A lot of Catholics here in New Orleans but if you were to ask any one of them why Carnival, which is tied to Catholic traditions, begins on a different day every year, sometimes weeks apart, they just shrug. Tonite's the first New Orleans parade (the suburbs have already had one or two), and its on the mid-city route, which the Rocheblave house is a block and a half from, so Ima go on over, check it out. I'll be pissed if someone is blocking my driveway, but it's highly possible so I should get over it, take a deep breath, before I go. Today I was spraying a primer coat on the sheetrock (yeah, its finished, I ended up hiring it out, mostly, had to sand it myself), and near the end I'm in the kitchen spraying away and I hear a grunt outside and I look out the broken glass of the screwed shut back door and I see near nekkidity of a dude and we have a conversation which is me yelling at him, and him saying he is sorry, but I know how it is when you really gotta go. Shovel work, get me? Later.
While I'm not, unfortunately, an expert on Carnivale I'll guess that it is a fixed number of days before the start of Lent which begins forty days before Easter which moves around on the calendar thanks to the moon. Carnivale concludes with Fat Tuesday the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of lent. The aim of the Easter Dating Method is to maintain, for each Easter Sunday, the same season of the year and the same relationship to the preceding astronomical full moon that occurred at the time of his resurrection in 30 A.D. The web site of the Astronomical Society of South Australia www.assa.org.au/edm offers a good explanation of this and exactly how it works and the history of it. Presumably, one could use this information to predict the beginning of Carnivale for any year past or present.
I think at one time I had known that it was tied to a full moon but I may have blocked it out of my mind, perhaps thinking I had misinterpreted information which casted sort of a pagan light on what is mostly presented as a non-pagan faith/ritual, Christianity that is.
|
- jimlouis 2-17-2001 12:27 am
While I'm not, unfortunately, an expert on Carnivale I'll guess that it is a fixed number of days before the start of Lent which begins forty days before Easter which moves around on the calendar thanks to the moon. Carnivale concludes with Fat Tuesday the day before Ash Wednesday, the start of lent. The aim of the Easter Dating Method is to maintain, for each Easter Sunday, the same season of the year and the same relationship to the preceding astronomical full moon that occurred at the time of his resurrection in 30 A.D. The web site of the Astronomical Society of South Australia www.assa.org.au/edm offers a good explanation of this and exactly how it works and the history of it. Presumably, one could use this information to predict the beginning of Carnivale for any year past or present.
- elisabeth 2-20-2001 9:11 pm [add a comment]
I think at one time I had known that it was tied to a full moon but I may have blocked it out of my mind, perhaps thinking I had misinterpreted information which casted sort of a pagan light on what is mostly presented as a non-pagan faith/ritual, Christianity that is.
- jimlouis 2-21-2001 1:48 pm [add a comment]