The Pagan Left

Ante Diem VIII Idus March

2006-03-08T09:40:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 8th

Ante Diem VIII Idus March
Eighth Day to the Ides of March

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

This is the eighth day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

Today is considered Mother Earth's birthday in China.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Gaia
The Greeks honored the Earth Mother on the 10th day of the lunar month, Elaphabolion. Gaia, known as Earth or Mother Earth (the Greek common noun for "land" is ge or ga). She was an early earth goddess and it is written that Gaia was born from Chaos, the great void of emptiness within the universe, and with her came Eros. She gave birth to Pontus (the Sea) and Uranus (the Sky). This was achieved parthenogenetically (without male intervention). Other versions say that Gaia had as siblings Tartarus (the lowest part of the earth, below Hades itself) and Eros, and without a mate, gave birth to Uranus (Sky), Ourea (Mountains) and Pontus (Sea).

Gaia took as her husband Uranus, who was also her son, and their offspring included the Titans, six sons and six daughters. She gave birth to the Cyclopes and to three monsters that became known as the "Hecatonchires". The spirits of punishment known as the Erinyes were also offspring of Gaia and Uranus. The Gigantes, finally, were conceived after Uranus had been castrated by his son Cronus, and his blood fell to earth from the open wound.

To protect her children from her husband, (the Cyclopes and the Hecatoncheires, as he was fearful of their great strength), Gaia hid them all within herself. One version says that Uranus was aghast at the sight of his offspring so he hid them away in Tartarus, which are the bowels of the earth. Gaia herself found her offspring uncomfortable and at times painful, when the discomfort became to much to bear she asked her youngest son Cronus to help her. She asked him to castrate Uranus, thus severing the union between the Earth and Sky, and also to prevent more monstrous offspring. To help Cronus achieve his goal Gaia produced an adamantine sickle to serve as the weapon. Cronus hid until Uranus came to lay with Gaia and as Uranus drew near, Cronus struck with the sickle, cutting the genitalia from Uranus. Blood fell from the severed genitals and came in contact with the earth and from that union was born the Erinyes (Furies), the Giants and the Meliae (Nymphs of the manna ash trees).

After the separation of the Earth from the Sky, Gaia gave birth to other offspring, these being fathered by Pontus. Their names were the sea-god Nereus, Thaumas, Phorcys, Ceto and Eurybia. In other versions Gaia had offspring to her brother Tartarus; they were Echidna and Typhon, the later being an enemy of Zeus. Apollo killed Typhon when he took control of the oracle at Delphi, which Gaia originally provided, and then the "Sibyl" sang the oracle in Gaia's shrine.

It was Gaia who saved Zeus from being swallowed by Cronus, after Zeus had been born, Gaia helped Rhea to wrap a stone in swaddling clothes, this was to trick Cronus in to thinking it was Zeus, because Cronus had been informed that one of his children would depose him, and so to get rid of his children he had swallowed them, Gaia's trick worked and Zeus was then taken to Crete.

Gaia being the primordial element from which all the gods originated was worshiped throughout Greece, but later she went into decline and was supplanted by other gods. In Roman mythology she was known as Tellus or Terra.

Forty Saints Eve
In Rumania before World War II, farm families asked the Forty Saints for good weather for the next 40 days by genuflecting 40 times before going to bed on the evening of March 8. The following day, barns were cleaned and farm tools organized. Clearly these are New Year customs.

Strinennia
On this Slavic holiday, people make minages, clay images of larks, smear their heads with honey and then apply tinsel. They carry around the minages singing vesnjnaki (invocations to the gods and goddesses of spring). Birds are thought to bring the Spring with them upon their return.

Children are given pastries in the shape of birds and they toss them into the air outside saying “the rooks have come.” The pastries ensure the return of the birds, who are seen as messengers of love and comfort and companionship.

Nonas March

2006-03-07T03:10:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 7th

Nonas March
The Nones of March

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted. The rex sacrorum would appear on the steps of the Capitol on this day and announce to the people what days of the months would be holidays.

The Festival of Mars
This is the seventh day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

This day is associated with Vediovis, an archaic deity to whom a temple was built by Romulus. Neither the temple, nor any adequate descriptions survive. Vediovis was a 'juvenile' version of Jove and a temple (the second of three) was dedicated to him on this day in 192 BC.

In 107 BCE, a purification of the city of Rome was conducted after an eagle-owl had entered the capitol buildingthis being an ill omen.

The emperor Antoninus died of an illness this day at Lorium in 161 AD and Marcus Aurelius became the new emperor.

The emperor Geta was born at Rome this day in 189 AD.

This was the traditional date on which Romulus established the inter duo lucos.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war.

St. Thomas Aquinas
The feast of St. Thomas Aquinas (born 1226), the celebrated Angelic Doctor whose Summa Theologiae is the ultimate product of scholastic philosophy, and its effort to construct an intellectual foundation for the Roman Catholic faith.

Thomas Aquinas lived at a critical juncture of western culture when the arrival of the Aristotelian corpus in Latin translation reopened the question of the relation between faith and reason, calling into question the modus vivendi that had obtained for centuries. This crisis flared up just as universities were being founded.

Thomas, after early studies at Montecassino, moved on to the University of Naples, where he met members of the new Dominican Order. It was at Naples too that Thomas had his first extended contact with the new learning. When he joined the Dominican Order he went north to study with Albertus Magnus, author of a paraphrase of the Aristotelian corpus. Thomas completed his studies at the University of Paris, which had been formed out of the monastic schools on the Left Bank and the cathedral school at Notre Dame. In two stints as a regent master Thomas defended the mendicant orders and, of greater historical importance, countered both the Averroistic interpretations of Aristotle and the Franciscan tendency to reject Greek philosophy.

The result was a new modus vivendi between faith and philosophy which survived until the rise of the new physics. Thomas's theological writings became regulative of the Catholic Church and his close textual commentaries on Aristotle represent a cultural resource which is now receiving increased recognition.

Espousals of Our Lady
The date Mary was espoused to Joseph, as decreed by Paul II on 1537.

Pridie Nonas March

2006-03-07T02:55:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 6th

Pridie Nonas March
Day Before the Nones of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Festival of Mars
This is the sixth day of the Festival of Mars. The brotherhood of Roman warriors, the Salii, dance in honor of Mars in ancient Roman warrior garb. Leaping about, they rhythmically beat their figure-eight shields (ancilia) while holding spears.

Household gods in Rome are honored today as well. The Manes and Lares are honored at the Compitalia.

The title of Pontifex Maximus was conferred on Augustus in 12 BCE on this day.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Anthesteria
In the ancient Greek calendar, these days leading up to the Pisces New Moon are celebrated as the Anthesteria, honoring Dionysus as Plouton, Lord of the Dead. On these days, when the Sun has just entered Pisces and has begun the month of preparation for the New Earth Year on March 21, the virtuous dead may visit from Elysium to witness and sanctify the rite of the New Wine, when the first libations are poured in the god's honor, thus marking the passing away of the old vine and the fruition of the new.

Clean Monday
In Greece, the first Monday of Lent is called Clean Monday. Athenians spend the day outside, flying kites and picnicking, much like the Persian holiday of Thirteenth Outside.

The first meal of Lent consists of fish salads like taramosalata, a special kind of flat bread studded with sesame seeds and served only on this day of the year, and lots of wine.

Ante Diem III Nonas March

2006-03-05T00:51:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 5th

Ante Diem III Nonas March
Third Day to the Nones of March

This is one of the a dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Festival of Mars
This is the fifth day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars carrying shields while leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Venus enters Aquarius
On this day Venus enters Aquarius, where she'll remain until April 6, when she enters Pisces. She enjoys all the talk and gossip that flow in the air sign of Aquarius -- but she prefers Pisces, where she is exalted in the water element of her deepest feeling.

Stella Maris/Isidis Navigium
The Romans celebrated the goddess Isis as the patroness of sailors and inventor of the sail. Apuleius has her say, “Devote to my worship the day born of this night…for at this season, the storms of winter lose their force, the leaping waves subside and the sea becomes navigable once more.”

One of the main annual festivals of Isis in the Egyptian calendar, honoring Queen Isis as the Ocean Star or Stella Maris, as Mary would later be called in Latin, the guide and protector of navigators. As the Egyptians identify Isis with the great star Sirius, she is a main beacon point in the sky for Egyptian sailors. And as her heliacal rising - that is, the moment each year when Sirius can first be seen rising in the east just before the rising of the Sun - always fell each year on July 26, the day that heralded the annual Nile flood, Isis in her star role embodies the boundless and eternal loam and fecundity of the river. On the evening of this festival, there are ceremonies and songs on boats that blaze with lamps and colors. This day is also an important time marker. It is now 140 days, or 14 decans (10-day "weeks") until a new flow of red water should begin the next Nile flood on July 26.

When winter storms lose their force, a ship is dedicated to Isis as a new season of sailing begins. This is the ancient Egyptian festival of Isidis Navigium (the ship of Isis) or the Ploiaphesia which honored Isis' invention of the sail and her patronage of sailing-craft and navigation.

As part of the festivities, a parade was performed in honor of Isis. Following in a procession of mummers, the priests carry emblems of Isis. The Chief Priest carries a lamp, a golden boat-shaped light with a tall tongue of flame from a hole in the center. The second priest holds an auxiliaria (ritual pot) in each of his hands, and the third carries a miniature palm-tree. The fourth priest carries a model of the left hand with the fingers stretched out, the emblem of justice as well as a golden vessel in the shape of a woman's breast. From the nipple falls a thin stream of milk. The fifth cleric carries a winnowing-fan woven with golden rods, not osiers. The final man, not a priest, carries a wine-jar.

Next in the procession comes Anubis with a face black on one side and golden on the other and a man carrying a statue of a cow, representing the Goddess as the fruitful Mother of us all. After them walks a priest with a box containing the secret implements of Isis’ cult, and another priest carries a secret vessel in his robes.

It is a small container of burnished gold with thickly crowded Egyptian hieroglyphics and a rounded bottom, a long spout, and a generously curving handle. Along the handle is an asp raising its head and displaying its throat.

Waiting at the seashore is a beautifully built ship covered with Egyptian hieroglyphics. The sail is fashioned of white linen inscribed with large letters with a prayer for the Goddess's protection of the shipping lanes during the new sailing season, and the long mast is made of fir. The prow is shaped like the neck of Isis's holy goose, and the long keel is cut from a solid trunk of citrus-wood.

The ship is purified with a lighted torch, an egg, and sulphur, and then hallowed and dedicated to the Goddess. All present place winnowing-fans heaped with aromatics and other votive offerings on board while pouring milk into the sea as a libation. When the ship is loaded with gifts and prayers for good fortune, the anchor cables are cut, setting the ship free.

Burgbrennen
In Luxembourg, on the first Sunday of Lent, fires are lit on the hills at dusk, thus the name, burning of the Burg (derived from the Latin comburere,"to burn"). According to one source, the burning of the Lenten fire symbolized the triumph of the sun over winter, while the Easter fire represented the rebirth of nature, the St John's fire heralded the summer solstice and the St. Martin's fire stood for the fading away of autumn (thus we see Christian dates assigned to the fires of the Celtic quarter days).

In earlier times, the burning of the fires was a time of both exuberant celebration and prayers for the successful growth of the harvest. Now it's a time when young boys go from house to house, begging for straw and wood and sticks, which they take to the top of a nearby hill. A big pole with a wooden cross is wrapped in straw, stuck into the earth and the combustibles heaped around it. Sometimes a wheel is put on top of the pole and covered with rags soaked in oil, thus creating a Catherine wheel effect when lit. The most recently married man lights the fire. This was also the last day for drinking alcohol during Lent.

Hime-no-Miya
On the first two Sundays in March, the Japanese celebrate the Izanami, the mother goddess of Japan. Her temple at the Oagata-jinja shrine near Inuyama in central Honshu features large cleft rocks, huge clamshells and other sacred items that resemble female genitalia. At her festival, worshippers carry these items through the streets in procession.

Ante Diem IV Nonas March

2006-03-04T23:53:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 4th

Ante Diem IV Nonas March
Fourth Day to the Nones of March

This is one of the a dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Festival of Mars
This is the fourth day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

In 1968, the Church of All Worlds (CAW) formed in Missouri to become the first Wiccan Church to do so in the US.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Anthesteria
In Greece, this day was celebrated as the Anthesteria. The three day Greek festival of Anthesteria honors departed souls or keres. It is a festival dedicated to Flora, Hecate, and Dionysus with the intent to "feed" the dead in the hope that the ancestors might bring good fortune to the living and not cause any mischief around living family members.

The festival begins with flowers, phallic processions, and the opening of the newly fermented bottles of wine. The living ritually purify themselves by bathing and making sacrifice to Dionysus. They slaughter calves and share the meat with the god, incinerating some of the meat that it might float up into the air (the custom for sacrificing to all Olympian gods), and eating the rest of it as a shared feast.

The major ritual of the festival is the Choe, libations poured for the dead. The living drink wine and eat with the dead, believing that Dionysic revelry is not limited to the living, but that in his Chthonic aspect as the “Lord of Souls,” that he grants ecstatic experiences to the dead. It is of importannce that the wine and food for the dead and the wine and food for the living never mix. For the food reserved for the dead is just that, not fit for the living. On the last day, visiting spirits are dismissed back to the underworld.

Feast of Ra
In the Egyptian calendar, the feast of Ra, Neter of the Sun, is held at Heliopolis' "City of the Sun", the original center of Ra worship. This festival honors in particular the life-giving properties of the Sun, and his role in marking the order of time (Month of Parmuti, day 19).

St. Casimir
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of St. Casimir (born 1458), king of Poland. Given a choice between certain death from the austerities in which he sought mortification of the flesh, or a cure by food and marriage, Casimir chose a bony death at 25. His relics have long been especially efficacious; and when his tomb was opened in 1595, his body was incorrupt, and emitted the sweet odor of sanctity.

Ante Diem V Nonas March

2006-03-03T02:04:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 3rd

Ante Diem V Nonas March
Fifth day to the Nones of March

This is one of the a dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Festival of Mars
This is the third day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community. In this context Mars represents the terrestial origin of life and the rhythm of the ensuing year. This day was considered to be Mars' birthday. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear). The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Aegir/St. Winnal
Aegir, the Norse sea god is honored today. He and his Christian counterpart, St. Winnal, control the sea's tide and weather. This day is associated with storms.

Aegir is the god of the sea in Norse mythology. He was both worshipped and feared by sailors, for they believed that Aegir would occasionally appear on the surface to take ships, men and cargo alike, with him to his hall at the bottom of the ocean. Sacrifices were made to appease him, particularly prisoners before setting sail.

His wife is the sea goddess Ran with whom he has nine daughters (the billow maidens), who wore white robes and veils. His two faithful servants are Eldir and Fimafeng. The latter was killed by the treacherous god Loki during a banquet the gods held at Aegir's undersea hall near the island of Hler (or Hlesey). Aegir was known for the lavish entertainment he gave to the other gods.

St Winnal is the Christian version of Aegir, a Teutonic god of the sea. When it’s stormy on this day, the month will grow milder. Cf the old saying When March comes in like a lion, it will go out like a lamb.

First comes David,
Next comes Chad,
Then comes Winnal,
Roaring mad.

If it’s not stormy and windy the first three days in March, it’s saving itself for the three borrowing days at the month’s end. The winds of March were considered to dry out the fields and make the soil right for seeding.

Winwaloc(Winnal): Abbot-founder, also called Wonnow, Wynwallow, and Gwenno. Born at Ploufragen, in Brittany, France, he was of Anglo-Saxon descent. At the age of fifteen he entered the monastery on Lauren Island under Abbot Budoc. Several years later he and eleven monks founded Landevenne Monastery near Brest, in Brittany on land donated by Prince Gallo. Winwabe died there. As there are several churches in Cornwall, England, dedicated to him, it is possible that he had some connection with that region or that some of his relics were translated there in later years.

O-Hinamatsuri
The Japanese Doll festival, O-Hinamatsuri, is celebrated with paper dolls designed to either draw off illness and evil spirits or to act as representatives of the good attributes people want to draw to themselves. The Girls Festival, Jomi No Sekku or Munakata-no-kami, also occurs today. Most Shinto temples actively participate in the Hina-matsuri, Momo-no-sekku, or Jomi-no-sekku.

There are mainly three kinds of dolls: the hina, the tachibina (a paper doll and probably the oldest) and also wooden dolls. Every town is decked with dolls, and every doll-shop in Tokyo, Kyoto, and other large cities is gaily decked with O Hina Sama, the whole Japanese Court in miniature. Many hina dolls are family heirlooms, handed down from mothers to daughters for generations. The regular set (Dairi-hina) consists of fifteen dolls: the lord and lady (Dairi-sama), three ladies-in-waiting (Konjo), five musicians, two retainers and three guards. Many modern hina now represent actors, actresses, baseball players, etc.

Placed beneath the main dolls are various tiny household utensils and furniture, including trays with food bowls, mirrors, musical instruments, boxes, smoking units and many other things. The dolls are offered mochi (rice cakes) dyed in three colors - red, green and white, as well as shirazake, a sweet mild rice wine. New furniture is often added annually. Traditionally, this festival is said to commemorate the birth of the three Muna Katano-Kami, the three daughters of Amaterasu, the Sun Goddess. It is also a favorite day for marriages.

This day is also known as Momo-no-Sekku or Peach Blossom Festival. Originally celebrated on the 3rd day of the 3rd lunar month, it more closely coincided with the blooming of the peach blossoms.

Lesser Mysteries of Rhiannon
Rhyfeddod Lleiaf o Rhiannon, the Lesser Mysteries of Rhiannon, begins at sundown and continues till dawn of March 6th. Rhiannon is the Welsh ancestor goddess of the moon and horses. The horse is a shamanic animal symbolic of movement between worlds. Rhiannon is similar to Epona and Mare, two other goddesses of horses. Mare brings dreams and Epona has the power of transformation at her disposal.

An old Irish custom has it that if fires are lit just before dawn at each corner of a perfect crossroad (according to the cardinal points) before sitting down at the side, you may be able to spy Epona fleeing from the coming sunrise.

Tibetan Great Prayer Festival
In the Tibetan Buddhist calendar, these are the 4th through the 15th days of Monlam, the Great Prayer Festival, culminating at the Full Moon following Losar, the lunar New Year. Over these solemn 12 days, the bright, raucous fun of Losar is followed by New Year ceremonies held in the monasteries. Monlam rites are prohibited in Lhasa, and vistors to the unofficial Travel Tibet website maintained by Tibetans will see a moving box with Chinese red letters warning China's citizens of the penalties for visiting Tibetan blogs.

Bumjudawa
In some other Buddhist countries of Asia, this two-week period is called Bumjudawa, or "Buddha's 15-day Miracle Time", when the karmic effects of beneficent actions are said to be multiplied 100,000 times.

Ante Diem VI Nonas March

2006-03-02T08:33:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 2nd

Ante Diem VI Nonas March
Sixth Day to the Nones of March

This is one of the a dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

The Festival of Mars
This is the second day of the Festival of Mars. The daily spectacle of the priests of Mars carrying shields, leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome would continue this day.

Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage. The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

The month of March belongs to the warlike Mars, the deity who personifies the protection of the state and the productivity of the community.

Mercury Retrograde
Mercury "goes retrograde" in Pisces, until March 25. For the most mercurial people, not just Gemini and Virgo natives, but anyone with Mercury promimently positioned or related to other planets - this can be the most trying, maddening, fury-flavored Mercury retrograde time of them all. Mercury is said to be "in detriment," or "in fall" in Pisces - or even both. One way to get the picture is to imagine that all the usual troubles with commerce, communication and transportation that come during Mercury retrograde are happening, only now they're either in a chilly fog or downright underwater, and the people you ask for directions to some warm, cheery place are either on drugs or deceiving you for the sheer perverse fun of it. Mercury retrograde in Pisces: there is, thanks be to whatever one worships, nothing quite like it.

Ceadda
This day is sacred to Ceadda, god of healing springs and holy wells. He is also known as Saint Chad of Lichfield. His symbol is the Crann Bethadh, the tree of life.

Born in Northumbria, Chad became an abbot in Yorkshire, founded a monastery in Lincolnshire, and a bishop of the Mercians at Lichfield. His name is associated with wells and springs that heal. He is also noted for his love of walking. St Theodore of Canterbury insisted he ride a horse because walking was beneath him.

He is often associated with St David in agricultural rhymes:

Sow beans and peas on David and Chad
Be the weather good or bad.

By Valentine’s Day
Every good hen, duck or goose should lay
By David and Chad
Every hen, duck or goose should lay, good or bad

Kalendas March

2006-03-02T08:07:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : March 1st Market Day

Kalendas March
The Kalends of March

This day (NP), is for special religious observance.

The Matronalia
March 1st is the Roman New Year's Day the beginning of Spring as well as the new sacral year. This day was known as the Matronalia because Juno is the presiding deity of both the first day of the year, and the year as a whole. Juno, the matron, or wife, of Jupiter, is the mother of Mars. Juno, also called Saturnia and known as Hera by the Greeks, was the daughter of Cronus (Saturn) and regarded as a paragon of motherly virtues. She was the divinity of sacred marriage and childbirth. Presents were given to women on this day.

On this day the priests of Mars, the sacrarium Martis, would carry shields, leaping and dancing through the streets of Rome. This spectacle would continue through March 24th.

The Kalends of March were the last day of what came to be called Carnival, the period of celebration from the Terminalia to this symbolic first day of Spring. Mardi Gras continues to be celebrated, as the last great Roman holiday, but now ends on Fat Tuesday rather than specifically on March 1st.

March, named for Mars, was the first month of the Greek and Roman calendar. Mars is god of war but also of fertile soil, equivalent to the Greek Ares and Tiu or Tiwazn an old sky god of Europe. He is also equated with the Celtic Teutates and the Norse Tyr. Mars' original name was Mavors. After Jupiter, he is the chief Roman god, often called Marspater, "Father Mars." He has three aspects, the martial god Gradivus, the rustic god Silvanus, and the patron of the Roman state Quirinus. The wolf and the woodpecker are his sacred animals.

March was called Mi an Mháárta or am Mart in Ireland, the seed time, and Hrethmonath, "Hertha's month," by the Anglo-Saxons, honoring the earth mother Hertha or Nerthus. The Frankish name for March was Lentzinmanoth, "renewal month." The Asatru call it Lenting.

The first Full Moon of this month is called the Worm or Sap Moon. More northerly tribes referred to this as the Crow Moon, when the cawing of crows signals the end of winter, or the Full Crust Moon because the snow cover becomes crusted from thawing by day and freezing at night. It shares the names Storm Moon with February and Moon of Winds with April. It may also be referred to as the Moon of the Snowbird, Sap Moon, and Lenting Moon.

The Order of the Golden Dawn was founded on March 1, 1888

Pisces and Aries hold power over March, the Zodiac turning to Aries around March 21st. The flower for those born in March is the daffodil and smaller jonquil. Bloodstone or jasper, or sometimes aquamarine, are the jewels for the month of March. Pisces birthstone is the amethyst, while diamond is the stone for Aries. Albite, amethyst, chrysoprase, fluorite, green tourmaline, labradorite, moonstone, and opal are other stones for Pisces, and Aries also lays claim to amethyst, carnelian, garnet, fire agate, pink tourmaline, and topaz.

Ash Wednesday
For Roman Catholics, this is Ash Wednesday, the first day of Lent, the season of austerity leading to the celebration of Holy Week from Palm Sunday to Easter. On this day the celebrant of the rite marks crosses of black ash on the third eye chakras of the faithful to remind them of the vanity of all worldly pleasures, and ask them to turn inward to cleanse the soul of all impurities in the weeks before the solemn rites of sacrifice and redemption are enacted. Ash Wednesday is yet another Christian adaptation of an earlier festival: the Adonia, a time of mourning for the Syrian demigod Tammuz, whose rites were observed at this time all over the eastern Mediterranean, especially at Byblos and the other major cities of Syria.

Lent comes from a word lenctene meaning to lengthen, as the days lengthen and spring begins. For many centuries this has been a time of purification and atonement, aligning with the energy of change and growth in preparation for the celebration and joy of Easter Sunday.

The Russian goddess named Mokos was said to wander during Lent, visiting houses, disguised as an old woman, worrying wool-spinners, guarding and fleecing the sheep herself. At night, strands of fleece were laid beside stoves as offerings to her.

St David’s Day
St David was an abbot and a bishop of the sixth century who established a monastery at Pembrokeshire in Wales, and is considered the patron saint of Wales.

March, various, fierce, and wild, with wind-crack’d cheeks
By wilder Welchman led, and crown’d with leeks!
— Churchill, “Gotham” iii 101

To show your Welsh allegiance, wear a daffodil. To become a honorary Welshman, eat a leek. Some say eating a leek celebrates a Welsh victory in the 6th century, where the Welsh, advised by St. David, wore leeks in their caps to distinguish themselves in battle from the Saxons. Others say it is the plant of Wales because it is green and white, the colors of the Welsh flag. There's also a tradition that eating leeks in March is good medicine.

Eat leeks in March and ramsons [wild garlic] in May
And all the year after the physicians may play

Upon St David’s Day
Put oats and barley in the clay

Folk custom says that sowing sweet peas between the feasts of St. David and St. Chad will produce larger and more fragrant flowers (also Mar 17 and Mar 21 when the same conditions apply).

The Sharp Days
This was considered the first day of the year in Venice and in Russia until the fourteenth century. It was also the first day of the Ottoman financial year.

The Greeks say that good weather begins on March 1st. Supposedly, a thread left out overnight on a rosebush, then tied around the wrist or big toe will protect the wearer and is worn until Easter Day. St John Chrysostom complained of this custom (March 22) and that of tying bells on children to protect them.

In the Dodecanese and elsewhere, children go around with the effigy of a swallow singing a song in honor of the bird and the fine weather it brings and asking for food offerings. This custom derives from ancient Rhodes.

The first three days of March are called Sharp Days: One should not wash clothes (for they will wear out), chop wood (or it will rot) or bathe (for one's hair will fall out).

Baba Marta’s Day
Before the first day of March in Bulgaria, people give each other martenitsas (or martenkas), red and white wool tassels, sometimes with a gold or silver coin attached. On the first day of March, the martenitzas are tied around wrists, trees, house doors, cars, young animals. People greet each other by saying Chestita baba Marta, which means “Happy Grandmother March.” She is considered to be as moody as the weather is changeable during the month of March.

You are supposed to wear the martenitsa until you see the first stork returning from the south, thus signaling the beginning of spring. The red and white colors come from blood and snow in an old story where a stork protects a child whose parents are away. It is said the red color protects you from disease and the white color helps you live longer. This sounds like a protection charm during the dangerous transition between winter and spring, similar to the way Brigid’s crosses are used in the northern Celtic countries. The red color shows up frequently in March, Spring Eve (March 21) and the red and white pastries of Hina Matsuri (March 3) and the name of Red Wednesday.

Dragon Raises Head
On the second day of the second lunar month, the Chinese eat dragon-scale cakes and dragon-whisker noodles. No one does needlework as needles might injure the dragon's eyes. Earlier this day was called Mid(spring) Harmony.

Pridie Kalendas March

2006-02-28T00:46:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 28th

Pridie Kalendas March
Day Before the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Roman New Year's Eve
Being at the end of the original Roman year, and preceding New Year's Day on March 1st, made this day especially representative of rebirth, renewal and full of the promise of the coming Spring. This evening would be the Roman equivalent of New Year's Eve.

In the ancient Far East, this was held to be the day of conception of Buddha.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war.

Shrove Tuesday/Mardi Gras
This year the New Moon coincides with Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, the licentious and ecstatic all-nighter that culminates Carneval week (2/22 - 28), just before Ash Wednesday.

In some parts of the world Carnival begins on November 11th. In other places it starts the week before Ash Wednesday. For the members of the Samba schools of Rio de Janeiro and the Crewes of New Orleans, the planning begins as soon as this year's Carnival has finished.

Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday) is the final day of the celebration. The whole time of Carnival is a time of riotous activity, when there are no holds barred on behavior. Masked balls gave people an opportunity to disguise themselves and act out fantasies. The name Carnival derives from carne vale, "good-bye to meat," as devout Catholics abstained from eating any rich foods during the six weeks of Lent.

Shrove Tuesday is usually marked by the consumption of rich, fatty foods and especially meats. Each part of France has its own special dish: pigs’ trotters in Champagne, pigs’ ears in Ardeche, a leg of goat in Touraine. It's also customary to serve various rich, deep-fried pastries and cakes including pancakes, fritters, waffles, eclairs, doughnuts and cream puffs. In Venice, the pastry of the day is galani, egg dough fritters, made with white wine, eaten cold and powdered with sugar. In Russia, the special food of the day is the blini, which is served with butter, caviar, sour cream and other rich toppings.

Carol Field(Celebrating Italy) describes a variety of Carnival celebrations in Italy. One of the wildest is celebrated in Ivrea which imports a trainload of blood oranges from Sicily for wild battles in the Piazza which leave the combatants bruised and dripping, while the gutters run with the red juice. In previous centuries, the items thrown included confetti (sugared almonds), candles, beans, caramels and coriander seeds rolled in plaster or flour and left to dry. Some of these make sense—the beans, for instance, recall the Roman feast of Parentalia when black beans were thrown to propitiate the ancestors—while the candles evoke the candles of Candlemas. Nowadays shaving cream is sprayed everywhere leaving everyone and everything covered in white foam.

Masked balls are part of Carnival celebrations in many places, but particularly in Venice and Germany. Pam Mandel(Attack of the Jelly Donut), in her amusing chronicles of a winter spent in Austria, describes a sort of fancy debutante ball but in earlier times, the anonymity of masks and costumes allowed people to engage in licentious behavior that would normally be censured. Fasching is the name used in Germany and Austria for the masked figures, both grotesque and beautiful, that roam the street in search of food. Storace writes that in Greece, carnival provides an opportunity for free speech and uncensored social commentary. Costumes are used in this way, for instance to mock the pretensions of authorities. They also provide an opportunity for transvestism, not just sexual, but social, an opportunity to reveal what is normally hidden.

Celebrations of Carnival reached their height in Italy in the middle ages, especially in Venice. In 1214, in Venice, Carnival was celebrated with a sort of mock battle in which 12 noble ladies held a fortress which was attacked by assailants throwing flowers, perfumes and spices. Goethe attending a carnival celebration in Rome in 1787 wrote a beautiful passage about the effects of the candlelight processions of Shrove Tuesday which Carol Field quotes in her book on celebrations in Italy:

The darkness has descended into the narrow, high-walled street before lights are seen moving in the windows and on the stands; in next to no time the fire has circulated far and wide, and the whole street is lit up by burning candles.

The balconies are decorated with transparent paper lanterns, everyone holds his candle, all the windows, all the stands are illuminated, and it is a pleasure to look into the interiors of the carriages, which often have small crystal chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, while in others the ladies sit with coloured candles in their hands as if inviting one to admire their beauty.

Sia ammazzato chi non porta moccolo. 'Death to anyone who is not carrying a candle.' This is what you say to others, while at the same time you try to blow out their candles….

Orloff's(Carnival: Myth & Cult) description of Carnival customs still observed in Telfs in the Tyrolean Alps gives us a glimpse of some of the ancient aspects of this festival. At dawn, a baker, an innkeeper, a chimney sweep, and a peasant carry a golden sun on a pole through the village, begging the sun to shine down on the carnival. Later the Wilden appear, men and boys in grotesque masks and costumes of moss, representing winter. They roam the streets, drunk and riotous, attacking anyone who crosses them. There is a simulated bear hunt, then another procession headed by a lantern bearer whose role is to search for carnival in the darkness of winter. He makes room for the Schleicher, the spirits of spring. Each wears a fantastic hat, a mask showing the face of a young person and a giant bell. Each carries in his right hand a stick stacked with pretzels (symbols of the sun) and in his left a linen handkerchief. The Schleicher do a magic circle dance, with slow, deliberate steps, their bells awaken the slumbering earth. This is followed by a mock tribunal (making fun of local politics and gossip) and the squirting of the crowd with water from the mouth of the carnival baby.

In Finland, Shrove Tuesday or Laskiainen is a time for outdoor parties. Everybody lends a hand to build a toboggan slide, and children as well as adults take part in the fun. Lanterns and candles are hung in surrounding trees and afterwards everybody comes back into the house for pea soup and almond-filled Lenten buns for dessert.

Bulgarian carnival celebrations feature masked dancers known as koukeri or startsi (which means old man). They dance at dawn in groups of seven or nine and perform comic scenes from every day life. They are often accompanied by other characters such as a bride, a king or an Arab. In parts of eastern Thrace they dress in women's clothing; in the Strandza mountains they dance on stilts. In some places they dance around a mast topped with a basket of straw which is ignited on the first day of Lent.

Like Groundhog’s Day, Shrove Tuesday is day for weather prognostication for the Pennyslvania Dutch who predict the height of the flax by the length of the icicles on Shrove Tuesday.

Kalevala Day
Finns celebrate the Kalevala, the Finnish national epic, and its first compiler, Elias Lonnrot. This epic which combines mythology and hero tales influenced many writers including Tolkien in his writing of The Lord of the Rings (his Elvish resembles Finnish).

Out with the Shvod
Armenians roust the house guardians out of their lazy beds and into the fields for growing season duties on this day by banging on the walls with sticks and saying, "Out with the Shvod and in with the March."

St Radegund of the Oats
A saintly sixth-century queen (she married Clotaire, King of the Merovingians, but fled from him after he murdered her brother), her worship replaced that of the earlier grain goddess. The legend goes that while she was fleeing from her husband, she passed a farmer sowing oats and asked him to tell anyone that followed that he had not seen a woman pass since he sowed the oats. In the next few hours, the oats grew so tall that Radegund could hide herself among them and when the farmer delivered his message to the King, he called off the search. (A similar story is told about St Mildburga (Feb 23), St Walburga (Feb 25) and the Virgin Mary.)

