It’s… Groundhog day!
Posted: February 1, 2012 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: candlemas, february, groundhog Leave a comment »
Check out all the wonderful animal photos at National Geographic.com
Groundhog day is Candlemas in the old European Calendar. This is the day that Christmas or Yule decorations officially come down. Here is the full verse:
Winter Solstice 2011
Posted: December 21, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: Capricorn, holiday Leave a comment »
The Winter Solstice occurs on December 22nd this year.
At the Solstice, the Sun enters the part of the space-time continuum belonging to Capricorn. This is the official first day of Winter in the Northern Hemisphere. The word Solstice is derived from the Latin sol, or “Sun,” and stitium, or “stoppage.” At the Solstice, the Sun appears to both rise and set at the same spot on the horizon. On or around June 21, the Summer Solstice, the North Pole is tilted most directly Sunward. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere experience this as the longest day and shortest night of the year. Read the rest of this entry »
Happy Thanksgiving!
Posted: November 23, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: Plymouth Rock, thanksgiving, United States Leave a comment »
Celebrate the harvest, the beauty of Autumn, celebrate gratitude!
What did you learn in grade-school? I learned that Thanksgiving was celebrated by the Pilgrims , who wore tall hats, leggings and big gold buckles on their shoes. They were starving when they landed at Plymouth Rock and the local “Indians” taught them to place a dead fish into the ground with each corn seed that they intended to grow. The Pilgrims were so grateful that they invited the Indians to a harvest feast in late November and served turkey and pumpkin pie with a horn-of-plenty on their table as a center-piece.
The Great Pumpkin
Posted: October 30, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: Cooking, Halloween, holiday, Home, Jack-o-Lantern, Martha Stewart, pumpkin, recipe, smoothie, Turnip, weaving 2 Comments »
The Farmer’s Almanac says that Pumpkin carving began with the Irish tradition of carving turnips. They would put candles in them and place them in windows to scare the ghosts away on the Hallowed Evening. When they moved to the US, they discovered the more plentiful, easier to carve pumpkin and the rest is history.
Halloween!
Posted: October 26, 2011 Filed under: Calendar 1 Comment »
The traditional European festivals of Hallowe’en, Samhain, the Feast of the Dead and All Soul’s Eve’ are celebrated on or around October 31st in the Northern Hemisphere. In the Southern Hemisphere, this is the seasonal equivalent of our May Day. Samhain, the hallowed eve’ (or Halloween) marks the true end of Summer and the beginning of Winter’s quarter of the year, the portion of the year dedicated to the night forces. Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome Autumn!
Posted: September 23, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: Autumn, equinox, fall, libra, thanksgiving Leave a comment »
I am not feeling ready to welcome Autumn this year because it seems like Summer just arrived in Seattle. But, the Equinox is upon us so even though it still feels like Summer, it is time to get ready for the days to get shorter and for cooler weather to set in.
September 23rd is the Autumnal Equinox: The day the Sun enters Libra and the beginning of Autumn. In the same way that the Solstice marks the days of longest and shortest “light,” the Equinoxes mark the day of equal light. Nox is the Roman goddess of night so equinox literally means “equal night.” The glyph for Libra represents the setting sun expressing the balance between night and day. According to tradition, the Sun is “exalted” in Aries while halfway through its circuit along the ecliptic, it is in “fall” in Libra.
R U ready for Pawswalk 2011?
Posted: August 26, 2011 Filed under: Calendar, Dogstuff | Tags: 5k, dog, paws, rob Leave a comment »
Rob at the 2009 Paws Walk
Rob and I are registered for Paws Walk this year. It is the 20th anniversary for this fundraiser and it is always a lot of fun. Scott will be at the Wooden Boat Show in Port Townsend and Gracie isn’t ready for that big of a crowd yet so I’ll have to leave her home. Paws Walk is a 5k walk through beautiful Magnuson Park in Seattle. The dogs are on leash except for a segment that goes through the dog-park area. There is a vendor area where various pet-related services hand out samples. Volunteers are along the route handing out water bottles and dog treats. If you’d like to walk with us, just drop me an email!
