03-24-2008, 07:51 PM
I don't celebrate easter.
But I had a nice Ostara.
But I had a nice Ostara.
03-25-2008, 09:18 PM
03-26-2008, 02:06 AM
03-26-2008, 03:12 PM
03-26-2008, 06:28 PM
03-26-2008, 10:01 PM
03-26-2008, 10:26 PM
EvilZakkie Wrote:
Luai_lashire Wrote:
I don't celebrate easter.
But I had a nice Ostara.
But I had a nice Ostara.
I always thought it was Eostre... Are there lots of variations?
Yep. Actually, it started out closest to Ostara, then mutated to Eostre, which is where the Christian name of "Easter" roots from. Just about everything associated with Easter is absorbed or mutated from the original Pagan holiday, except of course for the whole "rebirth of christ" thing. 
Korrigan Wrote:
Did you plant?
Nope, sadly where I live it is still way too cold. We actually had snow a couple days after Ostara. 
The weather's been bad enough that we didn't even have our traditional egg hunt until today!
03-26-2008, 11:38 PM
03-27-2008, 01:23 AM
lol, yes, many aspects of the Christian faith have parallels (often very close ones) in other traditions- some of them are possible influences, some aren't. But the Christian faith didn't just pop out of nowhere, it evolved out of existing traditions, most notably Judaism, and then over the length of it's existence it absorbed yet more aspects of other faiths! There's no evidence that I know of that the death and resurrection of Jesus idea was adapted from an older faith, but most of the rest of it was, to be sure; and either way, died-and-reborn or died-and-came-back-to-life are VERY common themes in all religions because death and life are so very important to us humans!
If we want to get much deeper into it than that, though, I think we'd better start a new thread so we don't COMPLETELY derail this one!
(Marcia- different people define it differently, but my understanding is that a "kitchen witch" is a pagan (usually wiccan) who does much of their magic through household activities and cooking and accesses their spirituality through those activities)
If we want to get much deeper into it than that, though, I think we'd better start a new thread so we don't COMPLETELY derail this one!
(Marcia- different people define it differently, but my understanding is that a "kitchen witch" is a pagan (usually wiccan) who does much of their magic through household activities and cooking and accesses their spirituality through those activities)
03-27-2008, 01:41 PM
03-29-2008, 12:13 AM
Tigger_the_Wing Wrote:
I think that it is a good idea for festivals to be celebrated together, even if the same festival means different things to different peoples at different times!
The ancient Celtic world had four main festivals; as each new day started at sunset, thus the day followed the night, so each new year started at the beginning of the dark half of the year 'Gamh' i.e. the first of November. As this was the 'gap between the years' the dead could move around freely, which is the basis of the ghosts of Hallowe'en.
Then each quarter year was dedicated to a different god or goddess;
1st February:Brigit, goddess of fertility, learning and healing.
1st May: Beltaine, after Bel, god of fire and the first day of the bright half of the year, 'Samh'.
1st August: Lughnasad, after Lugh, god of the harvest. I have a grandson named Lughaidh.
I do not know where other festivals were celebrated, or when; the Christian calendar adopted so many from different cultures. It was easier to turn an existing festival into a Christian one, on the pretext of it being the anniversary of Christ's birth or death, for example, than it was to forbid its celebration outright; as Cromwell found out when he tried to ban Christmas.
By the time Christianity took hold in Britain, the country was a hodge-podge of assorted races, cultures and religions thanks to the Roman occupation.
The ancient Celtic world had four main festivals; as each new day started at sunset, thus the day followed the night, so each new year started at the beginning of the dark half of the year 'Gamh' i.e. the first of November. As this was the 'gap between the years' the dead could move around freely, which is the basis of the ghosts of Hallowe'en.
Then each quarter year was dedicated to a different god or goddess;
1st February:Brigit, goddess of fertility, learning and healing.
1st May: Beltaine, after Bel, god of fire and the first day of the bright half of the year, 'Samh'.
1st August: Lughnasad, after Lugh, god of the harvest. I have a grandson named Lughaidh.
I do not know where other festivals were celebrated, or when; the Christian calendar adopted so many from different cultures. It was easier to turn an existing festival into a Christian one, on the pretext of it being the anniversary of Christ's birth or death, for example, than it was to forbid its celebration outright; as Cromwell found out when he tried to ban Christmas.
By the time Christianity took hold in Britain, the country was a hodge-podge of assorted races, cultures and religions thanks to the Roman occupation.
Multifaith calendar from the BBC: http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/tools/calendar/
I've not heard of the four quarter holidays being the main festivals, before; it's usually presented as a wheel of 8 festivals, with the Solstices and Equinoxes being the most important. These festivals are:
Imbolc, Imolg, or Oimelc (what you called "Brigit"; it's actually the holy day of the goddess Brigid or Brigit, but the day's name is properly Oimelc, derived from "Ewe's Milk", referring to the early-spring births of lambs);
Ostara or Eostre, the spring equinox;
Beltane;
Litha, the summer solstice;
Lughnassadh or Lammas;
Mabon, the autumnal equinox;
Samhain;
and Yule, the winter solstice, whose name has become synonymous with Christmas to most westerners.
The Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids have their own names for the solstices and equinoxes, but I can't ever remember them. I bet other groups have their own names for them as well.
03-29-2008, 12:19 AM
03-29-2008, 10:13 PM
Tigger_the_Wing Wrote:
I think that it is a good idea for festivals to be celebrated together, even if the same festival means different things to different peoples at different times!
Too bad we can't agree on a common date for Easter + Passover!
03-30-2008, 05:15 PM
Korrigan Wrote:
This is a losing argument Luai. But I totally love listening to you anyway! 
You are awesome!
You are awesome!
Heehee, thanks. I know I'm not going to get anywhere with it, but I just can't not say anything. It makes me ANGRY. I don't hold anything against christians, in fact a lot of of my close friends & people I look up to are christian; what I can't stand is people who are clueless about their own religion's history and CHOOSE to be that way. 
Quote:
It is my understanding that the other festivals were resurrected from other pre-Christian religions in the Nineteen-Sixties when a new interest in older faiths was ignited by the flower-power era.
The eight-point wheel, I believe, was created in America in the Nineteen-Seventies.
The eight-point wheel, I believe, was created in America in the Nineteen-Seventies.
It's true that a lot of "rediscovered" ancient traditions were actually invented in the modern era- a lot of them before 1960 actually. Wicca was introduced in 1954, a lot of it based on material from an earlier revival in 1920. Some of that was valid, based on the few surviving pagan traditions we have, and/or extracted from the adaptations the Christians made to Pagan traditions; some of it was conjecture. A small fraction of it was entirely invented.
In reference only to the festivals, from wikipedia:
Quote:
Most of the holidays of the Wheel of the Year are named after Pre-Christian Celtic and Pre-Christian Germanic religious festivals. However, a great deal of liberty has usually been taken with the forms and meanings of these festivals, due to the influence of turn of the century romanticism as well as the eclectic elements introduced by Wicca. The similarities between these holidays generally end at the shared names, as Wicca makes no effort to reconstruct these ancient practices.[4] Wiccans observe the festivals of the Wheel of the Year together in a form of universalism not corroborated by any historical continuity.[4]
There is no place in Europe where all eight festivals have been observed as a set, and the complete eightfold Wheel of the Year was unknown prior to modern Wicca.[4] In early forms of Wicca only the cross-quarter days were observed. However, in 1958 the members of Bricket Wood Coven added the solstices and equinoxes to their original calendar, as they desired more frequent celebrations. Their High Priest, Gerald Gardner, was away visiting the Isle of Man at the time, but he did not object when he returned, since they were now more in line with the Neo-druidism of Ross Nichols, a friend of Gardner's and founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.[5]
“ No known pre-Christian people celebrated all the eight festivals of the calendar adopted by Wicca. Around the four genuine Gaelic quarter days are now ranged the Midwinter and September feasts of the Anglo-Saxons, the Midsummer celebrations so prominent in folklore and (for symmetry) the vernal equinox, which does not seem to have been commemorated by any ancient northern Europeans.[4]
There is no place in Europe where all eight festivals have been observed as a set, and the complete eightfold Wheel of the Year was unknown prior to modern Wicca.[4] In early forms of Wicca only the cross-quarter days were observed. However, in 1958 the members of Bricket Wood Coven added the solstices and equinoxes to their original calendar, as they desired more frequent celebrations. Their High Priest, Gerald Gardner, was away visiting the Isle of Man at the time, but he did not object when he returned, since they were now more in line with the Neo-druidism of Ross Nichols, a friend of Gardner's and founder of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids.[5]
“ No known pre-Christian people celebrated all the eight festivals of the calendar adopted by Wicca. Around the four genuine Gaelic quarter days are now ranged the Midwinter and September feasts of the Anglo-Saxons, the Midsummer celebrations so prominent in folklore and (for symmetry) the vernal equinox, which does not seem to have been commemorated by any ancient northern Europeans.[4]
The quote at the end is a little inaccurate. We do know that both equinoxes were probably celebrated by the ancients, based largely on the astronomical alignments
towards the Equinoctial sunrises/sets in many stone circles throughout Great Britain.
My personal approach is not to exclude a practice if it isn't "authentic", but merely to accept that it's not ancient and practice it anyway. Take handfasting, for example. That's a modern invention, but it's a beautiful practice that I identify strongly with, so I incorporate it into my own practices (my bf and I were handfasted on the holy day of my patron deity, Brigid, on February 2nd). On the other hand, the concept of four elements aligned with the directions that was introduced by Wicca strikes me as silly, so while I am perfectly happy to let other people do it, I personally do not. To me, whether or not something is old is not the deciding factor in "authenticity"; it's whether or not it rings true. And it's perfectly valid to begin new traditions. My family didn't celebrate any holidays until about four years ago, and we've already established new family traditions based around the holidays we now celebrate. But I do like to know the facts about the traditions I am celebrating.
03-31-2008, 05:55 PM