April    1  9  9  9
is for Humanities  

April Calendar

1
April Fool's Day

After calendar reform in 1564, King Charles IX of France proclaimed that New Year's Day should be celebrated on January 1 instead of in the spring. Those who refused to observe the change celebrated New Year's from March 25 to April 1. As part of the spring festivity, revelers of the old and the new engaged in mutual mockery with foolish gifts and jokes, here is one from 1996 about Microsoft's Bill Gates running for President.

4
Feast of Cybele (Great Mother, Magna Mater)

On this day, the castrati priests of the Magna Mater were permitted to make a procession through the city of Rome with drums, trumpets and cymbals bearing the image of the goddess on their shoulders. Banquetting and return invitations were common for the festival. The practice continued into the Christian era and eventually the image of Cybele (Ge, Gaea wife of Uranus and mother of the Gods) was replaced by that of Mary.

Cybele Fountain - Madrid, December, 1991.

Widely revered in ancient times, Cybele sits in her chariot drawn by two lions atop the great fountain in Madrid (Mother of Waters). Phrygian in origin, Cybele is of the caverna and exercises dominion over beasts. Her turreted crown is characteristic of the Asian Mother who is often depicted either flanked by lions or in a chariot drawn by lions. In her right hand she carries a whip of knuckle bones as symbols of power. Her union with Gordias produces Midas of the golden touch who, some say, killed himself by drinking the blood of a bull.

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12
Cerealia - The Feast of Ceres (Demeter)

In Rome, the Cerealia was held from the 12th through the 15th of the month in honor of the goddess Ceres (Demeter), the goddess of sowing and reaping. The sacrificial ritual offerings for her feast included a sow, grain, salt, and incense. Fasting until sunset was required. Once they were sisters representing, respectively, vegetative growth above ground and below ground, but as told by Ovid, the story of Ceres is that of her lamentation and search for her daughter Springtide (Proserpina, Persephone):

"She had two torches, Kindled in Etna's fires, and went, unresting, Through all the frosty dark; when kindly day Had dimmed the stars, from sunset on till daylight She sought her daughter; tired from the work and thirsty, For she had not taken even a sip of water,...."

Mount Etna - January, 1995.

Proserpina becomes the queen consort of Pluto (Hades, Dis) after he rapes her:

Sacred to Ceres are sheaves of corn (wheat that is, not American maize), soporific poppies, and pigs. In ancient Greece, the Eleusinian Mysteries are associated with both mother and daughter representing the natural cycle of life and death and suggesting the possibility of immortality and resurrection. Demeter's harvest festival, Thesmophoria, was held in September, October. Her daughter (or she) is remembered as the constellation Virgo, the Virgin, who holds the palm branch in one hand and the ear of wheat (Spica) in the other. What is more, the Virgo cluster viewed from earth includes some 2,000 member galaxies not to mention an 800-light-year-wide spiral-shaped disk of dust fueling a massive black hole in the center of galaxy, NGC 4261, located 100 million light-years away. And of course, Sicilian Mount Etna, where Ceres (Demeter) lights her torches, is still one of the most active volcanos in the world. Text of the Hymn to Demeter.

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17
Kumari Chariot Festival

The Kumari, 1993. The yearly festival is held for Kumari who is none other than the manifestation of the Mother Goddess in the form of a girl child. The home of the Living Goddess, Kumari, also known as the Virgin Goddess, is the Taleju Temple in the Himalayan kingdom of Nepal. Non-Hindu visitors may enter the courtyard, but may not go beyond that. The Kumari must be of the Newari Shakya caste, and a virgin with no body marks or injuries who has never lost blood. When she attains puberty she is replaced by another Kumari. Aspects of Kumari worship and her annual festival parade (which coincides with a rain festival) existed among the Nepalese in the ancient times but the chariot festival in the present form was inaugurated by the last Malla King of Kathmandu, Jaya Prakash Malla, who also built the Taleju Temple. In a country with five calendars, it is hard to know what day it is. There are two solar calendars, Nepalese and Gregorian and three lunar calendars, Nepalese, Newar and Tibetan.

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23
Feast of Saint George

Saint George was born in Cappadocia on June 11, 228 ce. to Anastasuis and Theobaste, Count and Countess of Cappadocia. He joined the Roman Army, was promoted to tribune and at age twenty went to Palestine to claim from the king there the lands and title belonging to (variously) his mother or his father. Upon his arrival, George discovered that the king, Dadianus, was a pagan and persecutor of Christians. One of the earliest accounts, dating from the fifth century, shares similarities to the story of Auser in Egypt: George is put to death three times, chopped into small pieces, buried in the earth and consumed by fire; beams of timber burst into leaf and milk flows from his severed head. Each time he is brought back to life by the power of God.

"So widespread are the legends about him that all that can be safely said about Saint George is that he was a martyr, a patron of England and that he suffered at or near Lydda (Diospolis) in Palestine." [Catholic Encyclopedia].

In modern usage a legend is "an unhistorical traditional story." Originally, however, legend meant "what is read" (from the Latin, legere - to read) and in 14th century England, the word "legend" usually referred to a story about a saint. Since the Crusades, the sign of Saint George is a red cross on a white background and he is patron of England. In Spenser's The Fairie Queene (1590), George, the Red Cross Knight, must slay a deadly dragon. When the Red Cross Knight strikes the dragon a death blow:

So downe he fell, and forth his life did breath,
That vanisht into smoke and cloudes swift;
So downe he fell, that th'earth him underneath
Did grone, as feeble so great load to lift;
So downe he fell, as an huge rocke clift,
Whose false foundation waves have washed away,
With dreadfull poyse is from the mayneland rift,
And rolling downe, great Neptune doth dismay;
So downe he fell, and like an heaped mountain lay.
(Edmund Spenser, The Faerie Queen, Book One, Canto X1, 54).

Rising 580 feet above sea-level, Glastonbury Tor, England, was once an island set amongst wetlands with river access to the sea. It is a popular pilgrimmage site and is said to have unusual lay lines.

The legend of Saint George is known throughout the world and his dragon-slayer image is popular in Russian iconography. The Russian version of the legend is set in Libya, where the inhabitants worship and appease a local marsh-dwelling dragon with a human sacrifice who is chosen by lot. Saint George happens by just as the King's unlucky daughter is being led to the marsh. Calling out in the name of Christ, George engages the dragon in combat and slays it. In the Novogord icon (late 15th century) we see Saint George and the Dragon. Saint George customarily is shown on a white horse piercing the dragon with his lance while the princess and the inhabitants of the city look on. The dragon over whom Saint George prevails is perhaps symbolic of wicked King Dadianus ho bythios drakon. But then the dragon could just as easily be emblematic of the Emporer Diocletian or the dragon in the Apocolypse. By tradition, George died in 303 ce. Here is a longer narrative - Legend of Saint George.

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