AUGUST 23
On this date, the Sun enters the Sign of Virgo. It was also on this date in 79 A.D. that the Cities of Pompeii, Herculaneum and Stabiae were destroyed and thousands of people perished when Mount Vesuvius in Italy erupted. Almost nothing was seen again of Pompeii for more than 1,500 years until 1860, when Guiseppe Fiorelli was appointed as Director of the Pompeiian Dig and vowed to share the riches of this lost city with the entire world.

AUGUST 24
On this evening in 1669, despite her love for an impoverished suitor, young Janet Dalrymple was married to David Dunbar, heir to the Scottish Estate of Baldoon. According to legend, the wedding guests were horrified later that night by screams originating from the bridal chamber. Rushing to the scene, they found the bridegroom half-dead of several stab wounds and the bride totally insane. Although Dunbar recovered, Dalrymple died within the month. Local tradition maintains that the ghost of the young bride continues to haunt the ruins of Baldoon Castle, plagued by the memories of a broken heart and murderous rage.

AUGUST 25
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, a man and woman were strolling on this night in 1951 when they observed a strange flying ojbect shaped like a wide inverted "V" with soft blue-green lights outlining its contours. Twenty minutes later, approximately three hundred miles to the East, a group of college professors in Lubbock, Texas, noted the same occurrence. For the two weeks which followed, there were dozens of such sightings reported in the Lubbock vicinity. Some claimed the lights to be merely reflections in the hazy sky, but many more were convinced that they were looking at the running lights of an alien spacecraft.

AUGUST 26
It is on this date that Hindu worshippers celebrate the periodic rebirth of Krishna, the blue-skinned eighth incarnation of the God Vishnu, who is born again every time the world needs to be set right. The faithful attend midnight services where a statue of the baby Krishna is hailed with cries of "Vijay! or "Victory!" To welcome this infant deity, some worshippers then bathe a small image of the God before tucking him into a silver cradle.

AUGUST 27
It was during late August that the Ancient Romans once held a festival to honor Consus, God of the Grain Stores, which were replenished from the harvest at around this time. Sacrifices were made to this God at an alter beneath the floor of the Circus Maximus and games were held in his honor within the stadium itself. Mules and horses would be decked with garlands and given a day of rest...traditions later observed on the Christian Feast Day of Saint Antony.

AUGUST 28
The Olympic Games once served a religious purpose as part of the late August harvest rituals of Ancient Greece. Some have theorized that the contests began as foot races intended to choose the fittest champion to protect the Spirit of the Harvest during the hard Winter months. Then, as now, the winners were hometown heroes but due reverence had its limits. When one town erected a statute of its three-time boxing champion, jealous Gods are said to have struck it down.

AUGUST 29
At various times of the year, the Yoruba people of Nigeria celebrate Gelede, a rite intended to control old women past the age of childbearing. Considered by tradition to be witches, such women are believed to be subdued by the dances of men sporting masks.

AUGUST 30
During the Harvest Season of August and September, agriculture societies frequently held special rites to celebrate the beginning or "first fruits" of the process, as well as the final reaping. Lammas was such a typical "first fruits" ceremony for grain...another was the Japanese practice of offering the first rice to the Gods. Because these societies had no guarantee that the growing season would return, the cutting of the last plant of the crop often occasioned more anxiety than joy. Early Europeans believed that the Spirit of the Grain...the life force which would infuse the next year's harvest...resided in the final stalk to be cut. Thus, it was often severed by several reapers who shared the responsibility. Once cut, the stalk was in many cases fashioned into a figure known in the British Isles as a "Corn Dolly" or "Kern Baby." No child's toy, such figures were sacred talismen. Often kept in a farmer's house until January, the "Corn Dolly" (whose name may derive from the word "idol") would then be plowed back into the field to work its magic on the next crop. Folklore experts believe such "Corn Dolly" rituals may have descended from ceremonies in which real animal or human sacrifices were made in order to appease the Great Corn Spirit. As late as the 1850s, the Khond people of Bengal in India are said to have made human sacrifices to the Indian Goddess, Tari Pennu. After a victim was dismembered and roasted, a shaman figure would eat part of the charred flesh. The remains were then scattered over a plowed field, bringing future life out of sacrificial death.

AUGUST 31
On this day in the Nigerian capital of Lagos, masqueraders known as Eyos prowl the streets. These costumed demons are concealed in white robes and brandish long sticks. They are representatives of individual families and symbolize authority. Those who cross the path of an Eyo must remove their hats and shoes as a sign of respect. If someone should offend an Eyo, then the demon is likely to lash out with his stick. This ritual walk of the Eyos is believed to have once served the purpose of cleaning the spirits of a family.

