|
Click stars for Universe today
Cafe
Diem! Our store
Highly recommended:
Folklore of World Holidays
by Margaret
Read MacDonald
The Da Vinci
Code
Ancient Ways
Garden Witchery
The Twilight
of American Culture
Golden Bough
Folklore classic
Sabbat Entertaining
Celebrate the Earth
A Year of Holidays in the Pagan
Tradition
Wheel of the Year
Be A Goddess
The Five Biggest Lies Bush
Told Us About Iraq
The Oxford Dictionary of Saints
Lucifer Ascending: The
Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture
Cassell's Dictionary of Superstitions
White Noise
Encyclopedia of Superstitions
The Book of Spells
Spellcraft
The Book of Saints
The Encyclopedia of Saints
Daily Everything
Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
To support this project
Search by keywords for books, music, computers, software, home and family
products and much more.
An Inconvenient Truth
By Al Gore; DVD &
book
The Permaculture Home Garden
By Linda Woodrow
The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
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
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
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
Commercialization of Intimate Life
By Arlie Russell Hochschild
The Skeptic's Dictionary
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
10 Reasons to
Abolish the IMF & World Bank
Click to promote
your blog or website
another excellent
way we do
|
 Hangul
Day, North
Korea
From Wikipedia:
Hangul Day – also called Hangul Proclamation Day or Korean
Alphabet Day – is a Korean national commemorative day marking the
invention and the proclamation of Hangul,
the native alphabet
of the Korean
language, by King
Sejong the Great. It is observed on October
9 in South
Korea and on January
15 in North
Korea.
According to the Chronicle of King
Sejong, King Sejong proclaimed publication of Hunmin
Jeongeum (detail pictured), the document introducing the newly-created
alphabet which was also originally called by the same name, in the
ninth month of the lunar
calendar in 1446.
In 1926,
the Hangul
Society celebrated the octo-sexagesimal
(480th) anniversary of the declaration of Hangul on the
last day of the ninth month of lunar calendar, which is on November
4 of the Gregorian
calendar. Members of the Society declared it the first
observance of 'Gagyanal'. The name came from 'Gagyageul', an early
colloquial name for Hangul, based on a mnemonic recitation beginning
'gagya geogyeo'. The name of the commemorative day was changed to 'Hangullal'
in 1928,
soon after the term 'Hangul'
coined originally in 1913
by Ju
Si-gyeong, became widely accepted as the new name for the
alphabet. The day was then celebrated according to the lunar
calendar.
In 1931,
the celebration of the day switched to October
29 of the Gregorian calendar. In 1934
arose the claim that they must assume that Julian
calendar (Julian day calculator (pop-up)
) was used in 1446, so the day was again changed to October
28.
The discovery in 1940 of an original copy
of the Hunmin
Jeongeum Haerye, a volume of commentary to the Hunmin
Jeongeum that appeared not long after the document it commented
upon, revealed that the Hunmin Jeongeum was announced during
the first ten days (sangsun) of the ninth month. The tenth
day of the ninth month of 1446 of the lunar calendar was
equivalent to October
9 of the Julian
calendar. After the South
Korean government was established in 1945,
Hangul Day was declared as a legal holiday to be marked on October
9, on which governmental workers are excused from work.
Its legal status as a holiday was removed
in 1991
due to pressure from major
employers to increase the number of working days, along with the
introduction of the Korean United
Nations Day. However, Hangul Day still retains legal status as a
national commemoration day. Hangul Society has campaigned to restore
the holiday's former status, but with little impact.
North
Korea celebrates the equivalent Chosŭn'gŭl Day on
January 15 to mark the day in 1444
(1443
in the lunar calendar), which is believed to be that of the actual
creation of Hunmin Jeongeum.
Some American
and German
linguists,
including late James
D McCawley, celebrate this day yearly to recognise the creation
of the Korean alphabet as a linguistic achievement of global
significance.
Second
day of the Carmentalia, the first being January 11
A half holiday, kept
principally by women.
