How did you pick the dates of the seasons?
Compared to our ancestors, we spend an awful lot of time indoors, away from nature. So many of us spend our days going from our air conditioned homes to our air conditioned cars to our air conditioned, windowless workplaces and then repeat. It's amazing how well we've created a world where we can be completely unaware of what our ancestors would see, hear, smell, and feel in nature. More and more studies are finding that this is not good for our bodies and minds.
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Reconnecting with nature is reconnecting with Mother Earth and the unity and harmony of nature. It helps us comprehend and rediscover our place as part of a greater and beautiful Whole. One way to reconnect with our ancestors' experience with nature and pursue virtue is to pay attention to what's in the sky. Our ancestors looked at the stars and experienced amazing things. We believe in looking at the stars more!
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The virtue season dates were informed by the stars. Specifically by certain constellations called the zodiacs which take turns being in the path of the sun throughout the year. This is presented really well in the following video:
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You may associate zodiacs with the belief that one's personality and fortune is influenced by which zodiac was in the sun's path on their birthday. We're not sure whether or not that's the case but we do use zodiacs to determine when to practice each virtue. Here's how we used zodiacs to determine the 13 virtue seasons:
First off, we chose to recognize all 13 zodiacs. As explained in the video above, popular zodiac calendars (based on the Babylonian tradition) do not match the actual dates when each zodiac is in the sun's path and they completely leave out Ophiuchus, the 13th zodiac. The 13 virtue season dates were determined by recognizing all 13 zodiacs, allowing a season for each of the13 virtues.
We considered using the dates of Sidereal Astrology, which recognizes all 13 zodiacs and has alternative day lengths for each zodiac to account for the actual amount of time each constellation spends in the sun's path. But we didn't want some virtue seasons to get more days than other ones. We wanted a system that encourages people to balance the amount of time and energy they give to each facet of virtue.
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So, we adapted the Sidereal chart so that each season would have 28 days with the exception of Steward the Earth which has 29 days (there's no way to evenly divide 365 by 13). This sits fine with us because this 13th virtue is sort of in its own category. And, yes, in a leap year Love Everyone gets 28 days as well but we'll just have to live with that (I think we can all live with some extra love every four years).
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We hope people who honor the 13 virtue seasons will remember the stars more and grow their virtue by spending more time with nature. Maybe doing so will remind us that the stars are available to everyone to see just as virtue is available to all. And maybe we'll find greater meaning in the biblical statement that, since the beginning, the stars have been "for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and years".
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Furthermore, for reasons we cannot yet explain, we've found that when we focus on each virtue around the time that its corresponding zodiac is in the sun, something marvelous happens in our lives and relationships. You can read more about that here.