Wednesday, January 12, 2022

2022 Festival Calendar

Historically I've not been great at sticking to a festival calendar, with the exception of Lenaia and Anthesteria (those I've been observing consistently for over 10 years). It's helped in the past when a festival calendar has been shared with a community, but lately I've been wanting to settle on a calendar that only includes things that feel more personally meaningful. And indeed, some of these are ONLY meaningful to me. We'll see how this sticks, but now that I'm currently finishing up the last bit of work to complete my clinical herbalist program, I'm looking forward to having more time and energy for devotional work.

Having mirror festivals in October was based on a conversation with a friend/co-religionist in my tradition. We observed the parallels of Anthesteria with observances like Samhain, and they mentioned the idea of having another festival that mirrors Lenaia. I love this idea, and I'm thinking it might blend well into an Oschophoria-type observance. We'll see... this is not fully fleshed out yet. I suspect I'll be figuring it out as I go along.


2022 Festival Calendar

Jan 14 (sunset) - Jan 18th (sunset) - Lenaia

Feb 11 (sunset) - Feb 14th (sunset) - Anthesteria

March 12 (sunset) - March 20th (sunset) - City Dionysia

  • March 20th - Spring equinox: Bacchic Orphic Egg Hunt?

April 28-May 2nd (solar) - Floralia

May 4th - Alice Day

May 6-14th - Elevation Ceremony/Days of Remembrance for Anthony

June 2nd - Khariteia: Festival of the Graces

July 3rd - Dies Mortis of Jim Morrison

Near Full moon in July (13th) - Festival of Ariadne & the Mountain Mothers

Aug 8 - Day of the Beloved Trickster

Sept 21-23 - Festival of Orpheus: Poetry, prophecy, music, and honoring tradition

Oct 3-5 - Oschophoria / Mirror Lenaia:  Fire mysteries, honoring the last harvest, sacrifice, beginning the underworld descent

Oct 31-Nov 2 - Days of the Dead / Mirror Anthesteria

Nov 4th - Looking Glass Day

Nov 24th - Lampteria 

Dec 21st - Winter Solstice/Yule

Dec 22 - 31st - Festival of the Toys

Jan 1st - Kalends



I'm also assigning each month to some deeper work with each of the Toys of Dionysos, with my birth month reserved for the Agathos Daimon and December honoring all the Toys. Funny how Esoptron very naturally falls in October.

Jan: Sphaira

Feb: Astragaloi

Mar: Trochos

Apr: Rhombos

May: Strobilos

Jun: Krotala

Jul: Paignia

Aug: Pokos

Sep: Mela

Oct: Esoptron

Nov: The Agathos Daimon

Dec: All the Toys


4 comments:

  1. This is great. Interesting idea about the mirror festivals. These days my Oct-Dec period is kind of taken over by Northern European gods and traditions, but I will keep that in mind for the future in case that changes, as things are always in flux.

    I too have most consistently celebrated Lenaia and Anthesteria of all the ancient Dionysian festivals - I think for over 20 years now! I wonder how common this pairing is for having special significance to modern worshippers.

    Especially excited to see Alice Day and Looking Glass Day on there! So happy that others are celebrating these.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks! Lenaia seems to naturally flow/connect to Anthesteria - I'm hoping to cultivate a similar feeling with the mirror festivals.

      I suppose I have always taken it for granted that these are THE major Dionysian festivals from antiquity and the most important... but perhaps not so for every modern Dionysian? Strange thought!

      I love celebrating Alice Day! And my partner who is not a practicing polytheist is more than happy to participate in such things when it involves thematic food and games and movie watching, which is even more fun. :D

      Delete
    2. I agree about Lenaia flowing into Anthesteria. This has become stronger for me over time. However, I don't really know if it's accurate to consider either of them the major festivals from the perspective of someone in classical Athens...so hard to say. I do think at least Anthesteria has gotten a lot of attention in modern times but how much of that is due to our own sensibilities, the similarities to Samhain which people are already familiar with, etc.? Interesting to ponder.

      Yes Alice Day is really appealing to a wide variety of folks for all sorts of reasons. Some come for the drugs, some for the fancy tea parties, some for the childlike fun. Or all of the above!

      Delete
  2. Yeah I'm not sure it's accurate to consider them major festivals either, just observing my own biases in that regard! It is indeed interesting to think about all the variables that might contribute to whether a festival has more or less attention now than it did... like how the relevance translates over time, how much information has survived, how adaptable it might be to a modern/solo polytheist, etc.

    ReplyDelete