Neptunalia

I went out to my garden one night last week to see the International Space Station transit overhead. Before it appeared, I kept on mistaking it for a firefly. But then there it was, brighter than Sirius and even the moon, a golden sphere, right on time.

The ancient Romans celebrated Neptune, god of water, on this day. They built huts in their fields from laurel branches, brought picnics, drank spring water, and camped overnight.

I want to do this every night, now that I’ve seen all the sparkling space stations rising up out of my vegetables.

Festival of Juno Caprotina and more on. . .

Juno Caprotina was a Roman goddess of fertility with a cult-like following, especially among enslaved women; geese, believe it or not, were sacred to Juno.

I’ll let you guess who that brings to mind. I did have another thought about that narcissist-who-will-be-nameless (for legal reasons): she could feed her fantasies of unlimited success, power, brilliance and beauty pretty easily by doing a talk show on Fox (well, maybe not the brilliant part). But since she consulted two right-wing political gurus (one of whom single-handedly saved New York on September 11, the other of whom single-handedly kept all of us safe after September 11) instead of Rush Limbaugh, I’m still going with my original prediction.

She’s going to try to be The One.

St. John and the Romans and St. Bartholomew, all at once

It’s quite a busy day today: there’s John the Baptist, of course, but also the Roman Solstitium, called the dies lampadarum, or “day of torches.” It’s hot in Rome now, just as it must have been then; and, finally, here as well.

But it’s also the feast day of St. Bartholomew, a pretty amazing guy who was so inspired by his vision of St. Cuthbert he decided to live the rest of his life in Cuthbert’s cell on the desolate island of Farne, off the British coast. Unfortunately, he had some interpersonal problems – Brother Ebwin, who was already there, didn’t like his intrusion and bullied him, but he eventually gave up and left. Then another prior came and they fought over food, so Bartholomew himself left until the bishop ordered him back, and he died there, apparently on this date.

Summanus

You’re supposed to bake a little cake today and offer it to Summanus, the Roman god of thunder during the night. Maybe this will help us with all our thunder during the night. If you want to get rid of thunder during the day, however, not to mention all this rain, you’ll have to try Jupiter, god of the sky – and let’s just hope we don’t have to wait until his feast day (in September!) for a response.

Festivals of Maia and Mercury

Mercury, Roman god of business and commerce, was the son of Maia; Maia was the oldest sister of the Pleiades. In Japan, “Subaru” is the word for the Pleiades (and the star cluster is their logo).

Kind of a strange day for General Motors and Chrysler to announce all the cuts in their dealerships.

Syncretism and palimpsests

Imagine all the pagan holidays inscribed on a great scroll, and the Catholic Church in need of converts. What they did was pretty clever: they overwrote their own stuff (making a palimpsest), called the new holidays holy days (the syncretism part), made them obligatory (“holy days of obligation”), and miraculously, centuries later, it worked.

One of their early problems was the spooky Lemuria festival that ended May 13. The lemures (from which the nocturnal scary-looking lemur got its name) have been wandering around the Roman master’s house for three nights now, picking up his beans. Some of them were lares (good ghosts), but those larvae (bad ghosts) may have been just a bit too pagan – not to mention the bean part.

So Pope Boniface had a good idea – on May 13, early in the 7th century, he consecrated the Roman Pantheon to Mary and all the martyr saints. Voila: All Saints’ Day.

Two centuries later, however, not too many people had even heard of the Lemuria, but Samhein (think Halloween) had become really pagan. Voila: All Saints’ Day moves to November 1, and a new syncretic palimpsest is born.

The Lemuria

It was May month, named for our ancestors (maiores),
And a relic of the old custom still continues.
When midnight comes, lending silence to sleep,
And all the dogs and hedgerow birds are quiet,
He who remembers ancient rites, and fears the gods,
Rises (no fetters binding his two feet)
And makes the sign with thumb and closed fingers,
Lest an insubstantial shade meets him in the silence.
Fasti, Book V

Some people say May was named for Maia, an earth goddess, but I think Ovid is a more trustworthy source. And if you’re one of those remembering the ancient rites (i.e. the head of your household), you must get up tonight, make that weird sign with your hand while you wash it in spring water; and then walk through your house throwing black beans behind you while saying, nine times, “With these beans I throw I redeem me and mine.”

Fortunately, the ghostly ancestors will collect the beans for you, but you’re not done yet – you still have to clang some bronze and say, nine times, “Ancestral spirit, depart!”

Then get some rest, because this is just the first day of the three-day festival, which ends on May 13 (it skips the even-numbered days, which were unlucky).