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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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[Petra]
Kelly forecast the convergence of concerns that are the hallmark of
anti-globalization advocacy of the current era. She also was a
pioneer in identifying the linkages between issues of peace and
democracy, development, the environment and women's rights. Source on Petra
Kelly, German parliamentarian, activist and co-founder of the German
Green Party (November
29, 1947 - October 1, 1992)
The
vision I see is not only a movement of direct democracy, of self-
and co-determination and non-violence, but a movement in which
politics means the power to love and the power to feel united on the
spaceship Earth. ... In a world struggling in violence and
dishonesty, the further development of non-violence not only as a
philosophy but as a way of life, as a force on the streets, in the
market squares, outside the missile bases, inside the chemical
plants and inside the war industry becomes one of the most urgent
priorities . .. The suffering people of this world must come
together to take control of their lives, to wrest political power
from their present masters pushing them towards destruction. The
Earth has been mistreated and only by restoring a balance, only by
living with the Earth, only by emphasizing knowledge and expertise
towards soft energies and soft technology for people and for life,
can we overcome the patriarchal ego. Petra Kelly
Petra
Kelly was a committed and dedicated person with compassionate
concern for the oppressed, the weak and the persecuted in our time.
Her spirit and legacy of human solidarity and concern continue to
inspire and encourage us all. HH the Dalai
LamaonPetra
Kelly
Had I but served God as diligently as I have
served the King, He would not have given me over in my grey hairs. Last words of Cardinal Wolsey, who
died on this day in 1530
He was a man
Of an unbounded stomach, ever ranking
Himself with princes...
His promises were, as he then was, mighty;
But his performance, as he is now, nothing ... Shakespeare and Fletcher, All Is True; the History of King Henry
VIII. Catherine of Aragon is speaking of Cardinal Wolsey
O Cromwell, Cromwell! Had I but
served my God with half the zeal I served my
king, he would not in mine age Have left me
naked to mine enemies. All
Is True; the History of King Henry VIII; Wolsey's speech in act IV
It is done. Last words of Horace Greeley,
American newspaperman, who died on November 29, 1872
There seems no plan because it is all plan,
no centre because it is all centre. CS Lewis, Irish scholar and writer,
born on November 29, 1898
In the Trinity term of 1929 I gave in, and admitted that
God was God ... perhaps the most dejected and reluctant convert in all
England. CS
Lewis;Surprised by Joy
The safest
road to Hell is the gradual one – the gentle slope, soft underfoot,
without sudden turnings, without milestones, without signposts. CS Lewis; The Screwtape Letters, 1941
Talk to me
about the truth of religion and I'll listen gladly. Talk to me about the
duty of religion and I'll listen submissively. But don't come talking to
me about the consolations of religion or I shall suspect that you don't
understand. CS Lewis
And she was like so many
more from that time on
Their lives were all so empty, till they found their chosen one
And their legs were often open
But their minds were always closed
And their hearts were held in fast suburban chains
And the legal pads were yellow, hours long, paypacket lean
And the telex writers clattered where the gunships once had been
But the car parks made me jumpy
And I never stopped the dreams
Or the growing need for speed and novacaine ... Don Walker, Australian musician and songwriter, born on November 29,
1951; 'Khe Sanh'
This
Saturninus was a 3rd-Centurymissionary from Rome to Gaul, the Pyrenees, and the Iberian
peninsula who, with a farmer now known as St
Honestus, whom he had converted, was imprisoned at Carcassone by the prefect
Rufinus, but they were freed by an angel. As the first bishop of Toulouse, France, he teamed with St
Martial to
perform miraculous healings. When Saturninus began his work in Toulouse, the local pagan priests
stopped receiving oracular messages from their gods. One day in 257, pagan idols fell to pieces in front of the bishop, so the crowd murdered him, his punishment being dragged to death by a bull. Or so it is
said.
"One of the festivals of
the sons of Saturn, in their saintly guise as St Saturnius (sic).
