Menstrual Calendar
Two conflicting calendars were used through most of the Christian
era in Europe: the church's official, solar, "Julian" calendar, and the
peasants' unofficial, lunar, Goddess-given menstrual calendar. The
thirteen annual lunations of the latter produced one of the contrasting
answers to the nursery-rhyme riddle: "How many months be in the
year? There be thirteen, I say." Christians produced another answer:
"There be but twelve, I say." The lunar calendar's thirteen 28-day
months had four 7-day weeks a piece, marking new, waxing, full, and
waning moon-sabbaths in the ancient form. Weeks are still lunar, but
they no longer fit neatly into the solar month system. Thirteen lunar
months gave 364 days per year (13 X 28), with one extra day to
make 365. Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, witch charms, ballads and other
repositories of pagan tradition nearly always describe the full annual
cycle as "a year and a day."
It has been shown that calendar consciousness developed first in
women, because of their natural menstrual body calendar, correlated
with observations of the moon's phases. Chinese women established a
lunar calendar 3000 years ago, dividing the celestial sphere into 28
stellar "mansions" through which the moon passed. Among the
Maya of central America, every woman knew "the great Maya calendar
had first been based on her menstrual cycles." 1 Romans called the
calculation of time mensuration, i.e., knowledge of the menses. Gaelic
words for "menstruation" and "calendar" are the same: miosach and
miosachan. The new-moon sabbaths of ancient Latium were kalends,
possibly related to the Aryan name of Kali. For fear of disrupting the
Goddess's transitions, activities of some kinds were forbidden on the
seventh day of each lunar phase; thus sabbaths became "unlucky" or
taboo. Because it was the time-honored custom, even the biblical God
was forced to "rest" on the seventh day.
One of the prototypes of Yahweh was the Babylonian god Marduk,
who divided the maternal "waters" into those above and below
the firmament (Genesis 1: 7). Marduk claimed to be the creator, but was
not yet so patriarchal as to abandon his Mother's lunar calendar.
Babylonian priests said Marduk established holy days and seasons by the
moon.2 Yet older traditions said the menstrual calendar was instituted
in Babylon by the god Nabu-Rimmani, the biblical Baai-Rimmon, a
phallic deity united with the Great Mother's yoni in the form of a
pomegranate. 3
The Chinese explained their menstrual calendar with the myth of
the holy calendar plant, lik-kiep, on which a pod grew every day for
14 days, then a pod fell off every day for 14 days. When the months became
confused by solar reckoning, the Chinese added extra days
when "a pod withered without falling off." 4
According to another story, the menstrual calendar was called
Hsiu, "Houses." The Moon Mother rested each night of the lunar
month in a different one of her 28 houses, which were kept by the 28
warrior-hero consorts she had placed in heaven to attend her.5
The ancient Hebrews took their calendar from Chaldea, legendary
home of Abraham, whose older name was Ab-sin, "Moon-father." 6
Chaldeans were credited with the invention of astrology, now largely
based on the movements of the sun; but the Chaldeans didn't study
the sun. They were "Moon-worshippers," believing the moon determined
the fates of men by her movements through various "houses"
of the zodiac. The same lunar myths were found in Egypt, northern
Europe, Greece, and Rome. Latin kings were sacrificed at the threeday
dark of the moon period called ides, to insure the Goddess's safe
return from the underworld. Greeks similarly made offerings at the
Great Sabbath called Noumenia (New Moon). The other Great Sabbath
was Dichomenia (Full Moon), when the Goddess stood at the
peak of her cycle. 7
Early attempts at calendar reform left Greek city-states quarreling
among themselves about sabbaths and intercalary days. Aristophanes'
s The Clouds makes the Moon-goddess complain that her
reckoning of the days was not being correctly followed. 8 Time-spans
in myths became confused. Adonis was born after "ten months' gestation,"
which really meant ten lunar months, the normal 280 days.9
According to the Book of Maccabees, every gestation lasted ten
months.10 This wasn't ignorance; it was just lunar reckoning.
