Now comes the Vernal Equinox, and the season of Spring reaches it's apex, halfway
through its journey from Candlemas to Beltane. Once again, night and day stand in
perfect balance, with the powers of light on the ascendancy. The god of light now
wins a victory over his twin, the god of darkness. In the Mabinogion myth reconstruction
which I have proposed, this is the day on which the restored Llew takes his vengeance
on Goronwy by piercing him with the sunlight spear. For Llew was restored/reborn at
the Winter Solstice and is now well/old enough to vanquish his rival/twin and mate
with his lover/mother. And the great Mother Goddess, who has returned to her Virgin
aspect at Candlemas, welcomes the young sun god's embraces and conceives a child. The
child will be born nine months from now, at the next Winter Solstice. And so the
cycle closes at last.
We think that the customs surrounding the celebration of the spring equinox were
imported from Mediterranean lands, although there can be no doubt that the first
inhabitants of the British Isles observed it, as evidence from megalithic sites shows.
But it was certainly more popular to the south, where people celebrated the holiday as
New Year's Day, and claimed it as the first day of the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries.
However you look at it, it is certainly a time of new beginnings, as a simple glance at
Nature will prove.
In the Roman Catholic Church, there are two holidays which get mixed up with the Vernal
Equinox. The first, occurring on the fixed calendar day of March 25th in the old
liturgical calendar, is called the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary
(or B.V.M., as she was typically abbreviated in Catholic Missals). 'Annunciation' means
an announcement. This is the day that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was
'in the family way'. Naturally, this had to be announced since Mary, being still a
virgin, would have no other means of knowing it. (Quit scoffing, O ye of little faith!)
Why did the Church pick the Vernal Equinox for the commemoration of this event? Because
it was necessary to have Mary conceive the child Jesus a full nine months before his
birth at the Winter Solstice (i.e., Christmas, celebrated on the fixed calendar date
of December 25). Mary's pregnancy would take the natural nine months to complete, even
if the conception was a bit unorthodox.
As mentioned before, the older Pagan equivalent of this scene focuses on the joyous
process of natural conception, when the young virgin Goddess (in this case, 'virgin'
in the original sense of meaning 'unmarried') mates with the young solar God, who has
just displaced his rival. This is probably not their first mating, however. In the
mythical sense, the couple may have been lovers since Candlemas, when the young God
reached puberty. But the young Goddess was recently a mother (at the Winter Solstice)
and is probably still nursing her new child. Therefore, conception is naturally delayed
for six weeks or so and, despite earlier matings with the God, She does not conceive
until (surprise!) the Vernal Equinox. This may also be their Hand-fasting, a sacred
marriage between God and Goddess called a Hierogamy, the ultimate Great Rite. Probably
the nicest study of this theme occurs in M. Esther Harding's book, 'Woman's Mysteries'.
Probably the nicest description of it occurs in M. Z. Bradley's 'Mists of Avalon', in
the scene where Morgan and Arthur assume the sacred roles. (Bradley follows the British
custom of transferring the episode to Beltane, when the climate is more suited to its
outdoor celebration.)
The other Christian holiday which gets mixed up in this is Easter. Easter, too,
celebrates the victory of a god of light (Jesus) over darkness (death), so it makes
sense to place it at this season. Ironically, the name 'Easter' was taken from the
name of a Teutonic lunar Goddess, Eostre (from whence we also get the name of the
female hormone, estrogen). Her chief symbols were the bunny (both for fertility and
because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg (symbolic of the cosmic
egg of creation), images which Christians have been hard pressed to explain. Her holiday,
the Eostara, was held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Of course, the Church doesn't
celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by them, so they planted their Easter
on the following Sunday. Thus, Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first Full
Moon, after the Vernal Equinox. If you've ever wondered why Easter moved all around
the calendar, now you know. (By the way, the Catholic Church was so adamant about
not incorporating lunar Goddess symbolism that they added a further calculation:
if Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, then Easter was postponed to
the following Sunday instead.)
