Observation and Calculation: Laziness and the passage of time

 There are certain feasts and festivals that are considered "movable" in Christianity.  Easter is the most well known by the general public outside the churches.  But Easter is only movable because of laziness and an insistence on defining lunar feasts based a solar calendar.  As we talked about around that time earlier this year, Easter started out as the Sunday after Passover.  Passover is fixed, but obviously to the Hebrew calendar, not the Julian or Gregorian.  Passover is *always* the week of the 15th through 22nd of Nissan, which is sundown on the third Friday of Nissan until sundown of the next Friday.  So Easter was always 24th of Nissan.  But non-Jewish Christians didn't observe the moon, so they had to ask a Jew when it would occur, and, as relations got more and more strained between the two religions, the Christians wanted to know it themselves.  So they figured out a calculation, so they wouldn't have to observe.  And they did it based on a solar date, the equinox, and even that was set on the calendar by then, not observed.

Both the Hebrew and the Islamic calendar are based on observation and lunar cycles, not calculation and solar cycles.  The Jewish months aren't set, nor are the Islamic.  The Romans said, this month is this long and this month is this long.  The lengths are arbritary, not based on anything in nature.  Hence Julius Caesar was able to steal a day from February and put it in the month he renamed after himself, and Augustus did likewise.  But the Jewish months are based on observation and not arbitrary.  When the moon disappears from the final crescent into the dark of the moon, the new month starts.  And the Islamic, when the moon reappears after the new moon, in the first crescent.  But this varies.  First of all, because the moon isn't tied to the solar days.  Some lunar months are 29 days and some 30 days, or some people say 28 or 31, it's hard since the new moon doesn't last only one day, just as the Solstice is hard because there are three days real close.  So the length of the months are different from each other and based on observation, not the same, and not arbitrary.  The length of each month are pretty close to the same each year, day wise, but this isn't guarantied.  Even if it drifts, the Hebrew and Islamic calendar will still be consistant, because the exact length of each month doesn't matter and won't mess up other calculations.

That's the thing, we're lazy, so we prefer calculation to observation.  That's why the standing stones were more accurate.  As I said, nature isn't orderly and consistent.  We like to make laws and rules to define nature, to show its order and show it as static, but they always fall short, because nature is chaotic and dynamic, always changing.  Just look at the length of a year.  We have a nice calculation of 365.2425 days, but this is an average.  Each year is different in length.  It's pretty obvious it would vary, if you think about gravity.  When Jupiter or Mars are closer, earth is pulled out further, and when Venus or Mercury are closer, it's pulled closer to the sun.  These four planets aren't on a cycle relating at all to any of ours.  Depending on the timing of this, if the earth stays out further more of the year, the year is longer, but if it spends more time closer, the year is shorter.  The same thing happens with the lunar cycles, hence to the tides, and so on.

And even the "Law" of Gravity doesn't give the whole picture.  Even Newton saw that Mercury osculated in a way the Law couldn't account for, be he couldn't find a solution and no one else could, so they just kind of ignored it until Einstein looked at it and started from scratch and came up with the Specific Theory of Relativity, which he later expanded.  The point is that *everything* effects everything else, so the universe and nature is far too complex to calculate.

So calculation will only give averages, not specifics.  To really know the cycles, it takes observation.  In Genesis, G-d says, "Let there be lights in the firmament of the heaven to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs, and for seasons, and for days and years; and let them be for lights in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth."  They are signs.  A sign is meaningless if it isn't observed.  The seasons, the days, and the years, are seen watching these signs, not calculated with an easy formula.  If the earth took an extra day to make it around the sun, or the moon an extra day to make it around the earth, how many people would even notice?  And if we noticed, would it be when it happened, or afterwards when the calculations start failing?  Would we change the calendar, or just pretend it didn't happen?  And if we changed it, would we just change the calculation and hope it happened again the next year, or watch and wait and observe and see what happens?

Do we as a modern people notice the signs and omens around us every day?

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Music of Ecstasy

The following is my Ecstasy playlist.  I'd love to just turn it on and dance in ecstasy for an hour or so, but I never have the time.  Some of them are great for ecstatic trance, and I've used some of them that way.

