Tonight is the beginning of Michaelmass. AKA the Harvest Moon.

[moobu2]

It falls on the first full moon after the Autumnal Equinox, this year, Sept 29th. In case you don't know, Michaelmass is a Christian celebration most associated with The Archangel Michael and originally commemorated the Autumnal Equinox which marked the end of Summer and the begging of Autumn. According to Wikipedia it's also known as the Feast of Saints Michael, Gabriel, Uriel and Raphael, the Feast of the Archangels, or the Feast of Saint Michael and All Angels. Even though the date is most associated with Christianity, the Equinox event was universally celebrated by almost every old culture under various names. Once upon a time it was a very important observance. Today, people hardly notice it and it's just another pretty full moon. The Harvest Moon.

Our distant ancestors would have already made all the necessary preparations for surviving the cold darkness to come and just had an all night party around a bonfire.

The Angel Michael was a very important character in Judaism, Islam and Christianity. Michael defeated the devil and cast him out of heaven, which is obviously a reference to the constellation Draco, the serpent dragon that never sets in the northern hemisphere. Draco spins endlessly around and around and spews evil (darkness) over the world, hey, Michael cast it out of Heaven, what else could it do?
Michael is often depicted holding a sword and scales. The scales most likely mean the balance of the Equinox (equal night and day) and is associated with the Zodiac Sign Libra which is the only inanimate object in the Zodiac.

Libra - September 23 to October 23 each year.

[cbayer]

1. Very, very cool!

I will be out with my starwalker program tonight, looking for the constellations, but he moon has been so bright that I might not see it.

I love this. Thanks so much for posting it!

[struggle4progress]

2. Confessions of St Augustine

... without scruple, I consulted those other impostors, whom they call “astrologers”, because they used no sacrifices and invoked the aid of no spirit for their divinations. Still, true Christian piety must necessarily reject and condemn their art ... He recognized from my own talk that I was given to books of the horoscope-casters, but he, in a kind and fatherly way, advised me to throw them away and not to spend idly on these vanities care and labor that might otherwise go into useful things. He said that he himself in his earlier years had studied the astrologers’ art with a view to gaining his living by it as a profession. Since he had already understood Hippocrates, he was fully qualified to understand this too. Yet, he had given it up and followed medicine for the simple reason that he had discovered astrology to be utterly false and, as a man of honest character, he was unwilling to gain his living by beguiling people ... http://www.ccel.org/ccel/augustine/confessions.vii.html

... Those impostors then, whom they style Mathematicians, I consulted without scruple; because they seemed to use no sacrifice, nor to pray to any spirit for their divinations: which art, however, Christian and true piety consistently rejects and condemns ... when he had gathered by my discourse that I was given to the books of nativity-casters, he kindly and fatherly advised me to cast them away, and not fruitlessly bestow a care and diligence, necessary for useful things, upon these vanities; saying, that he had in his earliest years studied that art, so as to make it the profession whereby he should live, and that, understanding Hippocrates, he could soon have understood such a study as this; and yet he had given it over, and taken to physic, for no other reason but that he found it utterly false; and he, a grave man, would not get his living by deluding people ... http://www9.georgetown.edu/faculty/jod/augustine/Pusey/book04

[struggle4progress]

5. Tertullian: On Idolatry

... Of astrologers there should be no speaking even ... The astrologers are expelled just like their angels ... We know the mutual alliance of magic and astrology ... But, however, that science has been allowed until the Gospel, in order that after Christ's birth no one should thence forward interpret any one's nativity by the heaven ... The dream — sent, doubtless, of the will of God— suggested to the same Magi, namely, that they should go home, but by another way, not that by which they came. It means this: that they should not walk in their ancient path ... You know nothing, astrologer, if you know not that you should be a Christian. If you did know it, you ought to have known this also, that you should have nothing more to do with that profession of yours which, of itself, fore-chants the climacterics of others, and might instruct you of its own danger. There is no part nor lot for you in that system of yours ...

