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reetings from Australia. 

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Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

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Carpe diem! 13 Yesterday | Tomorrow | Search Open links in a New Window

Today is

Quotations by Dr Samuel Johnson

Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel.

I look upon every day to be lost, in which I do not make a new acquaintance.

Promise, large promise, is the soul of an advertisement.

There are some sluggish men who are improved by drinking; as there are fruits that are not good until they are rotten.

Every man thinks meanly of himself for not having been a soldier, or not having been at sea.

No man but a blockhead ever wrote, except for money.

The happiest part of a man's life is what he passes lying awake in bed in the morning.

The wretched have no compassion, they can do good only from strong principles of duty.

Courage is a quality so necessary for maintaining virtue, that it is always respected, even when it is associated with vice.

Curiosity is one of the most permanent and certain characteristics of a vigorous intellect.

Treating your adversary with respect is giving him an advantage to which he is not entitled.

Just praise is only a debt, but flattery is a present.

Love is the wisdom of the fool and the folly of the wise.

He who praises everybody, praises nobody.

Coincidences have never been idle for me, instinctively, but as meaningful as I was to find they were to Jung. I have always had a hunch that they are a manifestation of a law of life of which we are inadequately aware and which in terms of our short life are unfortunately incapable of total definition, and yet however partial the meaning we can extract from them, we ignore it, I believe, at our peril. For as well as promoting some cosmic law, coincidences, I suspect, are some sort of indication to what extent the evolution of our lives is obedient or not obedient to the symmetry of the universe.
Laurens van der Post, South African author and conservationist, born on December 13, 1906; Jung and the Story of Our Time, p. 47

Human beings are perhaps never more frightening than when they are convinced beyond doubt that they are right. 
Laurens Van der Post, The Lost World of the Kalahari (1958)

Edna is well ... she's rather timeless. She began as a Melbourne housewife and now she's a megastar and the reason she's a megastar is that she tells people she is ... and they believe her. So she thinks she's Madonna or something like that.
Barry Humphries, Australian comedian who plays Dame Edna Everage

Dame Edna Everage housewife, megastar, investigative journalist, social anthropologist, children's book illustrator, diseuse, chanteuse, swami, monstre sacré, polymath, adviser to British royalty, grief counsellor, spin doctor and icon is arguably the most popular and gifted woman in the world today ...
Source: Dame Edna's newsletter, Letters from Edna, formerly at www.dame-edna.com

I was born in Melbourne with a precious gift. Dame Nature stooped over my cot and gave me this gift. It was the ability to laugh at the misfortunes of others.
Dame Edna Everage

I'll never forget the day when my wonderful mother locked me in the boxroom.
Dame Edna Everage; My Gorgeous Life

Dear Webbies,
My famous face furniture is already misting up as I think sadly of my departure from Broadway. Madge has already starting packing my wonderful wardrobe; a task that takes weeks. Sometimes I wish I had as few clothes as she does: an all purpose fawn frock and moth gray cardigan. She always carries luggage on our trips to show off but, of course, her cases are empty. Tragically, she's pretending to own things.
  My Tony Award and all the other trophies I've collected are going to play havoc with the airport security but they generally whisk me through anyway, much to Madge's annoyance. She longs to be stopped, poor woman, and subjected to a brutal body search, but it never happens …
Source: Dame Edna's newsletter, Letters from Edna, formerly at www.dame-edna.com

December 13 is the 347^th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (348^th in leap years), with 18 days remaining.
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Feast day of St Lucy of Syracuse

(Cypress arbor vitae, Thuja cupressoides, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)

It's December 13 and we see that the Solstice is close, whether we speak of the Summer Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, or the Winter Solstice in the Northern. As today is one of the shortest days of the year in Sweden (and was, in fact, the Winter Solstice prior to the introduction of the Gregorian calendar in 1753 – see Swedish calendar), the locals celebrate a festival of light (which is appropriate because the root for 'Lucy' in Latin, lux, means 'light'). On this day an elected girl in many households, dressed in white as 'Sankta Lucia', wearing a headdress of evergreen leaves and a crown of lit candles, wakes the rest of the family with coffee, rolls, and a special song. Swedes begin their Christmas celebrations with this day, and traditionally her patronal day marks the end of harvest.

St Lucy (283 - 304), with her associations with light, is the patron saint of people who are blind or have eye trouble. She was born in Syracuse, Sicily, the daughter of noble and wealthy parents, and was raised a Christian. Her father died while she was a child, and while just a girl she made a secret vow of virginity.