Today
is the second of two important festivals of Carmentalia, for the Camenae, nymphs of
prophecy, identified with the Nine Muses. Their chief deity is
Carmenta (or
Carmentis), goddess of prophecy, protector of women in childbirth.
Her name is derived from carmen, meaning 'magic spell',
'oracle' or 'song', and is also the roots of the word
'charm'. Carmenta was said to
have invented the 15-letter Latin alphabet.
These
were among the most distinguished festivals of the Roman matrons.
Roman
festivals and notable days in the Book of Days
Orion
culminates
"On this night at about 10 PM, the constellation Orion
culminates, or reaches its highest point. To the ancients it was the
best known constellation and the resemblance of the pattern to a tunic
with a belt, and the bow being shot at Taurus, was obvious to the
Greeks, to whom it was known in 425 BC. The Egyptian pyramids are
arranged in the pattern of Orion's primary stars."
Source
Orion, a constellation
often referred to as 'The Hunter', is a prominent constellation,
perhaps the best-known in the sky. Its brilliant stars, on the celestial
equator and visible throughout the world, make this
constellation universally recognized. It is named for
Orion
the Hunter, one of the Titans
of Greek
mythology, the archetype
of the primordial hunter in Greek culture.
Orion is standing next to the river Eridanus
with his two hunting dogs Canis
Major and Canis
Minor, fighting Taurus
the bull. Other prey of his, such as Lepus
the hare,
can be found nearby.
In Australia,
the belt and sword of Orion are sometimes called the Saucepan,
because the stars of Orion's belt and sword resemble this kitchen
utensil as seen from the southern hemisphere. Orion's Belt is called
The Three Kings' (or 'The
Magi') in some places and, in South America, it is known as 'Las
Tres Marias' or 'As Três Marias' (The
Three Marys), in honour of Mary
of Nazareth, Mary
Magdalene, and Mary
of Bethany, three major New
Testament figures.
 Orion
the Hunter
While there is dispute about this deity and
his origins, some mythographers
site the birthplace of Orion in Boeotia,
the fertile heart of civilized Hellas,
whose folk the Boeotian poet Hesiod
described as farmers in the winter and sailors in the summer season.
Though some say Orion sprang directly from Gaia,
the Earth Mother, others make his father Gaia's grandson Atlas,
who equally has his great feet planted in the sea.
Others select Poseidon
for his father and the beautiful and awful Gorgon
Euryale
for his mother, the "wide-ranging" one, she of the
"wide salt sea" (eureia halys [Kerenyi 1976, p.42]),
herself a grand-daughter of Gaia.
Orion's birth in Boeotia took place at
Hyrai, an ancient place mentioned in Homer's
catalogue
of the ships that set forth to fetch Helen
home from Troy.
Ovid
in his Fabulae invents a tale of a king "Hyreus",
father of Orion, but no 'Hyraeius' dwelt at Hyrai. Like
some other archaic names of Greek cities, such as Athenai
or Mycenae,
Hyrai is a plural form: its name once had evoked the place of
'the sisters of the beehive'. According to
Hesychius
of Alexandria,
the Cretan word hyron meant 'swarm of bees' or 'beehive' (Kerenyi,
1976, pp 42-3). Through his 'beehive' birthplace Orion is linked to
Potnia Theron,
the Minoan-Mycenaean 'Mistress' older than Demeter
– who was herself sometimes called "the pure Mother
Bee". Winged, armed with toxin, creators of the fermentable
honey (see mead),
seemingly parthenogenetic in their immortal hive, bees functioned as
emblems of other embodiments of the Great
Mother: Cybele,
Rhea
the Earth Mother, and the archaic Artemis
as honoured at Ephesus.
Pindar
remembered that the Pythian
pre-Olympic priestess of Delphi remained 'the Delphic bee' long
after Apollo
had usurped the ancient oracle and shrine. The Homeric
Hymn to Apollo acknowledges that Apollo's gift of prophecy first
came to him from three bee-maidens.
Source: Wikipedia
Deities
of many cultures in the Book of Days
Feast day of the Ass, ancient Rome
Commemorates Vesta and the ass that
saved her.
