Lughnasa College Moon
Looked at the world college and wondered, where does that come from? Here’s the answer from Lewis and Short, the OED of Latin dictionaries:
collegium: persons united by the same office or calling, or living by some common rules, a college, guild, corporation, society, union, company, fraternity
(The Sodales Augustales or Sacerdotes Augustales, or simply Augustales, were an order (sodalitas) of Roman priests instituted by Tiberius to attend to the maintenance of the cult of Augustus and the Iulii in 14 AD. see Wiki. picture below)
September. Lots of schools start in September. It’s no accident that Mabon the second of the harvest festivals falls in September. In a largely rural America children were needed at home during the growing season, so school ended in May, late, and began again in September, when the harvest was…I started to repeat this nostrum, but then realized it didn’t make a lot sense. The fall harvest extends into September and the growing season in many parts of the country starts in early May, so I looked it up and found this:
“Why does the American school year start in September and end in June? It’s something of a mystery. Did children once “bring in the harvest” on the family farm all summer in the distant rural past?
Historians at Old Sturbridge Village, a living history museum that recreates an 1830s New England farming village, say not. According to the web site and schoolmistress there, farm children went to school from December to March and from mid-May to August. Adults and children alike helped with planting and harvesting in the spring and fall.”
Read more: School Year and Summer Vacation—History | Infoplease.com http://www.infoplease.com/spot/schoolyear1.html#ixzz3BE5Xf8Bx
This makes sense with what I know of agriculture and horticulture. Will need more research. Don’t have the time right now because I’m going out to harvest, especially raspberries. No school for me.
September always found me excited, a pleasant feeling of anticipation. That was never more the case than my freshmen year of college. I was off to Wabash College, a private all-men’s school in Crawfordsville, Indiana. Wabash was my fantasy college, brick buildings, leafy walkways, odd traditions. At that point in time it was also exclusive, very difficult to get into though that has changed.
(Freshmen had to wear the beanie, or “pot” as it was known on campus, everywhere. This made it easy for upper class men to identify you and make you do small chores for them, like carry their books.)
Leaving for Wabash meant that my adult life was about to start and I couldn’t wait. So, this month’s moon is the college moon.