Even the saints' days of the medieval church were established by
menology, literally "knowledge of the moon." The church's so-called
movable feasts were movable because they were determined by lunar
cycles, not solar ones; thus they drifted erratically through the months
of the canonical calendar. The most important of them, Easter, is still
determined by the moon (first Sunday after the first full moon after
the spring equinox), at a time when the Goddess slew and re-conceived
the Savior or vegetation god for a new season. 11
More confusion was created by the fact that menstrual calendars
reckoned the day from noon to noon, with the midnight hour in the
central position; but solar calendars reckoned the day from midnight to
midnight. The Saxon word den (day) really meant "night." In
Shakespeare's time, people said goodnight by wishing each other good
den, literally good moon-day. Old French nursery rhymes greeted
the moon rising in the evening with "Good morning, Madame
Moon." 12 The meridian or high point of noon used to indicate the
full moon overhead at midnight: hence its name Meri-Dia or MaryDiana,
the Moon-goddess. Superstitious folk talked of the
daemonium meridian urn, devil of the meridian, a diabolization of the
Goddess.13 She was probably the second of the Slavic trinity of Fates
(Zorya), called "She of the Evening, She of Midnight, and She of
Morning," in that order. 14
Pagans held their festivals at night, by moonlight: a custom that
might be traced as far back as ancient Egypt, where major religious
ceremonies were nocturnal, as listed in the Book of the Dead:
The night of the battle and of the overthrow of the Sebau-field in Tattu
... , the night of making to stand up the double Tet in Sekhem ... , the
night of establishing Horus in the heritage of the things of his father in
Rekhti . .. , the night when Isis maketh lamentation at the side of her
brother Osiris in A btu ... , the night of the Haker festival when a division
is made between the dead ana the spirits who are on the path of the dead
... , the night of the judgment of those who are to be annih1lated at the
great festival ofthe ploughing and the turning up of the earth. 15
Pre-Christian Europe also gave night precedence over day . .
Germanic tribes, Celts, Gauls, druids, the ancient Irish calculated
"months, years, and birthdays in such a way as to make the night
precede the day." 16 Caesar noted that the Celts measured time by
nights instead of by days.'7
Christian holy days were copied from pagan ones, displaced by 12
hours in their solar reckoning; therefore the older, heathen version of
each festival was celebrated on the "Eve" of its Christian counterpart.
From this arose the so-called devilish rites of May Eve, Midsummer
Eve, Lammas Eve, All Hallow's Eve, and Christmas Eve which was
taken from the pagan Yule, and to a late date was still called the
Night of the Mother.'s
Witch persecutors pretended the witches copied their sabbats from
Christian feast days in deliberate mockery of the church; but in fact
the copying had gone in the other direction. The church took over the
pagan feasts of Halloween, May Day, Lammas, lmbolg, Midsummer,
Easter, Yule, and so on, then claimed to have invented them.
However, of the two rival festivals on the same day, the Christian one
was invariably the newcomer.19
May Eve was the Saxons' Walpurgisnacht, the Celts' Beltain,
announcing the opening of the Merry Month of sexual license and
"wearing of the green" in honor of the earth's new spring garment. The
occasion was still marked by pagan ceremonies in the late 16th
century.20 (See May.) Midsummer Eve merged with St. John's Day,
but the solstitial rites remained more pagan than Christian. Lammas
Eve was a witches' Great Sabbat because it was formerly the pagan
Feast of Bread (Hlaf..mass) in honor of the Corn-mother.21 Halloween
was All Hallows' or All Souls' eve, from the Celtic Samhain or
Feast of the Dead, when pagan ancestors came forth from their fairymounds,
and Christians called them "demons" who attended the
witches' feasts. 22
The thirteen months of the menstruat calendar also led to
pagan reverence for the number 13, and Christian detestation of it.
Witches' "covens" were supposed to be groups of l3 like the moonworshipping
dancers of the Moorish zabat (sabbat), to whom thirteen
expressed the three-in-one nature of the lunar Goddess.23
Some said thirteen was a bad number because Christ was the
thirteenth in the group of apostles, thus the thirteenth member of any
group would be condemned to death. Actually, it was the church's
opposition to pagan symbolism that brought opprobrium on the
number 13. Some even feared to speak its true name, and it was
euphemized as a "baker's dozen," or sometimes "devil's dozen." 24
The heathen tradition persisted in such symbols as the Thirteen
Treasures of Britain, probably lunar-month signs taken from a primitive
list of zodiacal constellations. They were defined as a sword, basket,
drinking horn, chariot, halter, knife, cauldron, whetstone, garment,
pan, platter, chessboard, and mantle.25 The thirteen menstrual months
were symbolized in the Tarxien temple on Malta as a sow with 13
teats, like the Celts' Sow-goddess Cerridwen.26 Thirteen "moons" of
the menstrual calendar were suggested also by the English Twelfth
Night custom ofkindling twelve small fires and one large one, to
represent the moon of the New Year. 27
In general, the symbols of ancient matriarchy came to be known as
night, the moon, and the number 13, while those of patriarchy were
day, the sun, and the number 12.
