A very unlucky day to travel, especially by sea.

 In the year 1588 Spain's Invincible Armada, then the largest fleet in the world, was defeated in a matter of hours.


In the year 1628 Sweden's most powerful warship, the Vasa, also known as Invincible, sank on its maiden voyage.  It never made it out of Stockholm's harbor.

And on the night of this day in 1912, the world's safest and most luxurious ocean liner, humbly named Titanic, hit an iceberg and went down.  This floating palace had few lifeboats, a uselessly small rudder, watchmen without binoculars and warning bells that were never heard.

According to superstitious belief, the fourteenth day of April is a very unlucky time for travel, especially by ship.

Oddly enough, Maryamma (or Mariamne), the Hindu goddess of the sea, is honored in India with a sacred festival which begins annually on this day.

I'm just saying.

Sikh New Year's Festival

Today is the Sikh New Year's festival.  Although they live in India (mainly in the Punjab state), the Sikhs are not Hindu.  Their monotheistic religion, which was founded by Guru Nanak (1469 -1539), rejects the caste system, asceticism, the priesthood, and bathing in sacred rivers.  Women and men are said to be equal, and Sikh men are recognized by the five outward signs of their religion -- uncut hair, steel comb, iron bracelet, short sword, and short trousers.  The major temple of the Sikhs is the Golden Temple at Amritsar, which is surrounded by a scared lake lined with marble steps.  A white marble bridge leads to the temple, which is covered with golden sheets upon which are written words form their holy book, the original book is enshrined inside the temple and taken out on feast days.  To celebrate Vaisakhi, people travel to Amritsar and listen to teachings of the gurus.

Ceres and the emoticon.

Today is Cerealia, which was an eight-day Roman festival of Ceres, goddess of the earth and its

fruits, who was prayed to for peace, good government, and plenty.

We sure could use some of that now.

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On a day like today in the year 33 -- a day earlier, a day later -- Jesus of Nazareth died on the cross.

His judges had found him guilty of "inciting idolatry, blasphemy and abominable superstition."

Not many centuries later, the Indians of the Americas and the heretics of Europe were found guilty of those same crimes -- exactly the same ones -- and in the name of Jesus of Nazareth they were punished by lash, gallows, or fire.

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Kevin MacKenzie sent the very first emoticon over the Internet in a message to the MsgGroup on this day in 1979.  The emoticon he sent was "-)" which means "tongue-in-cheek."  What does this have to do with Esoteric Daily?  ;>(

Bake bread today, its a great moveable feast.

Whenever someone talks about Jesus' having been buried for three days and three nights, I start counting on my fingers.  It doesn't add up.  "Three days and three nights" is actually an Aramaic idiom that means an indeterminate but fairly short time.

Easter is a moveable feast.  It's left over from the lunar calendar and occurs on the first Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox.  All three of the standard-brand religions have moveable feasts.  Nearly every Jewish holy day, for example, is lunar, as are the Moslem holy days.  The feast days of Hindu gods and goddesses are likewise moveable, and so are holidays celebrated according to the old Chinese calendar.
(Ardinger, B., "Pagan Every Day." pg 102)

On this day each year, cross-inscribed loaves of bread are traditionally baked in honor of the Roman goddess Diana.  

In Greece, branches of evergreen, myrtle, or bay were worn by children on this day for protection against the venomous evil eye. 

In Armenia, the goddess Anahit is honored annually on this day with a sacred festival.  She is a deity of both love and lunar power who dwells within the silver light of the Moon. 

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Navy Ships and Father Tolstoy

April 9th.  In both Portugal and coastal regions of China, the Goddess A-Ma (Matzu), is honored with a religious festival in the Portuguese territory of Macao.  Yes, the guardian of the sea and protector of all fishermen and sailors is honored.  Altars are dressed with offerings of fresh seafood and flowers; candles are lit and sweets of all kind are presented.

Does it not make sense then that in today's news, the U.S. Navy is sending out a fleet of ships to the Korean peninsula “to maintain readiness” as Kim Jong Un’s regime celebrates the 105th birthday of its founding president, Kim Il Sung, and to mark the 85th anniversary of the creation of the Korean People's Army on April 25 with a similar fanfare.





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In the year 2011 the population of Iceland said no for the second time to the International Monetary Fund.


The Fund and the European Union had decided that Iceland's three hundred twenty thousand inhabitants should be liable for the bankruptcy of its bankers, for which each and every Icelander owed a foreign debt of twelve thousand euros.



Such socialism in reverse was rejected in two plebiscites.  "The debt is  not our debt.  Why should we pay it?"