People brought oats as offerings to her on her feast day which was celebrated earlier in England, on February 11. St Radegund's other feast day is August 13, which further confirms her connection with a grain goddess, as this is the date of a great goddess festival, when Artemis, Hecate and later the Virgin Mary were asked to protect the grain as it stood in the fields awaiting harvest.

Ante Diem III Kalendas March

2006-02-26T23:34:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 27th

Ante Diem III Kalendas March
Third Day to the Kalends of March

This day is for special religious observance.

The Equirria
This day had a religious and military significance, and rites were performed involving purification of the army. This day is sacred to Mars, as is the whole month of February. This is the first Equirria, the second being on March 14th. And again, being at the end of the original Roman year, and preceding New Year's Day on March 1st, made this and the following days especially representative of rebirth, renewal and full of the promise of the coming Spring.

The famous horse races in honor of Mars were held on this day on the Campius Martius (the field of Mars). Romulus instituted this tradition to herald the beginning of the sacral year.

This was the day the ancient Romans walked the city bounds in solemn procession and then gave sacrifice, followed by a public feast.

The emperor Constantine was born at Naissus this day in 272 AD (or 273).

In 747 BCE the Babylonian king Nabonassor acceeded to the throne.

On this day in 425 AD the Byzantine emperor Theodosius founded a University at Constantinople and gave the administration complete academic freedom.

In Judea, the ancient Hebrews celebrated this day as the feast of Esther.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war.

New Moon conjunct Sun in Pisces.
The trickiest New Moon of all in the sense that while the New Moon normally favors beginnings, it's located this time in the mystical cloud of Pisces, which favors the holding of deep secrets over clarity of expression, and receptivity over assertive action. This is not the time to launch a new enterprise, but more a time for meditation and visualization to attract inspiration about what the new enterprise will be. Beware of glittering mirages and flashes in the pan, as Uranus in Pisces conjoins Sun and Moon, producing brilliant excitement with little staying power.

The new moon of the second Chinese lunation is called the Budding Moon. It marks the beginning of the Jewish month of Adar and the Greek lunar month of Elaphelbolion.

In the Beth-Luis-Nion Celtic tree calendar used by devotees of the faerie path, this third New Moon following the Winter Solstice begins Nion, or ash month. The rowan is considered especially efficacious for protection, healing and divination.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan calendars, this late winter New Moon is called Crow Moon, as food is still so scarce that crows, as well as wolves, are loud and insistent.

Among the Iroquois people of North America, the four days from the Pisces New Moon are the annual Maple Festival, when prayers of celebration and thanks are offered for the nourishment and sweetness of the maple trees.

Losar
Losar, the Tibetan Buddhist New Year, is celebrated with joyous performances of light, song and dance, and with butter towers and other ritual sculptures designed to drive out evil and clear the way for abundance and blessing in the coming year. The feast of Losar precedes Monlam Chemno (March 3 - 14), the prayer festival commemorating the miracles and teachings of the Buddha.

*Note that "official" Tibetan Losar is at the Full Moon in Pisces, a month later than the Full Moon in Aquarius, which is the New Year in the Chinese lunar calendar and all Asian lunar calendars derived from it. Some calendars place Losar on Feb. 2, in synchrony with the Chinese lunar calendar.

Rudolf Steiner
Today is the birthday, in 1861, of Rudolf Steiner, the immensely influential spiritual researcher and teacher who created the Anthroposophical Society and the Church of Spiritual Science, and whose teachings on education, empowerment and creativity are the foundation of the Waldorf Schools system.

Collop Monday/Rose Monday
A last chance to eat meat (chops, or collops) before the fasting of Lent which begins on Ash Wednesday. In Mainz, this was called Rose Monday.

Ante Diem IV Kalendas March

2006-02-26T02:59:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 26th

Ante Diem IV Kalendas March
Fourth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of then endotercisus on which mornings could be for voting and afternoons not, or vice-versa.

Being at the end of the original Roman year, and preceding New Year's Day on March 1st, made this and the following days especially representative of rebirth, renewal and full of the promise of the coming Spring.

On this day in 364 AD Valentinian became the new emperor in Constantinople.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused.

Mahashivaratri
Mahashivaratri, the great annual Hindu festival in honor of Lord Shiva in his most beneficent aspect as the universal creator whose drum and dance bring the visible world into being. Shiva and his consort Shakti are honored with music, dance and other works of beauty, and with prayers for abundant vitality.

Carnival Sunday
In Italy, the most recently married couple of the neighborhood scoops out the first trowel of earth and plant scarli, poles big as trees, twined with garlands of heather and juniper. At the end of Carnival, the banner at the top is burned.

Transfiguration Sunday
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is Transfiguration Sunday, commemorating the occasion on which, just prior to the time of his own purification that is now observed as Lent, Jesus manifested to his closest disciples as a being of light.

Ante Diem V Kalendas March

2006-02-25T01:26:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 25th

Ante Diem V Kalendas March
Fifth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Being at the end of the original Roman year, and preceding New Year's Day on March 1st, made this and the following days especially representative of rebirth, renewal and full of the promise of the coming Spring.

This day was Phamenoth 1 (Macedonian Artimisius 1), the first day of the month Phamenoth, in the Egyptian calendar.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear).

St Walburga
This sixth century Anglo-Saxon nun, who became the abbess of the double monastery of Heidenheim in Germany, was also known as a grain protectress. She was depicted holding a sheaf of wheat and was considered a matron of good crops, farmers and pregnant women.

Apparently sheaves of grain dressed like a woman were called Walburga. A legend tells how she disguised herself in a sheaf of grain while fleeing from a pursuer. Her other feast day is Walpurgishnacht (Apr 30), the date her relics were translated, a Christian date superimposed over an old Germanic spring revel, honoring a fertility goddess.

Muhyi ad-Din Ibn El Arabi
This day is sacred to the memory of the Sufi saint Muhyi ad-Din Ibn El Arabi (d. 1240), who taught that Allah manifests the Divine energy in all the myriad forms of nature, female as well as male.

Wen Chang Di Jun
In the Chinese Taoist calendar, this is the birthday of Wen Chang Di Jun, god of literature and the arts.

Ante Diem VI Kalendas March

2006-02-25T00:07:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 24th

Ante Diem VI Kalendas March
Sixth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the Dies Nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place.

The Regifugium
Little is known about this holiday except that it was a festival for men, not gods, and symbolized the end of the old year. The old Roman New Year began on March 1st (Mardi Gras or Carnival). Speculation suggests this was considered an unlucky day, or a taboo day for pursuing any kind of business, perhaps because the gods could not be consulted.

Regifugium translates as "Flight of the King" and on this day Tarquinius Superbus, the last king of Rome, was driven out of of the city after he raped Lucretia, the wife of a noble.

On this day, the Roman king "ran for office," pursued by an eager band of would-be usurpers who, if they caught him, could dethrone and kill him. In later times this ritual was purely ceremonial but it was, as Frazer writes, "a relic of a time when the kingship was an annual office, awarded along with the hand of a princess, to the victorious athlete or gladiator who therefore figured along with his bride as a god and goddess in a sacred marriage to ensure the fertility of the earth by homeopathic magic."

According to the first Roman Calendar, this was one of the two days of the year when the rex sacrorum, or high priest, would appear in a public ceremony in the Forum. He would perform sacred rites and trumpets, the purified Tubilustrum, would be blown to herald his arrival in the Comitium.

On this day in 138 AD, Antoninus Pius was adopted as co-regent by Hadrian.

February is sacred to Mars and to Juno, also called Saturnia. Known as Hera by the Greeks, she was the daughter of Cronus (Saturn) and regarded as a paragon of motherly virtues. She was the divinity of sacred marriage and childbirth, and was prone to violent wrath at every violation of her marriage bed with Zeus.

St Matthias
Also known as the "thirteenth apostle," because he replaced Judas, St Matthias was supposedly beheaded with an axe, thus becoming the patron of woodcutters and carpenters.

It is said that if there is sharp frost on his day it will last several days. Another weather proverb says:

Matthias breaks the ice, if he finds it;
If he does not break it, he makes it all the harder.

A good day for honoring any carpenters you know, for making a bookshelf or beginning a wood-working project. Also maybe a good day to go ice-skating. Then again maybe not.

Ante Diem VII Kalendas March

2006-02-22T22:36:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 23rd

Ante Diem VII Kalendas March
Seventh Day to the Kalends of March

This day is for special religious observance.

The Terminalia
This day, the Terminalia, is the last day of the sacral year, or the annual cycle of religious holidays. Ovid says the rites of the Terminalia form the close of all others. The rites of the Terminalia included ceremonial renewal and mutual recognition of the boundary stone, the marker between properties. A garland would be laid on this marker by all parties to the land so divided. Anyone who accidentally or intentionally moved these stones was accursed. After kindling a fire, honey-cakes, fruits and wine would be offered and shared, and songs of praise to the god called Terminus would be sung. Terminus was considered to have the appearance of stone and was often honored with the placement of a large stone at the boundaries, much as farmers do today in various countries. With this feast, the year as a whole comes to an end, as the Roman new year began traditionally on March 1st.

Valentinian was made Augustus this day in 364 AD.

February was named for the Roman goddess Februa, mother of Mars. As patroness of passion, she was also known as Juno Februa and St. Febronia from febris, the fever of love.

St Mildburga
This sixth century Shropshire saint was associated with plowing and sewing from an early date. She protected a newly-sown field from the depredations of worms and geese. While fleeing from her enemies she caused water to spring up out of the ground and a field of barley to grow to maturity in one day. Her feast day falls in the middle of the spring wheat sowing season in Shropshire.

St Polycarp
The LaPlante sisters(Heaven Help Us: the Worrier's Guide to the Patron Saints) recommend St Polycarp as the saint to invoke when looking for a parking spot, although the connection between his life (he was a student of the Apostle John, a Bishop of Smyrna and martyred at the age of 86) and parking places is obscure. They suggest the following prayer: "Polycarp, find me a spot."

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas March

2006-02-21T21:44:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 22nd

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas March
Eighth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Caristia
This day provided a one-day breather between the religious celebrations of the month and was called the cara cognatio, or Caristia, which means the day of grace or care but could be translated as "Family Love Day", is a feast of favor and good will in honor of the goddess Concordia. On this day Roman fathers would pay special attention to their own families. This was a family thanksgiving celebration without any particular religious significance, which in that regard, is essentially the same as our own. Disputes between family and friends are settled today and presents were given with the intent of reconciling friends and relations. Near relations come to honor the familial deities, the Lares, with offerings of incense and food. This holiday also serves to strengthen family bonds. After so many days of honoring the dead, the celebrants rejoice in the living.

"Sweet it is, no doubt, to recall our thoughts to the living after they have dwelt upon the grave and on the dear ones departed from us; sweet, too, after so many departed, to look upon those of our blood who are left, and to count kin with them," wrote Ovid about this festival.

February is sacred to Mars and to Juno, also called Saturnia. Known as Hera by the Greeks, she was the daughter of Cronus (Saturn) and regarded as a paragon of motherly virtues. She was the divinity of sacred marriage and childbirth, and was prone to violent wrath at every violation of her marriage bed with Zeus.

Carnival!
This one-week festival offers Christian believers the last chance to feast and party -- Carne Vale means "so long, meat!" -- before the penitential season of Lent begins. The festival culminates on Shrove Tuesday, the famous Mardi Gras (Feb. 28), when since the old days it is still customary to eat pancakes filled with sacred and medicinal herbs. The cakes are said to protect the believer against shortages of food and money during the coming year, provided they are eaten before 8:00pm. It is said that, festivals being what they are, the cakes are often washed down with beer, or wine, even both.

The Church of St Peter
To replace the pagan festivals of the Concordia, the Church made this day the feast of St Peter's Chair, celebrating his role as teacher and feeder of that flock of sheep, the faithful. However in 567, at the second Council of Tours, people were still "offering mashed food to the dead."

Many early blooming plants are named after Peter including the cowslip in England which may be called Peterswort, and daffodils in Wales which are called Peter's leeks.

There are also many legends about ice on St Peter's Day. The Germans say that if water is frozen on this day it will not melt for a fortnight. The Norwegians extend this to 60 days. The Norwegians also say that St Peter threw hot rocks at the ice to melt it, or that if there is no ice on this day, he will make it. It is also believed that the weather on this day will last four weeks, or forty days, or all of spring. However, if there is sun enough to saddle a horse, or moisture on a roof sufficient to slake a hen's thirst, then there will be a good harvest.

Sybil Leek
Sybil Leek (1923-1983) was born today. Sybil Leek was an English Witch, a gifted psychic, astrologer, and prolific author who wrote more than 60 books on such subjects as Astrology, Numerology and Reincarnation. She was born with a witch’s mark and claimed to be a hereditary witch of Irish and Russian Descent. Her entire family was involved in astrology and some of the guests who visited her childhood home included H.G. Wells, T. E. Lawrence (of Arabia) and Aleister Crowley.

Ante Diem IX Kalendas March

2006-02-20T23:30:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 21st

Ante Diem IX Kalendas March
Ninth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

The Feralia
This is the last day of the Parentalia and the temples would be opened at noon. The Feralia is a religious holiday sacred to Jupiter, whose surname was Feretrius. On this day the ongoing celebrations forming part of the dies parentalis and the tempus religiosum came to a close.

Some sources say Feralia lasted for one day only, which is variously stated as the 17th and 21st. Others extend it over a period of 11 days, from the night of the 8th to the day of the 18th. Instituted by Numa Pompilius, this is the last day of Mania and Parentalia. Family reunions are held and the Lares, the ancestral spirits guarding homes, are honored. This is the Roman All Souls' Day, during which each household makes offerings at the graves of its dead. The spirits of the dead are abroad in the world and hover over their graves. Food and goods are left to appease them. Mania takes part in the festivals of the Compitalia and the Feralia.

"Votive garlands, a sprinkling of grain, a few grains of salt, bread soaked in wine and some loose violets; these are enough; set these on a potsherd and leave it in the middle of the path. Now doth the ghost fatten upon his dole," wrote Ovid.

According to Blackburn(Oxford Companion to the Year), an ugly old woman, surrounded by girls, performed rituals to appease the Silent Goddess, a gossiping nymph whose tongue was plucked out by Jupiter. The rituals included putting incense in mouseholes and casting spells over threads and tying them to pieces of lead. While holding seven beans in her mouth, the old woman roasted a fish-head sealed with pitch, pierced with a pin and sprinkled with wine, and then drank the rest of the wine herself, giving a little to the girls. The point of these rituals was to bind the tongues of others so they couldn't do harm.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage. The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

Day of Nut
In Egypt, this was the Day of Nut. She was the goddess of the sky and the heavens. The Egyptians believed that the world had been created by a divine act of sex between the earth god Geb and the sky goddess Nut. Of necessity, the goddess Nut was on top, while Geb reclined.

Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries
Among the ancient Athenians, and pilgrims from throughout the Greek world, these days are the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries, celebrating the transformation of the Winter goddess Persephone back into her Spring aspect as Kore, and her annual marriage to Dionysus. This rite heralds the coming of Spring at the Equinox. Note that while the Greater Mysteries of summer culminate at the Full Moon in Virgo, the Lesser Mysteries begin at the New Moon in Pisces.

Ante Diem X Kalendas March

2006-02-20T00:03:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 20th

Ante Diem X Kalendas March
Tenth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Parentalia continued this day, and was a celebratory period in which ancestors were honored. It lasted from February 13 through the 21st. The temples would all be closed during this period. Offerings of small amounts of wine, bread, a sprinkling of salt, or flowers were made at the tombs.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. It is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Butter Week
In Russia, the week before Lent is known as the "Butter Week." In the 19th century, the rich celebrated by bundling in furs and traveling by troika to their summer cottages where they could skate on the frozen rivers and picnic in the snowy woods, sipping on vodka and eating blinis. In the city of St. Petersburg, the Tzar put on a spectacle for the public each of the seven days. Everyone ate blinis, and topped them with butter, caviar, herrings or salmon.

St Wulfric
Feast day of St Wulfric (Ulric; Ulrick; Ulfric) of Haselbury, England. His life or legend, is a testament to what I call the insainity of faith. Wulfric's abuse of his body can, in my view, only be attributed to a sick mind that wished to be extinguished. Given that it is a mortal sin to commit suicide in the Christian faith, looking over Wulfric life, one wonders if he did what he did because he couldn't take his own life.

St Wulfric, who died in 1154, was born near Bristol, England. He became a priest, and kept dogs and hawks for sport, till he met a beggar who asked for alms. When Wulfric said he didn't know if he had anything to give, the beggar said “Look in thy purse, and you shall find twopence halfpenny.” He found as he was told and gave it to the beggar, who prophesied that Wulfric would become a saint.

He became a hermit, fasting often. “His daintiest food was oaten-bread and water-gruel”, wrote a chronicler. Those who sought his advice had to knock on his window and converse with him through the window of his cell.

Wulfric never slept unless he could not stay awake, and slept leaning against a wall. Waking up, he would chastise his body for being so lazy. After a hair-shirt became too comfortable, he changed it for an iron coat of mail. In winter he sat in a tub of cold water reciting psalms.

He shortened his coat of mail, distributing the small rings of metal to the people, and they were cured by the metal. It was even said that he cut the chain mail with scissors as if it were linen. Envying such rare goodness, a demon attacked him till the apparition of a virgin stopped it.

The joints of his iron coat dissolved and it miraculously fell down around his knees. Upon this he said he would die on the following Saturday, and this indeed came to pass. Or, so it is said.

He is venerated at Haselbury Plucknett (mentioned in the 11th century Domesday Book as Halberge, meaning ‘the hazel tree hill’, from the Old English haesel and beorg; the suffix was acquired later when it was held by Alan de Plugenet c.1265), Somerset, UK, where he is buried in the cell in which he lived, which is now the site of the church's vestry.

Wulfric had the gift of prophecy and predicted the death of King Henry I of England. He also foretold that his own death and burial would cause conflict, and as if to make the prognostication come true, the Cistercians laid claim to Wulfric’s relics, as did the monks of Montacute Priory, who had been feeding him and attempted to seize his body by force. However, the saint was unaffiliated with any religious order. Wulfric was a very popular saint during the Middle Ages, and his tomb was visited by many pilgrims.

Ante Diem XI Kalendas March

2006-02-18T22:14:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 19th

Ante Diem XI Kalendas March
Eleventh Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Parentalia continued this day, and was a celebratory period in which ancestors were honored. It lasted from February 13 through the 21st. The temples would all be closed during this period. Offerings of small amounts of wine, bread, a sprinkling of salt, or flowers were made at the tombs.

Albinus was defeated this day near Lyons in 197 AD, and committed suicide.

On this day in 356 AD the emperor Constantius II ordered all pagan temples closed. This act gave tacit approval to the intolerant Christians to begin the persecution of the Religion of Nature, which lasted for centuries.

February is a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Nicolaus Copernicus
Today is the Birthday of Copernicus, born on Feb. 19, 1473, in Thorn (Torun), Poland. Copernicus was a proponent of the theory that the Sun, and not the Earth, is at rest in the center of the Universe.

Copernicus received his education, first at the University of Krakow, and then at various universities in Italy. While attending Padua University in Italy, Copernicus studied medicine, Greek, and mathematical sciences. He eventually received a degree in Canon Law at the University of Ferrara. When Copernicus returned to Poland he practiced medicine, though his official employment was as a canon in the cathedral chapter run by his uncle, the Bishop of Olsztyn.

Copernicus was never a professional Astronomer. The great work that made him famous was written in his spare time. It was for friends he met in Rome while pursuing his education that, in about 1513, Copernicus first wrote a short account his heliocentric (sun centered) cosmology. His heliocentric system states that the Sun (not the Earth) is at rest in the center of the Universe, with the other heavenly bodies (planets and stars) revolving around it in circular orbits. A full account of the theory titled, On the Revolutions of the Heavenly Spheres (De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium) was published in 1543, very near the end of Copernicus's life. He is said to have received a copy of the printed book on his deathbed.

Copernicus' heliocentric system was considered implausible by the vast majority of his contemporaries, and by most astronomers and natural philosophers until the middle of the seventeenth century. Its notable defenders included Johannes Kepler (1571 -1630) and Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642). Strong theoretical underpinning for the Copernican theory was finally provided by Sir Isaac Newton's theory of universal gravitation (1687). Copernicus died on May 24, 1543 in Frombork, Poland.

Ante Diem XII Kalendas March

2006-02-18T07:34:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 18th

Ante Diem XII Kalendas March
Tweflth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Parentalia
The Parentalia continued this day, and was a celebratory period in which ancestors were honored. It lasted from February 13 through the 21st. The temples would all be closed during this period. On the sixth day of the Parentalia and beginning of Feralia, offerings are left at the tombs. The souls of the dead are appeased with small gifts brought to the extinguished pyres. The dead value piety more than any costly gift. Such gifts might include a tile wreathed with votive garlands, a sprinkling of corn, a few grains of salt, bread soaked in wine, or some loose violets. These offerings are set on a potsherd in the middle of the road, and prayers and the appropriate words are said at hearths set up for the purpose.
From this time until the 21st, Tacita, the silent Goddess (Dea Muta) is honored. She is also called Lara, mother of the Lares. She is asked to bind hostile speech and unfriendly words.

This was the 1st day of the 3rd month of the 13 month Druidic calendar. The sequent letter is N, symbolic of the tree Ash (or Nion).

February is a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Sun enters Pisces
Traditionally the time each year when plans are developed in secret, alliances reviewed, assumptions questioned and energies organized toward release a month later, at the beginning of spring. While the Sun is not "in detriment" in Pisces, as he has just been in Aquarius, the watery, deep, mysterious qualities of Pisces are not the most compatible venue for the heat, incandescence and clarity associated with the Sun. The symbolic image for Pisces time is that the Sun is most brilliant when far above the water, much less radiant and impressive when near the water, even in it. It would be simplest just to enjoy the water, but the Sun does not enjoy perceiving this. Do not walk across carpets and touch perfectionists until Aries time in March.

Pisces, was assigned by the ancients to the Syrian goddess of Derketo, who the Romans called Dea Syria and the Greeks Atargatis, possibly meaning "Great Fish."

Ash Month
In the Celtic Tree Calendar, Ash Month begins. In some accounts this month is considered the most sacred of all because it honors Yggdrasil, the World Ash Tree, the universal principle of Balance. Ash month is favorable for breaking of curses and building of new protection. Ash wands are cut and prepared as conduits of energy.

In some native American calendars, the Month of the Cougar begins on this day.

Spentra Armaitri
In the Zoroastrian calendar of ancient Persia, this day is Spentra Armaitri, one of the year's great festivals honoring the quiet strength and nurturing power of women. The Roman counterpart in honor of Tacita, the silent goddess, protectress against the ill effects of unkind speech, is observed on the same day.

Ramakrishna Paramahansa
This day is also the birthday of the beloved teacher, author and Hindu mystic Ramakrishna Paramahansa (1836), who taught the immanence of the elemental Maha Devi, the Great Mother, in all things.

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas March

2006-02-17T04:21:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 17th

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas March
Thirteenth Day to the Kalends of March

This day is for special religious observance.

The Quirinalia
The Quirinalia is a holiday devoted to Mars, in the form known as Quirinus. This was not the warlike Mars, but an alter-ego embodied in the more father-like ancestral figure of Romulus. The celebration of the Quirinalia was a special devotion of the people who lived on one of seven hills of Rome still called by the same name today, the Quirinal.

Quirinus is also identified closely with Lupercus (via Romulus). Juno, the female dual equivalent of Jupiter, is also closely connected with Mars through cult and myth, and this day is thereby sacred to them both.

The emperor Jovian died this day in 364 AD.

February is a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Mars enters Gemini
On this day Mars enters Gemini, one of the "neutral" placements in which he is not totally comfortable, as he is mostly action and Gemini is mostly talk, but for Mars it beats being in the Moon-ruled water sign of Cancer (4/14), where he is said to be "in fall," and feels like a jock who has to learn macrame until the cast on his leg comes off.

Fornicalia
This day was also called the Fornicalia, or the Festival of Fornax, the goddess of ovens (fornicator). This is the fifth day of the Parentalia. An old proverb says, “The oven is the mother.” In Roman mythology, she and her holy day play an important role in connection with the national bread, the Far. Fornacalia also helps plants in their coming growing season, and plants should be tended with extra care on this day.

Rome was divided into thirty divisions, and each section was responsible for choosing its own day in early February for performing the Fornicalia, or first fruit offering to Ceres of roasted wheat. As Rome grew larger, people grew confused about which section they belonged to, and so people were allowed to make their sacrifice on the Quirinalia, which was therefore called the Feast of Fools.

The Evil Age
The Hindus believe that Kali Yuga, or the Evil Age, began on this day in the year 3102 BC. This is considered the last and most sinful of all the four ages of man and is supposed to continue for 432,000 years at which time the world will be destroyed by the goddess Kali. The cycle will then begin again with the Krita Yuga, the Golden Age of Truth.

Toshigoi
In the Japanese Shinto calendar this day is Toshigoi, when rites are held in honor of Kuni - Tokotachi - no - Kami, the primordial creator Deity of whom all other Kami are manifestations. Prayers are offered on this day for an abundant rice harvest.

Rats' Wedding Day
On the 19th day of the first lunar month, the Chinese retire early so as not to disturb the rats. This is also called the Gathering of the Hundred Gods. Newly married daughters may visit their parents only on this day during the month.

Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries
From the 20th to the 24th days of the Greek lunar month of Anthesterion, those who were planning to participate in the Eleusinian Mysteries in the fall came to Agrae in Greece for the initial purification rites, which included rubbing with ashes, plunging into the ocean, donning new clothes, processing by torchlight and asking the goddess for guidance.

Ante Diem XIV Kalendas March

2006-02-16T01:13:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 16th

Ante Diem XIV Kalendas March
Fourteenth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of then endotercisus on which mornings could be for voting and afternoons not, or vice-versa.

The Lupercalia
The first half of the day, the morning, being dies fasti and belonging to the Lupercalia celebration, and the afternoon or evening being dies nefasti, and belonging to the Quirinalia. It is therefore a day sacred to both Mars, as Romulus, and Juno, the female counterpart of Jupiter. The celebration of both ancestors and fertility continued on this day.

An eclipse occurred this day in 538 AD, lasting from 6-9 AM, according the Bede.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Tibetan New Year
Losar, the Tibetan New Year, is celebrated with shows, parades, and archery contests. Before Losar, the monks drive out the evil influences of the old year with a Devil Dance. Dressing in brilliant silk and huge, grotesque masks, they dance for hours until a sorcerer succeeds with a spell against the demons.

Ante Diem XV Kalendas March

2006-02-15T04:07:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 15th

Ante Diem XV Kalendas March
Fifthteenth Day to the Kalends of March

This day (NP), is for special religious observance.

This was the day on which, in 44 BC, Mark Antony offered Julius Caesar the crown of Rome, which he refused.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Lupercalia
The Lupercalia is the ceremonial climax of the Dies Nefasti preceding this day. This was a time of purification and religious celebration. As with the rest of the month of February, the object of much of the ceremony was the remembrance and honor of deceased ancestors, as well as the celebration of fertility and the coming Spring. Luper relates to lupus, or the wolf which popular myth held had reared Romulus and Remus

The Lupercalia was one of the most important Roman festivals, a rowdy fertility festival loosely connected to the legend of the wolf that suckled the twin babies, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome, in her cave the Lupercal on Palatine Hill. Although eventually fixed on the 15th day of February, it was probably once a full moon festival (when the month started at the new moon).

On this day, a band of priests called Luperci gathered at the Lupercal, sacrificed goats and a puppy and made offerings of a sacred grain mixture, mola salsa. Two youths were smeared on the forehead with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off with swatches of milk-soaked wool. After a feast, they stripped off their clothes, wrapped themselves in the still-warm, still-wet skins of the sacrificed goats and ran around the circumference of the hill, striking everyone they met with goatskin thongs, called februa. Being struck by these whips was considered lucky for women who wanted to become fertile.

The whipping may have served several functions. It may have stirred up the blood. Or it may have been considered an expiation, a way of driving out sins and demons (as the Japanese expelled them at Setsubun by throwing beans (Feb 5)). A similar custom is found at Carnival time in France and Germany: inflated pork bladders, said to contain the souls of the dead, are attached to sticks and used to beat members of the opposite sex. In some shamanic traditions (Buryat and Mongolia), decorative whips of long braided silk ribbons are used to tap clients on the back or hands to cleanse them during healing ceremonies.

When the Pope first tried to ban the Lupercalia in the 5th century, there was so much outrage that the papal residence was completely surrounded by the angry mob. He backed off and the festival was not officially banned again until the next century.

Red is the color of the day as it is with Valentine's Day, the day invented to replace the Lupercalia. Fertility and sexuality were likewise replaced with the puritanical pipedream of sexless Love.

108 Lanterns
On the third day after the Feast of Lanterns, in most Chinese provinces, people arrange 108 small lamps on a table in the shape of the Chinese character shun, meaning agreeable or smooth. A large lamp in the center represents the god of Longevity. They light the lanterns, burn incense and offer sweet rice balls to the gods.

Nehan
Japanese Zen Buddhists celebrate this day as Nehan, literally the sleeping holy day, honoring the Buddha's attainment of parinirvana.

Siegfried
In the Norse calendar, this day is sacred to a noted animal communicator: Siegfried, greatest of all warrior heroes, who understood the songs of forest birds after slaying the dragon Fafner and inadvertently tasting its blood.

Galileo
This day is also the birthday of another famous fighter, the hero scientist and warrior astronomer Galileo Galilei (1564), whose severe personal ordeal of sacrifice for the truth, he was held under house arrest, and forbidden to publish or to speak in public, for some 16 years, was the price of the knowledge we have had since about the physical properties of the solar system. The story of how Galileo smuggled his secret writings out to his students, who sped them by courier to bolt holes from Leyden to Paris to Prague, is one of the world's great true stories of the theft of fire.

John Frum Day
Finally, for the people of Tanna Island in Vanuatu, this is John Frum Day, named for the semi-mythic figure whom the islanders invoked as far back as the 1930's in prayers for liberation from their colonial oppressors. During World War II, when the U. S. air force used Tanna as a supply base for the Pacific campaign, John Frum became a composite hero resembling the American fliers whose largesse to the local people in the 1940's made them the deities of the famous cargo cults that erected wooden control towers and airplanes in an effort to bring back the airmen and their bounty. John Frum Day features a ceremony of flowers and flag raising, face painting, singing and dancing, a military parade of men dressed in camoflauge and carrying bamboo rifles, and a feast at which there are, presumably, prayers for Spam.

Ante Diem XVI Kalendas March

2006-02-15T02:40:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 14th

Ante Diem XVI Kalendas March
Sixteenth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies nefasti (N), a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

The Parentalia
The Parentalia was a celebratory period in which ancestors were honored. It lasted from February 13 through the 21st. The temples would all be closed during this period. Offerings of small amounts of wine, bread, a sprinling of salt, or flowers were made at the tombs.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Valentine's Day
In Christian calendars, Valentine's Day, the famous feast of the lovers. According to one legend from Greece, which has been celebrating Eros, erotic love, on this day since very ancient times, this is the day on which young doves mate during the transition from winter to spring. As doves mate for life and live in a happy fidelity that other beings rarely approach, 2/14 has embodied ever since the loyalty of true love. The symbol that has stuck for this day is the heart pierced by an arrow, fired by (who else?) Eros (Cupid), who has always ruled this day.

There is no connection between this holiday and either of the two St Valentines (a Roman priest martyred in the third century and a martyred bishop) although many legends have been invented to explain it. One story says that Claudius II during a time of unpopular military campaigns cancelled all marriages and engagements, hoping thereby to channel the energy of the young men into the martial arts. Supposedly Valentine, a priest in Rome during this time, secretly married couples, thus incurring the wrath of the emperor and martyrdom.

The custom of sending valentines may derive from the custom of drawing lots (names of partners) at the ancient Roman festival of Lupercalia or with the worship of Juno Februata in whose honor on the eve of her feastday (Feb 15), according to "Lives of the Saints", boys drew names of girls. St Francis de Sales trying to abolish this heathen practice in the mid-sixteenth century suggested drawing the names of the saints (with boys drawing the names of female saints, and vice versa). This does not seem to have caught on. According to Hutton(The Rise and Fall of Merry England), the custom of sending valentines began in England in the 15th century, and was more popular at first among the middle classes, who sent signed valentines (not anonymous ones). In Japan it is now the custom for women to give chocolates to men on this day, particularly their superiors at work.

In the Middle Ages, people believed that birds chose their mates on this day. This was the time of year when the courtship flights of birds, particularly of members of the crow family, were visible.

There was a folk superstition, mentioned by Shakespeare that the first person you meet on Valentine's Day will be your true love. Ophelia plays with this idea when she says to Hamlet

Good morrow, 'tis St Valentine's Day
All in the morn betime,
And I a maid at your window,
To be your valentine.

Month of Parmuti
In the ancient Egyptian calendar, the month of Parmuti begins on this day. The Neter associated with this month is Renenutet, the serpent-headed protector of children and goddess of good fortune and fertility.

Trifon Zarezan
Bulgarians celebrate the patron saint of vineyards (on either this day or the 17 of February) by pouring out a libation of red wine on the earth, ceremonially pruning vine shoots, electing a Vine-king and dancing in masks. The ceremonies in his honor completely incorporate elements from the Thracian cult of Dionysus.

Idus Februarias

2006-02-12T21:57:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 13th

Idus Februarias
The Ides of February

This day is for special religious observance.

The Parentalia
An eight-day Roman festival, honoring dead ancestors. All temples were closed, no marriages took place and government officials did not wear their robes in public. People visited the graves of their parents and other relatives, bringing offerings of milk, wine, honey, oil and spring water. Some brought sacrificial blood from bodies of black animals. They decorated the graves with roses and violets and ate a ritual meal at the gravesite. As both greeting and farewell, they spoke the words, Salve, sancte parens, "Hail, holy ancestor."

