#animist calendar

[lunegrimm]

Spring equinox 🌷☀️

Got the sample tapestries for this design now, but I now decided to add another completely new design to the selection as well 👀 so all in all there will be 4 designs available this time!

"The witches giving birth to summer"

Personal piece from earlier this year, Summer is already drawing to a close so decided to quickly post it now before autumn is in full swing :)

[elluendifad]

Hi!! Could you talk a little about what following Tolkien elven religion is like for you? (Only if you want, of course.)

I'm a very newly awakened elf and I've just started reading the silmarillion. I haven't even gotten that far yet, but already it's the most connected I've felt to any religious system/religious lore before. I'm considering practicing Elvish religion, but idk. I feel a little strange saying I want to practice a religion from a work of fiction, y'know? (Please don't take this as me saying your beliefs are strange— I think they're incredibly cool. This is very much just a me thing.)

Anyway, I guess my question is something along the lines of How did you realize this was the religion for you/What do you believe wrt Tolkiens work being or not being fiction?

Thank you so much for taking the time to read this, and doubly so if you choose to answer! Have a nice timezone :))

Alatulya, welcome kin! this one is a little long so there is a break. i also accidentally hit publish early, so we will see how editing it works lol.

table of contents: 1. my personal history and variety of practitioners 2. dealing with fictional mythology + my fave paper on this 3. specifics of tolk elven religion

Eldarin religion has been my primary religion (buddhism and my eclectic animistic witchcraft also there and co piloting) for seven years. I have been working with other eldar on our own group experience of this religion for two or a bit more years. I have taken a bit of priestly service role of collecting and organizing materials and keeping track of the calendar, which we call Loa and which assigns different holidays and themes in order throughout the year. i suspect this role is agreeable and natural for me as minya, but that anyone could do it. the degree of demand differs depending on the person, and i would say that much of my time is set to thinking of or practicing our religion. others have less involvement, and some of us feel our cosmology and philosophy is more cultural than religious the way humans might think being a member of a religious group should be. as for my own journey of getting here, i have been otherkin for most of my life and many years of that was 'generally a nature spirit type thing.' which became 'an elf but i am not sure what kind.' which then became 'oh god… am i one of those hoity toity tolkien elves?' bc there is a cultural expectation among elfkin that tolk elves are more dour and care what color clothes you wear or something… turns out that is not true! or, at least, i have not met these grim arbiters of what is becoming of the firstborn! reading the silm and other texts in the legendarium to fill in what i had absorbed from the hobbit and lotr (books and movies) was the lightbulb in the dim cellar. i use a mixed spiritual and psychological theory of origin and function for my several theriotypes and elven kintype, and this experience filled in some gaps i had just been sitting with. i personally feel that i am living one continuous eldarin life--awoken at cuivienen among the minyar, lived and died, spent my time in mandos, and was reembodied here. my sense of memory is dim, and i generally assume that is just a sign that memory is not necessarily important for this part of my life the way it was in arda. it is a great honor to live this life and to find other eldar and folks of all kindreds to share my love of life with. it was natural to transition from my magic and religious work with nature spirits to a cosmology centered on the legendarium-some of the spirits i still work and live with admit they are maiar, others are not maiar and are of the many kinds of spirit and sprite that entered into ea after its foundation to explore. our working relationships and the techniques i use for magic have stayed much the same. so how i do it is just one example in a variety.

2. i will answer first on dealing with the fictional aspect and wrestling with the nature of constructed or pop culture or modern mythology spirituality-the individual beliefs differ there, too!

for my part, i do not think the legendarium is a factual history of this actual world we currently live in. i do think jrrt was channeling something, and may or may not have been kin himself of arda reembodied here.

i think ea, like most faerie realms, is both here and not here and you have to open yourself up and step into it. once most people have experienced the enchantment of an otherworld, they are never fully able to drop the sense of it. i do feel that the legendarium makes a suitable mythopoetic 'history' for powers and themes that apply to both this world and ea and where they overlap, and that the legendarium becomes more historically factual the closer you move into ea and the further you go from current earth.

there is a lovely paper that i surely have annoyed everyone with titled the tolkien spiritual milieu by Markus Altena Davidsen of the university of leiden that really gets into the anatomy of constructed religion and what is present in certain medias that lends itself to that anatomy, which he calls 'religious affordances' in the text. it details a number of groups of many varied beliefs in the tolkien spiritual sphere, some active and some long gone, and i feel that it is a great way to expand one's vocabulary and mental concept of constructed religion and the wide variety that is possible in such constructions. the pdf is available from the university website here

if you check out mr davidsen's other published papers on that website, there are several others also relevant to fiction sourced mythology and spirituality including some by other authors.