Chapter 9. Professions of Some Kinds Allied to Idolatry. Of Astrology in Particular
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0302.htm

[struggle4progress]

6. Synod of Laodicea: Canon XXXVI

They who are of the priesthood, or of the clergy, shall not be magicians, enchanters, mathematicians, or astrologers; nor shall they make what are called amulets, which are chains for their own souls. And those who wear such, we command to be cast out of the Church.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3806.htm

[pinto]

3. I'm sleeping outside tonight. Moonrise, 6:42 pacific, forecast is for clear sky and 57 degrees.

Great watching / sleeping bag weather.

[cbayer]

4. We are thinking there might be a Santa Ana today and tomorrow, but sleeping

outside might be the perfect thing to do.

The moon is so bright and full right now, so hide yourself well pinto!

[pinto]

7. Will do. Should be a nice show, unless the fog rolls in. Then it's 12 feet to the front door...

I don't get a real good view of the North Star here and Orion lays pretty low. But the moon will be prime time.

Hope you have a great couple of days, the weather looks to be outstanding. A little warm, but nice before fall really sets in.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Michaelmas always falls on Sept 29th; the Harvest Moon is the one closest to the equinox

which happens, this year, to be Sept 29th as well (in the USA; for Europe, Africa and Asia, it will be past midnight, and thus the 30th). It could occur about 3 weeks before Michaelmas, or a week after.

[pinto]

9. And the moon's rising coincides with the sun's setting. The sun sets as the moon rises.

It's a neat juxtaposition.

[muriel_volestrangler]

10. Isn't that true for any full moon?

Because a full moon is opposite the sun, from a point on the earth, won't that always be the case for a full moon?

For instance:

New York : Moonset, 4th June (day of the full moon near the summer solstice), 0530
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=179&month=6&year=2012&obj=moon&afl=-11&day=1
Sunrise that day: 0526
http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/astronomy.html?n=179&month=6&year=2012&obj=sun&afl=-11&day=1

[pinto]

11. I don't think so. Sometimes there's a full moon visible in the afternoon. The moon's rotation around

the earth changes our viewpoint of the moon (changes ~ 5 hours / day?) more than our viewpoint of the sun due to earth's rotation (changes ~ 2 minutes / day?).

Apparently the harvest moon is a synchronicity of all the variables when the moon rises as the sun sets in the fall. Probably noted by agrarian societies, from what I've read, as a chance to bring in crops long after sunset.

[muriel_volestrangler]

13. You can see the moon in the afternoon when it's close to full

but the time when it's actually 'full' is when it's exactly on the far side of the earth from the sun (exactly, in terms of the plane that the earth's orbit around the sun defines - the plane of the moon's orbit is at a slight angle, which is why we don't usually get a lunar eclipse at each full moon, or a solar one at each new moon). When that's the case, for someone with the sun on one horizon, the moon has to be on the horizon, 180 degrees away.

As I showed, moonset and sunrise (at New York - the first city that came up for that site) were within 4 minutes of each other, back for the June full moon - the closest one to the solstice.

But here's an explanation - that, because of the angle of the moon's orbit, the moons that are nearly full rise and set closer to sunset and sunrise than at other times of the year:

Here’s what happens. On average, the moon rises about 50 minutes later each day. But when a full moon happens close to the autumnal equinox, the moon (at mid-temperate latitudes) rises only about 30 minutes later daily for several days before and after the full Harvest moon. Why? The reason is that the ecliptic – or the moon’s orbital path – makes a narrow angle with the evening horizon around the time of the autumn equinox. The narrow angle of the ecliptic results in a shorter-than-usual rising time between successive moonrises around the full Harvest Moon.

