Author Topic: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara  (Read 71070 times)

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #100 on: March 22, 2022, 11:45:57 am »
Oh, I forgot to observe the equinox on the day it happened! Yesterday was in the mid-60s and sunny here. Today the high is 46 and it's supposed to rain all day into tomorrow, when it will turn into snow and the high will be 39.

March.  >:(

I remember when March was considered a windy month and April a showery month. I remember the sayings "March winds doth blow, and we shall have snow" and "April showers bring may flowers."

(And the old joke: Q: If April showers bring may flowers, what do may flowers bring? A: Pilgrims.)
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Front-Ranger

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #101 on: March 22, 2022, 12:18:04 pm »
 :laugh: :laugh:
"chewing gum and duct tape"

Offline serious crayons

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #102 on: March 22, 2022, 04:34:38 pm »
Excerpt from a weather story I wrote in March 2021:

How did March 9's not particularly impressive record high of 61 stand for almost a century and a half? Especially since it's 9 degrees chillier than the record for just one day before?

Who knows? March is weird.

It's certainly a time of change, Hasenstein noted. The record high for March 1 is 59 degrees; by March 31, the record high goes up to 82. The temperature spread between record lows for March is, coincidentally, exactly the same as its highs ? zero on the first of the month and 23 on the last.

Perhaps that variability explains why so many weather myths and legends swirl around March.

The old "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" certainly contains some truth, as shown by those record highs and lows. But in any given March, a lamb might take the lead, a lion might pounce at the end, or lions and lambs might pop up throughout the month like whack-a-moles.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #103 on: March 22, 2022, 09:27:19 pm »
The old "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" certainly contains some truth, as shown by those record highs and lows. But in any given March, a lamb might take the lead, a lion might pounce at the end, or lions and lambs might pop up throughout the month like whack-a-moles.[/font][/size]

That's sort of the way we said it when I was a, er, kid: If March comes in like a lion it will go out like a lamb, and if it comes in like a lamb it will go our like a lion.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline CellarDweller

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #104 on: March 27, 2022, 07:16:18 pm »
We've been in Spring for a few days now, but today we're near the freezing mark, and had snow flurries today.

Tomorrow we'll be below freezing.


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'Voulez-vous, will you kiss my dick?'
Will you play my record? One-track mind!

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #105 on: April 10, 2022, 08:32:33 pm »
Feels like we're pushing it this year.  ;D  Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon that happens on or after March 21. Full moon is this coming Saturday. Easter is the next day.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #106 on: April 10, 2022, 10:15:03 pm »
Feels like we're pushing it this year.  ;D  Easter is the first Sunday after the first full moon that happens on or after March 21. Full moon is this coming Saturday. Easter is the next day.

 ??? Is that a bad juxtaposition, or just cutting it close? I didn't realize Easter and Passover were that closely timed around moon cycles, although I guess that makes perfect sense.



Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #107 on: April 11, 2022, 09:05:20 am »
??? Is that a bad juxtaposition, or just cutting it close? I didn't realize Easter and Passover were that closely timed around moon cycles, although I guess that makes perfect sense.

Just cutting it close--and sort of a joke, too. I just don't remember Easter falling so close to the full moon. I'm sure it has.

I guess I should look up to see if I can find how the date of Passover is set. P and E aren't always this close, although, basing Easter on the Bible stories, you'd think they should be. I don't know how Eastern Orthodox Easter is calculated, either; I don't think it's ever the same day as Western Christianity celebrates it, but I only vaguely know why--some ancient theological difference, though I don't know what that was either!
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline Jeff Wrangler

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #108 on: April 11, 2022, 09:29:02 am »
Well, here's sort of an answer to my own question:

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/why-dont-easter-and-passover-always-line/587572/

But note: Pay no attention to the dates (e.g., April 19 and April 21) mentioned in the text. They will only confuse you because the article was published three years ago, so the dates given applied in 2019, not this year.

I wouldn't pay much mind to his comment on Easter brunch, either. I think brunch is a kind of urban thing. Other people have an Easter dinner.
"It is required of every man that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide."--Charles Dickens.

Offline serious crayons

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Re: All things Easter, Spring Solstice, Passover, or Ostara
« Reply #109 on: April 11, 2022, 04:41:39 pm »
We do brunch and never use the word "dinner" to describe any meal that's not late in the day (and never use the word "supper" at all). But then, I'm fairly urban.

If I'd guessed carelessly, I would have thought that Easter's timing is tied, like Christmas and Halloween are, to ancient pagan holidays. But of course it can't be, because it is tied to Passover which, Judaism being non-evangelical, does not have that relationship to pagan European traditions.

Our symbols of Easter -- eggs, chicks, rabbits -- are most likely European in origin, though.

Although come to think of it, don't most cultures acknowledge the rebirth of nature in spring? In which case, Easter's timing -- based on an episode that may not actually have occurred right after Last Supper -- might have been designated by the ancients.

Just looked it up; Jerusalem is slightly farther from the equator than New Orleans. New Orleans doesn't have a particularly dramatic spring, so it's not as big a deal there as in Europe, so maybe the New Testament's authors didn't make that rebirth connection.