Euthychia, Lucy's mother, was persuaded to make a pilgrimage to the relics of St Agatha at Catania, not fifty miles from Syracuse, in the hope of being cured of a long haemorrhagic illness, from which she had been suffering for several years. There she was miraculously cured, and Lucy, taking hold of the opportunity, persuaded her mother to allow her to distribute a great part of her patrimony among the poor. Her mother agreed with Lucy's desire to live for God, and Lucy became known as a patron of those with maladies like her mother's.

Nine years after the father's death, Lucy's mother pressed her to marry a pagan man (unnamed in the chapter on St Lucy in The Golden Legend (Aurea Legenda), compiled by Jacobus de Voragine, 1275, ['Englished by William Caxton, 1483']). For three years she managed to keep the marriage on hold, rejecting this ardent suitor, and enraged him by distributing her inherited fortune among the poor. He gave her up to Paschasius, a heathen judge, during the persecution of Christians under Diocletian (Gaius Aurelius Valerius Diocletian (245 - 313), Roman Emperor from November 20, 284 to May 1, 305). Lucy remained loyal to her faith, although a judge ordered that she be made a prostitute in a brothel. According to The Golden Legend:

She said: The apostle saith that they be the temple of God that live chastely, and the Holy Ghost dwelleth in them. Paschasius said: I shall do bring thee to the bordel, where thou shalt lose thy chastity, and then the Holy Ghost shall depart from thee.

Miraculously, however, the guards found themselves physically unable to move her even when they hitched her to a team of oxen, and the governor ordered her killed instead. After torture that included having her eyes torn out, she was surrounded by bundles of wood which were set afire; they went out. She prophesied against her persecutors, and was executed by being stabbed to death with a dagger, or a sword thrust into her throat. Again, from The Golden Legend:

And as she spake thus to the people, the sergeants and ministers of Rome came for to take Paschasius and bring him to Rome, because he was accused tofore the senators of Rome of that he had robbed the province; wherefore he received his sentence of the senate, and had his head smitten off. Saint Lucy never removed from the place where she was hurt with the sword, ne died not till the priest came and brought the blessed body of our Lord Jesu Christ.

Another version of the tale has it that a nobleman wanted to marry her for the beauty of her eyes, so she tore them out and gave them to him, saying "Now let me live for God".

Heaven restored her eyes more beautiful than before. St Lucy's relics are preserved in Venice: a partially incorrupt body alleged to be hers is in a glass sarcophagus in the Church of Saints Geremia and Lucia.

In Christian art, St Lucy is represented as a girl with a palm frond and with her eyes in a dish, on a book, or in a shell. Sometimes she is shown holding a burning lamp , or with a lamp and a sword. She may also be depicted with a flaming horn; with oxen and men trying to drag her; or with a gash in her neck or sword stuck in it. (This is told of several virgin martyrs, including Cecilia, with whom she is often confused.) She is sometimes shown as a woman in the company of St Agatha, Ss Agnes of Rome, Barbara, Catherine of Alexandria, and St Thecla; or as a woman kneeling before the tomb of St Agatha to whom she was devoted.

Lucy's patronage includes against hemorraghes, authors, blindness, cutlers, dysentery, eye disease, glaziers, haemorraghes, laborers, martyrs, peasants, saddlers, salesmen, stained glass workers, Syracuse, Sicily, throat infections and writers.

In the Irish calendar the Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following the Feast of Saint Lucy were observed as Quarter tense. St Lucy's Day is also celebrated in Denmark, Norway, Finland, Italy, Bosnia, Iceland, and Croatia. Before the reform of the Gregorian calendar in the 16^th Century, St Lucy's Day fell on the Winter Solstice.

From Wikipedia: The modern tradition of having public processions in the Swedish cities started in 1927 when a newspaper in Stockholm elected an official Lucia for Stockholm that year. The initiative was then followed around the country through the local press. Today most cities in Sweden appoint a Lucia every year; schools elect a Lucia and her maids among the students; and a national Lucia is elected on national television from regional winners. The regional Lucias will usually visit local shopping malls, old people's homes and churches, singing and handing out ginger snaps. Recently there was some discussion whether it was suitable if the national Lucia was not a blonde Caucasian, but it was decided that ethnicity should not be a problem, and in the year 2000 an adopted non-white girl was crowned the national Lucia.

