Today is the beginning of a new year by the lunar calendar!
Did you know that each lunar year is about 11 days shorter than our traditional solar one? Wouldn't that mean things get shifted each year because you get out of sync? It does. Each lunar year has twelve lunar months. So how do they readjust things? Well, every few years they add a thirteenth lunar month, a 'leap month' if you like, to resynchronise the lunar calendar with the solar calendar. Funnily enough, the difference in months and adjustments in calendar start doesn't mean there's a fixed starting date in regards to the Gregorian calendar either. Follow some of the links above to read up more.
I love the moon. I look up at it on almost any chance I get. It reminds me of introspection. Thinking about what my life means to things. I've always wanted to visit it, wondered what it would be like to look back down on planet Earth. I don't know quite why I would be going to the moon - maybe it'll become a new place to visit? Who knows. But it's not just planet Earth I'd like to see. I'd also like to visit some of the dark places of the moon. Not so much because of the hidden mysteries they may lie there (as interesting as they'd be to find out). But, just to marvel at the expansive Universe that lays beyond us. Seeing the night sky without our Earthly artificial lights fogging up the view. What a sight that would be, something we've almost lost from on our own planet. We'd need an observatory. And the observatory would need a name. The Dark Night Observatory sounds good to me.
One of my projects features a moon. Something for the future to reveal.
Happy new year!