Al Hijra
('id Al-Adhha; Eid Ul-Adhha; Eid Al-Adha),
Islamic New Year (2004)
Also known as: Rabi Al-Awwal
A note
about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac
The first day of the month of
Muharram, this Muslim
holy day is rather a low-key event in the Muslim world,
celebrated less than the two major festivals of Eid-ul-Fitr and
Eid-ul-Adha. The Qur'an
uses the word Hijra to mean moving from a bad place or state of
affairs to a good one. It marks the Hijra (or Hegira) in 622 CE when
the Prophet Muhammad moved from Mecca to Medina, and set up the
first Islamic state. The Muslim calendar counts dates from the Hijra,
therefore Muslim dates have the suffix AH (After Hijra).
" … not generally celebrated as an official
Islamic holiday, although many Muslim communities have devised
or revived some kind of new year ritual celebration. This
celebration is frowned upon by fundamentalists." Source:
Wikipedia
There is no specific religious ritual
required on this day, though Muslims will think about the general
meaning of the Hijra, and possibly make New Year resolutions.
"On Feb 22nd 2004, the new year will be
1425. The Muslim calendar, based on the moon, alternates between
months of 29 and 30 days. This results in the 354 day year
shifting constantly on in a 30 year cycle. Its starting point
remembered the flight from Mecca of Mohammed (622 CE).
"The Islamic New Year's Day is
celebrated by telling stories of the prophet's life and giving
extra time during the night for prayer. This day celebrates the
anniversary of Mohammed and his followers' migration from Mecca
where he was opposed. People from a different city heard Mohammed
preach at a fair and returned to their city, now called al-Medina,
with the new faith to heal local civil strife. Mohammed went their
[sic] a year later and became their guide and leader
until his death ten years later." Source
More on
Muslim holidays
Powamu,
Pueblo/Hopi purification ceremony, (Feb 12 - 28)
Sounkyo Ice
Festival, Sounkyo Onsen (spa), Hokkaido, Japan (Jan 29 - Mar 5)
Lesser Eleusinia,
ancient Greece (Feb 20 - 23)
Festivals in ancient Greece
Feast day of St Abilius
Feast day of St Baradates
He lived in a trellis-hut, exposed
to the elements, and dressed in animal skins.
Feast day of the Chair of
Saint Peter (Cathedra Petri)
"The feast of the Chair of Saint Peter
commemorates the establishment of the see of Rome by Saint Peter
the Apostle … The celebration was held in Vatican Basilica,
and in a cemetery on the Via Salaria. At each place a chair
(cathedra) was venerated which the Apostle had used while
presiding at Mass.
"One of the chairs is referred to about 600 by
an Abbot Johannes who had been commissioned by Pope Gregory the
Great to collect in oil from the lamps which burned at the graves
of the Roman martyrs. One of these phials, preserved in the
cathedral treasury of Monza, Italy, had a label reading, 'oleo
de sede ubi prius sedit sanctus Petrus' (oils from the
chair where Saint Peter first sat). The feast of the Cathedra
Petri was therefore celebrated on the Via Salaria on 18
January; in the Vatican Basilica it was observed on 22
February." Source
Saint Peter (died c. 67) was one of
the Twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ in the New Testament. His original name was Simon,
but he was given the nickname of Peter, which means rock
or stone in Greek (Petros). Saint Paul generally called him Cephas
or Kephas,
which is the Aramaic equivalent of the nickname.
His patronage includes against frenzy,
bakers, bridge builders, butchers, clock makers, cobblers, feet problems,
fever,
fishermen, foot problems,
harvesters, locksmiths, longevity, masons, net makers, the papacy, Rome, ship builders, shipwrights, shoemakers, stone masons and watch makers.
Feast day
of the Chair of Peter at Antioch
"A second feast is known to have taken
place on 22 February,
traditionally the day when Peter bore witness, by the Sea of
Tiberias, to the Divinity of Christ and was again appointed by
Christ to be the Rock of His Church, and the day Peter was
chosen first pope, but this was in Antioch, not Rome." Source
Saint
Peter's Basilica in Vatican
City See
also Feast day of Ss Peter and Paul
Feast day of St John the
Saxon
Feast
day of St Margaret of
Cortona
(Herb Margaret, Bellis
perennis, is
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Margaret was a penitent who,
with a rope around her neck, asked public pardon for her sins, punished her flesh and worked miracles. She prophesied the date of
her own death.