The Vestal Virgins performed their own rites on this day, honoring their sacred ancestor with a visit to the group's parental shrine, that of the early Vestal, Terpeia

On this day the Fabii clan, fighting alone against the Veii for Rome, were ambushed and destroyed but for one boy.

Columella says the rising of Arcturus occurs on this day.

Cotton Mather, the minister presiding at the Salem Witch Trials, died this day in 1728.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. It is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Celtic Festival of Love
Gwyl o Danu a Cernunnos, the festival of Festival of Love, honors Danu and Cernunnos. It begins at sundown and continues thru February 21st. The Goddess Danu was the mother Goddess of the Tuatha Dé Danann. She is particularly associated with the province of Munster with its fertile soil and was known as Anu in those parts. The Tuatha Dé Danann were all descended from her.

Some scholars believe that Anu was the primary Earth Goddess and Danu was only the name given to her by the nineteenth century writers. However the nineteenth century writers were so popular that now most people would know of the Tuatha De Danann and the Goddess Danu.

There is a school of thought that believes that her name is Danand and she slept with Delbhaeth (Turenn) her own father to produce Brian, Iuchar and Iucharba. This is just an example of the confusions existing within Irish Mythology.

Cernunnos, "The Horned One" is a Celtic god of fertility, life, animals, wealth, and the underworld. He was worshipped all over Gaul, and his cult spread into Britain as well. Cernunnos is depicted with the antlers of a stag, sometimes carries a purse filled with coin. The Horned God is born at the winter solstice, marries the goddess at Beltane, and dies at the summer solstice. He alternates with the goddess of the moon in ruling over life and death, continuing the cycle of death, rebirth and reincarnation.

Paleolithic cave paintings found in France that depict a stag standing upright or a man dressed in stag costume seem to indicate that Cernunnos' origins date to those times. Romans sometimes portrayed him with three cranes flying above his head. Known to the Druids as Hu Gadarn. God of the underworld and astral planes. The consort of the great goddess. He was often depicted holding a bag of money, or accompanied by a ram-headed serpent and a stag. Most notably is the famous Gundestrup cauldron discovered in Denmark.

Navajo Sing Festival
One of the year's great Navajo Sing Festivals, beginning at the Full Moon in February, this one held to purify the fields and the people before the next planting season. In prayers, song and dance, and healing ceremonies, the Navajo honor Naste Estsan, the Spider Woman who spun the world and supported the warrior twins Tobadzistsini and Naymezyani in their struggle against the forces of evil. In her dual roles as Spider Woman and the shape shifter Estsanatlehi, the "Changing Woman" Creator Goddess, Naste Estsan carries and endlessly becomes the unlimited transforming power of nature.

Pridie Idus Februarias

2006-02-12T01:50:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 12th

Pridie Idus Februarias
Day before the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

Gerald Gardner, founder of the Gardnerian Tradition, died in 1964 of heart failure.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage. The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Full Moon in Leo opposite Sun in Aquarius
As the two partners in this combination are not equally balanced now, while the Sun continues to be "in detriment" in Aquarius, the solar energies of control are weakened, with the result that inner conflicts -- between people, within the same person -- are likely to manifest now. As every Full Moon is a potential moment for culmination and completion, this one is an opportunity for clearing grudges, heavy secrets and other soul sludge. The cleansing moment is highly charged this time around, and is best played delicately, as Mars in Taurus is the middle leg of a T-cross with Sun and Moon, while Pluto in Sagittarius is trine (120° away from) the Moon and sextile (60° from) the Sun. This favors the resolution of power issues, at least among those who can speak softly.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan calendars, the February Full Moon is called Storm Moon. Also Quickening Moon and Wild Moon, in the “Great Winter” season close to Imbolc, 1/31 - 2/2. It is customary during this moon to wash clothes in clove and angelica, to purify them for the Spring.

Festival of Artemis
On this day the Greeks, and many Romans, would celebrate the Festival of Artemis, Goddess of the Moon. She had been known to the Romans as Luna from antiquity but came to be called Diana in her earthly manifestation as the Goddess of Hunting. Diana was often called Diana Lucifera, Diana the Bringer of Light. The Greeks knew her as Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, and daughter of Zeus and Leto. She was born under Mount Cynthus in Delos and hence was also called Cynthia and Delia. She carried a bow and quiver like her brother, and was especially fond of music and dance. Diana was never conquered by love, and submitted to no man, hence she was the goddess of a "chaste" moon and, except for her family, tolerated only female companions. Her priestesses were all chaste and this festival was celebrated with daily music and dance until the kalends of June. The hunter Actaeon happened across her bathing one day and became the only man to ever see Diana naked. He paid with his life.

Iroquois Mid-Winter Festival
The Iroquois mid-winter festival, just after the midwinter New Moon when the Sun is in what the West calls Aquarius. This a time of purification and forgiveness is celebrated by burning the offenses and grudges of the old year in tobacco offerings. Newly born children receive their names now, and the year ahead is forecast in dream telling, celebrated in music and dance.

Tu B'Shevat
In the Jewish Calendar, Tu B'Shevat, important in ancient times as a marker day for reckoning the ripening cycles of grains and fruits. It is the counterpart of arbor day festivals everywhere, when trees are planted in midwinter to symbolize the growth of new life toward the promise of spring. In "Our Sages," Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov writes, "have designated the 15th of Shevat as the boundary, for trees, between one year and another."

"There is barely any change to see; there is barely any change to hear. But the turn of the year has come. The still and quiet months are over; the seed is quickening, life is reasserting itself. In this hushed moment we celebrate the new year of the trees, and the reawakening of the Tree of Life." [Waskow]

Tu B’Shavt is celebrated on the fifteenth (full moon) of the Jewish month of Shvat. This date was fixed as the year-end date for the fruit crop, so the tithe on fruit could be calculated and paid. At first there was some disagreement as to whether to celebrate this festival on the new moon or the full moon. Waskow(Seasons of Our Joy) suggests that the full moon was chosen to coincide with a pre-existing festival, perhaps something like the ancient Armenian spring festival in honor of Mihr.

In the sixteenth century, the mystics of Safed associated the tree of the fruit-year with the S’phirot or Kabalistic Tree of Life. Thus, Tu B’Shvat is the day the Tree of Life renews the flow of life to the universe. We can help this process, they said, by eating fruit in a holy way. Waskow describes two slightly different versions of the Tu B’Shvat seder developed by the Kabalists of Safed. Both are meals of three or four courses, primarily of different types of fruit, chosen to represent the aspects of the process of creation and accompanied by four glasses of wine, mixed in different proportions, representing the seasons.

In modern Jewish practice, the Birthday of the Trees has been taken more literally and many communities plant trees on this day or send money to support the planting of trees in Palestine At the same time it has taken on a new symbolic significance as “a day of celebration and reaffirmation of the necessity of protecting God’s world.” A number of new Hagaddot have been developed which focus on healing the wounded earth.

St Julian the Hospitaller
An apochryphal saint whose legend became very popular in the Middle Ages. The story goes that he was a nobleman who accidentally killed both of his parents. To expiate his crime he went to live by the ford of a river where he established a hospice for poor people and helped travellers. One day he and his wife gave aid to a man almost dead of cold who disappeared in a blaze of glory, announcing that Jesus Christ had accepted his penance. He became the patron of ferrymen, innkeepers and circus people; many hospitals and charitable institutions were named after him.

Lantern Festival
The culmination of the New Year's festivities occurs on the 15th day of the first Chinese lunar month, during the full moon, with the Feast of the Lanterns. The Chinese hang lanterns of all shapes and sizes from doorways. Popular designs include lanterns shaped like red carp and goldfish and sheep (because the word for sheep is the same as the word for good auspices). Also popular are multifaceted good-luck lanterns, designed to resemble a water caltrop, a root vegetable whose name in Chinese sounds the same as the word for good luck.

Ante Diem III Idus Februarias

2006-02-11T08:49:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 11th

Ante Diem III Idus Februarias
Third Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

Britannicus, Claudius' son, was poisoned by Nero this day in 55 AD.

Tiberius married Julia, daughter of Augustus, in 11 BCE, giving him a claim to be the next emperor.

In the year 435, a treaty was signed by Rome by which the Vandals were allowed to retain a part of the African diocese.

February was a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Festival of Osirus
One of the great Osiris festival cycles in the ancient Egyptian calendar, celebrated especially at the main center of Osiris worship in Abydos and at Busiris, the ancient holy city of the Nile delta. The principal ceremony performed on the last of these three days was a dawn ritual of opening the doors of the horizon, and thereby reaffirming the precision of the divine order operating between Sun and Earth. (Month of Pamenot, days 28 - 30). The Pharaonic melody for this feast, as preserved in music of the Coptic church, has been found by Dr. Maged Samuel in Cairo.

The Goddess at Lourdes
The famous apparition of Our Lady at Lourdes, an ancient shrine to the goddess, occurred today. This was the last manifestation of the goddess at this site.

St Gobnait
An Irish saint whose name is cognate with "smith," perhaps another aspect or companion of Brigid. The occupation of blacksmith has always been a magical one, perhaps because of the smith's powers over metal and fire.

St Vlasios
The Greek Orthodox Church celebrates St Blaise's day on this day. If you are Greek and have to work on this day, you should first sew a cloth bag behind your back and get someone to ask you what you are sewing. The proper reply is: "I am sewing stone and whetstone. I am sewing up the wolf's jaw." The mention of the whetstone associates Vlasios with Brigid, and her patronage of metalcraft and the wolf of Lupercalia, Feb 15th.

The Slavonic god of farm animals is called Vlas or Volos and is definitely lurking behind the guise of St Vlasios. In Slavic areas, it is traditional to eat goat or mutton (from animals slaughtered in front of the church) and wheat cooked in butter and honey. In Aetolia, women are not supposed to carry firewood and Vlasios Cattlestrangler will drown any beasts of burden that are carrying loads on this day.

The day the birds begin to sing
In tenth and eleventh century England, people celebrated the festival of St Radegund on this day, which was also considered the day the birds first began to sing.

Ante Diem IV Idus Februarias

2006-02-10T02:52:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 10th

Ante Diem IV Idus Februarias
Fourth Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

This was said to be the day, in 1468 BC, when Pharaoh Tuthmoses III of the 18th Dynasty set forth to Armageddon (Megiddo) to do battle with an alliance of over three hundred princes. With an estimated force of perhaps 30,000 men, this would have been the largest army ever assembled. The Egyptians probably had half that number. This was the largest battle that had ever been fought and so impressed were the Hebrews by the event that it became a metaphor in the Book of Revelation for the Apocalypse, or the final battle. After seizing power from Hatsheput ten days earlier, who was killed, the warlike Tuthmoses III assembled this army to put down the alliance of rebels and enemies, and in so doing took Egypt from a nation to an empire.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. It is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Nigerian New Year
The New Year in Argunga, Nigeria is celebrated with a festival to start the fishing season. The Kebbawa tribe travel to the Sokoto River carrying large dippers and nets. Everyone jumps into the river at once in the hope that the large splash will scare fish into their nets. The largest fish receives a prize, but the overall size of the catch is also an indication of the will of the gods in the coming season.

Ante Diem V Idus Februarias

2006-02-09T09:34:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 9th

Ante Diem V Idus Februarias
Fifth Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

Eratosthenes, a Greek mathematician, philosopher, poet, astronomer, and director of the Alexandrian Library, asserted that the world was round and correctly measured the size of our world 200 hundred years before the birth of Christ. In his library was an ancient book by Aristarchus of Samos who also asserted the world was round long before such knowledge was acceptable.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter.Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Mercury exits Aquarius
On this day Mercury exits Aquarius and enters Pisces, where he is said to be "in detriment," his quickness and clarity much impaired by the water and dense fog of Pisces. This time around, Mercury's uncomfortable swim with the fishes will be very long, as he "goes retrograde" in Pisces (3/2), then "direct" (3/25), and does not finally get out of the water and into the fire of Aries until 4/16. Until then, be prepared to deal sympathetically with Mercurial types who not only wonder if they've lost a step or two, and feel like they're wading through late-winter slush all the time, but even fear this slow tempo and labored legwork is permanent. It isn't.

Festival of Apollo
In Greece, on this day they celebrated the Festival of Apollo. This is the feast day of Apollo in his aspect as Helios, god of the Sun. This day, a week after the mid-winter festival, heralds the emergence of new light from the dark and cold of winter.

Apollo was called by the same name in Rome where they dedicated a temple to him. Apollo was the son of Jove (Jupiter) and Latona. Apollo was the brother of Diana, and was the god of archery, music, poetry, and healing. He was also called Phoebus Apollo. On his birth at Delos, Apollo was acclaimed by all the gods and the island was covered with golden flowers and encircled with swans. As soon as he tasted the ambrosia of his nurse Themis, he suddenly grew to full youth and demanded a lyre and a bow. He announced that his fathers will would be presented to the world through his oracular lyric poetry. Apollo then began to play and to "step high and featly" as became his style of dance. Apollo's temple was at Crisa below Mount Parnassus in Phocis.

St Apollonia
Another third century martyr, Apollonia was a deaconess whose teeth were knocked out during the tortures which led to her death, thus she is invoked against toothache and her symbol is a forceps gripping a tooth. As her name suggests her feast day replaced the Festival of Apollo, in the Catholic Church's take over of Paganism.

Ashura
In the Islamic calendar, this 10th day of the month of Muharram is Ashura, a day of fasting and thanksgiving that commemorates God's intervention to save the prophet Moses from the wrath of Pharaoh.

Ante Diem VI Idus Februarias

2006-02-08T02:36:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 8th

Ante Diem VI Idus Februarias
Sixth Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear). The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

Juno, also called Saturnia and known as Hera by the Greeks, was the daughter of Cronus (Saturn) and regarded as a paragon of motherly virtues. She was the divinity of sacred marriage and childbirth, and was prone to violent wrath at every violation of her marriage bed with Zeus.

Valentinian's father, Constantius, was made a colleague in the empire this day in 421 AD, but he died the same year.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Star festival
The Chinese Star festival is a nighttime celebration, giving thanks to the stars influencing human fate. The master of the house offers prayers to the star that governed his birth and then lights one hundred eight small lamps on a special altar. Each son in the household also offers prayers to the star of his birth, relighting three lamps as the lamps of his father go out. The brightness of the flames dictates the outcome of the year.

Narvik Sun Pageant
The Narvik Sun Pageant is a festival held in Norway in honor of the Sun Goddess, Sunna. The festival begins at dawn and continues until evening shadows darken the sky. Sunna is the Norse Goddess of the Sun, also known as Sól, though some hold that Sól is the mother and Sunna Her daughter. In Norse mythology, the Sun is female while the Moon is male. When the world was created from the body of the dead giant Ymir by the triad of Odin, Vili, and Ve, the Sun, Moon and Stars were made from the gathered sparks that shot forth from Muspellsheim, the Land of Fire.

Sól ("Mistress Sun"), drives the chariot of the Sun across the sky every day. Pulled by the horses Allsvinn ("Very Fast") and Arvak ("Early Rising"), the Sun-chariot is pursued by the wolf Skoll. It is said that sometimes he comes so close that he is able to take a bite out of the Sun, causing an eclipse. Sol's father is Mundilfari, and She is the sister of Måni, the Moon-god, and the wife of Glaur or Glen ("Shine"). As Sunna, She is a healer.

At Ragnarok, the foretold "Twilight of the Gods" or end of the world, it is believed the Sun will finally be swallowed by Skoll. When the world is destroyed, a new world shall be born, a world of peace and love, and the Sun's bright daughter shall outshine Her mother.

Needle Memorial
In Japan, in a ritual that goes back 1500 years, women dress in kimonos and take the sewing needles that have broken in the previous year to the local Buddhist shrine where a three-tiered altar has been set up. The lower tier displays sewing accessories: scissors, thimbles, thread, etc. The top tier holds offerings of seasonal fruit and white mochi. On the center tier is a vast slab of tofu into which the broken needles are plunged. Priests sing sutras to comfort the needles, heal their broken spirits and thank them for work well done. No sewing takes place on this day.

Ante Diem VII Idus Februarias

2006-02-08T02:24:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 7th

Ante Diem VII Idus Februarias
Seventh Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

On this day in 457 AD the Eastern Roman emperor Marcian died and was replaced by a Thracian officer named Leo.

Thomas Aquinas died today in 1274.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. It is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors.

Day of Selene/Lenaea
In Greece, this day was celebrated as the Day of Selene (or day of Semele) and in Athens was called the Lenaea. The name Semele is a version of Selene, Helen, meaning 'moon' and Semele was the daughter of Cadmus. The Lenaea was celebrated at Athens as the Festival of Wild Women. In this festival a yearling bull, representing Dionysius, was sacrificed to Semele and cut into nine pieces. One piece was burned and the rest was feasted on. The nine pieces represented the original number of orgiastic moon-priestesses who presided over the ceremonies. The rites involved the nine priestesses dancing around a statue in the temple, probably followed by an orgy.

Li Chum
Li Chum in China is an annual celebration of Spring. During a parade, some people carry small clay water buffalo (a symbol of new life), while others carry much large representations made of bamboo and colored paper. When they reach the temple, the clay figures are smashed and the paper animals burned so that the effigies carry their pleas for a prosperous season flow up to heaven.

Mayan New Year
In Mayan calendar systems, 2/7 begins the next Tzolkin, or 260-day calendar (1 Imix, Tzolkin 1). The Uinal of Fire, the first of the 20-day uinals in the cycle, vivifies the world with divine fire and purifies all of life so that growing may begin again with the coming Uinal of Earth. The symbolic bird for this uinal is the Blue Hummingbird, the energetic principles those of Initiation and Sowing.

Ante Diem VIII Idus Februarias

2006-02-05T22:28:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 6th

Ante Diem VIII Idus Februarias
Eighth Day to the Ides of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

On this day in 52 BCE, Pompey spoke before the people and Roman senate in defense of Milo, after Clodius was killed, but was harassed with shouts of abuse.

On this day in 46 BCE Julius Caesar was victorious at the battle of Thapsus in North Africa.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage.

Festival of Aphrodite
In Greece, this day was the Festival of Aphrodite, who the Romans knew as Venus. Aphrodite, the goddess of love and beauty, was the daughter of Zeus and Dione. She was known to the Phoenicians as Astarte and Ashtoreth to the Hebrews and King Solomon, who built a temple to her. On her birth the seas bubbled and turned rosy, and she arose, full grown and standing on a seashell, in all the surpassing glory of her loveliness and arrayed in the panoply of her irresistible charms. She floated to Cyprus, arriving in April, and as soon as her white feet touched the shore, grass and flowers sprang up at her feet and she was sweetly received by the Three Graces.

Sapporo Snow Festival
The Sapporo snow festival in northern Japan is held to honor the spirits who bring water to the island. Miniature shrines are created in igloo-like structures, and for one night, children are allowed to wait in these huts, receiving visits from family and friends. The festival began in 1950 when local high school students made six snow statues in Odori Park along the city's main street. It attracted an unexpected number of spectators and, through the following years, the festival gradually became a part of life in Sapporo. Today the festival has grown to Hokkaido's biggest winter event and attracts more than 2 million visitors annually.

St Dorothy
This virgin martyr of the third century is the patron of gardeners and is usually shown with a laden basket because she was on her way to her place of execution, when a lawyer, Theophilus, jokingly suggested she send him a basket of heavenly fruits and flowers whereupon a child appeared with a basket of apples and roses. This convinced Theophilus who converted and also suffered martyrdom.

Homage to the Stars
The lantern festival ceremonies which usually occur around the full moon of the first lunar month in China, can begin as early as the eighth day. One hundred and eight lamps are lit at dusk and placed in prominent places around the dwelling including on the well, the kitchen stove, the washing stone, and near gates and doors in a ceremony called "scattering the lamps." Li-Ch'en observes: "Grouped together they look like fireflies; scattered, like stars."

Nonas Februarias

2006-02-05T02:14:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 5th

Nonas Februarias
The Nones of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

The rex sacrorum would appear on the steps of the Capitol on this day and announce to the people what days of the months would be holidays.

Title of Pater Patriae, Father of My Country, conferred on Augustus in 2 BCE.

The great Campanian earthquake occurred this day in about 62 AD, in which Pompeii suffered major damage. Seneca says, "This earthquake was on the Nones of February, in the consulship of Regulus and Verginius. It caused great destruction in Campania, which had never been safe from this danger but had never been damaged and time and again had got off with a fright. Also, part of the town of Herculaneum is in ruins and even the structures which are left standing are shaky."

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno (Hera), the wife of Jupiter (Zeus) and mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear). The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Day of Prophecy and Divination
In the ancient western world, one of the most important days of the year for all forms of prophecy and divination, sacred to the goddess Tyche and her counterparts: Fortuna in Rome and Wyrd among the Celtic peoples. All were superseded in medieval Christian Europe by St. Agatha, whose feast is celebrated on this day.

St Agatha
St Agatha is a third century Sicilian martyr. Like St Agnes, she was a lovely, noble and wealthy young girl, who was martyred for her refusal to marry. She had attracted the attention of a powerful man, Quintanus, the king (or consul) of Sicily, who subjected her to terrible tortures when she spurned him. Perhaps the worse, certainly the most gruesome: her breasts were torn off. She was also put into a brothel, raped, racked, beaten, torn with iron hooks, burnt with torches and imprisoned without food or water She finally expired after being rolled over live coals and broken potsherds.

The picture of St Agatha in "Lives of the Saints" shows her surrounded by symbolic objects--a bell, a brazier of smoking coals and a pair of iron tongs (perhaps those used to rip off her breasts) - with Mount Etna (looking very much like a breast) smoking in the background. Early Christian icons showed Agatha carrying her breasts on a plate. Later they were mistaken for bells and she became the patron saint of bell founders. She is also the patroness of nurses, the protector of valleys and is invoked for protection from breast diseases and fire. In Italy, special pastries or nougats, shaped like breasts and called St. Agatha's breasts, are eaten on her feast day.

Her feast day is February 5th but the festivities in Catania, the center of her worship begin on February 1st. It is celebrated with poetry contests, fireworks, music, confetti and processions. Wooden structures called candelore which are shaped like bell-towers are carried through the streets. When they stop, muskets are fired and the men who carry the candelore perform the annacata, a dance in which each one waves his candle about trying to make it burn out first. St Agatha's veil, which was taken from her tomb and is preserved at Catania, is said to help prevent eruptions of Mount Etna

The many associations of St Agatha with fire and embers resonate with other early February observances. The Celtic St Brigid, whose feast day is on February 1st, is also associated with fire (and as Bride, the Queen of Heaven, she seems to have been a sun goddess). In Armenia, the fire god Mihr was honored at this time of year and embers carried back from the central bonfire to each family's hearth.

Agatha's name comes from a Greek word, agathos, meaning good, which was the epithet of many Greek divinities, including the agathos daimon (the good spirit of the household) and Agatha Tyche (good fortune).

Perhaps Agatha's predecessor was a fertility goddess whose prominently-breasted figure was carried about the fields during sowing time. Berger in The Goddess Obscured describes the importance of such customs at this time of the year when the fields are plowed in preparation for sowing. Some scholars have noted parallels between the festival of the Ship of Isis celebrated in Egypt around March 5th and the worship of St Agatha in Catania. The Isis festival, described by Apuleius, included a torch-lit procession with worshippers carrying an image of the goddess. One of the priests carried a golden vessel shaped like a breast from which milk poured to the ground.

In Spain she was represented as an old woman, stuffing winter into her sack, possibly a carryover from Befana of Italy. She was said to live in cemeteries and was associated with cats and death.

Pridie Nonas Februarias

2006-02-04T03:12:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 4th

Pridie Nonas Februarias
Day before the Nones of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

Septimius Severus died at York in England this day in 211 AD, after a long illness. He was 65. Caracalle succeeded him as emperor this day.
Geta became emperor this day in 211 AD.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage. The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land.

Theogama
One of the dark-moon, women-only festivals of the Greeks. This festival, celebrated on the 26th day of the Greek month of Gamelion, was also known as the Gamelia, and was sacred to the marriage of Zeus and Hera.

Ante Diem III Nonas Februarias

2006-02-03T01:41:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 3rd

Ante Diem III Nonas Februarias
Third Day to the Nones of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear). The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

Juno, also called Saturnia and known as Hera by the Greeks, was the daughter of Cronus (Saturn) and regarded as a paragon of motherly virtues. She was the divinity of sacred marriage and childbirth, and was prone to violent wrath at every violation of her marriage bed with Zeus.

February is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries
In Greece, this was the third and final day on which they celebrated the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries. Many Romans sought admittance to these mysteries, incuding Marcus Aurelius, who succeeded, and Nero, who did not. Cicero, who succeeded, implied of the rites of Eleusis that "...they seem to be a recognition of the powers of Nature rather than the power of the Gods."

St. Blaise
In the Roman Catholic calendar, feast of St. Blaise, whose efficacy in the prevention of throat diseases inspired rituals like those of the preceding day, Candlemas. Crossed, unlighted candles, symbolizing purification of speech, are held at the throat of those receiving the blessing.

Like St Nicholas, St Blaise appears to be one of those saints who accumulated the legends and lores of earlier deities and folk customs around his name, perhaps because his name, sounds like wheat (ble) in French or crops (biade) in Italian.

In medieval times, he was the patron saint of plowmen. On his holiday, women brought a pail of seeds to the church to be blessed. Half of the seed was left as an offering to the church, the other half taken home and mixed with the regular seed before plowing (like the Armenians bringing home embers from the sacred fires of Mihr).

St Blaise was also the patron saint of shepherds and the woolen industry because he was allegedly martyred on the stone table used for combing out wool and flayed with the prickly metal combs that remove tiny stones from the wool. As with other saints who suffered peculiar forms of martyrdom (for instance, St. Agatha, Feb 5), the connection with sheep probably came first. Both St Bridget (Feb 1) and St Agnes (Jan 21) are also associated with sheep and this is the time of the year when lambs are being born.

In another interesting connection with this month (and the holiday of Lupercalia, Feb 15), Blaise is invoked against wolves since he supposedly forced a wolf to return a pig he had snatched from a poor widow.

Carol Field(Celebrating Italy) says that the feast day of San Biagio is especially celebrated in Italian towns where wool was worked. One of the most elaborate ceremonies takes place in Taranta Peligna, a small community in Abruzzo, where the townspeople work communally to make hundreds of special breads called panicelle in the shape of a four-fingered hand. The fingers are said to represent the collaboration of dyers, spinners, weavers and finishers The breads are baked on February 1st, but distributed on Feb 3rd, the official holiday, at the church at the same time the priest is blessing the throats of the faithful.

In Lombardy, people eat a slice of panettone on St Blaise's day to protect against sore throats during the year. In Serra San Bruno in Calabria, the cookie for San Biagio is called an abbacolo and is baked in the form of a question mark or bishop's scepter. The young men of the town offer them to their sweethearts. If the girl breaks the piece in two and gives part back to the boy, keeping the other for herself, it means she will marry him. Sicilians serve tiny white breads shaped like grasshoppers and called panuzzi or cavadduzzi or miliddi, thus honoring the saint who rid Sicily of an infestation of grasshoppers.

Setsubun
This Japanese holiday marks the official end of winter, and is the last remnant of the old Japanese festival calendar, before it was Westernized and New Year's Day moved to January 1st. The name means "season-boundary."

On this last day of the year, the male head of the household went around the house scattering roasted soybeans, one for each year in the life of each family member. Meanwhile his family chants Fuku wa uchi, oni wa soto! "In with good luck, out with demons!"

In public ceremonies, celebrities throw beans off balconies of shrines and other important buildings. They are trying to hit the demons and all the misfortunes they represent. In the comic ritual plays of the season, crowds of shrinegoers throw the dried beans at devil dancers carrying grotesque weapons.

Why beans? Perhaps, suggests Rufus(The World Holiday Book), because the word mame means both bean and good health. An ancient Japanese health charm is to eat a roasted soybean for every year of your age.

Ante Diem IV Nonas Februarias

2006-02-01T23:16:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 2nd

Ante Diem IV Nonas Februarias
Fourth Day to the Nones of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place. The dies nefasti of February were days of religious ceremony honoring the dead and heralding the rebirth of the Spring and its associated fertility.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera) was the mother of Mars, called Ares by the Greeks, and sometimes Enyalius. Ares was often accompanied in his bloody campaigns by Enyo, the murderess goddess of war who was known as Bellona by the Romans. Ares paid no attention to which cause was right or wrong and was concerned only with where he could cause maximum carnage. The Romans held a milder, more honorable view of Mars, honoring him as the son of Zeus and the father of Romulus.

It is also a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. This was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land, and celebration of the coming Spring.

Venus enters Aquarius
On this day Venus enters the sign of Aquarius, where she'll remain until the 26th, when she enters Pisces. She enjoys all the talk and gossip that flow in the air sign of Aquarius -- but she prefers Pisces, where she is exalted in the water element of her deepest feeling.

Festival of Februalia
Festival of Februalia, honoring the old Roman goddess Februa, mother of Mars, later merged with Juno to become Juno Februa, that is, "Juno in fever", patroness of the passion of love. This festival thus embodies the transition from the latent vitality of late winter to the sexual awakening of spring, symbolized in many cultures by weather rituals -- such as Groundhog Day -- in which sun or rain, light or shadow, indicate whether winter will continue to rule, or yield soon to spring.

Candlemas/Purification/Presentation/Our Lady of Candelaria
Jewish women went through a purification ceremony 40 days after the birth of a male child (80 days after the birth of a female child) and brought a lamb to the temple to be sacrificed. According to Mosaic law, Mary and Joseph would also have brought their first-born son to the temple forty days after his birth to offer him to God, like all first-born sons, along with a pair of turtledoves.

The Presentation was originally celebrated in Jerusalem on November 21st but once Jesus's birth was fixed on December 25th (near the winter solstice), the Presentation and Purification rituals would fall forty days later, in early February when torches were carried around the fields.

First celebrated on February 14th, in 350 at Jerusalem, when it would have coincided with the Roman festival of Lupercalia, it was later moved up to February 2nd. Pope Sergius declared it should be celebrated with processions and candles, to commemorate Simeon's description of the child Jesus as a light to lighten the Gentiles. Candles blessed on this day were used as a protection from evil.

This is the ostensible reason given for the Catholic custom of bringing candles to church to be blessed by the priest on February 2nd, thus the name Candle-Mass. The candles are then taken home where they serve as talismans and protections from all sorts of disasters, much like Brigid's crosses. In Hungary, according to Dorothy Spicer(The Book of Festivals), February 2nd is called Blessing of the Candle of the Happy Woman. In Poland, it is called Mother of God who Saves Us From Thunder.

Actually this festival has long been associated with fire. Spicer writes that in ancient Armenia, this was the date of Cvarntarach, a pagan spring festival in honor of Mihr, the God of fire. Originally, fires were built in his honor in open places and a lantern was lit which burned in the temple throughout the year. When Armenia became Christian, the fires were built in church courtyards instead. People danced about the flames, jumped over them and carried home embers to kindle their own fires from the sacred flames.

The motif of fire also shows up in candle processions honoring St Agatha (Feb 5) and the legends of St Brigid (Feb 1). The fire represents the spark of new life, like the seeds blessed in northern Europe on St Blaise's Day (Feb 3) and carried home to "kindle" the existing seed.

The English have many rhymes which prognosticate about future weather based on the weather on Candlemas Day:

If Candlemas Day bring snow and rain
Winter is gone and won't come again
If Candlemas Day be clear and bright
Winter will have another flight.

These are all similar to the American custom of predicting the weather on Groundhog's Day, in that you don't want the groundhog to see his shadow. In Germany, they say that the shepherd would rather see the wolf enter his stable than the sun on Candlemas Day.

The ancient Armenians used the wind to predict the weather for the coming year by watching the smoke drifting up from the bonfires lit in honor of Mihr. The Scots also observed the wind on Candlemas as recorded in this rhyme:

If this night's wind blow south
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If west, much milk and fish in the sea;
If north, much cold and snow there will be;
If east, the trees will bear much fruit;
If north-east, flee it, man, woman and brute.

This was also a holiday for Millers when windmills stand idle. In Crete it is said that they won't turn even if the miller tries to start them.

Ground Hogs Day
In England and Germany, the animal that comes out of hibernation on this day is the badger. In America, this role is assigned to the groundhog (or woodchuck), a relatively solitary, burrowing animal.

Bruce Stutz in his book on Spring(Chasing Spring) explains why the groundhog hibernates and the role light plays in waking him up. As the temperature drops in late fall and the hours of sunlight decline, the groundhog's body starts producing more melatonin which make him sleepy and less interested in sex. He crawls into his burrow where his body temperature drops to near freezing and his heart rate slows from 75 to 4 beats per minute. Some time in spring, the pineal gland (which produces melatonin) turns off and the groundhog wakes up, his testosterone rising. Stutz says think of the groundhog "as a sex god promising fertility." He rises from his burrow, looking for signs that winter is over and female groundhogs.

Legend says that if the groundhog sees his shadow, he goes back in and winter continues. If he doesn't see his shadow, then winter will soon be over. This custom seems to reflect the early understanding of this day as the turning point between winter and spring. The association of this day with divination, particularly weather divination is a long standing custom.

An ancient Irish poem refers to the snake emerging from the hole, at the same time the Queen (Bride) emerges from the Mound (the place of burial, Winter). Again, the sense is awakening after hibernation, rebirth after death, the Spring Maiden replacing the Cailleach of Winter.

This is the day of Bride,
The Queen will come from the Mound.
This is the day of Bride,
The serpent will come from the hole.

Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries
In Greece, this was the second of the three days on which they celebrated the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries. Plutarch said of the Eleusinian Mysteries, "When a man dies he is like those who are being initiated into the mysteries...Our whole life is but a succession of wanderings and painful courses...but as soon as we exit, places of purity receive us, with songs and dance and the solemnities of holy words and sacred visions."

