2009 Feb 1

Mercury turns direct.
Traditional Imbolc.
St. Brigid's Feast Day. Brigid is closely associated with the dairy. St. Brigid traveled the countryside, blessing households, with her white red-eared cow.
Four Chaplains Sunday.
Feast and Birthday of Nut (2 day festival), in the fixed Khemitian calendar, the primordial sky netert who was said to hold all souls within her womb, and was the mother of Ausar (Osiris), Aset (Isis), Hor or "old Horus"--that is, Hor as light being, before his birth as son of Ausar and Aset--Set and Nebt-het (Nephthys).
U.S. National Freedom day, celebrating the end of slavery in the U.S.
Start of U.S. Black History Month.


2009 Feb 2

Candlemas. Presentation of Jesus at the Temple, The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin. The Meeting of the Lord. Feast of the purification of the Virgin. On the day when Mary took the boy Jesus to the Temple for the first time. As the first presentation of the child in the temple and the ritual purification of the mother were always done 40 days after the birth of a boy (80 days for a girl), Candlemas always comes 40 days after Christmas. Since the Christian middle ages, candles blessed at the church on this day have been used the next day for the feast of St. Blaise, and are kept throughout the year for protection against dark forces.
Chandeleur AKA "Crêpe (Pancake) Day" in France.
Vēja diena ("Day of Wind") festival of ancient Latvia, regarded as a fiercely windy day, and various rituals were performed to ensure that the damage from the wind would not be too severe the following summer.

Feast Day of St. Cornelius, first uncircumcised Christian

Festival of Februalia, honoring the old Roman goddess Februa, mother of Mars, later merged with Juno to become Juno Februa, so called because expiatory offerings called februa are made to her now, in the time of purification. This festival thus embodies the transition from the latent vitality of late winter to the awakening of spring, symbolized in many cultures by weather rituals -- such as Groundhog Day -- in which sun or rain, light or shadow, indicate whether winter will continue to rule, or yield soon to spring.

The Yoruba and Santeria peoples of Africa and the Americas honor Oya, the Orisha of death and rebirth, one of many manifestations of the one God Olodumare, bringer of life and death.

Celebration of Yemaja. Yemaja is an orisha, originally of the Yoruba religion, who has become prominent in many Afro-American religion. Africans from what is now called Yorubaland brought Yemaya and a host of other deities/energy forces in nature with them when they were brought to the shores of the Americas as captives. She is the ocean, the essence of motherhood, and a protector of children.
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First day of the Uinal of Death (Mayan Calendar), the sixth of the 20-day Uinals in the current cycle of the Tzolkin, or 260-day calendar (10 Imix, Tzolkin 101). This Uinal is ruled by Mictantecuhtli, the Lord of darkness from which new life must proliferate in the next uinal. The Owl is the symbolic bird.

Ratha Saptami. Lord Vishnu in his form as Surya is usually worshiped on this day. Usually, Rathasapthami begins in households with a purification bath by holding a few bilva leaves on one's head while bathing and chanting a verse which is supposed to invoke the benevolence of the Lord in all that one takes up the rest of the year. It also involves doing a puja with the ritual 'Naivedyam', flowers and fruits.

This day is also known as Surya Jayanthi because it celebrates the power of the Sun God who is believed to be an incarnation of Lord Vishnu.

In important Vaishnavite temples like Tirumala and Srirangam, Rathasapthami figures as one of the important festivals of the year. A one day Brahmotsavam is held and the Utsava Murthy is carried out in a variety of vahanams around the main temple precints during the day.

Rathasapthami also marks the gradual increase in temperature across South India and anticipates the arrival of spring which is later heralded by the festival of Ugadi in the month of 'Chaitra'.

In the Vaishnavite tradition, days in the year marking 'Vaikunta Ekadasi', 'Rathasapthami', 'Ugadi', 'Vijayadashami', are held in high regard and observed accordingly.

Good actions done on this day give manifold results.