Her patronage includes against temptations, falsely accused people,
hoboes, homeless people, insanity,
loss of parents,
mental illness,
mentally ill people,
midwives, penitent women, people ridiculed for their piety,
reformed prostitutes,
sexual temptation,
single laywomen and tramps.
Feast day of the Martyrs of Arabia
Feast day of St Pedicule of the Hairshirt
Feast day of St Stefan
Wincenty Frelichowski
Feast day of St Telesphorus
Feast day of Ss Thalasius and Limneus
St Thalasius lived in a cavern, extraordinary gifts, "but
was a treasure unknown to the world". St Limneus was his
disciple, famous for miraculous cures of the sick.
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Washington's Birthday, United States (traditionally)
Independence Day (1979), Saint
Lucia
The Sunday before Lent
A
note about the dating of items in Wilson's Almanac
Hall Sunday
(moveable
feast, February 22 in 2004)
The Sunday before Shrove Tuesday
(February 24 in 2004), followed by Hall Monday or Hall Night. A contraction of
'hallow', meaning 'holy'. Hall Monday also known as Collop Monday from the custom of celebrating with a dish of collops (steaks).
After
Shrove Tuesday follows Lent, the forty days' fast preceding Easter.
Calculator for
Easter Date
Thursday before Lent,
Fettiger Donnerstag, Swabia, Germany
Fettiger Donnerstag ('greasy
Thursday'), is so called because of the greasy cakes and pastries,
or Küchli that are traditionally baked on this day in
preparation for the dietary restrictions of the Lent fast.
Sunday before Lent,
Forgiveness Sunday, Ohrid,
Yugoslav Macedonia
Oprostenjedan. Families eat a fish supper together. Afterwards, the
father chooses a boiled egg from a dishful on table, threads it on a
string which is fastened to a stick. He holds this over own mouth
then over that of each family member. Each must take turn at getting
it to his own lips without using the hands. Then father dissects and
distributes the egg. Using shell-halves as cups he proposes a toast:
Fleas and bugs keep away from our
homes
And remain in the mountains afar!
Venetia
Newall, An Egg at Easter: A
Folklore Study, Routledge & Kegan Paul, London, 1971, p. 252
Sunday before Lent, Cheese Sunday, Greece
People spread egg-shell in the streets and
cry, "Out with fleas and bugs!" A spring-cleaning fest.
Sunday and Monday before Lent, Lisbon, Portugal
In Lisbon, on the Sunday and Monday preceding Lent, they played
April Fools' jokes: water is thrown on people, or powder thrown on
their face.
Before Lent, Albania
Garlic must be eaten
before Lent as a charm against witchcraft. But the protective will
not take effect if there is an egg in the house, which presumably
could be used to cast a spell. There are various ways in which a
spell might be cast: an unsuspecting victim might eat an egg with a
hex on it.
Newall;
ibid,
p. 89
Last days before Lent; Poland; girl auction
Young man bargained
for his sweetheart. Taken to the byre, set in a manger full of hay,
and careful physical examination given, including her teeth. The
successful bidder was rewarded at Easter with a gift of exquisitely
decorated coloured eggs, up to 100, in a hand-embroidered hankie.
Newall; ibid, p. 125
B-P Day
(Founder's Day; Thinking Day), Scouting
movement
The Scouting movement celebrates this day, as as it is the shared
birthday of the Scouts' founder Sir Robert Baden-Powell and his
wife, Lady Olave Baden-Powell, the World Chief Guide.
10000 BCE Pebbles
Flintstone, the red-haired daughter of Fred and Wilma
Flintstone, all fictional
characters in the animated series
The Flintstones
1440 Ladislaus
Posthumus of Bohemia and Hungary
1732 George Washington (d. 1799), first President of the United
States (Note: February 11 in the Julian Calendar that was then still in
use).
