When a new millennium is dawning and a
gyre of time rapidly comes to an end, we either search for
new means of measuring time or turn in our need to improve
our understanding of time to rediscover ancient calendars.
One such ancient calendar is the Sequani Calendar discovered
by a group of researchers almost by fate. The researchers, a
Celtic Studies group based in the mountains of West
Virginia, were in fact in search of an eclectic learning
experience when they discovered the ancient text.
The group, now known as the Sequani Celtic Studies Group,
got together in the basement of the local college library to
enhance their understanding of Celtic Studies by combining
disciplines. They felt that the compartmentalizing of
disciplines in the modern world had not offered what they
termed an eclectic or broader based knowledge of the natural
world because it narrowed experience and did not mirror the
complex systems of Nature. The group was interested in
Celtic Studies because the ancient system of learning
proposed by the Druids was a model for them. The Druids
combined natural studies, poetry, astronomy, religion and
other disciplines to form groups of experts from each field,
thus enhancing the picture of the universe to be studied as
a whole. The
group embarked on an unknown path of discovery when they
received a copy of the Coligny Calendar as it was printed
for the Royal Irish Academy in 1926 by a linguist named Eoin
MacNeill. MacNeill reconstructed the original bronze tablets
that were discovered in a well at the headwaters of the
Seine River in France at the turn of the last millennium.
The tablets contained vital information for measuring the
moon, the stars and the sun, but they were written in a
Gaulish tongue that MacNeill could not translate. MacNeill
was limited because he approached the calendar from a
linguistic point of view and not from an eclectic or Druid
standpoint. With
the combined knowledge of several scholars who by now had
become trusted companions, the journey of discovery began.
The group consisted of Clay and Barbara Carter, an
astronomer and astrologer, respectively; Eadhmonn Ua Cuinn,
a Celticist and sculptor; Helen Benigni, a writer and
mythologer; Mark Butervaugh, a Naturalist and artist; and
Tim Krantz, a printmaker. Their first insight, that the
calendar was discovered at a sanctuary in Coligny, France in
the territory of the ancient Celtic tribe of the Sequani,
gave the group its name and direction. A
rapid series of discoveries followed. The group discovered
that the calendar followed the lunar cycles of the year with
amazing accuracy. The names of twelve lunar cycles are
listed on the calendar as: Samonios, Dumannios, Rivros,
Anagantios, Ogronios, Cutios, Giamonios, Simivisonnios,
Equos, Elembivios, Edrinios, and Cantlos. As Barbara began
to count lunar returns over 100 years and Clay began to
count lunar cycles over longer periods of time, they
discovered that for every two years and nine moons, the
calendar reveals an Intercalary Moon, making the Sequani
Calendar more accurate than the Julian. This Intercalary
Moon is marked on the calendar as an untitled thirteenth
moon and might have been used as a holiday for the people;
the function of the Intercalary Moon is to keep the lunar
and the solar cycles in sync. To
expand the accuracy of the Sequani Calendar further, every
55 years the calendar starts a lunar cycle on one of the
four major phases of the moon, returning to its original
phase every 220 years. The extra days that the calendar
would naturally experience when moving from one phase of the
moon to another in 55 year cycles make the Intercalary Moon
a longer holiday every 55 years. The calendar begins the
lunar cycle on the new moon in the present cycle and marks
the first quarter moon as the beginning of the cycle that
starts on the Winter Solstice in 2001. Moreover, the Sequani
Calendar coincides with other ancient monuments such as
Machu Picchu, the Pyramids, and Stonehenge which base their
astronomical orientation to the Winter Solstice, a knowledge
passed down from the Neolithic peoples. The
Sequani Calendar marks the Winter Solstice or Samonios as
the New Year and the beginning of the light half of the year
and Summer Solstice or Giamonios as the beginning of the
dark half of the year. Each of these Holy Months are
significant holidays designated by two facts. First, the
word "Samonios" means the beginning of light and the word
"Giamonios" means the beginning of darkness. Second, the
holidays are accurately marked in Celtic stone monuments
such as Newgrange, Knowth, Dowth, and Stonehenge to coincide
with the Sequani Calendar's markings of the Solstices, the
Equinoxes, and the lunar cycles. The
Sequani Calendar is therefore an integral part of Celtic
culture, and perhaps like other knowledge of astronomy that
was passed to the Druids from the Neolithic peoples, the
calendar may represent a cornerstone of human achievement
which took thousands of years to quantify. Martin Brennan,
in his text The Stones of Time ( Inner Traditions 1994), has
discovered two Neolithic calendrical engravings, one on
Knowth in Ireland and one on Pola de Alande in Spain, that
represent the same cycles on which the Sequani calendar is
based. The fact that the Celtic world which spanned Europe
and the British Isles shortly before the turn of the last
millennium might have inherited this ancient calendar is not
far fetched. The
group's astronomer and astrologer then made the exciting
discovery that the beginning of each month of the Sequani
Calendar was designated with the appearance of a star of
first magnitude, marked PRIN on the calendar, that appears
on the Eastern Horizon shortly after sunset. At sunrise,
these stars are beginning to set on the Western Horizon.
Time is therefore measured at night by the journey of the
stars in conjunction with the orbit of the moon. The
calendar also looks ahead by marking the next month's star
of primary magnitude as it appears in the sky and approaches
the beginning of the following month. The
group's mythologer, Helen, correlated the names of the stars
and the constellations in which they appear with the
goddesses and gods of Celtic mythology. Two months which
were undeniably linked to myth served as her basis for
exploration into the yearly cycle of Celtic myth and ritual.
