#crossquarterdays — Public Fediverse posts
Live and recent posts from across the Fediverse tagged #crossquarterdays, aggregated by home.social.
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Lughnasadh – The Start of Autumn
Today is 1st August, which is marked by the old Celtic festival of Lughnasadh, named after the God Lugh. This coincides with the English Lammas Day, one of many Christian festivals with pagan origins. The word for August in modern Irish is Lúnasa, a name derived from the old Celtic word.
Traditionally 1st August marks the start of the harvest season and is celebrated accordingly, with rites involving the first fruit and bread baked from flour obtained from the first corn. It is also one of the cross-quarter days, lying roughly half-way between the Summer Solstice and the Autumnal Equinox (in the Northern Hemisphere).
In the Northern hemisphere, from an astronomical point of view, the solar year is defined by the two solstices (summer, around June 21st and winter, around December 21st) and the equinoxes (Spring, around March 21st, and Autumn, around September 21st). These four events divide the year into four roughly equal parts of about 13 weeks each. If you divide each of these intervals in two you divide the year into eight pieces of six and a bit weeks each. The dates midway between the astronomical events mentioned above are (roughly) :
- 1st February: Imbolc (Candlemas)
- 1st May: Beltane (Mayday)
- 1st August: Lughnasadh (Lammas)
- 1st November: Samhain (All Saints Day)
The names I’ve added are taken from the Celtic/neo-Pagan (and Christian terms) for these cross-quarter days. These timings are rough because the dates of the equinoxes and solstices vary from year to year. Imbolc is often taken to be the 2nd of February (Groundhog Day) and Samhain is sometimes taken to be October 31st, Halloween. But hopefully you get the point. All four of thes days have a Bank Holiday associated with them (on the first Monday after the respective date); this Monday (3rd August) is a Bank Holiday in Ireland.
Some folk in Ireland regard August 1st as the first day of Autumn, just as 1st February is regarded as the first day of Spring and 1st May is the start of Summer. Indeed, our annual cycle of repeat examinations at Maynooth always happens in early to mid-August and these examinations are officially called the Autumn repeats. I rest my case. In my time here I have also noticed that May, June and July do tend to have significantly better weather than August, although I’m pleased to say that the weather isn’t particularly autumnal today.
#Autumn #CrossQuarterDays #Lúnasa #Lugh #Lughnasadh #MaynoothUniversity -
The Spring/Summer (Autumn/Winter in the north) cross-quarter is almost here :)
Get together for a meet up to share experiences and catch up with the community.
We're meeting on Zoom - see the upcoming events page for zoom link: https://gaianism.org/how-do-i-get-involved/upcoming-events/
Times:
US EST: Thu 7th Nov 13:00
Europe CET: Thu 7th Nov 19:00
Australia AEST: Fri 8th Nov 05:00 -
Join us in 7hrs for our cross quarter day open discussion and catch up on Zoom
Wednesday August 7th at 5pm EST (USA eastern)
Wednesday August 7th at 11pm CEST (EU Central Europe)
Thursday August 8th at 7am AEST (AU eastern)
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It's time for another #NerdOut !
Following my Toot about the #QuarterDays & the long-standing custom of rent payments, today is one of the 4 #CrossQuarterDays.
These fall between the Quarter Days and tend to indicate the start of seasons.
Today is #Imbolc (ewe milk) for lambing & the start of (Northern hemisphere) Spring. Yesterday was Brigid/St Brides Day in Ireland, and today in the US is #GroundhogDay :)
ETA: Today is also the Christian festival of Candlemas. -
Show some love to our second-tier astronomical festivals! https://journeyhomeschoolacademy.com/the-astronomy-behind-groundhog-day/
#CrossQuarterDays #CrossQuarterSociety #GroundhogDay -
What Are the Cross-Quarter Days and What Do They Mean?: https://www.almanac.com/quarter-days-and-cross-quarter-days
#CrossQuarterDays #CrossQuarterSociety #GroundhogDay -
Happy Groundhog Day! I'm excited to announce the formation of The Society for the Promotion of Cross-Quarter Days! Join us in celebrating Imbolc, Beltane, Lughnasadh, and Samhain with equal fervor as the solstices and equinoxes!
#CrossQuarterDays #CrossQuarterSociety #GroundhogDay
Agenda item: honorary membership for April Fool's Day--see you in May!