For many people in the Bega Valley the Easter holiday is a time of seasonal change as Autumn kicks in and the temperature of the ocean drops.

For some it is a spiritual time spent feasting and visiting church while others pack their camping gear and spend a long weekend connecting with nature.

Many also partake in celebrations that have come to transcend Christianity such as egg hunting, the Easter Bunny and parades.

Easter does not follow the cycle of the sun like our calendar with fixed dates, but the cycle of the moon. The calculation is known as computus which is Latin for computation.

It might sound simple but the calculation is not that easy.

Computus took centuries of trial, error and controversy and still differs between Eastern and Western churches due to their use of different calendars.

Easter has come to be the first Sunday after the ecclesiastical full moon, also known as the northern equinox that occurs on or soon after March 21.

An ecclesiastical full moon is the 14th day of the ecclesiastical lunar month in an ecclesiastical lunar calendar. 

This calendar spans the year with lunar months of 30 and 29 days which are intended to just approximate moon phases.

These approximation calendars can and do get out of step with the moon.

In 1583 the Catholic Church began using March 21 under the Gregorian calendar to calculate Easter while the Eastern Churches use the same date but under the Julian calendar.

The earliest recorded Easter was in 1818 when a full moon fell on the equinox on Saturday, March 21, meaning Easter was the next day which is the earliest date possible.

Easter will not fall on this date again until 2285.

The latest recorded Easter occurred on Sunday, April 25 in 1943.

In that year a full moon fell on Saturday, March 20 and as this date was before the equinox, the next full moon on Sunday, April 18 determined the date of Easter.

The next time Easter will fall on this date will be in the year 2038.

So next time you look up at the moon or watch the sunset remember they exist by different cycles and while many of us are summer sun worshipers many elements of cultural spirituality follow the cycle of the giant rock orbiting our Earth commonly now known as “the moon”.