another leap year
I’m almost a little scared to write a post imagining what the year ahead will bring. 2024 is a leap year and the last one of those that we had didn’t work out that well.
At the beginning of 2020, I wrote a post looking forward to the year ahead and I was quite pessimistic saying that: ‘Superstition suggests that 2020 may be a bit erratic. Many cultures believe that leap years are unlucky. Reportedly, the world goes a bit erratic with crazy weather patterns, additional suffering and a pretty gloomy outlook. Hence why some countries believe it is unlucky to make major decisions in a leap year like buying a house or car, or getting married.’
Little did I know how unlucky that year would turn out to be and it started a run of lockdowns and a year that would be unlike any we’d seen before.
lucky number 24
So here’s hoping that this leap year will not be anywhere as erratic as the last one! And with it being 2024, some would say that it will be a lucky year as the number 24 is considered lucky in some cultures and traditions.
In numerology, the number 24 is associated with harmony, balance, family, and diplomacy. Number 24 symbolizes the harmony between the earth and the sky and is believed to bring good fortune. Many Chinese people choose this number for important events and celebrations.
what’s in a number?
It got me thinking how prolific the number 24 features in our everyday life:
- hours in a day
- bits a computer needs for colour images
- frames per second of a motion film
- American tv series starring Kiefer Sutherland as a federal agent
- carats in pure gold
- atomic number for chromium (Cr in the periodic table) – a shiny silver metal
- degrees in the earth’s axle tilt (which is what gives us different seasons and changing daylight hours during the year)
- letters in the Greek alphabet
- books in Homer’s Iliad and books in the Odyssey too
- elders in the Book of Revelation in the Bible
- sheets of paper that make a quire
- major and minor keys in Western music
- number of points on a backgammon board
- blocks of 15 days that the year is split into in Japanese and Chinese culture (looks like we are in the Lesser Cold microseason at the moment but moving in to Greater Cold soon)
- date in December of Christmas Eve (and doors on an advent calendar)
- French department of Dordogne (where we spent a lovely summer holiday last year)
- number of my first house (think I’ve lived in 7 or 8 more places since)
- blackbirds baked in a pie (in Sing a Song of Sixpence)
- elements that make up the human body
- set of human chromosomes passed down from each parent
- vertebrae in the human spine
Here’s to a happy 2024!
