Blog of Zoe at Galien Valley
Galien River valley, southwest Michigan, North America
Intro to Quality Calendar:
A calendar of a local culture:
my days, weeks, etc.
Galien Valley Cultural Calendar
A different way to think of days, weeks, months, holidays, seasons, culture, etc. Celebrate good qualities, every day.
Read inspirational quotes, etc.
Learn about native Michigan wildlife, etc.
Support communities, people, and nature.
See below to read more about the purpose of this calendar.
Quality Calendar, this week:
click on a day, to see the daily calendar page
Werverdae, Ingbing 1
August 19
Moeyoedae, Ingbing 2
August 20
Singlingdae, Ingbing 3
August 21
Dipidae, Ingbing 4
August 22
Fafadae, Ingbing 5
August 23
Jaegaedae, Ingbing 6
August 24
Purpose of Calendar:
It's important for there to be both a global calendar and many unique local calendars. There needs to be many local calendars, one calender per each of the many localities in the world. A locality could be any size from a 50-mile region, 50-mile watershed, to a county, to a 5-mile community. There should not be only a global calendar. It's important for there to be a diversity of how we think of time, take time to live and learn and work and play, the seasons, and seasonal holidays. We do not want a monoculture of everyone thinking the same stifling way. We need a diversity of thought and culture. We want to make sure we think of the local plants and animals within each locality, and what their yearly phenology and routines are. Different plants and animals live in different parts of the world and local calendars should relate to local plants and animals. The globalized Gregorian civil calendar has 12 months per year, 28 to 31 days per month, and 7 days per week. The Galien Valley Calendar is at least slightly different with 30 days every month (except the last month has 35 days), 6 days per week, and 5 weeks every month (except last month has 6 weeks). In the Galien Valley Calendar, the first day of every month starts on the same weekday: Werverdae. The Galien Valley Calendar has different month names and weekday names as well as different seasonal holidays, than the globalized Gregorian civil calendar.
The Galien Valley Calendar promotes universal morals / globalized hearts, as well as some localized unique cultural flair of local plants and animals, plus unique days, weeks, months, and holidays of the year.
The Galien Valley Calendar has us break away from thinking about days as being a Monday or Friday, or inbetween, or a weekend. Instead the Galien Valley Calendar encourages that everyday is special and cherished, not just Fridays. Everyday is a day to celebrate a good quality in life. Everyday is a day to celebrate and have fun by playing hard, relaxing, and working hard at doing good, doing science and art, and sustaining and enriching communities, people, and nature.
Globally the Same:
The Globalized Heart. We do want everyone in the world to have the same good heart: to love family, friends, and neighbors, near and far; and, to love communities, people, and nature, near and far; and to think globally by acting to sustain and enrich local nature and local community economics. We want universal moral thought and action. We want globalized love and peace, as well as social and economic equality and justice. We want globalized freedom to be free to do sustainable, loving, moral, healthy, and responsible things. We want globalized tolerance of diversity of different localities and different cultures. The Galien Valley Calendar promotes universal morals / globalized hearts, as well as some localized unique cultural flair of local plants and animals, plus unique days, weeks, months, and holidays of the year. The Galien Valley Calendar promotes universal morals / globalized hearts such as by displaying inspirational and moral quotes by famous people, including Martin Luther King, Mother Teresa, Henry David Thoreau, and Leo Tolstoy.
Globally Different:
Diverse and Localized Cultures, and Localized Community Economics. We want a diversity of physical thought and action. Our hearts and morals should be universal, not our physical thoughts and actions. People should physically think and act to best suit their local needs, local community, local economics, local cultures, local food, and local nature and habitats. We want local communties to exist for long as possible, which requires that we treat our surrounding and distant communities well too. Helping our local community includes to not selfishly take things from and harm other communities. Community cultures and community economics commonly establish social justice, economic justice, health justice, and environmental justice. (For example, read "The Hadza," by Frank Marlowe. The Hadza community is a real community in Africa, today. The Hadza community runs its own local culture and community economy. The Hadza have social justice (both men and women are equally empowered and respected); there are no rich people; there is no poverty (everyone has enough shelter, water, food, clothes, etc.); there is no slavery; there is a chief facilitator and democracy; there is no king or dictator; the Hadza are generally healthy; some Hadza live to be over 80 years old; and the Hadza live sustainable lives - they do not cause unsustainable environmental destruction and they do not burn fossil fuels.)
We don't want everyone in the world being physically the same - same culture, same economy - eating the same McDonalds hamburger or wearing the same Gap jeans and buying globalized gasoline. Globalized economics is boring and mind-numbing, it really limits our minds into a tiny box, plus it causes a plethora of economic injustice, social injustice, environmental injustice, and health injustice. (For example, watch "True Cost," a 2015 documentary film about the globalized clothing industry harming nature and harming people's economy and health.) We don't want a globalized culture, a globalized economy, and globalized disasters of fast food, clothing fads, fossil fuels, nor of just one calendar. A globalized culture and market economy creates vast amounts of inequality and injustice, socially, community-wise, economically, health-wise, educationally, and environmentally. To promote cultural diveristy, for the sake of social justice, equality, health, economics, communties, education, and the environment, the Galien Valley Calendar promotes universal morals / globalized hearts, as well as some localized unique cultural flair of local plants and animals, plus unique days, weeks, months, and holidays of the year.
Think of good things, and overcome evil with good.
Up with goodness, awareness, creativity, altruism, health, diversity, morality, sustainability, enrichment, love, peace, joy, excitement, social justice, economic fairness, responsibility, etc.
Down with the horrible, ignorance, destruction, greed, illness, monotony, immorality, destruction, complacency, uncaring, violence, depression, boredom, social injustice, economic injustice, recklessness, etc.
It's most important to be moral and spiritual and to locally handmake your own vital stuff: housing, food, clothes, tools, soap, gather local water, etc. The calendar is not as practical, but since I had it already, I used it. The calendar does inspire and support the important movement to get more culturally diverse and econmically local again.
Before I was very practical, 10+ years ago, I made this calendar: 6-day-weeks, 30-day-months, the new names of months, weekdays, holidays, etc., I even had a draft list of native plants and animals for each week. More recently, I reused my 10+ years ago calendar, because I wasn't going to bother spend the time to make a new one, and I added qualities and quotes to each day, and selected a native plant or animal for each day.
Months of the Year:
of the Galien Valley Cultural Calendar
Winter
Wookooch (January-ish)
Churoo (February-ish)
Shoover (March-ish)
Spring
Menen (April-ish)
Yeeyoet (May-ish)
Hoehee (June-ish)
Summer
Siloi (July-ish)
Doipoil (August-ish)
Ingbing (September-ish)
Fall
Faga (October-ish)
Zhazaw (November-ish)
Jaethaz (December-ish)