Moab Happenings

www.moabhappenings.com
Oh, October
October arises with the freshness of fall and wearing a
subtle aroma of lingering summer. Shorter daylight hours
seem to dampen a day’s outing, but the generally fine
weather encourages one along the trail. To say that October
is the sweetest month in Canyon Country betrays the bias
of the speaker – every month here has its own signature.
NATURE HAPPENINGS
by Damian Fagan
It wasn’t until Julius Caesar became the ruler of
ancient Rome did these problems with the calendar get
tweaked. Caesar, who became the elected dictator in 46 BC,
introduced a new calendar that he had learned of during
his Egyptian campaigning (fighting not politics). With the
help of an Alexandrian astronomer named Sosigenes, the
missing days were added to the year. This ultimus
annus confusionis, “the last year of confusion,”
corrected those days lost to the lunar cycle.
This new Julian calendar would hold up
for hundreds of years. Even a single day, today
called Leap Day, was inserted every four years to
make up for the quarter day difference between
the solar year and the calendar year.
Caesar gained on this calendar issue, but
didn’t quite solve the problem. Because the
difference between the Julian four-year cycle
and the corresponding solar years was about
eleven minutes too long, this added an extra day
every 128 years. By the mid-sixteenth century
So what about October, whose origin lies in the
Latin word “octo” meaning “eight” In the early Roman
calendar that was defined by lunar cycles and the pursuit
of agriculture, there were only 10 months in a year. The
year started on March 1, and October filled the eight slot.
The winter months when the fields were quiet and farming
stopped, didn’t count. Those
last 60 or so days just fell into a
Twilight Zone type of scenario.
Of course, the 304-day
long calendar had its problems.
Especially when people began to
celebrate the fall harvest in the
middle of summer. Those early
Romans were on the right track,
but their timetable needed a bit of
work.
The earth’s annual trip around
the sun, the solar year, takes
approximately 365.25 days. A lunar month or lunation –
the period between one new moon and the next one – is
roughly 29.5 days. So the second king of Rome, Numa
Pompilius, decreed that the year would be divided into
twelve lunar months and a couple more months were added
to the calendar. The number of days per month was also
shifted to create balance. This occurred in the 6 th century
BC, but still didn’t adequately synchronize the solar year
with the seasons. The “bridge makers” or pontiffs who
were in charge of adjusting the calendar would insert
days during the year to make up the eleven-day difference
between the solar and lunar year.
Of course, sometimes this happened randomly or not
at all. Political pressure or vested interests or perceived
omens affected the adjustments. Time marched on, but
sometimes lacked the familiarity of the previous year.
this amounted to ten days or the
dismal average American paid
vacation.
This would not have been a
big deal, but when the Catholic
Church calculated Easter based
upon the first Sunday on or after
the first full moon after the vernal
equinox. The equinox would fall
ten days ahead, and this also
affected the summer solstice, as well. As the Steve Miller
song goes, “Time keeps on slippin’, slippin’, slippin’ …”
The Julian calendar received an adjustment in 1582
by edict of Pope Gregory XIII. That year, our month of
October corrected this discrepancy by going from October
4 to October 15 the next day. In addition to this time flux,
leap days would not be included in years that ended in the
hundreds, unless they were divisible by 400. This Gregorian
calendar named after the 16 th century Pope, put most, but
not all, societies on the same page. His actions allow me to
say that October is a great month and you know I’m talking
about golden aspens lighting up the mountains, mornings
so clear they ring like crystal, southbound V-formations
of migrating geese, bears gorging on nuts and berries, the
rattle of jousting deer, the lengthening of shadows, and the
passing of another great summer.