February: Holidays & Days of Note

Feb. 1 National Freedom Day, 1865 President Lincoln signs the 13th Amendment. / Imbolc to some, Imbolc Eve to others. / St. Brigid's Day (Ireland.) / It was on this day that Willy Wonka, noted candy manufacturer & serial killer, gave a tour of his factory.

Feb. 2 Imbolc Some say that today is Imbolc, it was said in days long gone by to really start with the ewes starting to lactate and as that's not really a big deal with most folks these day I'm going with the 2nd… Happy Imbolc folks! / Candlemas (Catholic) / Groundhog's Day (US) / Dia De La Candelaria (Mexico) / Ladies' Day / Purification Day / Cordova Ice Worm Day (Prince William Sound) Festival to celebrate the big ice worm, which is actually an ice centipede. I guess people in Cordova are hard up for entertainment.

Feb. 3 Powamu Festival (Hopi) A day for Kachinas dances and planting beans in kivas / Heroes' Day (Mozambique)

Feb. 4 Rosa Parks Day (U.S.) / World Cancer Day (International)

Feb. 5 National Weatherperson's Day (U.S.) Back to you Willard.

Feb. 6 Lantern Festival, Lunar New Year is now over / Waitangi Day (New Zealand) Commemorates the day in 1840 that the British and a group of Maori chiefs signed the treaty of Waitangi. / No Talk Day. A day to underline the importance of written communication skills in schools

Feb. 7 Tu B'Shevat (Jewish) Also known as the New Year for Trees, hmmm… I didn’t know Treebeard was Jewish.

Feb. 8 Hari-kuyo `Needle Funeral´ (Japan) A day for girls to gather old and broken needles to dedicate them to the deity Awashi Myozin, no needlework is to be done this day. (I have to wonder just how much is done these days anyway.) / Kite Flying Day (Korea) / Boy Scout Day

Feb. 9 National DAV Day. DAV stands for Develop New Vices and this day is dedicated to people changing their habits.

Feb. 10 Gasparilla Day (Florida) / It was on this day in 1286 B.C.E. that Herakles (Hercules) was conceived. According to the myth Zeus eclipsed the sun so that he had three full nights to do the deed. It would seem that the Greek sky God had something against nooners. Herk was born later that year on Oct. 31 making him, it would seem, a preemie.

Feb. 11 Youth Day (Cameroon) / Victory of the Islamic Revolution Day (Iran) / National Foundation Day (Japan) / Independence Day (Vatican City)

Feb. 12 Happy Birthday Abraham (don't call him Abe, he hated that) Lincoln.

Feb. 13 Get A Different Name Day (U.S.) Okay.... Call me Jasper Wang Angus Christina Keith Whatsup Totoro Bill MacDounut the XXXIVth.

Feb. 14 Valentine's Day.

Feb. 15 Lupercalia (Ancient Rome)

Feb. 16 Bursting Day (Iceland) A day to feast on salted mutton and thick pea soup, if one can actually be said to "Feast" on mutton & think pea soup.

Feb. 17 Quirinalia (Roman) Festival for the god Quirinus, about whom not all that much is known.

Feb. 18 Cat Festival (Belgium)

Feb. 19 Neo's call traced by the Matrix. / Happy Birthday Bruce Wayne, not really my idea of a Pisces.

Feb. 20 President's Day (U.S.) I'm baking a cake in the shape of Taft this year, should be able to feed a family of from 8 to 10.

Feb. 21 International Mother Language Day (UNESCO) / Mardi Gras, which is a bit ironic as so many people will seem to be speaking in tongues today.

Feb. 22 Ash Wednesday / World Thinking Day, also known as "B.-P. day" or "Founder's Day" (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) / Celebrity Day (Church of Scientology) Gawd yes! That’s just what the world needs, a holiday celebrating people famous for being well known.

