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Folklore of World Holidays
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Read MacDonald
Zodiac by Degrees
All Around the Zodiac
The 13th Sign
The Secret Language of Birthdays
American
Dynasty
Worse Than Watergate
John
Dean
Folk and Fairy Tales
Fraud
Firewalking and Religious Healing
The Death Rituals of Rural Greece
The Triumph of the Moon
Plan of Attack
Salam Pax
The
Baghdad Blogger
The Pagan Book of Days
The Rise of the Creative
Class
Celebrate the Earth
A Year of Holidays in the Pagan
Tradition
Wheel of the Year
The Trouble
with Islam
Dossier:
Secret History of Armand Hammer
Brave Hearts, Rebel
Spirits
The Five Biggest Lies Bush
Told Us About Iraq
Lady Godiva
Lucifer Ascending: The
Occult in Folklore and Popular Culture
Activists Beyond
Borders
Seeds of Deception
Gaian
Democracies
Cutting Your Car Use
Spellcraft
The Book of Saints
The Da Vinci
Code
Daily Everything
Brewer's
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
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What
Would Jefferson Do?
By Thom
Hartmann
Methods of Nonviolent Action
The
Torture Debate in America
The
Culture of the New Capitalism
Pagan
Christianity
By Robert Fisk
The God Who Wasn't There
A
Question of Torture
By Alfred McCoy
When Corporations Rule the World
Outfoxed - Rupert Murdoch's War on
Journalism
The Corporation
Highly recommended DVD
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 Skeptic's Dictionary
Shaking the Foundations: 200 Years of
Investigative Journalism in America
By Bruce Shapiro
A Dictionary of Saints Days, Fasts, Feasts and
Festivals
Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them
365 Goddess
Adventures in a TV Nation
Michael
Moore
Drawing Down the Moon
Globalization/Anti-Globalization
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Aries Taurus Gemini Cancer
Leo
Virgo
Libra
Scorpius
Ophiuchus
Sagittarius
Capricornus
Aquarius
Pisces
 Sun enters Gemini, 3rd sign of the Zodiac
(May
21 - June 20)
Gemini (the twins) is one of the constellations of the zodiac.
It is part of the northern winter sky, lying between Taurus to the west and the dim
Cancer to the east, with Auriga and the near-invisible Lynx to the north and Monoceros
and Canis Minor to the south. The Gemini program is named for it.
Gemini includes two bright stars,
named after the two twins, who correspond to the Dioscuri
in Greek mythology – Castor (α), a pretty telescopic binary
(actually sextuple), and Pollux (β), which is brighter and
more south-westerly. The other stars are relatively dim – only one,
Alhena (γ) is ever seen from a large city – and trace out a
rectangle to the southeast.
This constellation is identified with the Dioscuri,
Castor and Pollux (or Polydeuces), for whom its brightest stars are
also named. These twin brothers were the brothers of Helen of Troy and Clytemnestra, by Leda.
The astrological sign Gemini (May 21 - June
20) is associated with the constellation. In some cosmologies,
Gemini is associated with the classical element Air, and thus called an Air Sign
(with Libra and Aquarius). Its polar opposite is Sagittarius.
Astrology
The
Real Constellations of the Zodiac
Astrology: Pro Astrology: Con
The brothers Bagadjimbiri
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
In Australian Aboriginal mythology (specifically:
Karadjeri), the Bagadhimbiri are two
brothers and creator gods. They arose from the ground as dingos
and made water-holes,
sex
organs (from a mushroom and another fungus)
for the androgynous first people, and invented circumcision. Taking human
form, the Bagadjimbiri began an argument with Ngariman,
a cat-person.
Ngariman was annoyed by the Bagadjimbiri's laughter. He killed the
brothers underground, but was drowned by Dilga,
their mother, who flooded the underground murder-spot with her milk,
which also revived her sons. The Bagadjimbiri eventually turned into
snakes
and went to live in the sky as clouds.
A list of twins,
including multiple twins,
conjoined twins,
modern twin celebrities, twins in sports, mythological
twins, historical twins, fictional twins, famous people who had a
twin and records related to twins.
