PatrickJasperLee

Bokt (luck) is on the menu again! The apparently unlucky Friday thirteenth phobia has been called friggatriskaidekaphobia (Frigg being the name of the Norse goddess for whom Friday is named, and in English and triskaidekaphobia meaning fear of the number thirteen), or paraskevidekatriaphobia (Greek) – at least according to Wiki. Don’t try to say them all at once! But let’s take a Romani Gypsy look at this interesting date.

Friday thirteenth wasn’t considered to be a popular unlucky date here in the West until around the eighteenth or nineteenth centuries if we’re talking historically. But when we consider that Tuesday thirteenth is purportedly unlucky in Spain and Greece, and Friday seventeenth in Italy, we start to see that different cultures have different ideas on what is Bokt is all about, and how his brother Wafdo Bokt (bad luck) can affect us.

Where Friday’s concerned, Frigg is associated with domesticity and weaving, while Freya, a goddess of love is associated with beauty, sexuality, gold, and magic and is often confused with Frigg. Latin gives us Venus’s Day, and ancient Greek gives us Aphrodite’s Day, and Shukra, related to Shakti, is associated with Love and gives us the Hindu Shukrava – Friday, so we can at least agree that Friday is about love and beauty, and the feminine, if nothing else.

Both Thirteen and Friday take us into moon cycles rather sun cycles, and it might not be difficult to see how the shift away from pagan thinking and matriarchal influence along with the introduction of civilized regimes and religions, caused fear of the feminine Friday and her accompanying feminine Number Thirteen to spread, at least in some regions of the West. Perhaps there is nothing more testing than what Frigg, Venus, Aphrodite, Shakti and even Shon the voluptuous moon/mother spirit, collectively, can bring us. Could it be then that the freedom of Freya’s love and beauty was being discouraged and being replaced by Frigg’s domestic orderliness and getting busy weaving? I do wonder.

The problem with fact and folklore is that we tend to research something with a view to discovering its truth - as I have just been doing here, when the truth might actually have been very different in the past. But on a more ancient mystical level Bokt never goes away, and his brother never goes away either. Both attach themselves to new civilized ideas as much as they do to ancient nomadic ideas. I as a Chovihano am able to see this so much, particularly when I am working with people or doing readings for them.

Ten (meaning new beginning) plus Three (meaning test or challenge) perhaps says it all, at least for me. Friday thirteenth will ultimately affect us in many different ways. 

The photograph accompanying this article is of Venus, who is the small star at the lower end of the picture.