World Wetlands Day

2009 Feb 3

Feast of St. Blaise (Roman Catholic Calendar) whose efficacy in the prevention of throat diseases inspired rituals like those of the preceding day, Candlemas. Crossed, unlighted candles, symbolizing purification of speech, are held at the throat of those receiving the blessing.
Setsubun, traditional last day of winter. Rituals are performed to chase away the evil spirits of winter to make way for the rejuvenating forces of spring. Although many of the rituals have now died out, one that prevails is the scattering of roasted beans around the home, temples and shrines whilst shouting "Oni wa soto! Fuku wa uchi!" ("Devils out, happiness in"). In the comic ritual plays of the season, children in the crowds of shrinegoers throw the dried beans at devil dancers carrying grotesque weapons. In the annual Setsubun dances at Heian Shrine in Kyoto -- where this shot of the author wielding a big tsubo, or iron club, was taken -- the chief oni sings the ancient Tsuina, one of Japan's oldest surviving ritual melodies. It, and the Setsubun rite itself, comes from an older Chinese practice called Ta Nuo, the cleansing of the field to prepare it for the spring thaw and planting time. When the ritual is over, participants must seek out and eat one bean for each year since their birth.

Venus enters Aries: In this Mars-ruled sign she is said to be "in detriment" until she enters Taurus, one of the signs she rules. Her visit to Aries is not an easy time for power and boundary issues with men. It may be easier this time around, though, because the next day:

Bheeshma astami

2009 Feb 4

Mars enters Aquarius, the Uranus-ruled sign of friendship, social activism and equality, and communal celebration. While this Mars placement is considered neutral, it is nevertheless a time when true warriors can use their masculine qualities of courage, discipline, self-sacrifice and drive to serve others in a spirit of compassion, strength and mercy. So while Venus is in a disadvantageous position during her very long stay in Aries (2/3 through 6/6, except for a retrograde interlude in Pisces, 4/11 - 24), Mars is much easier to deal with, and more readily able to see points of view other than his own, from now through 3/14.

We will track these Venus and Mars moves with uncommon care this time around because while all the planets may hang in the same sign for months as they go retrograde and direct again, the long process of Venus in Aries in 2009 merits attention because if there were a star dynamic that could have been created by women in general for testing their assertiveness and dignity in relation to men, the four-month Venus-in-Aries period of Feb. 3 - June 6 would be it. If Venus is under stress from friction with men for these four entire months (except for a Pisces retrograde break 4/11 - 24), then it is best for women to know when Mars is at the peak of his power, when not. He is neutral and may even be fun in Aquarius until March 16. He begins to get empowered when the Sun enters Mars-ruled Aries at the Spring Equinox from March 20, though with Mars himself in Pisces, his own momentum is impeded. Mars is strongest, most impatient and impulsive, and easiest to get lost in from April 24 through May 31, when he advances into Taurus, and is now in detriment himself. On June 6, Venus enters Taurus, sign of her rulership. So

Sri Madhva Navami

2009 Feb 5

In the ancient western world, this is one of the most important days of the year for all forms of prophecy and divination, sacred to the goddess Tyche and her counterparts: Fortuna in Rome and Wyrd among the Celtic peoples. All were superseded in medieval Christian Europe by St. Agatha, whose feast is celebrated on this day.

Ekadashi. The special feature of Ekadasi, as most people know it, is a fast, abstinence from diet. This is how it is usually understood. 'We do not eat on Ekadasi', is what people understand. In this country (India) it has become a routine to be abstemious, if not observe a complete fast on this day

2009 Feb 6

In the Greco-Roman calendar, this is the feast of Aphrodite and Venus, goddess of love. This is the day for poetry, drama, comedy, music and pictures in honor of the paragon of Beauty.

Jaya vrat.

2009 Feb 7

3:16 pm Astronomical Imbolc, Beginning of Spring, 立春 lìchūn in the Chinese Calendar

Pradosha Puja. The Pradosha worship is to be done in the evening twilight on the thirteenth day of each lunar fortnight. It is the worship of Lord Siva for victory and success in all undertakings, and the fulfilment of all your heart's cherished desires. When you desire to obtain a favour from a superior person, don't you naturally approach him at a moment when he is likely to be in a very pleasant frame of mind? You will perhaps see him after he has had a good dinner and is happily chatting with a friend in a hearty, expansive mood. Even so, the Hindu, especially the Hindu who is engaged in the motivated type of worship, usually selects the most pleasant aspect of God for his worship. He performs it at a time which the ancient Rishis experienced as being the most helpful and efficacious in propitiating the Deity. The Pradosha worship is based on such mystic psychology.

Pradosha is the worship of Lord Siva and Parvati when they both are in an extremely propitious mood. Repeatedly worsted in war by the demons, the gods approached Lord Siva to bless them with a leader for their celestial hosts. They came to the Lord at twilight on the thirteenth day of the lunar fortnight and found Him in the blissful company of His consort, Parvati. Hymned and glorified by them, Siva immediately granted their prayerful request. Hence, the extreme auspiciousness of the period.

