THE CALENDAR AS A CATECHISM FOR POLYTHEISM

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The most popular posts, at my blog, are my monthly calendar listings for Roman and Babylonian Gods and their festivals. In following these calendars, a person can learn about the God that each festival honors. By focusing on celebrating the festival, people will come into the liminal spaces between humans and the Gods.

 

As “vertical time,” (Note 1.) festivals provide a gateway into the eternity that is the Gods (and the Ancestors). “Horizontal time” (Note 1.) is the daily life that is lived. Since vertical time pierces horizonal time, it acts as the axis mundus between the Worlds. Where vertical time touches horizontal time, liminal spaces are formed for the Holy Powers and the humans to meet. These are the thresholds that the festivals provide.

 

A particular festival holds communion with the Gods when They are the most active. For example, March and October are the traditional beginning and ending of the season of war. In the Roman calendar, festivals for Mars are held during these months. March is when Mars is at his most energetic. In October, the weapons are purified and soldiers return to being civilians. At this time, Mars is preparing to rest. During the various festivals for Mars, different aspects of His Being are experienced.

 

Neo-Pagans developed their festival calendar to mark the Turning of the Year in six-week intervals – the solstices, the equinoxes, and the cross-quarter days. Each festival marks a particular season. Unfortunately, the calendar is dependent on the climate of the Northern Temperate Zone. This presents problems for Neo-Pagans living elsewhere such as Australia, seasons and climates differ.

 

The various calendars of Polytheists do follow the seasons of the region of the original pantheons. However, the festivals focus on the Gods and their times of activity. For example, I follow the Babylonian Calendar although I do not live in Mesopotamia. I have noticed that although I am in a different climate, these Gods are stronger during the times delineated in the original calendar.

 

By celebrating festivals, people can experience the mysteries of the Gods (and Ancestors) in their spiritual realities. The festival recreates a myth of each God. Within each myth, the textures of time are experienced. The divine unfolding of things, and then the closing of these same mysteries are parts of the dance of living in the myth. These mysteries will be reexperienced again, at a different moment, in a different manner at another festival. To understand each myth is to become a witness to the creation when the threads of time are woven.

 

Each festival re-enacts a myth allowing all to enter with the God. For example, the Atiku of the Babylonians recreates Marduk’s battle with Tiamat, and his recreation of the world with her body. Therefore, a calendar becomes a catechism since it invites people into the myths of the Gods.

 

Notes:

 

Note 1. Horizontal time is experienced linearly in increments. People move from the past to the present to the future. In contrast, vertical time is mystical time. In vertical time, only the present moment exists, and everything occurs at once.

 

Suggested reading:

Christine Valters Paintner, “Sacred Time.”

Waverly Fitzgerald, “Slow Time.”