3. that being said, there are religious affordances for the eldar in the texts, but not necessarily enough for a fully fleshed out practice as is prepared and given to new members of various world religions. it will take a bit of crafting, but we elves do love to craft! most of us blend legendarium cosmology and philosophy with practices or philosophies we are previously familiar with, like neopaganism or judaism or etc etc.

we have developed some structure in the forms of: a multiply layered observational calendar for the six seasons, eight holidays, twelve months, and seven days of the week; the fourteen valar and several named maiar associated with certain valar; the panentheistic experience of the creator Eru; and the use of witchcraft, meditation, devotional or worship activity, enchantments, glamor, and arts like music poetry painting crochet etc.

most of us practice our own personal flavor by ourselves, and group rituals or ensorcelments are rare at the moment. we are all exploring, and i would be thrilled to hear about your own explorations and what calls to you!

sooo… basically i have a worship and work relationship with our gods and supportive spirits, and give observation on the schedule of the loa. i have daily practices, like offering of beverage an thanks or an oil anointment of my body, and then weekly practices like an eruhini veneration and well wishes for the dead. and monthly practices on the full and dark moon, which is focused on the vala of that month, where i usually do spellwork for the constellation. there are holidays at the start of each season and at the solstices, where i will sometimes do magic for the group but is usually about the personal journey. the one time another elf was physically with me i did do some small rituals including that elda. my herbalism work is inherently religious to me and i also count both learning and practicing herbalism as a devotional activity, same with going on walks or drumming.

i invite you very earnestly to reach out any time and through any means you are comfortable with, and i wish you a very blessed full moon of winds. hantanyel ar namarie!

[thorraborinn]

Tonight is the beginning of jólablót for most heathens who observe a lunisolar calendar. The timing is determined by "the first full moon following the first new moon following the solstice." The new moon was immediately after the solstice, making this about as early as a lunisolar jólablót can be.

According to Heimskringla:

Hann setti þat í lögum at hefja jólahald þann tíma sem kristnir menn, ok skyldi þá hverr maðr eiga mælis öl, en gjalda fé ella, en halda heilagt meðan jólin ynnist. En áðr var jólahald hafit hökunótt, þat var miðsvetrar nótt, ok haldin þriggja nátta jól.

'He [King Hákon] made it law to hold Yule at the same time as Christians and each man was to have a measure of ale or else pay a fine, and observe for the duration of Yule. But before, Yule was held on hökunótt, that was midwinter night, and yule was held for three nights.'

Most modern recreation of the lunisolar calendar is built primarily on the work of Stockholm University professor Andreas Nordberg's paper Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning ('Yule, Disting and pre-Christian Time-Reckoning'; paper is in Swedish but with a substantial English summary at the end) though usually not identical to Nordberg's reconstructions. The lunisolar calendar associated with the Nordic Animism movement and the Year of Aun (not exactly the same as Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen's The Nordic Animist Year) is more directly informed by Josh Rood in his paper The Festival Year: A Survey of the Annual Festival Cycle and Its Relation to the Heathen Lunisolar Calendar.

Read more about the Year of Aun, named for the legendary Swedish king who extended his own life by sacrificing his sons, on the Nordic Animism website and on Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen's YouTube channel.

[autumncrowcus]

Historians have long recognized that magical beliefs and practices of pre-Christian origin survived into the early modern period, however in recent decades there has been a growing acknowledgement that these beliefs were more pervasive and influential than previously thought. One scholar has gone so far as to claim, for example, that 'pre-Reformation European peasants were virtually pagan, that they held animist beliefs in a spirit world which had to be appeased in order to maintain their crops and livestock, that these beliefs were overlaid in varying degrees by Christian notions which were to a large extent adapted to·'animism.' There is no doubt that allegiance to nature spirits and pagan deities masqueraded behind the worship of the saints; that ancient traditions of ancestor worship lay at the core of the cult of the dead and that the most sacred events in the Christian calendar, such as Christmas and Easter, were superimposed over already-existing pre-Christian religious festivals. The same was true of many annual agricultural rituals, such as those performed on Plough Monday or during Rogation Week, and the seasonal fire rituals performed on holy days such as St john or St Peter's Eve. More light-hearted pursuits such as Church Ales, May games, Hocktide sports, morris dancing, mumming, dancing with hobby horses and celebrations involving the Lords of Misrule or the Summer Lords and Ladies and so on, possessed an even thinner veneer of Christianity.

