Lords, Ladies and Magical Almanacs

Back to memorizing correspondences every day.  The fascinating side of doing that is seeing how many world religions in the millennia before monotheism all had startlingly similar correspondences, even when their belief systems didn’t necessarily align.

In any event, I was reading An Egyptian Book of Shadows, which struck me as odd, since I don’t believe the ancient Egyptians ever wrote (or carved) any so-called “Book of Shadows”.  “Book of the Dead”, sure.  “Book of Shadows”, no.  I was hoping to get some sense of their celebrations or rituals, and opened to the “Autumnal Equinox Rite”:  “The shining eye of Horus cometh.  The brilliant Eye of Horus cometh.  It cometh in peace, it sendeth forth rays of light unto Ra in the horizon, and it destroyeth the power of Set ...”

Cometh?  Sendeth?  Destroyeth??  Am I expected to pontificate with a pronounced lisp?  What happened to English?  As in:  “comes”, “sends”, “destroys”?  You know, basic working English, and not Old and Middle English, either.  The English that anyone reading this book would be speaking.  Perhaps they want me to sound like a Shakespearean-era actor or something.  Really, this attempt to either sound pretentious or toss up anachronisms while performing a seasonal ritual is just silly.

In the book’s defense, though – it does have a lot of information, and background to celebrations I hadn’t known before.  The pronunciation guide is especially helpful.  Maybe it’s just that the use of Tudor-era English – the ye’s, thou’s, cometh, sendeth – all of that smells of the King James version of the christian bible – and the rather curious belief that somehow it adds solemnity to any rite.

While I’m on the subject:  the other irritation:  “Lord”.  “Lady”.  I recall getting into a no-win discussion with an odd duck over on a pagan discussion board.  The topic was a translation of a Sumerian text.  The translation incorporated the word, “Lord” – as in “Lord Shumash” or something.  I objected to the word “Lord”.

I asked what the actual Sumerian word was, that had been translated as “lord”.  The answer:  “Lord”.  No, that was the translated word.  I wanted the Sumerian symbol itself – and pressed further:  “Did they intend it to mean someone who is respected?  Someone who governs?  Someone who is a deity?  What was the actual meaning?”  Her answer:  “Lord”.

At that point I gave up.  My feeling was that the words “lord” and “lady” carried so much emotional baggage with them, in the English language, that when I read that some pagan woman named herself, “Lady Etheria of the Celtic Realm” or something, I just cringe.  I absolutely refuse on general principles to address any of my peers as “Lady” or “Lord” anything.  Refuse.  To my mind, it sounds like the silly woman wanted to recreate childhood fairytales with herself as the Queen of the Castle, surrounded by chivalric knights – or certainly a woman with a huge household of slaves and servants waiting on her all day.  It carries with it an unpleasant whiff of entitlement, or condescension (“I am the very model of refinement amidst the unwashed hordes I must endure”) – that is just ugly in today’s day and age.

I would much prefer that we use the original Sumerian word that someone in uber class-conscious 19th century England translated as “lord” and “lady”, because they still were in pitiable awe of old, wealthy families who carried those titles.  And not just Brits, Americans as well, who – despite protestations to the contrary – still carry around the same titillating delight at applying such titles to themselves.

I seem to be also fascinated by the Magical Almanac – Llewellyn publishes it.  Some interesting articles which I hadn’t read before – I had been using it for moon sign information.

But, as an example:  in the entry for Tuesday, November 11th I read:  Waning moon.  Moon phase:  third quarter.  Color:  scarlet.  Moon sign:  Cancer.  Incense:  cinnamon.

The next day, the 12th:  everything is the same EXCEPT:  the color is now white and the incense is now:  bay laurel.

The first two are self-explanatory.  Moon sign I somewhat understand – sort of.  Maybe I need to know astronomy better.  A physics professor tried to answer the question of how the moon orbits the sun:  http://www.wired.com/2012/12/does-the-moon-orbit-the-sun-or-the-earth/ - but as interesting (and mathematically incomprehensible to me) as it was, it still doesn’t get me any closer to figuring out how the moon enters and exits an astrological “sign” – which is, in astronomical terms, a constellation seen from earth’s point of view.  But doesn’t that perspective change, depending on where on earth you are?

Or perhaps spatial reasoning is not one of my stronger abilities, to put it mildly.

So my question is:  where did the scarlet and white, and the cinnamon and bay laurel come from?  What are they connected to?  The sign of cancer?  The numbers 11 and 12?  The days Tuesday and Wednesday?  Waning moons?  Somebody just made it up?