In the month of Equos, the month celebrating the
horse-goddess Epona, Pegasus is clearly visible in the sky,
and in the month of Edrinios, the month of sacred passage,
the constellation of Eridanus or the River in the Sky is
clearly visible. Many of the other months fell into a
contextual whole as research is available to correlate the
eight major holidays in Celtic religion with the stars.
The
next piece to the puzzle fell into place when the folklore
or people's holidays still celebrated in parts of the
British Isles today became a vital source of information.
The Oenachs, or holidays of importance still celebrated
today by many cultures, are clearly marked in the full moon
on the calendar and celebrated over a week's time, followed
in the same month with observation of the new moon phase
designated as Holy Nights or Druid nights, where the Druids
worshipped and the people observed a staying-home time. The
Oenachs of the Sequani Calendar are devoted to the worship
of solar deities as they follow the pattern of the sun's
orbit through the year. The
four Oenachs are the Winter Solstice, the Vernal Equinox,
the Summer Solstice, and the Autumnal Equinox. On the circle
of Neolithic stones, they are North, East, South and West,
respectively. In the Neolithic monuments of the Bru na
Boinne in Ireland, Knowth is aligned East-West for the
Equinox celebrations of the Oenachs, Dowth is aligned
South-West for the sunset of Winter Solstice, and Newgrange
is aligned South-East for the Winter Solstice sunrise
Oenach. In Britain, Stonehenge is also aligned to the Winter
Solstice Oenach when the rays of the sun rise over the heel
stone. The
Druid's Holy Nights or stay-home times marked on the Sequani
Calendar are discovered in the third quarter phase of the
moon and marked in each month as ATENOVX. This is when the
Holy Nights begin. In the waning of the new moon phase, the
Holy Nights are celebrated. These are fifty and forty-five
days from the Oenachs and show their dates to be February
12th, May 12th , and October 12th. (Note that Gregory XIII
took ten days out of the Julian Calendar in 1582 calling
October 5th , October 15th.) The
Holy Nights form a rectangle outside the circle of Oenachs.
Celebrated near or on the new moon, these Holy Nights are
Imbolc, Beltain, Lugnasad, and Samhuin, respectively. Again,
certain Neolithic monuments have sacred paths marking the
entrance to the circle on a particular Holy Night. These
nights are often extended over a seven night period marked
on the calendar as such. The calendar also marks these
important nights to carry in two observances each devoted to
an aspect of the Holy Night. For example, Samhuin is
observed as the Warrior's Samhuin from November 4th to
November 12th in Edrinios and the Holy Nights in the new
moon of the following the month of Cantlos from December 4th
to December 11th. The
group was well on its way to decoding the other markings on
the Sequani Calendar as they realized that the lunar cycles,
the solar cycles, and the Holy Nights are all decorated by
the constellations in a varied and highly accurate picture
of celestial meanderings charted meticulously on the
calendar. For example, in the Winter Constellations at the
peak time of the Winter Solstice in the month of Samonios,
there are nine constellations visible, a spectacular setting
for the TRINOSAM SINDIV on January 7th . Likewise, in the
Summer Constellations, the Summer Triangle formed by the
stars of primary magnitude of the two months leading up to
the Summer Solstice in the month of Giamonios, are highly
visible for the Holy Night of Midsummer. On the calendar,
TIO stars in patterns of three six and nine most probably
forming triangles, sacred patterns of three, are also
clearly marked. When
the Sequani Celtic Studies Group realized that this
knowledge should have some practical application and use for
the public, their three artists, Mark, Eadhmonn, and Tim
began plans to silk screen a working calendar incorporating
the astronomy, astrology and mythology into the twelve lunar
cycles of Samonios, Dumannios, Rivros, Anagantios, Ogronios,
Cutios, Giamonios, Simivisonnios, Equos, Elembivios,
Edrinios, Cantlos and the Intercalary Moon. The relevance of
the Sequani Calendar became more and more evident as the
artists began to visualize the natural symbols that would
represent each lunar cycle. The
mythology easily matched occurrences in the agricultural
cycles, the natural cycles of plants and animals, and in the
familiar spiritual cycles and holidays of European cultures.
For instance, the agricultural cycles of Lugnasad and the
Harvest Festivals on the Sequani Calendar coincide with the
harvest festivals already celebrated in many parts of the
British Isles and the Continent. The Sacred Snake days of
Rivros coincide with St. Patrick's day and the harvesting of
the mistletoe coincides with mid-summer Holy Nights. Most
importantly, the holidays of Anagantios and Ogronios
coincide with the sacrifice and resurrection of the
Christian Easter. This
ancient text is a familiar pattern re-visited. Its accuracy
is astounding and its wealth of detail far outweighs our
present calendars. It elevates our understanding of time
into what the Druids expressed in their script on the
ancient monuments in spirals and triskeles, shapes that
reflect the eternal patterns of Nature. It lifts us out of
the flat two-dimensional perception of time as arbitrary
markings on a rectangular surface to a three-dimensional
vision of time which spirals to infinity. The Sequani
Calendar does this by incorporating the solar, lunar,
stellar and natural patterns with the human cycle. With this
comes a deeper spiritual vision of our relation to the
natural world. It is our opportunity to reach for the stars
and use what is within and without.
Helen Benigni
©Astrolore Copyright Nov. 1999
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