Windmill knight said:
I think this part is important:
Cs said:
We have repeatedly talked about the open nature of the future. It is always open until the probabilities begin to collapse, such as now. But macro-collapses take some "time".
So I interpret this year as being an important milestone, with something clearly significant happening, but in the end only part of a large process that can take several years and develops in stages. It might be that the big event of this year is only noticed or appreciated by people paying attention, and the rest will just go on with their lives as usual. If you think about huge historical changes, they can happen through a period longer than a few lifetimes, but in cosmic events that is still very fast.
The year 0 can also refer to the beginning of a new way of life, but again, it can start in such a small scale that it would be unremarkable for most people, and it would only be significant when looking back after decades.
Or it can be a combination of any or all of the above.
To re-quote: "It might be that the big event of this year is only noticed or appreciated by people paying attention, and the rest will just go on with their lives as usual."
I may be totally off the scale here and just a reflection of my own opinion but something Muxel posted (#205) in the "April Drop Dead Date" thread may be relevant to the "O New Year" in regards to the Vernal Equinox, March 21-25 dates and April 1st, in corresponding to past Global traditions and festivals celebrated through out the Centuries. I also would like to add "The Feast of Annunication and Easter" which is celebrated within this same time frame, all having to do with "endings and beginnings." My thoughts are - the transition would begin during the Vernal Equinox and cumulate on the first of April, as the April Drop Date and the Month of April 2014 as the beginning the "O New Year"?
http://cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php/topic,30528.195.html
Assyrian New Year falls on the first of April
Quote from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kha_b-Nisan
In the Julian calendar, the vernal equinox moved gradually away from 21 March. The Gregorian calendar reform restored the vernal equinox to its original date, but since the festival was by now tied to the date, not the astronomical event, Kha b' Nisan remains fixed at 21 March in the Julian reckoning, corresponding to 1 April in the Gregorian calendar. The Vernal equinox is celebrated throughout Greater Iran as Noruz meaning "New Day" on 21 March. However, in the ancient Assyrian and Babylonian traditions, the spring festival was celebrated in the first days of the month known as "Nisan" and the calendar adopted by the ancient Assyrians had the month "Nisan" at the beginning of the calendar lending to the term "Kha b' Nisan", or the "first of Nisan". "April Fools' Day"
In the 1950s, rising interest in Assyrianism resulted in the creation of an official "Assyrian calendar" with its era fixed at 4750 BC, inspired by an estimate of the date of the first temple at Ashur in the Middle Ubaid period. In the same spirit, the Akkadian name of the spring festival, Akitu, was revived. It is essential to consider that the Assyrian people have generally celebrated Akitu on the first day of April since 4750 BC and that a creation of an official calendar would aim to unite the Assyrians in their nationalism.
The Feast of the Annunciation
_http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01542a.htm
The Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (25 March), also called in old calendars: FESTUM INCARNATIONIS, INITIUM REDEMPTIONIS CONCEPTIO CHRISTI, ANNUNTIATIO CHRISTI, ANNUNTIATIO DOMINICA. In the Orient, where the part which Mary took in the Redemption is celebrated by a special feast, 26 December, the Annunciation is a feast of Christ; in the Latin Church, it is a feast of Mary. It probably originated shortly before or after the council of Ephesus (c. 431). At the time of the Synod of Laodicea (372) it was not known; St. Proclus, Bishop of Constantinople (d. 446), however, seems to mention it in one of his homilies. He says, that the feast of the coming of Our Lord and Saviour, when He vested Himself with the nature of man (quo hominum genus indutus), was celebrated during the entire fifth century. This homily, however, may not be genuine, or the words may be understood of the feast of Christmas.
In the Latin Church this feast is first mentioned in the Sacramentarium of Pope Gelasius (d. 496), which we possess in a manuscript of the seventh century; it is also contained in the Sacramentarium of St. Gregory (d. 604), one manuscript of which dates back to the eighth century. Since these sacramentaries contain additions posterior to the time of Gelasius and Gregory, Duchesne (Origines du culte chrétien, 118, 261) ascribes the origin of this feast in Rome to the seventh century; Probst, however, (Sacramentarien, 264) thinks that it really belongs to the time of Pope Gelasius. The tenth Synod of Toledo (656), and Trullan Synod (692) speak of this feast as one universally celebrated in the Catholic Church.
All Christian antiquity (against all astronomical possibility) recognized the 25th of March as the actual day of Our Lord's death. The opinion that the Incarnation also took place on that date is found in the pseudo-Cyprianic work "De Pascha Computus", c. 240. It argues that the coming of Our Lord and His death must have coincided with the creation and fall of Adam. And since the world was created in spring, the Saviour was also conceived and died shortly after the equinox of spring. Similar fanciful calculations are found in the early and later Middle Ages, and to them, no doubt, the dates of the feast of the Annunciation and of Christmas owe their origin. Consequently the ancient martyrologies assign to the 25th of March the creation of Adam and the crucifixion of Our Lord; also, the fall of Lucifer, the passing of Israel through the Red Sea and the immolation of Isaac. (Thruston, Christmas and the Christian Calendar, Amer. Eccl. Rev., XIX, 568.) The original date of this feast was the 25th of March. Although in olden times most of the churches kept no feast in Lent, the Greek Church in the Trullan Synod (in 692; can. 52) made an exception in favour of the Annunciation. In Rome, it was always celebrated on the 25th of March. The Spanish Church transferred it to the 18th of December, and when some tried to introduce the Roman observance of it on the 25th of March, the 18th of December was officially confirmed in the whole Spanish Church by the tenth Synod of Toledo (656). This law was abolished when the Roman liturgy was accepted in Spain.
The church of Milan, up to our times, assigns the office of this feast to the last Sunday in Advent. On the 25th of March a Mass is sung in honour of the Annunciation. (Ordo Ambrosianus, 1906; Magistretti, Beroldus, 136.) The schismatic Armenians now celebrate this feast on the 7th of April. Since Epiphany for them is the feast of the birth of Christ, the Armenian Church formerly assigned the Annunciation to 5 January, the vigil of Epiphany. This feast was always a holy day of obligation in the Universal Church. As such it was abrogated first for France and the French dependencies, 9 April, 1802; and for the United States, by the Third Council of Baltimore, in 1884. By a decree of the S.R.C., 23 April, 1895, the rank of the feast was raised from a double of the second class to a double of the first class. If this feast falls within Holy Week or Easter Week, its office is transferred to the Monday after the octave of Easter. In some German churches it was the custom to keep its office the Saturday before Palm Sunday if the 25th of March fell in Holy Week. The Greek Church, when the 25th of March occurs on one of the three last days in Holy Week, transfers the Annunciation to Easter Monday; on all other days, even on Easter Sunday, its office is kept together with the office of the day. Although no octaves are permitted in Lent, the Dioceses of Loreto and of the Province of Venice, the Carmelites, Dominicans, Servites, and Redemptorists, celebrate this feast with an octave.