SEPTEMBER 1
A Persian prophet and mystic who lived during the Sixth Century B.C., Zoroaster (founder of the religion that bears his name), was born on this day. Zoroastianism teaches that the world is trapped in a constant battle between good spirits known as Ahuras and evil spirits known as Daevas or Divs. Zoroaster (who may also be known by the name of Zarathustra) declared the existence of a single God whom he called Ahura Mazda or Ohrmazd, meaning "Wise Lord." He also prophesied that good would eventually triumph over evil.

SEPTEMBER 2
On this date in 1751, British Parliament abandoned the Julian Calendar...then eleven days behind the Solar Year...and adopted the Gregorian Calendar used on the Continent. The morning after Wednesday, September 2, Britons awoke to Thursday, September 14. Amid disputes over wages and money due in rent payments, many people demanded their eleven days back. Some maintained that the Glastonbury Thorn, a tree noted for blooming on Christmas Day, repudiated the new calendar by flowering eleven days late that year.

SEPTEMBER 3
During the early hours of September 3, 1965, two police officers and other witnesses reported a brightly lit, eighty-foot red sphere hovering near Exeter in New Hampshire. This sighting was never explained. Also on this date, during Akwambo, the Path Clearing Festival, Ghana's Akan people symbolically clear a path to the village well. A priestess then offers libations to the God who dwells within.

SEPTEMBER 4
To mark a girl's coming of age, the White Mountain Apache Tribe of Arizona often celebrate a "Sunrise" or "Coming Out" Ceremony at this time of the year. During the four-day-long rite, the young girl ritually becomes "Changing Woman," a legendary Apache heroine who survived a great flood and magically gave birth to Son of Sun and Child of the Water. The Tribe members believe that the girl's transformation into "Changing Woman" not only ensures long life for her, but also blesses everyone who attends the ceremony.

SEPTEMBER 5
On this date in 1871, German explorer Karl Mauch discovered Great Zimbabwe, the mysterious stone ruins of an ancient African fortress in the country known today as Zimbabwe. Also around this time (the date of which changes on the Western Calendar), a Hindu Festival honors Ganesh, the beneficient elephant-headed God of Luck and Prosperity. Worshippers parade decorated clay images of Ganesh to a river, lake or sea where they gently drown the effigies. They then carry home soil from the water's edge in order to ensure plenty.

SEPTEMBER 6
The Situa, an ancient Incan festival designed to ward off the deadly illnesses of the Southern Hemisphere's Spring, took place on this date to coincide with the beginning of the Rainy Season. After a day of fasting, the Incas drew small amounts of their children's blood and mixed it with corn meal. They then ate this paste, rubbed it on their bodies and smeared it on their threshholds to repel disease-bearing evil spirits. This festival culminated when the Inca or Emperor, wielding a feathered lance, would send four noble Incas running North, South, East and West to rout the evil spirits from Incan territory.

SEPTEMBER 7
On this night in 1875, Madame Helen Petrovna Blavatsky and her salon of occultists agreed to form an organization for the study of arcane knowledge. The following day, they formally founded the Theosophical Society. Henry Olcott was President, but it was Blavatsky who became the prime mover in the Society's work of spreading occult lore and ancient wisdom.

SEPTEMBER 8
In 326 A.D., the Roman Empress Helena made a pilgrimage to Palestine in order to celebrate the Christian conversion of her son, Constantine the Great. While there, the Empress reputedly discovered the Holy House of Nazareth...home of Jesus, Mary and Joseph, and the dwelling in which the Virgin had been born. The Empress maintained that she recognized it by a certain "holy dread" which it inspired in her. She had the house enveloped by a basilica and shortly thereafter, pilgrims began to flock to the location. Almost a thousand years later (in 1291) the armies of Islam were about to descend upon Palestine. According to Catholic tradition, Angels came down from Heaven in order to protect the Holy House. Picking up the small stone cottage, these celestial beings transported it to a village in what would become the country of Yugoslavia. However, concerned that the house was being neglected, the Angels moved it three years later, this time to the Italian town of Loreto on the other side of the Adriatic. Perceiving the appearance of the cottage as a miracle, the people of Loreto encircled the house with a wall and made it a Holy Shrine. It is also recorded that they sent a deputation of sixteen men to Nazareth, whose mission it was to unearth proof that such was the origin of the cottage. They discovered that its dimensions matched the empty foundations where the Holy House had once stood and that an inscription there stated the house had mysteriously vanished. Around the cottage at Loreto, the Catholic Church later built a magnificent shrine of white marble. Over the centuries, thousands of pilgrims...including more than fifty Popes...have visited the Holy House at Loreto. Because the townspeople believe they possess the house in which Mary was born, their biggest festival occurs annually on this date...the date traditionally observed as the Virgin's birthday. Despite the doubts of modern scholars regarding the truth surrounding the Holy House at Loreto, the little cottage endures as a cherished shrine. At its door, a plaque proclaims: "Let those who are impure tremble to enter into this sanctuary. The whold world has no place more sacred."