Incidentally, this raises another point: recently, some Pagan traditions began referring
to the Vernal Equinox as Eostara. Historically, this is incorrect. Eostara is a lunar
holiday, honoring a lunar Goddess, at the Vernal Full Moon. Hence, the name 'Eostara'
is best reserved to the nearest Esbat, rather than the Sabbat itself. How this happened
is difficult to say. However, it is notable that some of the same groups misappropriated
the term 'Lady Day' for Beltane, which left no good folk name for the Equinox. Thus,
Eostara was misappropriated for it, completing a chain-reaction of displacement. Needless
to say, the old and accepted folk name for the Vernal Equinox is 'Lady Day'. Christians
sometimes insist that the title is in honor of Mary and her Annunciation, but Pagans
will smile knowingly.
Another mythological motif which must surely arrest our attention at this time of year
is that of the descent of the God or Goddess into the Underworld. Perhaps we see this
most clearly in the Christian tradition. Beginning with his death on the cross on Good
Friday, it is said that Jesus 'descended into hell' for the three days that his body
lay entombed. But on the third day (that is, Easter Sunday), his body and soul rejoined,
he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. By a strange 'coincidence', most ancient
Pagan religions speak of the Goddess descending into the Underworld, also for a period
of three days.
Why three days? If we remember that we are here dealing with the lunar aspect of the
Goddess, the reason should be obvious. As the text of one Book of Shadows gives it,
'...as the moon waxes and wanes, and walks three nights in darkness, so the Goddess
once spent three nights in the Kingdom of Death.' In our modern world, alienated as
it is from nature, we tend to mark the time of the New Moon (when no moon is visible)
as a single date on a calendar. We tend to forget that the moon is also hidden from
our view on the day before and the day after our calendar date. But this did not go
unnoticed by our ancestors, who always speak of the Goddess's sojourn into the land
of Death as lasting for three days. Is it any wonder then, that we celebrate the next
Full Moon (the Eostara) as the return of the Goddess from chthonic regions?
Naturally, this is the season to celebrate the victory of life over death, as any
nature-lover will affirm. And the Christian religion was not misguided by celebrating
Christ's victory over death at this same season. Nor is Christ the only solar hero
to journey into the underworld. King Arthur, for example, does the same thing when
he sets sail in his magical ship, Prydwen, to bring back precious gifts (i.e. the
gifts of life) from the Land of the Dead, as we are told in the 'Mabinogi'. Welsh
triads allude to Gwydion and Amaethon doing much the same thing. In fact, this theme
is so universal that mythologists refer to it by a common phrase, 'the harrowing of hell'.
However, one might conjecture that the descent into hell, or the land of the dead, was
originally accomplished, not by a solar male deity, but by a lunar female deity. It is
Nature Herself who, in Spring, returns from the Underworld with her gift of abundant
life. Solar heroes may have laid claim to this theme much later. The very fact that
we are dealing with a three-day period of absence should tell us we are dealing with
a lunar, not solar, theme. (Although one must make exception for those occasional
male lunar deities, such as the Assyrian god, Sin.) At any rate, one of the
nicest modern renditions of the harrowing of hell appears in many Books of Shadows
as 'The Descent of the Goddess'. Lady Day may be especially appropriate for the
celebration of this theme, whether by storytelling, reading, or dramatic re-enactment.
For modern Witches, Lady Day is one of the Lesser Sabbats or Low Holidays of the year,
one of the four quarter-days. And what date will Witches choose to celebrate? They
may choose the traditional folk 'fixed' date of March 25th, starting on its Eve. Or
they may choose the actual equinox point, when the Sun crosses the Equator and enters
the astrological sign of Aries.
Document Copyright © 1986, 2002 by Mike Nichols
HTML coding by: Mike Nichols © 1999
This document can be re-published only as long as no information is lost or changed,
credit is given to the author, and it is provided or used without cost to others.
Other uses of this document must be approved in writing by Mike Nichols.
Revised: Tuesday, March 19, 2002 c.e.
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