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reetings from Australia. 

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Carpe diem! (Seize the day!)

Pip Wilson

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The libertarian planner must also remember that cities are built for citizens, and the houses and buildings will be inhabited, not by ciphers, but by human beings with sensations and feelings, and that these human beings will be unhappy unless they can freely express themselves in their environment.
Herbert Read, British anarchist writer and critic, born on December 4, 1893

When I appear in the Chicago courtroom ... I want to be tried not because I support the [Vietnamese communist] National Liberation Front – which I do – but because I have long hair. Not because I support the Black Liberation Movement, but because I smoke dope. Not because I am against a capitalist system, but because I think property eats shit. Not because I believe in student power, but that the schools should be destroyed. Not because I'm against corporate liberalism, but because I think people should do whatever the fuck they want ... Finally, I want to be tried for having a good time and not for being serious.
Abbie Hoffman, who (as part of the Chicago 7) was found guilty of contempt of court charges, December 4, 1973

Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the Universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the Universe.
American musician, Frank Zappa, who died on December 4, 1993

It's better to have something to remember than nothing to regret.
Frank Zappa

If you wind up with a boring, miserable life because you listened to your mom, your dad, your teacher, your priest or some guy on TV telling you how to do your shit, then YOU DESERVE IT.
Frank Zappa; from The Real Frank Zappa Book 

The first hyphen in MAH-JUH-REEN could be used for erotic gratification by a very desperate stenographer.
Frank Zappa; speaking in Sydney Australia, 1974

Don't mind your make-up, you'd better make your mind up.
Frank Zappa

Information is not knowledge, 
Knowledge is not wisdom, 
Wisdom is not truth, 
Truth is not beauty, 
Beauty is not love, 
Love is not music
and Music is THE BEST.
Frank Zappa

It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of OUR NATIONAL STUPIDITY.
Frank Zappa

Some people crave baseball – I find this unfathomable – but I can easily understand why a person could get excited about playing a bassoon.
Frank Zappa

This is Frank Zappa saying, Don't do speed. Speed turns you into your parents.
1970 public service announcement regarding drug (namely, speed) use

You've got to be digging it while it's happening 'cause it just might be a one shot deal.
Frank Zappa

Anything played wrong twice in a row is the beginning of an arrangement.
Frank Zappa

You can't be a Real Country unless you have a BEER and an airline – it helps if you have some kind of a football team or some nuclear weapons, but at the very least you need a BEER.
Frank Zappa

Yeah, I tell them to change the channel if they see some guy in a brown suit with a telephone number at the bottom of the screen asking for money. 
Frank Zappa; when asked by Tipper Gore (American author, activist for 'Parental Advisory' labels on music) if there was anything on the TV he didn't allow his kids to watch

... I think (Abbey Road is) the best engineered, best mastered rock and roll album ever produced ... except that I take exception to stereo placement. 
Frank Zappa; from Frank Zappa talks about Faves, Raves, and Composers in their Graves

Drop out of school before your mind rots from exposure to our mundane educational system. Forget about the Senior Prom and go to the library and *educate yourself* if you've got any guts. Some of you like *pep rallies* and plastic robots who tell you what to read. Forget I mentioned it. *This song has no message.* Rise for the flag salute. 
Frank Zappa; liner notes for 'Hungry Freaks, Daddy' on Freak Out!

There's no question in my mind – the beer, the balloons and the bunting all start with 'B' for some cosmic reason. 
Frank Zappa; words that start with 'B' reminded him of the Republican Party. The Real Frank Zappa Book, page 238

December 4 is the 338^th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (339^th in leap years), with 27 days remaining.
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Feast day of St Barbara

One of the Fourteen Holy Helpers

The legend says that St Barbara was a beautiful maiden from Nicomedia in Asia Minor; her father Dioscorus imprisoned her in a high tower, where she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets, and Origen and Valentinian converted her to Christianity. In folklore, her imprisonment has led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses.

Dioscorus brought many suitors of his choosing but by then Barbara had lost all interest in marriage. Once, when she refused one of his unfair requests, he grew enraged and she turned a flock of sheep into a plague of locusts.