SEPTEMBER 9
By an ancient Chinese custom, chrysanthemum wine is drunk on the Ninth Day of the Ninth Moon to ensure long life. This is done to honor T'ao Yuan-Ming, a Chinese poet who favored the chrysanthemum above all other flowers because it blooms alone in frosty Autumn. After the poet's death, the Chinese made him God of the Chrysanthemum. Ancient Japan set aside this same day as Choyo-no-Sekku or Chrysanthemum Day...an important festival on which the shogun received visits from his feudal lord. Modern Japanese people celebrate Choyo-no-Sekku with competitive chrysanthemum shows.

SEPTEMBER 10
Beginning at the crack of dawn each year around this date, on the Monday after Wakes Sunday (the first Sunday following September 4), costumed dancers gather outside the village church at Abbots Bromley in Staffordshire, England. All male, they include a Fool, Robin Hood riding a hobbyhorse, a man dressed as Maid Marian, a Bowman, two Musicians and six Deer (men wearing heavy wooden replicas of reindeer antlers). Throughout the course of the day, the group wends it way through the village and neighboring countryside, stopping at intervals to perform the Horn Dance for waiting onlookers. Toward evening, the men go back to the village center for one last dance. Then, they return the antlers to the church until the following year. The fact that reindeer have been extinct in Britain for a thousand years or more suggests that the Horn Dance may well be a festival of Ancient Pagan times and was perhaps originally celebrated to ensure fertility or good hunting.

SEPTEMBER 11
Beginning on this date and continuing for three days, members of the Nichiren Sect of Japanese Buddhism pay homage to their founder, Nichiren, an outspoken Thirteenth Century priest who so angered government authorities that he was arrested and sentenced to be beheaded. However, when lightning struck close to the execution site, officials reduced the penalty to exile on a nearby island. Freed on September 12, 1271, Nichiren spent the remainder of his years teaching his distinct form of Buddhism. At his annual festival, modern-day followers of this priest shout prayers while beating upon fan-shaped drums.

SEPTEMBER 12
Every year, on or about this day, natives of Paris formerly gathered at the central market for a somewhat curious ritual known as La Fete du Roi Potiron or King Pumpkin's Day. This festival featured a giant pumpkin adorned with a paper-and-tinsel crown which was carried through the market seated upon a throne while vendors jokingly paid their respects. Then, without further ado, everyone set about carving the overgrown vegetable for use in a traditional soup. It is believed that this observance may have harked back to ancient customs of crop propitation.

SEPTEMBER 13
The ancient Egyptian Goddess, Nepthys (also known as Nephet) was believed to be a protectress of the dead. Generally depicted wearing a headdress consisting of the two hieroglyphs of her name...a basket ("neb") placed atop the sign for a palace ("het")...homage was paid to Nepthys on this date by virtue of fires being lit in her honor. This Egyptian ritual was also known as All-Souls' Day.

SEPTEMBER 14
During the early morning hours on this day in 1224, Francis of Assisi experienced a vision of a six-winged Seraph bearing an image of Jesus on the cross. Immediately, the monk found in his own hands, feet and side, the five wounds of the crucified Christ...stigmata he is said to have borne for the rest of his life. Also on this day in 312 A.D., just prior to a battle, the Roman Emperor Constantine I reportedly observed in the sky a cross inscribed with the words, "In hoc signo vinces" ("By this sign you will conquer"). To commemorate his vision and the victory he had attained that day, Constantine insituted the Feast of the Holy Cross.

