Friday the 13th: An Education

Friday the 13th is often associated with superstition and fear, but this day was once, and still is by many, regarded as a sacred day.

For a long time in human history, Friday the 13th was regarded as the day of enlightenment and the Goddess. Friday was considered the day of Venus, the Goddess of love and sexuality, desire and victory. Thirteen was sacred in ancient Goddess-worshipping cultures because there are thirteen lunar and menstrual cycles in a year; those lunar cycles were considered to be the source of feminine magic and power. As the masculine began to take power, the thirteen-month cycle was discarded for the twelve-month cycle calendar year we now use.

The ancient Egyptians also believed there was a twelve-step process of practical learning in this life experience; there was a 13th step, being the completion of ascending into the higher realms.

Pagan/Norse Goddesses Freya, the Goddess of marriage and fertility, and Frigg, the Goddess of sex and fertility, are believed to be one and the same: Freya taught Odin much of what he knew when it came to magic. Frigg was Odin’s official wife, but it has been determined that they were the same deity. Both were said to be masters of magic and the unseen and presided over the afterlife.

It would seem those beliefs translated into later versions of the Norse faith itself. It is said there was a great feast for 12 guests laid out in Valhalla. A 13th guest, the trickster Loki, invited himself along only to end up killing Balder (the God of joy and happiness).

It is understood by scholars that, in Christian stories, Friday the 13th was supposedly the day that Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. It was also reinforced with the story of the last supper (thirteen guests, Judas being the thirteenth guest) and Friday the 13th being touted as the day that Christ was crucified.

At its origin, Friday the 13th is all about honouring the Goddess. Men can honour this occasion by doing something special to honour the Feminine, both within themselves and the women in their lives, including mothers and daughters. Women can honour the day by aligning with their feminine power through ritual and their cycle, birthing their magic into the world with sensuality, magic, love, sensuality, magic and power.