1. A Place in the Hills - Bethany de Maio
2. Harvest of The Moon - Steeleye Span
3. We Will Dance - David Ruis
4. The Old Ways - Loreena McKennitt
5. Shalott - Emilie Autumn
6. The Lady Of Shalott - Loreena McKennitt
7. All Souls Night - Loreena McKennitt
8. Spirit Of The Sovereign Lord - Andy Park
9. The Mystic Dream - Loreena McKennitt
10. Starkindler - Michael Card
11. Did You Feel The Mountains Tremble? - Delirious?
12. The Bonny Swans - Loreena McKennitt

לס, the 179th Gate

Long ago, I started a series of posts on the 231 Gates mentioned in the Sepher Yetzirah, the Book of Creation (or Foundation).  I posted a summary, then the first three gates, in my LiveJournal, then took a break and never got back to then.  A person approached me a few days ago, asking me what my thoughts were on the Samech/Lamed Gate.  So I wrote up the following in the form of the three I had done before.

(The LiveJournal posts can be found at http://muninnskiss.livejournal.com/tag/kabbalah%3Agates.)

The 179th of the 231 gates is לס, Lamed Samech.

ל - Lamed - Ox Goad, Staff, Prod, Go Forward, Tongue, To Learn, To Teach, Secret Heart of Eve, Tower Soaring in the Air, Heart that Understands Knowledge
סַ - Samech - Prop, Support, Turn, Beginning, End, Endless Cycle, Equality, To Be Satisfied with Your Portion, Dependency, Support of Heaven by Earth and Earth by Heaven.

סַל, Cal - Basket (woven of rods)
בָּלַס, Balac - To gather figs, tend sycamore trees.  [root]
סָלָה, Calah - To make light of, toss aside, to flout, reject, to weigh, balance, to be weighed.  [root]
סֶלֶה, Celah - To lift up, exalt, Selah, a technical musical term probably showing accentuation, pause, interruption
סֻלָּם, Cullam - Ladder

סַל, Basket, is the heart of this gate.  This is a round or oval basket woven of slender rods, or reeds, or rushes, tightly woven, a wicker basket woven tight enough to be water proof.  Though it's not the word used, this can be seen in the basket Moses' mother placed him in.  Samech is the supports the rods, the reeds, the rushes, that form the support for the basket, the outside of it.  You can see Samech in the shape of the basket.  Lamed is that which is inside the basket, hidden, the secret knowledge, the occult knowledge, the dark space within.  And the hollow, round basket with a secret within is of course a Womb.  While Mem is the Womb of Creation, the Womb from which the physical, the revealed, the manefest, comes from, Samech is the Womb of Wisdom, Womb of Understanding, Womb of Knowledge.  Mem is the lower Womb, and Samech, pregnant with Lamed, is the upper Womb.

The meaning of a tower in the air, Lamed, and of the cycle of Samech gives us a tower, spinning without motion, which is the heart of Mystery.

Lamed (30) + Samech (60) = 90 which is Tzaddi.  Tzaddi is the fish hook or to hunt, but the newer name, Tzaddik means righteous, and the Aramaic word means Chaos.  Tzaddi is total, complete wisdom, but the wisdom below and the wisdom above, like Samech which the complete cycle, the the beginning and the end, which are one and the same.  90 is full consciousness, also complete and total, like the circle of Samech.  In the Manna and it is Mem, water, everything we need to survive, complete and total.  But when is a basket total and complete?  When it's full.  So we come back to Lamed within Samech.  90 of course reduces to 9, which is Tet, the Good, Tov, serpent.  We've all seen the cobra rising up out of the basket to the music of the snake charmer.  The serpent is often associated with teaching of man.  The most well known verion, or course, is the serpent teaching Eve and through Eve Adam to become like G-d (for good or for ill).  Lamed is the teacher.  And if you look closely, you will see that Lamed is a slithering serpent, and Samech is a curled one.  The symbol from Greece of the snake, the Ouroboros, eating it's own tail.  Or Jörmungandr, the Midguard Serpent in Norse mythology, encircling the world.