During many years in the tower, Barbara obtained her food and laundry by way of a basket on a rope. One day, a stranger put a book in the basket from which Barbara learned about the new religion. Barbara so longed to know more about Christianity that she grew ill and her father sent for a doctor but the doctor turned out to be, in fact, a priest, and Barbara was baptised.

Soon afterwards, her father left home on a journey. Barbara asked the men who worked on the estate to make a third window in her tower, and since she was their employer's daughter, they did as she asked. When Dioscorus returned and asked the meaning of the third window, Barbara told him that she had converted to Christianity and wanted to have three windows to be reminded of the three names for God. This renovation earned Barbara the honour of becoming the patron saint of architects.

Enraged, the pagan Dioscorus delivered her up to the governor of Nicomedia for this act of disobedience, and the governor ordered that Barbara should die by her own father's hand. Dioscorus had his wicked friends beat her with cattle sinews and they rubbed salt into her wounds. She was tortured further, then, just as she was being decapitated by her father, a bolt of lightning (or according to some sources, fire from heaven) struck him dead. One legend says she prayed for release from her pains (they also beat her with mallets and burned her with lamps) and died. Another version says she outlived her father when he was struck by lightning as he set out to behead her.

Due to the manner of her father's death, St Barbara's aid is traditionally invoked against lightning and she is the patron saint of arsenals and artillery, as well as people in danger of sudden death. She is shown in art usually near a tower with three windows, reminiscent of the Tarot symbol of a tower hit by lightning, and her image graced powder magazines and arsenals for years. The powder chamber on French cannons was named la Sainte Barbe after this patron saint of artillery and gunners. During storms people used to ring bells to ask her aid.

In 1969, the Catholic Church ended centuries of venerating her, as it did with a number of saints of dubious historicity, such as St Valentine. Her mythic tale is a variation on the Rapunzel motif. She is identified with Pallas Athena, the ancient Athenian goddess of wisdom and of useful and beautiful arts.

Some of Barbara's many other patronages: against death by artillery, against explosions, against fire, against storms, boatmen, brass workers, brewers, builders, carpenters, construction workers, dying people, fire, firefighters, fireworks, founders, geologists, gravediggers, hatters, mariners, masons, mathematicians, milliners, miners, prisoners, sailors, stone masons, storms, sudden death, Syria and watermen.

Santa Barbara, California

Barbara is the matron of Santa Barbara, California, which got its name from the early Spanish navigator Juan Cabrillo. On December 4, the great explorer stopped at a particularly lovely place on the California coast. He chose to name the spot after the patron of that day, Saint Barbara.

Dzien Swietej Barbary, Poland

In Poland, St Barbara's Day is Dzien Swietej Barbary and it's a weather prognostication day. If it rains today, the old custom has it, there will be ice by Christmas. If it is icy, there will be rain by the festive season.

'Id al-Barbarah, Syria

On Syria's St Barbara's Day, they have parties, indulging in candlelit meals with traditional deserts.

St Barbara, Germany

As she is the matron saint of miners and horsemen, St Barbara is honoured by German miners with the burning of an underground light.

Barbara and Chango (Shango; Xango; Changó) in Santería, Lukumí, Yoruba

Today's saint is a version of the universal lightning deity, much as the Orisha Chango (Shango) is in the Santeria/Yoruba tradition. He is the son of the goddess Yemaya (Iemanja; Yemaja; Yemanja; Yemayah; etc) and Orungan, a god of lightning like Zeus, and although male, is closely associated with St Barbara. Chango carries a labyris, a symbol of matriarchy and the Goddess. Like Barbara's, Chango's colours are red and white.

Yemaya's feast day is February 2 (qv)   

 

St Barbara's weather

In Germany on St Barbara's Day, it is the custom to cut Barbara twigs from fruit or nut trees and to place them in a warm place. Weather prophecies are made depending on the date and extent of the blossoms that come. Every member of the family puts his or her Barbara twig into water so that it will have blossoms on Christmas day. The child whose branch has the most blossoms on Christmas Day is supposed to be Mary's favourite. The vase or glass containing the St Barbara twigs may be placed on the family altar.

The hoped-for date of blooming is Christmas, according to a tenth century legend that said that all the trees blossomed and bore fruit on the day Jesus was born.

