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reetings from Australia. 

Welcome to this Red-Letter Day. Below you will find today's global celebrations, birthdays and events.

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Pip Wilson

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Today is

In Flanders fields the poppies blow,
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place.
John McCrae, Canadian poet, writing on May 3, 1915
 
At Philip and James, away with the lambs;
That thinkest to any milk of their dams;
At Lammas leave milking, for fear of a thing,
Lest in winter they sing.
To milk and to fold them, is much to require,
Except ye have pasture to fill their desire;
Yet many by milking (such heed do they take)
Not hurting their bodies, much profit do make.
Five ewes allow to every cow, make a proof by a score,
Shall double thy dairy or trust me no more:
Yet may a good huswife that knoweth the skill,
Have mixt or unmixt, at her pleasure and will.
...
Be sure thy neat have water and meat;
From bull, cow fast, till Crouchmas be past;
From hiefer bull bid thee till Lammas bid thee,
Leave cropping from May to Michaelmas-day.
Thy brake go and sow where barley did grow;
The next crop wheat is husbandry neat.
Fine basil sow in a pot to grow;
Watch bees in May for swarming away.
Tusser, Thomas (1524 - 1580), Five hundreth pointes of good husbandrie: as well for the champion or open countrie, as also for the woodland or severall ; mixed in everie month with huswiferie, over and besides the booke of huswiferie, London: 'Printed in the now dwelling house of Henrie Denham in Aldersgate Street at the signe of the starre', 1586

I heard the song
Of the world's last whale
As I rocked in the moonlight
And reefed the sail.
It'll happen to you
Also without fail
If it happens to me
Sang the world's last whale.
Pete Seeger, American folksinger, born on May 3, 1919

There is nothing in the world I wouldn't do for Hope, and there is nothing he wouldn't do for me...we spend our lives doing nothing for each other.
Bing Crosby, American singer, born on May 3, 1903

I've always believed he was born in 1904, and that's the way his grave reads. But the reference books say 1903. That's all right; we'll celebrate his 100th all year and into 2004.
Kathryn Crosby, widow of Bing   Source

We'll find them [weapons of mass destruction]. It'll be a matter of time to do so.
USA President George W Bush; lying in remarks to reporters, May 3, 2003

Source: Bush Administration Officials' Lies about Iraq's Supposed Weapons of Mass Destruction in Their Own Words

May 3 is the 123^rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar (124^th in leap years), with 242 days remaining.
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Festival of Tarentia, for the goddess Bona Dea, ancient Rome (May 3 - 4)

(December 3 was also a festival for this goddess.)

On May 3 - 4 (though as early as May 1), the ancient Romans commemorated the Tarentia festival for the 'Good Goddess': Bona Dea, which is the most popular name by which the goddess Fauna or Fatua (Fate) was known. She is also an aspect of the goddess Artemis Calliste, the Lily of Heaven. Angitia, a deity of the Marsii might have been the same goddess, and the Good Goddess is also identified with Cybele, Maia, Ge, Ops, Terra, Tellus, Semele, Marica and Hekate, and was thus a fertility and earth goddess. Her priestesses grew medicinal herbs and the sick were tended to in the gardens outside her temples. She was associated with the cornucopia, snakes and coins and her image frequently occurred on ancient Roman coins.

It was said that her father, Faunus, (known to the Greeks as Pan), had tried to seduce her but failed, despite having got her drunk on wine and having whipped her with a myrtle branch. Eventually, he father turned himself into a serpent and in that form succeeded in penetrating his daughter. Another legend says that Faunus was her husband and became incensed at Fauna's drunkenness, so he killed her, but then deified her.

Bona Dea protected against eye-disease and blindness, and it is interesting to note that after the Roman Empire became Christian, the temple of Bona Dea Oclata or Restitutrix in Rome, Santuario della Bona Dea, became converted to a church for St Cecilia, whose name derives from a Latin gens (family) Caecilius, (from kaiko, one-eyed), and was a patron not only of composers, music, musicians, musical instrument makers, poets and singers, but also of the blind.

