Calendars

Rhonda Tharp

Active Member
Talking about New Years, it reminded me of the basis for our calendar - found this a few years ago:

From the Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets by Barbara Walker

There were two calendars - the "Julian" calendar and the peasants' unofficial, lunar, Goddess-given menstrual calendar. The lunar calendar's thirteen 28-day months had four 7-day weeks apiece, marking new, waxing, full and waning moon-sabbaths in the ancient form. Weeks are still lunar, but they no longer fit neatly into the solar month system. Thirteen lunar months gave 364-days per year (13x28), with one extra day to make 365. Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, witch charms, ballads and repositories of pagan tradition nearly always describe the full annual cycle as a "year and a day."

Chinese women established a lunar calendar 3,000 years ago, dividing the celestial sphere into 28 stellar "mansions" through which the moon passed. Among the Maya, every woman knew the "great Maya calendar had first been based on her menstrual cycles." Romans called calculation of time "menstruation" or knowledge of the menses. Gaelic words for "menstruation" and "calendar" are the same: miosach and miosachan. New moon sabbaths of ancient Latium were kalends, related to the Aryan name of Kali. For fear of disrupting the Goddess' transitions, activities of some kinds were forbidden on the seventh day of each lunar phase; thus sabbaths became "unlucky" or taboo. Because it was the time-honored custom, even the biblical God had to rest on the seventh day.

The ancient Hebrews took their calendar from Chaldea, lengendary home of Abraham, whose older name was Ab-sin, "moon father". Chaldeans were credited with the invention of astrology, now largely based on the movements of the sun; but the Chaldeans didn't study the sun. They were moon worshippers, believing the moon determined the fates of men by her movements through various houses of the zodiac. The same lunar myths were found in Egypt, northern Europe, Greece, and Rome. Latin kings were sacrificed at the three dark-day of the moon period called ides to insure the Goddess' safe return from the underworld. Greeks similarly made offerings at the Great Sabbath called Noumenia (New Moon). The other Great Sabbath was Dichomenia (Full Moon), when the Goddess stood at the peak of her cycle.

Even the saints' days of the medieval church were established by menology, literally "knowledge of the moon." The church's so-called movable feasts were movable because they were determined by lunar cycles, not solar cycles; thus they drifted erratically through the months of the canonical calendar. The most important of them, Easter, is still determined by the moon (first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox) at a time when the Goddess slew and reconceived the Savor or vegetation god for a new season.

More confusion was created by the fact that menstrual calendars reckoned the day from noon to noon, with the midnight hour in the central position; but solar calendars reckoned the day from midnight to midnight. The Saxon word den (day) really meant "night." In Shakespeare's time, people said goodnight by wishing each other good den, literally good "moon day". Old French nursery rhymes greeted the moon rising in the evening with "good morning madame moon." The meridian or high point of of noon used to indicate the full moon overhead at midnight hence its name Meri-dia or Mary-Diana, the Moon goddess. Superstitious folk talked of the daemonium merdianum, devil of the meridian, a diabolization of the Goddess. She was probably the second of the Slavic trinity of Fates (Zorya), called "she of the evening, she of the midnight, and she of the morning" in that order.

Egyptians and PreChristian Europe gave night precedence over day. Germanic tribes, Celts, Gauls, druids, the ancient Irish calculated "months, years, and birghdays in such a way as to make the night precede the day." Caesar noted the the Celts measured time by nights instead of days. Christian holy days were copied from pagan ones, displaced by 12 hours in their solar reckoning;therefore the older, heathen version of each festival was celebrated on the "Eve" of its Christian counterpart. From this arose the so-called devilish rites of May Eve, Midsummer Eve, Lammas Eve, All Hallows Eve, and Christmas Eve which was taken from the pagan Yule, and to a late date was stil called Night of the Mother.

