We take a look at the rhyme and reason behind 29 February – and the many ways to celebrate this rare extra day
If every year had 13 months of 28 days, each month would start on a Sunday and end on a Saturday. Our birthdays would fall on the same day every year and where would the fun be in that?
We tend to think, at least in the West, of the Gregorian calendar as immutable; something as old as time. Since its introduction by Pope Gregory XIII in 1582, the Gregorian solar dating system is now used in most of the world.
Now, most people think that a leap year happens every four years. But that’s not strictly true. The Gregorian method features some clever updates to its less accurate predecessor – the Julian calendar, which was causing the seasons to shift backwards at a rate of almost one day per century. The Gregorian method determined that no century year is a leap year unless it is exactly divisible by 400 (such as the year 2000, for instance) and any year evenly divisible by 4,000 is not a leap year. These tweaks keep the Gregorian calendar accurate to within one day in 20,000 years. And by then our AI overlords will have figured everything out.
In the meantime, what are we to do with our one wild and precious leap day, on 29 February, this year? There’s the obvious, of course: proposing to a man if you are a woman. Amy Adams even starred in a film about it back in 2010. But if you’re not looking to get hitched, or already are, does that leave you staring at a blank page in your Moleskine?
It depends where you are. In Taiwan, dutiful daughters return to their family homes during the leap year to cook their ageing parents a meal of pig-trotter noodles. In Germany, the Liebesmaie tradition of boys decorating a birch tree for the girl he fancies is reversed. And at the Savoy Hotel in London, you can sip the Leap Year Cocktail invented in 1928 by the property’s legendary bartender Harry Craddock. Combining Grand Marnier, sweet vermouth, gin and lemon juice, this heady cousin of the Martini is ‘responsible for more proposals than any other cocktail ever mixed’, according to The Savoy Cocktail Book Craddock penned in 1930.
‘This leap year is like stepping into another dimension for just one day. I will be lighting my candles and turning all diffuser reeds to amplify the fragrance around me'
Perhaps you want to focus less on the corporeal and more on the spiritual, in which case modern-day pagans and witches consider the leap day ripe for spells. Its rarity means that it is highly charged, existing in a liminal space which only opens up every four years (with a few exceptions, remember).
Autumn Zenith, a witch blogger who describes herself as Martha Stewart meets Morticia Addams, suggests using the day to plant a new garden or launch a project. ‘Now is a phenomenal time to set long-term spells, manifestations and plans into place,’ she writes on her website. So, practise intention-setting and other forms of long-term magick.
For Aja Botanicals founder Tilly Wood, the leap year is an opportunity to raise your vibrations. ‘This leap year is like stepping into another dimension for just one day. I will be lighting my candles and turning all diffuser reeds to amplify the fragrance around me, my friends and family at home. Fragrance has the ability lift my spirits and on this day I think we all need to raise our vibration in whatever way we can, to chime with this magical space in time. Who knows what the moment will bring.’ For Tilly, the highest vibration she can feel is ‘love and the spark of joy that I receive when I am feeling grateful for everything I have’.
To get into a higher vibratory state, Tilly suggests simply lighting a candle and lying down for a while, taking a walk in the woods so you can meditate surrounded by nature, indulging in a long bath, or just relaxing and listening to music. ‘Do whatever you need to give yourself a moment and get yourself into a positive frame of mind, so you can be present and feel the vibes,’ she says. ‘Let’s allow some space for the universe to charge us up on this special day.’
It doesn’t take being a “leapilng”, a “leaper” or a “leapster” – that is, someone born on a leap day – to appreciate the gift of 29 February. It can just be an invitation to take notice and to consider our place in the universe. After all, what’s more humbling than picturing this pale blue dot we call home, hurtling around the sun at 67,000 mph, taking 365.24 days to complete its journey. Or what we call one year.
Theresa Harold is a freelance journalist whose words have been published in publications including The Daily Telegraph, The Independent, Stylist, Tatler and Lonely Planet. She is currently working on her first book, a memoir about love and tree planting in Canada.
Discover the Aja Botanicals natural home fragrance collections here.
