Just something to think about
Below are several different informative excerpts about Valentine's Day
Valentine's Day
Just how did it come about?
Once upon a time… In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honor Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the 'Feast of Lupercalia' (festival of the wolf) which was one of the most important in Imperial Rome.
For eight hundred years prior to the establishment of Valentine's Day, the Romans had practiced a pagan celebration in mid-February commemorating young men's rite of passage to the god Lupercus. The celebration featured a lottery in which young men would draw the names of teenage girls from a vase. During the festival, the pairs of children danced and played together. The girl assigned to each young man in that manner would be his sexual companion during the remaining year. Often, they would fall in love and would later marry.
In an effort to do away with the pagan festival, Pope Gelasius ordered a slight change in the lottery. Instead of the names of young women, the box would contain the names of saints. Both men and women were allowed to draw from the box, and the game was to emulate the ways of the saint they drew during the rest of the year. Needless to say, many of the young Roman men were not too pleased with the rule changes.
Although the lottery for women had been banned by the church, the mid-February holiday in commemoration of St. Valentine was stilled used by Roman men to seek the affection of women. It became a tradition for the men to give the ones they admired handwritten messages of affection, containing Valentine's name. This may have been the festival that was later named after the former saint -- Valentine's Day. It all started many centuries ago, during those times when being a Christian was against the law.
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Lupercalia: A "Feverish" Festival
We may owe our observance of Valentine's Day to the Roman celebration of Lupercalia, a festival of eroticism that honored Juno Februata, the goddess of "feverish" (febris) love. Annually, on the ides of February, love notes or "billets" would be drawn to partner men and women for feasting and sexual game playing.
From Sinful to Saintly?
Early Christians, clearly a dour bunch, frowned on these lascivious goings-on. In an attempt to curb the erotic festivities, the Christian clergy encouraged celebrants to substitute the names of saints. Then, for the next twelve months, participants were to emulate the ideals represented by the particular saint they'd chosen. Not too surprisingly, this prudish version of Lupercalia proved unpopular, and died a quick death.
Easier to Do: Substitute Romance for Eroticism
But the early Christians were anything but quitters, so it was on to Plan B: modulate the overtly sexual nature of Lupercalia by turning this "feast of the flesh" into a "ritual for romance!"
This time, the Church selected a single saint to do battle the pagan goddess Juno -- St. Valentine (Valentinus). And since Valentinus had been martyred on February 14, the Church could also preempt the annual February 15 celebration of Lupercalia. The only fly in the ointment was Valentinus himself: he was a chaste man, unschooled in the art of love.
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February was a month for questionable fertility rites. In the beginning, Roman boys were greased and sent running naked through the streets with whips made from the hide of freshly slaughtered goats. Others, especially women, would gather to watch the spectacle, edging close to be struck -- a whipping was a certain sign of impending pregnancy and easy childbirth.
As Rome evolved scientifically, people figured out a way to make the correlation between February and pregnancy even more certain. Rather than greasing those pubescent boys, the emperor had them draw lots. Each lot bore the name of a girl, to whom the boy was bound for the next year in what amounted to a do-it-yourself crash course in sex ed. Marriage was optional.
Useful as these unions proved from the standpoint of population growth and social stability, the system was too carnal for God's proto-Victorian tastes. So when the church took control of Rome, it also took it upon itself to replace the names of girls to be deflowered with those of saints to be venerated. Which is how celibate St. Valentine got entangled in the sordid affair
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For many in the Earthwise community that heart symbol is our version of Sheila-Na-Gig. This concept has been discussed by feminists for many years, and was recently re-stated by Gloria Steinem in her wonderful forward to The Vagina Monologues. She writes:
"...the shape we call a heart -- whose symmetry resembles the vulva far more than the asymmetry of the organ that shares its name -- is probably a residual female genital symbol. ...I thought of this while watching little girls drawing hearts in their notebooks, even dotting their i's with hearts, and I wondered: Were they magnetized by this primordial shape because it was so like their own bodies?"
Peace :luvv:
... please make yourself at home ... 