Celtic « Everyday’s a Holiday

Mabon

September 21, 2008 at 12:15 pm (Celtic, North America, Pagan)
Tags: apples, equinox, harvest

“Blessed be, by the Lady and the Lord, on this Mea’n Fo’mhair. It is the time of the second harvest, one of fruit and wine abundance. Tonight holds equilibrium of all things. Everything is in balance with one another. God and Goddess, Life and Death, Light and Dark.”

Immortal Boundaries, Aubrey Jones

References to the Welsh god Mabon ap Mydron (Mabon, Son of Modron, or ‘Great Son of the Great Mother’) date back well over a thousand years. Today the name Mabon conjures up images of ancient Celtic rituals, of the fruits of the harvest, of flickering flames beneath an autumn moon. So I was especially surprised to find that ‘Mabon’—in reference to the autumnal equinox—dates not to the Dark Ages, but to the Disco Age (a dark age in its own right), the 1970s.

The holiday Mabon was coined by a grad student, Aidan Kelly, as part of a religious studies project. Kelly was following the Celtic and pagan tradition of naming holy days after gods and goddesses. Lughnasadh honors the Irish sun god Lugh. Beltane is believed to originate from Ba’al. The spring equinox is named for the German goddess Ostara, from which our word Easter also derives.

There was a holiday known as “Mabon’s Day” in Wales in the 19th century. But that holiday was named for William “Mabon” Abraham, a labor leader responsible for improving miners’ working conditions in Wales, (Mabon is a colloquialism for “young leader” in Welsh) and took place on the first Monday of each month.

Since the 1970s, the autumnal holiday Mabon has gained wide acceptance as a Wiccan and neo-pagan celebration in North America. The Celts, however, didn’t observe the autumnal equinox as much as the cross-quarter days of Lughnasadh (early August) and Samhain (Halloween), the latter of which was Celtic New Year.

The “Second Harvest” is known by many names: Cornucopia, Wine Harvest, Harvest Home, and the Feast of Avalon.

Avalon, one of the many Celtic names for the Land of the Dead, literally means the “land of apples…Celebrating new-made wine, harvesting apples and vine products, and visiting burial cairns to place an apple upon them were all ways in which the Celts honored this Sabbat.

Edain McCoy, Celtic Myth & Magick

It’s a joyous celebration, but whereas the spring festivals celebrate birth and fertility, at the time of the harvest, Mabon participants remember their ancestors.

A similar tradition exists in Japanese culture. On the equinox, the Japanese visit the graves of their ancestors. It is known as O-higan, or “the Other Shore.” Buddha is believed to walk the earth when night and day are equally divided.

Mabon is also known by variants of Fomhair. In Gaelic, the months of September and October are the only two to share a name: Mi Mean Fomhair and Mi Deireadh Fomhair: mid-harvest month and end-harvest month.

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Lammas and Lughnasadh

August 1, 2008 at 3:55 am (Celtic, Europe, Pagan)
Tags: cross-quarter days, lammas, lughnasadh, wicca

Today is Laghnasadh Day! Not to be confused with Lasagna Day, which was Tuesday.

Also known by its more Christian name, Lammas, aka “Loaf-mas”, Laghnasadh marked the time of year villagers would celebrate the first Harvest, on or around August 1, by baking and sharing bread from the first grain of the season.

Lughnasadh is a cross-quarter day—days that fall directly between equinoxes and solstices—the others being Imbolc (Candlemas), Beltane (May Day), and Samhain (Halloween).

The holiday would have been celebrated by the Celts starting at sundown (on the 31st) until the following day.

“Beth Owl’s Daughter” points out that July 31 is also Harry Potter’s Birthday! Coincidence?

Today the ancient pagan tradition is carried on by wiccans and is becoming increasingly popular in neopaganism.

from http://jksalescompany.com/dw/wicca_calendar.html

http://thunder.prohosting.com/~cbarstow/lammas.html

Lughnasadh recipes

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Candlemas and Groundhog Day

February 2, 2008 at 6:09 pm (Celtic, Europe, Pagan, cross-quarter days)
Tags: Candlemas, Groundhog Day

Continued from

Holy Groundhogs of Jesus: Part 1

Egeria’s 4th century description of Jerusalem’s annual celebration gives evidence that the Presentation/Purification was not “invented” to stem other pagan holidays; however, its popularization and transformation in the West into Candlemas was indeed a response to the pagan festivals of Europe.

Candlemas

Candlemas represents the day the priest would bless the candles to be used throughout the year. Originally…

“Roman Christians borrowed the practice of using candles in the religious services from the Romans, and in AD 494 Pope Gelasius I set the day of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary at the time of the popular Lupercalia.”

All Around the Year, Jack Santino

Scott Richert writes:

“Originally, the feast was celebrated on February 14, the 40th day after Epiphany (January 6), because Christmas wasn’t yet celebrated as its own feast, and so the Nativity, Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, and the feast celebrating Christ’s first miracle at the wedding in Cana were all celebrated on the same day. By the last quarter of the fourth century, however, the Church at Rome had begun to celebrate the Nativity on December 25, so the Feast of the Presentation was moved to February 2, 40 days later.“

On February 2 though the festival now competed with the Celtic Imbolc (or Oimelc) on February 1 and 2. A candle would be lit in every window to honor the Mother Goddess Brigit who was associated with fire.

