every day's a holiday!

Setsubun

Nestor — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:37:40 +0000

February 3

Once a year in Japan, the land of order and politeness, it is considered perfectly acceptable behavior for children to hurl beans and peanuts at their classmates without reprimand.

That day is today, Setsubun, or Lunar New Year, and understandably, kids more than anyone carry on the tradition. Though Setsubun lacks the weight it commanded back in the 8th century, many Japanese do not let this day pass without tossing at least a few legumes inside and outside for good luck.

Mame Maki, the aforementioned bean-throwing activity, is meant to ward off evil spirits for the coming year. People scatter beans on the ground or toss them at imaginary Oni (roughly, demons or ogres) while yelling:

“Oni wa Soto, Fuku wa Uchi!”

(It looks and sounds worse than it is.) It’s pronounced Foo-koo, so watch your tongue, and it translates to:

“Get out, Demon/Ogre! Come in, Good Luck/Happiness!”

Mame Maki bears resemblance to the tradition at Western weddings of throwing rice grains to represent fertility.

(re-enactment: don't try this at home)

Like American children on Halloween, Japanese schoolchildren wear Oni masks to represent the demons while their peers gleefully pelt them with beans and nuts, as an American schoolteacher in Japan describes here.

Traditionally soybeans have been the projectile of choice, but recently peanuts have been picking up steam. Both are sold in stores in small packets.

Another tradition is to eat the number of beans of your age today, plus one for the coming year.

This evening families eat a special thick sushi called futomaki, or hutomaki.

What you need to make: Ingredients

What you do to make: Directions

And they eat while facing a “lucky” direction–which differs each year.

Other ways to ward off the demon include piercing the head of a sardine with a holly branch and hanging it in a doorway.

hiragi

Also, celebrities born under the current year’s zodiac sign (ie. 12 year-olds, 24, 36, 48…) can be seen on TV performing Mame Maki pubicly.

Setsubun means “division of the season.” There are four setsubun, throughout the year but the one celebrating the changing of winter into spring has always been the most auspicious. Similar to the Indian Makar Sankranti festivals and Celtic Imbolc, which both mark the coming of Spring.

Prior to 1873 Japan used a luni-solar calendar of 355 days. Every few years an inter-calaria month of 30 days was added to keep the lunar calendar in line with the solar.

After Japan adopted the Gregorian calendar in 1873, the spring festival began to wane, as Japan began celebrating New Year’s with the rest of the Gregorian world on January 1.

Setsubun used to be celebrated on the second full moon after the solstice. It now occurs every February 3.

Setsubun Protest 2010: Luck in! Peace in! Military bases out!

Candlemas & Presentation of Christ

Nestor — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 04:09:50 +0000

February 2

February 2 marks the sacred day in ancient Jerusalem when Jesus’s woodchuck poked its head out of the ground and declared six more weeks of Imbolc.

Wait, no, so is Groundhog Day the modern equivalent of the Purification of Mary? Is Candlemas a pagan holiday? And how often is Puxasawquantalahacwney Phil the Prognosticating Groundhog right?

According to Christian tradition, Candlemas (February 2nd) falls 40 days after Christmas, and marks the day Mary and Joseph took their 40 day-old baby Jesus to the temple for presentation and purification, as the Jewish laws of the time commanded:

A woman who becomes pregnant and gives birth to a son will be ceremoniously unclean for 7 days…

Then the woman must wait 33 days to be purified from her bleeding. She must not touch anything sacred or go to the sanctuary until the days of her purification are over.” – Leviticus 12

Count ‘em. 33 +7 = 40. Of course, this assumes Jesus was born on December 25, but that’s another story.

Luke 2:22 describes Mary’s purification ceremony:

When the days were completed for their purification according to the law of Moses, they took him to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord…”

where the devout Simeon beheld the 5 week-old baby and proclaimed:

“Mine eyes have seen Your salvation, which You have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”

The first recorded commemoration of the event comes from the famous globe-trotting 4th century nun Etheria (also Egeria) on her trek to Jerusalem. She writes:

The 40th day after the Epiphany is undoubtedly celebrated here with the very highest honor, for on the day there is a procession, in which all take part…and all things are done in their order with the greatest joy, just as at Easter. All the priests preach, and after them the bishop, always taking for their subject the part of the Gospel where Joseph and Mary brought the Lord into the Temple on the 40th day, and Symeon and Anna the prophetess…saw Him..and of that offering which His parents made.”

Note that according to Etheria the ceremony was known only as “40th day after the Epiphany,” not “40th day after the birth.” And it was celebrated on February 14 rather than February 2nd.

The changing of the date and the emphasis on “Purification of the Virgin” came when the holiday was celebrated in Rome.

The Romans considered February the “month of purification,” named after Februus, the god of death and purification. The Lupercalia in the middle of the month, dedicated to the founder of Rome, was a holiday of purification. (The middle of the months were the most auspicious days for the Romans. Originally the full moon marked the middle, or “Ides” of the month while the new moon marked the beginning and end of each month.)

