Carpe Diem – The Power Behind The Leap Year

And why we should take advantage of this additional day.

Most of the time, a year is made up of 365 days, but every four years February gains an extra day at the end of the month. The Gregorian calendar now serves as the standard calendar for civil use throughout the world and has both common years and leap years; a common year has 365 days and a leap year with 366. This helps synchronize the calendar year with the solar year, or the length of time it takes the earth to complete its orbit around the sun, which is about 365¼ days. The length of the solar year, however, is slightly less than 365¼ days-by about 11 minutes. To compensate for this discrepancy, the leap year is omitted three times every four hundred years.

Because this day only comes about once every 4 years, some believe it holds significant spiritual importance. For example, as we are given an extra day, some believe this is for the purpose of recalibration; a very rare extra twenty-four hour slot to get things done and re-charge your batteries. However, some people take this as an opportunity to take up a new hobby, change your reading habits, broaden your mind and de-stress.

However, from an astrological perspective, it is notable that a leap day falls in the sign of the Pisces. Pisces energy supposedly enhances compassion, imagination and artistry, banishing the boundaries that divide our heart from our head. Therefore, leap day is a representation of spiritual awakening, and a particularly enlightening month for people that identify with this zodiac.

When it comes to tradition, it has been a day of traditions, folklore and superstitions ever since they were first introduced by Julius Caesar over 2000 years ago. These traditions include women proposing to their partners in order to potentially balance the scales of patriarchy much like our calendar does. In many European countries, tradition suggests that men who refuse a woman's proposal on February 29 has to buy her 12 pairs of gloves, with the intention of hiding her embarrassment covering her naked finger. In Scotland, it used to be considered unlucky for someone to be born on leap day, the same way Greeks consider it unlucky for couples to marry during a leap year, and especially on Leap Day.

Regardless of your spiritual connection to leap years, it is at the very least an extra day given to us to give us more time; something very dear.