Lunar Calendars

With Chinese New Year upon us, this may be a good time for a word on lunar calendars.  Many pagans, timing rituals as they do by the Full and New Moons, are apt to mark time using a lunar calendar.  The specifics of the calendar can take several different forms.  The Chinese lunar calendar, for example, begins with the New Moon closest to their equivalent of Imbolc, which means it can occur in either January or February.

English author Robert Graves virtually invented the so-called Celtic tree-calendar in his landmark 1948 book, The White Goddess.  Beginning with the winter solstice, Graves divided the year into thirteen months of 28 days each, plus one intercalary day (two on leap years). While this calendar has the benefit of fixed dates, I personally don’t see it as “lunar”, as it’s independent of the lunar phases.  Still, this system has been popularized by Llewellyn Books through their calendars, so many solitary pagans use it to mark time.

An interesting variation on this is the calendar presented by Canadian hedgewitch  Jean Kozocari.  In her 1994 Book of Days, Kozocari and others proposed a fixed 13-month calendar beginning at Samhain, the pagan New Year.  Graves’ tree-months (Birch, Rowan, Ash, etc.) were still kept, but shifted to the revised New Year, with Birch beginning in November.   This still doesn’t work for me, though it may for some.

My personal preference, which I’ve been using in my Almanack since I began using it in the mid-nineties, is a lunar calendar beginning with the New Moon closest to the Winter Solstice.  Over the course of the year this works out to be about 12-1/2 lunar months, so the last (Ruis/Elder) lunar month of one year is often the same as the first (Beth/Birch) of the new.  A number of published calendars use this system. 

Beginning this month, I’ll list both the Graves’ tree month dates and the Winter Solstice “lunar month” dates, both as an exercise and for those of you who prefer the system of Graves and Llewellyn.

February Events:

Note these events are listed for information purposes only. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this listing, please contact me. All times MST.

Feb 1-2:  Traditional Imbolc.

Feb 2, 7:00 am:  Groundhog Day Pancake Breakfast at Blue Grass Nursery and Garden Centre, south of Crossiron Mills. Balzac Billy prognosticates at 8:10 am.

Feb 4, 7:30 pm:  COGCOA Coffee Cauldron. http://www.cogcoa.ab.ca

Feb 7:  Birthday of Margarian Bridger (1957-2016), founder of Evergreen Tradition.

Feb 10, 5:23 pm:  Full (Snow or Quickening) Moon. Penumbral lunar eclipse.

Feb 11, 10:00 am:  Calgary New Age Craft Market at Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Hall.

Feb 14: Valentine’s Day.

Feb 18:  Luis/Rowan tree month begins, according to Robert Graves.

Feb 19:  Dances with Witches. Info: Calgary Pagan Network on Facebook.

Feb 20:  Family Day (Alberta).

Feb 25, 7:00 pm: Heathen Meet and Greet. Info: Calgary Heathens on Facebook.

Feb 26, 7:58 am:  New Moon. Nion/Ash lunar month begins.

January 2017

So, this is it.  2016 was an annus horribilus all around, and I think many of us are glad to see it over.  It was a year marked by terrorism, recession, the rise of the radical right, and of course the death of so many pop-culture icons.  David Bowie, Leonard Cohen, George Michael, Carrie Fisher, [insert your fave here].  None of us are getting any younger, so I know we’ll lose more legends in 2017.  As many of you know, this hasn’t been a good year for me either. Already out of work for over a year, I lost my wife, had a setback in my health, retired from my responsibilities in the pagan community, and lost several close friends.

For me, I see 2017 as the beginning of my personal turnaround, as I begin to put my grief behind me and take the first staggering steps forward again.  Our neighbours to the south begin a difficult four years under the [cough] Trump administration, but there is still hope for the liberal/progressive/democratic left.  A rumoured  “Freedom Concert”  against the Inaugural, strong voices like Michael Moore and Robert Reich, and media satirists like Stephen Colbert and the Daily Show, will continue to get the opposing message out in the face of Big Brother.  We will survive this.  Happy 2017, everybody!

January Events: 

Note these events are listed for information purposes only. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this listing, please contact me. All times MST.

Jan 1:  New Year’s Day.

Jan 7, 7:30 pm:  COGCOA Coffee Cauldron. http://www.cogcoa.ab.ca

Jan 8, 2:43 am:  Mercury Retrograde ends.

Jan 12, 4:34 am:  Full (Wolf or Cold) Moon.