Hi'ikia and Cho'i
the Twins, a Yaqui
myth
More
twin stories at Sacred Texts Dioscuri
at Sacred Texts
Ollin, Aztec calendar
Today is Ollin
in the Aztec
calendar, a good day for transmutation, which arrives like an
earthquake, leaving in its wake the ruins of rationality, order and
the preconceived. Source
Festival of
Demeter (Ceres) and
Persephone,
ancient Greece
Simbi blanc, Voudon
(Voodoo), (May 20 - 21)
 Anastenaria, fire-walking festival,
northern Greece (May 21 - 23)
Held on the day of Saints
Constantine
(Roman emperor Constantine the Great) and
his mother Helena, this day is known as the
Anastenaria among the villagers of Ayia Eleni near Serres, and of
Langada near Thessaloniki. The ritual dates back to pre-Christian
times and was brought here by refugees from Eastern Thrace who
arrived in Greece in the 1920s.
Various
songs are associated with the Anastenaria, such as 'Mikrokostandinos' (Little Constantine).
Following today's firewalk, the Anastenarides process
around the village visiting each house in a counter-clockwise
direction. On the final day, May 23, a second dance over the fire is
held away from the curious eyes of tourists.
Folklore scholar George A Megas
observes that "the cradle of Dionysiac
worship was precisely in the Haemus area where the Anastenaria are
danced today, passed down by the Greeks to the neighboring Bulgarian
villages".
"The Anastenaria is a traditional ritual of fire walking which dates back to pagan times. Barefoot villagers of Ayia Eleni near Serres, and of Langada near Thessaloniki, and other places, annually walk over hot coals. As there are variations in the ritual from place to place, the following description is largely based upon the performance of the festival as celebrated at Ayia Eleni, the most authoritative Anastenarian community, and the illustrations are from the ritual at
Langada." Source
Firewalking
Firewalking
– Skeptic's Dictionary
More (translated from the
Greek) More
And
more
Feast day of St Adalric
Feast day of St Ageranus
Feast day of St Ansuinus
Feast day of St Berard
Feast day of St Christopher
Magallanes
Feast day of St
Collen (Collen, Colan), monk of
Llangollen,
Abbot of Glastonbury
Collen was a
7th-Century monk who founded a
church besides the river at Llangollen (named for him), a small town
in
Denbighshire, north-east
Wales, situated on the
River Dee, at which place he is said to
have arrived by
coracle. Collen had spiritual conflict
with Gwynn
ap Nudd, King of the Fairies and Lord of the Underworld.
"Monk
in
Wales,
Brittany and
Cornwall. Believed to have travelled
to
Rome.
Hermit in a small cave near
Glastonbury.
Abbot of a
monastery in
Wales ...
"Legend says that Collen was once
invited to dine with the King of the Fairies; some say he was
asked by a man, some say by a fairy, and some say by a talking
peacock ... The saint declined three times, but finally
accepted. Though the king appeared to live in an enormous
castle, wealthy and fair, surrounded by courtiers and servants,
and seated before a table groaning under the weight of good
eatings. Collen, however, knew him for the lying spirit he was.
The saint reminded the king of the fate of the Godless, then
sprinkled holy water in all directions; in an instant there was
nothing left but an angry, demonic bird, flying away from the
scene.
"Another version has it that Collen, while he lived as a hermit
near Glastonbury, was summoned to settle the eternal May Day
struggle of Gwynn ap Nudd, Lord of the Underworld, with Gwyther,
Lord of Summer, for the hand of the fair Creiddylad, the Maiden
of Spring. Collen ordained that the quarrel would be resolved on
Doomsday, and not before. Then with a sprinkle of holy water,
the faerie folk and fortress disappeared."
Source
More
More
More
Feast day of St Constantine
the Great, Roman
emperor
Feast day of St Crispin of Viterbo (Peter
Fioretti)
He was an apprentice shoemaker who took the name of St Crispin (patron of cobblers).
