This seems like a normal thing to celebrate, if you are into celebrations. Here in the north, the days become longer than the nights. More light. Hooray.
S
'Course, that does mean that you are pagan
Does anyone celebrate the spring equinox
by Satanus 11 Replies latest jw friends
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love11
I guess I really don't know what's involved in celebrating that, but if going on a egg hunt counts, then yep.
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candidlynuts
can i dance naked in the woods to celebrate?
i'm up to scaring a few trees! whoo hoo!
i'm poor i dont celebrate anything!
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glenwoodswoman
I celebrated Spring Equinox......The days are getting longer but we still got 4 inches of snow yesterday. Maybe by Beltane it will be gone. Its not much fun dancing around the may pole when there is snow on the ground.. Even if your not naked.
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Satanus
Congratulations glensoodswoman. And a cool name.
Actually, i took note of it, but i didn't do anything special. I looked it up on the net, and found that there aren't that many cultures that used to mark it w a celebration or ceremony. What is yours called, glenwoodswoman?
We have these other things about the sacrifice of a human to an angry bloodthirsty god, which is so unlike nature (unless yhwh is an animal). If you grew up on a farm where ya grow stuff, then things like the equinox have meaning. People buying food from the stores never see where it comes from, or how it grows, just when it is on special. Makes me wonder about the artifiality in which we live. Artificial food, artificial religions. Thank the people that wrote the bible.
S
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glenwoodswoman
Hey S,
The equinox also has meaning if you have a connection to nature in general, I dont think you have to live on a farm for that, although youre right, if your livelyhood is tied to it, your bound to pay more attention to it. I live in the woods, I hike in them every day, and I am very aware of the changes going on this time of year. I dont celebrate it because of culture, I celebrate because of choice..and because I can..us pagans are like that.
Glenwoodswoman
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seeitallclearlynow
This was interesting on the subject of the spring equinox -
http://www.religioustolerance.org/spring_equinox.htm
I don't celebrate it or even give the time of year much thought; probably because, while the seasons do change here, there are no real extremes to really mark them, except for the high heat of summer.
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Sunnygal41
I didn't celebrate it, but, I was fully aware that it is indeed the spring equinox........I feel very connected to the natural flow of the world on which we live. T
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Faolan
Me and Gadget celebrated the equinox on the 20th with some very special friends. It's a fantastic time of year not just in that the days are getting longer - you can actually feel the sap rising and the whole earth coming to life with new buds and shoots, bumble bees and butterflies floating past and the animals preparing for their coming young. It's a great time to start planting seeds if you haven't already done so - I got into the garden at 8.30 this morning and starting potting up some seedlings and clearing the yard, it was lovely, so peaceful with the birds singing and me up to my elbows in soil, lol. Anyway, better stop here because I could keep going on this subject for ever !
Gentle breezes
Claire, x
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Satanus
Here, we still have some snow, but spring is just around the corner.
Thanks seeit, for the research. Most of the 'ancient' cultures did something or other to recognise the equinox. Only neopagans and surprisignly, the bahais do so now. I removed the christian and judaic from the list because they deny that they're nature connected.
ANCIENT BRITAIN: Both the solstices and equinoxes "were the highly sophisticated preoccupation of the mysterious Megalithic peoples who pre-dated Celt, Roman and Saxon on Europe's Atlantic fringe by thousands of years." The equinoxes were not otherwise celebrated in ancient Britain, until recent years.
ANCIENT IRELAND: The spring and fall equinox were celebrated in ancient times. A cluster of megalithic cairns are scattered through the hills at Loughcrew, about 55 miles North West of Dublin in Ireland. Longhcrew Carin T is a passage tomb which is designed so that the light from the rising sun on the spring and summer equinoxes penetrates a long corridor and illuminates a backstone, which is decorated with astronomical symbols. 19,20
ANCIENT GERMANS: Ostara, the Germanic fertility Goddess was associated with human and crop fertility. On the spring equinox, she mated with the solar god and conceived a child that would be born 9 months later on DEC-21: Yule, the winter solstice.
