October 15 (World) Poetry Day
Although not ancient, this holiday and the holidays on the following two days are some of my favorite secular holidays.

Spend some time today reading poetry aloud, perhaps at dinner. Read poems written in different languages today, either translated or in the original language. An exercise I like from my favorite Poetry exercise book, The Practice of Poetry, suggests trying to write a poetic translation of a poem in a language you don't know, simply being guided by the appearance and associations of the words.

Behn, Robin and Chase Twichell Practice of Poetry, HarperPerennial 1992

October 15 Proerosia
This Greek festival for Demeter was held at Eleusis on the 5th day of the Greek month of Pyanepsion. The name means "Preliminary to the Ploughing," and it was probably a grain sowing rite.

October 16 Dictionary Day
Make up a short poem using two words chosen at random from two different pages of a dictionary. Or use the dictionary for divination: ask a question, open to any page, let your finger fall on the page without looking at the words, determine how the word you chose informs your question. During an intensive writing class this summer, I gave the writers the task of choosing a word from the dictionary every evening (preferably an unknown or rarely-used word) and writing a poem based on that word.

Buy a new dictionary — my favorite is the version of the American Heritage Dictionary with the Indo-European roots in the appendix. You can use this dictionary to create an etymological word collage: pick an evocative word (my friend Jeanne picked the word "brutal" to describe tango; then write short pieces about your topic linking it to other words derived from the same root (for brutal, these sibling words included blitzkreig, guru, baritone, aggravate and grave).

Or sign up for one of the word-a-day websites. I like Merriam-Webster's offering since they provide an etymological explanation and some history. I use the word as the catalyst for a fifteen minute free-write every morning.
www.startsampling.com/sm/wod/addReg.iphtml

October 17 Black Poetry Day
Like World Poetry Day, except your quest today should be to find and read aloud poems by black poets. Buy a book of poetry by a black poet. I recently discovered Lucille Clifton and love her strong woman poetry, as well as her lovely memoir about her family.

October 17 St Audrey
Not remarkable for much except the evolution of the word "tawdry" because of the poor quality of the lace sold and much admired by country girls during a fair on her feast day on the Isle of Ely.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press

October 17 Pyanepsia
This Greek festival held on the seventh day of the Greek lunar month of Pyanepsion, means “Boiled Beans.” The ritual meal featured panspermia (all seeds), a mixture of various beans cooked together in one port, perhaps to encourage the goddess to renew these crops. This was also the occasion for the carrying of the Eiresone, an olive branch wrapped in wool, hung with pastry ornaments. Children went from house to house with it, singing begging songs and bestowing blessings. Eventually it was hung over the door of a home.

Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians, Cornell University Press 1977

October 17 Oschophoria, Festival of Grape Boughs
The 7th day of the Greek lunar month of Pyanepsion was also the date for this festival, during which well-bred young men dressed as women, processed, carrying grape boughs, followed by a choir singing special songs. They went from a shrine of Cionysos to one of Athena Skira. Skira was a transplanted Attic goddess who once ruled the local grape harvest, perhaps like Venus or Ariadne.

This was also a festival honoring Dionysos and Ariadne. They met and married on the island of Naxos, where Theseus abandoned her on his way back to Greece. Yet the legend says that he established this feast along with the Pyanepsia upon his return

Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians, Cornell University Press 1977

October 18 St Luke

On Saint Luke's day
The oxen have leave to play.

Patron of painters, apparently because of the beautiful illustrations in the Gospel of St Luke, St Luke was actually a physician. Thus he is also a patron of physicians, surgeons and notaries. Because he is pictured with an ox, he also is a patron of butchers, and, due to the association with horns, of cuckolds despite his lack of wife or children.

St. Luke's special flower is the Marygold
His symbol is a horned ox.

In Charlton, England, St Luke's Day is the Day of the "Horn Fair." Every booth is ornamented with a pair of horns and even the gingerbread is adorned with gilt horns.

