29 February 2008

Leaping Day and the Stumping Dance

As you know, my friends, it is that time of Time again when our calendar makes up for lost time and puts the year back on track, for our dating system has become about a day behind the earth's position in orbit. We call this day "Leap Day," and it occurs every 29 February. Of course, I know what you are thinking: that there was no 29 February last year, neither the year before nor the year before that; therefore, this day cannot possibly exist! That which you think is true. In actuality, there is no 29 February, and there can exist no form of "29 Februaryness." In fact, the time covered by this day in truth took place in the hours following the coming of the New Year (which by no means is an arbitrarily selected moment) for the last for celebrations of that kind. The day itself, then, is both unreal and temporally passed, offering no further causal effect in time. Because the past has passed and the present has its perpetual presence, there is no changing the past between the past at hand and the current present, so acting on this leap day time has no real or causal significance. Do you realize what this means?

We can do whatever we like on Leap Day and it will not matter! We can fly or dance or sing or leap or weep or giggle or live or die. Come 1 March (Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit! Now I shall be blessed!), 29 February will not even be a memory.

I wish you all excellent fortune with your debaucheries, gluttonies, stumping dances, and magicks.

2 comments:

maria said...

I thought you were supposed to say "rabid rabbit" on the first day of the month. I had never heard of any such thing until a few hours ago, so I don't know if the person who told me was just following regional rules (not quite laws or principles) or what.

Thorvald Erikson said...

"Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit!" is a universal ritual, most effective, I think, on Beltaine. The rabbit is a fertility symbol, and it is chanted thrice in honor of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity, the Blessed Virgin, who is Isis. We also celebrate these things on Easter (named for "Ishtar," the Babylonian incarnation of the Goddess).