These early evening moonrises are what make every Harvest Moon special. Every full moon rises around sunset. After the full Harvest Moon, you’ll see the moon ascending in the east relatively soon after sunset for several days in a row at northerly latitudes. The lag time between successive moonrises shrinks to a yearly minimum, as described in the paragraph above. Because of this, it seems as if there are several full moons – for several nights in a row – around the time of the Harvest Moon.

http://earthsky.org/astronomy-essentials/harvest-moon-2

So the noticeable difference is actually on the days near the Harvest full moon, but not really on the day itself.

[cbayer]

12. It was a breathtaking night.

The moon was too bright to see stars and it shown all night.

We ate in the cockpit under the moonlight - no candles or other lights needed.

[moobu2]

14. Check out this ST. Michael painting from a Medieval Christian church in (I think) Sweden

It's a crop from these religious paintings on the ceiling of a Medieval Church in Denmark or Sweden. The paintings were whitewashed over during the reformation then re-discovered and restored later more recently. I was looking at the church and just happened to recognize the classic St. Michael constellation along with Draco. You can tell this is astrological symbolism because #1 The scene depicts the traditional slaying of the dragon (the constellation Draco) and #2 if you look closer you can see stylized stars across St. Michaels forehead and at each elbow and shoulder. Matter of fact all the paintings on the ceiling probably depict various astrological stories using a Christian narrative and characters.

If you have a minute check out the church paintings, they're fantastic!

http://panoramas.dk/2011/church-murals.html

[IMG][/IMG]

[Marrah_G]

15. When converting Europe to Christianity, the Vatican found it easier...

... to simply replace the traditional feast days with their own renamed holy day. People were much less likely to get pissed off.

Jesus was not born on December 25th, but that is the week of the Winter Solstice. The same can be found for every solstice, equinox and seasonal related holiday.

[moobu2]

16. Or else Christianity was all made up

Last edited Thu Oct 4, 2012, 09:54 PM - Edit history (1)

out of Sun worship (Dies Natalis Solis Invicti) with a lot of astrology thrown in.

Constantine saw a political benefit in homogenizing the religion of the Roman Empire because of Saul who came up with the scheme to convert the gentiles, and just forced folks to convert under the threat of death etc...The threat of being burnt alive is a great incentive. The rest is history.

Jesus wasn't a real person so obviously as a fictional character couldn't have been born on any day other than in the imagination. Jesus was just another name for the Sun God or Sol Evictus or whatever. There's plenty of information about it on the net.

Anyway, this is direct from the people who made it all up.

Whether the 'Sol Invictus' festival "has a strong claim on the responsibility for our December date" of Christmas (as per the 1908 Catholic Encyclopedia[43]) or not has been called into question by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, who challenged this theory by arguing that a December 25 date was determined simply by calculating nine months after March 25, regarded as the day of Jesus’ conception (the Feast of the Annunciation).[44]

He's saying the dates were coincidental.
And they just can get their story straight

Pope leo 1 (the great) spoke of how the celebration of Christ's birth coincided with the sun's position increasing in the sky in several sermons on the Feast of the Nativity. Here is an excerpt from his 26th sermon:

"But this Nativity which is to be adored in heaven and on earth is suggested to us by no day more than this when, with the early light still shedding its rays on nature, there is borne in upon our senses the brightness of this wondrous mystery.

According to the 1967 New Catholic Encyclopedia, a standard library reference, in an article on Constantine the Great:
"Besides, the Sol Invictus had been adopted by the Christians in a Christian sense, as demonstrated in the Christ as Apollo-Helios in a mausoleum (c. 250) discovered beneath St. Peter's in the Vatican." Indeed "...from the beginning of the 3rd century "Sun of Justice" appears as a title of Christ".[45]
Some consider this to be in opposition to Sol Invictus[citation needed]. Some see an allusion to Malachi 4:2.
A scribe annotated a manuscript of a work by Syrian bishop Jacob Bar-Salibi in the 12th century as follows:
"It was a custom of the Pagans to celebrate on the same 25 December the birthday of the Sun, at which they kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemnities and revelries the Christians also took part. Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity should be solemnised on that day." [46]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sol_Invictus

[Marrah_G]

17. Both are true