APRIL, 2008

April 1 - 12

 4/1 - 2 (2 days): 

In the ancient Greek calendar, the Veneralia, the annual rites of Peace, celebrating the power of love by which Aphrodite (her name is the source of "April") overcomes the physical power of Ares, god of war. Festivals of the lady of love abound this month, beginning weeks before the Sun enters the Venus-ruled sign of Taurus on April 20.

For the first April since 2002, Venus is powerfully at home in Taurus at the top of the month, and for almost two weeks to come, until 4/12.

The famous expression "Amor Vincit Omnia" (Love Conquers All) is a relic of this festival.

    In the ancient Khemitian calendar, this day begins a major four-day festival cycle honoring the neters -- not "gods", as keepers of cosmic order. The main feasts and ceremonies:

4/1     Festival Day of Het-Hor, aka Hathor, as sky divinity whose cow horns embrace the Sun. Het-Hor, whose name literally means "house of Hor" (Het-Hor is, along with Aset ("Isis"), one of two neters who were honored as mother of the solar deity and divine hero Hor. Het-Hor is also identified in this spring festival with Aphrodite/Venus, goddess of love. (Month of Pachons, day 17)

4/2     Festival of the Ennead--the nine "old neters" and the boat of Ra, which maintains order in heaven and earth by sailing each day through the sky and the duat, or underworld. (Pachons, day 18).

4/2     Festival of the union of Djehuti ("Thoth"), neter of letters and learning, with Ma'at, neter of Truth. It is said that Djehuti's understanding of numbers, and of mathematics as a principle of civil and universal order, is born of the inspiration he received from Ma'at. (Pachons, day 19)

4/3     Feast of Ma'at as merciful intermediary in the judgment of souls. (Pachons, day 20)

    And in the United States, 4/1 is April Fool's day, derived from the old Teutonic Feast of Fools ruled by Loki, the trickster god.

4/4 (Fri):

In ancient Rome, 4/4 is the first day of Megalesia, a week-long festival in honor of Cybele, the Magna Mater (Great Mother) worshipped throughout the Roman Empire. Megalesia was said to have marked the arrival in Rome of Cybele's image, sent from her home temple in Phrygia (in the western region of modern Turkey).

4/5 (Sat):

Roman festival of Fortuna, honoring the goddess of luck and chance, symbolized by wings, the Moon, a cornucopia and a ship's rudder.

New Moon conjunct Sun in Aries. This New Moon, which is always regarded as fiery, impulsive and powerful, is usually considered exceedingly favorable for the launching of new enterprises, for dynamic combinations of female and male energies, and for the energizing of like-minded groups toward common objectives, especially as they may involve assertive and determined initiatives. This is not the sweetest New Moon imaginable, however, as Mars in Cancer and Jupiter in Capricorn both square, at 90° angles, the Sun-Moon combination. The moment may feel like an intimate dinner for two interrupted by a loud, bumpy argument on the other side of the parterre.

In the Celtic/Druidic and Wiccan calendars, this first New Moon after the Spring Equinox is called the Planting Moon.

For Theravadin Buddhists, this New Moon begins the three-day festival of the New Year.

At this New Moon, some communities in India celebrate the New Year according to their traditional lunisolar calendar. Those who most favor this timing are devotees of Rama, as this day begins the nine-day series of Rama ceremonies and performances culminating at Ramanavami (see below). Other Hindus hold their New Year Vaisakhi celebrations on the fixed solar date of 4/13; the Sikh and Jain New Year also falls on this day. For some believers, the Diwali festival of lights in the autumn also has the status of a New Year. In India, one good celebration is worth a thousand calculations, especially now, in a leap year. It's best to check the festival schedule, if it can be called that, with your local Hindu community, rather than rely on any general information.

4/6 - 14 (nine days):

In the Hindu calendar, this nine-day festival culminates at Ramanavami, the birthday of Lord Rama, hero of the epic poem, The Ramayana, one of the masterworks of the world's sacred literature. On this day statues of Rama are cleansed, decorated and paraded, and heroic stories from the Rama legends -- notably the famous episode of Rama and Sita's hunt for the Golden Deer -- are enacted in music, song and dance.

4/8 (Tue):

Celebrated in some countries, by the solar calendar, as the birthday (563 BC) of Siddhartha Gautama, who became the Buddha. This date is most consistently observed in cultures which attribute to the Buddha the physical and psychic qualities of Aries, the Ram (visible in the eyebrow and nose lines of this image). The Chinese, Tibetan and other Asian lunar calendars, on the other hand, place the Buddha's birthday on the Full Moon of the 4th lunar month, known in the West as the "Full Moon in Taurus". See 4/20.

Among those who observe the Buddha's birthday with rare beauty on this day are the Japanese, for whom this is the Hana Matsuri, or flower festival, when children dressed in their best kimono chant in gorgeous processions with floral floats that must be seen -- and smelled -- to be believed.

4/9 (Wed):

In some Christian calendars, this is the feast of St. Mary of Egypt, unofficial patron saint of runaways and children who are born to be wild. At 12 she ran away to Alexandria, where she lived as a party animal and prostitute until, at 29, she pulled the stunning outrage of traveling with a caravan of pilgrims to Jerusalem, entertaining along the way as many men as she could lure into her tent. In the holy city she experienced a life-cleansing vision of the Virgin Mary, who told her to "cross over Jordan" to find peace. Mary wandered in the desert for the next 47 years until she met the abbot Zosimus, who brought her holy communion on Holy Thursday and agreed to come and administer the sacrament again a year later. When Zosimus returned, he found Mary lifeless on the sand, with an inscription that read, "Here lies the body of Mary the sinner." Her story has been dramatized in a beautiful "icon in music and dance" by John Tavener.

April 9 is also the Baha'i feast honoring the Deity as Jalal (Glory).

4/11 (Fri):

In the Roman Catholic calendar, this is the feast of Pope Leo I, also called St. Leo the Great, who is celebrated for his courage in having gone unescorted to persuade Attila the Hun to spare Rome from the destruction that the Huns had already visited on northern Italy. It is reported that when Attila's generals asked him why he had chosen to march his host back to the Danube, instead of taking the empire's richest prize when it was within his grasp, Attila replied that he had seen two radiant beings, whom he took to be Sts. Peter and Paul, standing behind Leo, symbolizing the spiritual forces allied with him.

4/12 - 19 (8 days):

Roman festival of Cerealia, honoring Ceres (Greek Demeter) and her blessings of abundant harvest, peace and good government. Feminine relationships of sisterhood, parenthood and mentorship between wise women and girls, and for that matter all ceremonies of female spirituality, are emphasized now.