Egeria’s 4th century description of Jerusalem’s annual celebration gives creed to the theory that the Presentation/Purification was not “invented” to stem other pagan holidays; however, its popularization and transformation in the West into Candlemas may have been a response to the pagan festivals of Europe.

Candlemas represents the day the priest would bless the candles to be used throughout the year. Originally…

“Roman Christians borrowed the practice of using candles in the religious services from the Romans, and in AD 494 Pope Gelasius I set the day of the Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary at the time of the popular Lupercalia.”

All Around the Year, Jack Santino

Scott Richert writes:

“Originally, the feast was celebrated on February 14, the 40th day after Epiphany (January 6), because Christmas wasn’t yet celebrated as its own feast, and so the Nativity, Epiphany, the Baptism of the Lord, and the feast celebrating Christ’s first miracle at the wedding in Cana were all celebrated on the same day. By the last quarter of the fourth century, however, the Church at Rome had begun to celebrate the Nativity on December 25, so the Feast of the Presentation was moved to February 2, 40 days later.”

On February 2 though the festival now competed with the Celtic Imbolc (or Oimelc) on February 1 and 2. A candle would be lit in every window to honor the Mother Goddess Brigit who was associated with fire.

In the 1970s the Catholic Church changed the name to the “Presentation of Christ in the Temple,” reducing the emphasis on Mary’s purification.

But in Latin American and some European countries the holiday still refers to the Virgin Mary:

Peru, Bolivia: Fiesta de la Virgen de la Candelaria
Brazil: Festa de Nossa Senhora dos Navegantes Porto Allegre
Germany: Maria Lichtmess

Wilson’s Almanac February 1

Wilson’s Almanac February 2

Candlemas

Groundhog Day

Nestor — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 17:58:44 +0000

February 2

If Candlemas be dry and fair
Half o winter’s yet to come and mair,
If Candlemas be wet and fowl
Half o winter’s gane at Yule.

If Candlemas Day be fair and bright
Winter will have another fight.
If Candlemas Day brings cloud and rain
Winter won’t come again.

Happy Marmota Monax Day!

Not every species gets a holiday. Holidays tend to revolve around the species homo sapien, but February 2 belongs to the marmota monax, aka Groundhog.

In the days before meteorologists, when a few extra weeks of winter could mean the difference of feeding your family or not, cultures had to develop their own traditions of predicting the weather.

The Celtic holiday Olmelc (also Imbolc) meant “ewe’s milk.” When livestock began lactating, Celts knew spring was just around the corner.

Other Europeans looked to the habits of hibernating mammals to determine signs of spring: bears were the chosen prognosticators in England and France, badgers in Germany.

“The badger peeps out of his hole,
If he finds snow, walks abroad
But if he sees the sun shining
he draws back into hole.”

(Let’s just assume it sounds better in German.)

However the practice was not attached to any specific date. Indeed, the idea of a bear coming out of hibernation–or any animal–precisely on February 2, was not only absurb, it was way too early.

Perhaps North Americans discovered that sleeping bears were not so friendly (and were very hungry) after being prodded awake in early February, which is why the American tradition leaned more toward the German way. However, instead of badgers, German settlers in 18th century America prodded woodchucks, aka groundhogs, to come out of their holes.

The resulting synthesis of these traditions in America was recored by James Morris, a shopkeeper in Morgantown, Pennsylvania.

“Last Tuesday, the 2nd, was Candlemas day, the day on which, according to the Germans, the Groundhog peeps out of his winter quarters and if he sees his shadow he pops back for another six weeks nap, but if the day be cloudy he remains out, as the weather is to be moderate.” — February 4, 1841

Today, the most famous groundhog in America is Punxsutawney Phil, who began officially predicting the weather for the proud people of Punxsutawney way back in 1886.

According to the president of the Punxsutawney Groundhog Club in 1978,

“In 92 years of Punxsutawney Phil’s emergence, he has never, never, never been wrong.”

Statistics say another thing. According to stormfax.com, Phil has actually predicted the coming of spring correctly a whopping 39% of the time. This is 2% better than the average Canadian groundhog, but still not inspiring considering the 50/50 call.

+ + +

Our lives are far less dependent on the weather than in ancient and medieval times. But new age religions have created a resurgence of Imbolc and other seasonal pagan rituals, focusing instead on the purification of the spirit and on the connectivity between all living things.

In North America, the melting pot of all cultures, February 2nd stands out as a perfect example of ancient rituals from Europe and Asia morphing into a truly bizarre amalgamation. The unusual collection of traditions that survive as Groundhog Day makes it the platypus of holidays.

Hmm…Platypus Day…

*google search*

Darn, not the first to think of it. According to http://alum.wpi.edu/~wes/holiday.htm, Platypus Day is February 2. Looks like Phil’s got competition!

Maria Lichtmess – German traditions in February

Groundhog Day

February Facts, Customs and Traditions