Imbolc marked the day between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. Today we would consider Imbolc to be the middle of winter and the equinox of late March to be the beginning of spring. But in Celtic and Germanic cultures the equinox marked the middle of spring, and Imbolc the beginning. Though the weather was at its worst, February held the first visible clues to the changing of the season, such as the increasing daylight and lactation of livestock.

Huntington Flowers

(photo © A. Goetze)

In the days before meteorologists, various cultures had their own way of predicting the weather.

In February northern Europeans who were not on the Gregorian calendar would have to look to nature to determine any signs of the winter dissipating. Bears, badger, and hedgehogs, as well as birds and plants and streams. However these were not attached to any specific date. Indeed the idea of a bear coming out of hibernation–or any animal–on February 2, was not only absurb, it was too early.

The Christian candlemas merged with these older prognostication traditions.

As the old saying goes:

If Candlemas be dry and fair

Half o winter’s yet to come and mair,

If Candlemas be wet and fowl

Half o winter’s gane at Yule.

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright

Winter will have another fight.

If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain

Winter won’t come again.

And in Germany:

“The badger peeps out of his hole,

If he finds snow, walks abroad

But if he sees the sun shining

he draws back into hole.”

(Let’s just assume it sounds better in German.)

German settlers in Pennsylvania brought the tradition to the United States in the 1700s, using a groundhog rather than a badger. In 1752 Britain and its colonies adopted the Gregorian calendar, resulting in a 12-day shift in calendar. (September 2, 1752 was followed by September 14, 1752.)

The resulting synthesis of these traditions in America was recored by James Morris, a shopkeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

On February 4, 1841 he writes:

“Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.”

Today, the most famous groundhog in America is Punxsutawney Phil, who began officially predicting the weather for the proud people of Punxsutawney way back in 1886. Phil has managed to predict the coming of spring a whopping 39% of the time. (This is 2% more than the average Canadian groundhog.)

Our lives are far less dependent on the weather than in ancient and medieval times. But new age religions have created a resurgence of Imbolc and other seasonal pagan rituals, focusing instead on the purification of the spirit and on the connectivity between all living things.

Wilson’s Almanac February 1

Wilson’s Almanac February 2

Maria Lichtmess - German traditions in February

February Facts, Customs and Traditions

Comments

Holy Groundhogs of Jesus

February 2, 2008 at 7:41 am (Celtic, Christian, Europe, Pagan, cross-quarter days)
Tags: Candlemas

February 2 marks the sacred day in ancient Jerusalem when Jesus’s woodchuck poked its head out of the ground and declared six more weeks of Imbolc.

Wait, no. Confusion.

Hmmm….

Okay, so is Groundhog Day the modern equivalent of the Purification of Mary? Is Candlemas a pagan holiday? And how often is Puxasawquantalahacwney Phil the Prognosticating Groundhog right?

Buckle down and get ready for a wild ride of 2000 years of prognostication.

February 2nd marks the day Mary and Joseph took their 40 day-old baby Jesus to the temple for presentation and purification, as the Jewish laws of the time commanded:

“A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremoniously unclean for 7 days…Then the woman must wait 33 days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” - Leviticus 12

Luke 2:22 describes Mary’s purification ceremony:

“When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord…”

where the devout Simeon beheld the 5 week-old baby and proclaimed:

“Mine eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.“

The first recorded commemoration of the event comes from the famous globe-trotting 4th century nun Etheria (also Egeria) on her trek to Jerusalem. She writes:

“The 40th day after the Epiphany is undoubtedly celebrated here with the very highest honor, for on the day there is a procession, in which all take part…and all things are done in their order with the greatest joy, just as at Easter. All the priests preach, and after them the bishop, always taking for their subject the part of the Gospel where Joseph and Mary brought the Lord into the Temple on the 40th day, and Symeon and Anna the prophetess…saw Him..and of that offering which His parents made.“

(The Presentation of Jesus)

That it was celebrated as far back as 380 AD in Jerusalem gives credence to the Christian notion that the Presentation/Purification was not “invented” to stem previous pagan holidays such as the Roman feasts of Juno Februata or Lupercalia and the Celtic Imbolc.

Also, February 2 does fall 40 days after Christmas.

However, according to Etheria the ceremony was known only as “40th day after the Epiphany,” not “40th day after the birth.” And it was celebrated on February 14 rather than February 2nd.

The changing of the date and the emphasis on purification came when the holiday was celebrated in Rome.

The Romans considered February the “month of purification,” named after Februus, the god of death and purification. The Lupercalia in the middle of the month, dedicated to the founder of Rome, was a holiday of purification. (The middle of the months were the most auspicious days for the Romans. Originally the full moon marked the middle, or “Ides” of the month while the new moon marked the beginning and end of each month.)