This is a lucky day to choose a husband. To dream of your future mate, before going to bed on this night, anoint your stomach, breast and lips with a powder of dried marigold flowers, marjoram, thyme and wormwood, simmered in virgin honey and white vinegar. Then repeat three times

St Luke, St Luke, be kind to me
In dreams let me my true love see.

Watch carefully the visage of your true love. If he smiles, he will be a loving partner but beware if he's rude or uncivil. [Maud Grieve: A Modern Herbal—quoted in Rodale]

You can also determine the name of your true love by finding a pea pod with nine peas in it. Take out the peas and put in a thin slip of paper on which you have written:

Come my dear
And do not fear.

Put the pea pod under the door. The Christian name of the next person to come through the door will be the name of your true love.

Fine weather called St Luke's little summer often occurs in southern England. In Venice, they say San Luca, El ton va te la zuca ("Pumpkins go stale on St Luke's").

In York, this is Whip-dog day, when boys whip dogs through the streets. There are many explanations for this custom, some claiming it is derived from ancient Rome, others that it began when a dog snapped up a consecrate Host dropped by a priest during Mass, which occasioned an animosity towards dogs.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press
Graham, Eleanor, Happy Holidays, Dutton 1933, pp. 208-9
Grieve, Maud, A Modern Herbal, www.botanical.com

October 18 Theseia
The 8th day of the Greek month of Pyanepsion, was called the Feast of Theseus, when a milk porridge called athara was prepared. In Erkhia, people made offerings to the Amazons on this day.

Parke, H.W., Festivals of the Athenians, Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press 1977

October 19 Teng Kao, aka Chung Yang, Climbing the Heights
On the 9th day of the 9th Chinese lunar month, people picnic outside on hillsides, drink chrysanthemum wine and eat crab. It is called the Double Yang day because the number 9 is a special number, associated with yang energy and the sun. In Taiwan they say that on this day everyone must "drink wine and enjoy from a mountain top."

Flower-cakes are made and distributed. The better cakes are made of sugar and flour with fruits inside; another version consists of a steamed cake topped with chopped dates and prunes. In earlier times, wives went back to eat flower-cakes with their parents. The Imperial Court held chrysanthemum-viewing parties in the grounds of the Forbidden City and poets vied with each other to compose poems on the flowers while sipping chrysanthemum wine. Chrysanthemum wine is believed to prolong life because it symbolizes endurance.

In many places, people celebrate by flying kites in the shape of dragons, butterflies, birds and centipedes.. In Fukien, according to Burkhardt, special police are sometimes mobilized to prevent fights. Guilds and private clubs make huge kites that need several people to manipulate them. They try to cut down the other kites, often by attaching knives to the strings. Sometimes Aeolian harps, gourd-shaped frames of bamboo with slivers of bamboo for strings, are attached to the kites. A legend explains that these were first invented by a general who was losing a battle during the Han period, who scared away the enemy who thought the eerie whistling was caused by the spirits.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, The Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999
Ching, Cecilia Sun Yun, The Mandarin Way, Little Brown, 1974, p. 187
Saso, Michael, Taiwan Feasts and Customs, Taiwan: Chabanel Language Institute, pp. 72-3.
Simonds Nina, Chinese Seasons, Houghton Mifflin 1986

October 19 Chrysanthemum Day
One of the five sacred festivals of ancient Japan, celebrated on the ninth day of the ninth lunar month (or the ninth day of the ninth month). People drink chrysanthemum wine (warm sake sweetened and flavored with chrysanthemum petals), eat chrysanthemum cakes and admire chrysanthemum flowers. Often the chrysanthemum viewing goes on throughout the ninth month.

According to Ha, chrysanthemum cakes are dumplings made from mixing yellow chrysanthemum petals with rice flour. Ha also mentions a beverage made of honey water with mandarin oranges, pears, pomegranates and pine-nuts floating in it. You can also make chrysanthemum wine by placing a petal in a cup of sake. You should also place a cup of sake with a complete flower in it on your altar.