Source: The Phoenix and
Arabeth 1992 Calendar
Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ægypticus or
dies mala), unlucky day in
Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord"
was the associated saying.)
Feast day of St Alexander
Feast day of St Blaithmaic
Feast day of St Bonitus,
bishop of Auvergne
Feast day of St Britta
Feast day of St Ceolwulf
Feast day of St Ephysius of
Sardinia
Feast day of St Geoffrey of
Peronne
Feast day of St Gwrnerth
Feast day of St Habakkuk, 7th-Century BCE
Old Testament
prophet in Judea during the time of the captivity
Feast day of St Isidore the
Egyptian, priest and hospitaller of Alexandria
Feast day of St Ita (Deirdre;
Ida; Ita of Killeedy; Meda; Mida; Ides; Ytha),
virgin abbess
The Roman
Catholic Church today commemorates this Irish
nun (c. 475
- January
15, 570),
also called the 'Brigid
of Munster',
who was born in the present County of Waterford
and is second only to St Brigid in popular Irish devotion.
She became a nun, settling down at a place
in County Limerick
originally called Cluain Chreadháil,
that is, 'Church of St Ita', later
renamed Cill Íde then
Killeedy as it is today.
Her austerities are told by St Cuimin of
Down,
and numerous miracles
are recorded of her.
She was also endowed with the gift of prophecy
and was held in great veneration
by a large number of contemporary saints,
men as well as women. When she felt her end approaching she sent for
her community of nuns, and invoked the blessing of heaven on the
clergy and laity of the district around Killeedy. Not alone was St.
Ita a saint, but she was the foster-mother of many saints, including
St Brendan
the Navigator, St Pulcherius
(Mochoemog), and St Cummian
Fada. At the request of Bishop Butler of Limerick, Pope Pius
IX granted a special Office and Mass for today's feast of St
Ita.
This article incorporates text from the public
domain Catholic
Encyclopedia.More
Feast day of St Malard of
Chartres
Feast day of St Maurus, abbot
Feast day of St Placid
Feast day of St Teath
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Former date of Seijin shiki
(Seijin-No-Hi), or Adults' Day, National Holiday,
Japan
Tsuruga Tsunahiki Matsuri (Tug-of-War Festival), at
Tsuruga,
Fukui
Prefecture, Japan
A festival for
Ebisu, god of luck and fishermen and merchants, and
also Daikoku (Daikokuten), god of wealth and good fortune
who evolved from the
Indian deity,
Shiva. Each deity is one of the
Seven Gods of Fortune. In the afternoon,
people dress up as the gods and parade through Tsuruga. Afterwards,
a tug-of-war, with fishermen representing Ebisu and farmers
representing Daikoku competing. The winning side will have a good
year of work.
Ebisu Daikoku Tsunahiki,
Suruga,
Fukui Prefecture, Japan
The two gods of prosperity,
Ebisu and
Daikoku (Daikokuten), compete against each other as teams representing each take part in a tug-of-war. Ebisu traditionally holds a fish, so a win for his team is said to mean good catches at sea. A win for Daikoku is said to bring good harvests.
Atami Ume Matsuri (Apricot Festival),
Atami,
Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan (Jan 15 - 17)
From the end of
December till mid-January, the early-blooming
apricot
is in flower. The festival to commemorate this includes
caged-nightingale singing contests and photography contests.
Kappa-Kappa Matsuri, at Kuroishi,
Aomori Prefecture, Japan
Young men go from door to door carrying straw bags which are for
good luck. Children carry paper dolls known as kappa-kappa. At each home
visited, the guests pray for good fortune.
Toshi-ya,
Sanjusangen-do Temple, Kyoto, Japan
Coinciding with Coming of Age Day, archers in
traditional dress line up to shoot arrows at a distant target along
the length of the famous Sanjusangen-do Temple.
