Today is the first day of the month of April. It easy to forget that the calendar we use is relatively young, and that it has just as much politics behind it as it does astronomical science. Even less obvious is the idea of how our calendar revolves around food.
Many are aware of the definition of time by the position of the moon, the sun, or both—hence lunar, solar and lunisolar calendars.
The truth of the mater is the current Gregorian calendar, named after Pope Gregory XIII, goes back to 1582, when the calendar jumped from October 3 to October 15. That jump corrected the Justinian calendar, which had been in use since 45 B.C. The Gregorian calendar was first accepted mainly in catholic countries in Europe and the colonized territories of those European countries.
In other words, the calendar in use today has imperial significance. That is not a hard thing to detect. The original Roman calendar had ten months. March was the first month and it was named after Mars, the god of war. In total, 4 months were named after Greco-Roman gods, and 6 months were named numerically.
To this day, September, October, November and December are the three month with numerical names. But those four name’s don’t represent the correct numerical position of those months. September, October, November and December were the 7th, 8th, 9th and 10th month respectively.
Two months of July and August were added and named after Julius Caesar and Augustus Caesar respectively.
Indigenous people under the influence of the Papacy lost their indigenous calendars, the majority of which revolved around the local food production. I have been talking to many elders, as well as scouting for information amongst the many books written about my culture, as I have come to suspect that many of the food issues that we are currently facing globally is largely due to the fact that we are not in alignment with our calendar, and by extension, with our consciousness. It is practically impossible to be normal and healthy using a calendar of the empire. The reality of the matter is that the Empire calendar we live under has facilitated the creation of the most destructive period in recorded history, better known as Anthropocene.
It is a very strange feeling for an indigenous person who is in tune with his natural calendar to live under Anthropocene. I have meet many people who consider themselves very wealthy, but their calendar was way off the natural cycle of time and space. Not all are lost. There is an emerging interest in something different from what we currently have.
I call the attempt to liberate oneself from the jaws of the vicious calendar and culture Anthrofoodism, the act of eating and living in a manner that is aligned to our indigenous evolution, and to the principles of indigenous time and space. The failure to gain that level of literacy is bound to make one a victim of April Fools Food.
May I ask you if you know what date it is today? Better yet, I could just ask you if you know your food date today.
Remember that the word April comes from the Latin word “Aperiio” which literally means to open up; implying the opening up of flower buds. In my indigenous language, the month is named Mùthatù, probably from the fog that appeared during that time of the year. To mark the month, an ancient Roman rite was performed in which young men would carry strips of goat skin and ran around the streets naked in celebration of fertility. Today, a similar tradition continues by the carrying leaves of palm around but for a different reason altogether. Yet the roots of that practice goes back to the fertility rites in Ancient Rome.
I am celebrating my “openness” into fertility of of my indigenous consciousness and the realignment of my concepts of time and space. Central to that alignment is food. For surely, falling a victim of April Foods Food has to be the perpetual antidote to openness, fertility or life in general. That is what I term as death worship.
I highly recommend that we each consider doing likewise. If you don’t, you may be living under an April Fools Food Calendar.
Thayù Thayù