Feast of Vasant Panchami
In the Hindu calendar, Feb. 2 is the great feast of Vasant Panchami, sacred to Saraswati, goddess of learning, honored this day in rites and customs ranging from ceremonies of pitri-tarpan, in honor of ancestors who have imparted love of learning to their grandchildren, to blessing rituals in which young children are formally taught their first words. The white swan, symbol of non-attachment and purity, is especially associated with Saraswati today. Her image, and her devotees, are clothed in yellow, symbolizing the spiritual gold, saffron and honey that come with patient, selfless effort.

Sul-Minerva
Sul-Minerva of Bath is a British-Roman deity associated with Brigid as a goddess of knowledge and healing is celebrated today. Her sanctuary is described as an “ashless” fire referring instead to her sacred spring. If Sul is cognate with the Goddess of Silbury Hill, there might have once been a procession to her sacred spring, the Swellowhead which begins to flow again in February “when the Queen comes from the mound.”

Kalendas Februarias

2006-02-01T02:16:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : February 1st

Kalendas Februarias
The Kalends of February

This is one of the dies nefasti a day on which no legal action or public voting could take place.

This was said to be the day, in 1468 BC, when Pharaoh Tuthmoses III of the 18th Dynasty seized control of Egypt, upon the death, likely murder, of Hatsheput. Hatsheput, the first female king, had ruled peacefully for seventeen years. She had initiated a culture of peace, building temples and sponsoring the arts. In a vindictive fury, Tuthmoses II tore down her statues and chased her supporters into hiding. A subsequent rebellion against Tuthmoses III led to militarization of the country and the foundation of empire. Ten days later he set out for Armageddon.

February is a month in which particular reverence was shown to the spirits of deceased ancestors. In a familiar cultural dichotomy in which both death and life were celebrated, this was a month devoted to fertility, both of men and women, and of the land. Many of the rites had vestiges of agricultural overtones. It may be more than coincidence that the dead, who were either buried or considered to be in the "underworld", and the fruits of agriculture, both relate to the earth.

On the kalends of every month interest payments were due. The interest rate in Rome was normally 1/2% (per month).

February was named for the Roman goddess Februa, mother of Mars. As patroness of passion, she was also known as Juno Februa and St. Febronia from febris, the fever of love. Her orgiastic rites were held on February 14th, St.Valentine's Day. In Norse traditions, she is equated with Sjofn.

The Irish called this month Feabhra or an Gearran, the gelding or horse. The horse was used to draw the plough, but Gearran also means 'to cut' and 'Gearran' can be used to describe the 'cutting' Spring winds. To the Anglo-Saxons, this was Solmonath, "sun month," in honor of the gradual return of the light after the darkness of winter. According to Franking and Asatru traditions, this month is Horning, from horn, the turn of the year.

The first full moon of February is called the Quickening Moon. It shares the titles Snow Moon with January and November, Wolf Moon with January and December, and Storm Moon with March and November. February’s Moon is also called the Hunger or Hungry Moon, and it has been called the Ice, Wild, Red and Cleansing, or Big Winter Moon.

Aquarius and Pisces share power over February, with Pisces taking over around the 19th of February. Violet is the flower for those born in February. Though jacinth and pearl appear on some lists, amethyst is the jewel for those born in this month and for Pisces, while aquamarine is the stone for Aquarians. Other stones associated with Aquarius are chrysoprase, garnet, labradorite, lapis lazuli, and opal. Albite, aquamarine, chrysoprase, fluorite, green tourmaline, labradorite, moonstone, and opal are linked to Pisces.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter.

Imbolc
An ancient Celtic festival considered the first day of spring. According to Blackburn(Oxford Companion to the Year), no information survives about the rituals associated with this festival, except that ewes were milked. Various scholars have derived the word Imbolc from Ol-melc (ewe's milk) because the ewes are lactating at this time, Im-bolg (around the belly) in honor of the swelling belly of the earth goddess, and folcaim (I wash) because of the rites of purification which took place at this time. All of these meanings capture themes of the festival.

A medieval quatrain fills in a few more sketchy details:

Tasting every food in order
This is what behoves at Imbolc
Washing of hand and feet and head
It is thus I say

Much of the lore associated with Imbolc was probably absorbed into the customs surrounding St. Brigid's feast day on February 1.

St Brigid

The dandelion lights its spark
Lest Brigid find the wayside dark.
And Brother Wind comes rollicking
For joy that she has brought the spring.
Young lambs and little furry folk
Seek shelter underneath her cloak.
W. M. Letts

February 1st is the feast day of St Brigid, who began her life as a pagan goddess and ended up a Christian saint. The great high goddess, Bride or Brigid, was a fire and fertility goddess, perhaps embodied in the stars in the constellation we view as Orion. In her temple at Kildare, her priestesses tended an eternal flame. She presided over all transformations: birth and brewing, metal-smithing and poetry, the passage from winter to spring.

In Celtic lore, she is the daughter of the Dagda, the Good God, who marries her to Bres of the Fomors. Her name may be derived from Gaelic breo aigit or fiery arrow or (the Matthews prefer) a Sanskrit derivation Brahti or high one. As Bride, the Queen of Heaven, she seems to have been a sun goddess. In one tale, St Brigid carries a burning coal in her apron. In another tale, flames engulf her body without burning her.

The legends about the goddess Brigid gradually became associated with the (somewhat spurious) Saint Brigid who founded the first convent in Ireland (where else?) at Kildare. Her emblem is a cow and many legends tell of how Brigid kept guests at her abbey supplied (often miraculously) with milk and butter. Her flower is the dandelion, whose yellow flower is the color of butter and whose stem when broken releases a milky sap. St Brigid supposedly helped at the birth of Jesus, thus she is the patron saint of midwives and pregnant women. She is also the patron of poets, scholars, healers, dairymaids and blacksmiths, recalling many of the arts under the protection of the goddess Bride.

On the eve of her feast day in Ireland, people put out a loaf of bread on the windowsill for the Saint and an ear of corn for her white cow, offerings for the grain goddess like the loaf buried in the first furrow. Wheat stalks are woven into X-shaped crosses to be hung from rafters as charms to protect homes from fire and lightning.

In Ireland, the birds known as oyster-catchers (in Gaelic they are called Gille righde, the servants of Bride) appear on St Brigid's day and are said to bring spring with them.

During the 19th century, Alexander Carmichael collected and compiled folk customs from the West Highlands, including many revolving around Bridget. On her holiday, women get together to make Brigid's crosses at night. They also dress the corn doll or last sheaf (from Lammas or autumn equinox) in a bridal gown and put her in a basket which is called the Bride's bed. A wand, candle or other phallic object is laid across her and the Bride is invited to come for her bed is ready. If the blankets are rumpled in the morning, this is seen as a good omen. Obviously the goddess whose mating brings life to the land is not the abbess of a convent but the great fertility goddess.

Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries
In Greece, on this day and the next, they celebrated the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries. Triptolemus, who had been cured of a childhood illness by Ceres, was taken around the world on a chariot and shown the wonders of nature. When he returned home to Eleusis he built a magnificent temple to Ceres and established the worship of the goddess. These rites, the Eleusinian Mysteries, surpassed all other Greek religious celebrations in their solemnity and splendor.

The first Day of the Lesser Eleusinian Mysteries of Demeter and Persephone is the Day of Preparation for Initiation. The Eleusinia festivals are divided into the greater and lesser mysteries. The events celebrated at the Greater Mysteries commemorate the descent of Persephone into the world below. The Lesser Mysteries honor her return to light and to her mother and were celebrated between winter and seedtime. These lesser mysteries were observed at Agrae near the Ilissus. In later times, the smaller festivals were preparatory to the greater, and no person could be initiated at Eleusis without previously seeking purification at Agrae. It was required that the person initiated in the Mysteries was of unblemished moral character.

Also during this time a Greek festival honoring Dionysos, god of wine and of all passionate, ecstatic experience, in anticipation of the moment when Dionysos re-emerges from his winter phase as Hades/Pluton, king of the underworld, and is reborn in the Spring as the young god of male sexuality and ecstatic love. During this festival the vines are pruned and sprinkled with old wine, thus symbolically using the old blood to refresh the ever-renewing young blood of new life.

St Tryphon
His emblem is the pruning knife and he is known as a protector of vines and fields and a killer of rats and caterpillars. On his day, vineyards and fields are sprinkled with holy water and blessed. Working in the fields is not allowed, and it is said that one man who disobeyed this injunction and went out to work cut his own nose off.

Juno Sospita
At the beginning of the month, Juno Sospita, the neighbor of the Phrygian Mother Goddess, was honored with new shrines. The name literally means "Juno the Savior", but some scholars maintain that the word "sospita" is derived from a very early form of Latin and may mean something considerably different. Some see Juno Sospita as the protector of women in childbirth (and, by extension, the goddess of deliverance); some see her as a warrior, while others have a completely different view of her purpose in the Roman mythology. The Temple of Juno Sospita was in the Forum Holitorium in Rome.

Candlemas Eve
This is the official last day of the Christmas season and also the last date for taking down the Christmas greens. Leaving them up after Candlemas is bad luck.

Ceremonies for Candlemas Eve

Down with the Rosemary and Bayes
Down with the Mistletoe
Instead of Holly, now upraise
The greener Box (for Show).

The Holly hitherto did sway
Let Box now domineer;
Until the dancing Easter-day
Or Easters Eve appear.

Robert Herrick (1591-1674)

Pridie Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-30T22:25:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 31st

Pridie Kalendas Februarias
Day before the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Eve of Imbolc
Tonight starts the three day Festival of Imbolc, celebrating the lactation of the ewes, the midpoint of winter, and the Great Mother Goddess in her aspect of fire. Her oldest incarnation is as Kali in India. As peoples and ideas moved west her named has changed into; Inanna (Syria),Hecate and Diana (Greece and Rome), Sekhmet (Egypt), and by the time she reached the outer edges of the Roman Empire, Brigantia (England) and finally Brighid in Ireland.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Feast of Hecate
In Greece, this day was celebrated as the Feast of Hecate, lunar goddess of crossroads, witches, and the underworld, known to the Romans as Diana Lucifera. Statues of her were erected at crossroads where offerings were made to her at this time and during monthly Hecate's Suppers sacrificed on the Full Moon. These suppers consisted of dogs, eggs, honey, milk, and black ewes. Hecate is also Kali, and embodies as well the fiercest energies of Scorpio. Like her opposite number Shiva, she destroys in order to create anew. She is linked to Sekhmet, Inanna, Pele and other goddesses who purify through the fire of love.

King Lear
Lear: So young, and so untender?
Cordelia: So young, my lord, and true.
Lear: Let it be so; thy truth then be thy dower:
For, by the sacred radiance of the sun,
The mysteries of Hecate and the night,
By all the operation of the orbs
From whom we do exist and cease to be,
Here I disclaim all my paternal care,
Propinquity and property of blood,
And as a stranger to my heart and me
Hold thee from this for ever.

Diana had three manifestations, Luna in the Heavens (the moon), Diana the Huntress on earth, and Diana Ludifera in Hades, the Underworld. Diana was the goddess of the moon and was called Diana Lucifera which means the Bringer of Light. The name Lucifera was also applied to the morningstar Venus. The Christians gave the name negative connotations in their systematic attempts to discredit the Roman and Greek gods. The name Lucifer was tacked onto the images of nature horn gods i.e. Pan, Kernunos and the Fauns and became the "Satan" we know today. The Greeks knew Diana as Artemis, the twin sister of Apollo, and daughter of Zeus and Leto. She was born under Mount Cynthus in Delos and hence was also called Cynthia and Delia. She was the goddess of hunting, carried a bow and quiver like her brother, and was especially fond of music and dance. Diana was never conquered by love, and submitted to no man, hence she was the goddess of a "chaste" moon and, except for her family, tolerated only female companions. Her priestesses were all chaste, so writers have said.

February Eve
February Eve is the start of the festival of Imbolc or Brigantia. Brigit travels throughout the countryside on the Eve of her festival, bestowing her blessings upon humanity. Brigantia is the Celtic (British) tutelary goddess of the Brigantes in Yorkshire and the goddess of the rivers Braint and Brent, which were named after her. Brigantia was also a pastoral goddess associated with flocks and cattle. During the Roman occupation she was associated with the Roman goddess Caelestis as Caelestis Brigantia.

The Feast of Soldag
The Valkyries and the Norns are honored today. The Feast of Soldag is held to commemorate the appearance of the sun at the end of January in northern Climes. Soldag translates to English as "Sunday"

Al Hijra
Not suprisingly, given that it started as a lunar religion, in the Islamic calendar, this day is Al Hijra, first day of the month of Muharram and the lunar New Year, which is celebrated for the next 10 days. Muslims have always associated this annual feast of renewal with the Hijra or Hegira, the pivotal moment in 622 CE when the Prophet Muhammad, his family and supporters rode from Mecca to Medina to establish a new faith based on the revealed word of the Qu'ran. Medina has ever since been second in dignity only to Mecca itself.

Ante Diem III Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-29T23:18:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 30th

Ante Diem III Kalendas Februarias
Third Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Columella says of this day, "The Dolphin begins to set: also the Lyre sets."

On this day in 13 BCE, an altar to the Pax Augusta, the Altar of Peace, Ara Pacis, built on the Via Flamina, was consecrated by the Roman Senate. This event is commemorated with the Festival of Peace, held in honor of the Roman goddess Pax. Pax and Irene, both meaning “Peace,” became common names in the Roman world, and Pax was imprinted on coins.

In 1948, Mahatma Gandhi was assassinated in New Delhi.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

God of Wealth
On the second day after the new year, the Chinese honor the God of Wealth by setting off firecrackers all day long. Tsai Shen Yeh was originally a follower of Confucius. But he felt there was no power in Confucianism, wanting to live a long and healthy life.

One day he had a chance visit with Lao Tzu who invited him to learn about Taoism. He became a fervent student of Taoism and eventually he became a Taoist master. During this time he devised a system called Reifu which is a kind of spiritual caligraphy , a way to heal people and become enlightened.

He became famous for being able to heal the sick. People came to visit him, and he healed their illness using a combination of calligraphy and psychic healing. Because he of this, Tsai became very popular and wealthy. By tradition, he discovered a potion that can also help people to become enlightened.

There is a story about Tai Shen Yeh. One day Tsai visited a village where there was a problem with a well and this well was the only water in the area. But a bad spirit had infected the well and it became diseased with evil spirits. Tsai cast a calligraphy spell which turned into a golden crow and flew into the well, then suddenly a large evil spirit creature appeared, became fearful, and ran away.

After he died many Chinesewere put up his image and used his calligraphy in their homes to avoid financial problems, and have a peaceful life. The people soon discovered that their wishes came true and more and more people started doing the same things following his teaching. Whoever display Tsai Shen Yeh in their homes, will be protected by him, especially wealth and healing.

Ante Diem IV Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-29T09:54:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 29th

Ante Diem IV Kalendas Februarias
Fourth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Roman Emperor Didius Julianus was born at Milan this day in 133 AD.

On this day in 282 BCE, Ptolemy II Philadelphus, the second Ptolemaic ruler of Egypt after Alexander, died.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

New Moon conjunct Sun in Aquarius
New Moon conjunct Sun in Aquarius. The special quality of this New Moon is that the Sun is "in detriment" - that is, limited and weakened in his usual exercise of power - in Aquarius, so that the emphasis of the time tends to be upon the lunar and traditionally feminine areas of hearth and home, and the protection of children from winter illnesses, especially as it is close to Imbolc, the time of the mid-Winter season, when homes are cleaned and purified before the coming of Spring. Powers of perception and observation are heightened at the Aquarius New Moon, manifesting under the right conditions as a wealth of ideas and ambitious plans, especially as they may involve collaboration with like-minded friends.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan Calendars, this February New Moon is Hunger Moon, as nature is frozen now in "Great Winter."

In the Beth-Luis-Nion Celtic tree calendar used by devotees of the faerie path, this second New Moon following the Winter Solstice begins Luis, or Rowan month. The Rowan tree is considered especially efficacious for protection, healing and divination.

Curiously, a lunar New Year festival period of roughly three days, beginning at the Aquarius New Moon, was celebrated in ancient Europe for many centuries before Julius Caesar fixed the start of the New Year at Jan. 1 on a 12-month solar calendar that was the basis of the 16th-century Gregorian calendar, now the standard for time reckoning in Europe, the Americas and other lands colonized by European explorers. The implications of this -- that all the peoples of Eurasia once lived by a single lunar calendar, but were split from each other when the new solar calendar divided West from East, solar from lunar, intellect from intuition, masculine from feminine, etc. -- is at the root of the cultural rift that has separated orient and occident ever since.

In ancient Eurasia, peoples everywhere celebrated this festival as one of the three great turning points in the cycle of the Triple Goddess, the moment when the aged Wise Woman transmutes back into the Virgin who carries new life. Patriarchal religions have since taken over the show, but whether they can long continue to produce it remains to be seen, as the new Aquarian Age favors neither male nor female, but a complementary balance of the two.

Chinese New Year
Gong Hay Fat Choy! The Year of the Fire Dog begins. In the Chinese lunar calendar, this is Hsih Nien, New Year's Day, and begins a two-week festival culminating at the Full Moon. The Chinese lunar year, basis of several other Asian lunar calendars, begins on the evening of the first New Moon while the Sun is in what the west calls Aquarius. This new Year of the Dog follows a Rooster year, and will likely favor loyal, patient devotion to principles at a time when they will be tested. Creative fire could not be coming at a better time.

In the Vietnamese lunar calendar, which is synchronous with this year's Chinese calendar, this is Tet Nguyen Dan, first day of the New Year.

The observation of this lunar festival (which occurs on the second new moon following the winter solstice) begins two weeks ahead of time (during the waning moon) as people pay debts, clean homes, return borrowed items, and make offerings to the household gods. Children are given little red envelopes containing money. Tangerines are also gifts of good luck. Firecrackers and lion dances scare off evil spirits.

People give each other special flowers called "hall flowers" because they have been reared in artificial heat (like forced narcissi): peonies, plum, peach and kumpquat blossoms and jasmine. In earlier times, shallot, onion and madder plants were sprouted by the same method. People also put up lucky talismans—lucky words cut out in red paper, sometimes more than a foot long, which are pasted up on the front of gates. Pictures of the Eight Immortals are also cut out and hung up in front of divinities. (These are very much like the paper cuts that appear on Days of the Dead in Mexico and at Shavuot in Jewish synagogues).

Another New Year's custom is the Money Tree: pine and cypress branches placed in a vase, and decorated with old coins and paper pomegranates and flowers. Old coins (with holes in them) are strung on colored threads in the shape of dragon and put at the foot of children's beds. This is called "cash to pass the year." It is supposed to be saved and not spent. However, money is given as a gift, usually in red envelopes.

New Year's Day is sometimes called The Day of Beginning or the Day of Three Beginnings (of the year, of the season and of the month). On New Year's Day, the aristocrats and officials of the Palace received purses from the Emperor embroidered with the eight treasures: the Wheel of the Law, Conch-shell, Umbrella, Canopy, Lotus, Jar, Fish and the Mystic Knot.

The meal is the most important part of the ceremonies, as each dish has symbolic significance. All the food is prepared ahead of time, as no frying or baking are permitted on the holiday. Knives and cutting instruments are put away as well. No one sweeps since that would sweep away good fortune.

The traditional main dish was a whole roasted pig, and at least one pork dish is still traditional. Chicken equals prosperity, a whole fish signifying the beginning and the end of the cycle is served but never eaten to symbolize plenty. Saifun (bean threads) represent long life and tangerines, piled high in a pyramid, are good luck and happiness. Expensive food items like sharks' fin, bird's nest and sea cucumbers set a tone of luxury. Clams are served to indicate receptivity to good fortune; vegetables are carved into the shape of coins.

Dumplings are popular: sometimes filled with meat and vegetables--and sometimes just vegetables as many families observe the practice of not eating meat on New Year's Day. Deep fried to a golden color they are said to resemble bars of gold. Sometimes they contain a coin or other token inside the dumplings to bring good luck to the recipient.

In ancient China, the festival lasted two weeks, until the Festival of the Lanterns on the full moon. Today the festivities go on for three days.

According to the writings of a sage from the fourth or fifth century, the ten days beginning with Chinese New Year are named after animals and plants. The first day is Fowl Day. The following days honor the Dog, the Pig, the Sheep, Cattle, Humans and Grains. Very much as the Twelve Days of Christmas predict weather for the coming year in British folklore, the weather on the these days predicts the coming year for each of these creatures. Bright clear days indicate prosperity while dark days warn of trouble.

Ante Diem V Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-27T23:43:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 28th

Ante Diem V Kalendas Februarias
Fifth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Trajan became emperor this day in 98 AD.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Chinese New Year's Eve (Year of the Fire Dog)
In this year's Chinese Taoist calendar, this is the last day of the old lunar year of 2004 - 2005. It is called The Day for all Gods to descend to Earth -- and thus to be present and in union with humankind for the beginning of the New Year on Jan. 21.

On the day before New Year, the Chinese prepare the feast for the next day. A new picture of the Kitchen God is put up. Feasts are set out for the household gods, then the ancestors on "The Table of Heaven and Earth," a long table is set up in the courtyard. A yellow paper with representations of all the heavenly sages and deities is set on it and in front of this people set out "honey offerings:" apples, dried fruits, breads, vegetables and New Year cakes. Hanging above the table are figures of the Eight Immortals threaded together with vines decorated with paper pomegranate flowers.

On New Year's Eve, people dress up and visit relatives and friends "bidding farewell to the old year." Newly married men are expected to go the house of their wife's parents; not doing so will bring bad luck.

Everyone stays up, sipping on wine and nibbling on refreshments, to see out the old year. Candles are lit and women and children play cards and throw dice. Fireworks explode, especially during the double-hours (last of the old year and first of the new).

In the Buddhist calendars of many East Asian countries, this last day of the old year is observed as Sojong Day, when rites of fasting and self-purification, of asking and giving forgiveness are played to clean old uneasy energies from the soul and prepare for the New Year.

What to Expect in the Year of the Fire Dog
The year of the Fire Dog is the image of fire burning across or above the earth. As such, according to the cycle of the five elements, this combination forms a harmony which makes the earth strong. However, whenever the Earth becomes strong it tends to become excessive or overbalanced.

So in a year when it becomes strong, it will have to expend energy to restore balance. For instance, there could be bush fires or other big fires, earthquakes, landslides, volcanic eruptions, explosions (due to earth-disturbing fossil fuels), other unforeseen influences that cause destruction via fire, heat or collapse of the earth's surface. The last Fire Dog Year was in 1946 and there was much evidence to support this. There were tsunamis in Hawaii, the beginning of nuclear testing in the Pacific Ocean, and the French Indochina war.

That year also brought about the birth of the first digital computer: the ENIAC.

The Fire Dog year will emphasise the illumination of knowledge, humanitarian issues and significant earth changes. Historically, this configuration has carried the connotation of 'fire building to strengthen the earth', but the stronger the earth gets the more it has the capacity to become a 'tomb' for the fire, The potential to apply the results of knowledge for humanity is hampered.

The Nature of the Fire Dog
It is said that when the Buddha was examining the 11th animal, the Dog, he acknowledged the Dog as a true server of mankind. The Buddha loved the Dog because of its loyalty, faithfulness and hard working nature, with qualities of love, bravery and unshakeable devotion.

Ante Diem VI Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-26T23:40:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 27th

Ante Diem VI Kalendas Februarias
Sixth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The emperor Nerva died on this day of apoplexy (stroke or brain hemhorrage) in 98 AD after a fit of anger. He was 62 and was succeeded by Trajan.

Columella says of this day, "The bright star on the breast of the Lion sets: sometimes it is a sign: the winter is divided into two parts at this point."

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Sementivae Feria
The Sementivae Feria, feast of sowing, is a Roman holy day. Janus is called upon first, then sacrifices are made to Tellus, the earth, and Ceres, goddess of agriculture. All the minor deities who presided over the operations of farming are invoked: Vervactor, the god of breaking up fallow land; Reparator, of renewing its powers; Obarator, of ploughing; Occator, of harrowing; Imporcitor, of drawing furrows; Insitor, of grafting; Sarritor, of hoeing; Subruncinator, of weeding; Messor, of harvesting; Convector, of gathering in; Conditor, of storing up; Promitor, of bringing out for use. At the end, the farmers add to their prayers, sive deo, sive deoe "any unknown god, male or female."

Pre-New Year Visits
The day before New Year's Eve, the Chinese visit their relatives and pupils visit their teachers and charity is distributed to the poor.

Ante Diem VII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-26T23:19:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 26th

Ante Diem VII Kalendas Februarias
Seventh Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This day was Mecheir 1 (Macedonian Xandicus 1), the first day of the month Mecheir, in the Egyptian calendar.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Cerunnos
In the ancient Britannic calendar, this is one of the year's most solemn festivals of initiation. It is sacred to Cerunnos, the deer- horned God who is considered the master of all communications with animals, and the threshold keeper who tests the worthiness of all who seek knowledge of the secrets of nature.

St. Francois de Sales
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of St. Francois de Sales, who gave up the promise of a spectacular career in the King's service to dedicate himself to missionary work, and went to Geneva in the late 16th century to convert Calvinists, a task at which he is said to have achieved the huge success of bringing some 72,000 of Europe's most dismal Protestants back to the fold, largely through methods that were mild and joyous rather than stern. He reportedly coined the saying that "You can catch more flies with a spoonful of honey than with a barrel of vinegar."

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-24T23:31:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 25th

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas Februarias
Eighth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

On this day in 41 BCE Claudius was named emperor. Although despised by many as an idiot, he had a distinguished, even scholarly, reign.

The emperor Nerva fell ill this day in 98 AD after a fit of anger, and died a day later.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Old Disting Day
Old Disting is the feast of the Disir, the Norse guardian goddesses. A major festival was held to honor all the Aesir at the temple in Uppsala, Sweden. The Dísir are a collective of divine female beings of whom little is known with certainty except that they are mentioned in concurrence with death and demise. Dís is believed to correspond to the idisi mentioned in the Old High German Merseburg Incantations as well as to ides, a poetic Anglo-Saxon synonym for "woman." Possibly, it is also etymologically related to the dhísanas, a group of female deities in the Yajur Veda.

Dís could be used in a way suggestive of a title (lady or goddess). Freyja is called Vanadís (dís of the vanir) and Álfhildr is refered to as a sun-dís.

Some Scandinavian place names tell of the influence of dísir, such as Diseberg and Disevi in Sweden or Disen in Norway.

St. Paul's Day
In Christian calendars, this is St. Paul's Day, commemorating the dramatic Conversion of St. Paul, who gave up being Saul, scourge of Christians, when he was knocked off his horse by a bolt of light that hit him right in the third eye -- this may help explain the frontal baldness with which he is almost always depicted. Jan. 25 is not the saint's actual feast day, which is celebrated on June 30, in honor of Paul as the prolific writer and marketing genius of early Christianity. In Britain this day is a notable weather marker, as it is said that rain on St. Paul's Day is a sign of a poor harvest to come in the autumn.

If the day of St Paul prove clear
Thus shall betide a happy year
If it chance to snow or rain
Then shall be dear all kinds of grain
But if high winds shall be aloft
Wars shall vex this realm full oft
And if thick mists make dark the sky
Both beasts and fowls this year shall die.
Erra Pater 1694

According to folk tradition, a nice day today meant nice weather all year. Snow or rain brought a bad year for crops. Clouds or mists meant a bad year for animals, and thunder was a forerunner of windy days.

Burns Night
On the day when Robert Burns was born, Scots celebrate the poet's birthday with feasts featuring haggis (Yuck!). If you don't fancy haggis, you can still celebrate Scotland by dining on other Scotch delicacies, like Scotch and shortbread.

St Dwynen
The Welsh St Valentine, she prayed to be free of the importuning of a suitor, but when she dreamed he was turned to ice, she changed her plea to ask that all lovers should either succeed or be cured. She never married but became a nun. Her church of Llanddwyn was one of the most popular in medieval Wales. Pilgrims learned their fortune by watching the movements of the fish at her well and people brought sick animals to be cured. But she was always most popular with lovers.

Ante Diem IX Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-24T01:32:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 24th Market Day

Ante Diem IX Kalendas Februarias
Ninth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Caligula was assassinated on the Palatine, during the last day of the Palatine Games, in Rome in 41 AD. His wife and daughter were also murdered. Claudius was proclaimed emperor the same day. Caligula was murdered by Cassius Charea, captain of the guards, apparently because of one too many frivolous slights, rather than any politics. Cassius Charea was one of the most reknowned Roman officers, have led the eighty surviving soldiers back from the massacre of the three legions in the Teutorberger forest in Germany. He was executed under Roman military law.

The emperor Hadrian was born Publius Aelius Hadrianus at Rome this day in 76 AD.

Columella says of this day, "There are forebodings of a storm from the setting of the constellation of the Whale: sometimes the storm actually occurs."

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings.

Festival of Sementivae
The Romans celebrate on this day the festival of Sementivae, so called because it honors the feminine nurturing power that receives the seed and protects it until its latent life force is ready to sprout. This is one of the mid-winter festivals that begin early now, culminating in the Imbolc, Candlemas, Setsubun, St. Brigid's day and other festivals of early February.

Amun
In the Egyptian calendar, this day is sacred to the primordial creator Amun, called "the Hidden One" because his power is in operation even before it manifests in the Sun and the visible world. Facing him at the right of the image shown here is the figure representing Aquarius in the Egyptian zodiac, pouring a double stream of sacred water to bless the realm. Amun's power to bring latent forces into manifestation survives in Christian traditions as the word Amen ("Let it be") that ends the prayer, and activates it.

Thoth
Also in the ancient Egyptian solar calendar, this is a major four-day festival honoring Thoth, the lunar Neter of wisdom and learning. The rites begin with a celebration of Thoth's arrival in the physical realm; honor his gifts of mathematics, geometry, literature and magic; and culminate in the ceremony of gratitude for the most profound of all Thoth's secrets: the khu, or light body, which the adept generates through continued spiritual practice. (Month of Pamenot, days 10 - 13).

Cornish Tinner's and Seafarer's Day
The Cornish Tinner's and Seafarer's Day is an old Labor Day celebrating a new season of sailing and mining.

Ante Diem X Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-24T01:20:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 23rd

Ante Diem X Kalendas Februarias
Tenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Braciaca Dydd
Braciaca Dydd, the Day of Braciaca, begins at sundown and continues until January 24th. This is the first day of the Goddess month of Bridhe, sacred to the Celtic and Britannic Goddess variously called Brigit, Bridhe, Brigantia and later, St. Bridget. She is also called the Triple Brighids, and is one of the most widely-revered manifestations of the Triple Goddess. She is the protector of the eternal creative flame that maintains the vitality of the natural world, and is the patron of warriors and of all practitioners of feminine arts and crafts, most notably the occult disciplines of divination, witchcraft, herb and star lore, and prophecy. She is also represented by the spirals that appear constantly in Celtic art. Her totemic animals are the ram and the ox, her sacred plant the blackberry.

One Tooth Rhee Day
One Tooth Rhee Day is a Korean feast day honoring the mythical inventor of the odd custom of having bureaucrats wear four hats to give contradictory orders to workers.

Ante Diem XI Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-22T07:44:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 22nd

Ante Diem XI Kalendas Februarias
Eleventh Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Columella says of this day, "The Lyre sets in the evening: it is a rainy day."

This is the birthday of Sir Francis Bacon (1561-1526).

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Day of Apollo
In the ancient Greek and Roman calendars, this is the feast day of Apollo, god of the Sun, and also of light, intellect, classical beauty, prophecy and the lyre. Thousands of years ago, before the day of the Sun's entry into Aquarius moved to where it is now, on Jan. 19, this day marked the Sun's transition from the darkness and heaviness of Capricorn to the light and activity of Aquarius, the month in which the annual mid-winter festival of early February celebrated the passing of the Great Cold and the approach of the new Spring.

Apollo's day was later Christianized as the feast of St. Vincent, a shadowy figure who may not have lived, but who was likely invented, as his name means Wine in the Romance languages. St. Vincent is the patron of vintners and of those who just like to drink wine. The placement of his day is perfect, as it falls right at the top of the month when the Sun is in Aquarius, the sign which rules the 11th house of Friendship, and thereby favors all happy activities in which friends engage. St. Vincent's Day is also a major weather marker in Europe, for it was, and still is, said that fair weather on this day heralds an abundant grape harvest and a good vintage:

"Take care on St. Vincent's Day,
For if on this day you see
That the sun is bright and clear,
We'll have more wine than water."

Finally, on this day Mercury enters Aquarius, where he is said to be "exalted," and all Mercury-related activities are favored until 2/9, when Mercury is "in detriment" in Pisces. The implications are clear enough: schedule the master mind meetings, talk up whatever needs to get pitched, and write it up now, when the words flow like champagne.

St. Vincent
St. Vincent is a one of a number of Christianized forms of Apollo. St. Vincent’s day is important to the wine industry as he is considered the Patron Saint of wine growers. According to grape lore, if the weather is good on this day, the crops will be good this year.

It is said, "If the weather is fine, you'll enjoy the wine!" and...

“If that the sun his beams display,
Be sure to mark his transient beam,
Which through the window sheds a gleam;
For 'tis a token bright and clear,
Of prosperous weather all the year.”

Sacrifice to the Kitchen God
A week before Chinese New Year, the head of the household makes a sacrifice to TsaoWang, the kitchen god. Only men participate in this ritual which is sometimes called Little New Year. In ancient times, an antelope was sacrificed, but by 1900, people were offering candies and sugar cakes for the god and pure water, grass and beans for his horse. The sweet foods encouraged him to say sweet things about the family (or, made his mouth so sticky he could not open it).

Now the usual practice is to smear honey on the picture of the kitchen god which hangs in the kitchen. Then the picture is taken down and burned, along with paper spirit money. On New Year's Eve, a new picture will be put up. Sometimes fireworks are set off and thus this day is sometimes called "Little New Year."

