[Elspode]

We witches *like* the number 13. Here's a fairly informative little piece that circulated around our community today here in KC.




Why Friday the 13th is a Very Lucky Day, Indeed

By Donna Henes, Urban Shaman*


When the 13th day on the month lands on a Friday, the culturally unfavorable
attributes of each are multiplied by infinity. Friday, the day of original
sin, the day Jesus died, the day of public hangings, in combination with 13,
the number of steps on a gallows, the number of coils of rope in a hangman’s
noose, the number of the Death card in the tarot deck, is indubitably
designated as a day of portent and doom. The pitiful suicide note of a
window washer that was found with his body in a gas-filled room at his home
and quoted in a 1960 issue of the Yorkshire Post, underscores it’s powerful,
popular reputation, "It just needed to rain today — Friday the 13th — for me
to make up my mind."
Poor sod.

Ironically, and in definite defiance of the laws of probability, the 13th
day of the month, is more likely to fall on a Friday than on any other day
of the week. The precisely aligned pattern of our calendar — days, weeks and
months — repeats itself exactly every 400 years. In that 400 year period
there are 688 Friday the 13ths. "Just our luck!," some might say.

And, though they would mean it facetiously, they would, indeed, be right.
For until the patriarchal revolution, both Fridays and 13’s were held in the
very highest esteem. Both the day and the number were associated with the
Great Goddesses, and therefore, regarded as the sacred essence of luck and
good fortune. Thirteen is certainly the most essentially female number — the
average number of menstrual cycles in a year. The approximate number, too of annual cycles of the moon. When Chinese women make offerings of moon cakes, there are sure to be 13 on the platter. Thirteen is the number of blood,
fertility and lunar potency.




Return!

May there come with you

Thirteen deer

Thirteen eagles

Thirteen white horses

Thirteen rainbows

Your steps move thirteen mountains.

-Mazatec Shaman Song


Representing as it does, the number of revolutions the moon makes around the earth in a year, 13 was the number of regeneration for pre-Columbian
Mexicans. In ancient Israel, where 13 was a sanctified number, 13 items were decreed necessary for the tabernacle. At 13 years of age, a boy was (and still is) initiated into the adult Jewish community. In Wicca, the pagan Goddess tradition of Old Europe, communicants convene in covens of 13 participants. Thirteen was also auspicious for the Egyptians, who believed that life has 13 stages, the last of which is death — the transition to eternal life. Death in ancient Egypt represented transformation rather than termination. The beginning as well as the end.

Post-patriarchal mythology is also rich with symbolic references to the
mystical power of 13. Besides Christ and his 12 disciples, there are Jacob
and his 12 sons, Odysseus and his 12 companions, Medea and her 12 princesses, Romulous and his 12 shepherds, Roland and his 12 peers, Arthur and his 12 knights, and the head of Osiris and his 12 dismembered body parts. Not to mention Scarlet O’Hara and her 13-inch waist. The United States has a full complement of significant 13’s, beginning with the original 13 colonies. The Great Seal pictures 13 stars, 13 bars, and a bald eagle sporting 13 tail feathers, holding 13 arrows and 13 olive branches. The official motto, "E Pluribus Unum" contains 13 letters.

Friday, too, was associated with the early Mother Creation Goddesses for
whom that day was named. In Anglo-Saxon, Scandinavian, Icelandic and
Teutonic cultures she was called variously, Freya, Freia, Freyja, Fir, Frea
and Frig. Friday is Frig’s Day, Frigedaeg, in Old English, Fredag in Danish, Freitag in Dutch. In Mediterranean lands, She reigned as Venus. In Latin, Friday is the Day of Venus, Dies Veneris; Vendredi in French,Venerdi in Italian and Viernes in Spanish.

Held holy in Her honor, Friday was observed as the day of Her special
celebrations. Jews around the world still begin the observance of the
Sabbath at sunset on Friday evenings. All work is put away, a feast
prepared, the table set, everything and everyone spanking clean. The family
gathers to usher in the day of prayer and rest. The mother and her daughters
kindle two white candles to light the welcome way for the entrance of the
Sabbath, personified as the Sabbath Bride. Friday is the Sabbath in the
Islamic world. Friday is also sacred to Oshun, the Yoruban orisha of opulent
sensuality and overwhelming femininity.

Like Venus, Frig was the Goddess of love and sex, of fertility and
creativity. Her name became the Anglo-Saxon noun for love, and in the
sixteenth century, frig came to mean "to copulate." Friday, Her hallowed
day, was considered to be lucky for woman. The church deemed marriage
inappropriate for Friday, and, therefore, unlucky. This was a complete
perversion of the prior popular opinion that Friday, the blessed day of the
Love Goddess, was the best day to marry.

But old passions die hard. And pregnant remnants of the past survive in
contemporary custom. For instance, the celebration of Friday the 13th as
Sadie Hawkins Day, the one day when it is acceptable for a woman to propose marriage to a man.