This day is the Baha'i feast honoring the Deity as Mulk, Sacred Dominion.

2009 Feb 8

For some Buddhists, this day just before the Full Moon in Leo is an important holy day. For Mahayana Buddhists it is Paranirvana Day, commemorating the passing away of the Awakened One's physical body, and his entry into Nirvana. Pure Land Buddhists assign this day the same meaning, observing it as Nirvana Day.

Thai Poosam

2009 Feb 9

4:38am HT, Full Moon in Leo opposite Sun in Aquarius. The partners in this combination are not equally balanced now. The Sun continues to be "in detriment" in Aquarius, hia solar energies of control weakened, with the result that inner conflicts -- between people, within the same person -- are likely to manifest now. Every Full Moon is a potential moment for culmination and completion. But this one also has strong energies of beginning, as on this day Chiron and Neptune -- who now form a triple conjunction with the Aquarius Sun -- have moved for the first time into the true conjunction (within 3° of each other) that they will maintain for most of the next three years. For more on this extremely momentous alignment, see links at the bottom of this page.

One of the year's great Navajo Sing Festivals, beginning at the Full Moon in February, this one held to purify the fields and the people before the next planting season. In prayers, song and dance, and healing ceremonies, the Navajo honor Naste Estsan, the Spider Woman who spun the world and supported the warrior twins Tobadzistsini and Naymezyani in their struggle against the forces of evil. In her dual roles as Spider Woman and the shape shifter Estsanatlehi, the "Changing Woman" Creator Goddess, Naste Estsan carries and endlessly becomes the unlimited transforming power of nature.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan calendars, this Full Moon is called Storm Moon. Also Quickening Moon and Wild Moon, in the “Great Winter” season close to Imbolc, 1/31 - 2/2. It is customary during this moon to wash clothes in clove and angelica, to purify them for the Spring.

In the Jewish Calendar, this Full Moon is Tu B'Shevat, important in ancient times as a marker day for reckoning the ripening cycles of grains and fruits. This "new year for trees" is the counterpart of arbor day festivals everywhere, when trees are planted in midwinter to symbolize the growth of new life toward the promise of spring. "Our Sages," Rabbi Eliyahu Kitov writes, "have designated the 15th of Shevat as the boundary, for trees, between one year and another."

Feast day of Apollo in his aspect as Helios, god of the Sun, honored now a week after the mid-winter festival.

2009 Feb 11

One of the great festival cycles (3 days) of Ausar (Osiris) in the ancient Khemitian calendar, celebrated especially at the main center of Ausar worship in Abydos (2/11) and at Busiris, the ancient holy city of the Nile delta. The principal ceremony performed on the last of these three days was a dawn ritual of opening the doors of the horizon, and thereby reaffirming the precision of the divine order operating between Sun and Earth. (Month of Pamenot, days 28 - 30).

The Pharaonic melody for this feast, as preserved in music of the Coptic church, has been found by Dr. Maged Samuel in Cairo.

First appearance of Our Lady of Lourdes (1858), the most celebrated healing emanation of the Virgin Mary.

2009 Feb 12

Rahu-Jupiter conjunction

In the Greco-Roman calendar, 2/12 is the feast of the virgin huntress Artemis, or Diana, whose purity symbolizes the ascendancy of spirit over matter. Artemis is the protector of women and children against sexual intimidation and all violence.

The Ides of February, beginning of the eight-day Roman festival of the Parentalia, the year's chief festival in honor of the dead.

2009 Feb 13

In the Roman calendar, this is one of the year's great feasts, the Lupercalia (3 days), an agricultural festival sacred to Faunus, the beneficent aspect of the god Pan in his role as giver of abundance, protector of flocks and fields. This is a day on which animal communication is especially favored, and animals are said to assist humans in other ways as well. The she-wolf who suckled Romulus and Remus is honored on this day. Above all, this festival is a celebration of love, both spiritual and erotic, in all its streams.

Fire circle communities sing this chant to Pan: "I am the dance of the forest glade in spring. / I am the joy of life, the soul of every thing. / I am the flame that leaps upon the hill. / I am the word. I am the will."

2009 Feb 14

Saint Valentine's Day.

In Christian calendars, and by now in the calendars of many other cultures, Valentine's Day, the famous feast of the lovers. According to one legend from Greece -- which has been celebrating Eros, erotic love, on this day since very ancient times -- this is the day on which young doves mate during the transition from winter to spring. As doves mate for life and live in a happy fidelity that other beings rarely approach, 2/14 has embodied ever since the loyalty of true love. The symbol that has stuck for this day is the heart pierced by an arrow, fired by -- who else? -- Eros (Cupid), who has always ruled this day.

