Let This Year’s Extra Day Be Your “Day One”
EVER FOUND IT KINDA SUSS THAT WE JUST HAPPEN TO HAVE AN ‘EXTRA’ DAY EVERY 4 YEARS, THAT NOBODY EVER QUESTIONS?
Let’s dive into what that’s all about, and take a look at 4 of our top suggestions for how you can make the most out of this once-in-four-years bonus day!
The Leap Year
A peculiar phenomenon that means that this year February 29th will exist on our calendars, only to disappear again for another four years!
The Leap Year came about during the Roman Empire, during the time of the Julian Calendar. It was observed that the earth didn’t *actually* take 365 days to revolve around the sun, but it was a bit awkward to have a 365.25 *ish* days-long year, so the Leap Year was created every 4 years to add up those extra quarter days that had taken place.
This stopped our calendars from drifting out of sync with the astronomical seasons, allowing us to continue to live & work in alignment with spring, summer, autumn & winter - which was especially important for agriculture at that time!
In 1582 this calendar received a big makeover, and the Gregorian calendar was introduced, which is the calendar most of the world lives by today!
It turned out there’d been some overcompensation, so in October of 1582 there’s ‘10 days out of time’ - days that have been ‘deleted’ from existence because there were too many of them (?!?!?!) AND THEN in 1752 with the adoption of the Gregorian calendar by Britain, and the change of the New Year from March 25th to January 1st, another 11 days were ‘deleted’.
Crazy, right?!
It’s important to note that not every country in the world adopted this Calendar system, which was a primarily Western system. Many countries in the East use the Lunar cycles to establish their calendars, The Chinese Calender (and Chinese New Year) being the one we’re most probably familiar with! Ethiopia on the other hand is the only country in the world that uses a pre-Julian calendar, observing 13 months every year - they’re still living in 2016 according to their Calendar!
This is an important distinction because with the sun (solar energy) typically representing masculine energy, and the moon (lunar energy) representing feminine energy, it’s no surprise that the calendar that ‘made the most sense’ for the western world to follow was the solar one.
This solar calendar very much reflects just how much our society values doing, productivity, and linear-living, over being, intuition, and cyclical living - principles which hold huge value but are often overlooked.
But we believe that as with everything, it’s the integration of those two energies that lead to true harmony.
So with that little history lesson out of the way, let’s take a look at how you can take advantage of your ‘extra’ day this year
1. Use it as an opportunity to reflect on your relationship with time, and become more intentional about how you’re using your most valuable resource.
Whilst it isn’t exactly accurate, consider February 29th to be an extra bonus day, and rather than filling it to the brim with all the stuff that’s overflowing in your schedule, instead we invite you to give yourself the gift of white space, and take this opportunity to truly reflect on your relationship with time, get curious about how you spend your most valuable resource, and become more intentional about using the finite time you have.
Here’s some useful prompts to get you started….
What do I spend most of my time on?
What do I value most?
Are these two things in alignment?
What new intentions do I want to set around how I spend my time?
2. Re-Balance the Masculine & Feminine Energy in your life.
Use this Leap Day to explore the balance of masculine & feminine energy in your life - looking at how much you’re doing vs how much you’re being, where you might be prioritising productivity over presence, and where you’ve been doing things in a linear way, when tapping into your cyclical nature might just be what’s needed.
It’s not about one being better than the other, but about tapping into, and integrating, both of these energies to experience maximum harmony in our lives!
3. Tradition says you can propose to your boyfriend on the Leap Day, we say why not use it to make a commitment to yourself.
According to Irish tradition dating all the way back to the 5th Century, women are ‘allowed’ to propose to men on Leap Day. Yes, yes, we know we can do as we darn well please in 2024, but this was the 5th Century!! Story has it St Brigid found it so unfair that women had to keep waiting around indefinitely for their men to propose, that she appealed to St Patrick, who agreed that every 4 years on the Leap Year women could do the asking! Talk about ahead of the curve, Brigid!
Fun Fact: in 1288 this tradition made its way over to Scotland and England, where a law was passed that if the gentleman in question rejected the proposal, he had to buy the lady a silk gown or a pair of gloves as a fine!
So if you’re in need of a new silk gown or some gloves ladies, you know what to do!
But our spin on it - why not use this Leap Day to make a commitment to yourself instead?
This could look like planning a special date night for yourself, buying yourself flowers, and writing your vows for how you want to show up better for yourself for the rest of the year.
4. Let this Leap Day be your Day One.
Or our favourite… why not use this ‘extra’ day of 2024 to get a leap start (wink wink) on something you’ve always wanted to do, but keep saying you’ll get around to ‘one day’.
Whether it’s taking up a new passion project, finally starting that business you’ve been talking about, launching your podcast, getting the drastic haircut, trying on a new style, or whatever else might be buried away in your heart…
Let this Leap Day be your Day One.
“ONE DAY OR DAY ONE. You Decide.”
Paulo Coehlo
WHATS UP NEXT …
