Southern Hemisphere Celebration Dates

[den]

Feb 2 - Lammas (sounds like a good excuse for a BBQ)
April 30th - Hallowe'en
Aug. 1 - Horse's Birthday
Aug. 2 - Wombat Day
Nov. 1 - November Day (like May Day, but... you know.)

Also

July 22 - Pi Aproximation Day (22/7 for those who do dates like that)


So Happy November Day everyone. And for my November Day wish I would like to see Bill Murray in a movie called "Wombat Day."

(oops. left out Yule and Midsummer's Day)

Comments

[kayre]

Horse's Birthday? Tell me more!

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Aug. 1 is the official day to mark all racing horses' birthdays for the records.

[micheinnz.livejournal.com]

Yep. 1 January in the Northern Hemisphere.

Horses' foaling day

[ursuscal.livejournal.com]

Interesting... In the U.S., the Jockey Club sets January 1 as the official foaling day for racehorses.

So what happens on wombat day? If he emerges from his burrow and sees his shadow, does it predict anything, like the groundhog in the U.S.?

Re: Horses' foaling day

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Wombats don't go in for that sort of nonsense. Don't you read Digger?

[hedgegoth.livejournal.com]

I want a wombat day card.

[atara.livejournal.com]

Pi Approximation Day is my birthday. :)

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Excellent!

I got a moon landing for mine, but that was a once-off. (21/7, due to Date Line sillyness)

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Not really, but I have upset Certain People by wishing them a Happy Paganfest at Easter.

[sjwt.livejournal.com]

dont you know anything,
its happy dead guy on a stick day =>

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

Did you know that the date for Easter is set at the first Friday after the first full moon after the northern Spring equinox?

Sounds like a paganfest to me.

[sjwt.livejournal.com]

every christian one is, they moved jebus' birthday around too by 4 or was it 5 months

[davidcook.livejournal.com]

Hmmm, might be something for thebookofdays - most of the holidays listed are US-centric, so it'd be good to see some Aussie ones there :-)

[azhreia.livejournal.com]

Aug. 2 - Wombat Day

you forgot "DropBear Tuesday" (the fourth Tuesday before Easter) and the biennial celebration of Pugglesday on the 31st of September in odd-numbered years that are not divisible evenly by pi.

:-P

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

now you're being silly.

[sjwt.livejournal.com]

Isnt it DropBare day, it happens on the 4th day of july?

[azhreia.livejournal.com]

no, that'd be BlueBare Day ... we're talking about the Southern Hemisphere here, and July *is* winter, after all.

[sjwt.livejournal.com]

IVe goto put my 2 cents in on halloween,
the orignal celbration is by pagans in the northan hemspear and is a clebration of the time when the vales between the worlds is lowerd and i dont recall that being for only 1/2 of the world, but maybe its dose have to do with the conservation of angula memntom, but i dount it, spiratual and physics dont often mix =>

So i vote it still happens on the 31st of october.

[dewhitton.livejournal.com]

All these celebrations are tied to the seasons, with each day being specific to that season. Frinstance, Pagans freak out a little when we talk about Yule at christmas time, because Yule is a mid-winter festival and christmas is mid-summer.

The vale between worlds is lowered on the night half way between the Autumnal Equinox and the Winter Solstice. For us that's between mid March and mid June.


Anyway, I don't remember us Aussies "doing" hallowe'en before the late 80s.

[azhreia.livejournal.com]

Anyway, I don't remember us Aussies "doing" hallowe'en before the late 80s.

I remember reading about The Great Pumpkin and halloween in Snoopy comics in the 70s, but more as a cultural curiosity type thing. "that's something quaint that americans do".

the first time I remember seeing a halloween display and being urged to "buy candy" was probably the mid 80s. I remember seeing Mr T. (A Team) halloween "swag bags" for collecting the halloween loot in the supermarket at the time and thinking that the supermarket owner had lost his marbles. The poodleboy was very much into Mr T at the time (as many a 7 year old lad was), which is probably why it stuck in my memory. ;-)

[dancinglights.livejournal.com]

I keep forgetting to mention this... I find your groundhog/wombat day personally amusing, and shall celebrate it here just to be extra contrary.

When one of my close friends moved here from Melbourne a couple years ago, he totally flipped out the first time he saw a groundhog by the side of the road. The exchange went something like this:

"What IS that?!"
"What, the groundhog?"
"Groundhog?"
"Groundhog. Burrowing mammals, attitude problem."
"That's a TEH FRAGILE WOMBAT!"

And thus groundhogs are now referred to as Teh Fragile Wombats around these parts. I find your holiday quite fitting. :)

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

Ok I know, it's a late reply, but I came in from your Happy Wombat's Day post.

One of the coolest pagan/wiccan circles/rituals I ever went to was a late fall ritual the theme of which was 'truth' and the sometimes 'flexible' nature of truth, not that truth so much is bendable, but that it's not always as black and white right and wrong as people like to think. That your truth and my truth may be different truths - but they are both equally valid and both equally true. In illustration of the point the priest pointed out that while he could say it was fall, and that we were all beginning to prepare for Yule festivals, and that was true, he could also say it was spring, and that preparations were beginning for mid-summer festivals, and that was also true. That the two might seem incongruous with each other, both points of view were equally valid, depending on what part of the world one lived in - i.e. The perspective and life experience one knew defines one's truth.

It was an important lesson, and one that has stuck with me for a long time.