There are now also boys in the procession, playing different roles associated with Christmas. Some may be dressed in the same kind of white robe, but with a coneshaped hat decorated with golden stars, called stjärngossar ('star boys'); some may be dressed up as tomtenissar, carrying lanterns; and some may be dressed up as gingerbread men. They participate in the singing and also have a song or two of their own, usually Staffan Stalledräng, which tells the story about St Stephen, the first Christian martyr, caring for his five horses.

"In Sweden St. Lucia's Day was formerly marked by some interesting practices. It was, so to speak, the entrance to the Christmas festival, and was called 'little Yule.' At the first cock-crow, between 1 and 4 a.m., the prettiest girl in the house used to go among the sleeping folk, dressed in a white robe, a red sash, and a wire crown covered with whortleberry-twigs and having nine lighted candles fastened in it. She awakened the sleepers and regaled them with a sweet drink or with coffee, sang a special song, and was named 'Lussi' or 'Lussibruden' (Lucy bride). When everyone was dressed, breakfast was taken, the room being lighted by many candles. The domestic animals were not forgotten on this day, but were given special portions. A peculiar feature of the Swedish custom is the presence of lights on Lussi's crown. Lights indeed are the special mark of the festival; it was customary to shoot and fish on St. Lucy's Day by torchlight, the parlours, as has been said, were brilliantly illuminated in the early morning, in West Gothland Lussi went round the village preceded by torchbearers, and in one parish she was represented by a cow with a crown of lights on her head. In schools the day was celebrated with illuminations."
Clement A Miles, Christmas In Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan, T. Fisher Unwin, London, 1912

More

Send a free St Lucy Day e-card

Luciadagen, Sweden

Back to Sweden: It's traditional to sing a Sankta Lucia song with the same melody as the well-known Italian song. However, the lyrics are quite different. The Swedish song is about the girl with the candles on her head, while that from Italy is about the town of Santa Lucia, on the Bay of Naples.

 

Sankta Lucia
Sankta Lucia,
Ljusklara hängring
Sprid i vår vinternatt
Glans av din fägring!:
Drömmar met vingesus
Under oss sia
Tän dina vita ljus,
Sankta Lucia

 

Santa Lucia midi file source

'Sankta Lucia', an English translation

The night goes with weighty step
round yard and (stove i.e. house, hearth?)
round earth, the sun departs
leave the woods brooding
There in our dark house,
appears with lighted candles
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

The night goes great and mute
now one hears its wings
in every silent room
murmurs as if from wings.
Look at our threshold stands
white-clad with lights in her hair
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

The darkness shall soon depart
from the earth's valleys
thus she speaks
a wonderful word to us
The day shall rise anew
from the rosy sky.
Saint Lucia, Saint Lucia.

Click

More toonimations

 

Saint Lucy/Goddess Lucina

In the Roman Empire, Lucina was an epithet for Juno as "she who brings children into light". "In 'Lucy' is said, the way of light" Jacobus de Voragine stated at the beginning of his vita of the Blessed Virgin Lucy, in Legenda Aurea, the most widely-read version of the Lucy legend in the Middle Ages.

Lucia is still honoured on St Lucia's Day as the girl wearing the candle crown and singing Christmas carols. Usually the first-born daughter of the house, she is symbolic of pagan symbols of fire and life-giving light. Lucina was the goddess of childbirth who safeguarded the lives of women in labour.

Juno was the equivalent in Roman Mythology of the Greek goddess Hera and was considered the Roman supreme goddess, married to the ruling god, Jupiter. Hera was believed to watch and protect all women, and this solar goddess, who ruled the hot and sunny month of June but was desired in the depths of winter, was called by the Romans "the one who makes the child see the light of day", and given the name Lucina  – St Lucy's connection is quite evident.

 

 

Luciapepparkakor
Gingerbread Cookies
·  1 cup cornsyrup
·  1 ½ cups light brown sugar
·  1 cup of butter or margarine
·  2 eggs
·  1 ½ tbsp cloves
·  1 ½ tbsp ginger
·  4 - 5 cups flour
·  1 tbsp baking soda

Warm in a big pot on low heat: syrup, sugar and butter until the butter melts, not longer. Put it aside to cool. Then mix in the eggs, spices, baking soda and flour (keeping some flour aside for rolling out the dough). Let the dough rest overnight at room temperature and cover with plastic or wax paper. The next day: roll the dough (quite thin) and cut out the cookies using a cookie cutter. Bake in an oven at 350-375° F for 6 minutes. This recipe makes about 150 cookies.