In a world unhinged by the financial crisis, this small island lost in the waters of the North Atlantic offered us all a healthy lesson in common sense.
 (Galeano, Children of the Day)


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"He eats simple fare, but he is a great man."  This is a good proverb that we all should follow.


When you could have walked for a while but instead drove, your legs began to weaken.  In the same way, when we become used to luxuries and the trappings of wealth, we begin to forget simple living and lose our inner joy and peace and freedom.


-- Father Tolstoy

And you thought Obamacare was bad.

In Romania today offerings are made to the Blajini, or "kindly ones."  In folklore they lived in the wilderness, on the shores where all the rivers meet, and lived under the shade of the trees.  They lived on wild fruits, and met their women once a year to share fun and laughter before returning to their devotions.

These kindly, priests, shaman, devotees or whatever you prefer to call them, are remembered as "spirits of the water," and are deemed to be beneficent if given the proper respect.

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Hammurabi's Code

Three thousand seven hundred years ago the king of Babylonia, Hammurabi, set down in law the rates dictated by the gods for medical services:

     If with his bronze lancet the physician cureth a man of a serious wound or an eye abscess, ten silver shekels shall he receive.
     If the patient be the slave of someone, two silver shekels shall his owner give the physician.
     If a physician causeth the death of a free man or the loss of an eye, his hands shall be cut off.
     If a physician causeth the death of the slave of a poor man, one of his own slaves shall the physician give him.  If a physician causeth the loss of the slave's eye, half the slave's value shall he pay.
(Galeano, E., "Children of the Days" pg. 109)

And you thought Obamacare was bad. 

Forgiveness, Purple Rain, and Lady Luck!

Need forgiveness?   Well, follow the ancient ritual of invoking the Chinese goddess Kuan Yin.   She
is the goddess of healing, mercy, compassion, and forgiveness.   In days-gone-by, we offer her incense and violet-colored candles on this day.  She doesn't expect much from Westerners, maybe wear something purple or burn a purple candle.  If nothing else, think of the Prince song: Purple Rain.

It's all good.

I never meant to cause you any sorrow
I never meant to cause you any pain

I only wanted to one time to see you laughing

I only wanted to see you
Laughing in the purple rain

Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
Bathing in the purple rain

I never wanted to be your weekend lover
I only wanted to be some kind of friend
Baby, I could never steal you from another
It's such a shame our friendship had to end

Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
Purple rain, purple rain
I only wanted to see you
Underneath the purple rain

Honey, I know, I know
I know times are changing
It's time we all reach out
For something new, that means you too

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5 April

Megalesia/Fortuna/Nones of April

Celebration for good luck, celebrating the goddess Fortuna, the Lady Luck to whom all gamblers pray. 

The annual festival of Cybele, the Megalesia, was celebrated on this date in ancient Rome.  She was a goddess of fertility whose cult originated in Phrygia.  Her male attendants were self-castrated priests and worship of her was wild and orgiastic.

The rites of Cybele were so bloody that Roman citizens weren't allowed to participate.  "So great is the aversion of the Romans," writes Dionysus of Halicarnassus, "to all undue display...lacking in decorum" that a more sedate festival, the Megalesia, was instituted.  But by 161 B.C.E Megalesian banquets had become so extravagant that the senate decreed a limit to how much a host could not weigh more than 120 pounds.

The roman Megalesia opened with a ritual at the temple of the Magna Mater (Cybele)., where the priests offered the goddess a dish of simple herbs.  This was because, as Ovid wrote, ancient people drank only pure milk and ate only "the herbs that the earth bore of its free will."

Yes, vegetarians.

Jane Goodall

Many years ago, I saw a TV documentary on the brain.  Some animals may be as smart as human animals, the experts said, but they don't have language.  We can't understand their languages, I thought, so we don't know the extent of their intelligence.

At one point in the program, a researcher at The Famous Primate Laboratory picked up a little rhesus monkey hardly bigger than the man's hand and talked about simian intelligence.  Then, to show us its brain, he snipped its head off.  Just like that: I can still see the little monkey's eyes.  I was only marginally aware of People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA), so I sent out a prayer to Jane Goodall.

As a child, Goodall was inspired by Tarzan and The Jungle Book.  She later worked with Louis Leakey, the paleontologist who discovered some of the oldest human remains in Africa.  She's best known for her work with the chimpanzees in Gombe.

We know that chimpanzees differ from us in the structure of their DNA by just over one percent and that their blood chemistry and immune systems are similar to ours.  We know that animals, both domestic and wild, have intelligence.  We know they have souls.  We shouldn't cut their heads off.