Mensa
Roman Goddess of measurement, numbers, calendars, calculations,
tables, and record-keeping; derived from the Moon-goddess as inventor
of numerical systems. Probably a title for the archaic Minerva as the
moon, "measurer of Time."
era in Europe: the church's official, solar, "Julian" calendar, and the
peasants' unofficial, lunar, Goddess-given menstrual calendar. The
thirteen annual lunations of the latter produced one of the contrasting
answers to the nursery-rhyme riddle: "How many months be in the
year? There be thirteen, I say." Christians produced another answer:
"There be but twelve, I say." The lunar calendar's thirteen 28-day
months had four 7-day weeks a piece, marking new, waxing, full, and
waning moon-sabbaths in the ancient form. Weeks are still lunar, but
they no longer fit neatly into the solar month system. Thirteen lunar
months gave 364 days per year (13 X 28), with one extra day to
make 365. Nursery rhymes, fairy tales, witch charms, ballads and other
repositories of pagan tradition nearly always describe the full annual
cycle as "a year and a day."
It has been shown that calendar consciousness developed first in
women, because of their natural menstrual body calendar, correlated
with observations of the moon's phases. Chinese women established a
lunar calendar 3000 years ago, dividing the celestial sphere into 28
stellar "mansions" through which the moon passed. Among the
Maya of central America, every woman knew "the great Maya calendar
had first been based on her menstrual cycles." 1 Romans called the
calculation of time mensuration, i.e., knowledge of the menses. Gaelic
words for "menstruation" and "calendar" are the same: miosach and
miosachan. The new-moon sabbaths of ancient Latium were kalends,
possibly related to the Aryan name of Kali. For fear of disrupting the
Goddess's transitions, activities of some kinds were forbidden on the
seventh day of each lunar phase; thus sabbaths became "unlucky" or
taboo. Because it was the time-honored custom, even the biblical God
was forced to "rest" on the seventh day.
One of the prototypes of Yahweh was the Babylonian god Marduk,
who divided the maternal "waters" into those above and below
the firmament (Genesis 1: 7). Marduk claimed to be the creator, but was
not yet so patriarchal as to abandon his Mother's lunar calendar.
Babylonian priests said Marduk established holy days and seasons by the
moon.2 Yet older traditions said the menstrual calendar was instituted
in Babylon by the god Nabu-Rimmani, the biblical Baai-Rimmon, a
phallic deity united with the Great Mother's yoni in the form of a
pomegranate. 3
The Chinese explained their menstrual calendar with the myth of
the holy calendar plant, lik-kiep, on which a pod grew every day for
14 days, then a pod fell off every day for 14 days. When the months became
confused by solar reckoning, the Chinese added extra days
when "a pod withered without falling off." 4
According to another story, the menstrual calendar was called
Hsiu, "Houses." The Moon Mother rested each night of the lunar
month in a different one of her 28 houses, which were kept by the 28
warrior-hero consorts she had placed in heaven to attend her.5
The ancient Hebrews took their calendar from Chaldea, legendary
home of Abraham, whose older name was Ab-sin, "Moon-father." 6
Chaldeans were credited with the invention of astrology, now largely
based on the movements of the sun; but the Chaldeans didn't study
the sun. They were "Moon-worshippers," believing the moon determined
the fates of men by her movements through various "houses"
of the zodiac. The same lunar myths were found in Egypt, northern
Europe, Greece, and Rome. Latin kings were sacrificed at the threeday
dark of the moon period called ides, to insure the Goddess's safe
return from the underworld. Greeks similarly made offerings at the
Great Sabbath called Noumenia (New Moon). The other Great Sabbath
was Dichomenia (Full Moon), when the Goddess stood at the
peak of her cycle. 7
Early attempts at calendar reform left Greek city-states quarreling
among themselves about sabbaths and intercalary days. Aristophanes'
s The Clouds makes the Moon-goddess complain that her
reckoning of the days was not being correctly followed. 8 Time-spans
in myths became confused. Adonis was born after "ten months' gestation,"
which really meant ten lunar months, the normal 280 days.9
According to the Book of Maccabees, every gestation lasted ten
months.10 This wasn't ignorance; it was just lunar reckoning.