Waverly Fitzgerald's excellent site, School of the Seasons, has a very good article on St Lucy

 

Lussekatter (makes 10-12 buns)

1/4 teaspoon saffron threads 
8 ounces (1 cup) milk 
1 tablespoon yeast 
1/2 cup sugar 
4 ounces (1 stick) butter 
5 cups all-purpose flour 
1 teaspoon salt 
1/2 cup sugar 
2 large eggs, beaten 
1 beaten egg white for egg wash 

Using a mortar and pestle, pound saffron threads to break down strands. In a small saucepan, heat milk to lukewarm. 

Mix yeast with 1/4 cup milk and 1 tablespoon sugar. Set aside. 

On low heat, melt butter in saucepan with milk. Add crushed saffron. Let cool. 

In large bowl, mix together flour salt and remaining sugar. 

Stir yeast into cooled milk mixture. Mix into dry ingredients, beating to mix well. Add beaten eggs. Knead in bowl for 5 - 7 minutes. Turn onto floured board and knead another 7 - 8 minutes. 

Put dough in lightly greased bowl, turn to coat all sides, cover and put in warm, draft-free place to rise for about 1 hour. 

When dough has risen, knead lightly to push out air and divide into small pieces (about 10 - 12). Using the hands, roll each small piece into a strip about 8 - 10 inches long. Shape each strip into an 'S' or a figure 8. Place on lightly buttered cookie sheets. 

Cover with clean cloth and let rise again until double in bulk, about 1 to 1 1/2 hours. 

Preheat oven to 375°F. 

When dough has risen, brush lightly with egg white. Bake in preheated 375° F oven for 15 minutes, or until lightly browned. Let cool on wire rack.

Source

In Scandinavia, a day for boisterous winter fun, first sleigh rides of the season. Singing must be loud enough to frighten off the gnomes.

Loaves of ceremonial bread are baked in shape of cats (echo of pre-Christian sacrifices to earth powers); formerly a procession followed a cow with candles on her horns.

In Hungary, witches ride broomsticks and boys and girls pull all the pranks they can get away with.

Source: The Daily Bleed

Little Yule
Another name for St Lucy's day.  

