M&D - Chapter 19 - Easter, Dionysius, Cherrycoke, Bradley, &...

[David Ewers]

Now that you mention it, I think you're right about Easter being the only holiday that follows the moon; maybe Thanksgiving comes closest in the U.S., but it's based on the month (4th Thursday in November) rather than the moon.

I like the 'renewal festival leftover' explanation for April Fool's Day as well.  I wouldn't be surprised if that's wrapped in there somewhere.  The way we "celebrate" AFD here (taking pleasure in being lied to, and made to look foolish; something that we can't stand any other day of the year...) contains an element of that, I think.


Back to Chapter 19 and Mason's tall tale (Bradley died in July, so it's not an April Fool's joke...), in the context of all this:
Here's a near-convergence of sorts, leading to some seriously speculative jive.  Sorry for the sprawl.

Thinking about your Easter question, I did a little digging and came across this:

http://www.tertullian.org/fathers/dionysius_exiguus_easter_01.htm

It's an Easter date chart from 525, in which http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dionysius_Exiguus refers to this nineteen year cycle:  

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metonic_cycle


This isn't the first time this Metonic cycle's come up in my M-&D- web-noodling.  With this in mind, I turn back to remembering Mr. Bradley (since we're at his memorial, in a way...).  Two of his major achievements are the aberration (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aberration_of_light), and nutation of the Earth's axis (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nutation).

As to the aberration, this popped out at me: 

Aberration is historically significant because of its role in the development of the theories of light, electromagnetism and, ultimately, the theory of special relativity. It was first observed in the late 1600s by astronomers searching for stellar parallax in order to confirm the heliocentric model of the Solar System, much to their surprise.[citation needed] In 1729, James Bradley provided a classical explanation for it in terms of the finite speed of light relative to the motion of the Earth in its orbit around the Sun,[1][2] which he used to make one of the earliest measurements of the speed of light.

Pretty cool.  But nutation is interesting stuff too:  

Nutation makes a small change to the angle at which the Earth tilts with respect to the Sun, changing the location of themajor circles of latitude that are defined by the Earth's tilt (the equator, tropical circles and polar circles).
In the case of the Earth, the principal sources of tidal force are the Sun and Moon, which continuously change location relative to each other and thus cause nutation in Earth's axis. The largest component of Earth's nutation has a period of 18.6 years, the same as that of the precession of the Moon's orbital nodes.[1] 

I know this ain't horseshoes, but 18.61 seems pretty close to 19 to me.  I'm assuming there is a physical correlation (please correct me if I'm wrong)?  I only mention all this because, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mason–Dixon_line:

...in October 1767, at Dunkard Creek near Mount Morris, Pennsylvania, nearly 244 miles (393 km) west of the Delaware, their Iroquois guides refused to go any further, having reached the border of their lands with the Lenape, with whom they were engaged in hostilities. As such the group was forced to quit, and on October 11, theymade their final observations, 233 miles (375 km) from their starting point.[10]

So M-&D- made their final observations (hit the end of the line) on October 11, 1767, and Mason died on October 25, 1786... 19 years later, to the month.  

Might this have anything at all to do with Cherrycoke's, lingering, haunting Mason's grave, looking for something?  Or is there nothing to see here?





On Apr 1, 2015, at 10:24 AM have a nice day, violet wrote this message:), Elisabeth Romberg wrote:

> Cheers David! good find. I particularly liked the last third of the article. I must say, the idea of April's fools being a left over from "renewal"-festival is the most appealing to my world view. 
> 
> Easter is such a deep rooted festival, isn't it, more than Christmas, in my opinion, even goes beyond the calendar, being the only annual festival that still follows the moon. The third full moon after Winter Solstice I believe. This moon is called Pink Moon, or Pink Egg Moon (where Nick Drake got his album title from). 
> 
> All the other festivals now commonly follow a spesific date, like Christmas, or are pushed to the weekend nearest to the full moon, like Summer Solstice or Halloween, as to not interfere with work. Or they are in Norway, anyway. I don't know what the customs are in the united states, but would you say Thanksgiving, Halloween, (are there others?) are usually celebrated at weekends, and not on the fool moon. Sorry, full moon.
> 
> 
> 

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