Cunning Folk and Familiar Spirits: Shamanistic Visionary Traditions in Early Modern British Witchcraft and Magic, by Emma Wilby, page 14

[thorsvinur]

Gleðilig Jól! From today, January 6th, through the 8th we are in the period of the full moon of Jólmánuðr (Yule Month) on the Old Norse lunisolar calendar, the period during which the main Yule celebrations would take place before they were moved into December.

These dates of course would shift every year relative to the Julian and later Gregorian calendar since a lunar year is not quite 365 days, but in general this occurred during the full moon following the first new moon after the winter solstice as months began on new moons. Because this year it is so close to the solstice, an extra month will be added in the coming summer to keep the calendar from continually moving backward, meaning that next year's lunar Jól dates will be a fair bit later than this one relative to our Gregorian calendar.

For more information on this and similar lunisolar calendars, check out:

"Jul, disting och förkyrklig tidräkning" by Andreas Nordberg

"The Lunisolar Calendar of the Germanic Peoples" by Andreas Zautner

"The Nordic Animist Year" by Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen

[tanadrin]

@ospreyonthemoon

So there's no really simple ones that have lots of gods?

Not that I know of! Now, caveats: the more philosophical traditions on the chart that emerge from polytheistic contexts, like Mohism and Neoplatonism and whatnot, score pretty low on the elaborateness hierarchy generally since, as philosophical traditions, they're non-prescriptive annexes of larger traditions of metaphysical speculation. So based on the criteria I used, if you had a pretty chill philosophical polytheist school I could easily imagine it approaching edges the bottom right quadrant even if the religion-as-actual-practice of all its adherents is pretty elaborate.

And I'm sure there are folk religions which are relatively simple in their practice and which are animist or polytheist also; but because of the nature of my sources (Wikipedia), I just don't have much information on, like, small folk religions practiced by only a few thousand people in relatively simple ways. But there are some commonplace cultural trends in human spirituality like entheogens, purity rules, ritual calendars based on the agricultural calendar, etc., that mean a lot of the "simplest" religions are specifically reacting against the elaborateness of other traditions they're in dialogue with, like Calvinist rejection of Catholic ostentatiousness. So maybe this is just a niche likely to go unfilled? Hard to say though.

[painthropologist]

Hi everyone! For those of you not in the know, Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen (Nordic Animism) released a new book recently, titled 'Aun: Cannibal Kings, Cosmic Healing and the Recovery of a Nordic Tradition'.

The Year of Aun 2023 was a big year for many Heathens as it marked the pre-Christian octennial celebration cycle, based around the ancient Nordic lunisolar calendar. Traditionally, these celebrations would take place at sacred sites such as Uppsala. However, the Year of Aun was celebrated by many people around the world in their own ways.

Anyway, just wanted to give you a heads up about this book as I believe it's essential reading for all Heathens, animists, Pagans, and anyone interested in historical and contemporary Heathenry. Plus, my face is inside!

[henbane-and-honeysuckle]

4 and 5 for musing's ask game

4) are there holy days from your ancestors or ancestors cultures you keep?

