THE GNOSTIC CALENDAR
A Mandala of Wholeness
Introduction:
THE FOUNDATION OF ANY CALENDAR is the perceived movement and changing relationship of our world relative to its surrounding cosmos. Over several millennia, humankind has imposed upon this seemingly cyclical march a meaning: a story has been envisioned in the dance of heaven, a drama of redemption has been read in the bright/dark spinning of earth, moon, sun and stars.
In actuality, of course, this story derives not from the vastness of heaven, but from the center of our own being. The liturgical cycles mankind has marked in time with festivals and calendar seasons, can usefully be examined as reflections of our own interior landscape: they originate within us, and are projected outward from their true source in the human soul.
Aided by the terminology of Jungian depth psychology, the modern Gnostic might regard the quaternary (or "fourfold") structure of the cross as a symbol of wholeness and completion. This ancient manner of ordering the world -- represented also by the four seasons, the four traditional elements, the four points of a compass -- is but a reflection of an archetypal balance within human consciousness, suggested C. G. Jung.
This four-fold image of the cross seems to have also found a natural reflection in the Christian liturgical calendar. To the individual striving for an increase of consciousness and personal integration, the ritual life of the Ecclesia offers an ancient mandala of wholeness. In the calendar of the Ecclesia there resides a legacy of wisdom, and a tool of transformation. Consider the ecclesiastical calendar as a landscape over which we journey year by year. The festivals celebrated in the calendar are features that mark our way, and guide our return.
Now, map this landscape with a compass. Let a horizontal beam stretch out across the horizon, separating above from below: summer from winter. Then imagine a vertical beam ascending from earth to heaven, cleaving right from left, and separating spring from fall. In the temporal realm above the horizontal division of this mandala, there resides (metaphorically) the summer solstice and its season of intense light. Below the horizon-line, opposed to the light, abides the season of the winter solstice with its cold and dark -- images of death and unconsciousness.
Thursting across this horizontal division of light and dark, a vertical axis marks a second pair of opposites: the live-giving dawn of spring is juxtaposed with the dusk of autumn and the preparation for death. (It must of course be remembered, that this church calendar took first form in a temperate, northern climate marked by flux of these seasonal variations.) Thus, the yearly ecclesiastical calendar is like the cycle of a human life, or the turning of a day: a journey betwixt light and dark, dusk and dawn. It is a cycle of consciousness reaping realization from the unconscious, rising to the light, and then passing again back to the dark source.
From the four cardinal points of the cross, roughly marked by the two solstices and equinoxes, traditional ecclesistical calendars figured the proper place of other important landmarks. In each season, roughly forty days after the cardinal point (solstice or equinox) a point in times has traditionally been recognized which represents the culmination of forces characteristic of the season. The number forty (the product of two basic numbers of completion, four and ten) has held significance as an important periodicity since ancient times. It was a symbol of trial and testing to the Semitic people, as in the forty years in the desert, or the forty day fast of Christ.
The first major "forty-day" festival that has survived into modern ecclesiastical celebration is the Festival of Candlemas, celebrated on February 2nd (a day now known more vulgarly as "Groundhog Day"). Although actually following 43 days after the winter solstice, it falls exactly forty days from the celebration of Christmas. This forty-day period is the heart of winter, and at it's conclusion on Candlemas, the candles of the church to be used in the coming year are blessed in memory and celebration of the True Light's impending victory.
Forty days after the autumnal equinox, as the world falls again into clutch of winter cold, there comes a series of festivals marked by Halloween, All Saint's Day (the name "Halloween" means simply "saint's day eve"), and All Soul's Day. And again reflecting this forty-day pattern of reckoning seasons, Ascension day is celebrated forty days after Easter Sunday (Easter itself is marked on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the vernal equinox). Ascension day signals completion of the spring-time Easter cycle. (Although not directly represented in our current Christian calendar, another festival should here also be mentioned: folk traditions in Europe celebrated the harvest festival of Lammas forty days after the summer solstice.)
As the liturgical calendar turns through these ancient seasons -- now mostly
forgotten by our modern world -- it continues to profer the observant
earthly traveler vital spiritual landmarks and waystations, each gracefully
designed to guide and nurture the soul on its journey homeward. In this
cycle, the travel of the sun through the day, and the earth through the
year, become symbolic reckonings of our own journey heavenward. By
consciously participating in this timeless mandala of wholeness, we are both
aided in discerning the features of the soul's interior landscape, and in
discovering anew the eternally abiding story of consciousness awakening
within creation's ceaselessly shifting darkness and light.
| Main Calendar Page | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Calendar 1 | Calendar 2 | Calendar 3 | ||
| Gnostic Calendar (1) | Gnostic Calendar (2) | Gnostic Calendar (3) | ||
| Sabbats & Meaning | Holiday Origins | Holiday Terms | ||
| Moon Information | ||||
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