Before Feb. 14 became fixed in the solar calendar as the feast of lovers, the Athenians celebrated at this time the festival of Zeus and Hera, whose marriage bond -- despite the supreme god's constant infidelities -- somehow symbolized the ideal marriage to which earthly couples could aspire. In the Greek lunar calendar, mid-January to mid-February was the month of Gamelion, so called because it was a major mating season, engendering new babies to be born in November, when winter's approach would keep armies and other disruptions at home, thus increasing the mothers' chances of bringing new children safely to birth. Feb. 14 was Gamelion's climactic fertility rite, performed as the beginning of the mid-winter thaw heralds the coming of spring.

Similar practices survive in many European cultures. Slovenian people begin the year's work in their fields and vineyards, on the day when plants and flowers are said to start growing again, and birds are said to marry. Finns celebrate Ystavanpaiva, the feast of friendship. And in old Norfolk, long before England became the UK, a character named Jack Valentine was believed to come knocking on the back door of houses, delivering sweets and gifts to children.

Fascinatingly, the Christian association of this day involves no fewer than four Valentines: three priests named Valentinus (of Rome, Terni and Africa), all of whom were said to have been martyred on Feb. 14 in or around the year 270; and Valentinius of Alexandria, the much-admired bishop and Gnostic teacher who was reportedly among the leading candidates to be elected pope in 143. What may have ruined his chance to be the bishop of Rome was that unlike mainstream prelates whose views of women and sex ranged from ascetic to hostile, Valentinius taught that the marriage bed was the earthly sanctuary of couples who celebrated the hierogamos (see Zeus and Hera above), the sacred marriage rite between the human soul and the Divine Beloved.

Mercury re-enters Aquarius (see 1/1) on this day. Even though Mercury is said to be "exalted" here, a Mercury-in-Aquarius period is always a time of quirky and karmically buzzed communications. Essential messages must be crafted and delivered, and communication projects large and small must get moved effectively along before Mercury enters Pisces, where he is "in detriment. " Mercury can have a brilliant time of it in Aquarius, though he may get distracted, even seduced, by the Aquarian dazzle and glamor. Detail work that requires precision had best get done before Mercury enters Aquarius, and is still in Capricorn.

In the ancient Khemitian calendar, the month of Parmuti begins on this day. The netert associated with this month is Renenutet, the serpent-headed protector of children and lady of fertility and good fortune.

Orthodox (Julian) St. Brigid's Feast Day


2009 Feb 15

Japanese Zen Buddhists celebrate this day as Nehan -- literally the sleeping holy day -- honoring the Buddha's attainment of parinirvana.
Nirvana Day. Some Buddhists mark the anniversary of Buddha's death on this day.
In the Norse calendar, this day is sacred to a noted animal communicator: Siegfried, greatest of all warrior heroes, who understood the songs of forest birds after slaying the dragon Fafner and inadvertently tasting its blood.

For the people of Tanna Island in Vanuatu, this is John Frum Day, named for the semi-mythic figure whom the islanders invoked as far back as the 1930's in prayers for liberation from their colonial oppressors. During World War II, when the U. S. air force used Tanna as a supply base for the Pacific campaign, John Frum became a composite hero resembling the American fliers whose largesse to the local people in the 1940's made them the deities of the famous cargo cults that erected wooden control towers and airplanes in an effort to bring back the airmen and their bounty. John Frum Day features a ceremony of flowers and flag raising, face painting, singing and dancing, a military parade of men dressed in camouflage and carrying bamboo rifles, and a feast at which, presumably, people pray for Spam.

Rahu-Mars conjunction





Date Void Begins Time (EST) Date Void Ends Time (EST)
Sun Feb 1 1:08 pm Sun Feb 1 5:08 pm Taurus
Tue Feb 3 8:27 pm Tue Feb 3 9:14 pm Gemini
Thu Feb 5 12:44 pm Tue Feb 5 11:05 pm Cancer
Sat Feb 7 2:07 pm Sat Feb 7 11:43 pm Leo
Mon Feb 9 2:28 pm Tue Feb 10 12:38 am Virgo
Wed Feb 11 11:17 pm Thu Feb 12 3:33 am Libra
Sat Feb 14 9:46 am Sat Feb 14 9:50 am Scorpio