{"id":711,"date":"2006-11-07T07:34:29","date_gmt":"2006-11-07T15:34:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/?p=711"},"modified":"2022-10-31T18:52:06","modified_gmt":"2022-11-01T01:52:06","slug":"samhain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/2006\/11\/07\/samhain\/","title":{"rendered":"Samhain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the autumnal <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Cross-quarter_day\">cross-quarter day<\/a>. Like equinox and solstice, a cross-quarter day identifies a place in the Earth&#8217;s orbit. Cross-quarters occur at the midpoint between solstice and equinox.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/graphics\/imageview.php?image=http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-images\/0611\/samhain.gif\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-images\/0611\/crossquarters.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"aligncenter\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Image: Diagram of solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter events. (Courtesy <a href=\"http:\/\/www.archaeoastronomy.com\/\">Archaeoastronomy.com<\/a> &#8212; Click for an animated version)<\/em><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Ancient Celtics celebrated cross-quarter days as significant events in their calendar. <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Samhain\">Samhain<\/a> marked the end of the harvest and the end of summer. Samhain is the word for November in the Irish language. The same word was used for a month in the Celtic calendar, in particular the first three nights of this month, with the festival marking the end of the summer season and the end of the harvest. A modernized version of this festival continues today in some of the traditions of the Catholic All Saints&#8217; Day, the secular Halloween, and in folk practices of Samhain itself in the Celtic Nations and the Irish and Scottish diasporas. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.archaeoastronomy.com\/\">Archeoastronomy.com<\/a> is an interesting site to visit. Go there and read about the ancient peoples celebration of celestial events. Also visit <a href=\"http:\/\/onter.net\/\">Old News<\/a> and read about the possibility that ancient Native Americans may have been influenced by the Celtic calendar! Fascinating stuff.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the autumnal cross-quarter day. Like equinox and solstice, a cross-quarter day identifies a place in the Earth&#8217;s orbit. Cross-quarters occur at the midpoint between&#46;&#46;&#46;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,37],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-711","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-astronomy","category-culture"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=711"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8867,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/711\/revisions\/8867"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=711"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=711"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/capnbob.us\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=711"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}