Post by wren on Oct 26, 2006 12:01:40 GMT -5
I received the following [edited] email on another list and wanted to share this same question here...
As it turns out the Celts as I am sure you know used a 22 day 13 month lunar callendar as opposed to the 30 Day 12 Month callander perfered by the Mediteranean cultures. As such the dates of fire festivals could swing wildly when compared to the solar callander we use now any where from mid octobre to mid novembre (irrespective of whether they used new or full moons) for Samhain. However it gets even more complicated because of the excentricities in the Earths orbit (precession, axis wobble and orbital drift) when everyting is taken into consideration, the year shifts backwards about one solar month over a 2000 year period
(roughly), which interestingly enough would mean that the Fire festivals if celebrated about the dates we currently celebrate them now would have all fallen on or about the equinoxes and solstices 2500 years ago.
So here is an intersting question, are the fire festivals fixed events on a lunar calladnder and unaffected by long term shifts in the orbital and seasonal patterns of the Earth, or are they directly linked to the cycles of the Earth in which case they are likely to be affected by long term changes in earths seasonal year and to a certain egre advances in human technology. If
the 4 fire festivals are historically linked to the solstices and equinoxes, then we should celebratethem on those days, they are linked to moons 6 weeks out from the solstices and equinoxes then perhaps we should continue celebrating the days where we do, however the most likely scenario is that
they were directly linked to seasonal changes and agricultural events which with modern tecnology and a wide range of climates and geographies across the northern hemishphere now (where Celts have all migrated) the dates can vary wildly from place to place across the world. To use an average for just America Samhain should probably corespond to Thanksgiving, Beltane to Easter, Lughnassadh to Independence day and I honestly don't have any idea whereto place Imbolc because I don't really see a need to celebrate it.
Isaac Bonewits [ADF]has written that even among recon pagans our pagan faiths need to reflect our society and values after all had the pagan societies not been over run by the Christians, they would have eventually developed new technology and science and would have industrialised and urbanised and their
faiths would have evolved naturally with the people (or given way to deism and agnosticism) so perhaps as an urban modern society and deffinately being part of one, we could hypothesise that we are being disengenuous by tacking our religious year to agrarian cycles which with technology aren't even entirely valid anymore. How many of us are farmers? Is it possible that we
need to find new natural cycles that have meaning to our modern urban society to couple our faith to?
Thoughts?
As it turns out the Celts as I am sure you know used a 22 day 13 month lunar callendar as opposed to the 30 Day 12 Month callander perfered by the Mediteranean cultures. As such the dates of fire festivals could swing wildly when compared to the solar callander we use now any where from mid octobre to mid novembre (irrespective of whether they used new or full moons) for Samhain. However it gets even more complicated because of the excentricities in the Earths orbit (precession, axis wobble and orbital drift) when everyting is taken into consideration, the year shifts backwards about one solar month over a 2000 year period
(roughly), which interestingly enough would mean that the Fire festivals if celebrated about the dates we currently celebrate them now would have all fallen on or about the equinoxes and solstices 2500 years ago.
So here is an intersting question, are the fire festivals fixed events on a lunar calladnder and unaffected by long term shifts in the orbital and seasonal patterns of the Earth, or are they directly linked to the cycles of the Earth in which case they are likely to be affected by long term changes in earths seasonal year and to a certain egre advances in human technology. If
the 4 fire festivals are historically linked to the solstices and equinoxes, then we should celebratethem on those days, they are linked to moons 6 weeks out from the solstices and equinoxes then perhaps we should continue celebrating the days where we do, however the most likely scenario is that
they were directly linked to seasonal changes and agricultural events which with modern tecnology and a wide range of climates and geographies across the northern hemishphere now (where Celts have all migrated) the dates can vary wildly from place to place across the world. To use an average for just America Samhain should probably corespond to Thanksgiving, Beltane to Easter, Lughnassadh to Independence day and I honestly don't have any idea whereto place Imbolc because I don't really see a need to celebrate it.
Isaac Bonewits [ADF]has written that even among recon pagans our pagan faiths need to reflect our society and values after all had the pagan societies not been over run by the Christians, they would have eventually developed new technology and science and would have industrialised and urbanised and their
faiths would have evolved naturally with the people (or given way to deism and agnosticism) so perhaps as an urban modern society and deffinately being part of one, we could hypothesise that we are being disengenuous by tacking our religious year to agrarian cycles which with technology aren't even entirely valid anymore. How many of us are farmers? Is it possible that we
need to find new natural cycles that have meaning to our modern urban society to couple our faith to?
Thoughts?