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November 2, 2005

16:52 / 02.11.05

It's Diwali today, and El Dia de los Muertos -- All Souls Day.

Two big holidays for candles.

You doing anything interesting? I'm toying with maybe setting up an ancestor harrow or something similar. I don't have any ancestral graves to go cleaning on this continent. I was in Germany once for All Souls, and the whole country seemed to shut down to go to the graveyard and light candles.

I've never been to a diwali festival, although the rest of my family has -- around here, it's singing and tiny oil lamps in a school gymnasium. Some folks say it's five days, but others say it's only on Naraka-Chathurthasi day...during the Hindu month of Aippasi/Asvina. The lights here aren't for the dead, but for Lakshmi, the bountiful wife of Vishnu.

I thought about it because this morning, National Geographic had a radio piece about it, as part of their series on beliefs in the afterlife called The Geography of Heaven. So far, it's been great, and this morning's was especially good -- inside Krishna temples and the holy river in the city of Vrindavan, believed by many to be a representation of heaven on earth. The link has photos and audio files of various aspects of the city, as well as the radio pieces.

So, it made me think.

What are you doing for the day?

Less searchable M0rd4nt

17:13 / 02.11.05

Here in Spain, yesterday (November the 1st) was the holiday; everything was closed. There were fireworks in the evening, but overall a rahter quiet atmosphere.

I spent much of Hallowe'en painting a picture of the Goddess Hela, and held a small blot in the small hours to honour Her. The picture will go on to form the nucleus of a shrine.

18:11 / 03.11.05

Down here in Brazil November the Second is also Day of the Dead ("Dia de Finados", or "Day of the Late Ones", to be more precise), and it is a national Holiday.

The funny thing about this day is that IT RAINS EVERY YEAR! Really, I'm 29 years old and I can't recall even one sunny "Dia de Finados". At best, a couple of very cloudy, dampy days. No Sun, not ever. Go figure...

18:14 / 03.11.05

Today's Eid al Fitr, too, by the way.

Are we at the quarter between the equinox and the solstice?

19:15 / 03.11.05

I don't even know what Eid al Fitr is. Is it the arabic version for the Day of the Dead?

19:27 / 03.11.05

Never mind, I googled it already

Unconditional Love

20:03 / 03.11.05

Anybody know the history of the day of the dead? which cultures it ties into?

20:39 / 03.11.05

I don't know the history of the Day of the Dead, but I could bet my immortal soul it is some pagan festival that the Christian Church took over (you know, like Christmas)

20:53 / 03.11.05

It's more complicated than that, for once.

The Day of the Dead was a way to acknowledge ancestors who weren't saints. Here's the deal: in Catholicism, saints are organized into a calendar; they all have feast days dedicated to their memory. But there are far more than 365 saints. So, the church fathers said, "Hey, let's have a catch-all day!" That's November 1, All Saints' Day, the feast day that includes all the ones you might have missed during a day-by-day memorial.

The fact that *it* falls around Samhain is no accident, as far as I know.

So, Hallowe'en is All Hallows' (Holies) Evening. Why they decided to make the day after All Saints' into one for *all* the faithful departed is a little unclear to me -- the tradition as a Christian feast goes back to an 11th century abbot of Cluny and a hermit's vision of horrific dead voices in torment, but I think they may have just chosen this particular day for its symmetry with All Saints'.

Or maybe just because, you know, pagan roots, festival day and all.

07:34 / 04.11.05

That's actually a good question: Did the Christian Church took other people festival days just to steal their parties, or did some of them priest felt that there was power ih such given days?

nyarlathotep's shoe horn

17:24 / 06.11.05

November 1st is also midAutumn, (thereabouts) halfway between the Equinox & Solstice.

It's also the end of the harvest (depending on your latitude) - what with all the pumpkins.

I think that from an agrarian perspective, we're also ushering the spirit of the harvest into the earth (ie underworld) for its death through Winter.

Like Persephone (fertility) descending to Hades every year. (mind you, she only descends for 3 months - Dec 21 - Mar 21 is my guess).

Libra's scale tips into darkness after the Equinox, the Scorpion ruled by Pluto (Mars in the old days).

It is the season of rot and decay, as our fields (and my garden) decompose, returning to the humus once again...

ta
tenix