Feb. 23 Terminalia (Ancient Rome) Day to celebrate Terminus the god who protected boundary markers

Feb. 24 Dragobete (Romania) "the day when the birds are betrothed,” It is around this time that the birds are said to begin to build their nests and mate. / Flag Day (Mexico) / National Artist Day (Thailand)

Feb. 25 Baikasai (Kitano Tenmangu Shrine, Kyoto, Japan) "Plum Blossom Festival" At the Kitano Tenmangu Shrine in Kyoto charming geisha women and maiko girls (geiko in Kyoto dialect) perform an open air tea ceremony (nodate) and serve powdered green tea (macha) to visitors under plum trees (ume) in full bloom on 25 February. Baikasai (Plum Blossom Festival) commemorates the death anniversary of Sugawara Michizane (845-903) enshrined as the god of scholarship and literature.) / People Power Day (Philippines) Celebrating the return of democracy in 1986, commemorate by wearing yellow, which was the official color of the LABAN party, the rival political group that challenged the government back in 1986. Much of the festivities and activities occur in the city of Manila, particularly Epifanio Delos Santos Avenue (EDSA), a major public road where people flock to visit. Activities include programs such as church masses and concerts. Many people also flash the LABAN (fight) sign, which is an “L” sign using one’s index finger and thumb.

Feb. 26 Savior's Day (Nation of Islam) Holiday of the Nation of Islam commemorating the birth of its founder, Master Wallace Fard Muhammad, February 26, 1877. It was established by Elijah Muhammad.

Feb. 27 International No Holidays Day

Feb. 28 Independence Day (Egypt) / Finnish Culture Day (Finland) / Heritage Day, (Canada)

Feb. 29 Along with the Olympics , and the American Presidential campaign, once every four years (unless the year ends in double zeros) we get a Leap Year, at least this only takes one day to get over with. Also Happy Birthday Kal-El, somehow he doesn’t strike me as being a Pisces, must be that Krypton rising he has in his chart.

Hogwarts get twitter, thousands of messenger owls out of work

                                 Image by pe_ha45

An oddly warm winter in many places, high storm activity, and this

Owls On The Move

These things happen, rare yes but they happen,  I wouldn’t jump to any rash conclusions.

Chaos & Order Out of Alignment

The night of January 14 I had one of the remarkably colorful, vivid and detailed dreams I sometimes have, almost a little mini movie really.

I keep these to myself as, let’s face it, most people just don’t care to hear the dreams of other people.

However as I now have a Blog with a theme of all things “wyrd” that almost no one reads, except by accident, I’m thinking, why not?

As it is with these sorts of dreams the part I remember seems to start somewhere in the middle, I assuming the earlier part being dreamed, but too early for me to me.

I and a number of people I don’t know are in what seems to be a luxury hotel that we cannot leave due to an ongoing worldwide disaster, gale force winds are blowing the world over and large never before seen insects are popping up to bother those taking shelter from those winds.

At the same time indistinct gray shadowy figures are appearing and taking random people off to do undescribed, but assuredly ghastly things to them.

Among the people in this hotel I don’t recognize (all of whom are in a general state of near hysteria) are two I do, they are Leslie Knope, the character played by Amy Poehler on Parks and Recreation, and Forrest Gump.

The appearance of these two seems to give me the clue I need that tells me the reason for the worldwide crisis, as I pronounce “it has nothing to do with good versus evil, it’s order versus chaos, they are out of alignment and unwilling to give into each other and blend at the proper time, until we get some corporation and stop all this partisan stubbornness things will only get worse.”

In answer to that statement the wind, as seen through the picture window in the hotel room he are taking shelter in, starts to blow harder with a display of trees, realty and arbitrary human figures being tossed about, at the same time a number of odd blue bugs, looking like a crosses between a fiddler crab and a scarab, commence to crawl under the door.  Which results in Leslie Knope organizing a “pick up some chairs and hit them” response, while this is going some of those shadowy gray figures show up and steal Forrest Gump away, they seem to come out of an otherwise solid corner of the room, and for just a moment one of them appears to be a semi-transparent Newt Gingrich, before going all indistinct and gray again.

I, not really caring for bugs in a big way, pursue on a rescue mission, as I go running and bouncing though the landscape which proceeds to toss uprooted mail boxes , library books (I knowing they are library books because of some dream sense) and small trees at me slowing me so the gray shadows and their captive elude me. 

As this is going on and I’m almost smashed in the head by said flying mailbox (one of those big blue kinds) another revelation comes to me “I see Leslie Knope is Order, and Forrest is Chaos, that’s why they don’t want them in the same room where they can cooperate and start a synthesis.”