Erskine records a custom called "cotton nursing of the chrysanthemum" which he observed in 1933. On the eve of the festival, people put cotton wool on the chrysanthemum flowers. The next morning they collected the damp cotton and used it to wipe their bodies. He comments that this shows a desire both to protect the flowers from frost and to use the dew for healing.

In many parts of Japan, people made puppets and scenes entirely out of chrysanthemums. The puppets were slightly larger than life-size, with heads, hands and feet made of wax or paste, but clothes of chrysanthemum petals, grown inside a framework and trained to cover the surface with a velvety coat of petals. Since these figures were expensive to make, often an entrance fee was charged to enter the parks where they were displayed.

Casal, U.Q., The Five Sacred Festivals of Ancient Japan: Their Symbolism and Historical Development: Tokyo: Sophia University, pp. 95-105
Erskine, William Hugh, Japanese Festival and Calendar Lore, Tokyo: Kyo Bun Kwan 1933, pp. 109-110
Ha, Tae Hung, Folk Customs and Family Life, Seoul, Korea: Yonsei 1958, p. 37

October 19 Stenia
On the 9th day of the Greek lunar month of Pyanepsion, Athenian women celebrated the two goddesses Demeter and Persephone. Little is known about this festival, like most of the women-only festivals, except that it began a run of five days of female rites, four in Athens and one held at Halimus on the sea where the leading ladies of Athens went to offer sacrifices and dance.

October 21 St Ursula
The cathedral of Cologne was built during the late 4th or early 5th century on the site of a tomb of a group of virgin martyrs. This story developed into a legend about Ursula, a British princess, who in order to avoid an unwanted marriage to a pagan prince, went on a pilgrimage to Rome with some companions. They were murdered by the Huns on their way home. The number of her companions changes from the early number of ten to eleven thousand. Ursula is the patron of girls' schools.

Helen Farias says Ursula was originally the German bear goddess, Orsel, and wonders if her companions are the stars in the sky surrounding the constellation of the Bear. Ursa Major, the great She-Bear known to us as the Plough or Dipper. The monthly position of the Bear Goddess's tail at nightfall was used to announce the arrival of the seasons. The Great Bear was known to the Greeks as Artemis and in the Far East as Ma Tsu Po, Queen of Heaven.

On Norway, on this day, no work was to be done that involved using the wheel, such as spinning, milling, etc., suggesting a fascinating connection with the goddess of Fate (see October 19).

Farias, Helen, "The TBP Lunar-Solar Festival Calendar," The Beltane Papers, Issue 3, Beltane 1993.

The Bear:

The bear is a powerful symbol. Archaeologists have claimed that the bear is the oldest deity, based on the niches found in caves across Europe which hold the bones and skulls of bears, arranged with evident care. The word "bear" in English is related to maternity, as in "to bear" children. Bear mothers are known for their devotion. Buffie Johnson's book contains a reproduction of a bear sculpture from 5th century BCE Yugoslavia showing a bear cradling her cub like a Madonna.

Throughout the northern lands, bears are treated with great reverence. Some Scandinavian families claim bears as ancestors. The word mangi means bear in some Siberian dialects but "spirit of ancestors" in others. Lapp shamans transform themselves into bears when they drum. The word for a Siberian woman-shaman is the same as the word for bear.

In his fascinating book, Dawn Behind the Dawn, Geoffrey Ashe explores the association of the Greek Goddess, Artemis, with bears. In one myth, she transforms, Callisto, one of her maidens who has angered her, into a bear and then assigns her to the heavens as the constellation Ursa Major. At the temple of Artemis in Brauronia, during a festival held every five years, two young girls aged five and ten wore yellow bearskin robes and performed the bear dance. Ashe postulates that Indo-European tribes brought from the Northern countries the image of a bear goddess, associated with the Big Dipper, who became Artemis in Greece.

Ashe, Geoffrey, Dawn Behind the Dawn, Holt 1992
Johnson, Buffie, Lady of the Beasts, Harper San Francisco 1988

October 21 Orionids Meteor Showers
The Orionids meteor shower, named after the constellation Orion because the radiant (point from which the meteors seem to emnate) is located just above Orion's left shoulder, usually peaks on October 21st. Tony Phillips suggests getting up before dawn and looking at any dark part of the sky about 90 degrees away from Orion.

