It always drags you forward, religion.
Take today's twin celebrations of Imbolc and Candlemas. As with most celebrations, strikes me that their co-incidence is just that - a coincidence, since one is dated as half way from the Solstice to the Equinox, while the other is dated as 40 days after Xmas, which is 9 months after the Annunciation which is dated at a "perfect" Good Friday (25 March), which is dated for a modified calculation of the day after Passover, which is based on the date of the full moon after the Vernal Equinox. Which is why Imbolc and Candlemas co-incide. So the really interesting "fact" in the co-incidence of former Western religious festivals and Christian ones is that the human gestation period is approximately 9 months. Phew.
Now Imbolc is, as much as anyone can tell me, about the lifecycle of sheep. About this time of year the ewes are getting ready to have their lambs - a sign of spring, and mutton to come. While Candlemas is about the cross. About the child who was born at Christmas, but can't stay in the stable anymore. We've been thinking about God-with-us, and now we're thinking about God-leading-us. Leading us to Jerusalem, and we know what happens there.
They're both forward-looking. Christmas and Yule were forward-looking - one to the lengthening of the daylight, one to the growing of the light. The Solstices are the tipping points - the length of the days change very slowly. You can rest there for a while, but the reminder is that, though at Winter Solstice the winter's coldest is to come, the days are growing longer. While the darkness is at its height, there's a light shining in it which the darkness can't recognise.
And now the length of days is racing ahead. Yet the shepherds must look to long nights of work as new life starts to force its way into the world, anticipating the Spring. And the Christian looks forward, too. To new Easter life,but that life springing from the bloodied ground of Good Friday. The light is growing, but that light shows up the darkness in people's hearts and lives.
Have a happy Imbolc or Candlemas, whoever you are.
"Easter is a moveable feast, meaning it is not fixed in relation to the civil calendar. The First Council of Nicaea (325) established the date of Easter as the first Sunday after the full moon (the Paschal Full Moon) following the northern hemisphere's vernal equinox. Ecclesiastically, the equinox is reckoned to be on March 21 (even though the equinox occurs, astronomically speaking, on March 20 in most years), and the "Full Moon" is not necessarily the astronomically correct date."
ReplyDeleteOh, make up your bloody mind, for God's sake!
I find it amusing that it's linked to the lunar cycle - a bit pagan, don't you think?
"a bit Jewish", rather than "a bit pagan", I would say.
ReplyDelete