Today In Spirit, Fest & History

26 DECEMBER

• Celestial: Sun Capricorn/Moon Capricorn
• Deities/Entities/Notable Figures or Aspects Which May Be Recognized Today: Ancestors
• Herbs/Flora/Essences of the Day: Sesame, Okra, Sweet Potato, Rice
• Cards for Today: The World
• Pan-African/African-American: Kwanzaa (12/26 - 1/1 one week)- celebrated by African Americans and other descendants of the African peoples, and also widely respected by environmentally conscious people for its emphasis on communal values that support sustainable, Earth-friendly economies. It celebrates family, community, culture and strength. Observed from 26 December thru 1 January, its origins are in the first harvest celebrations of Africa from which it takes its name. The name Kwanzaa is derived from the phrase “matunda ya kwanza” which means “first fruits” in Swahili, a Pan-African language which is the most widely spoken African language. The first-fruits celebrations are recorded in African history as far back as ancient Egypt and Nubia and appear in ancient and modern times in other classical African civilizations such as Ashantiland and Yorubaland. These celebrations are also found in ancient and modern times among societies as large as empires (the Zulu or kingdoms (Swaziland) or smaller societies and groups like the Matabele, Thonga and Lovedu, all of southeastern Africa. Kwanzaa builds on the five fundamental activities of Continental African “first fruit” celebrations: ingathering; reverence; commemoration; recommitment; and celebration. It respects teamwork, responsible stewardship, unity of faith and purpose and the honouring of creativity and beauty.
• Tradition: 12 Days of Christmas Begins - continuing until the Twelfth-day - January 6 also considered Epiphany.
• Anglican/Catholic/Christian/Orthodox Feast or Saint Days: (incorporating all Saint feasts for the date into one category) - St. Stephen’s Day - the birthday of St. Stephen is celebrated as the first Christian martyr. This date is the commemoration of one of the seven deacons named by the apostles of Jesus Christ to distribute alms.
• Tradition: Boxing Day - the first day after the Christian festival of Christmas, the name of this day come from a tradition started in the United Kingdom which spread to many other countries under British rule. On this day, gifts from boxes placed in church were distributed to the poor.
• Tradition: The Medieval Feast of Fools - this period of celebration seems to have ran from today until 28 December. The central idea seems always to have been a brief social revolution, in which power, dignity and impunity is briefly conferred on those in a subordinate position making it a successor to the Roman Saturnalia. In the medieval version the young people, who played the chief parts, chose from among their own number a mock pope, archbishop, bishop, or abbot to reign as Lord of Misrule. Participants would then “consecrate” him with many ridiculous ceremonies in the chief church of the place, giving names such as Archbishop of Dolts, Abbot of Unreason, Boy Bishop, or Pope of Fools. The protagonist could be a boy bishop or subdeacon. In any case the parody tipped towards the profane. The ceremonies often mocked the performance of the highest offices of the church, while other persons, dressed in different kinds of masks and disguises, engaged in songs and dances and practised all manner of revelry including sexual within the church building. In the Middle Ages, particularly in France, the main Feast of Fools was staged on or about the Feast of the Circumcision, 1 January. It is difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish it from certain other similar celebrations, such as the Feast of Asses, and the enthronement of the Boy Bishop. So far as the Feast of Fools had an independent existence, it seems to have grown out of a special “festival of the subdeacons” culminating on the day of the Circumcision and including a special celebration on St Stephen’s day 26 December, the priests on St John the Evangelist’s day 27 December, and again the choristers and mass-servers on the Feast of the Holy Innocents on 28 December. The subdeacons were accustomed to hold their feast about the same time of year, but more particularly on the festival of the Circumcision. This feast of the subdeacons afterwards developed into the feast of the lower clergy and was later taken up by certain brotherhoods or guilds of “fools” with a definite organization of their own. The feast of fools was an imitation of the Roman Saturnalia. There can be little doubt that medieval censors commonly took it that the license and buffoonery which marked this occasion had their origin in pagan customs. 
• Tradition: Season of Pantomimes - this season was/is the traditional time in European tradition for Pantomimes - musical-comedy theatrical productions. Performances were enacted in mime by traveling companies. Their characterizations often represented ancient symbolic figures. One popular character, Columbine was traditionally dressed in white with black pompoms and is believed to have symbolized the moon. Columbine or Columbina was the sweetheart of Harlequin, and, like him, was supposed to be invisible to mortal eyes. Christmas pantomimes/plays were common at this time following an ancient tradition handed down from the Greeks and Romans. During the Christian era, plays about the Greek and Roman gods gave way to morality plays adapted from the Bible.
• Tradition: Mummer`s Day - is an ancient Cornish midwinter celebration that occurs every year on Boxing Day and New Year`s Day in Padstow, Cornwall. It was originally part of the pagan heritage of midwinter celebrations that were regularly celebrated all over Cornwall where people would dance and disguise themselves by blackening/painting their faces or wearing masks. It was in contrast to the `white` summer festivals of Cornish towns such as Padstow, Helston and Penzance. Recently the people of Penzance have revived its midwinter celebration with the Montol Festival which like Padstow at times would have had people darkening or painting their skin to disguise themselves as well as masking.