I've always wondered if these shooting stars were the original inspiration for the legend of Ursula's thousand maidens but perhaps not. Gary Kronk, who also tracks meteors on the web, says the Orionids were first identified in 1839.

Kronk, Gary, "The Orionids," http://comets.amsmeteors.org/meteors/showers/orionids.html
Phillips, Tony, "Halley's Comet Returns in Bits and Pieces," Science@NASA website:
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2001/ast17oct_1.htm

October 21 Durga-Puja/Dussera
In India, the bright fortnight of Asvina is the time of a nine-day festival honoring the goddess Durga, who is worshipped under nine names or aspects. In Punjab, the nine days are a period of fast. In Gujarat, women perform the Garba dance on each of the nine nights, dancing around an earthen lamp placed on a stand, while singing and clapping hands. In Tamil Nady, the first three days of the festival are dedicated to Laksmi, the next three to Shakti (Durga) and the last three to Saraswati. People recite the Durga Saptasati or go to the temple to hear it recited. There are dances and plays commemorating the victory of Durga over the buffalo-demon Mahishasura and the victory of Lord Rama over Ravana.

Two weeks before the festival begins, beggars and singers begin chanting the Agamani (or coming in advance) hymns. The radio stations also begin to play the sacred chants honoring Durga. On the first day of the festival, people start noratras, sprouted barley. Every home has an altar on which clay figures of the gods and goddesses are placed. In the main room, a pitcher of silver, copper or clay, with a coconut on it, symbolized the goddess Durga and girls sing and dance before it. In Nepal, Anderson mentions the holy water vessel which represents the Goddess Durga which is covered on the outside with cow-dung designs. Grains are sown in the dung and in piles of sand surrounding the jug. The sand is dampened with holy water every day. By the tenth day the seeds have sprouted and the pale yellow sprouts are picked in small bunches and worn in the hair or behind the ears.

The eighth day of the festival in Nepal is called Kalratri, Black Night, when hundreds of animals are sacrificed at Durga's temples. On the ninth night, sacrifices are made for vehicles and carpenters. Blood from the sacrifices is applied to the wheels of cars along with red powder and flowers. Anderson says a goat is sacrificed for each airplane of the Royal Nepal Airlines. All tools are given a rest on this day. People distribute the leaves of the shami tree which are said to be equal to gold on this day.

On the tenth day, images of Durga are taken out of the houses in procession and bathed in tanks, rivers or the sea. The sprouted barley seeds are taken to the temple and men and children sometimes stuff them in their caps, on their ears and tuck them into books for good luck. Sometimes poor people offer the noratras to wealthy households and get alms in return. In day of the festival in North India, pasteboard effigies of the principal demons of the Ramayana are filled with firecrackers and fireworks and then exploded. This is a day, like Christmas, of universal celebration, feasting and good will. Everyone is supposed to eat something sweet and drink a small glass of siddhi or bhang (a drink made of marijuana).

Anderson, Mary M, The Festivals of Nepal, London: Allen & Unwin 1971, pp 143-7
Ministry of Education and Social Welfare, Government of India, Our Cultural Fabric: Festivals of India, 1977 p 27
Roy, Satyananda, When I Was A Boy in India, Boston: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard 1924, pp 183-5
Sharma, Brijendra Nath, The Festivals of India, New Delhi: Abhinav Publishing 1978 pp 109-11

October 23 Thesmophoria begins
A Greek lunar festival celebrated by married women only during the three days from the 11th day of Pyanepsion to the 13th day (approaching the full moon). The name has been variously explained as referring to the Thesmoi (Holy Things) or to the Law, meaning the natural law of the Goddess. The first day was called The Road Up or Kathodos (Downgoing and Uprising). Priestesses went down into the cleft of the earth near the shrine of Demeter, carrying phallic symbols and piglets, her sacred animal, and collected the remains of the previous year's offering. See Oct 2 and Oct 3 for descriptions of the next two days.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