Eventually I get to the place they have taken Forrest and see things have gone dire while I was looking for them. They have him hung up on a totem pole that along with glowing rather brightly seems to be at least three stories tall, a bonfire has been lit under his feet and he is being readied to be subjected to the “blood angel” torture of the Vikings, being vastly outnumbered I am at a loss as to what to do.

I wake up, not really caring to go back to that dream I make a cup of tea.

Falkor is that you?!!?

Odd bit of cloud-like `whatever' recorded in Japan on January the 6th.

For the record, the Falkor I refer to in the title is Falkor the Luckdragon from the Never Ending Story.

According to Weather Watch of New Zealand 2012 may be the year of the UFO.

According to Weather Watch of New Zealand, while it's been 2012 for only two days (remember it started earlier there) sightings of UFOs are already on the upswing.

Saying that while they get a handful of reports from around the world of meteors and other lights in the sky, every night, usually around 8 or 10 at most, since the start of 2012 the number of reports have gone up to 80 already.

For their report on that first night go to the site below.

Weather Watch New Zealand

January: Holidays & Days of Note

Jan. 1. New Years Day. One very popular one anyway. There are others throughout the year. / Festival of Janus (Roman) / Circumcision of Christ Day (Catholic) Yes there is at least one church that claims to have the item in question. / O-Shogatsu (Japan) Along with O-Bon this is one of Japan's most important ceremonies where bad fortune of the past year is eliminated. / Fortuna's Day (Roman) / Zeus & Hera's Day (Greek) / Jupiter & Juno's Day (Roman) / Independence Day (Haiti) Heck of a lot of holidays to be piled up on a day when so many people have hangovers.

Jan. 2. Carnival de Blancos y Negros Holiday of Blacks and Whites (Columbia) Festival held in Pasto City, Columbia to celebrate more than 300 years of racial harmony, starting out small, over the years it has become a pretty big deal, during, among other things, they have a festival with music, street dances, free food and drink, and usually water & flour fights and the picking of a queen. On the first day everyone wears white face while on the last they don black face with special make-up produced in the city for the purpose, it helps that they don't have that whole toxic `minstrel show thing as part of their heritage like we do, during this almost week long Carnival...what about the Indians? / Ancestors Day. (Haiti) Be sure to call yours up and have them over! / Only 4 shopping days left until Armenian Christmas.

Jan. 3. Festival of Sleep (U.S.) And it's on the Tuesday after my Winter vacation is over, is this suppose to be ironic or something? / It was on this day in 1863, on the cover of Harper´s Weekly in a cartoon by Thomas Nast, that Santa was first shown delivering gifts with a reindeer-drawn sleigh. The title was `Santa Claus in Camp, the recipients of those gifts, Union solders.

Jan. 4. Braille Day, birthday of Louis Braille a day for honoring the blind. / Pharmacist Day (U.S.) / Spaghetti Day (U.S.) / Elizabeth Ann Seton Feast Day (Catholic) First American born saint.

Jan. 5. Fragga's Day. (Norse) A day for the wife or Odin and the Goddess of marriage. / Christianity introduced to England in 597. / Eris, the largest known dwarf planet in the solar system, was discovered on this day in 2005.

Jan. 6. Twelfth Day, now you know when that damn song is over! / Epiphany, This day was also at one time known as Old Christmas (Julian calendar). / Christmas Day (Armenia). / La Bafana (Italy) a festival on which the night before Bafana, a kindly witch flies down chimneys on her broom and bestows gifts on good children and leaving lumps of coal for the bad children. / la Fiesta de los Reyes Magos `Three Kings Day (Latin America) day when, among other things, the kids get presents rather than Christmas. / Festival of Kore. (Ancient Greek)

Jan. 7. Nanakusa (Japan), a festival that dates back to the 7th century and recalls the seven plants served to the emperor that is believed to have great medical value. Shepherd's Purse, chickweed, parsley, cottonweed, radish, hotoke-no-za, and aona.

Nanakusa

 

Jan. 8. Feast of Justicia (Roman) / Mid-Wife's Day, (Greece) / Man Watcher Day (US) / Rock n' Roll Day or the Birthday of Elvis 1935. / Secret Pal Day (internet) I guess if Hallmark can push dubious holidays why not 123greeting?