The December festival to Bona Dea was a women-only affair, and for that reason not included in the Roman calendar; this was also because it fell into a category between private and public ceremonies. Unlike the celebrations of the calends of May, the December rites were by invitation only and private in that they were not held in her temples on the Aventine Hill and in Trastevere, not attended by the pontiffs nor paid for by the State ('publico sumptu'). They were, however, attended by the Vestal Virgins, held 'pro populo Romano' (i.e., for the Roman people), and the women met in the house of a Consul or Praetor Urbanus. The wife of the pontifex maximus officiated at the ceremony.

At Bona Dea's festivities (called 'incredibilis cerimonia' by Cicero) on this day, paintings or drawings of men or their genitals were forbidden, along with the words 'wine' and 'myrtle', associated as they were with her lustful father (the jar in which wine was served, was referred to arcanely as a "honey-pot"). Even representations of male animals were veiled (Seneca, Letters to Lucilius, 97, 2). In this, we find many similarities to the Bacchanalia in honour of Dionysus-Bacchus, which were also female-only celebrations.

Not a lot is known about the nature of the Bona Dea mysteries. We do know that a sacred serpent appeared alongside the goddess and that  her tabernacles were covered in vine leaves. The Roman satirist Juvenal said that the rites were orgiastic. A pig was sacrificed (a sow is the usual sacrifice for deities such as Ceres and Tellus), wine under the name of milk was offered to the goddess, the congregation danced to the sound of harps and flutes. Plutarch wrote that myrtle was excluded from the private use in the cult at home, because it was sacred to Venus and could have overtones of sexual impurity, and Macrobius tells us that myrtle was banned from use in the temple.

There were shamanic/witchcraft aspects to the Bona Dea rites, and her devotees said they flew with her through the night sky, entering the houses of the rich to feast. The hawthorn tree, also known as the may tree and white thorn, was sacred to the Good Goddess. These holy bushes and trees were associated with sacred wells and shrines and on festive days would be garlanded with ribbons and flowers.

During the consulship of Marcus Tullius Cicero, 63 BCE, the celebration took place at his house on the night of December 3. Earlier in the day Cicero had made the famous speech which is known as his third Catiline Oration, describing to the people the capture of the conspirators. After the assembly was dismissed, the people accompanied him home, as was usual, but, his house being occupied by the Bona Dea congregation, he was obliged to go to a friend's house to spend the night. There he sat deliberating with a few of his trusted counsellors what to do with the prisoners, when a message came hastily from his wife Terentia (Tarentia) that an auspicious sign had occurred during the mysteries, and that he should take heart. The fire upon the altar had blazed up with great brilliancy, and when the women were terrified, the Vestal Virgins had at once interpreted the event as a good omen, and urged Terentia to send word to her husband to that effect.

Images of her sanctuary    Roman festivals and notable days in the Book of Days    Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

Crouchmas 
(often called the Feast of the The Invention (Discovery) of the Holy Cross), Roman Catholicism

(Feast day abolished by Pope John XXIII in 1960)

(Poetic narcissus, Narcissus poeticus, is today's plant, dedicated to this feast.)

St Helena (Flavia Iulia Helena, also known as Saint Helena and Helena of Constantinople, c. 248 - c. 329 CE) was empress and mother of the Roman emperor Constantine I (Constantine the Great). England's Geoffrey of Monmouth, claimed that she was a daughter of British King Coel Godhebog, meaning "King Cole the Magnificent". Other versions of the legend mention Coel not as King but as dux (chief) of Camelodunum (Colchester). (Her legendary father is not the same as King Coel Hen, meaning 'Coel the Old' – 'Old King Cole' of the nursery rhyme.)