So my whole ritual calendar has its foundations built on trying to honor the holy days of my ancestors but grounded in the land I currently live in so I wouldn't be able to point to one holiday that's kept from my ancestors' cultures. Instead I think including Mardi Gras in my ritual calendar is the thing that stands out. My ancestors, as far as I know, weren't Catholic so I don't really do the dual faith incorporation of Saints and folk Catholic practices that's popular in traditional witchcraft circles right now but Mardi Gras is the exception because I grew up in south Louisiana. It's a part of my prepagan prewitch culture Im holding on to but I celebrate it with a focus on the animistic nature of the return of spring spirits to drive out the winter spirits. Plus who can turn down a good king cake

5) favorite traditions from your holy days

Going to see the migration of the sandhill cranes to mark the start of spring. 80% of the world's cranes migrate to this one area and I live close enough to see it. It's breathtaking and I love performing divination based on their flight. There's nothing like the sound they make, it echoes in your head for hours and breaks the silence of winter

I also love making my grandmother's fudge recipe with my mom on Mother's Night. She doesn't know it's Mother's Night but the tradition means a lot to both of us

[lynxindisguise]

1, 18 & 41 for the fanfic asks!! 💌

Do you daydream a lot before you write, or go for it as soon as the ideas strike?

I do daydream a lot! Especially before I start a fic or a big chapter. There are usually a few scenes that really stick out to me, and I'll play those over in my head for a while as a way of motivating myself to write. Even some of my abandoned ideas have scenes like that.

18. Do you enjoy research? Which fic of yours required the most research?

I love research! I research moon phase calendars, star charts, and general timelines for pretty much all of my longer fics. I think Please Don't See Me used to hold the research title after I spent hours watching online chess games to find one I could use for one of the scenes, but everywhere, everything is already getting up there for sure.

Here's a cool article I read when researching pagan werewolf cults:

41. Who's your favourite character you've written?

You want me to choose between my children??!!!??

I have to say either my feral forest baby Remus in Hut of the Mistold, my unhinged s&s&y Sirius, or my pirate queen Lily from in the dark. But my fave cameo is Kingsley in pdsm!

fic writing asks

[paganmusings]

So, for any inclusive Heathens (and other pagans) out there who haven't heard about it, Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen from the Nordic Animism page/channel/etc has figured out that 2023 is a good place in the lunisolar calendar to reinstate the octennial cycle and celebrate the Aun year as a means to start healing our collective relationship with the world

I think it's a good focus point for gathering energies and collectively starting the work to fix some of the problems that have been building since Industrial Capitalism started to hold sway.

So with the first full moon after the first new moon after the winter solstice (lunisolar calendars are... interesting), the Aun year has started. I'm probably going to be posting here off and on about it over the year.

I invite heathens, pagans, and everyone else interested in reconnecting with nature in an animist way and healing some of the damage done in the name of "progress" to read up about it and participate how you can. Pick up garbage in parks. Donate to organizations fighting for clean water access and maintaining wilderness (especially indigenous-led ones!). Go and spend more time in nature, actually paying attention to what's there. Go to therapy and heal some of the damage that living in this capitalist system has inflicted on us all. Drink more water. Get a plant and take care of it, start a window herb garden, really get out in the yard and plant veggies and herbs and flowers that you like so you're slightly less dependent on the capitalist supply chain. There are so many things people can do that will make the world a little nicer, and every bit is valuable.

[flamingkorybante]

Announcing: AMA with Rocket and Alder of the Agdistine Order! - Saturday June 17th, from 5-7 pm ET

Hello all! Saturday June 17th, from 5-7 pm ET, we will have an AMA with Rocket and Alder of the Agdistine Order.

Description of the Agdistine Order:

The Agdistine Order is a liberatory spiritual project working to build a transcendent mystery tradition that meets the needs of modern transgender and gender nonconforming practitioners. It honors the Anatolian mythological figure of Agdistis, a nonbinary Earth daemon with a powerful appetite for pleasure, and strives to provide practitioners with tools for transformation of trauma, shame, and dysphoria as well as a shared focus for ancestral veneration. This is accomplished through a mix of ekstasis and enthousiasmos, using both ancient and modern techniques. The Order is a work in progress, with particular attention on crafting effective rituals, while also not forming the bad kind of cult. The dramatis personae of The Order include Dionysos, Cybele, and Attis, all of whom had mystery cults in antiquity, but far as we know, Agdistis has never before had a mystery cult of their own. You don't have to be trans to venerate Agdistis but we make no guarantee that you won't be trans when they finish with you. If you'd like to do the reading before the AMA and come with questions, you can find the essay, "The Passion of Agdistis: Gender Transgression, Sexual Trauma, Time Travel, and Ritualized Madness in Greco-Anatolian Revival Cultus," first published in "Queer Magic: Power Beyond Boundaries" in 2018. The piece includes very frank discussions of transphobia, transmisogyny, violence, and sexual assault, so please take care while reading.

