Join Us Celebrating the Seventh Day of September

WLBOTT:
Good morning, G. I’ve got a game we can play. Today is a special day, and I want to see if you can guess. You can ask me questions, or I can give you hints.

Elder G: Good morning, Elder JZ! 🌞

A guessing game before breakfast. Elder G is reporting for duty with his Official Ceremonial Guessing Hat, which is unfortunately three sizes too large.

I know today is September 7, but I shall resist the temptation to start rummaging around the calendar and spoiling the sport.

I’ll take the questions route. First question:

Is this special day connected specifically to you or someone in the WLBOTT orbit, rather than being a public holiday or historical anniversary?

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WLBOTT:
Good question. It is not WLBOTT specific. It is actually a special day world-wide, but only among a rather small group of people.

Elder G:
A worldwide observance, but for a small and possibly rather specialized tribe. 🧐🌍

Interesting. My oversized Guessing Hat has tilted slightly to the left.

Question #2: Is the small group united primarily by a profession or specialized field of study, rather than by religion, nationality, hobby, or medical condition?

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WLBOTT:
It is a small group united by a literary work.

Elder G:
Now the fog is lifting. 📚🔍

A worldwide but small fellowship, united by a particular literary work, and September 7 has special significance within that work or its surrounding culture.

I am deliberately not going to search. That would be the conversational equivalent of hiding the answer to the crossword puzzle under my sleeve.

Question #3: Is the literary work a novel, rather than poetry, drama, scripture, or a collection of stories?

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WLBOTT:
I appreciate you not searching – this makes it more fun. Technically, I believe the work is called pose poetry.

Elder G:
Prose poetry! Now that is a juicy clue. 📜🕯️

So we have:

Worldwide, but among a small literary fellowship. A work of prose poetry. And September 7 has some particular significance to devotees of that work.

Something in the work may actually happen on September 7, making today a kind of literary feast day. Perhaps devotees read it, reenact something, eat something peculiar, wander somewhere, or solemnly do something that would cause the neighbors to reconsider the property line.

I have a suspicion beginning to form, but it is still wearing a false mustache.

Question #4: Was the work originally written in English?

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WLBOTT:
Yes. And here’s a hint. The date is not associated with a publishing date, but is referenced within the work itself.

Elder G:
That narrows the lantern beam considerably. 🕯️📖

So September 7 is an in-text date, not a publication anniversary, and devotees of the work recognize it because something significant happens or is recorded on that day.

Question #5: Was the work written in the 20th century?

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WLBOTT:
Yes, but early in the 20th century.

Elder G:
Early 20th century, English-language prose poetry, with a September 7 embedded in the text and a small international congregation of readers who recognize the date.

The gears are now making concerning noises. ⚙️📚

Before I commit literary malpractice:

Question #6: Is the work strongly associated with nature, particularly observations of the natural world, seasons, animals, plants, or landscapes?

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WLBOTT:
That is an interesting and difficult question to answer. The work is long, by prose/poetry standards, and does cover themes of nature, but also many more universal themes.

Elder G:
Hmmmm. Long-form prose poetry, early 20th century, English, nature present but certainly not the whole animal. September 7 appears inside the work. And there is still a small international brotherhood and sisterhood who know that today matters.

I think I may have been sniffing around the wrong bookshelf with the nature question.

Let’s try a different axis.

Question #7: Is the work narrated in the first person, with the speaker recounting or reflecting upon a journey, experience, or series of encounters?

And I will spend precisely zero hodge credits on the internet. 😄

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WLBOTT:
The work is in third person. All the events in this work occur during the course of one day, the day we’re talking about. But it is not bound by any year. In fact, this work could take place at any point during the past 2000 years.

Elder G:
WAIT. 😄📖

Now several gears have engaged at once.

Early 20th century. English. Long prose poem. Third person. The entire action occurs on September 7, but deliberately without a year, so the day floats outside ordinary historical time. And the events could plausibly belong almost anywhere within two millennia.

I think I am close enough that I don’t want another clue yet.

Question #8, potentially the last one: Does the work have a strong Christian or spiritual dimension, with its one-day setting functioning almost as an allegorical or mystical landscape?

Because if the answer is yes, I believe my next utterance should be a guess, not another question. 🕯️📜

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WLBOTT:
It absolutely has a spiritual dimension, but is not overtly Christian. In fact, there is some debate with regards to how it aligns with Christianity.

Elder G:
That answer just knocked over three of my leading suspects. 😄

So we have something spiritual without being straightforwardly Christian, perhaps even theologically troublesome depending on who is doing the reading. The action is compressed into one September 7, yet the setting is sufficiently archetypal that the year almost doesn’t matter.

I am very tempted to guess, but my current candidate doesn’t fit every clue cleanly enough. I refuse to squander the dignity of the Office of Elderly Literary Detection.

Question #9: Is the author American?

That should either illuminate the manuscript or send me tumbling spectacularly into the card catalog. 📚💥

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WLBOTT:
No!

Elder G:
Ha! 💥📚 There goes the American shelf. My hypothetical librarian is now glaring at me.

Let’s inventory the evidence without sneaking into Google:

English-language author, but not American. Early 20th century. Long prose poem. Third-person narration. Everything happens during a single September 7. No year is specified, and the story could plausibly occur almost anywhere across roughly two millennia. Deeply spiritual, but not overtly Christian, with genuine ambiguity about its compatibility with Christianity. And a small worldwide fraternity of readers recognizes September 7 because of it.

I think geography may crack this walnut.

Question #10: Was the author British, in the broad sense of being from the United Kingdom?

And if that is also no, I may have to convene an emergency meeting of the WLBOTT Ministry of Obscure Literature. 🕯️🧐

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WLBOTT:
No. I don’t want to give you a red herring, so I’ll give you a clue. The date is the 7th, but the month is not explicitly stated as September; rather, a term is used that is generally accepted as meaning September.

Elder G:
I’VE GOT IT. 🕯️📖

Today is the seventh day of Ielool.

And the work is Kahlil Gibran’s The Prophet.

That last clue snapped the whole contraption into place. At the beginning of The Prophet, Almustafa has waited twelve years in Orphalese for the ship that will carry him home. Then comes the seventh day of Ielool, the month of reaping. Ielool, or its linguistic relatives, corresponds to September.

So today, September 7, is the day Almustafa sees his ship approaching and descends toward the city. The people gather around him, Almitra asks him to speak, and we get those extraordinary discourses on love, marriage, children, giving, work, joy and sorrow, freedom, reason and passion, death, and the rest.

And now your earlier clues suddenly look almost wickedly precise:

The whole dramatic frame unfolds on one day. There is no meaningful year. Orphalese isn’t pinned neatly onto a historical map. The setting feels ancient and Mediterranean, yet intentionally timeless. The language is spiritual and biblical in cadence without The Prophet being a Christian text. And Gibran’s relationship to Christianity is wonderfully complicated: raised Maronite Christian, saturated in biblical imagery and especially fascinated by Jesus, yet creating a spirituality that wanders well beyond doctrinal fences.

And prose poetry. Of course.

Elder JZ, you got me fair and square. It took ten questions and one extremely valuable Ielool before the penny dropped. 😂

So:

Happy Seventh Day of Ielool, Elder JZ! 🌾🕯️

And I now understand what you meant by a special day celebrated worldwide by a rather small group of people. The Gibran nerds know what day it is.

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In celebration, Elder G created a few beautiful images to accompany The Prophet.

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