Washington and the Stars 'n' Stripes
The Washington
family coat of arms contained three five-pointed stars
('mullets') and four horizontal bars. It is possible that the
Stars and Stripes was modelled on this.
The Apotheosis
of George Washington – man becomes deity
The image
recapitulated
1778 Rembrandt Peale,
artist1788 Arthur Schopenhauer
(d. 1860), German philosopher who
considered true philosophy as art, and accessible for only a few
heads of the first order
1796 Lambert
Adolphe Jacques Quetelet (d. 1874), mathematician1817 Carl
Wilhelm Borchardt, mathematician 1819 James Russell Lowell, (d. 1891) American
poet, author and diplomat
1839 Francis
Pharcellus Church
(d. 1906), American editor and publisher1840 August Bebel
(d. 1913),
politician 1849 Nikolay
Yakovlevich Sonin (d. 1915), Russian mathematician 1857 Sir Robert Baden-Powell (d. 1941),
British hero of the Boer
War and founder of the Scouting
movement 1857 Heinrich Hertz,
(d. 1894)
German physicist
1864 Jules Renard, French writer in
the vein of La Fontaine and
La
Bruyère. His prose, stripped of
superfluous words, influenced later French writers. Best known for
his childhood memoirs, Carrots.
1872 Eric Gill, British
sculptor,
typographer
and engraver
who designed the
typefaces Perpetua and Gill Sans
 1879 Norman
Lindsay (d. November 21,
1969), prolific Australian artist, sculptor and author who
scandalised many in his nation by his passion for the human form,
but today is widely acknowledged as possibly Australia's greatest
artist.
Much of his work was published in The Bulletin,
and he also executed book cover illustrations for works by
Bulletin author and poet,
Henry Lawson.
Lindsay's vast output of etchings, painting, cartoons, sculptures and so
on often incorporated pagan European themes of gods, goddesses
satyrs and nymphs, often in an Australian bushland setting.
His book, The
Magic Pudding, remains a classic of children's literature.
"In 1912 he moved to Springwood in the Blue
Mountain region of New South Wales. Except for a short hiatus in
the late 30's, he would live there until he died. If you've seen
the movie, Sirens, you've seen the actual house and
grounds. It's now
The Norman Lindsay Gallery and Museum
and is open to the public. Lindsay created cement statuary, carved
and decorated the furniture, designed and built chairs and most of
all he drew. One of his pen drawings, The Crucified Venus,
actually did create the stir depicted in the film and was even
removed from a Melbourne art show until the president of the
Society of Artists threatened to remove ALL the paintings from
the exhibit unless Lindsay's drawing was reinstated. It was." Source
Shop
Norman Lindsay
Lindsay
chronology
Lawson
& Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson
1878 Walter
Ritz (d. 1909), Swiss physicist1880 Frigyes Riesz,
mathematician
 1886
Hugo
Ball (pictured; d. September 14,
1927), Dada
poet and author (Flametti;
Zur Kritik der deutschen Intelligenz), born
at Pirmasens, Germany. A staunch pacifist, he
left Germany during World War I for neutral Switzerland in 1916.
Way
ahead of his time, in Zurich on
February 5, 1916 he
founded Cabaret Voltaire,
frequented by such luminaries as
Tristan Tzara,
Jean Arp, Guillaume
Apollinaire,
Marcel Janco, Vassily
Kandinsky, Amedeo
Modigliani, Pablo Picasso,
Max
Oppenheimer,
Jules Laforgue
and Vladimir Lenin.
His intentions with regard to Cabaret Voltaire (the club) he defined as follows:
"It is necessary to clarify the intentions of this cabaret. It is its aim to remind the world that there are people of independent minds – beyond war and nationalism – who live for different ideals."
This he wrote in 'Lorsque je fondis le Cabaret Voltaire' ('Why I founded the Cabaret Voltaire'), in
Cabaret Voltaire, the eponymous magazine he founded on June 15, 1916.
"Everybody their own
football."
Dada:
| reetings from Australia.
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