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Underground > Temple >

Southern Hemisphere: Which way is widdershins?

17:35 / 14.03.07

Just got this off a maillist I'm on, and thought y'all might be able to help out:

Greetings,
I am pleased to (finally) announce that my online
questionnaire regarding
Hermetic or Hermetically influenced circle
rituals performed in the Southern
Hemisphere is now ready and ethically approved.

Anyone who meets the requirements of practising
circle rituals in the
Southern Hemisphere is welcome to participate in
this research.

Please go to www.hermetic.wirejunkie.com and log
in using the password
"thrice great". No username is required.

Please feel free to pass this information on to
anyone who you think might
enjoy participating.

I know the following is obvious but I am required
to say it. Please do not
constrain, dragoon, oblige, coerce, impel,
shotgun, hustle or otherwise
require anyone to undertake this questionnaire.
It is entirely voluntary and
there is no obligation to answer any or all
questions.

Regards,

Morgan Leigh

18:35 / 14.03.07

Oooh, interesting question...
I guess if deosil is sunwise it must be anti-clockwise down south, and so widdershins would be clockwise... but being from the UK I

I'd be interested in hearing from Southern Hemisphere people as to how they do things... do you just celebrate the winter solstice in June? That makes sense as its the shortest day, but then what about the non-astrological festivals like 'Samhain'? Is October 31st still a thinly veiled day?

01:08 / 15.03.07

interesting subject - it's rolled around in my skull for a few years now, mostly in connection with the calendar i've developed.

the idea is to create a calendar to replace the Gregorian as the international standard.

i've based a 13 month calendar on the relative amount of daylight - in the illustrations below, the Summer Solstice is completely white, the Winter Solstice, completely black, and the rest of the days incrementally grey (for latitude 49).

The Year begins on the Solstice (Winter in the North, Summer in the South). Here's the comparison:

Northern Hemisphere - Year by Daylight

Southern Hemisphere - Year by Daylight

one waxes while the other wanes.

This calendar has become the focus of my works/practice, here's hoping it may serve you well.

btw dividing the year in this fashion also places each of the 8 spokes of the Wheel of the Year 45 Days apart from one another.

this may be a useful tool in synchronising activities between both hemispheres - although, the interactivity between the two has yet to reveal itself.

In terms of geography, the convention with which I had become accustomed places North at the top, East to the right, South at the bottom, and West to the right.

The Chinese place South at the bottom, East to the left, and so on.

I've seen maps of the globe where the South is at the top, and the North at the bottom, and i spend days trying to find peace with this distorted view of my world.

is there a convention used in the Southern Hemisphere along any of these lines? Particularly as the 4 directions play such a key role in so many aspects of one's practice.

any word from South of the Tropic of Capricorn?

how does the world look from there?

ta
naught jak

Disco is My Class War

02:47 / 16.03.07

When I did use circles in magical practice, years ago, deosil was clockwise and widdershins was anti-clockwise. Perhaps it's not strictly in line with the way the water swirls down the plug differently, but I always thought that it was the associations one brings to the act that gave it its power -- ie, if I decided clockwise movement would result in opening instead of closing, then the symbol would work as I used it.

The calendar is a bit confusing, though. I've never celebrated the pagan festivals but I know people who do, and indeed, June is the winter solstice, December the summer solstice, September spring equinox and March the autumn equinox. But the other festivals, such as Samhain, are celebrated at the time they occur.

I'm sure there are people who argue that since pagan ritual originates in the northern hemisphere, that those festival dates are all relative and should be moved, or that new dates and festivals should be thought up with more connection to the specificity of the location.

01:06 / 18.03.07

But the other festivals, such as Samhain, are celebrated at the time they occur.

Actually, this isn't always the case. I know that a huge contingent of Australian pagans do a ‘complete flip’, the reason being that for earth/nature/season based spiritualities it makes little sense to celebrate a harvest festival like Lamas/Lughnasadh at the beginning of spring, etc. However, there used to be (I haven’t been really involved in these circles for a while) quite healthy debates over how important it is to ‘match’ Samhain in particular to the dates up north given the possibility of spirits wandering around, and whether we should incorporate elements of that into Beltane celebrations.

In terms of other stuff, I know a few magic/k practitioners who will also change elements/compass points to match their location. For instance, some people on the east coast of Australia will call fire from the north, water/east, wind/south and earth/west, but change that if they move to the south or west coasts.

Incidentally, the calendar has always run anti-clockwise in my head, with January and summer at the top, autumn to the left, winter at the bottom etc. It took me ages to realise that other people saw it backwards!

Make me Uncomfortable

07:03 / 18.03.07

Being a Northern Hemispherian myself, I can't really comment except to say that, considering globalization and international standards, but also considering locality and the obvious season-flip... both sides make good cases.

I do have a related question, though. Is there a southern zodiac? I mean, I know there is no southern star (like Polaris is the Northern Star), but... there's some patch of sky that everything rotates around, and there are certainly constalations, but... are they systematized the way the Astrological Zodiac (Aries, Capricorn, etc) is?

Disco is My Class War

12:40 / 19.03.07

I stand corrected. Although I'd been thinking of Samhain, and maybe that's a particular case.

Also I'd completely forgotten about the compass points and elements thing. I, too, used to associate the north with fire, south with air, east with water and west with earth.