The Pig:

According to Buffie Johnson, the pig was worshipped everywhere that women were in charge of agriculture. It is an animal associated with great fecundity. In northern India, the Rajput clan worships the Corn Mother (Gauri) in the form of the wild pig. It is also associated with death, perhaps because of the image of the sow eating her piglets. During the Thesmophoria, the pig represented both abundance and life, the seed that is buried in the earth to sprout again, like the corn puppet representing Kore which was thrown into the earth during the winter rituals to be brought back up again in spring when it was sprouting.

Johnson, Buffie, Lady of the Beasts, Harper SanFrancisco 1988

October 24 Raphael the Archangel
Patron of travellers, because he accompanies Tobias on a journey to collect a debt from his father's kinsman. His name means God has Healed and in one legend, he cures Tobias of his blindness. He is the Angel of the West.

According to Patricia Banker, of Saints Preserved, he is the patron of healers, druggists, nurses, counselors and therapists, happy meetings and young people leaving home for the first time. See Patricia's lovely visual interpretation of the archangel at: http://patriarts.com/Raphael%20the%20Archangel.htm

October 24 Nesteia
The second day of the Thesmophoria, dedicated to Demeter as law giver. The names of those who offended community morality were read in front of the temple. Everyone fasted. The things which were drawn up on the first day (see Oct 1) were displayed on altars. Prisoners were pardoned, courts closed, amnesties granted. Demeter "smileless" received worshippers sitting on the ground rather than on her throne.

October 25 Kalligeneia
The third and final day of the Thesmophoria, when all of the drawn up things were returned to the earth. Only women with no deaths in their family could perform the sacred ritual of Kalligeneia, which means born fair or born beautiful. Afterwards, the women feasted, sang and danced.

October 25 St Crispin & St. Crispinian
These two saints were brothers and shoemakers who were martyred under Diocletian. They are patrons of shoemakers and their festival was celebrated in England by cobblers, giving rise to the rhyme from Ross:

The twenty-fifth of October
Cursed be the cobbler
Who goes to bed sober.

Simpson, Jacqueline, The Folklore of the Welsh Border, Totoway, New Jersey: Rowman and Littlefield, 1986, p. 165

October 25 St Isidore/Ochossi
Patron of farm workers, his emblem is a sickle.

Ochossi: When those practising African religions were exposed to Christianity, they often adopted the images and holidays of Catholic saints who resembled their gods. Thus Isidore stands in for Ochossi, the Vegetation Deity in the Vodou tradition.

Teish, Luisah, Jambalaya, Harper San Francisco 1984

October 25 Feast of the Holy Souls
The beginning of the 13-day Feast of the Dead for the Tzeltals of Mexico. Graves are decorated with pine needles and tusus (yellow wild flowers).

October 25 Punky Night
The start of the Halloween season begins on the last Thursday of the month at Hinton St George in Somerset. Children parade with lanterns made of hollowed out mangel-wurzels, with the shells carved into faces and other designs. Supposedly these lanterns were once used to guide people home from a fair in a neighboring village but it seems more likely that, like pumpkins, these lights were lit to welcome the souls of the dead, returning at this time of the year.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

October 25 Full Moon in Taurus

October 25 Waverly’s Slow Time Book Launch Party

October 26 St Demeter/St Demetrius
In Albania, this is the day on which houses are prepared for winter. Blankets and sheepskins are brought out and the house made snug. Like other autumn saints, St. Luke and St. Michael, St. Demetrius often brings a spell of good weather called "the summer of St. Demetrius."

In Greece, this is the day for opening and tasting the new wines. In Txando, Thrace, on the eve of St. Demetrius' Day, two men don a camel costume and make rounds of the villlage accompanied by other friends in costume. They wish each household a happy new year and receive gifts of wheat and wine in return.