Yaya
Matsuri, Yawata Jinja (Yawata Shrine) in the Chigawara district,
Amarume-machi,
Yamagata Prefecture, Japan
Young boys aged from 6 to 14
gather in the shrine grounds clad only in grass skirts, then are
dowsed with cold water by official water-dowsers. The shivering boys
parade around the neighbourhood and return to the shrine where
prayers are made for their good health. This is one of a number of
Yaya, or shouting, festivals, that take place in Japan at different
times. Another is held at
Owase on February 1 - 8.
More
Waakusayamayaki, or Wakakusayama Hill Turf Burning Event, at Nara-shi, Nara,
Nara Prefecture, Japan
A trumpet signals the lighting of
the fire on Wakakusayama Hill in Nara Park, with participants
costumed as warrior monks. This festival is held in the evening,
starting at dusk, to remind the citizens of the burning of the hill
a thousand years ago, which marked the amicable dispute over the
boundaries of two famous temples; now it helps to get rid of harmful
insects. Fireworks and amusements take place, and 33
hectares of grass are burnt.
Chakkirako, at Miura-shi, Kainan-Jinja
Shrine, Kanagawa
Prefecture, Japan
In this fishing village, young people dance, accompanied not by instruments but by their own singing, with the rhythm beaten out by bamboo sticks called
chakkirako, consisting of bells and paper pennants with a wooden handle.
An ancient dance is performed by ten or more young girls wearing their best traditional
kimonos, with ayadake (paper- wrapped bamboo percussion instrument). The name of the festival is onomatopoeic from the sound of this instrument.
Nozawa Dosojin Himatsuri, Nozawa Onsen,
Nagano Prefecture, Japan
A famous fire festival in which a 15-metre (50-ft) shrine built by 25- and 42-year-old men (considered unlucky ages in Japan) is burned as a ritual of purification that prepares the people for the coming year.
Matobakai, Kumamoto,
Kumamoto
Prefecture, Japan
Naked festival in which loincloth-wearing men fight for possession of an archery target in a crowd that starts in the town, moves on to the coast and ends up in the sea.
Ume Matsuri, Atami Baien,
Atami,
Shizuoka Prefecture, Japan
All manner of ume (plum) related goods on offer and a range of entertainments to celebrate the plum blossoms at one of the most famous plum-viewing spots in Japan.
Japanese festivals
information from Bauer, Helen, and Carlquist, Sherwin, Japanese
Festivals, Doubleday & Co, Garden City, New York, 1965,
et al
Matsuri,
or Japanese festivals at Wikipedia
Pilgrimage
of Cristo Negro de Esquipulas, Guatemala
The annual pilgrimage of the Black
Christ of
Esquipulas rivals that of Our Lady Of
Guadalupe for sheer size and spectacle. Thousands of pilgrims,
largely indigenous Guatemalans, form a queue that stretches around
the cathedral of Esquipulas, into the entrance of the white
basilica. Some pilgrims crawl on their knees and elbows for about a
mile from the old church to the new.
In
1595, a swarthy crucifix, carved from dark balsam wood, was
installed in the church. Christian pilgrimages to the church began
after 1737 when the Archbishop of Guatemala visited and went away
cured of a chronic illness. However, the pilgrimage might have pre-Christian
origins: local folklore tells of pilgrims coming to the mountain
valley when the
Maya
civilization was still a young culture.
Arbor Day, Jordan
Día Del Maestro (Teachers' Day), Venezuela
Martin Luther King Day, some
USA States
(3rd Monday in
January)
The
Birthday of Martin Luther King, Jr, often called Martin Luther King
Day, is a United
States holiday
honouring the Reverend Dr Martin
Luther King, Jr, observed on the third Monday of January each
year, around the time of King's birthday, namely today.
The holiday
was the result of a large-scale campaign headed by a number of
activists. One of the most notable of these was musician
Stevie
Wonder, who released the single 'Happy
Birthday' to popularize the campaign in 1980 and hosted the
Rally for Peace Press Conference in 1981.
Opposition to the Bill was led by Sen. Jesse
Helms who questioned whether King was important enough to
receive such an honor. He was also critical of King's opposition to
the Vietnam
War and alleged Communist connections.