Feast day of St Elena (St Helena) in the
Eastern Orthodox Church
"While discussing the link between bread and religion that runs so
deep in Italy, Waverley Root [Root, Waverley, The Food of
Italy, Scribner, 1971] comments on a ritual that takes
place at Quartu Sant'Elena, near Cagliari in Sardinia on May 21st.
The people dress in traditional costumes and make an offering to St.
Elena of eight large loaves of bread, which contain wine and honey,
and are sweetened with jam."
Source:
School of the Seasons
(Note: St Helena's feast day in the Western Church is August
18.)
Feast day of St Eugene de
Mazenod
Feast day of St Eutychius
Feast day of St Felix of Cantalicio
(Ragged robin, Lychnis flos cuculi, is
today's plant, dedicated to this saint.)
Feast day of St Genesius
Feast day of St Godric
(Godrick), hermit, of Finchale, or Finkley, England
Godric (c. 1065 - May 21, c. 1170) visited Lindisfarne, and
being moved by an account of the life of St Cuthbert,
converted to Christianity. There are many
legends about his affinity with animals.
"In the time of Rainulf, Bishop of Durham, certain of his household had come out for a day's hunting, with their hounds, and were following a stag which they had singled out for its beauty. The creature, hard pressed by the clamor and the baying, made for Godric's hermitage, and seemed by its plaintive cries to beseech his help.
"The old man [Godric] came out, saw the stag shivering and exhausted at his gate, and moved with pity bade it hush its moans, and opening the door of his hut, let it go in. The creature dropped at the good father's feet but he, feeling that the hunt was coming near, came out, shut the door behind him and sat down in the open; while the dogs, vexed at the loss of their quarry, turned back with a mighty baying upon their masters.
"They, nonetheless, following on the track of the stag, circled round about the place, plunging through the well-nigh impenetrable brushwood of thorns and briars; and hacking a path with their blades, came upon the man of God in his poor rags.
"They questioned him about the stag; but he would not be the betrayer of his guest, and he made prudent answer, 'God knows where he may be.' They looked at the angelic beauty of his countenance, and in reverence for his holiness, they fell before him and asked his pardon for their bold intrusion.
"Many a time afterwards they would tell what had befallen them there, and marvel at it, and by their oft telling of it, the thing was kept in memory by those that came after. But the stag kept house with Godric until the evening; and then he let it go free. But for years thereafter it would turn from its way to visit him, and lie at his feet, to show what gratitude it could for its deliverance" (Reginald).
Source
More on
saints and deer in the Scriptorium
More
Feast day of St Hospitius,
recluse in Provence
Feast day of St Isberga
Feast day of St Rodron
Feast day of St Serapion the Sindonite
Feast day of St Sifrard
Feast day of St Theobald of Vienne
Feast day of St Vales
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days Shop saints
Lilies and Roses Day, London
Observed at the Tower of London in commemoration of the death of
Henry VI, May 21, 1471 (founder of Eton College and King's
College). Services are attended by representatives of both colleges,
bearing lilies and roses.
Battle of Iquique Day, or
Navy Day,
Chile
Día de las Glorias Navales.
Victory of naval battle of May 21,
1879; a public holiday.
Mikuni Minato
Matsuri, or Port Festival, Japan (May 19 - 21)
World Day for Cultural Diversity for Dialogue and Development
(UNESCO)
Further to the adoption of UNESCO's
Universal Declaration on Cultural Diversity in November 2001,
the General Assembly of the United Nations welcomed the Declaration
and the main lines of the Action Plan and proclaimed May 21 as World Day for Cultural Diversity for
Dialogue and Development (Resolution
57/249).
More
More
Casinga Day, NamibiaDia
de la Afrocolombianidad, Colombia
Commemoration of the date slavery was abolished in Colombia in
1851.
Schizophrenia
Awareness Week begins (dates vary from year to year and in
different countries)
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
428 BCE
Plato,
Greek philosopher (The
Republic; The Last Days of
Socrates)
1471
Albrecht Dürer
(Albrecht Durer; d. April 6, 1528),
German painter, printmaker, draughtsman and art theorist, best known for his woodcuts
in series
More
1527 King Philip II of Spain (d. 1598)
1688 Alexander Pope (d. 1744), English
poet, satirist and translator.
