Ornoth

Do holidays make any sense to you? They really don’t to me. One day we’re looking for rodents, the next we’re Irish, then we’re looking for egg-laying rabbits. One day we wear disguises and teach our children extortion, the next we celebrate the land’s bounty, then we give it all away to our friends, followed quickly by staying up all night and getting drunk. All this really makes sense to you?

It doesn’t to me. If you ask me, the only holidays worth sincere observation are the ten solar events of the year.

Ten? There are only two solstices and two equinoxes, no? Well, yes, but there’s more, too. Let’s have a little astronomy review, shall we? Let’s begin with what everyone already knows.

There are two equinoxes: spring (vernal) and fall (autumnal). Those are the times when the Sun passes directly over the equator, passing from the northern hemisphere to the southern, or vice versa. It’s also when day and night are roughly equal in length. They fall, respectively, around March 20 and September 23. These were important dates to the Celts, whom I’ll refer to a couple times here, and the church absorbed these observances under the names of Eostar/Ostara and Mabon, respectively.

And there are the two solstices: summer and winter. These are the longest and shortest days of the year, and the days when the Sun is as far north/south as it will get before heading back towards the equator again. However, they are not mathematically halfway between the equinoxes, usually falling on June 21 and December 22. The pagan holidays of Litha and Yule were again confiscated by the Christian/Borg authorities.

Few people realize it now, but there are also four cross-quarter days, each of which was roughly halfway between a solstice and an equinox. Who cares? Well, those nutty Celts did, because they actually observed the change of seasons with these cross-quarter days, which match up with reality much better than the solstices and equinoxes. To them, the latter were mid-season events, not the borders between seasons.

Modern-day wicco-pagans are familiar with all this, since they too celebrate these solar holidays, but they don’t quite get it right. Somehow the traditional dates for their observances that don’t synch with the astronomical reality.

For example, Imbolc (aka Solmonath, Candlemas) is the Celtic beginning of spring. It happens February 4th, which coincides (not accidentally) with Groundhog Day. But Wiccans traditionally observe it on February 1 for some reason.

Similarly, Beltane (Whitsuntide, Walpurgisnacht) is the beginning of summer. It happens on May 5, but wiccans, who seem to have a penchant for round numbers, celebrate it on the last day of April.

Lughnasadh (Lammas) heralds autumn on August 7, but wiccans think August first is close enough.

Finally, there’s Samhain (Hallowmas), the wicked wiccan new year, observed on Halloween, October 31. Never mind that the cross-quarter day is actually November 7th. Ah, those nutty wiccans, playing fast and loose with their own holy days!

That, of course, only accounts for eight of the ten solar events I mentioned. There are two more. What could they be?

Well, all the holidays I’ve mentioned so far are tied to the seasons, which means they’re an attribute of the Earth’s 23-degree axial tilt. The other two days are different; they’re a function of the elliptical nature of the Earth’s orbit around the Sun. Because it’s elliptical, there must be a point at which the Earth is closer to the Sun than any other time during the year, and a similar furthest point from the Sun. These are called Perihelion and Aphelion, respectively.

The interesting thing is that those of us in the northern hemisphere have this all backwards. The day of the Earth’s closest approach to the Sun (Perihelion) actually occurs in the middle of winter: January 4th, usually. Similarly, the Earth is at its most distant point from the Sun (Aphelion) during summer: the Fourth of July (although this is one case where the modern holiday wasn’t lifted from the solar calendar). If we were in the southern hemisphere, this arrangement might seem more intuitive to people.

That gives us ten solar holidays, which make a great deal more sense to me than our contrived celebrations, for they observe the changes in our days and our seasons, which affect every living thing on our planet. At my last job we were given “floating holidays”, which I used on these solar holidays to celebrate the seasons. I found that much more satisfactory than taking a completely arbitrary day off to celebrate “the strength and esprit de corps of the trade and labor organizations” in 19th century New York City.