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L A D Y D A Y: The Vernal Equinox
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by Mike Nichols
Nowcomes theVernal Equinox,and theseason ofSpring reaches
it's apex, halfway through its journey from Candlemas to Beltane. Once
again, night and day stand in perfect balance, with the powers of light on
the ascendancy. The god of light now wins a victory over his twin, the god
of darkness. In the Mabinogion myth reconstruction which I have proposed,
this is the day on which the restored Llew takes his vengeance on Goronwy
by piercing him with the sunlight spear. For Llew was restored/reborn at
the Winter Solstice and is now well/old enough to vanquish his rival/twin
and mate with his lover/mother. And the great Mother Goddess, who has
returned to her Virgin aspect at Candlemas, welcomes the young sun god's
embraces and conceives a child. The child will be born nine months from
now, at the next Winter Solstice. And so the cycle closes at last.
We think thatthe customssurrounding the celebrationof thespring
equinox were imported from Mediterranean lands, although there can be no
doubt that the first inhabitants of the British Isles observed it, as
evidence from megalithic sites shows. But it was certainly more popular to
the south, where people celebrated the holiday as New Year's Day, and
claimed it as the first day of the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries.
However you look at it, it is certainly a time of new beginnings, as a
simple glance at Nature will prove.
In theRoman CatholicChurch, thereare twoholidays whichget mixed
up with the Vernal Equinox. The first, occurring on the fixed calendar day
of March 25th in the old liturgical calendar, is called the Feast of the
Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or B.V.M., as she was typically
abbreviated in Catholic Missals). 'Annunciation' means an announcement.
This is the day that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was 'in
the family way'. Naturally, this had to be announced since Mary, being
still a virgin, would have no other means of knowing it. (Quit scoffing, O
ye of little faith!) Why did the Church pick the Vernal Equinox for the
commemoration of this event? Because it was necessary to have Mary
conceive the child Jesus a full nine months before his birth at the Winter
Solstice (i.e., Christmas, celebrated on the fixed calendar date of
December 25). Mary's pregnancy would take the natural nine months to
complete, even if the conception was a bit unorthodox.
Asmentionedbefore, theolder Paganequivalentof thisscene focuses
on the joyous process of natural conception, when the young virgin Goddess
(in this case, 'virgin' in the original sense of meaning 'unmarried') mates
with the young solar God, who has just displaced his rival. This is
probably not their first mating, however. In the mythical sense, the
couple may have been lovers since Candlemas, when the young God reached
puberty. But the young Goddess was recently a mother (at the Winter
Solstice) and is probably still nursing her new child. Therefore,
conception is naturally delayed for six weeks or so and, despite earlier
matings with the God, She does not conceive until (surprise!) the Vernal
Equinox. This may also be their Hand-fasting, a sacred marriage between
God and Goddess called a Hierogamy, the ultimate Great Rite. Probably the
nicest study of this theme occurs in M. Esther Harding's book, 'Woman's
Mysteries'. Probably the nicest description of it occurs in M. Z.
Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon', in the scene where Morgan and Arthur assume
the sacred roles. (Bradley follows the British custom of transferring the
episode to Beltane, when the climate is more suited to its outdoor
celebration.)
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The other Christianholiday which gets mixedup in this isEaster.
Easter, too, celebrates the victory of a god of light (Jesus) over darkness
(death), so it makes sense to place it at this season. Ironically, the
name 'Easter' was taken from the name of a Teutonic lunar Goddess, Eostre
(from whence we also get the name of the female hormone, estrogen). Her
chief symbols were the bunny (both for fertility and because her worshipers
saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg (symbolic of the cosmic egg of
creation), images which Christians have been hard pressed to explain. Her
holiday, the Eostara, was held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Of course,
the Church doesn't celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by them,
so they planted their Easter on the following Sunday. Thus, Easter is
always the first Sunday, after the first Full Moon, after the Vernal
Equinox. If you've ever wondered why Easter moved all around the calendar,
now you know. (By the way, the Catholic Church was so adamant about NOT
incorporating lunar Goddess symbolism that they added a further
calculation: if Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, then
Easter was postponed to the following Sunday instead.)
