October, 2009

October 1 - 11:

In the ancient Greco-Roman calendar, Oct. 1 is the Dionysia, one of the two great annual festivals of Dionysus/Bacchus, god of ecstatic experiences, including wine. This date marks the time of the grape harvest and blessing of the new wine, and celebrates the phase of the god's youth, as Dionysus goes below the Earth to Elysium and becomes for the next six months Plouton/ Pluto, ruler of the underworld, who will be reborn as Dionysus in the spring.

10/2 (Fri):

Birthday of Mohandas Kharamchand Gandhi (1869). As we move from the lobby into the opera house where the Aquarius Overture is underway, we get a program note from Gandhi's Non-Violence in Peace and War (1948): "A non-violent revolution is not a program of seizure of power. It is a program of transformation of relationships, ending in a peaceful transfer of power." The transformation of relationships, including our own aims and expectations for them, is everything. It is the essence of the Aquarian opportunity.

10/2 - 4 (3 days):

In the ancient Greek lunar calendar, these days which culminate in the Full Moon in Aries -- and thereby follow the Full Moon of the Eleusinian Mysteries (see 9/2 - 8) -- are the Thesmophoria, commemorating the moment at which Kore, Queen of the Living, deserts her mother Demeter, goddess of the grain, and becomes Persephone, Queen of the Dead, who rules the Underworld with Plouton, the dark form of Dionysus. In later antiquity, when the Julian solar calendar comes to supplant the old lunar calendar, this rite is celebrated at the end of the harvest season, in late November.

In the Khemitian Calendar, Festival of Het-Hor, aka Hathor (month of Hethara,  day 18).

Full Moon in Aries, opposite Sun in Libra. There are currents of disharmony in this opposition, as it sets an impulsive female drive for self-assertion and power on a collision course with male resistance to movement or change. At the same time, the Sun-Moon tension and cohesion in the relationships of individual couples is, for the moment, sublimated in the spiritual act of awakening into deeper awareness within a larger community of friends, so all kinds of brainstorming and other co-creativity are greatly favored. The Sun remains "in fall" in Libra until 10/22.

In the Roman Catholic calendar, the feast of St. Francis of Assisi, founder of the Order of Friars Minor -- better known as the Franciscans -- and celebrated ecologist and animal communicator.

His famous prayer: "Lord, give me the courage to change what I can change, the serenity to accept what I can't change, and the wisdom always to know the difference."

Also the birthday of St. Constance of Assisi.

On the same day, by one of the wonderful synchronicities that mark the resonances among ancient calendars, the ancient Athenians celebrate the festival of Pallas Athena, guardian of the city, source of inspiration and goddess of wisdom.

10/9 (Fri):

One of the great Celtic and Wiccan festivals of the Triple Goddess, this one marking the woman's transition from Mother to Wise Woman, from grower of new life to source of wisdom.

 10/9 - 14 (6 days),  Hethara 23 - 28

In the Khemitian Calendar, the concluding events of the great legend cycle of the Passion of Ausar ("Osiris") are enacted. At this time the dispute between Set, brother and murderer of Ausar, and Hor (Horus), the falcon-headed solar hero, son of Ausar and Aset (Isis), is submitted for judgment by Ra, Neter of the Sun, after a long and inconclusive combat that has scorched and damaged the body of the Earth. Hor's case is argued by Djehuti (Thoth), neter of letters and learning; while Set becomes the first personage in history to act as his own advocate, and have a fool for a client. Ra and the other Neters deliberate and announce their decision in three days. The other events:
 10/12   Ra awards the fertile Black Land by the Nile to Hor, and the desert Red Land to Set, thereby establishing a dynamic balance between the forces of creation and destruction, light and darkness. 10/14   Festival of the coronation of Hor as Egypt's spiritual king, who from now on will manifest in the physical kingdom of Egypt in the person of the pharaoh.

The Draconid meteor shower peaks tonight. The Draconids, not among the most celebrated meteor showers of the year in any case, will not be at their best visibility, this year, as the waning Moon is still half Full.