The thirteen months of the menstrual calendar also led to pagan reverence for the number 13, and Christian detestation of it. Witches covens were supposed to be groups of 13 like the moon worshipping dancers of the moorish zabat (sabbat), to whom 13 expressed the three-in-one nature of the lunar goddess.

Some said number 13 was a bad number because Christ was the 13th in the group of apostles, thus the 13th member of any group would be condemmed to death. Actually it was the church's opposition to pagan symbolism that brought opprobrium on the number 13. Some feared to speak its true name, and it was euphemized as a "baker's dozen" or sometimes the "devil's dozen".

The heathen tradition persisted in such symbols as the 13 Treasures of Britain, probably lunar-month signs taken from a primitive list of zodiacal constellations. They were defined as a sword, basket, drinking horn, chariot, halter, knife, cauldron, whetstone, garment, pan, platter, chessboard, and mantle. The 13 menstrual months were symbolized in the Tarxien temple on Malta as a sow with 13 teats, like the Celts Sow-goddess Cerridwen. 13 moons of the menstrual calendar were suggested also by the English Twelfth Night custom of kindling twelve small fires and one large one, to represent the moon of the New Year.

13 = matriarchal
12= patriarchal
 

Rhonda Tharp

Active Member
Anyone know if these are incorrect?

January - Roman Janus
February - Celtic Februar
March - Roman Mars
April - Celtic Abril
May - Celtic May Day
June - Roman Juno
July - Roman Julius Caesar
August - Roman Augustus
September - Seven
October - Eight
November - Nine
December - Ten

Everything got bumped down by two because of July and August, right?
 

Camma

New Member
Hi Rhonda - I enjoyed your article - it always fascinates me how the male and female are separated so fundamentally in most mythology - and how this impacts on modern life. I never knew that early calendars were based upon menstrual cycles - although it makes sense as the menses of the woman would have been the only regular occurence at the time.
 

Alejandro

Active Member
Anyone know if these are incorrect?
January - Roman Janus
February - Celtic Februar
March - Roman Mars
April - Celtic Abril
May - Celtic May Day
June - Roman Juno
July - Roman Julius Caesar
August - Roman Augustus
September - Seven
October - Eight
November - Nine
December - Ten
The references to the Celts are incorrect. All the names of the months in the Roman calendar are originally Roman/Latin, although the exact meaning of "April" is apparently uncertain. Apart from the suggestion that it derives from Aphrilis (via Etruscan Apru, or from the Greek Aphrodite, since April was associated with Aphrodite's Roman counterpart Venus), the traditional etymology is from the Latin aperire, "to open," in allusion to its being the season when trees and flowers begin "to open" up.

February was the month of Februum, Latin for "Purification." During the full moon, in the middle of the month Februaris, "Of Februa," the Roman festival of Februa or Februatio, i.e., ritual purification (which consisted basically of spring cleaning/washing), was held. It was later incorporated into the Lupercalia. The god Februus was a later personification of purification and of this month.

May was the month of Maia, the Pleiad by whom Zeus/Juppiter became the mother of Hermes/Mercurius. She was identified with the Roman fertility goddess Bona Dea, whose festival was held in this month.
 

Caburus

Active Member
The word 'month' derives from the word 'moon', and a calendar based on observing the phases of the moon is just plain easier to count than one for the sun. It was not Goddess given, is was just an observation. The menstrual cycle co-inciding with a rough lunar cycle is just that, a rough allignment. Not all menstrual cycles are regular, nor do all womens' cycle coincide with each other. The phases of the moon are far more reliable (and are uninterrupted by pregnancies or menopause) for basing a calendar on than human biology.
 

Caburus

Active Member

The Geza Calendar, dated to the 10th Century BC. Contains one of the oldest known examples of Hebrew writing. Its purpose is unknown, but contains a list of 12 "months" attached to various crop activity. It reads:
Two months of harvest
Two months of planting
Two months are late planting
One month of hoeing
One month of barley-harvest
One month of harvest and festival
Two months of grape harvesting
One month of summer fruit
 
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