Incidentally,this raisesanotherpoint: recently,some Pagantradi-
tions began referring to the Vernal Equinox as Eostara. Historically, this
is incorrect. Eostara is a lunar holiday, honoring a lunar Goddess, at the
Vernal Full Moon. Hence, the name 'Eostara' is best reserved to the
nearest Esbat, rather than the Sabbat itself. How this happened is
difficult to say. However, it is notable that some of the same groups
misappropriated the term 'Lady Day' for Beltane, which left no good folk
name for the Equinox. Thus, Eostara was misappropriated for it, completing
a chain-reaction of displacement. Needless to say, the old and accepted
folk name for the Vernal Equinox is 'Lady Day'. Christians sometimes
insist that the title is in honor of Mary and her Annunciation, but Pagans
will smile knowingly.
Anothermythological motifwhich mustsurely arrestour attentionat
this time of year is that of the descent of the God or Goddess into the
Underworld. Perhaps we see this most clearly in the Christian tradition.
Beginning with his death on the cross on Good Friday, it is said that Jesus
'descended into hell' for the three days that his body lay entombed. But
on the third day (that is, Easter Sunday), his body and soul rejoined, he
arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. By a strange 'coincidence',
most ancient Pagan religions speak of the Goddess descending into the
Underworld, also for a period of three days.
Why three days? If weremember that we arehere dealing withthe lunar
aspect of the Goddess, the reason should be obvious. As the text of one
Book of Shadows gives it, '...as the moon waxes and wanes, and walks three
nights in darkness, so the Goddess once spent three nights in the Kingdom
of Death.' In our modern world, alienated as it is from nature, we tend to
mark the time of the New Moon (when no moon is visible) as a single date on
a calendar. We tend to forget that the moon is also hidden from our view
on the day before and the day after our calendar date. But this did not go
unnoticed by our ancestors, who always speak of the Goddess's sojourn into
the land of Death as lasting for three days. Is it any wonder then, that
we celebrate the next Full Moon (the Eostara) as the return of the Goddess
from chthonic regions?
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Naturally, thisis the seasonto celebrate thevictory oflife over
death, as any nature-lover will affirm. And the Christian religion was not
misguided by celebrating Christ's victory over death at this same season.
Nor is Christ the only solar hero to journey into the underworld. King
Arthur, for example, does the same thing when he sets sail in his magical
ship, Prydwen, to bring back precious gifts (i.e. the gifts of life) from
the Land of the Dead, as we are told in the 'Mabinogi'. Welsh triads
allude to Gwydion and Amaethon doing much the same thing. In fact, this
theme is so universal that mythologists refer to it by a common phrase,
'the harrowing of hell'.
However,one mightconjecturethat thedescent intohell, orthe land
of the dead, was originally accomplished, not by a solar male deity, but by
a lunar female deity. It is Nature Herself who, in Spring, returns from
the Underworld with her gift of abundant life. Solar heroes may have laid
claim to this theme much later. The very fact that we are dealing with a
three-day period of absence should tell us we are dealing with a lunar, not
solar, theme. (Although one must make exception for those occasional MALE
lunar deities, such as the Assyrian god, Sin.) At any rate, one of the
nicest modern renditions of the harrowing of hell appears in many Books of
Shadows as 'The Descent of the Goddess'. Lady Day may be especially
appropriate for the celebration of this theme, whether by storytelling,
reading, or dramatic re-enactment.
For modernWitches, Lady Day isone of the LesserSabbats or Low
Holidays of the year, one of the four quarter-days. And what date will
Witches choose to celebrate? They may choose the traditional folk 'fixed'
date of March 25th, starting on its Eve. Or they may choose the actual
equinox point, when the Sun crosses the Equator and enters the astrological
sign of Aries. This year (1988), that will occur at 3:39 am CST on March
20th.
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