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Click stars for Universe today Cafe Diem! For all my Yule needs Highly recommended: Folklore of World Holidays by Margaret Read MacDonald Yule Decking the Halls Folklore & traditions of Christmas plants The Winter Solstice The Fires of Yule A Keltelven Guide for Celebrating the Winter Solstice Storyteller: The Many Lives of Laurens van der Post The Lost World of the Kalahari The Heart of the Hunter Memories, Dreams, Reflections Sabbat Entertaining The Pagan Book of Days Eight Sabbats for Witches Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year Be A Goddess The Wiggles - Yule Be Wiggling The Oxford Dictionary of Saints The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Daily Everything Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable Lord of the Rings Dame Edna Everage and the Rise of Western Civilisation: Backstage With Barry Humphries The Dame Edna Experience - The Complete Series 1 Portrait of the Artist As Australian: L'Oeuvre Bizarre de Barry Humphries Once an Australian: Journeys with Barry Humphries, Clive James, Germaine Greer, and Robert Hughes To support this project Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family products and much more.     Search for posters An Inconvenient Truth By Al Gore; DVD & book The Permaculture Home Garden By Linda Woodrow The Corporation Highly recommended DVD How to Kill a Country Remotely Controlled: How Television Is Damaging Our Lives and What We Can Do About It What Would Jefferson Do? By Thom Hartmann How Mumbo-Jumbo Conquered the World Pagan Christianity Hello Laziness! By Corrine Maier For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire By James Yee Crimes Against Nature : How George W Bush and His Corporate Pals Are Plundering the Country and Hijacking Our Democracy By Robert F Kennedy, Jr The Price of Loyalty The Torture Debate in America The Culture of the New Capitalism Lawless World The Great War for Civilisation By Robert Fisk The God Who Wasn't There The Rape of Nanking Rape of Nanking DVD A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Alternatives to Economic Globalization Feminism Without Borders Commercialization of Intimate Life By Arlie Russell Hochschild The Skeptic's Dictionary The Loch Ness Monster America's Loch Ness Monsters Cryptozoology A To Z Mysterious Scotland Body Wisdom More books, calendars, T-shirts, mugs, music, posters, etc at   Cafe Diem! Celtic Daily Prayer Dude, Where's My Country? Photo of the day Mother Earth Spirituality Bushwhacked Shamanism Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Festival for Tellus, ancient Rome A festival in honour of Tellus, a very ancient Earth Goddess, by whose power plants used for enchantments were produced, and perhaps also in honour of the goddess Ceres. Her Greek counterpart is Gaia. Tellus had her main festival on April 15 [qv]; it was called the Fordicia; pregnant cows were sacrificed. Another festival, the Sementivae, was held on January 24. Her male counterpart, Tellumo, was simultaneously honoured. Ceres, in Roman Mythology (equivalent to the Greek Demeter), is the daughter of Saturn and Rhea, wife-sister of Jupiter, mother of Proserpina (Persephone), and patron of Sicily. Ceres is the goddess of growing plants (particularly grain) and of motherly love. This day is also sacred to the Roman god Jupiter, leader of the gods and god of the sky; rites would be performed this day in his various temples.   Runic half-month of Jara commences "Jara signifies the completion of natural cycles, such as fruition, and has a more transcendent meaning of mystic marriage between the earth and cosmos." Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, p. 137   The Ember Days Today is one of several ember days of the year, a custom instituted by Pope Pope Gelasius I (reigned 492 - 496) to seek God's blessing on the fruitfulness of the earth. It was the practice to put ashes on one's head, but the name might come from the Saxon emb-ren or imb-ryne , meaning a course or circuit, from the ember days' commemoration at four quarters of the year, namely: the first Wednesday, Friday and Saturday following, respectively, the first Sunday in Lent (Quadragesima Sunday); Whitsunday; September 14 or, 'Holyrood Day'; and St Lucy's Day (December 13).  Or, it comes from the practice of putting ash on the head. There is also the breaking of a fast with bread baked in embers, or ember-bread. The weeks in which they fall are called ember weeks. Robert Chambers, (Ed.), The Book of Days: A miscellany of popular antiquities in connection with the calendar, etc, W & R Chambers, London, 1881 (1879 Edition is online and 1869 edition here with CD-ROM available; See also The English Year: A Personal Selection from Chambers' Book of Days.   In the Irish calendar they were known as Quarter tense. Much more at September 14 in the Book of Days.   Kasuga Wakamiya (Shrine) Matsuri, at Nara Prefecture (till Dec 18) In front of the Kasuga Wakamiya Shrine, not far from the main Kasuga Shrine, is a low, long building, divided into three parts. The Kaguraden is a holy dancing hall. In this the Shinto shrine maidens perform sacred kagura dances, bearing branches of the sakaki (sacred) tree, fans, and tiny bells. Musical accompaniment is by flute, koto, sho, hichiriki, drum, and clappers. The main event (On-Matsuri) is on December 17 in honour of the shrine. A long procession of armoured warriors, wrestlers and many people in ancient costume is held.   Advent (Nov 30 - Dec 25), season of the coming of Jesus Christ The ides of December, ancient Rome Aztec Calendar: Acatl Day Represents reed or cane. Source Acatl is the sceptre of authority which is, paradoxically, hollow. Arrows of fate fall from the sky like lightning bolts.  Good day to seek justice, bad day to act against others. Source: The Daily Bleed More   And more   Mesoamerican calendar   More   Mayan calendar and 2012: End of time? Feast day of St Aubert, Bishop of Cambray and Arras   Feast day of St Bartholomew of Tuscany Feast day of St Einhildis Feast day of St Elizabeth Rose Feast day of B. John Marinoni, confessor   Feast day of St Jodocus (Jodoc; Josse), confessor Feast day of St Kenelm, king and martyr Feast day of St Odilia (Othilia), virgin and abbess Feast day of St Roswinda Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Agoueh R Oyo (Agoué-Arroyo) (Mangé la mer; Feeding of the sea), Voodoo (Voudon) (Dec 12, 13, 14) Source    More on Voodoo Iyomante Matsuri, Kutcharo, Japan (Dec 1 - 15) Feast day (Orthodox) of St Herman Troparion: "Holy Herman Blessed ascetic of the Northern wilds graciuous intercessor of the whole world teacher of the Orthodox Faith. and good instructor of piety adornment of Alaska and Joy of all America!"   Republic Day, public holiday, Republic of Malta (1974) Iyomante Matsuri, Kutcharo, Japan (Dec 1 - 15) Soot-sweeping Day, Japan       1521 Pope Sixtus V (d. 1590), religious leader 1533 King Eric XIV of Sweden (d. 1577) 1553 King Henry IV of France (d. 1610) 1585