They cluster around the fourth cross-quarter day, which, as explained in the Astronomical Companion section on “Traditional times,” is half way between the September equinox and the December solstice.
October 31, Saturday: Halloween. Dark spirits prowl until midnight when good spirits chase then away.
November 1: All Saints’ Day. And Samhain (pronounced savin), Celtic feast of the departing Sun, yet of the beginning year. Ghosts prowled – ancestral to the Halloween ones.
November 1, Sunday, at 2 AM, or more practically on Saturday before bed time: in America, twist clocks back one hour from the misnamed “daylight-saving time” to the more nearly Sun-true standard time. See https://www.universalworkshop.com/clock-shifting-times/ for our history of and opinion of this meddling with time.
November 1, 20:29 UT: last quarter Moon. The Moon, crossing Earth’s orbit ahead of us, is where Earth will be about an hour later, as shown by our green steering-wheel symbol for “Earth’s direction of travel” in this nearest pre-dawn scene for an American location,
November 2: All Souls’ Day.
November 3, Tuesday, USA election day. Good spirits have a chance to chase bad spirits out.
November 5, Guy Fawkes Day, commemoration of one of the cruelest of all executions, is in England the excuse for bonfires, burnt effigies, and fireworks.
November 5: as reported by Abe Bonowitz, tireless campaigner against this ancient evil, in his Death Penalty Action, three states – Indiana, Alabama, Florida – plan to carry out executions on this one day.
November 7 would be the exact cross-quarter date.
__________
This weblog maintains its right to be about astronomy or anything under the sun.
ILLUSTRATIONS in these posts are made with precision but have to be inserted in another format. You may be able to enlarge them on your monitor.
One way: right-click, and choose ”View image” or ”Open image in new tab”, then enlarge. Or choose ”Copy image”, then put it on your desktop, then open it. On an iPad or phone, use the finger gesture that enlarges (spreading with two fingers, or tapping and dragging with three fingers). Other methods have been suggested, such as dragging the image to the desktop and opening it in other ways.
Sometimes I make improvements or corrections to a post after publishing it. If you click on the title, rather than on ‘Read more’, I think you are sure to see the latest version. Or, if you click ‘Refresh’ or press function key 5, you’ll see the version change to the latest.