It’s About Making Babies!

Eve-101.com asks in “The Battle of Cupid“,

Singles or couples, who reigns supreme on February 14th?

**Rain on parade alert**
Valentine’s day was a pagan fertility ritual. Like many adoptions of the church when they discovered the Celts, this became .. uh, a day “to remember St. Valentine”. Wasn’t there something about snakes? No, that was Patrick. Sorry.

Magic

It’s all about magic.

Not just “put some magic in our sex lives” magic. Real, coveted, Church calendar changing magic. Valentine’s Day is about an ancient fertility rite. Fertility, as in “get pregnant”. This dates back before commercial interests transformed the world in the Renaissance, and “proper thinking” took it place as social guiding principle over reality.

A bit of misquoted history – Don’t bother looking for corroboration.

The lingerie, the candy, the sappy cards, are a misguided hat tip to the underlying festival. What happened, was that the fertility rite folks understood that the excitement and release of makkin’ whoopy was magical. Really. And the Catholics wanted that magic bound to the church. So they “discovered” they were celebrating that day and pulled some wool over some eyes. Where the fertility rite involved sexing out your worship of the gods, now we discreetly, with the Church’s blessing, indulge in “romance” – that is still expected to raise power and magic for the use of the Church, through carnal indulgence.

An new slant on “sexy Valentine”

That is right. You are *expected* to “get lucky” to make the Church strong. Just like those ignorant, befuddled pagans did. Only, the pagans weren’t all that ignorant or befuddled – just looked down on by the high-and-might (celibate!) priests. Note that the celibate priests were also raising, and dedicating, their sexual energy to the church by not squandering it on mere mortal women, I guess. This does sound hokey today, but recall the Church squandered years and much money, debating just how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. Before pins were factory-made and of a dependable size.

The fundamentals

Valentine’s Day is not about celebrating romance. Or devotion. If you are really going to celebrate the day, it has to be in an intimate relationship. Otherwise the magic falls flat and just flutters about. And if you try the cheap candy, the second hand lingerie (oh, yuck!), and strike out – not only the gods will be down on your ass. You will have a disappointed partner to deal with, too.

Ya gotta get the squeal, to show respect and praise for the gods that went in for that kind of thing.

Back to the question

Is it better to be dating or single for this holiday? Coupled. Well-coupled is always better, any day and every day. Mated, even. This holiday was custom made for mated, married people. And people that want to get that way – if your “celebration” pleases the gods, the gift is fertility. As in, pregnant! (Notice we still, today, centuries after the Church swiped the pagan festival, call babies “a blessing?”)

Don’t believe me?

Just look up some time. The “mistletoe” thing, where you hang a sprig over the door (Doors, brooms, many things were sacred to pagans. We still say “life is sacred” today!) and kiss a girl you catch there? This is a very watered-down version of the intent of the custom, to bless the lady of the house with a lovely baby for the year. Very watered down version of the original custom.

Back at Eve-101, where this started

I hope the guy in the Eve-101 article was being ironic or sarcastic or something contrary to the words he used. Because venial and shallow seem to shine through.

And, T. Brad? – for my money, if you aren’t participating with an intimate partner, you aren’t taking part at all. Send your Mom and Sister a card, and leave the vandalism in your diary.

Trista at Eve-101.com is Struggling to find the holiday spirit. Sending cards once a year, spilling inane child excitement, and retail frenzies combine to shadow the holidays. Except for the UPS guy rushing to deliver her new Zappos – she eagerly anticipates that event.

An irreverent hodgepodge of holiday and cultural history.

Trista, most of this comes from traditions.

Yule

The feasting in mid-winter among the heathens (country folk living among the heather) and pagans (again country folk that adhered to their people’s beliefs) irritated the early, empire-building European Christian church (who targeted the well-to-do town folk). So the early church “discovered” festivals and religious observations that happened to incorporate the celebrations the pagans and heathens were already involved in.

Like the 12 days of Christmas. Mid-winter (December 22 Winter Solstice) that happens to be about December 25. The beginning of the toughest part of winter, in climates that have winter up north of the Equator. Remember, the early Christians didn’t know much about south of the Equator so all this is pretty European-centric.