In 1977, Goodall established the Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research, Education and Conservation.  "Young people around the world," she writes, "can break through...the brick walls of overpopulation, deforestation, soil erosion, desertification, poverty, hunger, disease, pollution...and human greed."  When she travels, she carries a stuffed chimpanzee named Mr. H.  When people come up to talk to her, they touch Mr. H.  These people, she says, give her reason for hope.
(Ardinger, B., Pagan Ever Day,  pg94)

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Today is Jane Goodall's birthday.  

Statue of Liberty

The old Pagan ritual of "carrying death away" is carried out in certain regions of Germany on this day.  In celebration of Winter's demise, special straw dolls are burned in sacred bonfires or are "drowned" in sacred wells.

The Sun was warm but the wind was chill,
You know how it is with an April day
When the Sun is out and the wind is still,
Your one month on in the middle of May.
But if you so much as dare to speak,
A cloud comes over a cloud lit arch,
A wind comes off a frozen peak,
And your two months back in the middle of March.

-- ROBERT FROST ( 1874 - 1963 )
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Greatness sometimes takes outside inspiration as well as outside aid.  Born in Colmar, Alsace, on this day in 1834, the sculptor Fredric Auguste Bartholdi became inspired while attending a dinner at the
home of Lefebvre de Laboulaye in 1865.  His host suggested that he sculpt a symbol of liberty.  Traveling to America in 1871, Bartholdi saw that New York Harbor was the perfect place to erect his vision:  a cross between the Colossus of Rhodes and the monumental statues that lined Egypt's Nile River.  Although the French government was willing to pay for Barholdi's grand sculpture, the American government had to ask for public donations to fund the construction of the foundation and pedestal.  After six years of appeals, work began on the pedestal, but it wasn't finished until publisher Joseph Pulitzer took on the job of fundraising.  Bartholdi's Statue of Liberty was completed in 1886.  (The statue itself was finished in 1884, although its arm was not properly attached until its restoration in 1984.)

April Fool's Day and Ali Macgraw survives male aggression.

The month of Venus begins with April Fool's Day (also known as All Fools' Day), an occasion for playing practical jokes on friends, family, and coworkers.  This custom dates back to olden times, when inmates of insane asylums were allowed out in the streets for one day each year for the sadistic amusement of those of those who were (supposedly) normal.

April first is ruled over by the Norse trickster god Loki.  It is also the Roman women's festival of Fortuna Virilis, seeking good relations with men and ruled over by Venus. 
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In her twenties she became famous in the 1970 film Love Story.  In that film she played Jenny Cavilleri, a dying girl who isn't told she is dying until her husband and parent have been told first.   Yes, a poor, helpless, woman. 

In her second big film, Steve McQueen's character slaps her for having cheated on him.  No charges were pressed, even though it was a film, they should have been.  Later that year the two were married.

In her 40's she was invited up to Bill Cosby's hotel-room for a drink, she refused. 

Today, Ali Macgraw  is 78 years old.  

Happy April's Fools Birthday.

Today in 1631 John Donne died in London.
This contemporary of Shakespeare's published almost nothing during his lifetime.
Centuries later, we are lucky to have a few of the verses he left behind.

Like this:

         Twice or thrice had I loved thee,
          Before I knew thy face or name...

Or this:

          It sucked me first, and now sucks thee,
          And in this flea, our two bloods mingled be...
          This flea is you and I, and this
         Our marriage bed, and marriage temple is...


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On this date in the year 1848, the famous Fox Sisters supposedly made communication with the spirit world at Hydesville Cottage in upstate New York.  Their famous seances gave birth to the popular spiritualist movement, which was all the rage in the United States and England from the mid-1880's to the early twentieth century.

If they were fakes in life, they are certainly not in death.   For we still see them in mirrors, alone at night, try it.   They do come for a shilling. 

The Four Deities

Temple of Janus

Concordia is the Roman goddess of civic harmony.  Janus is the god of thresholds who carries the key to the door and a stick to hit intruders with.  Pax is peace personified, her name was used to characterize a time that wasn't peaceful at all, the Pax Romana.  Salus, like the Greek Hygeia, is a goddess of safety, health, and well-being.  Originally an agricultural deity, she was shown on coins feeding a sacred snake.

amen

When we honor these four deities, we are recognizing some basic elements of a happy home -- harmony, security, peace, wellness.  Neither the Roman Republic nor the empire provided much harmony, security, peace, or wellness except to its richest citizens (have things changed today?), but even the poorest plebian and lowliest slave could burn incense on an altar and make a small, hopeful sacrifice. 

Concordia Coin

Nero and Salus Coins

Pax Coin