Naturalistic Paganism
All dates are for Northern Hemisphere
(Movable dates are marked with *.)
January
Jan 1 New Year’s Day
Jan 1 Cosmic Calendar: Big Bang 13.8 billion years ago (bya)
* third Monday of January is Martin Luther King Day
Jan 22 Chief Seattle surrenders native land
Jan 27 International Holocaust Remembrance Day
February
Feb 1/2 Neo-Pagan winter cross-quarter day (Imbolc)
Feb 2 Groundhog’s Day
*Feb 3-4 Winter thermistice/cross-quarter
Feb 12 Darwin Day
Feb 17 Giordano Bruno burned at the stake
Feb 20 World Day of Social Justice
Feb 24 Black Nonbelievers Solidarity Day
March
Mar 4 Church of All Worlds charted as first Neo-Pagan church in U.S. (1967)
Mar 8 International Women’s Day
* second Sunday of March Daylight Savings Time begins in the U.S.
Mar 14 Einstein’s birthday / Pi Day
Mar 15 Hypatia Day
Mar 17 St. Patrick’s Day
*Mar 19-20 Spring equinox ( spring begins in U.S.) / Neo-Pagan spring quarter day (Ostara)
Mar 21 International Day of Nowruz
Mar 21 International Day of the Forests
Mar 22 World Water Day
April
Apr 7 World Health Day
Apr 12 International Day of Human Space Flight
Apr 20 Marcus Aurelius’ birthday
Apr 21 John Muir’s birthday
Apr 22 Earth Day / International Mother Earth Day
Apr 25 Arbor Day
May
May 1 Neo-Pagan spring cross-quarter day (Beltane)
* first Thursday of May is National Day of Prayer and National Day of Reason
May 2 Pagan Coming Out Day
*May 4-5 Spring equitherm/cross-quarter
May 11 Cosmic Calendar: Milky Way Galaxy Formed 8.8 bya
May 15 Thomas Taylor’s birthday
May 16 Love a Tree Day
May 22 International Day for Biological Diversity
May 24 Vesak, Day of the Full Moon
* last Monday of May is Memorial Day, unofficial start of summer in U.S.
June
Jun 5 World Environment Day
Jun 8 World Oceans Day
Jun 20 World Refugee Day
Jun 20-21 Summer solstice (summer begins in U.S.) / Neo-Pagan summer quarter day (Litha) and World Humanist Day
Jun 26 Julian, the last pagan emperor’s birthday
Jun 26 Anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court same-sex equal rights cases
July
Jul 11 World Population Day
Jul 12 Malala Day
Jul 18 Nelson Mandela Day
Jul 20 Anniversary of the Moon Landing
August
Aug 1 Neo-Pagan summer cross-quarter day (Lughnasadh)
Aug 6 Hiroshima Day
*Aug 6-7 Summer thermistice/cross-quarter
Aug 9 International Indigenous Peoples Day
Aug 19 World Humanitarian Day
Aug 24 Anniversary of Look magazine issue featuring a Neo-Pagan Beltane ritual (1971)
Aug 25 Death of Friedrich Nietzsche
September
Sept 1 Cosmic Calendar: Sun formed 4.57 bya
* first Monday in September is Labor Day, unofficial end of summer in U.S.
Sept 4 Anniversary of Dettmer v. Landon, Wicca legally recognized as a religion
Sept 6 Neo-Pagan Tim Zell has his Theagenesis vision (1971), predating the popularization of Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis
Sept 9 Emerson publishes his essay “Nature”, unofficial beginning of Transcendentalism
Sept 11 9-11 / Anniversary of the World Trade Center attacks
Sept 13 Defy Superstition Day
Sept 15 International Day of Democracy
Sept 16 Cosmic Calendar: Oldest rocks known on earth date to 4 bya
Sept 21 World Peace Day
Sept 21 Cosmic Calendar: First life emerges (prokaryotes) 3.8 bya
*Sept 22-23 Autumn equinox (fall begins in U.S.) / Neo-Pagan autumn quarter day (Mabon)
Sept 30 Blasphemy Rights Day
October
Oct 2 Gandhi’s birthday and International Day of Non-Violence
* first Monday in October is World Habitat Day
Oct 12 Cosmic Calendar: First photosynthesis occurs 3 bya
Oct 16 World Food Day
Oct 17 International Day for the Eradication of Poverty
Oct 29 Cosmic Calendar: Oxygenation of atmosphere occurs 2.4 bya
Oct 31/Nov 1 Neo-Pagan autumn cross-quarter day (Samhain) / Halloween
Oct 31 Anniversary of the publication of The Spiral Dance and Drawing Down the Moon
November
* first Sunday in November Daylight Savings Time ends in U.S.
*Nov 6-7 Autumn equitherm/cross-quarter
Nov 8 Cosmic Calendar: First complex cells (eukaryotes) emerge 2 bya
Nov 9 Carl Sagan’s birthday
Nov 16 International Day of Tolerance
* third Thursday in November is World Philosophy Day
Nov 24 Spinoza’s birthday
Nov 25 International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women
Nov 30 John Toland’s birthday
December
Dec 3 International Day of Persons with Disabilities
Dec 5 Cosmic Calendar: First multicellular life 1 bya
Dec 7 Apollo 17 crew photographs “The Blue Marble” photo
Dec 10 International Human Rights Day
Dec 14 Cosmic Calendar: Simple animals emerge 0.67 bya
Dec 14 Cosmic Calendar: Arthropods emerge 0.55 bya
Dec 18 Cosmic Calendar: Fish and proto-amphibians emerge 0.5 bya
Dec 20 Cosmic Calendar: Land plants emerge 0.45 bya
*Dec 21-22 Winter solstice (winter begins in U.S.) / Neo-Pagan winter quarter day (Yule)
Dec 21 Cosmic Calendar: Insects and seeds emerge 0.4 bya
Dec 22 Cosmic Calendar: Amphibians emerge 0.36 bya
Dec 23 Cosmic Calendar: Reptiles and dinosaurs emerge 0.3 bya
Dec 24 Apollo 8 crew photograph’s “Earthrise” photo
Dec 25 Newton’s birthday
Dec 26 Cosmic Calendar: Mammals emerge 0.2 bya
Dec 27 Cosmic Calendar: Birds emerge 0.15 bya
Dec 27 Anniversary of the voyage of the Beagle
Dec 28 Cosmic Calendar: Flowers emerge 0.13 bya
Dec 30 Cosmic Calendar: Cretaceous-Paleogene extinction event (non-avian dinosaurs die out) 65 mya
Dec 30 Cosmic Calendar: Primates emerge 65 mya
Dec 31 Cosmic Calendar: Hominids emerge 15 mya
The Cosmic Calendar presented above, which maps the history of the universe onto a single year, comes from Carl Sagan’s The Dragons of Eden. An alternative is the Earth Story Calendar, which presents an unfolding which is similar, but spaced out a bit more evenly.
Naturalistic Paganism 
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December is certainly a busy month for evolutionary changes, but it’s worth noting that life began on September 21 and has thus been around for more than a quarter of the entire time since the Big Bang. I think of the big division of our “life span” as the oxygenation of the planet that falls almost in the middle, on October 29. Before that date, only small, simple single cells; after it, complexity and growth. Then, as now, life changed as the planet changed.
Brock
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