Some info about Rocket and Alder:

Rocket is a cultist and mage of the Agdistine Order and the founder of the Anarcho-Surrealist Wizard Brigade, fully dedicated to 1) Cybele Magna Mater, and 2) being the weirdest pervert in the mystic groupchat and the weirdest mystic in the pervert groupchat. On the clock, Rocket can be found destroying the institution of marriage and teaching at law schools, and the rest of the time, they write poetry compulsively, glue rhinestones to things, organize with other leftist weirdo Jews, and push the flesh to its limit for art, magic, and pleasure. Rocket’s writing can be found in the Queer Magic Anthology, Nerve Endings: The New Trans Erotic, the Texas Journal of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties, the Advocate, and the Brill journal of Religion and the Arts, and Rocket can be found on Tumblr at @ flamingkorybante and in meatspace on a trans commune on unceded Lenape land. Alder Knight was raised as an animist and got into witchcraft in 1998. They began their work with Dionysos in 2012. As neither a classicist nor a reconstructionist, they rely heavily on divination, personal connection with the divine, and trial and error in their Dionysian practice. They are an herbalist and a rootworker, with a focus on local plants and a light touch, and they prioritize using their skills and resources to seek out healing, community resilience, collective liberation, and the ecstatic. A mystical experience in 2014 propelled them into intensive work with the transgender dead, which culminated in the annual Transgender Rite of Ancestor Elevation, @ trans-rite on Tumblr. Similarly, a mystical experience in 2015 planted the seeds of what would become The Agdistine Order. Their day job is in clean energy and climate education, and they live with Rocket and others at the all-trans intentional community they co-founded in 2018 on unceded Lenape land. You can find them on Tumblr at @ thegodwhocums.

Looking forward to this AMA! Mark your calendars!

[worldtreeheritage]

The Year of Aun, 2023

The Year of Aun, 2023

[First written for Oak Leaves, ADF’s quarterly publication. To be published Spring 2023.] Dr. Rune Rasmussen, The Nordic Animist on YouTube and elsewhere online, has spent several years recreating animist calendars that reflect pre-Christian Nordic cultures and thinking. He had surmised that these groups added an additional year into their calendars, much like we have leap years, to set the…

[shyfoxsky]

Alongside now treating this blog like a personal journal and starting one of those color-coordinated mood calendars to really get down to how I feel, and after browsing through some old forums, I decided to really try to write out something coherent, except this time, I have a template!

"Identifying as" is something I've never fully understood. I've always struggled to really comprehend what that means, especially when the usual responses I see from others revolves around feelings and thoughts I either don't have or don't know how to articulate. For me, the closest I've ever gotten is comparing it to calling myself a woman, being something I don't have to think about or try, I just am, but that comes with a factual, physical body that I can just look at to know and I can't deny. A gray fox therian posted about their own ideas of it, and described it as this:

"There are a good number of animals that I could 'technically' consider a theriotype: I feel and act very deer-like when my senses are heightened, and have had deer phantom shifts in the past. I also tend to feel and act distinctly animalistic when I'm in the water, and could easily see myself as a seal. However, for me, none of these behaviours are deeply-ingrained into my sense of identity, so I wouldn't call them a theriotype. The only animal that has been present within me for my entire life, consistently holding importance towards how I see myself and the world, has been foxes."

The post got me thinking about what exactly it means to me to identify, and how that works in my everyday life. In my words, an identity is something you carry with you, something you are, which affects your daily life in a consistent way, even if it's not always obvious. The ways you think, move, react, believe, they're all affected by your identity. If an aspect of your identity has no effect on how you perceive yourself or how you interact with the world around you, then it's not really a part of it. For example, being female changes how I emote and move, being a ginger changes my self-image, being an animist changes how I believe other things exist, etc. In that regard, identifying as an animal is the same way. I should be able to concretely see how being this creature changes and affects my being in my daily life. To be a human is different than it is to be a wolf or a fox or anything else. If I act like one, see myself as one, and being one changes how I interact with the world and myself, then I identify as it.