On this same day, people paste up little good wish poems called "spring couplets" on gates and doors. These are similar to the peach charms of the past (boards of peach wood painted with pictures of gate gods or charms and put on the sides of doors). The spring couplets are written by professional calligraphers, usually on red paper, and say things like "May there be a single universal peace, with true wealth and honor. May the spring colors of the Nine Heaves appear in profuse elegance."

Ante Diem XII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-22T06:51:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 21st

Ante Diem XII Kalendas Februarias
Tweleth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Nero's wife Poppaea gave birth to his daughter Claudia this day in 63 AD. Neither survived very long.

This is the 1st day of the 2nd month of the 13 month Druidic calendar. The sequent letter is L for the tree Rowan (Luis).

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

St. Agnes
In the Roman Catholic calendar, feast of St. Agnes, one of the most admired of all virgin martyrs, who gave her life during the last great campaign of Christian persecutions by Diocletian in the early 4th century. She is always depicted with a lamb and a branch of hyssop, symbolizing respectively her innocence and her purity.

St Agnes was a 13-year-old Roman girl who was martyred during the reign of Diocletian in the fourth century BCE. Like many saints of this time period (Lucy is another good example), the story of her life is spurious, perhaps based on nothing more than her name (which means "chaste"). One legend says that she refused the suit of a Roman noble. Her father, a prefect, condemned her to be exposed in a public place but her long hair grew miraculously longer and covered her entirely.

Another legend says she was the daughter of a virgin and a man who had renounced sexual love (this seems to imply she was a miraculous child like St David, Merlin or Christ). She was killed for refusing to marry a Roman officer, saying she already had a spouse who could not be seen with mortal eyes. She is thus the patroness of young girls and chastity. Accused of being a Christian by her rejected suitor, she was placed in a brothel where she inspired such awe in the male patrons that none dared approach her except for one foolish fellow who was struck blind for his impudence. Eventually she was condemned to death for refusing to renounce her faith. “She went to the place of execution more cheerfully than others go to a wedding,” wrote Ambrose, himself a saint.

Agnes is usually pictured with a lamb and lilies. Her name comes from the Greek word agnos (chaste) but it was confused early on with the Latin agnus (which means lamb).

In Rome, two lambs are brought into the church of Sant Agnese on her feast day, where they are presented at the altar and blessed. The wool shorn from these sheep is used to weave the pope’s pallium for the year.

Keats in his poem, “The Eve of St Agnes,” refers to the holy loom used by the secret sisterhood to weave St Agnes’ wool. Other saints with feast days around this time are also associated with sheep and lambs (St Brigid—February 2 and St Blaise—February 3). This is the start of the lambing season in England. Perhaps St Agnes carries the qualities of a goddess who protected lambs. Walker says she is a Roman-Jewish version of the Holy Ewe Lamb (Agna), virgin incarnation of the Ewe-Goddess Rachel, but I’m not sure I believe this any more than I believe the brothel story.

Sweeping the Ground
On the 20th day of the last month of the Chinese lunar year, people do a thorough house-cleaning in preparation for Chinese New Year.

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-20T22:28:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 20th

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas Februarias
Thirteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Marcus Antoninus bestowed the priesthood on his son Commodus this day in 175 AD, enrolling him in the college of priests, though he was only fourteen.

The emperor Gordian III was born at Rome this day in 225 AD. He became emperor when he was 13, and was murdered when he was 19.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

St. Sebastian
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of St. Sebastian, one of the many notable martyrs from the last major wave of anti- Christian persecutions under Diocletian, at the end of the 3rd century and the beginning of the 4th, a few years before the reign of Constantine the Great, who was to designate Christianity the state religion of the Roman empire. St. Sebastian is famous as a "double martyr", so called because when the emperor's attempt to have his fellow soldiers execute him with arrows failed to finish him off -- a scene depicted in countless works of art, including this one by Mantegna -- Sebastian had the temerity to affirm his faith before Caesar a second time, and was then clubbed to death. The symbolism of the arrows is ancient and archetypal, linking with countless stories in which the wound of divine love brings both excruciating pain and ineffable joy. Sebastian remains to this day the patron saint of soldiers, archers and athletes.

St. Agnes' Eve
This is an evening for love divinations, even though the spurious St Agnes chose death rather than marry a pagan Roman officer. Most of the methods recommended for determining your future spouse are challenging.

Fair St Agnes, play thy part
And send to me my own sweetheart
Not in his best or worst array
But in the clothes he wears each day
That tomorrow I may him ken
From among all other men.

St. Agnes' Eve is traditionally a night for dreaming deeply and truly. If a virgin dreams tonight of a man, she sees her future husband. In one version, she must fast all day and eat only a salt-filled egg or a salted herring at night. Another charm employed on St. Agnes Eve was the baking of the "dumb" cake, so called since it was made in silence. The cake made of flour, spring water, malt and sugar, could be made by a single girl, or sometimes by a small group. Other traditions said you must stick a load of pins in the sleeve of your nightdress before retiring.

Aristotle’s Last Legacy (written in 1711) provides another method for provoking an oracular dream of your lover. All you need to do is sprinkle a sprig of rosemary and a sprig of thyme with urine three times, then put each sprig into one of your shoes and put your shoes by your bed and say:

St Agnes, that’s to Lovers kind
Come ease the Troubles of my Mind.

If these seem too unpleasant, you can always try the simple charm of peeling an apple in one long strip and throwing it over your left shoulder to see what initial it will make or simply paying careful attention to your dreams.

Ante Diem XIV Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-19T22:55:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 19th

Ante Diem XIV Kalendas Februarias
Fourteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Flavius Theodosius was summoned from his retirement in Spain and became emperor this day in 379 AD.

In Greece, this day continued the Theogamia of Hera.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Sun enters Aquarius
Sun enters Aquarius. This is a major annual transition point at which the year enters the Great Cold, and, before the Sun leaves Aquarius in February, begins the lengthening of the light and the transition to Spring. The importance of this annual passage point has been evident since ancient times in many cultures, for example the Chinese, who celebrate the lunar New Year at the first New Moon while the Sun is in what the West calls Aquarius. The Sun's entry into Aquarius gains increasing power now as Earth's people enter the Aquarian Age, which favors wide networks and lateral teams of friendship over Piscean hierarchies, emphasizing the identity of Aquarius as the ruler of the 11th House of Friendship.

In some Native American calendars, the Month of the Otter begins on this day.

Thorrablottar
Thorrablottar, Husband's Day, is sacred to the Norse God Thor. Men ceremoniously welcome him into their homes. Rising before anyone else, the head of a household is instructed to go outside clad only in his shirt and underwear and hop all the way around his home on one foot. Then he bids Thor welcome to his home. Wives are supposed to treat their mates especially well.

Ante Diem XV Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-18T22:42:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 18th

Ante Diem XV Kalendas Februarias
Fifteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Columella says of this day, "Aquarius begins to rise: the southwest wind is the sign of a storm."

Clodius, who had stirred up rebellion at Rome with Julius Caesar's tacit approval, was killed when he attempted to ambush Milo at Bovillae in 52 BCE.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Theogamia of Hera
In Greece this day was known as the Theogamia of Hera. Hera was known as Juno to the Romans. She was also known as Saturnia to the Romans. Juno was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. She was wedded to Zeus in the Garden of the Gods where Gaea created in her honor a tree of life bearing golden fruit.

Outakai-hajime
In Japan, the annual Outakai-hajime, or poetry party, is held at Court. Poems on a given theme are selected from the entries submitted by the public and are read aloud.

Uinal of Duality
In Mayan calendar systems, this day begins the Uinal of Duality, sacred to the creator couple Ometeotl and Omecinatl, the most exalted deities in the Aztec/Mayan cosmos. The period that now begins is the thirteenth and last of the 20-day Uinals in the current cycle of the Tzolkin, or 260-day calendar (7 Imix, Tzolkin 241), and marks the point at which the cycle dissolves in a duality from which the next uinal will be born in Fire. The symbolic bird for this uinal is the Parrot, the principle that of Completion.

Putting Away the Seals
In China, sometime between the 19th and the 22nd days of the 12th moon (the propititous time was chosen by the Imperial Board of Astronomy), the Keeper of the Seals for each Ministry and Department officially retired the seals for the rest of the year, a practice followed by a jolly drinking party. This is the start of a rowdy season when restaurants and amusements places are full and beggars can steal from shops without any fear of repercussions.

Around the same time, all the theaters in Peking closed and didn't open again until New Year's Day when they performed the play, "Conferring Happiness," to open the new season. Also about this time, the school boys are released from their studies.

Ante Diem XVI Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-18T22:17:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 17th

Ante Diem XVI Kalendas Februarias
Sisteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Festival of Felicitas
This day was set aside to honor Felicitas, the goddess who personified Good Fortune, happiness, or felicity. One temple in Rome was dedicated to this goddess, according to Cicero and Suetonius.

On this day in 395 AD the emperor Theodosius died and left the empire to this two sons. Arcadius, who was 18, took control of the Eastern empire while Honorius, who was 10, took control of the Western empire.

Columella says of this day, "The Crab finishes setting: the weather is wintry."

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Kanyapongal
The last day of Pongal is known as Kanyapongal. Coloured balls of the pongal are made and are offered to birds. A kind of bull-fight, called the 'Jallikattu' is held in Madhurai, Tiruchirapalli and Tanjore in Tamil Nadu and several places in Andhra Pradesh. Bundles containing money are tied to the horns of ferocious bulls, and unarmed villagers try to wrest the bundles from them. A Bullock Cart race and cock-fight are also held. In Andhra Pradesh, every household displays its collection of dolls for three days. Community meals are held at night with freshly harvested ingredients.

Ogun
Among the Yoruba people of Africa and the Santeria communities of the Americas, this day is sacred to Ogun, the masculine orisha of strength, stamina and determination.

St Anthony and the Blessing of the Animals
St Anthony was a 3rd century hermit who was tormented with temptations. Because he made baskets, he is the patron of basket-makers and because he buried St Paul the Hermit, he is the patron of gravediggers as well. It’s less clear why he’s the patron of domestic animals but so he is.

On his feast day, domestic animals are cleaned and decorated and brought to churches to be blessed. In modern day Italy, even automobiles, viewed as modern beasts of burden, might be blessed on this day. In Mexico oxen, burros, horses and other beasts of burden are rubbed down and decorated with ribbons and garlands. Sheep, dogs, cats, chickens, even parrots and birds, are brought to the parish church to be sprinkled with holy water. In some rural communities, people even bring bags of worms and harmful insects which are blessed to keep them from hurting the crops.

St Anthony is usually always pictured with a pig. In some parts of Italy, the community buys a pig that belongs to the community and is allowed to run freely. The pig is marked with a notch in the ear or a bell around the neck as the pig of St Anthony. Although this animal is much indulged throughout the year, its fate ends in January when the person who wins it in a lottery gets to take it home and turn it into meat. The price the animal fetched is used to purchase the next year's pig. Carol Field(Celebrating Italy) relates this custom to the sacrifice of pregnant sows to Ceres and Mother Earth.

In Italy, this day was often called Festa del Porco, the day of the pig, because it coincided with the arrival of the special pig butcher. People feasted on dishes of pork — cracklings, chops, livers, salami, prosciutto, sausage, blood pudding — dishes of beans, which symbolize the underworld and death, and chestnuts, which represent fertility.

In Greece, this is considered the start of carnival season. Women visit each other in the evenings, play games and tell bawdy jokes.

Ante Diem XVII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-15T19:59:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 16th Market Day

Ante Diem XVII Kalendas Februarias
Seventeenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This day was sometimes known as the Concordia, or the day set aside to honor Concordia, a goddess who was the personification of harmony and concord. Several temples in Rome were dedicated specifically to this goddess. In art, Concordia was depicted sitting, wearing a long cloak and holding onto a patera (sacrificial bowl) and a cornucopia. Sometimes, she is shown standing between two members of the Royal House shaking hands.

On this day in 27 BCE Octavian was granted the title "Augustus" which means "revered" in honor of the great peace and order he had established throughout the empire.

Columella says of this day, "The sun passes into Aquarius: the Lion begins to set in the morning: there is a southwest or sometimes a south wind with rain."

Arcadius was made Augustus this day (or the 19th) in 383 AD. He later succeeded to the throne of the Eastern Roman empire.

Birthday of Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King (1929).

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings.

Mattu-Pongal
Mattu-Pongal is the third day of Pongal, dedicated to the worship and veneration of cattle (mattu). The horns of the cattle are decorated with turmeric and kumkum, and small bells and flowers are hung around their neck. After the cattle have been paraded through the streets, the pongal that was been offered to the local deities is given to the cattle to eat.

Eve of St Anthony
In Abruzzo, Italy, men and boys used to go through the town singing songs about St Anthony's battles with the Devil and asking for donations of wood for a huge bonfire. These fires were lit all over Italy at crossroads, in courtyards and on church piazze on the eve of St. Anthony. In Fara Filiorum Petri, in Abruzzo, they tie reeds into bundles called farchie that rise sixty feet high, while in other places, the bonfire is made of vine branches lashed together and mounded in a pyramid. The bonfires supposedly encourage warmth so the seeds will grow, and the ashes have fertilizing power.

Ante Diem XVIII Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-14T23:59:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 15th

Ante Diem XVIII Kalendas Februarias
Eighteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This day is for special religious observance.

This is the final day of the Carmentalia which began January 11th in honor of the goddess Carmenta. She was otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. Carmenta was the mother of Evander. After arriving in Latium with her son, she went atop the Capitoline Hill and began prophesying. Afterwards she became revered as a deity. She is also considered the goddess of childbirth. A temple in Rome was dedicated to her and known as the Temple of Carmentis. The right arch of this temple was called the porta scelerata, because the Fabii passed through it on their way to their destruction at Cremera. After her are named the Caryae (walnut trees) and the Carytids (nut nymphs). The Second Festival of Carmentalia was created after the Senate prohibited a practice to which mothers had become accustomed. At one time, old matrons drove in carriages (carpenta) during the festival on the 11th. After the honor was taken from them, every matron vowed not to produce any children for her ungrateful spouse. The Senate restored the rite and declared there would now be two festivals in the Mother’s honor to promote the birth of boys and girls.

On this day in 69 AD, the emperor Galba was killed by his Praetorian guards.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Orion
On this night at about 10 PM, the constellation Orion culminates, or reaches its highest point. To the ancients it was the best known constellation and the resemblance of the pattern to a tunic with a belt, and the bow being shot at Taurus, was obvious to the Greeks, to whom it was known in 425 BC. The Egyptian pyramids are arranged in the pattern of Orion's primary stars.

Sein-No-Hi
Sein-No-Hi, Adult's Day, is a Japanese festival to honor those who have turned twenty. A person is not considered an adult until they turn twenty.
This is also the Small New Year. Azuki-qayu (gruel cooked with red beans) is eaten to drive away evil spirits and illness for the coming year.

Surya-Pongal
The second day, of Pongal is Surya-Pongal, dedicated to the Sun god, Surya. On this day, pongal (rice cooked in milk and jaggery) is boiled by women who offer it to the Sun.

Amun
In the ancient Egyptian Calendar, this is the first day of the month of Pamenot, sacred to Amun, the primordial water Neter who embodies the potential of all living things. As this month is opposite on the zodiac wheel to what we call July, the month when the annual inundation of the Nile always used to begin on July 26, the month of Pamenot has always represented the seminal ingathering of energy and its concentration toward release in the surge of summer.

Ante Diem XIX Kalendas Februarias

2006-01-14T00:23:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 14th

Ante Diem XIX Kalendas Februarias
Nineteenth Day to the Kalends of February

This is one of then endotercisus on which mornings could be for voting and afternoons not, or vice-versa.

The Carmentalia celebrations continued this day in honor of the goddess Carmenta. She was otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. Carmenta was the mother of Evander.

On this day, an official admission of error was issued by the jurors of the Salem Witch Trial in 1696.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Makara Sankrati
Hindus celebrate the festival of Makara Sankrant, the solar date associated with the sun's journey into Capricorn and the start of the movement into the light part of the year. The festival is celebrated in different ways in different parts of India but always with sweetness. People make treats out of sesame seeds which are associated with sweetness, love and tender feelings and give them to each other with wishes for sweet words.

In Maharashtra, married women get together and receive gifts of kitchen utensils. In Gujarat Sankrant, elders give gifts to the younger members of their families and scholarships are awarded to students in astrology and philosophy. In Punjab, the festival is called Lohari. People gather around huge bonfires and throw into them sweets, sugarcane and rice.

In South Sankrant, the festival is known as Pongal, a name which comes from the special food that is served: newly harvested rice which is boiled in a new pot of milk. In Tamil, the place where the rice is cooked is treated ceremonially: washed with cow dung and water, then decorated with a lotus pattern drawn in powdered rice, depicting the Sun God. People rise before sunrise, bathe themselves and wear new clothes. The pot is decorated with saffron. The rice is offered to the Sun-God on three banana-leaves.

According to Venkatramani, this used to be a four day festival with the first day devoted to a thorough house-cleaning and the second day to cooking the rice which was offered to Surya, the Sun-God. the third day was called Festival of the Cow. Cattle ware washed and decorated with garlands and red saffron and given some of the ceremonial rice. In some parts of India, young men participated in bull-chasing: a net of tamarind fibers decorated with silver coins and gold rings was attached to a bull's horns and trumpets blown to make the bull run helter-skelter while young men vied to snatch the treasure from its horns. The fourth day was devoted to visiting.

In Nepal, people visit holy bathing spots on this day. Some immerse themselves while others flick water on their hands and face and over their heads. Special foods are served including sesame seeds, sweet potatoes, spinach, a mixture of rice and lentils called khichari, meat and home-brewed wine and beer. Married daughters return to their parental homes and mothers bless their children by putting mustard oil on their heads and placed a few drops in the ear for a long life of good fortune. People sit in the sun on this day and have mustard-oil massages. These customs seem to be related to the revitalization of the sun--I'm assuming that the heat and color of the mustard are associated with the sun.

Pongal
Also today in India the festival of Pongal, which literally means "boiling over," stretches over four days and celebrates the bounteous crops in the fields. This festival is the biggest event of the year for the Tamils as well as for the people of Andhra Pradesh. The first day, Bhogi-Pongal is devoted to Bhogi or Indra, the rain god. The day is linked with the famous mythological tale about Krishna lifting Gobardhan parbat on his little finger. The day begins with an oil bath and in the evening there is a bonfire made of old cloths, files, mats and rugs.

St Hilary's Day
According to British folklore, this is the coldest day of the year.

Idus Januarias

2006-01-13T01:10:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 13th

Idus Januarias
The Ides of January

This day is for special religious observance.

This day was sacred to Jupiter.

The Carmentalia celebrations continued this day in honor of the goddess Carmenta. She was otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. Carmenta was the mother of Evander.

On this day in 27 BCE, Octavian (Augustus) was declared proconsul for 10 years.

In Austria, the final Witchcraft laws were repealed in 1787.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Full Moon in Cancer
Full Moon in Cancer, opposite Sun in Capricorn. This opposition embodies the classic tensions between disciplined intellect and wealth of feeling; perseverance in pursuit of professional goals and the inner nurturing energy of domesticity; the mature male and the youthful female, symbolized by, among other things, Father Time and the New Year Baby. As the Moon is the ruler of Cancer, it is not surprising that this time of the year emphasizes the nurturing powers of the feminine, family activities shared within the home, and a time of introspection following the feasting season of early winter.

Note, however, that the sexual politics of the Cancer Full Moon are somewhat complicated this time around, as Venus in Capricorn is conjunct the Sun, and opposite the Moon. The sacred feminine is likely to be reserved, and demanding.

In some Native American calendars, the Month of the Snow Goose begins on this day.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan calendars, this January Full Moon is Wolf Moon, so called because this is the snowy time when prey is scarce, the howl of hunger is heard and those who must cross the forest had best go armed and in company. Also called Ice Moon, Cold Moon and “Little Winter,” coming just before “Great Winter”, when the latest potential of all things begins to stir toward birth in the Spring. This is the time to set the new ideas into motion, the new things to work, and prepare for birth.

Wang Mu
This Full Moon is one of the five great annual festivals in the Chinese Taoist calendar: Wang Mu, or the Empress Mother through whom the Tao of Creation and Destruction manifests on Earth. As Wang Mu is honored at the year's strongest moment of Yin, or feminine energy, she is also identified as the Shen, or Deity of the Earth element, North, Winter and the color White.

St Knut's Day
In Scandinavian countries, this is the traditional day for taking down the Yule decorations. In Norway, the greeting Glaedelig jul is used up to and on this day. Swedes celebrate with a dance and then dismantle the Christmas tree, which is usually chopped up and burnt.

Sometimes known as the Twentieth Day (after Christmas), some authorities believe the name Knut comes from the Laws of Canute the Great, written between 1017 and 1035, who decreed that there should be no fasting between Christmas and the Epiphany Octave.

Pridie Idus Januarias

2006-01-12T00:18:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 12th

Pridie Idus Januarias
Day Before the Ides of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Carmentalia celebrations continued this day in honor of the goddess Carmenta. She was otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. Carmenta was the mother of Evander.

This was the day in 49 BC when Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome, ending the Republic and beginning the Empire.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Compitalia
The Roman festival of Compitalia honors the Lares and Manes, household gods. The Compitalia and the Feralia are part of the Mania. Mania is the goddess referred to as the Mother or Grandmother of Ghosts. The Romans celebrate the Compitalia on the 12th of January and also the 6th of March. Loaves of bread are fashioned in the shape of men and called Maniae. Woolen effigies of men and women are dedicated to the goddess Mania and hung at the doors of all the houses in Rome in the hope that, in her rounds through the city, she will accept the effigies for the inmates of the house and so spare the living from death for another year.

Ante Diem IV Idus Januarias

2006-01-10T23:43:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 11th Market Day

Ante Diem IV Idus Januarias
Third Day to the Ides of January

This day is for special religious observance.

The Carmentalia
The Carmentalia is a day which belongs to the goddess Carmenta. She was otherwise known as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom. She is also called Car, Carya, or Car the Wise. Carmenta was the mother of Evander. After arriving in Latium with her son, she went atop the Capitoline Hill and began prophesying. Afterwards she became revered as a deity. She is also considered the goddess of childbirth. After her are named the Caryae (walnut trees) and the Carytids (nut nymphs).

Carmenta is also credited with inventing the 15-letter Latin alphabet. A temple in Rome was dedicated to her and known as the Temple of Carmentis. The right arch of this temple was called the porta scelerata, the portal of guilt, because the Fabii passed through it on their way to destruction at Cremera.

The emperor Galba was murdered this day in the Forum in 69 AD. He was 71. Otho acceded to the empire the same day.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings.

Juturna
On this day also, Juturna, an old Italian goddess of fountains and prophetic waters, is honored with the Juturnalia on the anniversary of the day on which her temple was erected in the Campus Martius by Lutatius Cotulus. Juturna was the wife of Janus. She was a goddess of the underworld and is symbolized by springs, which bring forth water from below. All aqueduct workmen and others in a similar field celebrate the Juturnalia.

Kagami-mochi
As part of the New Year’s celebrations in Japan, the kagami-mochi, a two-tiered rice cake which was placed in the alcove of the living room or kitchen, is cut up and eaten today. This custom, called kagami biraki, originated with the samurai class.

Ante Diem IV Idus Januarias

2006-01-10T08:48:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 10th

Ante Diem IV Idus Januarias
Fourth Day to the Ides of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This was the day Julius Caesar crossed the Rubicon and began his successful march on Rome. His enemies fled at the news and he entered Rome to welcoming crowds.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Securitas
Securitas was commonly invoked by Romans when some imminent danger had been averted, but also annually on this day. She is depicted seated, relaxed, with a scepter in her right hand and a globe at her feet

Lenaia
This nine-day festival, dedicated to Dionysus, was celebrated from the 12 to the 21st day of the Greek lunar month of Gamelion. Its name derives from the lenaion, the enclosure where dramatic contests were held in honor of Dionysus. At first it was organized by the basilius (king), joined by the overseers of the Eleusinian Mysteries. Starting in the 5th century, the basileus was chosen by lot from among the lower social class (like the Lord of Misrule). Lenus is the word for a wine vat but January is not a time for treading grapes. Lenai was also a name for the maenads, intoxicated female worshippers of the god who held their ecstatic dances in circles under the full moon.

Geraint
This day honors Geraint, the 9th century Blue Bard of Wales. Sir Geraint was the eldest son of King Erbin of Dumnonia who was a Knight of Devon. After the death of his wife, Prince Geraint spent much time at King Arthur's Court, looking for action and adventure. It was during this period that he encountered the Sparrow Hawk Knight and came to marry Lady Enid of Caer-Teim (Cardiff), a story told in the ancient tales of "Erec (alias Geraint) & Enid" and "Geraint mab Erbin". Sir Geraint restored Sir Yniol all of his possessions and then married his beautiful daughter, Lady Enid. Later Geraint heard Enid bewailing his sloth as a knight; he was stung with shame and mistakenly believed Enid to be unfaithful to him. He took her on a journey through a series of trials until she convinced him of her constancy. They returned and lived in happiness for the remainder of their lives.

He inherited the Dumnonian throne in c.497 (or 480) and is recorded as one of the great "Fleet Owners" of post-Roman Britain. His castle was once called Caer-Gurrel or Fort of the Ship. He died fighting the Saxons with King Arthur at the Battle of Llongborth (Langport, Somerset) around 480/510. This recorded in a long Welsh poem called the "Elegy for Geraint".

Eid al-Adha
In the Islamic calendar, this day is Eid al-Adha, celebrated from the 10th day of the holy month of Dhu al-Hijjah. The solemn ceremonies culminate four days later at the Full Moon in the most important of all Islamic holy days: Kurbani Bayrami, the Night of Power, honoring the willingness of Abraham to sacrifice his only son Isaac without reservation or question in one of history's most famous acts of submission, the literal meaning of "Islam". This act established Abraham among the spiritual heroes most revered by devout Muslims.

Ante Diem V Idus Januarias

2006-01-09T01:26:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 9th

Ante Diem V Idus Januarias
Fifth Day to the Ides of January

This day is for special religious observance. On this day the rex sacrorum would offer sacrifrice to the gods of an animal untamed by the yoke.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings.

The Agonalia
On this day, Romans honored Janus, the two-faced god of the year, at his citadel on the Janiculum Hill. Its double gate was closed when the land was at peace but remained open in times of war. He was supposedly an old king of Latium whose worship was introduced by Romulus. Farias says that he along with his female counterpart Jana (aka Dianus and Diana) were probably the highest (sun and moon) gods of the pre-Italian peoples, until replaced by Jupiter and Juno.

Janus opens the gates of heaven at dawn and closes them at dusk. Like Elegba in the Voodun tradition, he was invoked before any other deity. He is the god of all doors, gates and entrances. Sometimes pictured as a porter or doorkeeper with a staff in one hand and a key in the other, sometimes pictured with an XXX (300) in one hand and LXV (65) in the other. At the time of Hadrian, his image was four-faced. And his temple had four sides with three windows each, four sides for the seasons and 12 windows for the months.

Although sanction and luck came from Jupiter, every action, occupation and undertaking depended for its beginning on Janus. As Consivius he presided over the beginning of human life, a role in which he was connected with Juno, with whom he was worshipped at the Calends.

Janus was offered grains of farro (a primitive kind of wheat) mixed with salt and iannual, a focaccia made with cheese, flour, eggs and oil, for his help in providing good harvests. The ancient Romans ate enormous focaccia, great disks of bread as round as the sun, on this day in his honor.

Plough Monday
The first Monday after the twelve days of Christmas. Farmers resume their work after the winter holiday. Before the reformation, medieval peasants had their ploughs blessed and censed by the parish priest and pooled their money to keep a plough light burning before their parish saint to ensure good fortune. This custom has been revived since World War II and in the north has always been accompanied by sword dancing and mumming. In the fenlands, the plough witches performed with a straw bear.

Like the Japanese custom of cleaning and honoring tools on New Year's day, these English customs seem to reflect a tradition of honoring the all-important tool of the farmer.

Ante Diem VI Idus Januarias

2006-01-08T05:22:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 8th

Ante Diem VI Idus Januarias
Sixth Day to the Ides of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

In Greece, this day was the Lesser Festival of Dionysius. Dionysius (Bacchus), the god of wine, was the son of Zeus and Semele. As wine was considered to have medicinal and cultural value, Dionysius was viewed as a promoter of civilization, a lawgiver, and a lover of peace.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Galileo Galilei
Galileo Galilei died this day in 1642. During his life, he was condemned for speaking the truth, that the world was round and revolved around the sun and was not, as the Church asserted, the center of the universe.

Galileo was born in Pisa on February 15, 1564. His father, Vincenzo Galilei, played an important role in the musical revolution from medieval polyphony to harmonic modulation. Just as Vicenzo saw that rigid theory stifled new forms in music, so his oldest son came to see Aristotelian physical theology as limiting scientific inquiry.

Galileo was taught by monks at Vallombrosa and then entered the University of Pisa in 1581 to study Medicine. He soon turned to Philosophy and Mathematics, leaving the University without a degree in 1585. For a time he tutored privately and wrote on hydrostatics and natural motions, but he did not publish. In 1589 he became Professor of Mathematics at Pisa where he is reported to have shown his students the error of Aristoteles’ belief that speed of fall is proportional to weight, by dropping two objects of different weight simultaneously from the leaning tower. His contract was not renewed in 1592, probably because he contradicted Aristotelian professors. The same year, he was appointed to the chair of Mathematics at the University of Padua, where he remained until 1610. In 1609 he heard that a spyglass had been invented in Holland. In august of that year he presented a telescope, about as powerful as a modern field glass, to the doge of Venice. Its value for naval and maritime operations resulted in the doubling of his salary and his assurance of lifelong tenure as a professor.

At Padua, Galileo invented a calculating "compass" for the practical solution of mathematical prelims. He turned from speculative physics to careful measurements, invented the microscope, built a thermoscope, discovered the law of falling bodies and the parabolic path of projectiles, studied the motions of pendulums, and investigated mechanics and the strength of materials. He showed little interest in astronomy, although beginning in 1595 he prefered the Copernican theory –that the earth revolves around the sun- to the Aristotelian and Ptolemaic assumption that planets circle around the earth. Only the Copernican model supported Galileo’s theory, which was based on motions of the earth. He encountered serious opposition from the Catholic Church, who admonished, summoned, condemned and also compelled him to abjure his theory. In October 1632, Galileo was found guilty of heresy by the tribunal of the Holy See in Rome. They sent him to exile in Siena and finally in December 1633, he was sentenced to house arrest to his villa in Arcetri where he died January 8, 1642.

Samuel Mathers
Samuel Liddell MacGregor Mathers was born in 1854 and died 1918. As a prominent occult scholar, he was an author and a leader of the occult revival in the late 1880’s. He had a life long fascination with magic, mysticism and Celtic symbolism that led him to hold high office in the S.R.I.A. (Societas Rosicruciana in Anglia). He, together with Dr. William Wynn Westcott and Dr. William Woodman was a co-founder of the influential occult Order known as the “Hermetic Order of the Golden Dawn.”

Dion Fortune
Born Violet Mary Firth, Dion Fortune, also a member of the Golden Dawn, died today in 1946.

Uinal Before Dawn
In Mayan calendar systems, this day begins the Uinal Before Dawn, the twelfth of the 20-day Uinals in the current cycle of the Tzolkin, or 260-day calendar (13 Imix, Tzolkin 221). The symbolic bird for this uinal is the Quetzal, the symbolic planet Venus as Morning Star, embodiment of the beauty of the new day.

Waqf al Arafa
For Muslims on Hajj, this day begins the climactic last three of the pilgrimage. It is called Waqf al Arafa because pilgrims stand together on the plan of Arafa to pray for forgiveness and mercy.

Midwives Day
A Greek holiday honoring midwives and birth, appropriate at the start of the new year. The village midwife, surrounded by attendants, and adorned with gilded flowers, onion and garlic braids and necklaces of dried figs, currants and carob-beans (all fertility symbols) receives gifts from all the women of child-bearing age. They pour out water for her and kiss a large phallic symbol made from a leek or sausage and called the schema (meaning shape). Afterwards the women feast and drink, then lead the midwife through the streets on a carriage, sprinkle her with water from the fountain and sing, dance and tell lewd jokes. The men stay inside.

Ante Diem VII Idus Januarias

2006-01-08T04:55:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 7th

Ante Diem VII Idus Januarias
Seventh Day to the Ides of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

On this day in 49 BCE, Julius Caesar was ordered to disband his army. He refused, and crossed the Rubicon three days later.

To the Egyptians this day was celebrated as the birthday of Sekhmet, the goddess of the healing arts. Sekhmet was a goddess of the Memphis triad, sometimes shown as a lion-headed woman. Sekhmet was prayed to by mothers who wished to nurse their children, as in the following incantation: O thou who lives on the water, hasten to the Judge in his divine abode, to Sekhmet who walks behind him, and to Isis, ruler of Dep, saying, "bring her this milk."

On this night in 48 BCE, Antony, Cassius, and Curio fled from Rome to join Caesar at Ariminum.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Feast of Morrigan
The feast of Morrigan honors the Irish triple goddess of death and destruction. Remember, death is only a door through which we all must walk. The Morrigan is a goddess of battle, strife, and fertility. Her name translates as either "Great Queen" or "Phantom Queen," and both epithets are entirely appropriate for her. The Morrigan appears as both a single goddess and a trio of goddesses. The other deities who form the trio are Badb ("Crow"), and either Macha (also connotes "Crow") or Nemain ("Frenzy"). The Morrigan frequently appears in the ornithological guise of a hooded crow. She is one of the Tuatha Dé Danann ("Tribe of the goddess Danu") and she helped defeat the Firbolg at the First Battle of Mag Tuireadh and the Fomorians at the Second Battle of Mag Tuireadh.

Nana-kusa
The Nana-kusa, Festival of the Seven Grasses, is held in Japan. In early times, the Court and people went out to gather parsley and six other edible herbs. These are traditionally powdered into stew called the nanakusa-gayu, which is eaten as part of the New Year’s rituals. It is a type of rice-gruel or congee flavored with greens.

