Why is Friday 13th Considered Unlucky? The divine feminine truth behind the day of the Goddess
- Roberta DMP
- Feb 11
- 7 min read
The divine feminine truth behind the day of the Goddess, why it's anything but unlucky, and how to reclaim it as your own...
It’s Friday 13th. You are due to be getting on a plane. Do you immediately change your flight? Do you board the plane, but interpret every tiny bit of turbulence or noise as a sign of impending doom? Do you brush off the thought as silly superstition, but feel - if you’re being totally honest with yourself - even just the tiniest of niggles of anxiety…. Just in case? It’s not just the 80s slasher franchise that we have to thank for our fears around Friday 13th, nor our human tendency towards confirmation bias - ‘of COURSE I got soaked by a passing car while walking beside a busy flooded road today, it’s Friday 13th!’
It’s a whispered myth taught to us from a young age, written into the pages of religious texts by the hands of men, popularised in the media, kept alive by the fact that not enough of us know our ancient roots well enough to shout from the rooftops that Friday 13th is our day. That our cycles are divine, that our power was great enough to terrify men into making up silly stories to minimise us. Allow me to explain why Friday 13th should be revered rather than feared.
Why is Friday 13th seen as unlucky?
Let’s start at the Biblical beginning, because Christianity is where a lot of the Friday 13th narratives originate. One Friday in the Garden of Eden, Eve, succumbing to her desires for knowledge and independence from God, picked the forbidden fruit, ate some, and shared it with Adam. As punishment, God opened their eyes to their nakedness and made them feel shame for the first time. He placed the pain of childbirth upon all women, and cursed the ground, causing all of humanity to have to toil for food forever more. Adam and Eve were exiled from the Garden of Eden, made mortal, and lost their original state of innocence. It was, as portrayed in the Bible, a very bad Friday.
Later in the Bible came the Last Supper, where the 13th person to be seated at the table - Judas - was the betrayer of Christ, who consequently was crucified on Good Friday. This has, quite bizarrely, given root to a couple of religious long standing superstitions; that 13 people must never dine together, as one of them will die within a year, and that Friday is a deeply unlucky day for ships to set sail. Sticking with Christianity, The Knights Templar - the wealthy Catholic military, founded in Jerusalem to protect the Holy Land during the Crusades - were arrested and executed on Friday 13th, 1307; a date which was, thereafter, also classified as Very Bad.
There are an approximate 13 cycles of the moon within a year. Christian monks, tasked with the creation of the modern day Gregorian calendars that most people still use, did not like it when there were indeed 13 full moons as opposed to 12; 12 was a holy number, reflected in the 12 disciples and the 12 tribes of Israel. 13 moons provided a logistical headache in terms of standardising the calendar and dates within it. And, perhaps most importantly, 13 was an important number for women - more on this later - and that just wouldn’t do. So, they proclaimed years with 13 moons to be chaotic, and a bad omen, and then, over time, the 13th moon was erased altogether from the Gregorian calendar.
From monks to the moon to menstruation
There are, whether the monks like it or not, 13 lunar cycles in a year. As many of us know, the average menstrual cycle of a woman is 28 days long, which equates to 13 cycles - just like the moon - per year. Coincidence? I think not. A divine connection, you could say, but one which was all but erased from large swathes of human consciousness as time passed.
Women’s menstrual cycles were once revered, not shameful or hidden. They were rightly seen as a clear sign of their connection to the moon, to nature, and to divine knowledge and wisdom.
When bleeding, women were seen as more open to receiving communication from spirit, gods and goddesses, or ancestors across numerous belief systems, locations and time eras. Communities would gather to receive wisdom from menstruating women, and a woman’s bleeding was welcomed and celebrated as a sign of not just fertility and the ability to create life, but of her own life force in its complete, whole and unique glory. When ovulating, women were seen as being at the height of their power, and ovulation commonly occurs midway through the cycle, from day 13.