St Barbara's Day, Lebanon

Christmas season is said to begin with the feast day of Barbara, and wheat is today's symbol. A special dish of kahmie is served. The head of the household will tell the legend of St Barbara as the wheat is being prepared. Blackburn and Holford-Stevens (Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press, 1999) tell us that in southern France, especially in Provence, wheat grains are soaked in water, placed in dishes and allowed to germinate from this day. The wheat is carefully tended, because if it grows quickly, it is an omen that crops will prosper in the coming year. Also on this day, cherry branches are brought into the house and placed in water, prognosticating good luck in the coming year if they bloom by Yule (December's Winter Solstice).

Basque tradition

The people of the Basque region of Spain and France have a tradition that if the Lady of Anboto (Amboto) is found in her cave on St Barbara's day, the following summer will deliver abundance of crops. However, if on that day she is out of her cave, there will be terrible storms and bad fortune the following summer. Basque folk belief has it that storms occur as a punishment by the Goddess (who controls the weather) for the immoral conduct or wrongdoing of her people.

The Lady of Amboto

"Above the heights of Amboto appears a heavy dark cloud presaging a storm. On its appearance the fishermen return precipitately to port; the field labourers, the traveller, and the shepherds all fly terrified back to their dwellings, and as they do so murmur, amid words of prayer, the strange words, The lady of Amboto! the lady of Amboto!

"And who is this lady?

"The wandering soul of a woman bereft of faith and conscience, who, after sacrificing to her ambition the love of a wife, that of a daughter, and even her hope of eternal salvation, commits the last and greatest crime – that of self-destruction – by casting herself down a precipice, and her spirit, in just expiation of so much sin, finds itself condemned to wail and wander for ever [sic] a victim to remorse among the peaks of Amboto. Her apparition is always followed by some great misfortune. The traces of her footprints are always marked with tears and blood, and, like to the birds of prey which are only aroused by the smell of blood, she foretells also the hour of calamity, and quits her haunts to revel in tears and wails.

"On the other hand, a white lovely mist is seen to rise and hover over the top of Morumendi, and this mist becomes lost in space like a soft vapour. If on beholding this mist some become alarmed, this is soon succeeded by gleams of hope springing up in their hearts, and they hail the beneficent lady who comes to announce to them that, although the hours of trial are at hand, she will help them to surmount them. Here comes the good lady! Here comes the good lady! is heard from every lip blessing the spirit of the chaste and heroic maiden who sacrificing for her aged father her own happiness and affections and her very life, ended her lonely days in prayer on the rugged peaks of Morumendi.

"The soul of the proud, unnatural daughter comes always accompanied by black clouds presaging disaster.

"The apparition of the innocent maiden ever comes amid vapourous [sic] mists, white like her spotless soul, and announcing hope and peace.

"The lady of Amboto symbolizes ingratitude, ambition, and crime, and her spirit dwells in the midst of general execration, and is received with curses."
Source: Mariana Monteiro, Legends and Popular Tales of the Basque People, 1887, Introduction

Festa de Santa Barbara, Bahia State, Brazil

"Festa de Santa Barbara, dedicated not to the saint but to the goddess Iansã. In an example of Bahian syncretism, the patron saint of both the fire brigade and of the markets, St Barbara, is known in the Candomblé religion as the queen of thunder and lightning. The celebrations start at the Igreja de Nossa Senhora do Rosário dos Pretos, in Pelourinho. Here an effigy of the saint is picked up and taken at the front of a procession throughout the Pelourinho and other parts of the historical district of Salvador, via the fire station, where it is met with the sound of sirens. The procession ends in the Baixa dos Sapateiros, where St Barbara's market is located. Following the procession and accompanying the celebrations in the Candomblé houses, people eat caruru, a dish containing okra."   Source

School of the Seasons tells us that in Greece, Barbara is traditionally invoked for protection against smallpox. People leave offerings of honey-cakes, kollyva (boiled wheat sprinkled with cinnamon and almonds) or varvara (boiled wheat broth, pronounced like Barbara in modern Greek) at crossroads (where offerings were left in pagan times for Hekate).