SEPTEMBER 15
As the sun set on this day in the year 7 B.C., an unusually bright celestial body rose in the East. This brilliant "star" was formed in the Constellation of Pisces the Fishes by the rare conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter (the latter also known as the Planet of Kings). The occurrence has led some astrologers to suggest that September 15 may be the true birth date of Jesus Christ and that the Saturn/Jupiter conjunction was, in fact, the Star of Bethlehem observed in the East by the Three Magi.

SEPTEMBER 16
This day marks the Feast of Saint Cornely, a native of Breton who is thought to have created the Carnac Megaliths by transforming hostile soldiers to stone. This Saint is also the Patron of Horned Animals and it is on this day that Bretons lead oxen through his shrine at midnight to be blessed while the resident priests turn a blind eye to the huge beasts lumbering through the church.

SEPTEMBER 17
The Ancient Greek festival of Eleusinia, renowned for its secret rites and mysteries, was formerly celebrated on this day. The rituals honored Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture who, so it was believed, taught the secrets of growing crops to the Eleusinians in return for the kindess they displayed when her daughter, Persephone, was abducted by Hades, Lord of the Underworld.

SEPTEMBER 18
Annually, for two gala days at around this time of year, Britons flock to the site of the Uffington White Horse...a colossal figure of a galloping steed cut into the pale clay of Berkshire hillside. The people come to participate in a traiditon which is centuries old and known as "Scouring the White Horse." The principal objective of the gathering is to eliminate the weeds which would otherwise obliterate the silhouette of the horse. When the work is done, however, participants stay on hand for a festival of games and athletic competition.

SEPTEMBER 19
On the night of September 19 in 1961, Betty and Barney Hill were on their way home to Portsmouth in New Hampshire after having vacationed in Canada. They later reported that while driving along U.S. Route 3, they observed a bright starlike object moving across the Southwestern sky. The pulled off the road several times in order to study the object through binoculars and determined it to be some type of unusual airplane. The Hills' account goes on to relate that the large disk-shaped craft suddenly flew toward the couple's parked car, stopping just above the deserted road in front of them. When Barney Hill got out of the vehicle for a closer look, he was astonished to see, behind the portholes of the hovering object, five to eleven humanlike figures moving around. Hastily returning to the car, Barney Hill started the engine and the couple sped home...or so they thought. However, upon reaching their house, the Hills discovered they had "lost" more than two hours between the time of their encounter and their arrival at home. Betty and Barney Hill had no explanation for what had transpired during those two hours until several years later when they consulted with a prominent Boston psychiatrist regarding Barney's nervousness and insomnia, and Betty's nightmares...all problems which had arisen after the Hills had come into contact with the unusual flying object. Under hypnosis, each spouse recounted a terrifying and incredible tale of being taken into the strange spacecraft on that September night in 1961, where they were subjected to physical examinations...sometimes painful...by beings from another world. Although skeptics have dismissed the Hills' story as pure fabrication, similar tales of alien abduction have surfaced around the globe, leading some UFO investigators to hypothesize that the creatures may be conducting genetic studies of humankind, perhaps with the intention of creating a human-alien hybrid.

SEPTEMBER 20
The Incas, who resided South of the Equator, marked the Spring Equinox on or about this date. They would wait silently in the dark at a mountaintop temple for the golden rays of their Sun God to flash over the peak. Great rejoicing would then follow, accompanied by feasting, animal sacrifice and divination for the remainder of the day.

SEPTEMBER 21
In some cultures, people seek to predict the future on this date, which is Saint Matthew's Day. One ancient tradition, for example, states that if the weather on this day is fair, then it will continue to be so for four weeks. In Germany, girls once made fortune-telling wreaths on Saint Matthew's Day. These wreaths could be fashioned from straw or evergreen. In the dark, each girl would choose one. An evergreen wreath was said to predict a happy marriage and good heath, whereas a straw one foretold of sickness and unhappiness.

SEPTEMBER 22
In astronomical circles, the Season of Autumn commences on or about this date...a day which consists of exactly twelve hours of daylight and twelve hours of darkness. This is known as the Equinox, taken from the Latin for "equal night." In some cultures, this date was also known as the Witches' Thanksgiving and the Ancient Celts called it Mabon to honor Queen Mab of the Faerie People. In Japan, the Autumnal Equinox is observed as a holiday known as Higan, which means "other shore" or "heaven." It is on September 22 that the Sun sets due West and this is where Buddhists believe the location of heaven to be. To honor the dead, those who practice Buddhism visit cemeteries on this day and pray for the souls of departed ancestors. Also on this date, the Sun begins to take its leave from the Sign of Virgo and continues its journey by entering the Sign of Libra.