The Significance of Holidays:
Currently, we celebrate holidays that tell of past miracles, or great historical moments in time. We have metaphors of time’s arrow, time’s cycle, death and rebirth. We relate to the cycle of time hopefully marked by belief in progress, or evolution. We anticipate a future in which things end in cataclysm or paradise. In order to progress, we must acknowledge that ideas of endings and beginnings are traditional ideas of time. Analog time created order and repetition of which the industrial revolution was born.
Circular faces of clocks were a product of technology and related to an idea of return. Lunar time and solar calendars created the grid where common time was observed. Later Digital Time, made of discrete dispassionate disposable moments with no connection to the past or future. Worst of all there is the material nihilism that pervades our world that devalues everything as meaningless. Now we believe in quantum time and cosmic time even though these concepts are imperceptible at the macro level of everyday life. Or collective consciousness embraces relativity while traveling at the speed of light, even though this abstract concept seems of negligible value in everyday life. Ideas that while interesting have no influence over the day to day.
These Are Arbitrary Antiquated Concepts Of Time. What Are The Benefits And Shortcomings? Do They Have Noticeable Effects?
Originally not an official festival, but celebrated by adherents to Mithraism as the birth of the new sun. The Emperor Aurelian was devoted to a single sun god and during his reign it became a public festival complete with chariot-racing in the Circus. He erected a temple to Sol Invictus in AD 274 How the …
The Origins of Perihelionism What Role Does The Variable Distance To The Sun Play In The Seasons On Earth And How Does That Affect Me? thought Experiment – Conscious connection to time The concept behind World Perihelion Day is based only in fact regardless of ideology. That earth is closest to the sun at one …
Inventing a Science Fictional Holiday (for smart people) Read More »
We are all familiar with the idea of holiday stress. That feeling that time is going by faster and faster from Autumn until New Years. Sometimes it is a feeling of losing control, insomnia or the surreal feeling of losing your mind. Usually this is attributed to the pressures of buying gifts, seeing family, travel, …
It seems strange that New Year is in the middle of the cold winter. Shouldn’t it be in spring time? Or winter equinox? Traditionally it was and many lunar calendars place it closer to the spring equinox than the winter solstice. Before 45 BC, the Roman calendar was a mess, and much of our so-called …
Why We Celebrate Christmas on Dec. 25 Is it Jesus’ birthday, an ancient marketing ploy, or something else? By Andrew Santella via Slate.com How did we end up celebrating a wintry Christmas? The Bible doesn’t directly explain why Christmas takes place in the winter. Was the Dec. 25 date really just a way to convert …
https://www.northernway.org/mysteryschool/tag/perihelion/ JANUARY ESOTERIC HOLIDAYS Jan 1 – Jan 31 January/Janus – Dedicated to Old Roman God-Goddess Janus – Jana, who knows both past and future. Jan 2 thru 3 Feast of Old Greek Goddess Hekate / Hecate– who guides all through transitions and crisis. Jan 3 or 4 Earth Perihelion – when the Earth is closest to the Sun. (It is …
Epiphany (Greek for “to manifest” or “to show”), is a Christian feast day which celebrates the “shining forth” or revelation of God in human form in the person of Jesus Christ. The feast falls on January 6. Western Christians commemorate the visitation of the Magi to the child Jesus on this day, i.e., his manifestation …
Ancient Roman Holidays & Festivals Compitalia – Late December or Early January Originally the Compitalia was a movable feast, one of the most important of the Feriae Conceptivae, whose dates were fixed by various presiding authorities including the consuls, praetor, priestly colleges or minor religious or political dignitaries. During the early Empire, its dates were …
THE BIRTHDAY OF THE SUN The pagans set aside the 25th of December as the birthday of the Solar Man. They rejoiced, feasted, gathered in processions, and made offerings in the temples. The darkness of winter was over and the glorious son of light was returning to the Northern Hemisphere. With his last effort the …
“Solstice” is a Latin word, by the way, coming to English from Old French and then Middle English, and originally derived from sol sun + status, the past participle of sistere to come to a stop, cause to stand. This makes sense if you think about the solstice as the sun’s path reaching an endpoint and then turning around and going the …
How the Roman calendar celebrated Solar New Year over 2000 years ago is interesting. We still carry on many of the same traditions. Moreover, the Timing of the dates of celebration moved forward in time when our modern Gregorian calendar was set. Interestingly the holidays maintain their position even though the calendar moved around them. …
Holiday musings: Reversal of fortune is one of the most common themes of Christmas stories and movies. Stories of personal crisis and loves won and lost seems to be inherent in the season. You would be surprised to know that this idea dates back to over 2000 years ago to the celebration of Saturnalia where …
Halloween’s origins date back to the ancient Celtic festival of Samhain (pronounced sow-in). The Celts, who lived 2,000 years ago in the area that is now Ireland, the United Kingdom and northern France, celebrated their new year on November 1. This day marked the end of summer and the harvest and the beginning of the …
Winter Solstice — from Eric Weisstein’s World of Astronomy As the Earth travels around the Sun in its orbit, the north-south position of the Sun changes over the course of the year due to the changing orientation of the Earth’s tilted rotation axes with respect to the Sun. ThisQuickTime movie illustrates the tilt of the Earth’s equatorial plane …
Ancient Roman Holidays & Festivals Saturnalia December 17 At first lasting only one day, Saturnalia was the Roman midwinter celebration of the Solstice* and the greatest of all the Roman annual holidays. In the late Republic it was extended to two or three days, celebrated over three days in the Augustan Empire and in the reign of Caligula extended …
Saturnalia Winter Solstice in Pagan Rome by Selena Fox This was first published for a workshop at 1993 Circle Sanctuary Community Yule Festival. Timing of Saturnalia varied during the course of Roman history. began as feast days for Saturn (December 17) and Ops (December 19). with Julian calendar, Saturnalia on December 17 & 18; Opalia …