I have lived in AZ most of my life. We are on MST time. Do not observe DST, except for Navajo Nation areas. We do not observe PST either. Why do I bring this ridiculous subject up? Here goes:
I am enrolled in another Pagan school at the moment. The 'teacher' said that because I live in AZ I observe PST half the year and MST the other half. Because we are in between CA and NM.
I don't know about you but how can someone take this seriously?
Anyway, thank you for reading this boring topic and stopping by. Glad to be here!

Tell them to pull themselves together.
Regardless of ethnicity, gender, or religious belief, time is whatever the national and/or state governments say it is, and that is that.
Tell the Grand High Exalted One to shove her wand up her.... well, never mind. Just take no notice of her, and set your clock, and yourself, to Mountain Standard Time.

Oh and... Merry Meet!

Well, I left that school this morning. Couldn't get past an easy assignment. Besides, I found a few sites that has highly recommended books that I can download, read, practice & learn from. Not to mention this site has lots of great info.
Currently making my first wand. No clue what type of tree is in my yard. And in the process of making my first BOS.

Lol That teacher has a page on that site that says the government is wrong about AZ. I told her I changed my answer to accommodate her. She said I changed it because she was right.

All of my workings, including harvesting herbs for the shop, brewing, etc. are based on my calculations and those of trusted sources (see the references in the Almanac). Those calculations are provided by reliable sources in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC - a standard), which for the purposes of this discussion are close enough to the same as Greenwich Mean Time (GMT - a time zone). I then calculate the conversion to my time zone (Central Time) with daylight saving when applicable and put it all into the Almanac.

I'm sharing this because I believe it is very helpful to understanding time and space by doing your own calculations, and if you check the longitude of YOUR location (or the location you will be doing your magic at a specific time) you begin to learn how to time things precisely. You may also simply do conversions on the Central Time provided in the PaganPath Almanac. . . which really leads us to your question. . .

The time zone you are converting to really is not as significant as your longitude. You can do simple conversions that are "accurate enough for government work" by converting to the time zone of your nearest large city, but if you wish to get spot on, use your longitude. You may find, as discussed below, that your calculations are close enough to your given time zone that you can simply use Central Time or whatever zone you are assigned (that local governmental agencies use). However, you may find for astronomical events and Sabbats that your own calculation is more accurate to an adjacent time zone not normally assigned to your city. Perhaps your instructor already did these calculations, but it is ALWAYS a good idea to do them yourself. This gives you a better understanding of your time, space, and your position in the material world.

Find the calculation (or event such as an eclipse) in UTC or GMT, and convert it to the time zone YOU determine based on YOUR EXACT longitude:

Find your longitude and latitude at the NASA site ( mynasadata.larc.nasa...de-finder/ ) and convert it to DMS (degrees, minutes, seconds). Or simply click on your location on the map here ( www.latlong.net/lat-long-dms.html ) and see your DMS. This tells you exactly how much time is between you and UTC.
Do the math to find out how many hours plus or minus from UTC you are, and calculate the time of your event for your exact location. (see note below on DMS)
Compare your hours and minutes off of UTC with your usually assigned time zone (the one used by local offices, government, etc.) For example if Central Time is -6 hours from UTC and your calculations show that you are 5 hours, 59 minutes and 2 seconds, you can generally use the assigned Central Time for your workings.

Doing the math is easier than you might imagine, knowing that UTC is derived from Greenwich London so at 0 degrees longitude the time is whatever UTC says (more or less for our purposes). The world is divided into 24 slots, 12 behind GMT and 12 ahead of it. Ranging -180 to +180° the - and + are denoted as West or East. These 24 slots convert to hours, but knowing your DMS makes the math easy. This succinct explanation is from the latlong.net site:

How to Convert Degrees Minutes Seconds to Decimal Degrees

First of all let's take a look at the symbols:
° : degree
' : minute
" : second

1 minute is equal to 60 seconds.
1 degree is equal to 1 hour, that is equal to 60 minutes or 3600 seconds.

To calculate decimal degrees, we use the DMS to decimal degree formula below:
Decimal Degrees = degrees + (minutes/60) + (seconds/3600)

DD = d + (min/60) + (sec/3600)

Again, compare with the given time for a specific event in your supposed area (for example if an eclipse is supposed to happen at 06:00 Central Time and your calculations show that it occurs for you in your exact location at 05:59:24 (5:59 am plus 24 seconds) then you can assume your calculations are close enough to Central Time to simply use CT. I like to check for several events and double check other people's and calendar's daylight savings time calculations. Sometimes when they say they have calculated for daylight savings, they really haven't, which puts your timing off about an hour. But otherwise, a few seconds or even a minute should not make much difference for magickal work.

For example: Say you are coordinating a working over long distance with others in different time zones. You all agree to coordinate your energy at 18:00 UT (6:00 pm). So if you are all working your calculations properly, you are all working at exactly the same time. Forget about the fine tuning of seconds, if you all can't hold an energy focus for more than a few minutes, then more work needs to be done on your focus than on your math.

I will rewrite this into an article for better understanding and publish it on the site, using your exact location as an example. I think this will help a lot but I have to get back to the PaganPath Sanctuary and recharge the laptop, so for now, here is my rough draft notes you may be able to muddle through, or wait until I can get a re-write published.

Sweet! Thank you! I will look into that. I know MST is UTC-7. I am no longer with that school.
The head teacher said that AZ observes PST half the year. Not true. CA, OR, and WA observe that. Not sure if all observe DST. We don't here in Kingman.
Anyway, thanks again for the information. Sounds interesting!
I do look forward to that article.

Otatara wrote: Tell the Grand High Exalted One to shove her wand up her.... well, never mind.

Oh my! That is hysterical! Thanks for the laugh...

Otatara wrote: Tell them to pull themselves together.
Regardless of ethnicity, gender, or religious belief, time is whatever the national and/or state governments say it is, and that is that.
Tell the Grand High Exalted One to shove her wand up her.... well, never mind. Just take no notice of her, and set your clock, and yourself, to Mountain Standard Time.

Oh and... Merry Meet!

Teehee!