She travelled to Jerusalem and demanded all the alleged crosses of Jesus Christ be brought to her. (She also got the four nails, the spear which pierced the side of Jesus, and other relics. Of the four nails, two were placed in Rome's imperial crown, and one at a later date was taken by Charlemagne to France; a fourth was thrown in the Adriatic to calm the waters of that stormy sea.)

The body of a dead man was placed on each cross; when it was on the true cross, the body came to life. Thus was the True Cross of Christ 'invented', an archaic expression that means 'discovered'. May 3^rd for centuries commemorated that event, until the abolition of this feast day by Pope John XXIII in 1960.

The cross was entrusted to the Bishop of Jerusalem and small pieces were cut off and sold to pilgrims, but it was found the cross had the power of self-regeneration. This legend was, no doubt, created to explain all the pieces of the cross that ended up in Medieval European churches.

In 614, Jerusalem was captured and the cross carried into Persia. There it remained a few years, but was recovered by the conquests of Heraclitus, who carried it back to Jerusalem on his back. This event is commemorated by Roman Catholic Church on September 14, the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, or Holyrood Day, the word 'rood' meaning 'cross'.

In 1561 John Calvin wrote a tract that said that if all the pieces of the True Cross were gathered together, they would load a large ship, and would take 300 men, not one, to carry it. However, on this score, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes:

"The work of Rohault de Fleury, 'Mémoire sur les instruments de la Passion' (Paris, 1870), deserves more prolonged attention; its author has sought out with great care and learning all the relics of the True Cross, drawn up a catalogue of them, and, thanks to this labour, he has succeeded in showing that, in spite of what various Protestant or Rationalistic authors have pretended, the fragments of the Cross brought together again would not only not 'be comparable in bulk to a battleship', but would not reach one-third that of a cross which has been supposed to have been three or four metres in height, with transverse branch of two metres ... proportions not at all abnormal ... Here is the calculation of this savant: Supposing the Cross to have been of pine-wood, as is believed by the savants who have made a special study of the subject, and giving it a weight of about seventy-five kilograms, we find that the volume of this cross was 178,000,000 cubic millimetres. Now the total known volume of the True Cross, according to the finding of M. Rohault de Fleury, amounts to above 4,000 000 cubic millimetres, allowing the missing part to be as big as we will, the lost parts or the parts the existence of which has been overlooked, we still find ourselves far short of 178,000,000 cubic millimetres, which should make up the True Cross."

A piece of the True Cross was the most important relic venerated by the Crusaders. It was kept in the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (pictured above) under the protection of the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who raised it as a standard of the army before every battle. It was captured from the Europeans by the Arab freedom fighter Saladin (1137 - 1193) during the Battle of Hattin in 1187.

According to one legend, the True Cross was built from the Tree of Knowledge.

Today was also traditionally called Crouchmas and Holy Rood (Holyrood) Day, this latter name also being applied to the feast of the previously mentioned Exaltation of the Holy Cross on September 14. Crouchmas (from Latin crux = cross) is the term not just for today, but for a long season, lasting from May 3 until St Helen's Day (August 18). Rogation Sunday (the Sunday before Ascension Day) is called Crouchmas Sunday, and Rogation week is also known as Crouchmas.

In England, this was considered a propitious day for putting bulls to cows. However, in Scotland, May 3 was called 'Avoiding Day' or the 'Dismal Day' and the day of the week upon which it fell was considered to be unlucky throughout the year. It might be because this was the day the fallen angels were expelled from heaven.

In art, St Helena is dressed in imperial regalia and holds a large cross.

"The September date is often referred to in the West as Holy Cross Day; the May date was dropped from the liturgical calendar by the Second Vatican Council in 1970. (See also Roodmas.) The Orthodox still commemorate both events on September 14, one of the twelve Great Feasts of the liturgical year, and the 'Procession of the Venerable Wood of the Cross' on August 1st, the day on which the relics of the True Cross would be carried through the streets of Constantinople to bless the city.