The divine feminine history of Friday
Let’s take a quick look at the word ‘Friday’. It’s derived from the Latin term dies Veneris which translates as ‘Day of Venus’, with Venus being the Roman Goddess of love, beauty and fertility . In Old English, ‘Friday’ was frīgedæg - day of Frig, with Frig being the Norse Goddess of motherhood, fertility and prophecy. Friday is, and always has been, a day for the women; celebrating their power, their beauty, their nurture and their connection to nature and to the divine. But that is, for many, a forgotten fact; and not something that was organically forgotten over time. It’s something that was erased by - you guessed it - men.
The number 13 - revered, not feared
In ancient goddess-worshipping cultures, the number 13 represents the divine feminine, the cycles of life, death and rebirth, sacred wisdom, and fertility. The 20,000 year old carving known as ‘Venus of Laussel’ depicts a voluptuous woman, with one hand resting on her belly, and one holding either a crescent moon or a horn into which are cut 13 notches. These notches are widely thought to depict either the 13 lunar cycles, the 13 menstrual cycles of an adult woman, or the 13 days between the end of one cycle and ovulation; or all three. Ancient Egyptians revered the number 13, associating it with ascension, rebirth, resurrection and the shift between physical life and immortality, which is reflected in the number's many appearances in the Great Pyramid of Giza.
How did this wonderful day go from sacred to scary?
As patriarchal systems grew in number, spread and power around the world, so did an engineered, collective fear of women’s power; a male masterplan coming to fruition. And so, the patriarchy continued to rewrite the narrative. Feminine power was demonised; once sacred menstruation became a shameful, unclean process which is reiterated heavily in the Bible. A menstruating woman, according to the Bible, is ‘unclean’ for seven days, and anyone who touches her or anything she has sat or laid upon is ‘unclean’ too. After seven days has passed, the woman is required to bring a sacrifice to the priest for ‘atonement’; suggesting that menstruation is, in many ways, a sin as well as being shameful. Temples dedicated to female deities were destroyed, calendars were rewritten, male religious leaders encouraged fear of the female form and power, and Friday 13th - previously that most revered of days for women - was rebranded as an unlucky, dangerous day which would bring misfortune and harm to all. The witch hunts that blighted our local area here in Scotland, under the control of male religious and political leaders, stemmed particularly from one King, James VI, who blamed witches (women) for a bad storm that delayed his travel. So full of hatred was he that, backed by the male-led church, he started a movement which led to the torture and death of over 2,500 innocent people in Scotland alone- primarily women. Now, over 80% of high rise buildings in the USA don’t have a thirteenth floor. Mainly major airlines omit row 13 on their planes. On streets of numbered houses, 13 is commonly missing. The superstition has, as was the plan, become a cultural norm; number 13 is unlucky, and Friday 13th is the unluckiest of all.
Friday 13th used to be a sacred day for honouring the divine feminine; intuition, fertility, love, sex, motherhood and the goddess inside all women. How can we reclaim it?
We have a few centuries of catching up to do. As luck would have it, as well as today being Friday 13th February, we have another Friday 13th to look forward to in March - it's the perfect year to spread the truth and revel in our delicious womanhood.
Share this blog and our Instagram Reel. Spread the real history of Friday 13th far and wide. Tell your friends, your colleagues, your partners, the person next to you on the bus!
Wish those around you a happy Friday 13th. If they seem confused, you can tell them why today is a day for celebration. Let this be the last year that this sacred day is feared and rebuffed.
Send a token of your appreciation to a woman that you love - whether it's a quick 'I love you' Whatsapp to a friend, a postcard in the post, some cookies left on a doorstep, or a 'this song makes me think of you' message; let those around you know that you're celebrating them.
Centre yourself in your body - appreciate, admire, gift yourself pleasure and sensuality. Perhaps that means dressing up in something silky and seductive, just to spend time alone (be sure to check out our exclusive Friday 13th sale for help with this!) taking a long, hot, scented bath, or treating yourself to a massage or a long walk somewhere beautiful.
Trust, honour, and celebrate your intuition and knowledge. It’s a day for remembering that we are the living ancestors of those revered women who came before, and that they are begging us to remember our power and rise up in whatever way is needed at this time.
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