The lesson of the 179th gate is creating a place for the wisdom, the understanding, the knowledge we receive.  Create an outer support for an inner secret.  Make the basket and it will be filled.  And allow it to be filled.  Listen, digest, take in the teachings that come to you and allow then to fill that space you prepared, the place where only you will know what fills it.  And when it is full, when you've chewed it over, you will find the Mystery buried within.

FFF,

~Muninn's Kiss

The True Meaning of Celebrations...

The issue with any calendar, the reason it will have issues, is because nature isn't exactly set patterns that can be predicted and set down in a mathematically defined calendar.  So we keep refining the calendar to try to better reflect nature, but never get there.  So we have many ancient calendars that were lunar based, 13 28 day months, so 364 days a year, and others that are solar based, but 12 30 day months, so 360 days, and some have an extra 5 days outside to get it closer.  Both of those  wander slowly over the decades.  So the Julian tried to fix this by having 365 days with a leap day every four years, but even that wandered by three days every four centuries, and got ahead, so the Gregorian tried to correct this by first resetting it to where it had wandered from, then taking out some leap days to avoid the wander.  And later we added a leap second, but it still doesn't exactly work.

Because the solar year is tied to the rotation around the sun, not the daily rotation of the earth.  The two aren't connected at all.  Just as the moon's monthly cycle isn't tied to either.  You can't define a solar year, a lunar month, or an earth day by each other.  So no calendar will ever work 100% the way intended.

All the calculator does is convert between the different calendars, not define exactly when the solstice or equinox or cross-quarter really occurs.

But the feast days were defined by the Julian calendar, not by the true dates of the event that earlier existed.  In the two examples you listed, more than likely, that was when the Solstice was thought to be at, because that was probably when the Solstice was when the Julian calendar was first created, so we kept that date, ie, December 25, even though we adjusted the calendar, so the Solstice lands on December 21 or 22 depending on the year, yet Christmas is three to four days off.  The Solstice hasn't moved, just the calendar day it lands on.

If we want to go by the calendar, we won't stay accurate to the astronomical event, and if we go by the astronomical event, we won't be consistent to the calendar.  But is it the calendar that truly matters?  And is it the astronomical event that really matters?

We say that the Autumn Equinox is the beginning of Autumn, the Winter Solstice is the beginning of Winter, the Spring Equinox is the beginning of Spring, and the Summer Solstice is the beginning of Summer.  But where is this true?  And when?

In Argos, there were two Horae, who represented Summer and Winter, but in Greece, there were three, basically bloom, growth, and harvest, Spring, Summer, and Autumn.  Later, the became four, from which our seasons come, before they became the hours, of which there were nine or ten, and later 12, which became our 24, 12 of night, 12 of day, at the Solstices.

In Wyoming, Winter begins some time between September and December, depending on the year, but always well before the Solstice, usually closer to the cross-quarter, Samhane or whatever name.  Spring usually doesn't come until May or June, so later than the Equinox, closer to the cross-quarter, Beltaine or whatever name.  Summer doesn't usually start until well into July, after the Summer Solstice, and Autumn starts early August to late September, depending on the year, usually well before the Equinox.  So the feasts, the Solstices, the equinoxes, the cross-quarters, Don't match too well.  And it varies from year to year.  Two years ago, Winter came mid September and snow fell and stayed until mid June, Spring was a month, then Summer lasted until late September.  Last year, Autumn went from late September until mid November, and Winter from then until a week after May Day.  But that was in the valley.  In the mountains, a half hour from town, all the roads were closed under twelve feet of snow until mid July this year.  And Autumn started around Labor Day, which was September 5 this year.  Snow came last Saturday, about a foot, but it's definitely still Autumn now.  It was back up to the 60s F the last two days.

So you can't match the seasons to a calendar, nor to astronomical events.

What are we actually celebrating at the Solstices?  The Equinoxes?  The Cross-Quarters?  The Feast Days?  The Saint Days?  Any other day?  That's what we really need to decide.  That's what will tell us when they should occur.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

Six New Books, From Inanna to the Grail, From Mongolia to the Modern World

Yesterday, I bought three new books from Night Heron, the local used bookstore, and ordered three from Amazon, which will be here in a couple weeks.