Fatty foods = Rich fare

The point of Christmas is to recognize the season, to celebrate your beliefs. The fact of winter makes the use of fatty (“rich”) foods important for survival, in lean times. And in earlier days, having food with fat content was a display of conspicuous consumption. Most livestock was kept haphazardly, with little fat. Fats are high energy, which is really important if you don’t have any, and especially if it is cold. I recall, 45 years ago, that my mother put a drop of yellow food coloring in chicken gravy, to make it look ‘rich’. The reason I recall that, is once in my child hood she grabbed the greed food coloring instead, and had to try to convince my sister and me that green gravy was OK. I don’t recall being happy about the experience.

Holiday conflicts

Recall when Europe celebrated duelling Popes? When they send the Crusades to “liberate” the Holy Lands from other descendants of Christ’s time? How the missionaries spread VD across the Pacific? How Europeans battled and ‘civilized’ the ancient civilizations of the Western hemisphere (North and South America)? Just be thankful your holiday battles are mostly bloodless and fought over Barbie dolls and knickknacks.

Keeping local and family history current

Celebrating our faith is a time of gathering, for most people. Ties of family and community are the heart and soul of a culture. When you choose to participate, or to avoid an activity or event, you influence the growth or decline of a culture. When no one has time for Christmas Eve candle light service – when we choose fun activities over family gatherings or function – when we choose to gift those we haven’t spoken to all year, or gift those that haven’t spoken to us – we influence family, friends, neighbors, and strangers that notice how many choose as we do.

Greetings, aka. “You must know ..”

Before regular communication – the widespread use of the telephone – centuries-old traditions existed. People traveling a few miles would carry word of families and communities that might get told only every few years. One of the rituals of greeting, “how is the family”, is a remnant of comparing people one knows with another – to determine if they are related, to determine if they are to be respected because they know respected people, to catch up on news of acquaintances. Instead of pulling out an ID card, or driving a fancy car, your credentials were in who you knew.

The family form letter

Later, when literacy spread and people began capturing thoughts and news of family and community in letters, the practice of running through family events – births, deaths, marriages, maimings and illnesses, and accomplishments – continued, in written form. Thus, the family roster each Christmas, spreading word of significant events to people that might not have heard for a couple of years or more. The relevance of accomplishments may get trivia, but they infer interests, and stages of growing. Births, deaths, marriages, baptisms – these are still significant events.

Back before regular keeping of basic records, people gathered to witness namings and baptizings, deaths, and marriages. By gathering a sizable portion of community, the fact and time of the marriage, death, or other event, was established for legal purposes. Notice how the Marriage Certificate requires “witnesses” to this legal event? People gathering and “catching up” define a culture.

Retailing the holidays

Since the first box of soap sold on TV, since radio ads came about, since the first newspaper and magazine ads, people making a living by selling have wanted to grab our attention from wherever it was. The advertisement phenomenon, when successful, distracts one from something that didn’t benefit the ad or selling people. The message is intended to destroy concentration, and interrupt activity – often entertainment, or transportation from here to there. Marketers found that sex sells, emotions sell, garish distractions sell. So advertising and marketing have stolen the meaning of most events in our culture. We let the allure of traveling to commercial resorts interfere with maintaining family ties (“Four Christmases”, anyone?).

Except, Aunt Dort still makes her pumpkin pies (in my memory anymore), and Uncle Dutch still carves the turkey or ham. The littlest cousins eat in the kitchen. We might gather for a movie, or ride a pony, or tramp around the farm later. And we will hear the folks talk about this new car, and that couple, and half those in the family that lived 90 years before. We will lose the uncles to the football games on TV, while the aunts clean the dishes and table.

Trite but true

And we learn the work, the activities, the interests, that make a family, that form a community. We learn about those that are respected, and those that aren’t, and how to be one or the other. You know. Stuff we *cannot* teach ourselves, and have nowhere else to learn.

Happy holidays!