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| St Michael |
I could have wasted my Friday evening watching the Indian cricket team getting savaged by Australia. Instead, I attended a very pleasant Michaelmas service at my children's school. I was grateful for having been saved from hours of TV-misery, and was a little embarrassed that I had no idea what Michaelmas was. Such ignorance is inexcusable in this age of Google, and so, I Googled-up Michaelmas.
The interpretation I like best is that Michaelmas is an autumn festival. It is a thanks-giving to the earth for the bounty of summer, a moment of reflection as the earth and the spirit turn inwards for renewal through the winter. Rudolf Steiner - the inspiration behind the Waldorf school my children attend - thought Michaelmas and Easter were the year's most important festivals, yin and yang, each completing the other, together forming the circle of life. Looked at this way, Michaelmas is like Pongal, the harvest festival of South India; Michaelmas is Shiva to Easter's Brahma.
If Michaelmas is so important, why is it so little known? Competition, maybe? In Britain, the Anglican church replaced Catholic Michaelmas with the Harvest Festival. In America, two big-budget blockbusters, Thanksgiving and Halloween, sit in the same perceptual space. In Latin America, Santa Muerte is venerated in autumn, typically on November 1. The top Google search term associated with Michaelmas is secular: Oxford and Cambridge refer to Fall Semester as Michaelmas Term.
Why is the heroic warrior-angel Michael, who defeated proud Lucifer in battle and cast him out of heaven, associated with this introspective autumnal festival? It isn't obvious. The Archangel Michael might have been a Christian element layered onto a ancient and much-beloved pagan tradition, like Christmas. Regardless, St. Michael has done me a good deed this weekend. Today is his day. Happy Michaelmas!
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| St Michael vanquishing Satan |
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