"In addition to celebrations on fixed days, there are certain days of the variable cycle when the Cross is celebrated. The Roman Catholic Church has a formal 'Adoration of the Cross' (the term is inaccurate, but sanctioned by long use) during the services for Good Friday, while the Orthodox celebrate an additional Veneration of the Cross on the third Sunday of Great Lent. In Greek Orthodox churches everywhere, a replica of the cross is brought out in procession on Holy Thursday for the people to venerate."   Source

"This festival of the Romish church is also in the church of England calendar; Mr. Audley says, 'the word invention sometimes signifies the finding a thing that was hidden;' thence the name of this festival, which celebrates the alleged finding of the cross of Christ by St. Helena, who is said to have found three crosses on Mount Calvary, but the true one could not be distinguished, till a sick woman being placed on each, was healed by one, which was therefore pronounced the veritable cross. Mr. Audley quotes, that 'the custody of the cross was committed to the bishop of Jerusalem. Every Easter Sunday it was exposed to view, and pilgrims from all countries were indulged with little pieces of it enchased in gold or gems. What was most astonishing, the sacred wood was never lessened, although it was perpetually diminished, for it possessed a secret power of vegetation.' It appears from Ribadeneira, that St. Paulinus, says, 'the cross being a piece of wood without sense or feeling, yet seemeth to have in it a living and everlasting virtue; and from that time to this it permitteth itself to be parted and divided to comply with innumerable persons, and yet suffereth no loss or detriment, but remains as entire as if it had never been cut, so that it can be severed, parted, and divided, for those among whom it is to be distributed, and still remains whole and entire for all that come to reverence and adore it.' There is no other way left to the Romish church to account for the superabundance of the wood of the cross."   
William Hone, The Every-Day Book, or a Guide to the Year, William Tegg and Co., London, 1878; 1825-26 edition online

"We might fill many pages with the often ridiculous relics of the innumerable saints of the Romish calendar. Some of the stones with which St. Stephen was stoned were shown at Florence, at Arles, and at Vigaud, in Languedoc. The Augustine monks at Poictiers worshipped one of the arrows with which St. Sebastian was slain, or at least made other people worship it; and there was another at Lambesc, in Provence. St. Sebastian had become multiplied in a very extraordinary manner, for his body was found in four places, and his head in two others, quite independent of his body; while the grey friars at Angers exhibited his brains, which, when the case was broken up in the religious wars, were found to have been turned into a stone. St. Philip appears to have had three feet—at least, a foot of St. Philip's was found in three several places. Materialism in religion was carried to such a point, that the celebrated monastery of Mont St. Michael, in Normandy, exhibited the sword and buckler with which the archangel Michael combated the spirit of evil, and we believe they were preserved there till the period of the great French Revolution; and one of the relic-mongers of earlier times is said to have exhibited a feather of the Holy Ghost—supposing, no doubt, from the pictorial representations, that the sacred spirit was a real pigeon.

"The multiplicity of the same object seems sometimes to have embarrassed the exhibitors of relics, There is an old story of a rather sceptical visitor of sacred places in France, in the earlier part of the sixteenth century, to whom in a certain monastery the skull of John the Baptist was shown, on which he remarked, with some surprise, 'Ali! the monks of such a monastery showed me the skull of John the Baptist yesterday.' 'True,' said the monastic exhibitor, not disconcerted, 'but those monks only possess the skull of the saint when he was a young man, and ours was his skull when he was advanced in years and wisdom.' All the clergy, however, did not possess this peculiar style of ingenuity; but some labour was bestowed in sustaining the earlier doctrine, much enlarged in its application, that all holy relics possessed the miraculous power of multiplying themselves."
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's Book of Days)

 