Koshogatsu
This day is also Koshogatsu, sacred to the Shinto Goddess Izanami- no-Mikoto. She and her brother-consort, Izanagi-no-Mikoto, were the primordial creators who fashioned the natural world and its kami, or nature spirits. This day is exactly opposite on the year wheel to Tanabata (7/7), the Japanese Feast of the Lovers.

Izanagi no-Mikoto and Izanami no-Mikoto are worshiped through offerings of flowers. The goddess is also worshiped with drums, flutes, flags, singing and dancing. During the Uzue-matsuri, each participant offers a plum branch (peach was formerly used) on which he or she has attached a slip of paper with his or her name and age (or date of birth). After the ceremony, every person retrieves his or her offering for protection throughout the year.

St. Distaff’s Day
St. Distaff’s Day was so called because on the day following Twelfth Night, women returned to their distaffs or daily occupations. It is also called Rock-Day, a distaff being referred to as a rock.

Partly work and partly play
Ye must on St Distaff's day
From the plough soon free the team
Then come home and fodder them
If the Maids a-spinning go
Burn the flax and fire the tow
Bring in pails of water then
Let the Maids bewash the men
Give Saint Distaff all the right
Then bid Christmas sport goodnight
And next morrow, every one
To his own vocation.
- Herrick, Hesperides 1648

Grandmothers Day
In Bulgaria, boys duck the girls in the icy waters of rivers and lakes, an ancient custom which is said to bring them good health in the coming year. Like the customs described above on Epiphany, it seems to promise a fresh new beginning.

Fire-Saving Day (Eldbjorgdagen)
In Norway, eldbjorgdagen means fire-saving day but a Saint Eldberga was later invented to explain the holiday. A report from Seljord in 1786, tells that the mistress of the house celebrated the return of the sun by drinking a draught of ale before the hearth, throwing something into the fire and then saying: "So high be my fire that hell is no higher or hotter." Then the rest of the household sat around the hearth, with their hands behind their back, and drank ale from bowls which were drained then tossed behind them with a toss of the head. If a bowl landed face down, the drinker would die within the next year. Another custom was to toast the members of the house and the king. In Skedsmo, this was said to be the day the hibernating bear turns over in his sleep.

Sacrifice Eighth Gruel
On the eighth day of the 12th lunar month, the Chinese offer a special gruel to Buddha and the Ancestor. It is also given the following day to friends and relations along with pickled cabbage. The quality of the pickled cabbage predicts the fortune of the maker.

Ante Diem VIII Idus Januarias

2006-01-05T22:54:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 6th

Ante Diem VIII Idus Januarias
Eighth Day to the Ides of January

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

The ancient Christians celebrated this day, and the previous evening, as the birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, known as the Great Teacher prior to his deification in the 1st century. Later Christians prevaricated his day of birth, among other things.

Feast of Kore
The Egyptian celebration of the Feast of Kore, the Goddess of Fertility and, by that nature, of cereal grains and agriculture, continued today. Kore was also known as Cora, Core, Catherine, Persephone, and Proserpina. Persephone was a goddess associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries and was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Ceres). Her name means the Maid. Such was their happiness that Persephone was inseparable from her mother. Zeus, without Demeter's knowledge, gave her in marriage to Hades who opened the earth and snatched her while she was gathering flowers. In sadness at this loss and unable to get Hades to relinquish her daughter, Demeter let the crops wither. Zeus then arranged a compromise in which Persephone would spend part the year with Demeter and then four months with the grim lord. And so we have the winter when the plants will not grow.

An early Church father, St Epiphanius complained that in Alexandria in the temple of Kore-Persephone, a hideous mockery was enacted on Epiphany. "And if anyone asks them what manner of mysteries these might be, they reply saying" Today at this hour, Kore, that is the virgin, has given birth to Aeon." Part of the ritual involved bringing the naked statue of the Kore up from underground, adorning Her with jewels and parading Her around the temple seven times for protection.

Despite Epiphanius's scorn, the myth of Kore giving birth to Aeon, the year-god, is much older than the story of Mary giving birth to Jesus which he thought it mocked. Until the fourth century, Christ's birth was celebrated on January 6th rather than December 25th.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Old Christmas day
This is Old Christmas day according to the Julian Calendar. It marks the end of the Yule festivities according to old Teutonic Pagan traditions which honor the Mother goddess. On the night before, the Twelfth-cake was prepared to select the Rulers of Twelfth Night. This is a large cake, usually frosted and otherwise ornamented. A bean (king) or pea (queen) or coin is placed in the batter to determine the 'king' and 'queen' of the feast. The twelfth-cake is divided among the children, and the children who find the prizes are crowned, placed on a throne, and paraded in state. If a girl finds the male token, she must name her sovereign, and if a male finds the female token, he chooses his consort. Twelfth Night in actuality was the old style Christmas Eve.

According to Frazer(The Golden Brough), the time between Christmas and Epiphany is a witching time. On the Lake of Lucerne at Brunnen, two female wood spirits, Strudeli and Stratteli appear on Twelfth Night according to Swiss Lore. La Befana, the good fairy of Italian children, fills their stockings on Twelfth Night. She is Italy’s “Santa Claus.” Flying on her broomstick, she enters through the chimney, bringing gifts for children.

In the Faroe islands, this day features prominently in legends about silkies, seals that take human form, especially as women, in order to love human males or gain revenge for human crimes against seal families. Jan. 6 is said to be one day on which it is especially common for silkies to appear as humans.

Epiphany / The Three Kings
The Epiphany (which means apparition or manifestation) honors the arrival of the Magi and the first public presentation of the Baby Jesus. In Belgium, children dress up as the Three Kings and go from door to door singing a begging song. In Spain, the Magi leave gifts in the shoes children have set out on balconies or by the front door the previous evening, filled with straw and grain for the camels. Children who awaken to find a charcoal mark on their face are said to have been kissed by Balthazar. Since the twelve nights of Christmas are a liminal time, when evil spirits, like the Greek kalikatzari, can roam the earth, people protect their houses by chalking the Three King’s initials C (or K), B and M (for Caspar, Balthazar and Melchoir) on their doors.

Because this is the day the Three Kings brought gifts to the Baby Jesus, this holiday is usually celebrated in Spanish-speaking countries, where the tradition has remained strong, by giving gifts to children. Pedro Rossellio, the governor of Puerto Rico between 1992 and 2000, in his attempt to revive the island's cultural past, made Epiphany a national holiday and gave away gifts to all children who made the journey to the capital.

In Bulgaria, housewives rise early and carry the family crucifix, icons and plough to the village fountain. There they wash them with salt and water saying, "May the wheat be as white as the plough, as wholesome as the salt." The clergy also bless homes with holy water. If the water freezes on the priest's boxwood whisk, the year will be good and the crops fruitful.

In Danube port towns, they bless the waters. In Philippopolis, the most important town of southern Bulgaria, the priest throws the cross from the bridge into the Maritza River. The man who recovers it is allowed to take it around from house to house and receive money gifts, then returns it to the priest who bestows his blessing.

A similar blessing happens in Hungary only the priest uses salt and water and blesses houses and puts the initials of the three kings (G, M and B for Gaspar, Balthazar and Melchior) on the doorstep.

Italians believe that animals can talk on the night of Epiphany so owners feed them well. Fountains and rivers in Calabria run with olive oil and wine and everything turns briefly into something to eat: the walls into ricotta, the bedposts into sausages, and the sheets into lasagna.

This is also the wonder night of the year in Syria where it is said that trees bow at midnight in honor of the Christ child, and miracles of increase occur.

This was the original date when the birth of Christ was celebrated and even now the Armenians celebrate both the Nativity and the Baptism of Christ on this day by eating fried fish, lettuce and boiled spinach, supposedly the foods the Virgin Mary ate on the night before she gave birth.

Dezomeshiki
In Japan, today is Dezomeshiki. The fire brigade goes back into formation after the holiday celebration. Firemen in costumes from the Middle Ages give acrobatic performances atop ladders, and demonstrations are staged at the Palace plaza.

Joan of Arc
Joan of Arc was born today in 1412 and died May 30, 1431. It was around 1424, when she was 12, that Joan said she began to have visions of Saints Catherine and Margaret and St. Michael the Archangel. Michael had been chosen in 1422 as one of the patron saints of the French Royal army, and had long been the patron of the fortified island of Mont-St-Michel, which had been holding out against repeated English assaults.

Nonas Januarias

2006-01-04T22:14:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 5th

Nonas Januarias
The Nones of January

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted. The rex sacrorum would appear on the steps of the Capitol on this day and announce to the people what days of the months would be holidays.

The Nones mark the ninth day before the Ides. On the Nones, the month's activities were formally announced and the people could make their plans, both for business and for festivities, accordingly.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Festival of Kore
In Greece, this day was the Festival of Kore. Kore was also known as Cora, Core, Catherine, Persephone, and Proserpina. Persephone was a goddess associated with the Eleusinian Mysteries and was the daughter of Zeus and Demeter (Ceres). Her name means the Maid. Such was their happiness that Persephone was inseparable from her mother. Zeus, without Demeter's knowledge, gave her in marriage to Hades who opened the earth and snatched her while she was gathering flowers. In sadness at this loss and unable to get Hades to relinquish her daughter, Demeter let the crops wither. Zeus then arranged a compromise in which Persephone would spend part the year with Demeter and then four months with the grim lord. And so we have the winter when the plants will not grow.

Alexandrian Koreion
During the Alexandrian Koreion, a drama mystikon (mystical play) is performed in several acts on different levels, below the earth and upon it. The nocturnal rites of Kore/Persephone are celebrated in preparation for her return and the return of Spring to the world. During the Epiphanios (epiphany), people spend the night in the temple, singing to the accompaniment of flutes. A troop of torchbearers enters an underground chamber, sekos hypogaios. From this chamber, a naked, wooden statue is retrieved. On its forehead, hands, and knees are golden cruciform seals. This is placed in a litter and carried seven times round the inner temple.

Theodosia/Gift of God
On this day on the island of Andros in ancient Greece, the water of a spring by the temple of Dionysos tasted like wine. This continued for a week although it only tasted like wine inside the temple. Blackburn(The Oxford Companion to the Year) notes that Aion (the miraculous child of Kore) was associated with Sarapis and Dionysus which may be why the liturgy for this day commemorates the miracle at the wedding-feast of Cana when the Christian Jesus turned water into wine.

Wassail Eve
This is Wassail Eve in Europe. Wassail was a salutation offered on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day over the spiced-ale cup, hence called the ‘wassail bowl.’ It comes from the Anglo-Saxon, Waes hael, be whole, be well.

Christian Twelfth Night
This day is the Christian Twelfth Night, the last of the 12 days of Christmas, numbering from Christmas day through Jan. 5. Twelfth Night was -- still is -- believed to be the end of the Christianized yuletide season, the night of one more celebration before Christmas decorations come down, and the Christmas tree and other holiday greenery are removed from the home, on the next day. Local customs differ on whether the greenery must or must not be burned, though it is usually agreed that each household must keep a sprig of holly, ivy or mistletoe for good luck until the next Christmas season. Other Twelfth Night practices abound in the British isles, including the ceremonial sacrifice of the wren and the distribution of its feathers for the protection of Welsh sailors.

"Now Christmas is past, Twelfth Night is the last
To the Old Year adieu, Great joy to the new"

This twelfth night of the twelve days of Christmas is the official end of the winter holiday season and one of the traditional days for taking down the Christmas decorations (see also January 13 and February 1). This is also a traditional day for wassailing apple trees. In southern and western England, revelers gathered in orchards where they sang to the trees, drank to their health, poured hot cider over their roots, left cider-soaked toast in their branches for the birds and scared away evil spirits with a great shout and the firing of guns.

The ancient Roman tradition of choosing the master of the Saturnalian revels by baking a good luck bean inside a cake was transferred to Twelfth Night. In Italy, the beans were hidden in focaccia rather than a cake: three white beans for the Magi and one black one. Whoever found the black bean was made king and could choose his queen and rule the banquet. In colonial Virginia, a great Ball was held on this night. The King wins the honor of sponsoring the Ball the following year; the Queen the privilege of making next year’s Twelfth Night Cake.

This final day of the Christmas season, was considered the beginning of Carnival in Italy, where it was associated with jokes and tricks. In Tuscany, a man used to dress up like a witch (Befana?) and surround himself with befanotti, low-life characters wearing false beards and inside-out jackets. Booths were set up in the piazzas, offering toys and games. Vendors dressed up young boys like women, with blackened faces, caps on their heads, a long reed in one hand, a lantern in the other and hung them with baskets of oranges and golden pine cones. All of these resemble Saturnalian customs (December 17) and Twelfth Night does partake of the quality of Saturnalia with its emphasis on light-hearted fun, social satire and role reversals.

Befana's Ride
An alternate version of the the 12-day Yuletide cycle, running from Christmas to Jan. 5 -- rather than the traditional "Pagan" Solstice version of Dec. 20 - 31, ends today with the feast of the old Roman goddess Befana, the "Great Grandmother" who rides her broomstick through the world on this night, delivering gifts to good children. During the Christian middle ages Befana's ride was reassigned to a large male elfin figure (Santa Claus) who made his ride just before the start of Yuletide, on the night before Christmas. Befana became one of the cartoon witches who have survived in the popular imagination ever since.

In Italy, families leave a focaccia for Befana by the fireplace and children hang their shoes and stockings by the chimney for her to fill with toys and sweets. If the children are bad they get garlic and lumps of carbone, but the charcoal is made of sugar.

The story told of her is that she was too busy sweeping her house when the Three Kings came by and wanted her to go with them to see the Christ Child. When she set out later, she got lost and still searches for Him. Her name Befana derives from the holiday: Epiphany.

Originally she was one of the numinous female figures so prominent at this time of the year, goddesses who are associated with both death and abundance. She has a negative side as well. Florentine children are told that she will poke holes in their stomachs if she is angry with them. She is sometimes portrayed as a bogeyman or associated with Hecate, Queen of the Night. She also represents the old year, like the Cailleach of Celtic tradition, the old hag who gives way to (or transforms herself into) the young maiden of the Spring.

Epiphany Eve
During the week before Epiphany, Italian children sometimes dress up and go in groups of three, carrying a pole with a golden star on top, and stopping at houses to sing pasquelle, little songs about the coming of the Magi. Sometimes they are given money, but other places they receive gifts of food sausages, bread, eggs, dried figs and wine.

In some small rustic towns, the Nativity is re-enacted on Epiphany Eve with the newest baby in town taking the part of Jesus.

On the eve of Dia de los Reyes, Latino children write a letter to the Three Kings, similar to letters written to Santa Claus, and set out cans of water and a decorated cardboard box full of grass for the camels.

In Friuli, families gather around the hearth to watch the Christmas log burn. For centuries, bonfires have been lit to light the way for the Three Kings. The fires are called pan e vin, bread and wine, or vecja, old one. Boys run through the fields carrying burning brands, jump across the fires, and roll burning wheels down the hill, shouting out the names of their fiancées as a way to announce their engagements. The ashes from the bonfires are used to fertilize the earth and assure a good harvest.

Carol Field(Celebrating Italy) describes an Epiphany procession in the town of Tarcento which ascends a hill to where a huge bonfire, made of sheaves of corn, brambles of brushwood and pine branches is set up. The fire, lit by the oldest man, ignites firecrackers and fireworks while bells ring in the town. The way the smoke blows foretells the prospects for the coming year: smoke blowing east predicts a year of abundance while smoke blowing west is a bad omen for the crops. People take home embers to fertilize their fields; the embers are magically said to transform into sacks of wheat.

In some places, a straw effigy of the Befana is placed on the fire and burned as a way of getting rid of the old year. Sometimes chestnuts are thrown on the fire and roasted, as a symbol of fertility.

Traditional foods served in Friuli on Epiphany Eve include mulled wine and pinza, a rustic sweet bread, made with corn flour (or sometimes rye and wheat), filled with raisins and pine nuts and figs, spiced with fennel seeds and shaped like a simple round or a Greek epsilon with three arms of equal length. It was once cooked under the embers. It is considered good luck to eat pinze made by seven different families.

St. Simeon Stylites
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this day is the feast of St. Simeon Stylites, so called because, after having prepared himself in youth with the practice of severe austerities, he made his way from his native Cilicia to Egypt and spent the last 37 years of his life standing atop a stylus-shaped pillar, sheltered only by his faith from the blazing heat and desolate cold of the desert. So determined was Simeon never to give himself the relief of sitting or lying down that in the end his death was apparent when he was seen not to have moved from a kneeling position for three days. The remnant of St. Simeon's pillar is preserved in a basilica erected by the Byzantine emperor Zeno in the 5th century. The Luis Bunuel film Simon of the Desert offers a profound and controversial version of the story.

Pridie Nonas Januarias

2006-01-03T22:35:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 4th

Pridie Nonas Januarias
Day before the Nones of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. The Romans had numerous temples to Janus. Whenever war was declared, the chief magistrate would lead a ceremony in which the doors of the main temple of Janus were opened. In time of peace they were normally shut.

Festival of Fufluns
Etruscan god of wine, vegetation, vitality and gaiety, son of the earth-goddess Semia. He shows many similarities to Dionysus and Bacchus, the Greek and Roman gods of wine, and there is evidence that he was also a god of the dead. His name appears to be derived from the word for ‘sprout’ or ‘bud’, and the Etruscan city of Populonia is derived from his name.

Frost Fairs on the Thames
Although there were many cold winters in the past, the Thames froze over only because of the old London Bridge. Completed in 1176, this was the first stone bridge across the Thames in London. Its 19 narrow arches slowed the flow of the river and made it more likely that the water could freeze during long and severe winters. The river froze over here more than 20 times up to 1814.

In 1564, archery and dancing took place on the Thames, but the first real 'frost fair' came in 1683. The river froze over in December, and stayed frozen for two months. Londoners soon took to the ice, and enterprising businessmen cashed in by providing entertainments for the visitors. Traders set up two parallel rows of stalls between the banks of the river. A whole ox was roasted on the ice, and even Charles II and his family visited the fair.

Because only prolonged and severe winters could make the Thames freeze over, frost fairs were quite rare. However, further fairs took place in 1715-16, 1739-40 and 1813-14.

Ante Diem III Nonas Januarias

2006-01-03T04:38:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 3rd

Ante Diem III Nonas Januarias
Third Day to the Nones of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Festival of Pax
This day was set aside to honor the Roman Goddess of Peace, Pax, whose temple stood open in Rome during times of peace, but was closed during war. It remained open for over 200 years continuously during the Pax Romana, an achievement unimaginable in modern times. It was locked closed by the Christians who ultimately tore it down. The world has not known a year without war since.

This was the birthday of Rome's greatest orator, Marcus Tullius Cicero. He was born in 106 BCE at Arpinum.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Mercury Exits Sagittarius
On this day Mercury is more than happy to exit Sagittarius, where he has been unhappily "in fall" since the end of October -- except for a brief retrograde stop in Scorpio Nov. 26 - Dec. 12 -- and has been playing what could be called the Dilbert aspect of doing one's best to survive the ineptitude and indifference of a boss who did not exactly invent people skills in an earlier life. In Mercury's annual journey, going into Capricorn is like a much-needed sabbatical in a library - not the best place for the ruler of Gemini to talk, but more than welcome after months of executive disrespect.

Genshisai
On the third and last day of the Japanese New Year, the Imperial Court holds an ancient ritual known as Genshisai. The rare dance and music art form, known as Gagaku, is also performed. Though the Japanese New Year lasts only three days, some rituals continue for several days longer.

St. Genevieve
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of St. Genevieve, the first female saint to appear in the annual cycle of saints' days. She was born in 423 in Nanterre, and is said to have made a vow of perpetual chastity at the age of seven. (Where but in France, one wonders, could a child of 7 understand the implications of chastity?) Her charisma and dignity were so persuasive that she reportedly saved Paris twice, once from starvation during a siege by King Childeric of the Franks, and then from sack by Attila and the Huns. Early in the 12th century, the people of Paris prayed for relief from plague by bearing the saint's shrine in procession through the city, and the pestilence lifted at once. St. Genevieve has been regarded ever since as the special protector of the city of Paris.

Ante Diem IV Nonas Januarias

2006-01-02T10:00:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 2nd

Ante Diem IV Nonas Januarias
Fourth Day to the Nones of January

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

Vitellius was named emperor this day in 69 AD.

This month is sacred to Janus, the god of Beginnings. Janus is the porter of heaven and considered the guardian deity of gates and doors. He is often shown as two-headed since doors face both ways.

Quadrantid Meteor Shower
Quadrantid meteor shower peaks tonight, and is expected to be most intense at 6:00pm UT on 1/3. This very active shower (100 or more meteors per minute) is best viewed in a clear, unlighted place where the relatively faint Quadrantid meteors (average magnitude 2.8) can be seen to best advantage. The Moon was new on Dec. 31, so viewing should be excellent.

Advent of Isis
On this day the Egyptians, and many Romans, would celebrate the Advent of Isis, the Egyptian Mother Goddess. The Advent of Isis from Phoenicia honors Isis’ discovery of that the Ark of Osiris and her return to Egypt. She discovered the Ark by the Mediterranean in the region of Phoenicia.

Although a foreign deity, Isis was honored with a temple at Rome. Professional singers, musicians, and dancers, mostly female, would perform at the temple during this festival. The performance involved actors playing the parts of Isis and Nephthys in the mystery plays celebrating the death and resurrection of Osiris. These were perhaps the oldest mystery plays on earth, predating even those of Mesopotamia.

Birth of Inanna
The Nativity of Our Lady is one of the greatest Sumerian feasts of the year. The birth of Inanna, the princess of heaven and the queen of earth, is commemorated. Both she and Isis were honored today as goddesses of love. They are equivalent to Aphrodite, Astarte, Ishtar, or Cybele.

Handsel Monday
The First Monday of January is called Handsel Monday in Scotland. At one time it was more popular than New Year’s Day itself. Handsel means "a small gift given as an omen of prosperity" either from Old English handselen "giving into the hands (of another)" or from Old Norse handsal "an agreement sealed with a handshake." Over time, the meaning changed from "lucky omen" or "auspicious gift" to "initial payment" or "first taste or experience." Eventually, it came to embody the first taste of Monday each year. Small gifts are exchanged at this time. If debts were paid on this day however, many more would be incurred through the rest of the year.

O-shogatsu
A well-known Japanese proverb says: "New Year's is the key to unlock the year." During the three-day holiday period of the O-shogatsu, everyone but those who run amusement enterprises or are responsible for essential services like transportation enjoys a vacation. For many people, the holiday actually begins around December 29 when all public offices begin their vacations. Others end their work either on the 30th or early on the 31st.

Family members traditionally spend New Year's morning briefly worshiping at home at miniature Buddhist or Shinto altars. Offerings are made to the household gods on a small table, usually consisting of Omochi, dried persimmons, dried chestnuts, pine seeds, black peas, sardines, herring roe, a crayfish, a sea-bream, some dried cuttlefish, Mochibana (flowers made of rice and straw), mandarin oranges, and many other items which vary from district to district.

The custom of Nenshi, paying calls on friends and relatives to greet them on the New Year, is very popular. Holiday greetings are exchanged, and children are presented with Otoshi-Dama, New Year's gifts, usually in the form of money placed in special little envelopes. Otoso, a thick, sweet rice wine, is often served during these visits. New Year's postcards, Nengajo, are also a very popular custom especially for distant friends and acquaintances. Kaizome, the ceremony of the first calligraphic writing drawn with a brush, occurs on January 2nd, as does the tradition of Hatsu-Yume, or first dream.

Children enjoy Tako-age, or kite flying, and girls play Hane-tsuki, known in the West as battledore and shuttlecock. Karuta, a kind of card game, is also popular. The players spread out cards on which pictures and poems, or characters and proverbs, or flowers and months, are illustrated. The object of the game is to pick the correct cards first. In one game, a reader reads the first part of poem while the players search for the card on which the last part is written.

Kalendae Januariae

2006-01-02T09:21:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : January 1st

Kalendae Januariae
The Kalends of January

This is one of the dies fasti on which legal actions are permitted.

The kalends were the day on which interest payments were due in Rome. In stable economic times the interest rate was 1/2% (per month).

January is named for the god Janus, the god of Beginnings. This day, the Kalends, was not originally the first day of the year (it was March 1st), and therefore they had no traditional celebration of this day. On this day the Romans traditionally exchanged strenae (French etrenne), or gifts.

In 153 BCE this day became the beginning of the Roman Civil year, when the Consuls entered office. This had previously occurred on March 15th.

Vediovis, a god representing a young Jove (juvenis or juvenile) was honored this day and in 193 BCE a temple to Vediovis was dedicated in Rome.

Pertinax became emperor this day in 193 AD.

This day was also known as the Festival of Juno. Juno was called Unial by the Etruscans. Known as Hera to the Greeks, she was also known as Saturnia to the Romans. Juno was the goddess of marriage and childbirth. She was wedded to Zeus in the Garden of the Gods where Gaea created in her honor a tree of life bearing golden fruit.

On this day in 104 BCE, Gaius Marius held his triumph, in which he led the captured North African rebel Jugurtha, in Rome.

By our modern calendar, January first is the beginning of the New Year. It is a time filled with new possibilities. January’s guardian, the Roman god Janus, is the two faced divinity of endings and beginnings. He is the male equivalent of one among a host of versions of Juno. As the twin-faced Antevorta and Postvorta, she also looks frontward and back. Modern tradition would have us look forward only and forget the past year like a bad memory. I would advise those who follow this tradition to remember... That which is forgotten is soon repeated.

To the Irish, January is Eanáir or am Faoilleach, the ‘wolf month.’ The full moons of February and December are also sometimes referred to as Wolf Moon. The first Full Moon between Yule and the 25th of January is most often called Disting, and it shares the name Cold Moon with December. It may also be referred to as the Quiet or Chaste Moon, or the Moon of Little Winter.

Capricorn and Aquarius are the signs for January, Aquarius gaining power on or around January 20th. The flower for January is the white carnation. Garnet is the favored stone of this month, though Jacinth appears on some lists. Garnet, along with the ruby, is also the birthstone for Capricorn, while Aquarius lays claim to aquamarine. Other stones associated with Capricorn are amber, amethyst, carnelian, fire agate, green tourmaline, labradorite, peridot, and sapphire. Aquarius also holds sway over chrysoprase, garnet, labradorite, lapis lazuli, and opal.

It is said, whatever you do on New Year's Day, you'll do often in the coming year. Displaying a new calendar before this day is considered very unlucky.

Chronos/Uranus
In the Greco-Roman calendar, 1/1 is the birthday of the lord of time: Chronos/Uranus, father of Zeus/Jupiter. This is why the Saturnian figure of Father Time, with his hourglass and scythe, is associated with this day. The New Year Baby who supplants Father Time is a version of the newborn Solar Child (Dec. 21st or Dec. 25th). As the Ruler of Capricorn, Saturn has traditionally embodied the limiting forces of age, illness, death, separation and estrangement -- but he is also the bearer of wisdom, as represented in the Hermit card of the Tarot as a black-robed, hooded figure whose lantern bears hidden wisdom for those who can see. Saturn is also the teacher of karmic lessons that can be exceedingly painful if the student resists, and noticeably astringent even for those who have learned to love Saturn. One way or the other, the effect of his instruction is always bracing, the stroke of his sickle in cutting away old illusions is always swift and exact. The placement of his birthday on Jan. 1 is yet another reminder that this is the day to discard what is unneeded, and seek new wisdom, at the turning of the New Year.

The Gamelia
Generally observed on January 1st, the Gamelia commemorates the Hieros Gamos (Sacred Marriage) of Jupiter/Janus and Juno (Greek Zeus and Hera). The name comes from a surname of Juno, as Gamelius was of Jupiter, for their dominion over marriages. It is a festival privately observed at three different times in addition to the public holiday. The first is the celebration of a marriage, the second is in commemoration of a birthday, and the third is an anniversary of the death.

Marriages on January 1st are a good omen and the month of January was Gamelion among the Athenians. Presents (Strenae) may be exchanged as a token of friendship. The word comes from a Sabine tutelary goddess, Strenia, corresponding to the Roman Salus. The traditional Strenae consisted of branches of bay and palm cut from the sacred grove of the goddess Strenia and sweets made of honey, figs, or dates, symbolizing, and causing by their nature, a year of joy and happiness to come. On the first day of the year, consecrated branches were carried up to the Capitoline in Rome from Strenia’s precinct beside the Via Sacra. The custom of strenae continues in the Etrennes, French new-year's gifts.

The Triple Goddess
The three-day transition period of Dec. 31 through Jan. 2 also represents the Triple Goddess in her aspects as maiden, mother and wise woman. Among the many Goddesses honored at this time are the Greek Hecate, the Roman Fata (i.e., Fate), the Celtic Etain and the Norse Wyrd.

Venus Retrograde
On this day Venus moves retrograde into Capricorn for a very long stay of two months, until March 5. For the goddess, this placement is neither sweet nor sour. It is like Elizabeth Taylor being escorted by Malcolm Forbes. The experience is posh, correct -- and carries no element of risk.

Thingyan
Thingyan, the Buddhist festival of throwing water starts today and continues until the 4th. Derived from a Sanskrit word, "Thin ka ran" which means change, Thingyan connotes change from the old season to the new, a change from the month of Tabaoung which is the twelfth month of Myanmar calendar to the month of Tagu, the first month of the following year, or movement of the sun from the South to North or the Tropic of Capricorn to the Tropic of Cancer. The movement of the sun causes the seasons and its return to the North marks the beginning of Myanmar's three-season year.

According to legend, Thagyar Min or Indra and Athi Brahma disagreed over the solution to a mathematical problem. Referring the matter to the sage Kavalamine, they agreed his verdict would be accepted as final and that the winner should cut off the loser's head. The sage judged that Indra's solution was the right one and Indra cut off Athi Brahma's head. Athi Brahma was so omnipotent a god however, that if his head were thrown down to the Earth, the Earth would burn to ashes and if it were thrown into the oceans, all the water would dry up. So the seven goddesses of the days were made to hold his head in turn. The time when the head changed hands corresponds to Thingyan. So that Athi Brahma's body should not remain headless, Indra cut off the head of Mahapingala Elephant and joined it on the Brahma's body and Brahma became Ganesha.

One of the traditional festivals of the Myanmars, it was celebrated at the Court where royalty and nobility participated in the water pouring. King Narathihapate (1254-87 AD), the last ruler of the Pagan (Bagan) Dynasty, reportedly built enclosed corridors running from his palace to the bank of the Ayeyawaddy River. Inside this corridor, he and his courtiers reveled in water throwing. On the first day of Thingyan, a water pot was observed in symbolic ritual. It is believed that on the first day of Thingyan, Indra descends from his Celestial Kingdom to Earth to record in his golden parabeik the merits and demerits of all humans so that he may pass impartial judgment. The first day of Thingyan is known as Akya, day of descent. On this day, at the precise time of the descent, the water pouring rite is performed.

Shogatsu Sanganichi
This is the beginning of the Shogatsu Sanganichi or 'three days' of New Year in Japan. Preparations for the New Year include cleaning the house, inside and out. Called Susuharai, or soot-sweeping, this is done to purify the home for the new year. A pine decoration, known as Kadomatsu, is set up on both sides of the front entrance. Some homes add bamboo, plum branches, and oranges to this decoration. The display welcomes good luck into the home. The two weeks during which the kadomatsu decorates the doors is called Matsunouchi, or inside the pine. A recent tendency in Tokyo is to remove the trees on Jan. 7th. Another important decoration is the Shimenawa, a sacred rope made of straw on which zigzag strips of paper have been hung. This is placed above the front entrance in order to prevent evil spirits from entering the house.

Omochi, steamed rice pounded and formed into cakes, is grilled on a brazier or eaten in a stew called Ozoni. Vegetable dishes are also popular during the New Year. Presents are given called o-toshidama.

On New Year's Eve, the Takarabune, (Treasure Ship), sails into port carrying the Seven Gods of Luck and the takaramono (treasures). The takaramono include the hat of invisibility, the lucky raincoat, the sacred key, the inexhaustible purse, the precious jewel, the clove, the weight, and a flat object apparently representing a coin. Pictures of the Takarabune are sold on the streets, and during the night of January second, every person who puts one into the little drawer of his wooden pillow is supposed to ensure a lucky dream.

Grown children, who have moved away, return to their parents' homes to spend the evening together. Others visit shrines and temples where they pray for good luck by the light of bonfires and make resolutions for the coming year. Local shrines give out special charms to protect the happiness of worshipers in the coming year. The nation waits up to hear the Joya-no-Kane, the midnight tolling of the Tsuri-Gane, the temple bells. The Joya-no-Kane consists of 108 solemn tolls on the temple bells. According to Buddhist traditions, this represents the 108 sins of man, and the sound of the tolls will relieve all of them.

Chorti Indians
On the first day of the year, the Chorti Indians of Southern Guatemala drink water from five sacred coconuts, pouring out libations on the ground. During the previous night, the women of the tribe guarded the coconuts, dedicating them to the goddess.

Sir James Frazer
Sir James Frazer, author of the Golden Bough, was born today. Sir James Frazer was a Scottish social anthropologist influential in the early stages of the modern studies of mythology and comparative religion.

He studied at the University of Glasgow and Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated with honors in Classics (his dissertation would be published years later as The Growth of Plato's Ideal Theory) and remained a Classics Fellow all his life. He went on from Trinity to study law at the Middle Temple and yet never practised. He was four times elected to Trinity's Title Alpha Fellowship, and was associated with the college for most of his life, except for a year, 1907-1908, spent at the University of Liverpool. He was knighted in 1914. He was, if not blind, then severely visually impaired from 1930 on.

The study of myth and religion became his areas of expertise. Except for Italy and Greece, Frazer was not widely travelled. His prime sources of data were ancient histories and questionnaires mailed to missionaries and Imperial officials all over the globe. Frazer's interest in social anthropology was aroused by reading E. B. Tylor's Primitive Culture (1871) and encouraged by his friend, the biblical scholar William Robertson Smith, who was linking the Old Testament with early Hebrew folklore.