Even the saints' days of the medieval church were established by
menology, literally "knowledge of the moon." The church's so-called
movable feasts were movable because they were determined by lunar
cycles, not solar ones; thus they drifted erratically through the months
of the canonical calendar. The most important of them, Easter, is still
determined by the moon (first Sunday after the first full moon after
the spring equinox), at a time when the Goddess slew and re-conceived
the Savior or vegetation god for a new season. 11
More confusion was created by the fact that menstrual calendars
reckoned the day from noon to noon, with the midnight hour in the
central position; but solar calendars reckoned the day from midnight to
midnight. The Saxon word den (day) really meant "night." In
Shakespeare's time, people said goodnight by wishing each other good
den, literally good moon-day. Old French nursery rhymes greeted
the moon rising in the evening with "Good morning, Madame
Moon." 12 The meridian or high point of noon used to indicate the
full moon overhead at midnight: hence its name Meri-Dia or MaryDiana,
the Moon-goddess. Superstitious folk talked of the
daemonium meridian urn, devil of the meridian, a diabolization of the
Goddess.13 She was probably the second of the Slavic trinity of Fates
(Zorya), called "She of the Evening, She of Midnight, and She of
Morning," in that order. 14
Pagans held their festivals at night, by moonlight: a custom that
might be traced as far back as ancient Egypt, where major religious
ceremonies were nocturnal, as listed in the Book of the Dead:
The night of the battle and of the overthrow of the Sebau-field in Tattu
... , the night of making to stand up the double Tet in Sekhem ... , the
night of establishing Horus in the heritage of the things of his father in
Rekhti . .. , the night when Isis maketh lamentation at the side of her
brother Osiris in A btu ... , the night of the Haker festival when a division
is made between the dead ana the spirits who are on the path of the dead
... , the night of the judgment of those who are to be annih1lated at the
great festival ofthe ploughing and the turning up of the earth. 15
Pre-Christian Europe also gave night precedence over day . .
Germanic tribes, Celts, Gauls, druids, the ancient Irish calculated
"months, years, and birthdays in such a way as to make the night
precede the day." 16 Caesar noted that the Celts measured time by
nights instead of by days.'7
Christian holy days were copied from pagan ones, displaced by 12
hours in their solar reckoning; therefore the older, heathen version of
each festival was celebrated on the "Eve" of its Christian counterpart.
From this arose the so-called devilish rites of May Eve, Midsummer
Eve, Lammas Eve, All Hallow's Eve, and Christmas Eve which was
taken from the pagan Yule, and to a late date was still called the
Night of the Mother.'s
Witch persecutors pretended the witches copied their sabbats from
Christian feast days in deliberate mockery of the church; but in fact
the copying had gone in the other direction. The church took over the
pagan feasts of Halloween, May Day, Lammas, lmbolg, Midsummer,
Easter, Yule, and so on, then claimed to have invented them.
However, of the two rival festivals on the same day, the Christian one
was invariably the newcomer.19
May Eve was the Saxons' Walpurgisnacht, the Celts' Beltain,
announcing the opening of the Merry Month of sexual license and
"wearing of the green" in honor of the earth's new spring garment. The
occasion was still marked by pagan ceremonies in the late 16th
century.20 (See May.) Midsummer Eve merged with St. John's Day,
but the solstitial rites remained more pagan than Christian. Lammas
Eve was a witches' Great Sabbat because it was formerly the pagan
Feast of Bread (Hlaf..mass) in honor of the Corn-mother.21 Halloween
was All Hallows' or All Souls' eve, from the Celtic Samhain or
Feast of the Dead, when pagan ancestors came forth from their fairymounds,
and Christians called them "demons" who attended the
witches' feasts. 22
The thirteen months of the menstruat calendar also led to
pagan reverence for the number 13, and Christian detestation of it.
Witches' "covens" were supposed to be groups of l3 like the moonworshipping
dancers of the Moorish zabat (sabbat), to whom thirteen
expressed the three-in-one nature of the lunar Goddess.23
Some said thirteen was a bad number because Christ was the
thirteenth in the group of apostles, thus the thirteenth member of any
group would be condemned to death. Actually, it was the church's
opposition to pagan symbolism that brought opprobrium on the
number 13. Some even feared to speak its true name, and it was
euphemized as a "baker's dozen," or sometimes "devil's dozen." 24
The heathen tradition persisted in such symbols as the Thirteen
Treasures of Britain, probably lunar-month signs taken from a primitive
list of zodiacal constellations. They were defined as a sword, basket,
drinking horn, chariot, halter, knife, cauldron, whetstone, garment,
pan, platter, chessboard, and mantle.25 The thirteen menstrual months
were symbolized in the Tarxien temple on Malta as a sow with 13
teats, like the Celts' Sow-goddess Cerridwen.26 Thirteen "moons" of
the menstrual calendar were suggested also by the English Twelfth
Night custom ofkindling twelve small fires and one large one, to
represent the moon of the New Year. 27
In general, the symbols of ancient matriarchy came to be known as
night, the moon, and the number 13, while those of patriarchy were
day, the sun, and the number 12.
Mensa
Roman Goddess of measurement, numbers, calendars, calculations,
tables, and record-keeping; derived from the Moon-goddess as inventor
of numerical systems. Probably a title for the archaic Minerva as the
moon, "measurer of Time."
From Barbara Walker's Women's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets
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