• Irish/Welsh/Manx/Newfounlandish Tradition: Wren’s Day (Wren’s day/Hunt the Wren Day/The Hunting of the Wrens) - a tradition celebrated on St. Stephen’s Day consists of “hunting” a fake wren, and putting it on top of a decorated pole. Then crowds of Mummers, Strawboys or Wrenboys celebrate the Wren (also pronounced as the Wran) by dressing up in masks, straw suits and colourful, motley clothing while accompanied by traditional bands, parade through the towns and villages in remembrance of a festival that was believed to have been celebrated by the Druids. In ancient times, Wren hunting was once practiced on this day as it was protected at all other times during the year.
• Jewish/Judaism/Hebrew: Hanukkah (20 - 28/12) - the eight days of the great feast of lights in the Jewish festival cycle. This feast celebrates the rites that followed the Maccabees’ liberation of Jerusalem from the Syrians, and the miracle whereby a tiny amount of oil found in the temple, reckoned to be enough to give light for only one day, burned for the full eight days the priests needed to consecrate new oil. In this year a synchronicity may be held with Mother Night.
• Greek: Haloa - some sources state that on the 26th day of the month of Poseideon, Greek women gathered for the Merry Womens Mysteries of Demeter and Kore, which later also honored Dionysos.  Women carried first fruits and the new wine of Dionysos from Athens in procession to the open threshing floors ending with a great feast. Much wine was set out and the tables were full of all the fields that are yielded by land and sea, save only those prohibited in the mysteries; pomegranate and apple and domestic fowls and eggs and red sea mullet and black tailed brayfish and shark. Men prepared the feast and then withdrew leaving the women to alone enjoy themselves, consuming cakes in the shape of genitals and trading obscenities, scurrilous jests and mutual abuse.
• History/Zoroastrianism: Death of Zarathustra - in the Zoroastrian calendar, this day marks the death of the saint and teacher Zarathusthra, or Zoroaster, in 551 BC, celebrated in rites that observe the universal myth pattern of the Double Holy Seven–in this case seven male and seven female emanations of the deity, whose efficacy in purifying the earth from evil is praised in sacred fire rites. Other examples: the fourteen body parts of Ausar (Osiris), the fourteen Stations of the Cross in Roman Catholic ritual, and, in symbols common to Egyptian mystery schools and the biblical Book of Revelations, the cycle of the Dove descending into the crown of the head and down through the seven chakras, then reascending the chakra column as the Eagle.
• Egyptian: Djehuti – beginning on the 11th of Mechir,  a four-day festival of Thoth, the lunar neter of wisdom and learning, was held now. The rites began with a celebration of Djehuti’s arrival in the physical realm; honored his gifts of mathematics, literature and music; and culminated in the ceremony of gratitude for the most profound of all Djehuti’s secrets: the khu, or light body, which adepts in the mystery schools aspired to generate through spiritual practice. The Egyptians used a palm branch containing twelve leaves or shoots to symbolize the completion of the year at the Solstice time. As well, Sobek was born today and Sekhmet went forth to Letopolis.
• Bahamian: The Junkanoo Festival - a celebration annually on this day in the Bahama Islands. Old gods are honoured and ancient magic is reinvoked as music, dancing, and costumed marchers fill the streets until the crack of dawn.
• Sacred Day: Deities of the Day - this day is sacred to various deities from around the world. Among them are Frau Sonne, Igaehindvo, the Star Faery, Sunne, and Yemaya.
• Greek: Halcyon Days (14-28/12) - the seven days before and after Yule, a time of calm and tranquility derived from Alcyone, a Greek Goddess of the Pleiades connected with Artemis, Bast, Aphrodite, Het Heret.
• Native American: Shalako/Soyal/Hopi New Year/Winter Ceremony (21/12 - 9/1 [20 days]) - The Hopi celebration of the return of life in a month long ceremony which begins with the new moon before the shortest day of the year. The major rights which occur approximately eight days before the solstice include a celebration of creation and rebirth dedicated to the Spider Woman and Hawk Maiden. A failed mock attack is made against the holder of the sun shield. This represents the sun’s victory over winter’s darkness. It is considered a most significant holy days in the Hopi calendar. It involves days of fasting, concentration, silence including the removal of the sacred images/figures from their shrines for the days of purification. They are then reinstalled in a solemn procession with prayers reaffirming communal and cosmic order which prepares for the return of the Kachina Spirit guides.
• Astronomical: Ursids Meteor Shower - running from the seventeenth to the twenty-sixth, the Ursids meteor shower peaks tonight. It is associated with Comet Tuttle.
• History: Witchcraft Trials - Dr Fiann arraigned for 20 counts of witchcraft and treason, 1590. Boxing Day. Turtle Dance, Native American.
• Tradition: Blessing of the Wine Day in Luxembourg
• South African: Day of Goodwill – Boxing Day became the Day of Goodwill in 1994 when Nelson Mandela and the African National Congress (ANC) came into power to make Apartheid forever a regime of the past. It is meant to be a day to give to those who are less fortunate.
• Custom: Candy Cane Day

Note: Name in bold corresponds to image and (typically) associated observation or Aspect/Deity/Entity/Historical Figure for the day presented for this post.