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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 Sabbat Entertaining Thomas Carlyle The French Revolution John Stuart Mill On Heroes, Hero-Worship, & the Heroic in History Autobiography John Stuart Mill Thomas and Jane Carlyle Sartor Resartus Thomas Carlyle Eight Sabbats for Witches Lord of the Rings   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 A Question of Torture By Alfred McCoy When Corporations Rule the World Alternatives to Economic Globalization Feminism Without Borders Commercializat of Intimate Life By Arlie Russell Hochschild The Men Who Stare at Goats The Skeptic's Dictionary 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 Men Who Stare at Goats For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire By James Yee Celebrate the Earth A Year of Holidays in the Pagan Tradition Wheel of the Year Be A Goddess The Wiggles - Yule Be Wiggling Daily Everything Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable The Oxford Dictionary of Saints The Book of Saints The Encyclopedia of Saints Rapunzel Rapunzel Lord of the Rings Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them 365 Goddess Adventures in a TV Nation Michael Moore Drawing Down the Moon Globalization/Anti-Globalization 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 The Mary Celeste The Story of the "Mary Celeste" Ghost Ship The Mary Celeste Click to promote  your blog or website  another excellent  way we do

Barbara, Babel, barbarians and confusion In the symbolism of Barbara, we have lightning or fire, and a tower side by side. From the very earliest printed Tarot cards, one card shows a tower struck by lightning, with human beings falling from it. Its title is 'The Tower', although early on it was often called 'Fire', 'Lightning', 'Thunderbolt' or 'The House of the Devil', or sometimes 'Hell'. Psychologist Carl Jung attached importance to the Tarot, regarding its cards as representing archetypes, fundamental types of person or situation embedded in the subconscious of all human beings. The similarity of the Barbara legend and the symbolism of The Tower card (lightning juxtaposed with a tower) is striking and seems to indicate more than fortuitous association. Among numerous interpretations, The Tower stands for catastrophic and irreversible change, and the whole scene, including the falling bodies, suggests confusion and even panic.    Twin Towers If the tower, fire from the sky, and falling people are indeed strong archetypes in the collective unconscious, little wonder it is that the September 11, 2001, tragedy at the Twin Towers in New York resonated so deeply with people around the world. Many people have wondered why, terrible tragedy though it was, Americans reacted so strongly to that event (far larger numbers of people are dying around the world each day in situations as dramatic and tragic), and it might be that the answer to this puzzle is not simply that Americans value the lives of Americans more than those of other peoples (often seen as 'barbarians'), and it is possible that we might look further than the cynical uses to which 'America's Reichstag Fire' was put by the US Administration and media. The 'tower-fire-people falling' image's power might go much deeper than this. The card's fire or lightning shooting down from the heavens, indicates divine punishment, bringing to mind thoughts of the Tower of Babel and its destruction by God. According to a story in Genesis Chapter 11, the Tower of Babel was a tower built by a united humanity in order to reach the heavens. To prevent the project from succeeding, God confused their languages so that each spoke a different one and the work could not proceed. After that time, people moved away to different parts of the earth. The myth was used to explain the existence of many different languages and races. Babel has become a potent symbol of overambitious projects destined to end in confusion. The word Babel has several meanings. It is the name of a city, which translates to 'the gate to god', and in Hebrew there is a similar sounding word, which means confusion. In English, the word 'babble' is obviously similar. One notes the similarity of 'Babel' to the name 'Barbara', she of the tower, and also the possible connection of both to the word 'barbarian'. This is a disparaging term for foreigner, one not sharing a recognized culture or degree of sophistication with the speaker or writer employing the term. The word derives from the Greek, and expresses with mocking duplication ('bar-bar') alleged attempts by outsiders to speak a 'real' language. We note that since 9-11, Muslims have been racistly portrayed as barbarians; it is now common for them to be portrayed in American cartoons as hook-nosed, evil archetypes, much as Jews have been portrayed throughout Western history.   