Pr Ntr Kmt World Religious Calendar Pagan Holy Days

World Religious Calendar 291
Ash Moon
Day 18
The Celtic calendar started out as a moon calendar, but was aligned with the solar year during
antiquity. Robert Graves proposed the Celtic tree calendar described here. While widely used by
Neo-Pagans, many critics dispute the authenticity. The Beth-Luis-Nion calendar (the one used here)
starts with New Year on the Winter Solstice. The Beth-Luis-Faern calendar starts with New Year on
Samhain.
Each Celtic tree month (or moon) is named for a Celtic Ogham letter (first line above) and a tree
(second line above). All of the Celtic months also had additional folk names (folk names for this month
listed below).
Polarity: Feminine
Planet: Neptune
Archetype: Lir (Celtic God of the Sea)
Symbol: trident
Folk Names:
Moon of Waters
Asatru (ancient Norse) information
Month: Lenting
Roman information
Non. Mart.
the Nones of March
Month: Martius
The Nones was originally the first Quarter Moon (half of a moon, a quarter of the lunar cycle) of the
month in the early Roman lunar calendar. The Latin word nones meaning “ninth”. When counting days,
the Romans included both the start and end day (in the modern West we skip the start day). Using the
Roman counting system, there were always nine days (eight using modern counting) between the Nones
and the Ids of any month. The actual average time from the lunar First Quarter to the lunar Full Moon is
about 7.4 days, but the Romans rounded up. The Nones occurred on the seventh day of March, May,
July, and October, and on the fifth day of all other months.
The Roman month of Martius is named for Mars. March was sacred to Mars, Roman God of war.
The earliest Roman months were lunar. According to Roman mythology, the ten month solar calendar
aligned to the vernal equinox was introduced by Romulus, the founder of Rome, around 753 BCE. In
Romulus’ calendar, Mars (the first month) had 31 days. Numa Pompilius, the second of the seven
traditional kings of Rome, added two more months, for a 12 month year. In Numa’s calendar, Mars had
31 days. Gaius Julius Caesar, as Pontifex Maximus (supreme bridge-builder, a religious title),
reorganized the calendar on the first day of 45 BCE. In Caesar’s calendar (the Julian Calendar), Mars
had 31 days. Caesar’s calendar was calculated by Sosigenes, an Egyptian astrologer/astronomer. In 8
BCE, Augustus Caesar fixed errors by pontiffs after Julius’ death and made other minor modifications,
resulting in the modern Western calendar. The modern Gregorian Calendar, named for Roman Catholic
Pope Gregory the Thirteenth, was a realignment in 1582.
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