The Southern Cross

"The lower regions of the air were loaded with vapours for some days. We saw distinctly, for the first time, the cross of the south, only in the night of the 4th and 5th of July, in the sixteenth degree of latitude. It was strongly inclined, and appeared, from time to time, between the clouds, the centre of which, furrowed by uncondensed lightnings, reflected a silver light. The pleasure felt on discovering the southern cross was warmly shared by such of the crew as had lived in the colonies. In the solitude of the seas, we hail a star as a friend from whom we have been long separated. Among the Portuguese and the Spaniards, peculiar motives seem to increase this feeling; a religious sentiment attaches them to a constellation, the form of which recalls the sign of the faith planted by their ancestors in the deserts of the new world. The two great stars which mark the summit and the foot of the cross, having nearly the same right ascension, it follows, that the constellation is almost vertical at the moment when it passes the meridian. This circumstance is known to every nation that lives beyond the tropics, or in the southern hemisphere."   Alexander von Humboldt

How the Southern Cross was formed (Australian Aboriginal myth) 

Baiame, the Great Spirit, made the animals and plants, and created man and woman to rule over them. They were told they could eat plants, but not animals. All was well until one drought year. A man in desperation killed some kangaroo rats, and shared them with his wife. They offered some of the flesh to one of their friends, but he was mindful of the prohibition, and walked away from them rather than eat. 

He walked across a broad plain, to the edge of a river that flowed despite the great drought. The man and woman followed him and saw him on the other side of the river, lying under a tall gum tree. They saw a black figure, half man and half beast, which was the Yowie (Spirit of Death), take the man up into the tree.

The tree was lifted up into the sky, flying south. Two white cockatoos tried to catch the flying tree.

Because Baiame's rules had been violated, and man had experienced death as the kangaroo rat had; the swamp oaks sighed and the gum trees wept tears of blood. To this day the Kamilroi tribe knows the Southern Cross as Yaraandoo, the place of the white gum tree, and the Pointers as Mouyi, the white cockatoos.

Baiame and Man: how human beings came about

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World Press Freedom Day Throughout the world, May 3 serves as an occasion to inform the public of violations of the right to freedom of expression and as a reminder that many journalists brave death or jail to bring people their daily news. Impunity - Getting Away with Murder International Freedom of Expression Exchange (IFEX) Transparency International United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) - Special Page   The main theme of World Press Freedom Day 2006 is the correlation between media freedom and the eradication of poverty. Links to UN and UN System sites: United Nations World Press Freedom Day (Department of Public Information) Committee on Information, 28th session (2006 : New York) UN News Centre UN Radio UN Television and Video Millennium Campaign - Voices Against Poverty Unesco World Press Freedom Day Freedom of Expression International Programme for the Development of Communication Information for All Programme REDCom The UNESCO/Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, instituted in 1997, is intended to honour each year a person, organization or institution that has made an outstanding contribution to the defence and/or promotion of press freedom anywhere in the world, especially if some risk was involved. UN. Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights Special Rapporteur on the promotion and protection of the right to freedom of opinion and expression Additional  resources: The additional resources links on this page are provided for information purposes only and do not necessarily represent an endorsement by the United Nations. Arab Press Freedom Watch    Committee to Protect Journalists International Center for Journalists    International Federation of Journalists International Freedom of Expression Exchange    International Press Institute OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media    Reporters Without Borders World Association of Newspapers The World Press Freedom Committee, with 44 affiliated organizations on six continents, is in the forefront of the struggle for a press free of government interference everywhere and for full and free flow of news. The World Press Freedom Review examines the state of the media in over 184 countries, territories and administered areas, documenting press freedom violations and major media developments all over the world. More   Feast Day of St Philip the Apostle and St James (brother of Jesus) (James the Lesser) The traditional date of this feast was moved to May 11 in 1955 when May Day was dedicated to St Joseph the Worker. However, in 1969 it was again moved to today. Orthodox Churches celebrate the feast on November 14. St Philip, one of the twelve Apostles of Jesus Christ, might have been previously a disciple of St John the Baptist. He was martyred c. 80 at Hierapolis, Phrygia. Philip is the patron of hatters, and pastry chefs. This Philip is sometimes confused with Philip the Evangelist, who appears in several episodes of Acts. 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