Happy Candlemas*
Feb. 2nd, 2007 10:55 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jack_babalon*Originally posted 02/02/05*
I've always been fascinated by the adaptive abilities of myths & rituals that enable them to survive in a radically shifting enviornment such as our collective un/sub/conscious. The ritual/myth acts as an interactive story that not only arises out of the un/sub/conscious, but simultaneously engages with the individual conscious perceiving it to produce a hightened awareness within said consciousness. As such the story program changes. Pagan rituals that survived in the shadows of the cross become childrens holy-days! For example I love Dead-Guy-and-a-Tree Day. I love Wear A Mask For Free Candy Day. I've enjoyed the watered down Orphic mysteries one can experience at a rave. I've walked through the tombs of dead buildings savoring graffiti hieroglyphics that echo the mysteries of the Lascoux Cave paintings. I'm also paticularly fond of Candlemas or as we call it nowadays... Groundhog Day.
Wait Candlemas? Wa's-that-all-about-man?
Read on.
They came from a distant land of long nights and harsh Winters. Hard men who had been born of the marriage between blacksmith and priest. Strong men who hammer-pounded across the anvil-doors of Mother church a list of their carefully numbered demands. Men who forged through war and sacrifice a new contract with God and perhaps with even history itself. But, some of these men came to cast their eye beyond the roaring course of the Danube that stretched wide out of the darkness of the Black Forest, they looked out across the torrents of the North Sea and did not flinch when ice winds stung their eyes and instead opened up their vision across the storms and serpent kingdoms of the Atlantic and finally their gaze came to rest upon a New World. The Iron Lutherans had landed in America.
They came as mechanics, shoemakers, gunsmiths, papermakers, butchers, watchmakers, blacksmiths and ironworkers down the Great Wagon Road. They traveled hard from the ports & docks of Philadelphia into the depths of frontier Virginia, Maryland & the Carolina's. They left a wake of log homes, farms, and maps stuttering and mumbling the first words of the Manifesto Destiny. With this they also brought with them something deeper than the Spartan worship of the Protestant "Our-Father-thou-art-in-heaven. They brought the rituals of the old ways. Bed time fairy tales for a baby country to listen to before lights out across the long wait for morning.
One such ritual was that of the Candlemas or the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the Second of Febuary which is in itself the balancing point between the Winter Solstice and the coming Spring Equinox. A ritual of protection and empowerment against the long sunless days of the early year. The clergy would bless candles and distribute them to the flock. The candles were then lit and placed in every window in the home. Small wicker light flickering in the windows of a new world. A small night light to keep the devil at bay. A primal prayer cast from the depths of the collective unconscious to the Earth Goddess ( ancient when Jesus was knee high to a crucifix), to awaken her with devotion to ensure the first rains of Spring would fall.
Some scholars have traced this holiday to the Febuary rituals of antiquity. We are reminded of the candle procession of the ancient Romans, where they marched through the streets of Sicily honoring the eternal search of Cerces for her daughter Persephone. If the sun should shine on this sacred day then Lord Winter will stay another six weeks, until the Ides of March perhaps. Totem animals interact and oracles are cast from the shadows of the bear, the badger, and even to this day the groundhog. I'm reminded here of the old Chinese parable that one can only "travel halfway through the darkest forest".
Light your own candle tonight. A light house beacon signaling from the shrine of your window guiding lost goddesses and reminding us not to be scared of our own shadow.
"If candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again."
I've always been fascinated by the adaptive abilities of myths & rituals that enable them to survive in a radically shifting enviornment such as our collective un/sub/conscious. The ritual/myth acts as an interactive story that not only arises out of the un/sub/conscious, but simultaneously engages with the individual conscious perceiving it to produce a hightened awareness within said consciousness. As such the story program changes. Pagan rituals that survived in the shadows of the cross become childrens holy-days! For example I love Dead-Guy-and-a-Tree Day. I love Wear A Mask For Free Candy Day. I've enjoyed the watered down Orphic mysteries one can experience at a rave. I've walked through the tombs of dead buildings savoring graffiti hieroglyphics that echo the mysteries of the Lascoux Cave paintings. I'm also paticularly fond of Candlemas or as we call it nowadays... Groundhog Day.
Wait Candlemas? Wa's-that-all-about-man?
Read on.
They came from a distant land of long nights and harsh Winters. Hard men who had been born of the marriage between blacksmith and priest. Strong men who hammer-pounded across the anvil-doors of Mother church a list of their carefully numbered demands. Men who forged through war and sacrifice a new contract with God and perhaps with even history itself. But, some of these men came to cast their eye beyond the roaring course of the Danube that stretched wide out of the darkness of the Black Forest, they looked out across the torrents of the North Sea and did not flinch when ice winds stung their eyes and instead opened up their vision across the storms and serpent kingdoms of the Atlantic and finally their gaze came to rest upon a New World. The Iron Lutherans had landed in America.
They came as mechanics, shoemakers, gunsmiths, papermakers, butchers, watchmakers, blacksmiths and ironworkers down the Great Wagon Road. They traveled hard from the ports & docks of Philadelphia into the depths of frontier Virginia, Maryland & the Carolina's. They left a wake of log homes, farms, and maps stuttering and mumbling the first words of the Manifesto Destiny. With this they also brought with them something deeper than the Spartan worship of the Protestant "Our-Father-thou-art-in-heaven. They brought the rituals of the old ways. Bed time fairy tales for a baby country to listen to before lights out across the long wait for morning.
One such ritual was that of the Candlemas or the feast of the Purification of the Blessed Virgin Mary. On the Second of Febuary which is in itself the balancing point between the Winter Solstice and the coming Spring Equinox. A ritual of protection and empowerment against the long sunless days of the early year. The clergy would bless candles and distribute them to the flock. The candles were then lit and placed in every window in the home. Small wicker light flickering in the windows of a new world. A small night light to keep the devil at bay. A primal prayer cast from the depths of the collective unconscious to the Earth Goddess ( ancient when Jesus was knee high to a crucifix), to awaken her with devotion to ensure the first rains of Spring would fall.
Some scholars have traced this holiday to the Febuary rituals of antiquity. We are reminded of the candle procession of the ancient Romans, where they marched through the streets of Sicily honoring the eternal search of Cerces for her daughter Persephone. If the sun should shine on this sacred day then Lord Winter will stay another six weeks, until the Ides of March perhaps. Totem animals interact and oracles are cast from the shadows of the bear, the badger, and even to this day the groundhog. I'm reminded here of the old Chinese parable that one can only "travel halfway through the darkest forest".
Light your own candle tonight. A light house beacon signaling from the shrine of your window guiding lost goddesses and reminding us not to be scared of our own shadow.
"If candlemas be fair and bright,
Winter has another flight.
If candlemas brings clouds and rain,
Winter will not come again."
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no subject
on 2007-02-02 06:22 pm (UTC)Thanks.
no subject
on 2007-02-03 07:22 am (UTC)