Discordian calendar

The Discordian or Erisian calendar is an alternative calendar used by some adherents of Discordianism. It is specified on page 00034 of the Principia Discordia.^[1]

The Discordian year 1 YOLD is 1166 BC. (Elsewhere in the Principia Discordia, it is mentioned that the Curse of Greyface occurred in 1166 BC, so this is presumably the start-date of the calendar.^[2]) As a reference, 2011 AD is 3177 YOLD (Year of Our Lady of Discord). While the abbreviation "YOLD" isn't used in the Principia, and the phrase "Year of Our Lady of Discord" is only mentioned once,^[3] it is a Discordian tradition to use that designation.

Composition

The Discordian calendar has five 73-day seasons: Chaos, Discord, Confusion, Bureaucracy, and The Aftermath. The Discordian year is aligned with the Gregorian calendar and begins on January 1, thus Chaos 1, 3177 YOLD is January 1, 2011 Gregorian.

The Erisian week consists of five days: Sweetmorn, Boomtime, Pungenday, Prickle-Prickle, and Setting Orange. The days of the week are named after the five basic Discordian elements: Sweet, Boom, Pungent, Prickle, and Orange. There are 73 of these weeks per year and every year begins with Sweetmorn.

Every fourth year in the Discordian calendar, starting in 2 YOLD, an extra day is inserted between Chaos 59 and Chaos 60 called St. Tib's Day. This is because 4 years + 1 day = 5, a holy number, but the Discordian leap year also coincides with the Gregorian one. The result of this is that any given day of the year in the Discordian calendar may be taken to correspond to the same day of the year in the Gregorian calendar, and vice versa, although some users of the calendar believe that it is tied to the Julian calendar and so will diverge from the Gregorian in 3266 YOLD (AD 2100).^[4] St. Tib's day is considered outside of the Discordian week.

There are Apostle Holydays on the 5th day of each season, named after the 5 Discordian apostles: Mungday, for Hung Mung; Mojoday, for Dr Van Van Mojo; Syaday, for Sri Syadasti; Zaraday, for Zarathud; and Maladay, for Malaclypse the Elder. There are also Season Holydays on the 50th of each season: Chaoflux, Discoflux, Confuflux, Bureflux, and Afflux.

Holyday	Discordian calendar	Gregorian calendar
Mungday	Chaos 5	January 5
Chaoflux	Chaos 50	February 19
St. Tib's Day	St. Tib's Day	February 29
Mojoday	Discord 5	March 19
Discoflux	Discord 50	May 3
Syaday	Confusion 5	May 31
Confuflux	Confusion 50	July 15
Zaraday	Bureaucracy 5	August 12
Bureflux	Bureaucracy 50	September 26
Maladay	The Aftermath 5	October 24
Afflux	The Aftermath 50	December 8

Only these eleven dates are named in the Principia Discordia; however, Discordians have felt free to invent other holidays which have become popular to varying degrees. Some of these include Discordians for Jesus/Love Your Neighbor Day (March 25/Discord 11); Jake Day (April 6/Discord 23 or occasionally May 23/Discord 70), a day to send tongue-in-cheek letters, emails or faxes to an official or bureaucracy; Saint Camping's Day (May 21/Discord 68), a day to make End of Days predictions and share them in social media; Towel Day (May 25/Discord 72); Mid Year's Day (July 2/ Confusion 37); X-Day (July 5/Confusion 40); and Multiversal Underwear Day (August 10/Bureaucracy 3).^[5]

Implementations

ddate, a program that prints the current date in the Discordian calendar, was part of the util-linux package of basic system utilities.^[6] As such, it was included in nearly all Linux distributions, despite some resistance.^[7] There are many other programs with similar functionality.

References

1. ^ Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00034
2. ^ Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00042
3. ^ Malaclypse the Younger, Principia Discordia, Page 00053
4. ^ [1]
5. ^ Holydays
6. ^ [2]
7. ^ "#149321 — util-linux: ddate should probably be in a different package". Debian bug report logs. Debian. http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=149321. Retrieved 13 April 2011. 

External links

Read an in-depth discussion of the Discordian calendar on Discordipedia, an external wiki

• Online Gregorian-to-Erisian Date Converter
• Discordian Holydays in iCalendar format
• Current Discordian Date and Holydays available via Twitter
• Mac OS X Dashboard Widget to calculate current Discordian date
• Post Principia Discordia holydays including Jake Day
• Discordian Calendar described in the Principia Discorda
• 817 A.S.: Temporary Autonomous Zoners celebrate Jake Day with an Open House and Agape Ludens Ritual at the Temple of Eris, Pueblo Bonito Station, Baffin System, Sirius Sector.