and sensitivity. This year the theme of traditional mandalas from Tibet and India inspired me and brought me to rework some guidelines suggested by tradition. The goal I had in mind while preparing this 2010 mandala calendar for each people who will use it was to spread the seeds of love and peace through meditation and observation of mandalas. Even a few minutes of meditating observation every day can be enough to recover the sense and the measure of things, to pause and reflect on the values that for us are more deep and true. |
Home page >
