Pr Ntr Kmt World Religious Calendar Pagan Holy Days

World Religious Calendar 98
Rowan Moon
Day 1
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). Robert Graves claimed that the Celts used a 13 month tree calendar. Critics dispute this
claim. Graves’ claims are based on 19th century work by Edward Davies, who found references to the
trees in the 1685 work Ogygia by Ruairi Ó Flaitheartaigh, which was in turn derived from oral history
and older works such as Book of Ballymote and Auraicept na n-Éces.
Polarity: Masculine
Planet: Uranus
Archetype: Brigantia
Symbol: green dragon
Folk Names:
Moon of Vision
Spirit Moon
Astral travel Moon
Asatru (ancient Norse) information
Month: Snowmoon
Roman information
a.d. XII Kal. Feb.
12 days before the Kalends of February
Month: Ianvarivs or Ianuarius or Januarius or Janus
The a.d. XII Kal. designation means ante diem or twelve “days before” the Kalends (first day or
New Moon) of the next month. When counting days, the Romans included both the start and end day
(in modern Western culture, we skip the start day). When the Romans switched to a solar calendar, they
continued to use the lunar day names.
The Roman month of January is named for Janus (Ianvs). January was sacred to Janus, the Roman
God of gates, doors, and entrances. Janus was an early Italic sky god that long predated Rome. Ovid
claimed that Janus said “The ancient called me chaos, for a being from of old am I.” Ovid also claimed
that after the world’s creation, Janus said, “It was then that I, till that time a mere ball, a shapeless lump,
assumed the face and members of a god.” Joannes of Lydia said, “Our own Philadelphia still preserves
a trace of the ancient belief. On the first day of the month there goes in procession no less a personage
than Janus himself, dressed up in a two-faced mask, and people call him Saturnus, identifying him with
Kronos.” The beginning of each day, month, and year were sacred to Janus. The Romans believed that
Janus opened the gates of heaven each day at dawn , letting out the monring, and closed the gates of
heaven each day at dusk.
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