ANCIENT MAYANS: The indigenous Mayan people in Central American have celebrated a spring equinox festival for ten centuries. As the sun sets on the day of the equinox on the great ceremonial pyramid, El Castillo, Mexico, its "western face...is bathed in the late afternoon sunlight. The lengthening shadows appear to run from the top of the pyramid's northern staircase to the bottom, giving the illusion of a diamond-backed snake in descent." This has been called "The Return of the Sun Serpent" since ancient times. 14
ANCIENT GREEKS: The god-man Dionysos was a major deity among the ancient Greeks. "As a god of the spring rites, of the flowering plants and fruitful vines, Dionysos was said to be in terrible pain during winter, when most living things sicken and die, or hibernate." Persephone, a daughter of Demeter, descended into the Otherworld and returned near the time of the spring equinox. This story has close parallels to various Goddess legends, stories of the life of King Arthur, and of Jesus Christ. 10
ANCIENT PERSIA; ZOROASTRIANISM: Various ancient civilizations (Mesopotamia, Sumeria, Babylonia, Elam) circa 3000 to 2000 BCE celebrated new years at the time of the spring equinox. "No Ruz," the new day or New Year has been celebrated in the area of modern-day Iran since the Achaemenian (Hakhamaneshi) period over 2500 years ago. It survived because of Zoroastrianism which was the religion of Ancient Persia before the advent of Islam 1400 years ago. Many religious historians trace the Judeo-Christian concepts of Hell, Heaven, Resurrection, the arrival of the Messiah, and the last judgment to Zoroastrianism. In that faith, the Lord of Wisdom "created all that was good and became God. The Hostile Spirit, Angra Mainyu (Ahriman), residing in the eternal darkness created all that was bad and became the Hostile Spirit." 16 This dualistic God/Satan concept is surprisingly close to the views of conservative Christianity today.
ANCIENT ROMANS: In "about 200 B.C., mystery cults began to appear in Rome just as they had earlier in Greece. Most notable was the Cybele cult centered on Vatican hill ...Associated with the Cybele cult was that of her lover, Attis (the older Tammuz, Osiris, Dionysus, or Orpheus under a new name)...The festival began as a day of blood on Black Friday and culminated after three days in a day of rejoicing over the resurrection." Attis was born of a human woman, a virgin named Nana. He "grew up to become a sacrificial victim and Savior, slain to bring salvation to mankind. His body was eaten by his worshipers in the form of bread...[He was] crucified on a pine tree, whence his holy blood poured down to redeem the earth." 2 The celebration was held on MAR-25, 9 months before his birth on DEC-25. In Rome, the rituals took place where St. Peter's now stands in Vatican City. 8 The similarities between the stories of Attis and Jesus are obvious.
ANCIENT SAXONS: Eostre was the Saxon version of the Germanic lunar goddess Ostara. She gave her name to the Christian Easter and to the female hormone estrogen. Her feast day was held on the full moon following the vernal equinox -- almost the identical calculation as for the Christian Easter in the west. One delightful legend associated with Eostre was that she found an injured bird on the ground one winter. To save its life, she transformed it into a hare. But "the transformation was not a complete one. The bird took the appearance of a hare but retained the ability to lay eggs. ..the hare would decorate these eggs and leave them as gifts to Eostre." 10
BAHÁ'Í WORLD FAITH: Naw-Rúz is an ancient Iranian New Years day festival which occurs near the Spring Equinox. It is now a world holiday of the Bahá'í faith. If the equinox occurs before sunset, then New Year's Day is celebrated on that day in the Middle East; otherwise it is delayed until the following day. In the rest of the world, it is always on MAR-21. It is celebrated with many symbols indicating regrowth and renewal - much like the Christian Easter. Some members follow the ancient Iranian "haft-sin" custom on this day involves arranging seven objects whose name begin with the letter "S" in Persian; e.g. hyacinths, apples, lilies, silver coins, garlic, vinegar and rue.
NATIVE AMERICAN SPIRITUALITY: There are countless stone structures created by Natives in the past and still standing in North America. One was called Calendar One by its modern-day finder. It is in a natural amphitheatre of about 20 acres in size in Vermont. From a stone enclosure in the center of the bowl, one can see a number of vertical rocks and other markers around the edge of the bowl "At the winter solstice, the sun rose at the southern peak of the east ridge and set at a notch at the southern end of the west ridge." The summer solstice and both equinoxes were similarly marked. 4
"America's Stonehenge" is a 4,000 year old megalithic site located on Mystery Hill in Salem NH. Carbon dating has estimated the age of some charcoal remnants at 3,000 and 4,000 years ago. Researchers have concluded that the site was erected either by Native Americans or an unknown migrant European population. 15 The site contains five standing stones and one fallen stone in a linear alignment which point to both the sunrise and sunset at the spring and fall equinoxes.
NEOPAGANISM: This is a group of religions which are attempted re-creations of ancient Pagan religions. Of these, Wicca is the most common; it is loosely based on ancient Celtic beliefs, symbols and practices, with the addition of some more recent Masonic and ceremonial magic rituals.