At the White
House Rose
Garden on November
2, 1983,
USA President Ronald
Reagan signed a bill creating a federal holiday to honour King.
It was observed for the first time on January
20, 1986.
On January
18, 1999,
for the first time, Martin Luther King Day was officially observed
in all fifty USA states. The day is marked by demonstrations
for peace,
social
justice and racial
and class
equality, as well as a national day of volunteer community
service.
On January
16, 2006,
Greenville
County, South Carolina became the last county in the USA officially
to adopt Martin Luther King Day as a paid holiday.
Although the day is a federal holiday and a
state holiday in all states, it is usually not observed by small
private companies except for banks. Many large corporations close
their operations (more so than on Veterans
Day or Columbus
Day, which are also federal holidays, but less so than on
holidays such as Memorial
Day or Labor
Day when virtually all corporations are closed), but small
shops, restaurants, and grocery
stores tend to remain open. The reasons for this have varied,
ranging from the recent addition of the holiday (each year more
businesses are closed than the year before) to its occurrence just
two weeks after the week between Christmas
and New
Year's Day, when many businesses are closed for part of or
sometimes all of the week. Additionally, some schools and places of
higher education are closed for classes; others remain open but may
hold seminars or celebrations of Dr King's message.
Source:
Wikipedia
John
Chilembwe Day, Malawi
Cheilembwe is a national hero of
the African country.
Makaravilakku
(Makara Sankranthy) at
Sabarimala, Kerala,
India
(see January
14)
The Thiruvabharana procession is one of the important features of
the Makaravilakku festival, the second part of the annual
congregation at the hill shrine Sabarimala. Jallikattu,
South India
Wikipedia
Day
January
15 is known as Wikipedia Day to Wikipedians.
On this date in the year 2001,
the Wikipedia
went public after spending five days on Nupedia
(see Project
beginnings and see 2001 historical entry below). To celebrate,
why not celebrate by writing an encyclopaedia article on a topic of
your choice? See
Help:Starting
a new page.
1432 Afonso V 'the African' ,
king of Portugal (1438 - '81)
1622 Jean Baptiste
Molière (Jean-Baptiste
Poquelin;
d. 1673), French
actor and playwright
1809
Pierre-Joseph
Proudhon
(d. January
19, 1865),
French
anarchist
of the 19th Century. Born in Besançon,
Doubs,
France,
he is most famous for asserting "Property is theft", in
his missive What is Property? Or, an Inquiry into the
Principle of Right of Government.
In the same book, he became the first person to
call himself an anarchist, a word which had previously been used as
a term of abuse during the French Revolution.
"French
socialist-anarchist.
To his own question, 'What is property?', Proudhon answered
famously, 'Property is theft!'. Proudhon called for a complete
reorganization of modern society that abolished most of its
trappings – including money and the state itself. He advocated
communitarianism as the form of reorganization of society. He
argued that 'goodwill' would emerge naturally once these 'social constructs' were gone.
"Karl Marx
directed his Poverty of Philosophy (1847) directly against
Proudhon."
Source
The Poverty of Philosophy
More
1842 Blessed
Mary
MacKillop (d. August
8 [her feast day], 1909), Australian nun, likely to become Australia's first native-born saint. She was beatified
January 19, 1995 by Pope
John Paul
II.
1842 Paul
Lafargue, Karl
Marx's wayward son-in-law and author of The
Right to be Lazy, which argues that laziness,
combined with human creativity,
is an important source of human progress. At the age of 69, he and
his wife Laura (Marx's daughter) died together in a suicide
pact.
See also Bob
Black's 'The
Abolition of Work', in the Scriptorium
1906 Aristotle Onassis (d. 1975), Greek
shipping tycoon, born Smyrna, Turkey
1908 Edward Teller (d. September 9, 2003), Hungarian-born
American nuclear physicist;
known as the father of the hydrogen bomb in the United States.
A |
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Feast day of St Paul the Hermit
(the First Hermit; Paul of Thebes)
