Reply #43: The date of Easter moves because it is on a lunar calendar... [View All]

[Hekate]

...as is Passover. Since the Last Supper was a Passover Seder (and the bread was unleavened matzo) the first celebrations of the Resurrection were always in conjunction with Passover. I forget which pope recalculated the calendar regarding Easter but it is still lunar, and sometimes Easter falls within the eight days of Passover and sometimes it drifts away by almost a month.

Christian missionaries who proselytized the European tribes utilized imagery and symbols familiar to the tribes, but that was already a well-established practice. The early Christian church adopted the image of Isis nursing Horus (Madonna and Child), and Horus seated on the Throne of Isis (Infant Jesus facing outward on lap of Madonna sitting upright). Many if not most of the attributes and epithets of Mary were taken from Egyptian, Greek, and Roman goddesses.

My Roman Catholic grandmother explained to me that certain images and ideas were placed by God into heathen cultures to "prefigure" the "true" ideas that were to come. She was thrilled to discover (when she visited Japan in the late 1950s) that Buddhists also have rosaries.

I've strayed pretty far from those roots, thanks largely to an agnostic mother with an inquiring mind who read "The Golden Bough."

I try not to discuss my religious tendencies beyond a small circle of friends and relatives, but the goddess-altar in my kitchen corner would be a clue for those looking for one. For about 15 years I've worn a pendant by Jane Iris called "Spirit Healer," which has a stylized woman with upraised arms holding the moon. She represents the Goddess to me, while most other people simply see a stylized form. I wear it with the same intent that others might wear a cross every day.

I'm neither in the broom closet nor out of it. People I call close friends are religiously liberal, but there are other people whose friendship I value who might be very put off by knowing what I believe. Work colleagues ditto.

Fundy next-door neighbors -- great folks, salt of the earth, but hubby is waiting for the Rapture and I think that's rather scary. Mr Next-Door finds it easier to talk with my Jewish husband than with me -- I know he thinks my pro-choice stance is an abomination, but I don't know how much else about me he's figured out and I don't really want to know.

In Washington DC the religiously intolerant are in the ascendant. I'm glad I don't live in a small town, but in a small city that has room for divergent thinking. When I visit my mom in Salt Lake City (why oh why did she think it was a good idea to move there? at least she found the Unitarians) I keep a smile on my face and innocuous conversation in my mouth when interacting with the natives.

Hekate