Southern hemisphere pagans?

Question

I'm just wondering if you reverse all the festivals - like it being autumn here now would make it kinda silly to mark a rite of fertility. So really the festival of Eostre should be celebrated in about October in the southern hemisphere, shouldn't it?

Answer 1

It depends on the Pagan, but 4 of the 8 Witch holidays compiled by Margaret Murray and used by Wiccans and other Pagans aren't Astronomical in nature so don't really need to be changed.

Many European Diaspora Pagans (Pagans practicing European religions outside of Europe) celebrate the seasons of their motherlands as they occur in those motherlands.

Others celebrate them as appropriate harvest and planting celebrations and still others completely reverse the calendar.

All these views have a valid basis and are equally correct provided they are consistant.

Answer 2

I know it's spring time here in South Ga. USA. I don't recall anyone around here celebrating the Eostre's festival, but I don't think there are any laws against celebrating any kind of festival around here. Oh there's one that they are trying to outlaw, Christ Birthday. But of course the day of celebration of Christ Birth isn't the actual time of year he was born. Most scholars believe he was born sometime in the spring.

Most modern sources describe Eostre's festival as a celebration of the Spring Equinox. Bede, however, never stated this. Eosturmonath is a lunar month, and as it starts with the new moon, can begin on a variety of possible dates.[5] Since the Spring Equinox falls on a single date in March, Eosturmonath cannot be associated directly with the Spring Equinox.

Eostre is also worshipped by some neopagans, who associate her with various aspects related to the renewal of life: spring, fertility and the hare (allegedly for its rapid and prolific reproduction). Modern worshippers and writers describe Eostre as a "Goddess of dawn" based on the etymological relationship between her name and the Anglo-Saxon word for 'dawn'.

The association of Eostre with the Spring Equinox is important in Wiccan belief as part of the Wheel of the Year. Wiccan celebrations of the Equinoxes involve goddesses and various other eclectic elements from distant and diverse cultures.

The belief that Eostre had hare's ears or a hare's head may well derive from Nigel Pennick's Practical Magic in the Northern Tradition in which an image of the Saxon moon god Mona from A Restitution of Decayed Intelligence[6] is shown, with the accompanying text describing Mani both as a goddess and as 'Eostre in her spring guise'.

We learn about these type holidays etc in Greek Mythology which is OK to teach in public schools, it's just Christianity that can't be tought or expressed in our public school systems.

Answer 3

Normally people who learn about paganism in the southern hemisphere do reverse them. Others who move to the southern hemisphere keep the dates as they had them while living in the northern hemisphere. Logically it would make sense to reverse them because it's pretty weird to celebrate mid-winter while it is sweltering hot.

Answer 4

Actually their festivals are opposite to that of the Northern Hemisphere.
When we celebrate Beltane on May 1, our southern hemisphere friends are celebrating Samhain.

When we celebrate Midsummer, they are celebrating Yule.

When we celebrate Lughnassadh, they are celebrating Imbolc.

Our Mabon is their Ostara, and so on.

Answer 5

because of the fact the holiday journeys stick to the Solstices and the Equinoxes, interior the Southern Hemisphere you're able to easily opposite the traditional calendar. this suggests you land up with yuletide in June and Beltane in October, yet it incredibly is how the planting season could flow.

Answer 6

We celebrate everything the same as the northern hemisphere

Answer 7

Hey, come down and experience christmas. 103 in the shade and santa in a fur lined suit, snow sprayed on windows and cards showing slieghs and reindeer.