Jan. 9. Seijin-No-Hi `Coming of Age Day´ (Japan) Holiday for anyone who attains the age of 20 anytime between April 2 of last year April 1 of this year. Always held on a Monday. / Feast of the Black Nazarene (Philippines)

Jan. 10. Peculiar People Day (US) About damn time! So do I get a cookie or something? / Thomas Paine, who has a day coming up this month, publishes Common Sense in 1776. / The film Metropolis by Fritz Lang premiers in 1926. They tell me after all this time they finally have that darn thing restored!

Jan. 11. Juturnalia (Roman) Time when water was taken from her well to be used in state offerings. / Carmentalia (Roman) Day to celebrate prophecy, the chief giver of which was Carmentis, Goddess of prophecy, who also protected women during childbirth.

Jan. 12. Fabulous Wild Men Day (US)

Jan. 13. Midwinterblot (Norse) / Final Witchcraft laws repealed in Austria, 1787. / Wham-O introduces the Frisbee in 1957, American roofs have never been the same since.

Jan. 14. Bald Eagle Appreciation Day (US) / Ati Atihan Festival (Philippines) which goes to the 20th.

Ati Atihan Festival

Jan. 15. Feast of the Lord Esquipulas (Mayan) / Black Christ Festival (Guatemala) / Feast of the Ass (French) Started out in Rome and was dedicated to the Goddess Vesta's sacred animal, later it was Christianized.

Jan. 16. / Martin Luther King Day `observed´ (US)

Jan. 17. Surya, Hindu Feast of the Sun Goddess. / In 1929 Popeye the Sailor Man first appears in the Thimble Theater comic strip, which had been going on for almost 10 years before this without him, at the time it concerned the adventures of Olive Oyl and her family along with Olive's then long time boyfriend Hamm Gravy. Popeye is introduced when her father, Cole Oyl, down at the dock hopping to hire an assassin to take care of someone who has been troubling the family sees Popeye and asks if he's sailor, to which he replies “does I look like a cowboy to ya?” later Popeye does take care of the villains, but without needing to murderize them.

   (Word Cloud of the Lyrics of "I'm Popeye the Sailor Man")

Jan. 18. World Religion Day. (U.N.) Day to appreciate the diversity of different religious expressions. At least the ones that aren't trying to kill each other that is. / Winnie The Pooh Day.

Jan. 19. International Hot & Spicy Food Day / The Apple Lisa, the first commercial personal computer from Apple Inc. to have a graphical user interface and a computer mouse, is announced on this day in 1983.

Jan. 20. Theogamia of Hera (Greek) / the roller coaster is patented in 1885.

Jan. 21 White Dog Feast. (Iroquois) / In 1997 Newt Gingrich becomes the first leader of the United States House of Representatives to be disciplined for ethical misconduct.

Jan. 22 Festival of the Muses (Ancient Greek) / today is the birthday of Robert E. Howard creator of Conan, Kull, Solomon Kane & others.

Jan. 23. Chinese New Year, Year of the Water Dragon. / Tet Nguyen Dan (Vietnamese New Year) / However the celebrations started yesterday / National Pie Day (U.S.)

Jan. 24. Blessing of the Happy Woman's Candle (Hungary) Bless that candle you happy little woman!

Jan. 25. Robert Burn's Night (Scotland).

The Toast

Fill me with the rosy wine,

Call a toast, a toast divine:

Giveth me Poet's darling flame,

Lovely Jessie be her name;

Then thou mayest freely boast,

Thou hast given a peerless toast

Robert Burns

Jan. 26. Australia Day / Republic Day (India) / Clashing Clothes Day (US) Held the 4th Thursday of each January, wouldn't want to get that wrong would we? I mean if they go to the trouble to make one of the few movable silly "holidays" we might as well play along.

Jan. 27. National School Nurse Day (US) / Thomas Crapper Day.

Jan. 28. National Kazoo Day (U.S.) / Lego bricks are 54 years old today.

Jan. 29. Freethinker's Day also Thomas Paine's birthday in 1737.

Jan. 30. Festival of Pax (Greek) Feriae Senentiva `Feast of Spring´ (Roman)

Jan. 31. National Popcorn Day (US) / Hecate's Feast (Greek) / Up-helly-Aa (Scotland) held the last Tuesday in January, it is the largest Fire Festival in the world.

Happy Yule, December 21st