Rose and Fire

(Yet another post that got away from me! Name changes AND moveable feast dates?? Couldn't pay me to stop talking about it!)

Let's take a look at the festival of Rosa Mundi. The time period between Helati (Rosea 9/June 21) and Rosa Mundi is described as the 'season of fire and the rose' in Madrian sources. It is a time of ghosts and spirits, magic and heightened energy, where we focus on our connection with our Mother and union with Her, both in this life and after. But it is also a moveable feast, which means the season grows and shrinks from one year to the next. And as with Advent, I find it difficult to enter fully into a season that can so drastically morph: last year (3340/2020) it was nearly two weeks between Helati and Rosa Mundi. This year? There are two days.

~*~

The festival of Rosa Mundi came to later be known as Rosa Caeli -- going from [Latin] Rose of the World to Rose of Heaven.

Click to enlarge
"The Janite Tradition uses Rose of Heaven,
Rosa Caeli, NOT Rosa Mundi or Rose of the
World because that means something else
besides what the Madrians thought it did
(Or the Aristasians/DOSH)."

A Correction: While the Janites did change the name of this festival to Rosa Caeli (or Coeli), the original reason was for thealogical purposes. As Rosa Mundi meaning Rose of the World became associated with the Daughter specifically, and this is a Mother festival, the name of Rose of Heaven seemed better suited. Others in the community, as seen on the screenshot of the blog to the right, welcomed the change as they saw a connection between Rosa Mundi and Crowley's poem, but I was mistaken in thinking that was the original reason. Apologies!!

This screenshot of a blogpost from a Janite writer is still available to view on the mirror site My Devotions to Dea. (DOSH here means Daughters of Shining Harmony, an Aristasian group.)

This festival, like Advent & Nativity, was originally a moveable feast. The Day of All Helati on Rosea 9 (June 21) was the basis for calculation: the next new or full moon after Helati was Rosa Mundi.  As time passed and new groups arose after the Madrians, many of the moveable feasts became fixed feasts, generally falling on the day they were originally calculated from: Advent was marked as beginning from the first new/full moon after Astraea 1, but then became fixed as *beginning* on Astraea 1; Rosa Mundi/Caeli was marked on the full/new moon occurring after Helati, but then became fixed as happening *on* Helati, etc. (See this post and the comments on it for a discussion on this topic.)

[The Madrians had four preferred moon phases that holidays were to land on: the new moon, the five-day-old moon, half moon, and full moon. Major festivals like Advent, Nativity, and Rosa Mundi were generally supposed to land on either full or new moons, but if they needed to be moved, as with Nativity, they could land on any of the moon phases.]

As with Nativity, I find that I prefer the fixed feasts as they provide a stable festive season each year. It's all well and good to say Helati 'opens the season of fire and rose' as many Madrian sources write, but if that season only lasts a day or two as it does this year, there doesn't seem to be much point in mentioning it! It is also, as with Nativity, an odd time to add a moveable feast, as the main focal point of the summer -- the Summer Solstice -- is lost in the calculation, with the festival that should rightly be celebrated on the solstice itself often moving quite far away from the date. The Madrians were justly proud of the antiquity of many of their practices, incorporating folk beliefs that stretch well beyond memory, but then chose the oddest moments to betray that sensitivity!

Even accepting rural communities in different zones of the world where differing lengths of seasons could justify differences, the holidays themselves should align with more specific dates, I feel, than the phases of the moon, particularly those associated with the two Solstices. At least, rather than just going by the moon they should have additional steps to prevent such wildly different dates from year to year.

For instance, choosing the first preferred moon phase after a certain number of days had passed to ensure a long fire and rose season if that is what they wanted, or to count backward from Kerea (the month following Rosea) to a preferred moon phase. We see a bit of this in the calculation for Nativity, where Nativity is not permitted to fall in the month of Astraea at all: if the first full or new moon after the Winter Solstice falls before the end of Astraea, it is to be moved to the next preferred phase (whether that be new, five day old, half, or full) after Astraea ends. [Though I use this as an example, it is still in a place that leaves me scratching my head. The Winter Solstice was the original observation that led to so many festivities in the northern hemisphere, and while that date moved around a bit over the course of years and different secular/local calendars, we know what day that is now quite reliably from year to year. Why we would add an extra obstacle to keep Nativity from occurring near to the Solstice makes no sense to me, but there it is.]

As it is, marking Rosa Mundi/Caeli farther out from Helati makes sense in places with summertime independence days: last year (3340/2020), Rosa Mundi/Caeli fell on July 4, which fits right in with the United States' Independence Day, right down to the fireworks (part of the traditional festivities for Rosa Mundi/Caeli). For those of us who do live in countries with these later festivities in the summer, we may choose to make that the fixed date instead. Leaving it with Helati to be rolled into one big Solstice event also makes sense, and has the force of antiquity to back it up. Instead of seeing Helati as opening the season of fire and rose, we could see it opening rather with the beginning of the month itself, running for around 8 days each year from Rosea 1-9, or allow it to continue from Helati through to Chelanya (Kerea 22/Aug 1) where we move into the next part of the Mother half of the year.

Am I just a stickler for dates and numbers? These types of posts generally start out as explorations of the history of an aspect of the calendar, and then devolve quite quickly into me trying to find solutions for things that likely don't need them! Do you prefer moveable feasts? Which name for this festival do you prefer? What niche subject am I going to be obsessing over next?? Stay tuned!