In the seasonal Avestan calendar, February 18 marks the feast day of Speñtá Ármaiti. It is a kind of the Zoroastrian earth and woman day.

Ármaiti is one of the Immortals. In poetic allegory, Ármaiti is the daughter of Mazdá Ahûrá embodying “beautiful manifestation” (See Yasna 45.4, 4^th rhymed verse line.)

Mazdá Ahûrá manifests his creations through Ármaiti. She is endowed with all the vision and manifesting power of the god-force and cannot be deceived (See Yasna 45.4, 2^nd and 4^th rhymed verse lines.)

Ármaiti is composed of 2 parts ár+maiti. Ár means “harmony, melody, to fit perfectly.” Maiti means “meditation, thought, reflection.”

In the Vedas arámaiti is “thought put in correct form in connection with poems, poetry and sacred charms.”

Ármaiti is therefore “melodious flow of thoughts and ideas.” The ancient Avestan commentaries translate Ármaiti as bündak minishnih “original or prime thinking, perfect meditation.”

Her epithet Speñtá means “splendid, auspicious, sacred, bright”(Compare with Lithuanian šventas, Proto-Baltic-Slavic swęntŭs, Old Prussian swentas.)

The physical creation which Ármaiti protects and in which she is immanent, is the bounteous earth and the sacred space (See Yasna 48.6, 1^st rhymed verse line.)

Ármaiti is also manifest in the intuition and fertility of women, who like the good earth bring forth and nourish life. (See Yasna 38.1, 1^st rhymed verse line.)

Down into Islamic times the feast day of Speñtá Ármaiti or Persian Spendārmað was celebrated as a festival for women: As Bīrūnī reports in his Chronology, p. 229 “Isfand-ármað is charged with the care of the good earth and with that of the women.

This day was a favored time for courtship, and on that day “maidens chose husbands for themselves” (see M. R. Unvala in F. Spiegel Memorial Volume, ed. J. J. Modi, Bombay, 1908, p. 206).

Another tradition that is associated with this holiday is writing a sacred formula from the poetic gathas or the Avesta on a pure parchment or paper and affixing the sacred verse to the door of the house. This ritual supposes to protect the sacred space of the home from negative vibrations and adverse energies.

I shall like to conclude by the first and last verses invoking Ármaiti in the poetic gathas. Also, the middle verse is the centerpiece prayer in the formula of faith.

Growing in vigor by the power of melodious thinking, may she come to my calls for embrace (See Yasna 28.3, 3^rd rhymed verse line)

Your splendid melodious thoughts, benevolent and bright we choose; May she be ours (See Yasna 32.2, 3^rd rhymed verse line)

The force of melodious thinking, splendid in insight, speech and manifestation (See Yasna 51.21, 1^st rhymed verse line)

ardeshir