Here is the link to my original blogpost.
To register on your own, here is the official PawsWalk website.
If you’d like to make a donation, this link is his fundraising website.
The Summer Solstice
Posted: June 18, 2011 Filed under: Calendar Leave a comment »
The word Solstice is Latin in origin and translates as, Sol =the Sun, + stitere =standing still. On June 21, the North Pole is tilted most directly Sunward. Those of us in the Northern Hemisphere experience this as the longest day and shortest night of the year. On December 21, the Winter Solstice, the North Pole is pointed away from the Sun giving us in the Northern Hemisphere, our shortest day, and longest night. This tilting of the Earth’s rotational axis gives us our seasons. During each Solstice, the Sun appears to both rise and set at the exactly opposite spot on the horizon. The Solar Calendars like Stonehenge and the Sun Dagger in Chaco Canyon, New Mexico operate by indicating this point.
Symbols of Summer:
The rose, the rampant vine and the bright sun. Modern symbols include flip-flops, icy pitchers of lemonade, beach umbrellas and baseball games! Read the rest of this entry »
Welcome Spring!
Posted: March 21, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: chocolate, easter, eggs, Ostara, Spring Leave a comment »
The Spring Equinox is the dawn of the new zodiacal year in the Northern Hemisphere. Don’t you just love the word “equinox?” I have to decide each time whether to say it with a short or long “e”. The equinoxes are the two times during the year when the dark of night and the light of day are in balance or equal. Another name for the Vernal Equinox is Ostara, from the name of a German Goddess of fertility, Oestarae. She is the deific equivalent of the Greco-Roman goddess, Aurora, the personification of the sunrise. Consider that the Sun rises in the East and her name is where East and Easter both come from. The Christian Easter date was decided by the Council of Nicaea to fall the first Sunday after the first full Moon occurring on or after the March Equinox. This effectively removed its observance from conflicts with either Ostara or Passover.
A creature associate of Ostara’s is the hare, AKA the Easter bunny. Several websites tell me that she is said to have transformed a bird into a rabbit in order to amuse the children who follow her everywhere, and even though the bird is now a hare, she still lays eggs, only now they are brightly colored eggs. Sound silly? It does to me too and the fact that multiple sources are repeating it probably means that they are just copying one from another since I can’t find any mythological rationale. The connection is probably far more likely that Spring is when the baby animals are born. Rabbits, baby chicks and lambs are indicative of fertility and fertility with Spring. The tropical zodiac is based on the seasons, in contrast to the sidereal zodiac, which is based on the constellations themselves. The sign corresponding to the Vernal Equinox is Aries, the ram.
There are many holidays and customs associated with March besides Easter. Click here to peruse a few.
Ostara’s place in the The Wheel of the Year.
Click these links to learn more about Spring and Equinoxes: Rites of Spring or March Equinox Explained.
I love this kind of thing, here is a site that discusses all the things that are wrong with Easter for Christians.
Animal Aid carries vegan chocolate bunnies and cream eggs.
Healthy Indulgences has a recipe for healthy creme eggs.
Happy St Patrick’s Day
Posted: March 17, 2011 Filed under: Calendar | Tags: corned beef, shamrock, Spring, St Patrick Leave a comment »Legend says St Patrick was born in Britannia in what is now Scotland and was then under Roman rule. He is believed to have been of noble birth, kidnapped a held by the Irish for 6 years. After he escaped from slavery, he returned to Ireland to preach and to convert the Irish to Christianity. Here is the story of the shamrock from Wikipedia:
Patrick described the trinity to his followers by referring to the clover or shamrock. This was a sacred plant to the Celts, honoring the triple Goddess, so using it as his analogy helped to create a bridge from the ancient to the new religion and contributed to his many “conversions.” This is the origin of the shamrock emblem we still associate with him. The leprechaun, also associated with St. Patrick’s Day, is an obvious reference to the elementals of Pagan Ireland.
Corned Beef tips from the USDA
Check out St Patrick’s Day.com
St Patrick from Scotland Online
