On Following Traditions

…where spiders, bats, and witches, skeletons, ghosts, and ghouls ruled the day, and costumed youngsters took to the streets in search of treats from friends and neighbors.🕷🧙👻🧙‍♂️🍬

It’s a tradition we adapted to when we moved here some forty years ago. Tonight, in other towns and cities across the United States, the more traditional October 31 date of Halloween is when the trick-or-treaters will roam.🎃 

Similarly, all over the world, centuries-old celebrations such as All Hallows’ Eve, Allantide, Allhallowtide, Halloween, Diwali, and Samhain are taking place; followed the next day by other traditional holidays including Dia de Muertos, Old Hallowmas Eve, All Saints’ Day, Pitri Paksha and All Souls’ Day.🌎 

These celebrations often have common elements, including Bonfires and Lights, Festivals, Feasts, Graveyard Visits and the Honoring of Ancestors; and also as a time for acknowledging the End of Harvest Season, the Change in the Length of Daylight Hours, and the Coming of Winter (in the Northern Hemisphere).🔥🍽🪦🌾❄️

It’s no coincidence that so many celebrations occur at this time of year. After all, today is a Cross-Quarter Day, marking the half-way point of the third quarter/season of the EHc solar year; a point in time observed and marked by the earliest astronomers, as they followed the Sun on its annual ecliptic path through the heavens.🔭

SOME TRADITIONS ARE MEANT TO BE BROKEN 

In many places, this date also signals that it’s time to readjust our clocks one hour back to Standard Time.⏳

In The EartHeaven Calendar white paper, author Steve Howland notes:

“A brief point about clock time is that there would be significant advantages, both economically and psychologically, to remaining on Standard Time without changing to Daylight Saving Time (in actuality, an inane convention), particularly in the Northern Hemisphere. It is called ‘Standard’ Time for a good reason: it’s based on the concept that on the equinoxes, the sun will rise directly along/over the equator (and at all points on the globe, from pole to pole) at 6 am, and will set at 6 pm, reaching peak meridian at 12 Noon  —  purely logical and easily understood. Let’s put an end to “daylight silly time” for good!”

We here at EHc.World are not the only ones who support such an idea. There are several organizations rallying the same cry, including Save Standard Time and the Coalition for Permanent Standard Time (CpST), who both make a strong (and logical, science-based) case for remaining on Standard Time. Last year, the topic was a hot one for the US government (see this 2023 article on NPR). Unfortunately, these people were looking to do the opposite and make the “fake” clock time of Daylight Saving Time permanent instead!

I heartily agree with everyone remaining on Standard Time, and adjusting our lives and schedules accordingly, to make the most effective use of each day. I encourage you to promote the idea of breaking with this particular tradition as well. Join in the movement to bring us back into alignment with the Natural Rhythms of the Cosmos — in the tradition of our earliest astronomer ancestors — all year round. Follow the EHC, and follow the Sun.✴️