How does this affect my current state of questioning? Part of this idea is that identity will affect you in the long-term. Thinking on voluntary labels, such as being part of a music subgenre like being a metalhead or swiftie, is that these are music preferences that span years, if not one's entire life from the point of discovery of the music. People who occasionally listen to a Taylor Swift song or discovered metal music a couple of weeks ago don't genuinely call themselves by these labels, not until it becomes a long-term, deep-seeded part of who they are. I have labeled as a wolf in some capacity since 2020, meaning four years, and I awakened as a red fox, meaning over eight years, on and off. The difference is that before I awakened, I was always seen as a fox, and others saw me as one. It wasn't until I confirmed wolves in 2020 that anyone else ever thought of them in context with me or vice versa. Even today, with no knowledge of my questioning, my mate automatically thinks of me as a fox, and it's clear that I do, too. Though when I shift, I may not consciously think of it as fox or wolf, it's clear that this inner canine affects how I move and act and believe. However, this has been the case with specifically foxes since I was little. From the first time I saw one to all of the foxes I saw on TV to now, they continue to be a part of me that I can't shake. I can't say that about wolves. They're cool animals, but they were never something I thought about until recently. Even horses consumed my life when I was younger, to the point that I was known more for them than foxes, but in a different way. Where I was a "horse girl", I was "a little fox".

I'm not here and now saying that I'm not a wolf. Since I first started thinking of them, they've been a huge part of my life and have become a part of me as well. They've become something that has affected my beliefs and perceptions and I'm doing my undergraduate thesis on them, so people are now associating me with them. For the other students in my classes, I'm more wolf than fox. Wolves also just have a lot of baggage that might be holding them back from stepping to the front as the dominant animal I identify as. Not only are they ostracized in everyday life due to being the stereotypical badass animal everyone loves (I say as a horse girl), but they also were the focus of a lot of young writers and artists in a way that they're now considered cringe, on top of all the misinformation and hate they get as a large predator, and that's all without the community's influence. The desire to both be a wolf and be literally anything else is so strong. I want to be the poster child animal, be a part of a pack, be this big and strong and cool animal, but I also want to be unique and be taken seriously in my identity and not feed into stereotypes.

I also just don't see myself as multiple animals. I don't feel this fluctuation between wolf and fox like I'm switching between parts of me, but rather that there's this shadowed, blurry part of me, and depending on the lighting, it can look like one or the other. I don't even know if I could describe myself as a mix, like as a wolf-like fox or a fox-like wolf or some hybrid. It just feels like I don't know what I'm looking at, and I need to take time to look at it for awhile longer to figure it out. I'm not a creature with multiple species or a hybrid or something adjacent. I'm one of these, but I just don't know which one because they're so similar.

I don't think I'm anywhere near confirming fox or wolf. It'll take time and more introspection and personal analysis of what it means to me to identify and how exactly both species play into who I am as a person and which one resonates more with who I am and feels more obvious and impossible to disprove. Today is definitely a fox day by how this essay reads, but that's okay. Just all part of the process. If you read this whole thing, goddamn you're spectacular. I'm really just vomiting my words onto here so I can process it all.

[stagkingswife]

How did you go about building your own religion? I know a lot of it is really personal and tied to your specific gods, but anything you can share for someone looking to do such a thing and not sure how to start?

I started with my gods and the stories they told me about themselves. These stories became my myths, tales I tell those closest to me to help them understand my beliefs. Then I extrapolated into how those stories effected my beliefs about the world. My relationship with Brona, and her story, which I call "The Fall of Brona," fundamentally changed my beliefs about the soul, reincarnation, and how both worked. I was already an animist, so that didn't change, but how I understood the spirits of things did based on these anthropomorphic animistic spirits that I was now basing my life around. Finally I built a calendar around my gods and how their stories interact with the world around me. I looked to seasonal indicators that already brought me joy: the first snowfall of winter, the first robin of spring, wheat threshing, lambing season, etc. I would recommend the same pattern for anyone looking to do something similar. Start with the entities, listen to them closely and carefully. Then incorporate what they tell you into your worldview and how you mark the passage of time.

[thorsvinur]

Happy winter solstice!

In modern times, many people who celebrate Yule begin doing so today, and though it appears that this was not the case during the Early Medieval period it still served an important function and may well have had some lesser celebrations and observances around it.

