THE TRUTH ABOUT VALENTINE'S DAY
according to H.A.G.
February congers complicated emotions around ‘St.Valentines’day’...These commercialized, chocolate coated messages miss the true heart of the holiday...so I feel it is my duty to address this frivolity & set the record straight...i think it’s important to look beyond the hallmark event into the core of the origins of this symbolic time…for one thing...Valentinus was a very common Roman name meaning strong, effective fertility...please excuse me if I must commit a little history here, but basically the church was trying to replace a very potent ancient Etruscan festival called Lupercalia with a Christian martyr named Valentinus...to usurp the power of this rite of great antiquity...now don’t get me wrong, frivolity has it’s place...& so it was in the festival of Lupercalia...but at it’s core it is a ritual of purification & fertility...sacred to the Wolf-Goddess Rumina, maybe you’ve heard of Her...the She-Wolf & founder of Rome...the festival was celebrated on the ides of February...the 15th of February...& February comes from the Latin word ‘februare’... meaning tools of purification...now the rite began in the cave of the She-Wolf, where legend has it, the founders of the city, Romulus & Remus, were suckled by the Wolf-Goddess...(& as fate would have it) a sacred fig tree (symbol of the feminine sex) grew outside the cave & vestals would come, with offerings, of cakes made from the corn of last years grain harvest, laying them beneath the fig tree... meanwhile Rumina’s priests would preside over the sacrifice of a goat...the priests would mark their foreheads with it’s blood...which was then ritualistically wiped clean with a ‘Februare’ or tool of purification...which was in this case, wool dipped in the milk of the goat...the priests would then dress themselves in the skin of the sacrificial animal...& using strips of the hide they would fashion a scourge... another tool of purification...they would then jog around in their little loincloths, running up & down Rome’s 7 hills...wielding their strips of hide... ‘purifying’ anything & anybody in their path...women seeking pregnancy & easy childbirth lined the streets, extending hands, or baring their bodies, to afford a better target, to be briefly & symbolically ‘purified’ as they passed by...symbolism only goes so far & fertility, of course, is worthless without sex, so as the day wore on, sex became the festival’s primary focus for the average Roman citizen...& the occasion took on a character much like carnival...when the church tried to ban it...the people needless to say stubbornly resisted... hence the substitute of St. Valentine’s day emerged...with it’s more innocent hearts & flowers version of love...& cupid of course was not the cute little cherub he is today...but rather a very randy Roman God responsible for a more tangible fertility...so all the frivolous frivolity aside...lets take ourselves back, to the days, when the Wolf Goddess, Rumina, was at the heart, of this time of celebration...as we purify & purge all of our afflictions & ills before we begin to plant the seeds of the new...for by the ancient calendars, winter is ended by the ides of February, & spring, a season of new beginnings, has arrived...so lets dance the rhythms of the Wolf...asking Her to spare the herds...taking only what She must, to keep us free & fertile & abundant...
like the crops...fruitful...& as wild as we want to be...see you on the dance floor...
Peace-