Jan 14, 10:00 am:  Calgary New Age Craft Market at Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Hall.
Jan 15:  Dances With Witches. Info: Calgary Pagan Network on Facebook.

Jan 20:  Sauron’s not-so-smart, but just as evil brother Mauron moves into Barrad-dur.

Jan 27, 5:07 pm:  New Moon. Luis/Rowan lunar month begins.

Jan 28, 7:00 pm: Heathen Meet and Greet. Info: Calgary Heathens on Facebook.

Jan 28, 7:30 pm sharp:  COGCOA Imbolc Ritual.

The Love Witch

The Love Witch is the latest offering by writer-producer-director Anna Biller, a subversive, stylish homage to melodramatic Technicolor witchy horror movies of the 1960s.
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Samantha Robinson plays Elaine, a woman seemingly stuck in the Sixties.  Abused as a child, and initiated into a coven of witches, she uses her sexuality and magick to make a series of men fall in love with her.  Cold, manipulative, narcissistic, yet needy for love as she understands it, she winds up destroying each of her victims.
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The men in this movie are depicted as shallow, salivating, and sex-driven.  Even Griff (Gian Keys), the traffic-cop turned detective investigating one of Elaine’s murders, seems easily taken in by her wiles against his better instincts.  Elaine and her coven leaders express the opinion that women’s sexuality is the source of their power over men, and should be celebrated as such. In one scene, they even break the fourth wall to lecture the audience directly.
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Laura Waddell plays Trish, Elaine’s friend, and landlady of her gothic Victorian house. Convinced to be more like Elaine, in an almost touching scene, she doffs her conservative pantsuit and dolls herself up in Elaine’s makeup, lingerie, and wig before discovering that her husband was another of her hapless victims.
*

It’s a clever tongue-in-cheek parody (if parody it is), and the art direction and costuming is spot-on iconic.  Floppy hats and flouncy pink dresses in the tea room scenes contrast with the fetish wear and seamed stockings that Elaine prefers. She is first shown driving a vintage red Mustang convertible, and one of her victims drives a gold Impala from the late ‘60s, in a world where other characters drive contemporary vehicles. However, it’s a shame that the witchcraft shown in this movie is taken straight from the Farrars’ Witches’ Bible.  Portions of an initiation ritual, the Great Rite, the Charge of the Goddess, skyclad dancing to the Witches’ Rune, the five-fold kiss – all part of the beautiful literature of the Craft – are juxtaposed with the clever, ugly cynicism of the rest of the movie.  It’s easy to see why this can be considered sacrilegious. Given Elaine’s amorality, when a bar crowd turns into the inevitable angry mob shouting, “Burn the witch!” you’re not sure whether to root for them or not. Only for a moment, during a solstice Oak King/Holly King battle and handfasting done in the context of a Renaissance Fair conducted by the coven, can you sense some of the beauty of the Craft.
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It’s hard to tell whether Biller intended this to be an homage or parody, and even whether she supports or hates witchcraft, and why. Part cautionary tale against love spells, part narcissistic, misanthropic feminism, Biller gives us a Witch as mentally-ill serial killer. I found myself cringing throughout, but then, I’m only a man.  Two-and-a-half broomsticks out of five.

December, 2016

December Events:

Note these events are listed for information purposes only. Dates and locations may be subject to change; see the source for details. If I’ve missed anyone and you’d like to add to this listing, please contact me. All times MST.

Dec 1: World AIDS Day.

Dec 3, 7:30 pm:  COGCOA Coffee Cauldron. http://www.cogcoa.ab.ca

Dec 4, 7:00 pm:  Paranormal Pub Night at the Bank and Baron Pub, hosted by Ghost Hunt Alberta. Tickets through Eventbrite.

Dec 6:  Anniversary of  L’Ecole Polytechnique  Montreal Massacre, 1989

Dec 8-11:  Festival of Crafts at BMO Centre.  http://festivalofcrafts.ca

Dec 10, 10:00 am:  New Age Craft Fair at Hillhurst-Sunnyside Community Hall.

Dec 13, 5:06 pm:  Full (Cold or Long Nights’) Moon.

Dec 17, 7:30 pm sharp:  COGCOA Yule Ritual.

Dec 21, 3:44 am:  Winter Solstice.

Dec 25:  Possible birthdate of Persian god Mithras.

Dec 28, 11:54 pm:  New Moon. Beth/Birch lunar month begins.

Dec 31, 7:00 pm: Heathen Meet and Greet. Info: Calgary Heathens on Facebook.