PBP: Beltane
Sundown April 30 to Sundown May 1, the balance point exactly opposite Halloween and so marks the point between the dark-half and light-half of the year.
It lies between the spring equinox and summer solstice, and is a fire festival so if you want to incorporate the concept of purifying from miasma, this would be one of those times.
From Wikipedia:
The Mounichia or Mounichia (Μουνιχιας) was an ancient Greek festival held on the 16th (full moon) of the month Mounichion (mid-April to mid-May lunar month) in the honor of Artemis Mounichia. The goddess' epithet come from Munichia's hill, where Artemis’ temple stood, close to Piraeus and the Salamis battle site. The festival commemorates the Greek fleet victory against Persians at Salamis. Dessert breads decorated with burning candles(?!) were offered to the goddess. Young girls dressed up as bears, like at Brauronia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mounikhia
I doubt candles were used, real bee wax ones (the only ones made at the time) can spontaneously start to melt if the day's weather is too hot.
Also, another celebration for this time, is the HARVEST in some cultures. In Mediterranean cultures, crops were planted in the autumn to take advantage of winter rain, then harvested in the spring, before the summer drought came. There was no choice, as irrigation canals were not invented yet, rivers were seasonal, or the soil is/was too sandy to support irrigation canals taking water from point A to point B.
Long answer diatribe follows; thanks for reading this far, there is no there there, therein.
-"Anonomouse"
So, the British may be confused about that (they are the "Greco-Roman fanatics" usually), using Roman biased eyes looking to look at Greek society, then presuming Greece has been nothing more then a Roman slave-colony; instead of sovereign before Rome invaded, or even existed.
So, Persephone, who was Kore (the "maiden"; or in 21st century speak... a girl who has not yet made it to puberty and her first period) and her mom, gives the clues. Mom (Demeter), walks around with a torch, and the people are starving from lack of food (summer heat and drought), daughter eats the Pomegranate, THEN walk back to the Upperworld... THEN there is rain THEN there is flowers and blah blah blah,
umm... Pomegranates are an Autumn food in the northern hemisphere... so Kore who became Persephone (trans: Destroyer?), then comes back. If we slow this down to the level of Herakles' Twelve Trials (we get the yearly constellation cycle from him), we see that Demeter wandered a season (3 months), it takes a season to walk from the Underworld to the Overworld (3 months), and this ends up not being some obsession over a mere rape & return, misogynist/rapist-scores-new-wife story, but the telling of how the seasons came to be. And being a god, I doubt he would rape his niece... me thinks this is an attempted rewrite of Greek myth to make the abrahamic stuff look better.
Try living in Greece, or southern California, without modern conveniences like running water, and try and figure out how you would water 20 acres of land... a bucket, or planting Winter Rye, Winter Wheat, and Winter Barley... in autumn?
Sundown April 30 to Sundown May 1, the balance point exactly opposite Halloween and so marks the point between the dark-half and light-half of the year.
It lies between the spring equinox and summer solstice, and is a fire festival so if you want to incorporate the concept of purifying from miasma, this would be one of those times.
From Wikipedia:
The Mounichia or Mounichia (Μουνιχιας) was an ancient Greek festival held on the 16th (full moon) of the month Mounichion (mid-April to mid-May lunar month) in the honor of Artemis Mounichia. The goddess' epithet come from Munichia's hill, where Artemis’ temple stood, close to Piraeus and the Salamis battle site. The festival commemorates the Greek fleet victory against Persians at Salamis. Dessert breads decorated with burning candles(?!) were offered to the goddess. Young girls dressed up as bears, like at Brauronia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mounikhia
I doubt candles were used, real bee wax ones (the only ones made at the time) can spontaneously start to melt if the day's weather is too hot.
Also, another celebration for this time, is the HARVEST in some cultures. In Mediterranean cultures, crops were planted in the autumn to take advantage of winter rain, then harvested in the spring, before the summer drought came. There was no choice, as irrigation canals were not invented yet, rivers were seasonal, or the soil is/was too sandy to support irrigation canals taking water from point A to point B.
Long answer diatribe follows; thanks for reading this far, there is no there there, therein.
-"Anonomouse"
So, the British may be confused about that (they are the "Greco-Roman fanatics" usually), using Roman biased eyes looking to look at Greek society, then presuming Greece has been nothing more then a Roman slave-colony; instead of sovereign before Rome invaded, or even existed.
So, Persephone, who was Kore (the "maiden"; or in 21st century speak... a girl who has not yet made it to puberty and her first period) and her mom, gives the clues. Mom (Demeter), walks around with a torch, and the people are starving from lack of food (summer heat and drought), daughter eats the Pomegranate, THEN walk back to the Upperworld... THEN there is rain THEN there is flowers and blah blah blah,
umm... Pomegranates are an Autumn food in the northern hemisphere... so Kore who became Persephone (trans: Destroyer?), then comes back. If we slow this down to the level of Herakles' Twelve Trials (we get the yearly constellation cycle from him), we see that Demeter wandered a season (3 months), it takes a season to walk from the Underworld to the Overworld (3 months), and this ends up not being some obsession over a mere rape & return, misogynist/rapist-scores-new-wife story, but the telling of how the seasons came to be. And being a god, I doubt he would rape his niece... me thinks this is an attempted rewrite of Greek myth to make the abrahamic stuff look better.
Try living in Greece, or southern California, without modern conveniences like running water, and try and figure out how you would water 20 acres of land... a bucket, or planting Winter Rye, Winter Wheat, and Winter Barley... in autumn?
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