Advent (Nov 30 - Dec 25), season of the coming of Jesus Christ Feast day of St Ada St Ada was a 7th-Century nun and abbess at Saint Julien-des-Prés abbey, Le Mans, France. Feast day of St Anno, Archbishop of Cologne, confessor Feast day of St Bernardo degli Uberti Feast day of St Bertoara Feast day of St Clement of Alexandria Feast day of St Cyran Feast day of St Felix of Bologna Feast day of St Francis Galvez Feast day of St Giovanni Calabria Feast day of St Jerome de Angelis Feast day of St John Damascene (John of Damascus), Doctor of the Church This Greek Church Father (c. 676 - December 5, 749), whose poems are still  used in the Greek Orthodox liturgy, was nicknamed Chrysorrhas, or 'gold-pouring' ('the golden speaker'), because of his eloquence. He was a polymath with interests in law, theology, philosophy and music. In 1883, he was declared by the Holy See a Doctor of the Church. A legend of the 10th Century has it that his hand was miraculously restored after fervent prayer before an icon of the Virgin Mary. More Feast day of St Maruthas, bishop and confessor Feast day of St Melitus Feast day of St Osmund, bishop Feast day of St Peter Chrysologus, Archbishop of Ravenna (Barbadou gooseberry; Cactus pereshkia, is today's plant, dedicated to St Peter Chrysologus, whose feast day this is.) Feast day of St Simon Yempo Feast day of St Siran, or Sigirannus, abbot in Berry Feast day of St Theophanes Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days    Shop saints Day of the Artisans, Mexico (to honour the workers) Hari Kugo; Daitosai, or Good-Luck Market, Omiya, Japan (Nov 30 - Dec 11) Iyomante Matsuri, Kutcharo, Japan (Dec 1 - 15) Kris Kringle's Fair, Nuremberg, Germany   Source: The Daily Bleed   Navy Day, India   Celebration day for Chango, Voudon (Santeria/Yoruba/Voodoo)   Source     In Yorùbá mythology, Chango (Changó, Shango) is a God of lightning bolts, and the son of the deities Yemaya and Orungan. He is perhaps the most popular Orisha; he is a Sky Father, god of thunder and the ancestor of the Yoruba.   Shango is worshipped in Haitian Vodun, as a god of thunder and weather; in Brazilian Candomblé Ketu (under the name Xangô); in Umbanda, as the very powerful loa Nago Shango; and in Cuba, Puerto Rico and Venezuela – the equivalent of St Barbara, a traditional colonial disguise for the Deity known as Chango.   International Hug Day See also: January 21, National Hugging Day.   The Sydney 'Free Hugs' video at Google Video   First day that rain is prayed for in the Diaspora in Judaism. It is notably the only Jewish day which is tied to the civil calendar (Gregorian calendar).       1383 Antipope Felix V (Amadeus VIII of Savoy; d. November 7, 1451) 1585 John Cotton (d. 1652), American Puritan leader 1777 Jeanne Françoise Julie Adélaïde Récamier (Madame Récamier; d. 1849), writer   Carlyle Reading in the Drawing Room, by Helen Allingham, 1878 1795 Thomas Carlyle (d. February 5, 1881), 'the Sage of Chelsea', Scottish historian and writer (History of the French Revolution). Carlyle was no democrat. He believed that government must be strong and paternalistic, and even propounded the view that society should be a benevolent dictatorship. It was he who coined the expression fourth estate for the press, in Heroes and Hero Worship. He also gave the world the expression captains of industry. His classic work on the French Revolution was not published until 1837, having undergone a setback – the accidental destruction of his manuscript – that left Carlyle both impecunious and having to do a frantic rewrite. His friend and the man who had suggested to Carlyle that he write the History, John Stuart Mill, lent the manuscript of Volume One to a Mrs Taylor, whose maid mistook the precious sheaf of pages for kindling, and lit the fire with it. When Mill knocked at Carlyle's door clutching a single charred piece of paper, practically all that remained of the great manuscript, the Scottish historian was dumbfounded. However, his character was of such stuff that his concern was more for the feelings of Mill, who looked distraught, than for himself. Carlyle received the news stoically and with laudable magnanimity; he told his wife, Jane, afterward, "Mill, poor fellow, is terribly cut up. We must endeavour to hide from him how very serious this business is for us" ... Read more at the Carlyle/Mill page in the Scriptorium More on Carlyle     1802 Renier-Hubert-Ghislain Chalon (d. February 23, 1889; pictured), Belgian Bouillon duchy descendant, military officer, prominent numismatist and sometime practical joker, who was responsible for the famous Fortsas Hoax of 1840. In his later years he was made honorary life President of La Société Royale de Numismatique de Belge.   1835 Samuel Butler (d. 1902), English satirical novelist (Erewhon; The Way of All Flesh)   1849 Crazy Horse (d. 1877)