Although he
suffered an illness at 12 that left him a hunchback, he was
acclaimed the chief poet of his day by the time he was 30. His
translations of Homer were so successful that he became the first
English poet to make his fortune by writing. Pope is still famous
for his witty satires and aggressive, bitter quarrels with other
writers. After his edition of William Shakespeare was attacked he
answered with the mock-epic
The Dunciad (1728).
 1780
Elizabeth Fry (d. October 12,
1845) English social reformer and philanthropist noted especially for her
work among prisoners, making efforts to improve the
treatment of prisoners deported to Australia.
She also helped the homeless,
establishing a night shelter in London
after seeing the body of a young boy in the winter of 1819/1820. A
committee of women headed by Fry lent their support by trying to
find employment for the jobless. Fry's work was restricted after
her husband became bankrupt in 1828. She
died at Ramsgate in 1845 and
was buried in the Friends' (Quakers')
burial ground at Barking. In 2002 she
was depicted on the Bank of England
five pound note, as seen here.
1832
Hudson Taylor
(d. June 3,
1905),
British
Protestant
Christian
physician and
missionary to China,
and founder of the China Inland Mission (now
OMF
International)
More
1844 Henri Rousseau (d. 1910), French naïve artist
1898 Armand Hammer (d. December 10, 1990),
American physician, entrepreneur, oil magnate,
art collector, founder of Occidental
Petroleum when he was in his 60s.
New York-born billionaire Dr Armand Hammer led a most
extraordinary life as an American businessman and a confidant of US
presidents as well as Communist dictators. As a youth, he met Lenin and was
the first capitalist to gain a business concession in the USSR;
during the 1920s he was a courier for the Soviet government to the
American Communist Party.
It might even have been a job he continued into his old age.
The new Marxist-Leninist regime in the USSR gave
Hammer the rights to sell old Czarist paintings in the West, and he
amassed a fortune as a young man. Many American and other art
galleries and institutions as well as private collectors still own
Russian masterpieces that the Communist regime and Armand Hammer
shipped out of their rightful homeland.
Good guy/bad guy?
His autobiography painted him as a philanthropist
and worker for peace, though other biographies portrayed him as a
liar, a Communist propagandist (and possibly an espionage agent
through several US administrations), a bully and a briber. He always
seemed to skirt prosecution, perhaps because his fortune and fame
protected him, though he did come under investigation for a bribery
scandal in Venezuela where he had oil concessions. In 1976, he pleaded guilty to charges of concealing a $54,000 contribution to the re-election campaign of
Richard
Nixon, receiving just a small fine and eventually a pardon from President
George Bush
(Daddy).
A man of immense
energy, Hammer created the transnational giant, Occidental Petroleum,
after he was 65 years old, and worked seven days a week until 91 years of age.
And he bought or created many more corporations. In
his autobiography
he
boasted that when he bought the corporation that owned Arm and Hammer Baking Soda Company,
he was fulfilling a childhood dream of owning his namesake. He wrote
that his father Julius Hammer had named him after a character,
Armand Duval, in La
Dame aux Camellias by Alexandre Dumas, fils.
 Bucks or ideology?
In fact, according to his biographer, Carl Blumay (The
Dark Side of Power, Simon & Schuster, 1992), his former
press agent of many years, Armand Hammer was named after the
arm-and-hammer insignia of the Socialist Labor Party that became,
under Julius's leadership, the Communist Party of the USA.
Whether
over six decades Armand Hammer used the enemies of freedom to help
him make a buck, or made bucks so he could help the enemies of
freedom (and whether he was a Party member all through those decades
that the USSR was determined to defeat the capitalist world) is a
moot point and perhaps we shall never know. My guess is that it is
not an either/or question; he was probably both. As the Spectator
wrote: Hammer was "one of the century's shysters, fraudsters,
double-dealers, self-promoters and manipulators, a mephistophelean
character ...".
Armand Hammer Art Museum, UCLA
Hammer
and the Fabergé eggs
FBI
- Freedom of Information Act - Armand Hammer
Did Armand Hammer have anything to do
with Arm & Hammer baking soda?
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