Frazer was far from being the first to study religions dispassionately, as a cultural phenomenon rather than from within theology. He was though the first to detail the relations between myths and rituals. His theories of totemism were superseded by Claude Lévi-Strauss and his vision of the annual sacrifice of the Year King has not been borne out by field studies. His generation's choice of Darwinian evolution as a social paradigm, interpreted by Frazer as three rising stages of human progress—magic giving rise to religion, then culminating in science—has not proved valid. Yet The Golden Bough, his study of ancient cults, rites, and myths, including their parallels with early Christianity, arguably his greatest work, is still rifled by modern mythographers for its detailed information. Notably, The Golden Bough influenced René Girard; and led him to study anthropology to develop his mimesis theory of the scapegoat. The work's influence spilled well over the conventional bounds of academia, however; the symbolic cycle of life, death and rebirth which Frazer divined behind myths of all pedigrees captivated a whole generation of artists and poets. Perhaps the most notable product of this fascination is T.S. Eliot's The Waste Land.

The first edition, in two volumes, was published in 1890. The third edition was finished in 1915 and ran to twelve volumes, with a supplemental thirteenth volume added in 1936. He also published a single volume abridgement, largely compiled by his wife Lady Frazer, in 1922, with some controversial material removed from the text.

The Hajj
Today starts the Muslim month of Dhu al-Hijjah, of which the first ten days are the time of the Hajj, the annual pilgrimage to Mecca, commemorating the journey of the Prophet Mohammed, his family and supporters from Mecca to Medina, to establish a new faith based on the revealed word of the Qu'ran. This solemn rite of pilgrimage, which every Muslim must make once during his or her life, emphasizes the central Muslim tenets of submission to divine will, brotherhood, and unity, and also commemorates the trials of the Prophet Abraham and his family in making their arduous, perilous God-directed journey into Egypt. The days of the Hajj are followed and climaxed by the holy days of Eid al-Adha.

Pridie Kalendas January

2005-12-31T06:35:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 31st

Pridie Kalendas January
Day Before the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Festival of Saturn
The two-day Festival of Saturn, on the last day of the Old Year and the first day of the next, is among the most important points in the Roman ritual calendar. This first day is devoted to the double figure of Father Time. He is usually perceived as the pale death figure in a black robe, with a scythe. This is Saturn the Reaper, the Shiva and Set counterpart who clears away through old age, sickness and death -- and separation in the heart -- the old, spent energies that are due to fade. His other aspect, shown here, is Saturn the Keeper of Prophecy and Teacher of Esoteric Spiritual Wisdom, who holds within his lantern the Light Hologram that organizes all Knowledge.

In Egypt, this was known as the Lucky Day of Sekhmet. Sekhmet was a goddess of the Memphis triad, sometimes shown as a lion-headed woman. Sekhmet was prayed to by mothers who wished to nurse their children, as in the following incantation: O thou who lives on the water, hasten to the Judge in his divine abode, to Sekhmet who walks behind him, and to Isis, ruler of Dep, saying, "bring her this milk."

The emperor Commodus was poisoned and strangled this day at Rome in 192 AD, the day before he was to fight in a gladiatorial game. He was 31.

Although the Roman year began on March 1st, this day commenced the solar year and Roman calendars all indicate it as such.

This day continues the Halcyon days, or the period of celebration and goodwill associated with the beginning of winter and the new solar year.

This day has been identified by some as the day the island Thia came into being in the Aegean Sea in 46 AD via volcanic activity.

On this day Quintus Fabius Maximus died of no apparent cause in the year of his consulship. In his place Gaius Rebilus held the office for only a few hours.

On this day in 406 AD, hordes of barbarians crossed the frozen Rhine unopposed, and the frontier collapsed once and for all.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

New Year’s Eve
In Scotland, New Year’s Eve is called Hogmanay, Hogmannay, Hogmarmay, Hogmena, Hagmena, or Hogg-night. It honors the solar god Hogmagog. As Gogmagog, he is the chalk figure carved into the earth at Wandlebury near Cambridge. Divided into two giants, Gog and Magog, he is the spiritual guardian of London. The original name of the Scottish New Year was Hagmenai, "Moon of the Hag." It honored the goddess of winter who mourned her lost mate.

Hogmanay is also called “Cake-day” for the gift of an oatmeal cake, or its equivalent, which is expected by children on this day. It is still the custom in parts of Scotland to “trick-or-treat” from door to door, asking in rude rhymes for cakes or money. In the lowlands or Scotland, these Yule-cakes are also called Nur-cakes. Nour means birth, and therefore, Nur-cakes are birthcakes heralding in the New Year. Also from this word, comes the word Norn, as the Norns were appointers of all destinies at birth, and Nor refers to a “child.”

Bonfires are lit, blazing tar barrels are rolled down hills, and fiery torches are tossed about. Hogmanays, smoking sticks, are used to ward off evil spirits. Traditional treats are bannocks, oarsmen, shortbread, black buns, and ankersocks (gingerbread-rye cakes).

At the moment the New Year arrives, doors and windows are opened to let out the old year. In Wales, this is done to drive out the Cwn Annwn, the black dogs of the underworld who pass through at that time.

Divination of the future was common on New Year's Eve, especially, forecasting weather conditions for following year. Almost anything which occurred on New Year's Eve or Day might be indicative of the future, and the nearer to the midnight hour, the more significant was the event.

The Fair Folk are quite active at this time. All along the Pyrenean range, supernatural power is attributed to the fairies called Hados (Spanish) and Fees (French). Offerings are left of thick milk and white bread. If they are not satisfied, wolves will devour the flocks. According to Welsh mythology, the Spirit of the Van is a sort of fairy, haunting the Van Pools in the mountains of Carmarthen on New Year's Eve. She is dressed in white with a golden girdle. Her long hair is also golden, and she sits in a golden boat with a golden oar.

During the Hestiad in honor of Hestia or Vesta, the house is blessed. The Pentacle is made in the four corners of each room, and Ivy is hung on the outer doors to protect the house against evil through the coming year.

In Japan, straw clad young men called Namahage descend to the villages of the Oga Peninsula. They represent spirits attempting to drive out misfortune and ensure a good harvest. They storm from house to house seeking naughty children, single women, and lazy young brides. The householders appease them with sake and give them gifts off money and rice cakes.

New Year's eve night wind blows South,
It betokeneth warmth and growth;
If West, much milk and fish in the sea,
If North, much cold and storms there will be;
If East, the trees will bear much fruit;
If North-east, flee it, man and brute.

Out with the old and in with the new. Before midnight, sweep and clean your house and take out all the trash because you don't want to sweep tomorrow (you will sweep the good luck away) or take anything out of the house (you only want to bring new things in to insure abundance during the coming year). Be sure you finish any work you have in hand for a task carried over will never prosper.

Everything you do on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day is fraught with significance. The American custom of spending the night with the one you love and kissing them at midnight insures that the relationship will flourish during the coming year. In Vienna, the pig is the symbol of good luck. Pigs are let loose in restaurants and everyone tries to touch it as it runs by for luck. In private homes, a marzipan pig, with a gold piece in its mouth, is suspended from a ribbon and touched instead. In Sarasota Springs, New York, it's a peppermint pig that brings good luck and good health for the coming year. The pig is cracked with a hammer after a holiday meal and shared among the guests.

In Italy, you have to watch out for falling objects on New Year's Eve, as people shove their old sofas, chairs and even refrigerators out of the windows of their apartments on New Year's Eve. In Greece, it's customary to throw a pomegranate wrapped in silver foil on the threshold, to spread the seeds of good luck for an abundant year.

The first person to cross your threshold after midnight brings luck into the house. In medieval Britain, the best possible first-footer was a tall dark-haired handsome man, who brought gifts of whisky, bread, a piece of coal or firewood and a silver coin. He entered in silence and no one spoke to him until he put the coal on the fire, poured a glass for the head of the house and wished everyone a Happy New Year.

One popular method of divination, used to determine your future in the new year, is to prick a newly-laid egg at the smaller end with a pin, and let three drops of the egg white fall into a bowl of water. Interpret the designs it makes to get a glimpse of what will happen to you in the new year.

Pagan Twelfth Night
In the ancient Asatru tradition of the Celtic and Norse peoples, this day is the famous Twelfth Night, the last of the 12 days of Yule, which began on Dec. 20, Mother Night. There is one more night of celebration now before Yule decorations come down, and the Yule tree and other holiday greenery are removed from the home, on the next day. It's customary to burn the old greenery, to symbolize the end of the old year, though each household keeps a sprig of holly, ivy or mistletoe for good luck until the next yule season.

Ante Diem III Kalendas January

2005-12-31T06:11:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 30th

Ante Diem III Kalendas January
Third Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales (C), when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

In Egypt, this was celebrated as the Birthday of Isis, the Mother Goddess. Isis was widely worshipped in the Roman empire. Although a foreign deity, Isis was honored with a temple at Rome. Professional singers, musicians, and dancers, mostly female, would perform at the temple during this festival. The performance involved actors playing the parts of Isis and Nephthys in the mystery plays celebrating the death and resurrection of Osiris. These were perhaps the oldest mystery plays on earth, predating even those of Mesopotamia.

The ancient mesopotamians celebrated this day as the Birthday of Inanna, the queen of heaven and earth.

This day continues the Halcyon days, or the period of celebration and goodwill associated with the beginning of winter and the new solar year.

The emperor Titus was born Titus Flavianus Vespasianus this day in 39 AD at Rome, in comparatively menial conditions.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

New Moon conjunct Sun in Capricorn
This is normally the most reflective and contemplative New Moon of the year, as both Sun and Moon are under restraint by the ruler of Capricorn: Saturn, teacher of the spiritual and karmic lessons that are deepest, and can be most painful when resisted. As the New Moon always favors beginnings, the New Moon in Capricorn is naturally a time for trying new approaches to old problems and weaknesses. Long before the Julian calendar made early January the beginning of the Year, the New Moon in Capricorn was the moment for "New Year's Resolutions". The alignment of other planets with this New Moon is significant and powerful. The Sun-Moon conjunction is trine (120° from) Mars in Taurus, sextile (60° from) Uranus in Pisces and square (90° from) the Moon's North Node in Aries -- suggesting that while we may well commit ourselves to new life intentions and directions, we shall not have the easiest possible time of getting others to align with and support what seems so worthy and necessary to us.

In the Beth-Luis-Nion Celtic tree calendar used by devotees of the faerie path, this New Moon following the Winter Solstice begins Beth, or birch month, the time of purification and preparation at the onset of winter.

This is the start of the twelfth Chinese lunation, the Winter Sacrifice Moon.

Ante Diem IV Kalendas January

2005-12-28T23:20:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 29th

Ante Diem IV Kalendas January
Fourth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

In Egypt, this was celebrated as the Birthday of Ra, the Sun God, whom the Romans knew as Helios. Ra (Helios) had a temple at Heliopolis that covered 441 square kilometers, with 64 orchards, 103 villages, and 12,693 personnel.

This day continues the Halcyon days, or the period of celebration and goodwill associated with the beginning of winter and the new solar year.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Ra
The most important of the Egyptian gods, the personification of the (midday) sun. According to the Heliopolitan cosmology he created himself from a mound that arose from the primeval waters of Nun or out of a primordial lotus flower. He then created Shu (air) and Tefnut (moisture), who in turn engendered the earth-god Geb and the sky-goddess Nut. Re was said to have created humankind from his own tears and the gods Hu and Sia from blood drawn from his own penis.

The sun itself was taken to be either his body or his eye (the 'Eye of Ra'). The center of his cult was from the very beginning in Heliopolis, where he was also venerated in the forms of Atum (the setting sun) and Khepri (the rising sun) and, in connection to the morning sun, as Ra-Harachte. As Ra-Atum he is the creator who gives light and warmth and thus growth. Re was often combined with other deities to enhance the prestige of the latter, as in Ra-Atum or Amun-Ra.

It was said that Re traveled each day in his solar barque through the sky, starting in the morning. At night, Ra journeyed through the underworld in another barque. And each night, the monster Apep would try to prevent the sun-god from emerging again: the eternal battle between light and darkness. The gods Seth and Mehen accompanied him and were often depicted defending Ra's barque. Others believed that Ra could be found at night in the underworld, consoling and giving support to the dead. Ra is also the god of the pharaohs and since the fourth dynasty the Egyptian kings styled themselves 'sons of Ra'. After death, the monarch was said to ascend into the sky to join the entourage of Ra.

St. Thomas a Becket
In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of St. Thomas a Becket, Chaucer's "hooly blisful martyr" of the Canterbury Tales, whose cathedral was and is the most visited Christian pilgrimage site in England. St. Thomas a Becket's story of fatal defiance to the will of Henry the Lion is still one of the most oft-retold dramas of spiritual honor and sacrifice.

Vohu Manah
In the Zoroastrian calendar, festival of the creator and protector of animal life, Vohu Manah, one of the seven male and seven female emanations of the Deity.

Ante Diem IV Kalendas January

2005-12-28T22:20:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 28th Market Day

Ante Diem V Kalendas January
Fifth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

In Greece this was known as Arachne's Day. Arachne was a princess of Lydian Colophon, famous for its purple dyes. She was so skilled in the art of weaving that Athena herself could not compete with her. In a vengeful rage, Athena turned her into a spider.

The Christians claim that on this day King Herod, old, ill, and dying, slaughtered all the first-born male children in Bethlehem in an attempt to prevent the "newborn king" from growing up and taking away his throne 18 years or so later, long after he would be dead. Herod died in 4 BCE. Josephus wrote a detailed biography of Herod that included all of his achievements, family intrigues, and his embittered death. Josephus describes Herod's "monstrous" plan to slaughter the innocent leading men from all the major towns of Judea so as to ensure mourning upon his death. The order was prevented from being carried out by his wife. Josephus conspicuously makes no mention of what would have been a greater crime, the slaughter of innocent male children. The similarity of these incidents suggests the latter myth was an embellishment of the former incident by Christian raconteurs.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Celtic Festival of Wine and Pleasure
Gwyl o Gwin a Hyfrydwch, the Festival of Wine and Pleasure, begins at sundown and continues until December 31st. Also in Celtic and other ancient European traditions, this is considered the unluckiest day of the year, when no work should be done, no new enterprises should be started, no new approaches made.

Ta Chiu
The Taoists celebrate Ta Chiu, a festival of peace and renewal by summoning all their gods and ghosts to the temple to accept offerings. The priests read off a list of all the people in the area at the end of the festival and attach it to a paper horse. When burned, the names are carried to heaven by the smoke.

Holy Innocents Day
This day commemorates the Holy Innocents, the infant martyrs killed on the orders of King Herod, who was determined to find and destroy the Christian Messiah who had reportedly been born three days earlier.

All of the two-year old boys who were massacred by Herod in his attempt to kill the rumored Messiah who had been born in Bethlehem, were declared martyrs by the early Christian church and are considered the patrons of choir boys.

In medieval English cathedrals, a choir boy was dressed up as the bishop on this day, in a reversal of roles similar to that found in Hari No Kuyo (December 12) and Saturnalia (December 17). Like the Lord of Misrule, who rules at Saturnalia (and again on Twelfth Night, January 6), the Boy Bishop ordered around his superiors and made fun of their authority. Mock Masses were celebrated which were full of bawdiness and rowdiness. Eventually the Church suppressed these customs. According to Matthews(The Winter Solstice: The Sacred Traditions of Christmas), the Boy Bishop was elected on St Nicholas Day (December 6) and ruled until Holy Innocents Day.

Traditionally this is the unluckiest day of the year, and the day of the week on which it falls is unlucky throughout the coming year. Since it is a day of bad omen, don't do anything new on this day, like starting a new project or wearing new clothes.

Ante Diem VI Kalendas January

2005-12-27T07:12:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 27th

Ante Diem VI Kalendas January
Sixth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This day continues the Halcyon days, or the period of celebration and goodwill associated with the beginning of winter and the new solar year.

This day was Tubi 1 (Macedonian Dystrus 1), the first day of the month Tubi, in the Egyptian calendar.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Freya
The birth of Freya, Norse goddess of love, was celebrated today. She is usually depicted astride a large cat and presides over the warriors slain in battle.

In Norse mythology, Freya is a goddess of love and fertility, and the most beautiful and propitious of the goddesses. She is the patron goddess of crops and birth, the symbol of sensuality and was called upon in matters of love. She loves music, spring and flowers, and is particularly fond of the elves (fairies). Freya is one of the foremost goddesses of the Vanir.

She is the daughter of the god Njord, and the sister of Freyr. Later she married the mysterious god Od (probably another form of Odin), who disappeared. When she mourned for her lost husband, her tears changed into gold.

Her attributes are the precious necklace of the Brisings, which she obtained by sleeping with four dwarfs, a cloak (or skin) of bird feathers, which allows its wearer to change into a falcon, and a chariot pulled by two cats. She owns Hildesvini ("battle boar") which is actually her human lover Ottar in disguise. Her chambermaid is Fulla. Freya lives in the beautiful palace Folkvang ("field of folk"), a place where love songs are always played, and her hall is Sessrumnir. She divides the slain warriors with Odin: one half goes to her palace, while the other half goes to Valhalla. Women also go to her hall.

St. John
In the Roman Catholic calendar, feast day of St. John, the Beloved Disciple, said to be also the author of the Gospel of John, the Book of Revelations, and the apocryphal Secret Book of John, in which Jesus is quoted as having said, "If you get out what is within you, it will save you; if you do not get out what is within you, it will destroy you." John was apparently the only one of the apostles who did not seek martyrdom, but lived and wrote on the Greek isle of Patmos until he was a hundred years old.

St John acquired the honor of representing writers, publishers and theologians because of the beauty of the Gospel written in his name. A legend says that Aristodemus, the high priest of Artemis at Ephesus, challenged John (who lived in Ephesus with Mary, the Mother of Jesus). Aristodemus promised to become a Christian if John survived a drink from a poisoned chalice. He did, of course. Germans drink a loving-cup in his honor.

Haloa
On the 26th day of the month of Poseidon, Greek women gathered for the Merry Womens Mysteries of Demeter and Kore, which later also honored Dionysos.

Women carried first fruits and the new wine of Dionysos from Athens in procession to the open threshing floors. Lucius says it ends with a great feast. "Much wine was set out and the tables were full of all the fields that are yielded by land and sea, save only those prohibited in the mysteries, I mean pomegranate and apple and domestic fowls and eggs and red sea mullet and black tailed brayfish and shark." Men prepared the feast and then withdrew leaving the women to alone enjoy themselves, consuming cakes in the shape of genitals and trading obscenities, scurrilous jests and mutual abuse.

Ante Diem VII Kalendas January

2005-12-25T23:13:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 26th

Ante Diem VII Kalendas January
Seventh Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

This is the first of the twelve days of Yule.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Hanukkah
The Jewish festival of light, Hanukkah, begins on the 25th of Kislev, three days before the new moon closest to the Winter Solstice. This means it spans the darkest time of the year both in the lunar cycle and the solar cycle.

Hanukkah commemorates the victory of the Maccabees against the Hellenistic overseers of the Land of Israel who outlawed Jewish religious practices (and punished them with death) while reinstating pagan rituals. In 166 BCE, the Maccabees recaptured Jerusalem. They chose the 26th of Kislev as the day to purify and rededicate the temple which had been desecrated three years earlier. The explanation for the emphasis on lighting candles is explained by recounting the miracle of the oil, how one jar of oil kept the lamps lit for the eight days of the festival. But as Arthur Waskow points out in "Seasons of Our Joy: A Modern Guide to the Jewish Holidays", the Greeks were probably celebrating a Winter Solstice ritual on that day and by claiming the same day for their festival the Maccabees:

“were rededicating not only the Temple but the day itself to Jewish holiness; were capturing a pagan solstice festival that had won wide support among partially Hellnized Jews, in order to make it a day of God's victory over paganism. Even the lighting of candles for Hanukkah fits the context of the surrounding torchlight honors for the sun.” [p. 92]

The main practice of Hanukkah is the lighting of the candles in the menorah, one each night until on the eighth night all eight candles are lit. The traditional menorah has eight lights in a row with none higher than the other. Since the lights are not to be used for any practical purpose, it became customary to add a ninth candle, a shammas or shammash, which is often set above the others and used to light them. The candles are lit as soon as possible after the stars come out each evening and are left to burn for a half an hour.

On the first night, one candle is put into the menorah, on the far right, and the shammas is lit. Then three blessings are said before the shammas is used to light the candle. The blessings acknowledge the Lord God, who commands us to light candles for Hanukkah, who worked miracles for our ancestors in this season, who has given us life, lifted us up and brought us to this season. Unlike other Jewish traditions, women are also obligated to light Hanukkah candles. In some households, there is a separate menorah for each family member. The menorah should be placed in an outside window so it can be seen from outside, although if this is dangerous, it can be placed on a table in the room.

After the candles are lit, several songs are sung, including this one:

"We kindle these lights on account of the miracles, the wonders, the liberations, and the battles that You carried out for our forbears in these days at this time of year, through the hands of Your holy priests. For all eight days of Hanukkah these lights are holy. We are not allowed to use them; they are only to look at, in order to thank and praise your great Name on account of Your miracles, Your wonders, and Your liberations." [p. 95]

Both men and women are forbidden to work during the time it takes the candles to burn each night. In some Sephardic communities, women do not work at all on the first and eighth days of Hanukkah, and in some places, they don't work on any of the eight days. Just as the Sabbath is the day for rest provided during the week, so are the eight days of Hanukkah a mandatory resting time at this pivotal point in the year.

Hanukkah foods tend to be foods that are cooked in oil, like potato latkes and doughnuts, thus connecting the holiday feast with the historical legend.

Kwanzaa
The festival of Kwanzaa, celebrated by African Americans and other descendants of the African peoples, and also widely respected by environmentally conscious people for its emphasis on communal values that support sustainable, Earth-friendly economies: teamwork, responsible stewardship, unity of faith and purpose, and the honoring of creativity and beauty.

This new winter festival was created in 1966 by Dr Maulana Karenga to give African Americans a focus during the holiday season. He synthesized various African harvest rituals to create new customs for this holiday; the name Kwanzaa means the first or the first fruits of the harvest in Swahili.

One of the main Kwanzaa practices, which aligns it with the other festivals of light like Hanukkah and Christmas at this time period, is the lighting of the seven candles of the Kinara (kee-NAH-rah), a candelabra with 7 candles, three red, one black and three green. Each candles symbolizes seven qualities of African culture to be emulated: Umoja (unity), Kujichagulia (self-determination), Ujima (collective work and responsibility); Ujamaa (cooperative economics), Nia (purpose), Kuumba (creativity) and Imana (faith).

Boxing Day
In 19th century England, employers gave gifts to their servants on Boxing Day. Tradesmen, servants and children went "boxing," going from house to house, soliciting Christmas tips from householders, which they deposited in slitted earthernware Christmas boxes. This poem, quoted by Kightly(The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore), seems to reflect this custom:

When Boxing Day comes round again
O then I shall have money
I'll hoard it up and Box and all
I'll give it to my honey.

Boxing Day continues to be celebrated in England and Scandanavia and is a legal holiday.

Feast of Fools and Seasonal Theater
The Medieval Feast of Fools ran from today until the 28th. Wren hunting was once practiced on this day. And though it hardly provides a mouthful to a cat, it was protected at all other times during the year.

This is the traditional time in Italy of Columbine and Pantomime. Performances were enacted in mime by traveling companies. There represented ancient symbolic figures. Columbine was traditionally dressed in white with black pompoms and is believed to have symbolized the moon. Columbine or Columbina was the sweetheart of Harlequin, and, like him, supposed to be invisible to mortal eyes. Columbina is a pet-name for a lady-love in Italian, meaning “little dove.”

Christmas plays were common at this time following in an ancient tradition handed down from the Greeks and Romans. In Greco-Roman times, Andromeda, Ariadne, Ceres, and the Nymphs were honored with plays. Orpheus was shown with the beasts. Perseus and Andromeda were depicted. Ceres was drawn by dragons, and Bacchus and Ariadne by panthers, and finally the education of Achilles was enacted. A ballet of the famous lovers of ancient times was performed, followed by a troop of Nymphs. During the Christian era, plays about the Greek and Roman gods gave way to morality plays adapted from the Bible.

The Twelve Days of Christmas/Yule
In Babylon, the 12 intercalary days between the Winter Solstice and the New Year were seen as the time of a struggle between chaos and order, with chaos trying to take back over the world. Other cultures (Hindu, Chinese, Celtic) also viewed this as a time for reversing order and rules.

The Romans celebrated Saturnalia from December 17 through December 24, an eight-day festival when social roles were reversed. No one was allowed to work but expected to gamble and feast instead. Hanukkah is another eight-day feast celebrated at this same time period. No one is supposed to work during the half hour each evening when the Hanukkah candles are lit, but in some traditions, women are not allowed to work at all during the eight days of Hanukkah. Playful gambling (with the dreidl) is also a part of Hanukkah traditions. And in Mexico, the Posadas, the processions re enacting the search of Joseph and Mary for shelter, take place during the eight days before Christmas.

The Twelve Days of Christmas end on January 6th with Twelfth Night. Supposedly each of the twelve days predicts what the weather will be like for the corresponding month of the year (that is, the first day foreshadows the weather in January, etc.). In Wales, they were considered ‘omen’ days. In Scotland, no court had power during the twelve days. The Irish believed that anyone who died during these days escaped purgatory and went straight to Heaven.

In medieval England, all work was suspended during the Christmas holidays. Women could begin spinning again on January 7th, the day after Twelfth Night, which was called St Distaff’s Day. According to Germanic tradition, the goddess Holle, dressed all in white, rides the wind in a wagon on the Twelve Days of Christmas. During this time, no wheels can turn: no spinning, no milling, no wagons (sleighs were used instead). Holle punished women who disobeyed the taboo. Women were also forbidden to work on the days of certain female saints whose holidays fall during the winter. Lacemakers and spinners take a holiday on Nov 25, St Catherine’s Day. And any woman who works on St Lucy’s Day (Dec 13) will find her work undone the next day. Helen Farias suggests that the 12 days were originally 13 nights, celebrated from the dark moon nearest the solstice through the next full moon (Jan 1, New Year's Day). Greek women celebrated a Dionysian ritual on the full moon nearest the Winter Solstice.

The Greeks told a story about the Halcyon Days, the two week period before and after the solstice when the kingfisher built her nest on the waves and the sea was calm while she hatched her chicks.

It seems clear that this is a magical period, a time out of time, whatever dates you choose. It is a special time, existing outside of the usual rules, when work is forbidden and all routines should be turned upside down. If you compare the cycle of the year to other cycles, as Demetra George does in Mysteries of the Dark Moon, this time is equivalent to the dark moon in the lunar cycle, the time of bleeding in the menstrual cycle, the hours before dawn in the daily cycle and, in our life cycles, the period after death and before birth. It is the time right before your birthday in your personal year cycle, often a time to reassess what you've accomplished. All of these are powerful moments when new possibilities are seeded.

Hunting the Wren
The old English custom of hunting the wren on this day may be the remnant of an ancient midwinter sacrifice. The official explanation given is that wrens are hunted on St Stephen's Day because their chattering in the bushes gave away the saint's hiding place, leading to his martyrdom. The usually sacred and protected bird was ceremonially hunted and its decorated corpse carried about to bring luck.

The Wren, the Wren, the King of all Birds
St. Stephen's Day was caught in the furze
Although he be little, his honor is great
Therefore, good people, give us a treat.

The custom still survives in Ireland and the Isle of Man where the bird's corpse is replaced by a potato stuck with feathers. It's not clear if the children even bothered to create a mock Wren in Deborah Tall's(Island of the White Cow) description of how the holiday was celebrated on an island in Ireland in the 1970s:

"St. Stephen's Day, the children went pagan and mad, roaming the island in gangs, bursting in doors, unannounced, masked, painted, bedraggled, piping, dancing, and singing at the top of their lungs in their ritual "hunting of the wren." Cookies and pennies buy off their shrieks, the players curtsy and bow, then streak out through the rain to their next stage, indefatigable."

St. Stephen
In the Roman Catholic and Orthodox Christian calendars of Greece and Russia, birthday of St. Stephen, the first Christian martyr.

Blessed be St Stephen
There's no fast at his Even

An first Christian martyr, one of the early disciples, he became the patron of stonemasons because he was stoned to death. Possibly because of the date of his feast day, he took on the attributes of Frey and Freya in Scandinavia. Early Scandinavian Christmas legends, make him the groom who carries the boar's head to the feast of Herod and is stoned to death for announcing the birth of Christ. Frey is associated with horses and Freya's animal is the boar.

In Scandinavia, this day was devoted to horses. Horses were raced and the one who reached the well first got the lucky first drink. This was also a traditional day for blood-letting in horses, perhaps a masculine appropriation of the feminine mysteries.

Zoroaster
In the Zoroastrian calendar, this day marks the death of the saint and teacher Zarathusthra, or Zoroaster, in 551 BC, celebrated in rites that observe the universal myth pattern of the Double Holy Seven--in this case seven male and seven female emanations of the deity, whose efficacy in purifying the earth from evil is praised in sacred fire rites. Other examples of the Double Holy Seven: the fourteen body parts of Osiris, the fourteen Stations of the Cross in Roman Catholic ritual, and, in symbols common to Egyptian mystery schools and the biblical Book of Revelations, the cycle of the Dove descending into the crown of the head and down through the seven chakras, then reascending the chakra column as the Eagle.

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas January

2005-12-25T06:55:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 25th

Ante Diem VIII Kalendas January
Eighth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Dies Natalis Solis Invictus (Birth of the Invincible Sun)
After Caesar's reform, this day became the traditional Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, The Day of the Birth of the Invincible Sun, instead of the more precise solstice of 21-22.

The early Christian leaders moved Christmas here from January 6th, the assumed date of Jesus' birth. Although the name of this holiday has been altered, it continues to be a festival of joy, peace, feasting, and goodwill to men. Helios was the god honored this day.

The illiterate barbarian king Charlemagne was crowned Emperor of the Romans this day in 800 by the Pope, who had the right to do so by default. He was, in name, the first emperor of the Western Roman empire since 460 AD. His lands split three ways, amongst his sons, when he died but the title passed to the kingship of what are now Germany and Austria. The title actually passed in direct succession right up to Kaiser (Caesar) Wilhelm in WWI, who was the last man on earth who could claim the title Emperor of the Romans.

In ancient Persia, this day was celebrated as Atargatis, while Mesopotamians celebrated it as the Day of Astarte, the mother goddess.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Christmas/Yule
In the Northern hemisphere, the most important festival day of the year, marking the birth of the Solar Child, the Savior, Renewer of the Light. This day has been celebrated in the Northern world for more than 6,000 years as the birth or feast day of many solar deities, resurrected kings and queens, and saviors. When the mythic cycles of Sumeria, Egypt, India and China were forming and on their way to being vivid and complex, Dec. 25 was the accepted date of the winter solstice, before the ancient star priests were able to reckon it precisely on Dec. 21.

The birth of many dying solar savior-gods (Osiris, the Syrian Baal, Attis, Helios, Apollo, Dionysus, Balder, Frey) was celebrated on this day. According to Roman tradition this was Dies Natalis Solis Invictus, "the day of the birth of the undefeated sun," a Mithraic cult. A festival was held in honor of the birth of the son of the Babylonian queen of heaven. In Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte. This is also the feast of Frau Holle, a Germanic weather goddess.

Osiris/Horus
In the Egyptian calendar, Dec. 25 is the shared father-and-son birthday of Osiris, Neter of male creativity and vegetation; and Horus, son of Isis and Osiris, the falcon-headed solar hero who is destined to battle Set, Neter of destruction and chaos, for the survival of life on Earth. Horus is solar energy in active physical manifestation. Thus the living Pharaoh is considered the human embodiment of Horus. The birthdays of Osiris and Horus fall on day 10 in the Month of Mechir.

Mithras
Dec. 25 is the birthday of the Persian solar deity Mithras, whose ritual slaying of the Bull enacts the ascendancy of spirit over matter, and also the end of the Age of Taurus. Mithras' day first entered the Roman Calendar as the holiday sacred to Sol Invictus, the Unconquered Sun. This is lso the birthday of the ancient Babylonian god Baal.

Apollo/Helios
In the ancient Greek calendar, this day is celebrated as a birthday or major festival day of Apollo/Helios, who merges into the single figure of Apollo, god of the Sun, patron of intellect, rationality, the ideal beauty of classical form, and the mystery of prophecy. On the same day, curiously, some of Apollo's opposite numbers are born and honored too: Dionysus and the Phrygian Attis, both associated with ecstatic revelry and passion, blood and wine. The incomparably beautiful and doomed Adonis, lover of Aphrodite, is reborn on this day each year and dies a few months later on what some other calendars usually call Easter.

Baldur
In the Norse tradition, this is the birthday of Baldur, yet another beautiful young god who dies in the bloom of youth and returns to life on the first day of winter. His feast is associated with wreaths of greenery and holly. At his death each year his blood is said to fall on the white young holly berries, staining them bright red. These colors also symbolize Baldur as the joining of spiritual love (white) with erotic love (red).

Isra Miraj Nabi Muhammed
In the Islamic calendar of Indonesia, this day is Isra Miraj Nabi Muhammed, commemorating the prophet Mohammed's ascension.

Jesus
In Christian calendars, this is Christmas, birthday of Jesus of Nazareth, considered by his devotees to be the Promised One, the Messiah, whom Christians revere as the fully realized embodiment of divinity, the Christ. In the words of Isaiah: " . . . unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given. And the government shall be upon his shoulders, and his name shall be called wonderful, counselor, the mighty God, the everlasting Father, the prince of peace."

The metaphor of the birth of the sun worked equally well for Christians celebrating the birth of the Son of God, who brings Light to the world. Biblical scholars speculate that Christ was actually born in the fall after the harvest or in the spring after the birth of the new animals, both the most likely times for taxation. The British scientist Colin Humphreys believes Christ was born between April 13 and April 27, the week of Passover in 5 BCE, when a great comet appeared.