Starhawk is the author of the famous book Spiral Dance.  She is a Feri initiate who went out and did her own thing.  This book, Truth or Dare, is a look at the nature of Power and how to find us in our lives to create change in our lives and communities.  It uses the myth of the descent of Inanna, in several different retellings, to present this idea.  It uses the descent to show how we need to identify and shed off the things that hold us back.

This book, Elements of the Grail Tradition by John Matthews, looks at the test, trials, and initiations found in the Arthurian and Grail legends in the pursuit of the Grail, from the most ancient known Celtic legends up through the Middle Ages, to identify what the Grail truly is.

This book is by my friend Francesca De Grandis.  I've been wanting to get Goddess Initiation since I picked it up in the Tattered Cover down in Denver a year or so ago, before I knew Francesca and didn't notice who the author was.   I was very excited to find it here in town.  The book is basically a year long lesson plan on how to find your inner goddess and your priesthood.

This book, The Book of Qualities by J. Ruth Gendler, is basically a book of personifications of common human qualities.  A friend of mine from of mine from high school posted a piece about Beauty from it on Facebook and it really touched me, so I found it and ordered it.  It looks amazing.

This book is a guide to Mongolian and Siberian shamanism.  The author, Sarangerel, is actually trained in Mongolia.  She was born in the US but of a Mongol bloodline, and traveled to Mongolia and did the work and study and research to truly know the tradition and the people of her ancestors, then share it with world.  This book is her introduction to the tradition, including rituals and techniques.  It is one of the major sources for one of the books I'm reading, Calling Down the Spirits.

This is Francesca De Grandis's newest book, just recently released.  It looks amazing.  It is about finding and realizing your dreams, seeing your own beauty, and finding your freedom.  I'm really looking forward to it arriving.


FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss

A Discussion at a Modern Crossroads

Her:

They say true crossroads are hard to find now a days because they've all been paved.

Him:

*chuckle*  Hard to find?  What do they call this?

Her:

A "square".

Him:

*puzzled*  Square?  It looks more like a narrow X to me.  Look, from there comes 7th Avenue, and there it crosses Broadway.  And 43rd Street there, 44th there, 45th there, and 46th Street there, all crossing 7th Avenue and Broadway.  How can it not be a crossroads?

Her:

They say in the South that only dirt roads can be crossroads.

Him:

I remember offerings to you at the paved crossroads of the Roman Roads.

Her:

Their memories aren't that long.  I recall your stone pillars at those Roman crossroads, and that sign there, the giant, phallic, red one with the Coke bottle on it isn't that much different, honestly, just taller.

Him:

Witches were hung in Britain at both paved Roman crossroads and the crossroads of the dirt High Roads, and people came to both to make deals with spirits and with both of us.

Her:

And musicians in the South coming to the crossroads to find you to make a deal for fame aren't that different than those looking for fame by playing at the Hard Rock over there, or that naked cowboy playing his guitar down there.

Him:

The money spent, the pilgrimages to this crossroads, the busy energy, the greed for fortune and fame.  They've forgotten our names, the crossroads are surround by buildings instead of forests, clearings, and gallows, the roads carry cars instead of feet or horses, the materials for paving have changed, but can't you feel it?  We're still worshipped.  They still come to the crossroads to make offerings to us or make deals with us.

Her:

From the streets of Athens to the Roman roads, from the streets of London to the High Roads, from the dirt roads of the South to the streets of New York City, nothing really changes.  It's all the same.  Only the names have changed.  They call it Time Square, but we stand here still, at the crossroads.

Ylim: Weaver, Seeress, Mask of the Grimr

I first met the Grimr in a book called the White Hart by Nancy Springer.  In it, she appears as an old weaver and seeress named Ylim.  She captivated my imagination when I read the following passage.  The imagery and feel was forever burned into my memory, my imagination, my soul.  I have encountered them in many guises since, but never with the power of that first encounter.  It will forever be what I think of, what I feel, what I know, when i think of them.

FFF,
~Muninn's Kiss