As I'm practicing my laziness skills doing nothing remarkable this morning and enjoying the beautiful (and cooler) weather we're having here in Macon, I found myself thinking about how today seems and feels in some ways different from any other day, yet, also simultaneously feels identically the same as was yesterday. My black lab, Coal who is always eager to eat, play and scheme new ways of how to steal things from the kitchen, happily runs through his day as indifferent and incoherent to the names of the days of the week as do the trees in the yard. He has no concept of the distinction and associations we all attribute to the 7 different divisions of our week. This brought me to thinking about today's name Sunday. Where did it come from and what is its history? Why do we even have names of the days of the week? I can't say as I have a specific day of the week that would be called my favorite since to do so would be to ascribe some sort of superstitious meaning based on traditional long held beliefs and ancient legends as compared with seemingly random events in my own life. But, isn't that what their names are founded on in the first place? Astrological definitions based on the the particular Greek or Roman god associated with that days specific primary celestial body?
From Wikipedia: "Sunday, being the day of the Sun, as the name of the first day of the week, is derived from Egyptian astrology, where the seven planets, known in English as Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, the Sun, Venus, Mercury and the Moon, each had an hour of the day assigned to them, and the planet which was regent during the first hour of any day of the week gave its name to that day. During the 1st and 2nd century, the week of seven days was introduced into Rome from Egypt, and the Roman names of the planets were given to each successive day."
The historical and factual basis for our names of the days of the week transcend both language and semantics throughout history and are the subject of much long detailed research from which I won't be repetitious and go into here. Suffice to say that some of our most commonly used names for things have roots that are as deep and ancient as they are little understood, We just accept them as they are and go through our life oblivious to their origins.
The same can be said for the names of the months and in the case of the Chinese, the 12-year cycle of the names of the year which any Chinese restaurant happily displays on the paper placemats. Happy year of the horse by the way.
Lots of history and tradition to consider in even the most ordinary of moments. As for me today its time to get further busy with the things to be done on a day off. To all of you I say until tomorrow and TGIS !
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Egyptian astrology says Sunday is the beginning of the week, but it always seems to be the end of the week for me. A time to get things finished up before starting a new week, on Monday.
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