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This year's calendar showcases the solstices and equinoxes, which are celebrated in religious festivals and mythology, as well as by alignments of fascinating ruins worldwide. On the cover, we feature an image of the Pyramid complex at Giza, Egypt, which marks the winter solstice, represented by the akhet or symbol of the sun between two mountains.
In the calendar, we include images and text from the Bible, such as the prophet Ezekiel's vision of four "creatures," symbols of the fixed signs following the solstices and equinoxes (January), and Moses's entry into the Promised Land (September), both of which tales revolve around not historical persons and events but the solstices and/or equinoxes.
We journey next to Athens, Greece, where an ancient theater was built to celebrate the mythical life of the solar wine and vine god, Dionysus, frequently fêted during the spring. Also in the spring at the equinox (March), a shadowy snake slithers down the side of the famous pyramid of the solar serpent god Quetzalcoal at Chichen Itza, Yucatan. Likewise aligned to the vernal and autumnal equinoxes is the monument at Stonehenge called the "Cursus," which appears in April's imagery.
A fabulous Buddhist monument is highlighted as May's image, which includes a statue of Buddha illuminated by the sun's rays at the summer solstice. Summer solstice celebrations also mark the "Nativity of St. John," who in reality is a solar figure symbolizing the half-year period from the summer to winter solstices, while his successor, Jesus, is the presiding deity over the six-month winter-to-summer solstice time. The sun's passage through the equinoxes and solstices is marked also within Maori mythology, discussed in July's image of the Pleiades.
Perhaps not so surprisingly, humanity has been marking these annual milestones for many thousands of years, as demonstrated by the 7,000-year-old ruins at Almendres, Portugal, featured in August. As part of this ancient tradition, for October we revisit Egypt, exploring the solar alignment of the Great Temple of Ramesses II at Abu, Simbel.
A relatively unknown but massive Mayan site of Dzibilchaltún in the Yucatán, México, has a "temple of Seven Dolls" that is aligned to the equinoxes. Finally, for December we visit the famous Temple of Zeus at Olympia, Greece, which is aligned to Spica, the brightest star in the constellation of Virgo, myths about which contributed to our "Christmas" traditions.