There is no record of the emphasis on “Purification of the Virgin” until the holiday reached Rome.

In the 1970s the Catholic Church changed the name to the “Presentation of Christ in the Temple,” reducing the emphasis on Mary’s purification.

In Latin American and some European countries the holiday still refers to the Virgin Mary:

Peru, Bolivia: Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria

Brazil: Festa de Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes Porto Allegre

Germany: Maria Lichtmess

Stay tuned for the exciting transmutation of Candlemas and Groundhog Day in:

Holy Groundhogs of Jesus: Part 2!

Links:

Wilson’s Almanac February 1

Wilson’s Almanac February 2

Maria Lichtmess - German traditions in February

Candlemas

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the 1st of February belongs to Brigid…

February 1, 2008 at 6:43 pm (Celtic, Europe, Pagan, cross-quarter days)
Tags: Brigid, Imbolc, women

Brigid was a Celtic goddess whose festival was celebrated on February 1st and 2nd. Brigid’s Day, or Imbolc, heralded the middle of Winter and anticipated the coming of Spring. It was a festival of purification. (The word February itself comes from the Latin Februus, the god of purification and the dead.)

Brigid's 3 incarnations

(3 incarnations of Brigid)

The Catholic church has been at odds with Brigid’s legacy for most of its existence. The bishops of Ireland found the goddess’s pagan following to be too deeply embedded in local tradition to be stomped out. Even the newly-converted Irish Christians refused to stop worshipping their exalted patroness. The Church decreed, If you can’t win ‘em, join ‘em. Brigid became Saint Brigid.

Over the centuries two Brigids emerged. One Brigid was transformed into Mary’s “midwife” at the birth of Jesus. (The position of Jesus’s mother was taken.)

In the other the she became the daughter of a Druid father ( and in some stories of a Christian mother from Portugal kidnapped by pirates!) and was named after the Celtic goddess. She lived from 451 to 525. She was known for her generosity as a young woman, and devoted herself to God, deflecting proposal after proposal from eligible suitors. She was baptized by St. Patrick himself and became a devout nun and Abbess, eventually founding the Abbey at Kildare in the 5th century.

In the Celtic tradition the Abbey at Kildare is believed to have preceded the so-called Saint herself. It was an ancient shrine to the Goddess before Christianity ever reached the Emerald Isle. There priestesses kept alight an eternal flame at the shrine until the 1220s when a Bishop, angered by the Abbess’s ‘no men allowed’ policy and the Druidic rituals, ordered the sacred flame to be put out.

The last insult to Brigid was her expulsion from the list of Saints in the 1960s. During Vatican II she was decanonized due to insufficient proof of her existence, after volumes of creative embellishment written about the supposed nun’s life and deeds over the centuries.

Brigid is affiliated with wisdom, healing, metal-work or craftmanship, flames and fire, and childbirth, even though she was a virgin in the Christian tradition.

In The Goddess Path: Myths, Invocations & Rituals Patricia Monaghan writes:

“When we face the possible end of a relationship, when our bills are higher than the tiny resources we have, when we are emotionally drained by negative working conditions–it is all too easy to cling to what we have known previously…Brigid tells us otherwise…transformation is the only way to survive.“

Likewise Imbolc is the transformation of winter into spring.

“…the day on which you assume a new name; the day on which you pledge to make specific changes in your life. [Imbolc] could be thought of as a kind of goddess-specific New Year’s Eve.“

In writing of St. Brigid, the Catholic Patroness of Ireland, (1907) Joseph Knowles notes:

“St. Brigid received from her people a worship which history accords no other saint…She was the light that shone over their Island to direct the footsteps of the daughters of Erin in the paths of virtue and sanctity. In speaking of her they discarded the prefix Saint, and called her, in homely, yet reverent fashion, “Mo Brighe”–or “My Bride.“

Note how Knowles reverses the carry-over from Brigid’s pre-Christian goddesship.

In the British Isles Brigid’s Feast and Imbolc merged with Candlemas. Both involves the ancient druidic lighting ceremony and purification rites, originally meant to honor Brigid. Some calendars list February 1 as Imbolc, others February 2. Most likely the celebration began on the evening of February 1 and concluded the following day, as was the tradition of the time.

On Brigid’s Day, Selena Fox, author of Lore and Riutals recommends:

“Do a self purification rite with Elemental tools–

cleanse your body with salt (Earth)

your thoughts with incense (Air)

your will with a candle flame (Fire)

your emotions with water (Water)

and your spiritual body with a healing crystal (Spirit)

Bless candles that you will be using for rituals throughout the year.

Invoke Brigid for creative inspiration.

Take a Nature walk and look for the first signs of Spring.”

One ritual of Brigid’s Day was to plant or hang straw cross from the previous year’s harvest around the outside of the house and in the rafters in honor of the goddess of flame, to protect the house from fire. “An odd gesture,” writes Patricia Monaghan, “for a collection of old straw ornaments in the attic seems to encourage, rather than prevent, house fires.”

Brigid and her Cross