CHASING DOWN THE MUSE: Make this ‘extra’ day count

Leap Year. Yep. And this is the day, Leap Day, the one day that comes every four years to catch us up. I think most of us know that this day “” technically known as an intercalary day “” is added every four years to keep our calendar working properly.

The intention of the calendar is to match us up to the solar year, but 365 days each year don’t quite cover it. So here we are, messing with nature once again.

In the past few weeks, nature has provided us with a vast panoply of splendors.

Hills and byways are showing off large patches of bright yellow oxalis, blue and purple lupine and the near-luminescence of orange California poppies. We sure don’t want to mess with this spectacle.

But there’s that pesky problem of the solar year. It’s about one year, but this is no game of horseshoes we’re talking about. The actual time it takes for the orbit is a bit more than our 365-day calendar year.

The Egyptians thought they had found a solution by adding a day once every four years. The Romans followed suit, designating Feb. 29 as that day, and our western calendar continued the tradition. Again, this only almost works. If every four years a day is added to the calendar, we are 11 minutes and 14 seconds more per year than the solar year, and over time this adds up.

The Gregorian calendar, which is the standard calendar used in most of the world today, was introduced in 1582. It seeks to correct that 11 minutes-plus by omitting century years from the accounting for leap years unless the century year is divisible by 400. This calculation omits three leap years every few hundred years.

Confused yet? Well, for at least the next 3,300 years or so, the solar year and the Gregorian calendar year will pretty much match up. They are only 30 seconds or so off.

Then, too, there are the revised Julian calendars “” the Chinese, Hebrew, Islamic, Hindu, and even the Iranian calendar “” that all deal with the issue. I’m not going to worry about that; I’ll leave it to others more mathematically inclined than I.

I’d much rather watch the unfolding of all of Mother Nature’s eye candy any day.

In fact, I’ll make the leap to taking a long, long walk at Crystal Cove on this day, stopping to enjoy all that nature offers, and maybe even finishing off with lunch at The Beachcomber. Or if I linger long enough, perhaps a late afternoon cocktail watching the sunset. Heck, I’ve got time. This is a bonus, extra day, right?

CHERRIL DOTY is an artist, writer, and creative coach exploring and enjoying the many mysteries of life in the moment. She can be reached by e-mail at [email protected] or by phone at (949) 251-3883.