Megas, George A., Greek Calendar Customs, Athens: B & m Rhodis 1963, pp. 19-20
Spicer, Gladys Dorothy, The Book of Festivals, The Womans Press 1937

October 27 St Frumentius
Frumentius was a Tyrian sailor who was captured at a Red Sea port and sold as a slave to the king of Asum in Ethiopia. He worked his way up from secretary to seneschal and finally freedom. His feast was celebrated in Louisiana, "as a gesture towards the African slaves."

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press

October 27 Good Bear Day
I found this holiday in the now-defunct Festivals magazine and I believe it's related to Theodore Roosevelt and his connection with the Teddy Bear but I am not sure.

October 27 Five Mountain Spirits
The sixth day of the tenth Chinese lunar month honors the Five Mountain Spirits.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press

October 28 Czech Thanksgiving
According to Barbara Trousil, a Czech immigrant to Chicago interviewed by Weppner, the proper foods to eat at Czech Thanksgiving include roast goose, liver dumpling soup, kielbasy, saeurkraut, dumplings and apple strudel. She says "The first day you go to church, and the second day you dance, and maybe another day after that."

Weppner, Elieen, The International Grandmother's Cookbook, Boulder CO: Blue Mountain Arts, 1974, p. 57.

October 28 Days of the Dead
In Puebla in Mexico, the accidentados (the souls of those who died in accidents) return on this day, followed by the angelitos (the souls of dead children) who show up at noon on October 31, to be followed by the souls of dead adults on November 1st. Altars are adorned with candles, food, and marigolds, the flowers of the dead. Sometimes paths of flower petals are laid to guide the souls from the street to the altar.

October 28 Ss Simon and Jude

Simon and Jude
All the ships on the sea home they do crowd

They were among the Twelve Apostles. Some say they were shepherds to whom the Christ Child's birth was announced by the Angels. According to tradition Simon was martyred by being sawn in half, thus he is the patron of woodcutters. Jude is the patron of hopeless causes, because of his obscurity and unpopularity (due, no doubt to his association (by name) with the traitor, Judas).

In England, it is certain to rain heavily on the day of Simon and Jude. Venetians say San Simon Squarzavele brings the winter winds.

On this day, carefully peel an apple in one long strip and turn around thrice with the peel in your right hand repeating

St Simon and Jude, on you I intrude
By this paring I hold to discover
Without any delay, tell me today
The first letter of my own true lover

Then drop the peel over your left shoulder where it will form the initial of your future spouse's surname. If it breaks in pieces, you'll probably never marry.

St Jude's day is famous for baked warden pears sold by Bedford boys in the streets. Their cry went like this:

Who knows what I have got?
In a hot pot
Baked wardens—all hot
Who knows what I have got?

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press
Kightly, Charles, The Perpetual Almanack of Folklore, Thames and Hudson 1987
Spicer, Dorothy Gladys, Yearbook of English Festivals, NY:HW Wilson & Company 1954

October 28 Day of the No
This commemorates an important political event, the day the Greeks refused the Italian ultimatum of 1940 (which led to their invasion) but I also like knowing that there's a holiday that celebrates the virtues of saying No.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press

October 29 Allan Day
Eat a very large apple (allan is apple) on awakening this day, without speaking a word, and you will dream of your future mate

October 29 St Ida of Leeuw
This fourteenth century Cistercian nun had a passion for copying and correcting liturgical books which makes her seem a great candidate for to be the patron saint of proofreaders.

Blackburn, Bonnie & Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press
October 30 Dhanteras
The five-day festival of Diwali begins on the 13th day of the dark half of the Hindu lunar month of Ashwin, which is called Dhanteras or Dhantrayodashi, from a word which mean wealth. In the cities, householders and businessmen clean and decorate their premises with designs that welcome Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and prosperity. Small footprints are drawn all over the houses with rice flour and vermilion powder to welcome her in. Women try to buy gold or silver or a new utensil during the festival to represent the wealth they wish to bring into their lives. Farmers decorate and honor cattle, their main source of wealth. In the south, cows are worshipped as an incarnation of the goddess.

October 31 Halloween