The birth of Christ was celebrated in the early church on January 6th (on the same date, Kore gave birth to the year god Aeon). However, in the 4th century, it was moved to December 25th. Biblical scholar Brent Walters says that the Pope authorized the change at the request of Cyril of Jerusalem who was concerned about the pilgrims who flocked to Jerusalem to celebrate Christ’s birth, then turned around and headed to Bethlehem to attend special ceremonies there on the same day. By moving the date of Christ's birth forward to December 25th, they had more time to make the trip to Bethlehem by January 6th. Of course, not everyone was pleased by this change. The Christians of ”dessa accused the church in Rome of idolatry and “sun worship."

Christmas/Yule Traditions
Many of the ceremonies of the Saturnalia continue in our modern Yuletide celebrations. Temples were decorated with greenery. Holly was used by the early Roman Christians to decorate churches and dwellings at this time, but the tradition was derived from earlier practices. Pagan Romans would send their friends holly-sprigs with wishes for their health and well being. The evergreens for Yuletide decorations were holly, ivy, mistletoe, bay, rosemary, and green branches of the box tree. One of the oldest Yule traditions comes from its origins in Saturnalia. During that time, it was customary for all creatures to be equal. Charitable acts were not the exception, but the rule. Master and servant were on equal terms and people even acted with charity toward the lesser animals. Extra food was given to livestock and pets, and food was laid out for the birds or other wild creatures.

Yule has many names in many lands. To the Druids and Celtic tribes, it was Nodlaig, An Nodlaig, La Nodlag, or Nodlaig Day. Yule. Jul or Jol is a Gothic word signifying a sumptuous treat, and the month of January was called Giuli (the Festival) by the Saxons. The festival of the Sun at the winter solstice ushered in the New Year’s sun. To the Saxons, it was Gehul, 'the Sun-feast', for the Danes, Juul, the Swedes called it Oel, in Breton, it was Heol (the sun), and for the Welsh it was Hal. The word Yule is derived from an old Norse word Iul, meaning a wheel, and the symbol of a wheel is still used to mark Yuletide.

The ash is the wood of the world-tree, Yggdrasil, with its roots knotted in Hell and its boughs supporting Heaven. Beneath Yggdrasil sit the Norns or Nornir, Urth (past), Verdandi (present), and Skuld (future). Like the Greek and Roman Fates, they sit spinning the events of human life. Nearby is the spring of Urd from which the Norns draw water and clay every day. They sprinkle this on Yggdrasil to keep its branches from wither and decay.

The Yule log was chosen of green ash wood and cut before Yule. In Devon, a bundle of ash sticks were bound together with nine ash-bands. The us of nine, or thrice three, ash-bands may be an indirect reference to the Norns. Amidst much rejoicing, it was carried in on Yule Day or on Yule Eve. Sometimes it was sprinkled with corn or dragged in with a girl seated upon it. A new fire was made, and the log was kindled with the last fragments of the previous log, kept throughout the year for this purpose.

The mistletoe sprig has a long history of use, perhaps older than the Yuletime tree. The traditional Kissing Bough or the Kissing Bunch was hung from the ceiling with a ring of candles above and a ring of bright red apples below, perhaps hinting at fulfillment in the hour of promise. It was also said to represent the sun and the earth. On Yule Eve, the candles were lit in ceremony, and it became the center of the festival. It was lit again on Yule Day, and every evening thereafter till the Twelve Days were done. It hung from the middle of the ceiling, just high enough from the ground for a couple to stand or stoop and kiss beneath it.

Welsh churches held a carol service called Plygain between 3 am and 6 am on Christmas morning. The name is derived from the Latin pulli cantio (“cock crow”). The churches were decorated with candles. After a brief session of prayers, people spent the remainder of the time singing plygain carols. It seems possible this was originally a ritual designed to comfort people during the darkest hours before the sun was born, or to help welcome the newly-emerging sun.

Christmas/Yule dinner
Christmas dinner is one of those grand seasonal feasts for which each culture has its own set of traditional dishes. In France, the big meal, called the revillon (meaning the beginning of a new watch) is served immediately after Midnight Mass. It often begins with oysters and champagne. Roast turkey with chestnuts is the usual dish but in former times, each region had its own specialty: a daube (beef in red wine) in Armagnac, sauerkraut and goose liver in Alsace, aligot in Auvergne, black pudding (blood sausage) in Nivernais and goose in southwestern France. In the southeast, a large meal was eaten before Mass consisting of cauliflower and salt cod with raito (or perhaps snails), grey mullet with olives, or omelette with artichokes and fresh pasta.

The Poles eat foods containing poppy seeds. The English serve plum pudding. Romans eat eels. In Bologna, it's tortellini stuffed with minced group pork, turkey, sausage, cheese and nutmeg, followed by desserts of nocciata (walnuts and honey, cut into triangles), cassata flavored with Ricotta cheese and chocolate, and torrone, made with almonds.

The Germans used to serve blue carp, a fish that had been specially fattened for Christmas from August onwards, turned blue by pouring hot vinegar over it before cooking and served with sour cream, horseradish and apples. Now the main dish is more likely to be goose, turkey, venison, wild boar or a roast. However, apples, walnuts and almonds are always served.

The Swedes for centuries have feasted on marinated ling, served in a white sauce with butter, potatoes, mustard and black pepper. The Danes like roast goose or duck stuffed with apples and prunes and garnished with red cabbage, caramelized potatoes and cranberry sauce. Dessert consists of rice porridge or rice with almonds and cherry compote. The Norwegians serve roast pork chops and sauerkraut (flavored with cumin). The Finns cook a ham in a rye-flour pastry case. In all the Scandinavian countries, Christmas is the occasion for a sumptuous smorgasbord.

Most countries also have a traditional Christmas cake. In France, it's buche de noel, a cake of dough rolled up and frosted with buttercream to look like a log. In England it's a fruitcake, sometimes soaked in alcohol, and then spread with apricot jam, almond paste and frosting. In Germany, it's stollen which contains crystallized fruit. In Alsace, it's bireweck (a cake which includes nuts and dried and candied fruit) served with compotes and gingerbread, traditionally eaten before Midnight Mass. In Brittany, it's a star-shaped fouace.

In France, the dinner concludes with the traditional Thirteen Desserts. Each one must be tasted to bring good luck in the coming year. According to Larousse Gastronomique, the number thirteen commemorates the thirteen participants at the Last Supper (this seems a bit far-fetched and out-of-season as well). The desserts are: pompe a l'huile (a fruit pastry), raisins, quince paste, marzipan sweets, nougat, fougasse (a rich cake), crystallized (candied) citrons, walnuts and hazelnuts, winter pears, Brignoles plums, dried figs, almonds and dates.

Ante Diem IX Kalendas January

2005-12-24T03:41:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 24th

Ante Diem IX Kalendas January
Ninth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Juvenalia
The Juvenalia is a Roman festival day for the young. This holiday was created by Caligula and added to Saturnalia. This was a celebration of the birth of new life and a festival honoring children, who were given talismans (like bells, shoes, warm clothes and toys) for good luck in the coming year.

The emperor Galba was born this day near Terracina in 3 BCE.

On this day in 562 AD, the emperor Justinian dedicated the restored church of St. Sophia in Constantinople.

This was New Year's Day in the Druidic calendar, the 1st day of the 1st month of the 13 month calendar. The sequent letter was B for the tree Birch or Wild Olive.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

The Mothers
The Venerable Bede, writing about the customs of the pagan Anglo Saxons who he was trying to convert in 6th century England, mentions their practice of celebrating a holiday he called Modranicht or Modresnacht on the eve of Christmas. This "night of the Mothers" was evidently a sacred night devoted to a group of feminine divinities, like those pictured on carvings and statues all over Celtic France and Britain which show three women together, holding children and fruit, fish, grain and other bounties of the earth. Bede changed the date of Modranicht (Modresnach, the Norse Festival of Mother's Night) from it's original time of Winter Solstic eve. See: http://thepaganleft.blogspot.com/2005_12_20_thepaganleft_archive.html

Adam and Eve's Day
In the 14th and 15th century, miracle plays depicting the expulsion of Adam and Eve from Paradise were performed in churches on the Eve of Christmas. As part of the scenery, apples were tied on evergreen trees, one of the possible sources of the Christmas tree.

Ante Diem X Kalendas January

2005-12-22T22:06:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 23rd

Ante Diem X Kalendas January
Tenth Day to the Kalends of January

This day is for special religious observance.

The Larentalia
Acca Larentia was the goddess honored this day, who was also called Lupa on account of her loose morals. The celebrations today would have allowed mortals the same liberties. She was originally the chief deity of Larentum, which was absorbed by the Romans, culture and all. Acca Larentia, the Etruscan goddess whose name means Lady Mother. Several tales are told about her. Some say she was the foster-mother or Romus and Remulus, the founders of Rome, or that she was the wolf that suckled them. Some say she was a lover of Heracles. Another tale relates that after spending a night in the temple of Heracles, she was told to give herself to the first man she met. He happened to be a rich man who married her. After his death, she inherited his fortune, which she gave to Rome, a generosity which the Romans celebrated with a rowdy feast. Blackburn and Holford-Strevens point out that these legends might derive from the same source as lupa means both "she-wolf" and "prostitute." Obviously, in all of her manifestations, she represents mothering and abundance.

This is also the seventh, and last, day of the Saturnalia. The Saturnalia is one of the most festive and uninhibited that the ancient Romans celebrated. It went on for seven days and encompassed the Winter Solstice, a time of religious observance for cultures the world over. Feasts were provided by the temples and was open to the public, the poor and the homeless. Servants and masters were met on equal terms. Unable to prevent the people's natural festive inclinations at this time of year, the early Christian leaders moved Christmas to December and claimed the celebration for their own. During the Saturnalia, rules were set aside, schools were closed, and slaves could meet their masters on equal terms. Human kindness was the theme and war and the punishment of criminals was halted. The exchange of gifts was universally practiced. Strenae, which were boughs to which were attached cakes or sweetmeats, were exchanged by visitors and guests. Other common gifts included wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-like clay figures, a particular favorite of children.

On this day in the year 363 AD the Emperor Julian died in battle with the Persians. Julian, a Greek Stoic, had tried to make the newly powerful Christians accept the traditional Roman policy of Universal Toleration. The Christians, however, remained aggressively intolerant. The result was two centuries of riots, temple desecrations and legalized confiscations of property, the destruction of priceless art, books, and sculpture, persecutions and public murders of those branded with the epithet "pagan", and the ultimate outlawing of the Religion of Nature.

In the old Roman calendar, this day was called the Brumalia, the shortest day of the year. Festivities took place at the foot of the Palatine between the Circus Maximus and the Tiber.

Marcus Aurelius and Commodus celebrated their Triumph over the Germans in 176 AD.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Gwyl Nadolig
Alban Arthuan, Winter Solstice. The Ogham Calendar is based upon the Coligny Tablet, a Gaelic-Celtic bronze tablet found in France in 1895 and dating to about 2000 years ago. The calendar started on the last quarter moon, the first after the autumn equinox, Samhain. Both this festival and the winter solstice were used to start lunar calendars in pre-Roman Europe and the Greek/Celtic orientated British Isles. Gwyl Nadolig, the Yuletide Tree Festival and Elder Festival, begins at sundown.

Chaomos
The Kalesh tribe of the Hindu Kush, celebrate Chaomos in their finest clothes. Lasting a week, it honors the demi-god Balomain, who counts the Kalesh every year and carries their prayers back to Tsiam, their mythical ancestral home. Chaomos, an ancient fire festival of Pakistan pre-dates Islamic and Christian religions.

During the winter solstice, an ancient demigod Balomain returns to collect prayers and deliver them to Dezao, the supreme being. During these celebrations women and girls are purified by taking ritual baths. The men pour water over their heads while they hold up bread. Then the men and boys are purified with water and must not sit on chairs until evening when goat's blood is sprinkled on their faces. Following this purification, a great festival begins, with singing, dancing, bonfires, and feasting on goat tripe and other delicacies. Yummy!

Secret of the Unhewn Stone
In some Celtic calendars, this intercalary day between the Winter Solstice and 12/25 is called the Secret of the Unhewn Stone, the only day in the year not ruled by a tree or ogham symbol. Like Mother Night (12/20), the Unhewn Stone was thus a symbol of the unshaped, emerging potential of all things. The unhewn stone has significance outside the Celtic neopagan tradition. The Freemasons refer in their secret rites to the unhewn stone, the stone that has not been cut by iron.

A famous unhewn stone from the British Isles is the Stone of Destiny, also known as the Stone of Scone, and the Coronation Stone. It is a block of sandstone historically kept at the now-ruined abbey in Scone, near Perth, Scotland. It is also known as Jacob's Pillow and as the Tanist Stone. In Irish Celtic mythology, the Lia Fail was a magical stone brought to Ireland by the Tuatha de Danaan. When the rightful King of Ireland put his feet on it, the stone was said to roar in joy. This is believed to be the origin of the Stone of Destiny.

Ante Diem XI Kalendas January

2005-12-21T23:23:00.000-08:00

Happy first Birthday to my solar child Tristan. May the new year be bright and full of wonder for you.

Modern Date : December 22nd

Ante Diem XI Kalendas January
Eleventh Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Sixth Day of the Saturnalia
The Saturnalia is one of the most festive and uninhibited that the ancient Romans celebrated. It went on for seven days and encompassed the Winter Solstice, a time of religious observance for cultures the world over. Feasts were provided by the temples and were open to the public, the poor and the homeless. Servants and masters were met on equal terms. Unable to prevent the people's festive inclinations at this time of year, the early Christian leaders moved Christmas to December and claimed the celebration for their own.

During the Saturnalia, rules were set aside, schools were closed, and slaves could meet their masters on equal terms. Human kindness was the theme and war and the punishment of criminals was halted. The exchange of gifts was universally practiced. Strenae, which were boughs to which were attached cakes or sweetmeats, were exchanged by visitors and guests. Other common gifts included wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-like clay figures, a particular favorite of children.

The emperor Diocletian was born this day at Dalmatia (Split) in 245 AD.

The Larentalia was originally held this day but sometime after 179 BCE it was moved to the luckier (odd-numbered) day following.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Touji Taisai
In the Japanese Shinto calendar this day is Touji Taisai, sacred to the Sun Goddess Amaterasu-no-Mikuni, heroine of one of the world's great myths of the retreat and return of the Sun. When her brother, the raucous storm god and trickster Susanoo-no-Mikuni, insulted and ridiculed her, she withdrew into a cave and caused the Earth to suffer in such cold and darkness that the other gods came to sing and dance outside her cave until the goddess relented and forgave, and allowed the others to charm her back out. Among the universal symbolisms of such stories is the principle that light avoids wild and violent action, and can tame it only by limiting it in patterns of order, symbolized by music and dance.

Cherokee Sun Festival
The Cherokee people of North America celebrate on this day a very similar festival in honor of the Sun, who has locked herself inside her house in mourning for her dead daughter, and can be induced to re-emerge and smile only by the music and dance of young people.

Ante Diem XII Kalendas January

2005-12-21T09:42:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 21st

Ante Diem XII Kalendas January
Twelfth Day to the Kalends of January

This day is for special religious observance.

The Divalia
This day is the true Winter Solstice, though it was always celebrated a few days later. This is likely because of the difficulty the ancients had with precisely defining when the sun had begun its return to a higher azimuth, as well as the inaccuracies of pre-Julian calendars, which tended to slip back a few days a year.

This day is sacred to Dia, the goddess venerated by the Arval brothers. This day was also sacred to Angerona, and she was worshipped at the altar of the goddess Volusia, as was Dia. She is the goddess of silence and is pictured holding her finger to her lips. Her sealed lips represent a warning not to reveal the secret name (or taboo) name of Rome, which some claim is Amor (Love, Roma backwards).

This is also the fifth day of the Saturnalia. The Saturnalia is one of the most festive and uninhibited that the ancient Romans celebrated. It went on for seven days and encompassed the Winter Solstice, a time of religious observance for cultures the world over. Feasts were provided by the temples and were open to the public, the poor and the homeless. Servants and masters were met on equal terms. Unable to prevent the people's festive inclinations at this time of year, the early Christian leaders moved Christmas to December and claimed the celebration for their own. During the Saturnalia, rules were set aside, schools were closed, and slaves could meet their masters on equal terms. Human kindness was the theme and war and the punishment of criminals was halted. The exchange of gifts was universally practiced. Strenae, which were boughs to which were attached cakes or sweetmeats, were exchanged by visitors and guests. Other common gifts included wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-like clay figures, a particular favorite of children.

In Greece, Hercules and Ceres were honored this day (as Heracles and Demeter).

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

The Winter Solstice
The Winter Solstice, a celebration of the sun, called Yule (from Jol in honor of Jolnir, another name for Odin), Midwinter, and Alban Arthuan (Druidic) is celebrated today. This is the oldest of all sabbats, 12000 to 20000 years old. Many sun gods were honored today, Horus, Helios, Dionysus, and Mithras. Yule ends with 12th Night when all the decorations are cleared away. The poor were traditionally given money or presents during Yule. The needy could ask for money, a practice known as "mumping" or "thomasing" in honor of St. Thomas. Fresh food and drink was laid out as a feast for roaming Yuletide ghosts. Holy and ivy, traditional Yuletide decorative plants were adopted from Odin and Dionysus. The Christmas tree may have been adopted from Yggdrasil.

The Winter Solstice is the last of the year's four Cardinal Festivals. Sun enters Capricorn and Winter begins as the Sun reaches the 270° point on the zodiac wheel, and begins his homeward swing toward the 0° point, at the Spring Equinox. The Solstice is traditionally the most important festival of the year as it marks the birth of the Solar Child at the time of receding Winter light, and is thus the moment of affirming faith in the re-emergence of earthly life in the Spring, and also, symbolically, in the soul's survival beyond death. In the Tarot, this relationship is signified by the contrast between the Hermit, a Saturnian figure who wears a black robe and carries the lantern of esoteric wisdom; and the exuberant child of the Sun card.

The Winter Solstice is unique among days of the year — the time of the longest night and the shortest day. The dark triumphs but only briefly. For the Solstice is also a turning point. From now on (until the Summer Solstice, at any rate), the nights grow shorter and the days grow longer, the dark wanes and the Sun waxes in power. From the dark womb of the night, the light is born.

Many of the customs associated with the Winter Solstice (and therefore with other midwinter festivals such as St Lucy’s Day, Saturnalia, Hanukkah, New Years and Twelfth Night) derive from stories of a mighty battle between the dark and the light, which is won, naturally, by the light. Other traditions record this as the time a savior (the Sun-Child) is born to a virgin mother.

The Battle Between Old and New, Dark and Light
The Romans celebrated from December 17th to December 23rd with the festival Saturnalia, during which all work was put aside in favor of feasting and gambling. The social order was reversed, with masters waiting on their slaves. The Saturnalia is named after Saturn, who is often depicted with a sickle like the figures of Death or Old Father Time. Astrologically speaking, Saturn is saturnine: gloomy, old, dutiful and heavy. He was the god who ate his own children rather than let them surpass him. For new life to flourish, for the sun to rise again, it is necessary to vanquish this gloomy old fellow. Therefore, the feasting and merriment of the midwinter season are religiously mandated in order to combat the forces of gloom.

The day following the Saturnalia, was the Juvenalia, according to Z Budapest in The Grandmother of Time, a holiday in honor of children who were entertained, feasted and given good luck talismans. This makes sense. After vanquishing the Old King, it’s time to celebrate the new in the form of children, the New Year's Baby, the Son of Man.

The Birth of the Sun
Christ’s birthday was not celebrated on December 25th until the 4th century. Before then, December 25th was best known as the birthday of the Persian hero and sun-god, Mithras. The myth tells that he sprang up full-grown from a rock, armed with a knife and carrying a torch. Shepherds watched his miraculous appearance and hurried to greet him with the first fruits of their flocks and their harvests. The cult of Mithra spread all over the Roman empire. In 274 AD, the Roman emperor Valerian declared December 25th the Birthday of Sol Invictus, the Unconquerable Sun.

Christ was also not the first miraculous child born to a virgin mother. As Marina Warner points out, “the virgin birth of heroes and sages was a widespread formula in the Hellenistic world: Pythagorus, Plato, Alexander were all believed to be born of woman by the power of a holy spirit.”

The union of a virgin and a supernatural force, like the couplings between Zeus and various nymphs, was shorthand indicating the presence of a miraculous child, a child with the powers of both worlds. Dionysus is such a child, born of a union between Zeus and Semele. One of the many male solar figures who are celebrated now, at the onset of the winter solstice, is the famous British warrior hero King Arthur, whose birthday is Dec. 21.

Parke in Festivals of the Athenians describes a women-only midwinter festival, the Lenaia, which honored Dionysos. On this night, Greek women “held their ecstatic dances in winter — fully clothed in Greek dress, with castanets or the thyrsus, dancing together with no male companions, human or satyr.” Graves calls it the Lenaea, the Festival of Wild Women (a nice companion for the Festival of Merry Women on Dec 14). He says a bull, representing Dionysus, was cut into nine pieces, with one piece being burned and the rest consumed raw by the worshippers. Dionysus was born in winter, crowned with serpents, became a lion in the spring and was sacrificed as a bull (stag or goat) in the summer because these were calendar emblems of the old tripartite year. Marija Gimbutas in Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe calls Dionysus a Year God. Mithra was also associated with the bull (his initates were baptized with the blood of a sacrificed bull) and shown with the emblems of the zodiac surrounding him, suggesting that he is also a Year God.

The Lenaia occurred on the twelfth day of the Greek lunar month, Gamelion, which falls in early winter. The twelfth day of a lunar month (which begins with the new moon) always falls on a full moon night. If we move this lunar festival to the solar calendar and count from the winter solstice, the festival would occur on January 5th or 6th.

Until the fourth century, Christ’s birthday was celebrated on January 6th, on the same date when the Virgin Kore gave birth to the year god celebrated in Alexandria with a festival called the Koreion. St. Epiphanius complains about the hideous mockery of this rite but it preceded the story of Christ’s birth. In the original ritual, the image of the goddess, decorated with gold stars, was carried seven times around her temple as the priests cried, “The Virgin has brought forth the new Aeon!”

Although Aeon, or Eon, is now defined as “an indefinitely long period of time; an age, eternity,” its Indo-European root aiw conveyed “vital force, life, long life, eternity,” and the Greek form Aion meant specifically “vital force.”

This description recalls the Egyptian ceremony re-enacting the birth of Horus, the sun-god to Isis. All lights in the city were doused while Isis circled the sarcophagus seven times, then brought forth Horus who was called “the Light of the World.” Statues of Isis holding the newly born sun god on her lap, presenting him to the world, are similar to pose to later statues representing Mary and Jesus.

The return of the light is the most prominent feature of most midwinter festivals. In Sweden on St. Lucy’s Day, young girls don white dresses and a wreath of candles and awaken their families with cakes and song. Hanukkah, the Festival of Lights, is celebrated by lighting candles over a span of eight days. The Christian custom of the Advent wreath, with its four candles, one lit each of the Sundays before Christmas, is another way of re-kindling the light.

The Christmas candle, a large candle of red or some other bright color decorated with holly or other evergreens, was at one time a popular custom throughout Great Britain, Ireland and Scandinavia. One person, usually the eldest or the head of the household, is designated as the lightbringer. She lights the candle for the first time on Christmas Eve before the festive supper and during each of the remaining evenings of the Twelve Days of Christmas. To extinguish the candle, she snuffs it with tongs rather than blowing it out, since that would blow the luck away. The candle sheds a blessing on the household and so is protected from accidental quenching. It seems likely that the candle also represented the coming year, just as the weather of each of the twelve days of Christmas foretell the weather of the corresponding month. It had protective or fertilizing powers and was kept as a charm. In Denmark, during a lightning storm, the remnant would be brought out and lit to protect the household.

Similar customs once surrounded the Yule log. The Yule log must never be bought but should be received as a gift, found or taken from you own property. Often the log to be burned at midwinter was chosen early in the year and set aside.

Tradition varies about the type of wood to be used. Oak logs were popular in the north of England, birch in Scotland and ash in Cornwall and Devon. Ash is the only wood that burns freely when green and the world-tree, Yggdrasil, in the Nordic tradition was an ash-tree. It is important that the Yule log be the biggest and greenest log available since the Christmas festivities will last only as long as the Yule log burns.

In some parts of the Scottish highlands, the head of the household finds a withered stump and carves it into the likeness of an old woman, the Cailleach Nollaich or Christmas Old Wife, a sinister being representing the evils of winter and death. She's the goddess of winter, the hag of night, the old one who brings death. Burning her drives away the winter and protects the occupants of the household from death.

The Yule log is first brought into the house with great ceremony on the eve of solstice, Mother Night. Usually it is decorated with holly and ivy and other evergreens of the season. Some people prefer to use the Yule log as a decoration and place candles on it instead, thus transforming it into a candleabra like the menorah or the kinara. It is lit with a piece of last year's log as described in Herrick’s poem, “Hesperides:”

Come bring with a noise
My merry, merry boys
The Christmas log to the firing
With the last year's brand.
Light the new block,
And for good success in his spending
On your psalteries play:
That sweet luck may
Come while the log is a-teendling.

In Italy, the Yule log is called the Ceppo. Boccaccio in the fourteenth century described a Florentine family gathering about the hearth and pouring a libation of wine upon the glowing wood, then sharing the remaining wine, thus linking the Yule log with the custom of wassailing, pouring out libations to the trees in the orchard.

The Yule log is left to burn all night, and, if possible, through the next twelve without going out, although it may be extinguished with water. The ashes are kept for good luck. They have magical properties and can be scattered in the field to fertilize the soil or sprinkled around the house for protection.

The Solstice Evergreen
Another ancient midwinter custom is decorating with greens. The Romans decorated with rosemary, bay, laurel, holly, ivy and mistletoe. The holly and ivy were both important midwinter plants in Great Britain and Ireland, as seen in the mysterious medieval carol which mentions the rivalry between them. Matthews in The Winter Solstice provides the lyrics of a 15th century carol which refers to an ancient battle between the two, with the Ivy representing the cold gloominess of winter and the Holly King, the jolly spirit of the season.

The Christmas tree is of more recent origin. In her book, The Solstice Evergreen, Sheryl Ann Karas says that the earliest record of an evergreen being decorated comes from Riga in Latvia in 1519, when a group of local merchants carried an evergreen bedecked with flowers to the marketplace, where they danced around it and then burned it. Another possible source is the custom in 15th and 16th century Germany of hanging apples on a fir tree as a prop for the miracle play performed on Christmas eve depicting Adam and Eve being driven out of Paradise

Feast of Isis
In the Egyptian calendar, the same five days are the feast of Isis, Queen of Heaven and Earth, wife and sister of Osiris (Mechir, day 6). In west Mediterranean countries and now all over the Earth, Isis is perhaps the most widely revered deity since the ancient Western world, worshipped in various forms for some 4,000 years until her power was rivaled by Christianity's Isis counterpart, the Virgin Mary, and was ultimately suppressed by Islam. The rites of her revival are best acted this year on the perfectly positioned weekend of Friday the 24th and Saturday the 25th.

Soyala
Among the Hopi and Zuni peoples of the American Southwest, this day begins the 20-day feast of Soyala, the annual festival of human purification and renewal, counterpart to the rites of cleansing the kivas and kachina images in the Shalako festival of Dec. 1-14.

Hertha
According to Hottes(1001 Christmas Facts and Fancies), the early Germans considered the Norse goddess Hertha or Bertha, the goddess of Domesticity and the home. They baked yeast cakes shaped like slippers, which were called the slippers of Hertha, and filled with gifts. Hottes writes:

"During the Winter Solstice houses were decked with fir and evergreens to welcome her coming. When the family and serfs were gathered to dine, a great altar of flat stones was erected and here a fire of fir boughs was laid. Hertha descended through the smoke, guiding those who were wise in saga lore to foretell the fortunes of those persons at the feast. Hertha's altar stones became the hearthstones of the home. We learn from this story why Santa Claus comes down the chimney instead of at the door. It is a survival of the coming of Hertha…"

St Thomas
Feast of St. Thomas, the famous doubting apostle who has been, ever since he asked to check the wounds of Jesus just to be sure, the patron saint and clown role of those who refuse to consider the premise that once we believe it, we can see it. One of those early saints given a feast day on or near the solstice for no apparent historical reason, undoubtedly to divert attention from the pagan rites associated with that date.

St Thomas grey, St Thomas grey
The longest night and the shortest day

St Thomas divine,
Brewing, baking, and killing of fat swine

On this day in England, poor women and children went "a-Thomassing" for the ingredients for the Christmas feast, particularly wheat for frumenty and flour for Yule bread. Ghosts were permitted to walk abroad from now until Christmas Eve.

Recent theories surround Thomas and his true role in Christianity. Thomas in Greek means Twin, and it is thought that Thomas is the twin brother of Joshua ben Joseph known as the Christ. Given that this is his feast day it makes perfect sense to place it during this time to preserve his memory. Gnostic scholars contend that Thomas also known as James ben Joseph and Joshua ben Joseph were the rightful Priest-Kings of Judea in the mode of Moses and Aaron. The revolt of the brothers against Rome, the Maccabite dynasty of Herod and the Pharisees of the Temple has come down to us distorted by the Christian Mythos.

Beiwe/Rozhanitsa
Beiwe is the sun-goddess worshipped by the Saami, the indigenous people of Finland. She travels with her daughter, Beiwe-Neia, through the sky in an enclosure of reindeer bones, bringing back the green plants for the reindeer to feed upon. On the Winter Solstice, her worshippers sacrifice white female animals and thread the meat on sticks which they bend into rings and tied with bright ribbons. They also smear their doorposts with butter so Beiwe can eat the rich food and begin her recovery.

Another Winter Goddess of the north is the Russian goddess, Rozhnitsa. In the twelfth century, the eastern Slavs worshipped her as an ancestor, offering her honey, bread and cheese — all bloodless sacrifices, like those offered at the Haloa. In the 19th and early 20th century, Russian women still embroidered and wove bright linens, usually red on white, which depict the Goddesses of the seasons.

Although she does not mention the exact date of Rohanitsa's festival, Mary Kelly (Goddesses and Their Offspring) writes about her connection with the Winter season:

"Winter embroideries were made to honor the feast of Rohanitsa, the Mother Goddess, held in late December. These cloths depict [her] together with her daughter goddess, or with children who may or may not be divine….[She] was often shown with deer horns sprouting from her head or headdress….The horns are a sign that--as tales and rock carvings confirm--in ancient times the Mother Goddess gave birth to deer as well as children. For her feast, small, white-iced cookies shaped like deer were given as presents or good luck tokens."

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas January

2005-12-20T03:36:00.000-08:00

Modern Date : December 20th

Ante Diem XIII Kalendas January
Thirteenth Day to the Kalends of January

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

The Fourth Day of the Saturnalia
The Saturnalia is one of the most festive and uninhibited that the ancient Romans celebrated. It went on for seven days and encompassed the Winter Solstice, a time of religious observance for cultures the world over. Feasts were provided by the temples and were open to the public, the poor and the homeless. Servants and masters were met on equal terms. Unable to prevent the people's festive inclinations at this time of year, the early Christian leaders moved Christmas from January to December and claimed the celebration for their own.

During the Saturnalia, rules were set aside, schools were closed, and slaves could meet their masters on equal terms. Human kindness was the theme and war and the punishment of criminals was halted. The exchange of gifts was universally practiced. Strenae, which were boughs to which were attached cakes or sweetmeats, were exchanged by visitors and guests. Other common gifts included wax candles (cerei) and sigillaria, which were doll-like clay figures, a particular favorite of children.

On this day in 44 BCE, Cicero delivered the third of his famous orations, called the Phillipics, that were opposed to Mark Antony and ins upport of a return to democracy.

The emperor Vitellius was murdered in the Forum this day in 69 AD. His body was thrown first into the sewers, where he was renamed Sewerinus. But because it got stuck (he was somewhat obese) it was pulled out and thrown into the Tiber, where he was renamed Tiberinus.

Decima, the middle Fate in charge of the present, presides over December, but the month may have received its name as the tenth month of the Roman calendar. Vesta, patroness of fire also laid claim to the month of December.

Modresnach - Mother Night
Mother Night is an Asatru festival honoring Odin, Ing, and Erda. Dreams tonight foretell the outcome of the New Year. In the Norse calendar, Mother Night, the day before the Yuletide season, named for geola ("yoke"), the day in the year when the Sun is above the horizon for the shortest time, following and preceding the two longest nights of the year. Mother Night, as the longest and darkest night of the year, is considered the womb of the New Year. It is customary on this night to pray for auspicious dreams, which are said to foretell the year to come.

In the Asatru tradition of the Celtic and Norse peoples, Mother Night begins the 12-day Yule cycle, in which the fading of the old year is marked in rites of the Holly King. Freya, the Norse Goddess of Love, female fertility and creativity is honored with evergreens and fires, feasting and singing at the start of her festival, which later became the 12 days of Christmas. The word Yule comes from geola, the "yoke" that joins the old and new years.

Midwinter Eve
Like the eve of most holidays, this is an opportunity for love divination. Find an Elder tree and shake it, saying,

Sweet Elder, I shake, I shake!
Tell me, ye dogs that wake,
Where is my lover tonight?

Then listen carefully. The goddess Holle will send her white dogs in the direction from which your future lover will come. If you are quiet and patient, you will hear them barking.

St Thomas' Eve
This is another eve for love charms. For a prophetic dream, stick a pin in the exact center of an onion and put eight more pins around the first in a circle while saying:

Good St Thomas, do me right
And let my true love come to-night
That I may see him in the face
And in my arms may him embrace.

Then sleep with the onion under your pillow. What I find interesting about this folk custom is that both onions and the circle surrounding a dot are sun symbols, so this seems to be a charm relating to the sun, which is born again on Winter Solstice.