The White Way calendar

Written by thehouseofvines

Most of the calendars we’ve used for the various iterations of the Starry Bull and previous Dionysian, Hellenic, and syncretic groups I’ve run have employed a lunisolar calendar, or some variation thereof.

The White Way is different in that it has a 7-day and 10-day week, with roughly 52 weeks in a year (except during leap years) broken up into 12 months of roughly 4 weeks like the calendar that most people in our contemporary Western societies are familiar with. 

Each month has 28 to 31 days; each day in a month is named after one of the Symbols of the Starry Bull tradition; each day in a Decad (10-day week) represents a Pythagorean concept; and each month in a year has a Dionysian animal associated with it.  

That’s a lot of information to bombard you with, so today I’m going to limit myself to just the months of our year and our “Bacchic Orphic Zodiac.”

January = Goat (τράγος) 
February = Wolf (λύκος) 
March = Deer (ἔλαφος) 
April = Bull (ταύρος) 
May = Fox (ἀλώπηξ)
June = Spider (ἀράχνης)
July = Leopard (πάρδαλις)  
August = Snake (όφις) 
September = Dolphin (δελφίς)
October = Ass (ὄνος) 
November = Bear (άρκτος) 
December = Swine (σῦς) 

What animal are you according to this system?

24 thoughts on “The White Way calendar”

    1. I go around and give businesses 1-star reviews, saying “There was a decided lack of goats at this establishment.” A couple of the businesses have even contacted me and tried to get me to change my review. Still, no goats — no stars.

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  5. Dolphin of course. How did you decide on the calendar to follow? How did you set it up? I am following the Roman/ Mesopotamian ones, and want to see if I can smush them together. Or not.

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    1. Well, it was weird. As much as I loved lunisolar calendars, I always wanted to tap into the energy of our New Year’s. I’ve made it work for the last 10-15 years no matter how different I made the calendars, but then I got to thinking: why am I going through all this trouble, especially considering how important solar symbolism is to Dionysos. Especially since I’m not very in tune with the cycles of nature, which is one of the things using a lunisolar calendar is supposed to help with. Once I put together the calendar and printed a wall calendar, I just checked the date off that rather than paying attention to the moon’s cycles, etc. So I dispensed with the trappings, and named the months after animals that have a strong association with Dionysos. And the days are named after non-animal Dionysian symbols. (I’m going to post them shortly.) This may be a bit confusing since it’s just for the White Way, and the Starry Bull festivals are all lunar, but it does work and ensures that time will be told by the dance of both the Sun and Moon. It’s just that there’ll be multiple calendars within the same tradition.

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      1. It sounds like you did something similar that people in the French Revolution did when they re-did the calendar. Of course, the animals are similar to the Maya calendar of days. As for me, I follow the seasons as it always made sense to me to have the Dead roam around in May. Really, that is how I roll. October was not the veil for me. It does help to live in a climate that matches the calendar of the original culture.

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        1. Oh, I love the Revolutionary calendar — though it is a little too complicated.

          Agreed. It really helps living in a place with a similar climate; when I first started doing Greco-Egyptian stuff I was in Las Vegas, and when I went back to Hellenismos I was in a Mediterranean climate, and things made a lot more sense than the East Coast. I think we can experience the Gods any time and any place, but there really is something to feeling those rhythms play out around you.

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    2. Oh, and many of the month-animals sync up with the general Starry Bull festival calendar. So while the White Way doesn’t have festivals, and isn’t generally community-focused (being itinerant religious specialists and lore-tenders) all the pieces do ultimately fit together.

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        1. That deserves to be a post of its own. The next couple weeks I’m going to be preparing for and performing the exorcism, but if I haven’t gotten to it by Valentine’s Day poke me with a stick.

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