"Another year. A season passed. We’ve made it through winter: food from the larder and hoary-headed frosts. The meals were heavy. So were the ermine capes, the wools and silks on our heads. Dry January came and went. Resolutions frayed as the weeks ticked by. What does it mean to live a life in time? A life divided into equal parts, shaped by the stars, named for gods and saints? To speak astronomically, a year has a simple definition: one trip around the sun. From one vernal equinox to the next takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. Give or take. But for a long time before Copernicus put forth his heliocentric model, artists and augurers were mapping the phases of the moon and the changing of the seasons to mark the years. We’ve been making calendars since the Bronze Age. They recur across civilizations, and across systems of knowledge. ...”
From one vernal equinox to the next takes 365 days, 5 hours, 48 minutes and 46 seconds. Give or take.
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