The Old Norse calendar system was lunisolar, meaning that it reckoned time using both lunar and solar cycles. While the months went from new moon to new moon, and later full moon to full moon on the Old Icelandic calendar, the solstices were used to keep everything in check. Since there are not quite 365 days in the 12 lunar month period that was used, it creates a cycle where the months could continuously move backwards relative to the seasons. The Islamic calendar, for instance, does this, which is why Ramadan can occur in the summer as well as the winter.

With the Old Norse calendar there was an incentive to keep the seasons and months more tightly bound, largely due to the single and in many places short harvest period. In this case, how close the new moon which began Jólmánuðr (Yule Month) was to the winter solstice would determine if an extra month would be added during the following summer. If this new moon occurred within 11 days of the solstice, the extra month would be added after the summer solstice. In this way, the winter solstice was the anchor of the entire year.

This year, Jólmánuðr begins a mere two days after the winter solstice, and as a result this coming summer will see an extra month added by the lunisolar reckoning!

For more information on this, check out Andreas Nordberg's "Jul, disting och förkyrklig tideräkning" and Rune Hjarnø Rasmussen's "The Nordic Animist Year".

[xochitl-nahuatl]

Hey, would you be able to speak to the difference between Aztec and Mayan deity worship? I ask because my family has some Mayan ancestry and while i know the Aztecs were in many ways successors to the Mayans, but I don't know how different their gods and rituals were, and people seem to treat them almost interchangeably like Greek/Roman gods. Is it accurate to describe them this way?

I will do my best to answer this how I can, since it can be difficult with how Mayan and Aztec cultures have been nearly wiped out. If anyone tries to look up Mayan and Aztec religious practice online, they will only see a few things.

The Mayans and Aztecs are both very old cultures, which shared similarities together as well as with other surrounding tribes and civilizations. Both Mayans and Aztecs had their own ideas of life and ways of worship, evolving independently. But, they shared many of the same gods, because many of the same deities would come and teach the people of Mesoamerica. So the Aztec god Quetzalcoatl is the same as Qʼuqʼumatz (Kukulkan) and Chaac is the same as Tlaloc (and other Mesoamerican rain gods). The difference though is that the Aztec forms of these gods tend to be more serious, fiery, or sometimes more chaotic; the Mayan versions can often be more relaxed but will also be serious or dark (depending on the god). So the main difference is in energy, since there will be a noticeable change in how they feel, depending on the form you call upon.

One difference with their deities is that the Mayans and Aztecs had different mythologies, often written based on their own cultural ideas. One example is the story of Chaac, where one version says he committed adultery, and the rains are the sounds of his sorrowful repentance. But the Mayans also had another version which said he strikes the clouds with his ax to cause rain and thunder. The Aztecs however said he (as Tlaloc) would break jars of different waters.

If we speak on the different types of worship, there is only so much that has been recorded, as much had been destroyed by the Spanish. The Mayans, like the Aztecs, practiced various forms of sacrifice and also blood-letting. But the Mayans were not as war-like as the Aztecs, and their religious beliefs were therefore less sacrifice-focused. They spent a lot of time studying things like the stars and passage of time, which led to the famous creation of the Mayan Calendar. The Mayans also once performed masked dances, which would share stories or would be part of special ceremonies. Though in general, Aztecs and Mayans shared many of the same practices of worship, like singing praises, dancing with music, offering incense, blood-letting, and giving food or other material offerings (all of which can still be done today). There is also the Naj Tunich cave where the Mayans once made pilgrimages to, but this sadly cannot be done unless you live in the area.

Mayans also practiced animism, like how the Aztecs did. The Mayans believed that nearly everything on Earth contained life-force, k’uh. So many things were to be respected; nothing from nature was taken for granted either, everything was a gift full of life that offered itself as nourishment. There was also the Mayan ceremony of Ya’axche, which celebrated the sacred connection between the heavens, earth, the Maya people, and the underworld. Ya’axche celebrates the animistic beliefs and reconnects the Maya to their environment. Because any place or object in nature might hold special sacred significance, this ceremony could be performed wherever a site was considered sacred.

Another important difference is the supreme deity of the Aztecs and Mayans. For the Mayans, this was Hunab Ku, the spiraling one. For the Aztecs, this was Ometeotl, the deity who has both male and female form in order to procreate with themselves.