There is some confusion regarding the exact starting date of the new millennium. January 1, 2000 marks the first calendrical day of the third millennium, but January 1, 2001 marks the first actual day of the third millennium due to the fact that our Western calendar has no zero year.

It will probably be easier for most people to live with the shortcomings of the current calendar in regard to the actual beginning of the new millennium. It's not practical for historians to go back and renumber the years before the common era (Before Christ - BC) in order to make the calendrical year 2000 AD agree with the actual number of years from the starting date of the calendar (1999 years). It would be ridiculous for historians to have to change dates such as 1 BC to 0 BC; either leave well enough alone or abandon the Gregorian calendar as we use it and find something that makes sense to humanity.

The Western calendar is so widely used that it will likely remain the World's defacto calendar for some time, but what if it became impractical for us to continue using our current calendar system because of the millenium bug's effect on computers or because of something else currently totally unforseen? What if too many clocks went back to 00 and there was no easy way to bring the world back into calendrical synchronization? These are extreme possibilities, but what if those who are predicting calendrical disasters are not just crying "Wolf"? Could there be a better time to rethink our methods of keeping time than the commencement of the new millennium? Will it take a computer catastrophe that brings civilization to its knees to make us realize that the calendar is important and that it needs as much attention as Social Security? Of course we can assume that computer problems will eventually be solved, but what if the millennium bug were to aggravate other systems and place stress on the global economy severe enough to lead to worldwide depression? In any case, we know that there will be more talk about these senarios before the year 2000 arrives.

Why make the start of the Aquarian Age coincide with the start of the new millennium anyway? It will be convenient to begin the Aquarian Age in the year 2000 because it will allow the Aquarian Age to keep in sync with the Western calendar that is widely used around the world today.

The fuss over whether the new millennium begins in the year 2000 or 2001 may go on for many years to come, but those arguments shouldn't concern those of us looking at the changing points of the astronomical ages. The currently used Gregorian calendar starts on the accepted birthdate of Jesus Christ (although his actual birth is believed to be circa 4 B.C,), and while various revisions made through the centuries may have altered the count slightly, the passing of time as it is measured in the Gregorian calendar is a matter of a linear number sequence only. The Astronomical Ages, on the other hand, are based on the precession of the equinox, a phenomena caused by the rotation and wobble of the earth in its orbit and other astronomical factors. These two totally different ways of measuring the passage of time will, by coincidence, align on the spring equinox in the year 2000.

Those of us who believe in the Aquarian Age will probably welcome the new calendrical millennium on January 1, 2000 with as much enthusiasm as everyone else, and why not? We will be around to enjoy January 1, 2001 and celebrate it as the beginning of a new year and as the day when 2000 years actually passed. Not only that, we'll have another celebration on the spring equinox in the year 2000 because that will be designated as the actual and calendrical beginning of the Aquarian Age.

Some scientists and others are rethinking the current calendar and some have even called for replacing the current system with something more accurate. There may be hundreds of suggestions and thousands of ideas on how that can best be accomplished, but lets consider going back to astronomical calendars.

We should remember that many calendars were astronomical or astrological in origin and were based on the changing seasons and astronomical phenomena. Through the centuries there have been revisions to the calendar by emperors and popes. The lengths of the months are all out of alignment with the seasons and the months are irregular in length. The best answer may be for us to return to the roots of our calendar and using the latest astronomical observations, create a calendar that means something. A calendar should have relevance to the lives of those who use it. It should present the current astronomical events like the old farmer's almanacs did, and some still do. We should have a more universal understanding of the yearly cycles of the Sun as well as the monthly cycles of the Moon. Many calendars present graphics of the lunar phases and some have the times of the phase changes. This type of information about astronomical phenomena is important to those of use who want to live in harmony with the natural rhythms of the real world around us.

May the Spirit of the Aquarian Age Be Upon Us