The month of May in the Catholic Church is when Mary is exalted. Mary is known as the “Queen of May” and the Church offers special Marian devotions. The origin is not known… but in May the Catholic church offers extra prayers offered to the Virgin Mother of God. In Catholicism, the mother of God is worshiped on par with other deities.

The Gregorian month of May, in astrology, is mostly occupied by Taurus in the zodiac, with the sun ingressing into Gemini later in the month. The sign of Taurus is where the moon is exalted. The moon has its planetary joy in the 3rd house, which in Hellenistic times was known as the house of “Goddess”. Anthropologically, the moon makes the most sense to associate with Goddess. Astrologically, too. 

The Chthonian (lunar/”Goddess”)/Apollonian (solar/”God”) dichotomy that takes up maybe half of Sexual Personae was an idea of Nietzsche’s (according to Wikipedia). The sun and moon are not always diametrically opposed by transit. Sometimes syzygies align, during new moons. But the moon is the Goddess, basically. And Mary in Catholicism is given extra praise and worship during the month of May, the zodiacal month of the moon’s exaltation. 

I found a dissertation paper from 2012 that is 666 pages long, about vigils from the 4th-8th century, AD, in Rome. Astrology reached Italy by the end of the 3rd century, BCE

In Judaism and Islam, which share roots with Christianity, certain holidays are initiated by the first sighting of the moon after a new moon. This is when the moon, as I always say adoringly whenever I spot it, looks “like a thumbnail”. This crescent moon shape is depicted on goddess iconography across cultures and histories. Anything outside of Catholicism is not my lane, and I wholeheartedly welcome discourse!

This crescent is only visible when the moon is no longer in direct alignment with the sun, and there is enough distance between them to make the moon visible, although they are still close. Taurus is the sign following Aries. Theoretically, during the spring equinox, the moon in Taurus is the first sign in which moon will appear after the new moon in Aries. I wonder if the moon in the sign over from the sun being exalted has anything to do with the moon only being visible one or two days after a new moon, when it’s one sign over from the sun. So Aries is the sign of the sun’s exaltation, and Taurus the moon. The moon is exalted and finds its joy opposite the sun. I like to associate the 180º aspect, the opposition, to birth.

This 666 page dissertation is emphatic about the timing of the vigils not being based on “Imitating agrarian models of pre-Christian roman practices, but rather on an eschatological rendering of the year punctuated by the solstices and equinoxes.” Maybe I don’t understand fully just yet. Maybe I need to read all 666 pages to avoid heresy. But it sounds like the author completely ignored astrology, to a fault.