Saturnius, son of Saturn, is the surname of the gods Jupiter, Neptune
and Pluto, who are commemorated on this day." Nigel Pennick, The
Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA,
1992
Pictured:
'Martyre de saint Saturnin' (The Martyrdom
of Saint Saturnin), from
Jacobus de Voragine, Legenda Aurea
(translated by Jean de Vignay), Paris, 14th Century, Richard de Montbaston
" …
the martyr's
scull was broken, and his brains dashed out. His happy soul was released
from the body by death, and fled to the kingdom of peace and glory, and
the bull continued to drag the sacred body, and the limbs and blood were
scattered on every side, till, the cord breaking, what remained of the
trunk was left in the plain without the gates of the city."Source
"Born in Rome; died c. 257. Saint Sernin forms a link between Gaul and Judea, and between our civilization and Jesus Christ himself. According to legend, Sernin was Greek and lived during the time of Jesus. He heard of John the Baptist, went to hear him, and was so deeply moved that he stayed to become one of his disciples. He was baptized in the Jordan on the same day as Jesus, whom he thereafter followed, even becoming one of the 72 disciples.
"He remained with the Apostles after the Crucifixion, and was with them in the cenacle when the Holy Spirit appeared to them. He went with Peter to evangelize the Middle East, and then went with him to Rome. From there he was sent to Gaul, and after stopping in Arles and Nîmes he settled in Toulouse with his two companions, Papoul whom Peter had sent with him, and Honestus whom he had converted on the way.
"Yes, this is a legend trying to connect the foundation of the church of Toulouse back to the origins of Christianity."
Source
There
is another St
Saturninus who lived half a century later, and there are other saints
of the same name:
International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People
(UN)
I
am a black South African, and if I were to change the names, a
description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank
could describe events in South Africa. Archbishop
Desmond Tutu, during
a Christmas visit to Jerusalem,
December 25, 1989
In 1977, the General
Assembly of the United Nations called for the annual observance of
November 29 as the International Day of Solidarity with the
Palestinian People (resolution 32/40 B). On that day, in 1947, the
Assembly had adopted the resolution on the partition of Palestine (resolution 181 (II)).
On December 3,
2001, the Assembly noted the
action taken by Member States to observe the Day, and requested them
to continue to give it the widest possible publicity (resolution 56/34).
Some
marriage-related superstitions have become part of Saint Andrew's feast
day, November 30, and some on the eve.
One German custom
is for single women who wish to marry to ask for Saint Andrew's guidance
on the Eve (November 29) of his feast, then sleep naked that night; they
will then see their future husbands in their dreams.
Another has it that
young women should note the location of barking dogs on Saint Andrew's
Eve: their future husbands will come from that direction.
In Poland, single girls would traditionally pour melted wax into a bowl of
cold water, and the hardened wax was then held up to the light. The
shadow it cast on the wall was supposed to prognosticate the girls'
marriage: if its shape resembled something used by a man, she would marry
within a year. The shadow might also reveal of the future husband his
personality, interests, occupation and so on. Another traditional
pastime was for the girls to fling their shoes into the middle of the
floor. The first shoe to go over the threshold would be that of the girl
who would be first to marry.
"In Germany
St. Andrew's Eve is a great occasion for prognostications of the
future. Indeed, like Hallowe'en in Great Britain, 'Andreasabend'
in Germany seems to have preserved the customs of augury
connected with the old November New Year festival. To a large
extent the practices are performed by girls anxious to know what
sort of husband they will get. Many and various are the methods.
"Sometimes it suffices to repeat some such rhyme as the
following before going to sleep, and the future husband will
appear in a dream:--
"'St.
Andrew's Eve is to-day,
Sleep all people,
Sleep all children of men,
Who are between heaven and earth,
Except this only man,
Who may be mine in marriage.'
"Again, at
nightfall let a girl shut herself up naked in her bedroom, take
two beakers, and into one pour clear water, into the other wine.
These let her place on the table, which is to be covered with
white, and let
the following words be said:--
"'My dear
St. Andrew!
Let now appear before me
My heart's most dearly beloved.
If he shall be rich,
He will pour a cup of wine;
If he is to be poor,
Let him pour a cup of water.'
"This done,
the form of the future husband will enter and drink of one of
the cups. If he is poor, he will take the water; if rich, the
wine.
"One of the most common practices is to pour molten lead or tin
through a key into cold water, and to discover the calling of
the future husband by the form it takes, which will represent
the tools of his trade. The white of an egg is sometimes used
for the same purpose. Another very widespread custom is to put
nutshells to float on water with little candles burning in them.
There are twice as many shells as there are
girls present; each girl has her shell, and to the others the
names of possible suitors are given. The man and the girl whose
shells come together will marry one another. Sometimes the same
method is practised
with little cups of silver foil.
"On the border of Saxony and Bohemia, a maiden who wishes to
know the bodily build of her future husband goes in the darkness
to a stack of wood and draws out a piece. If the wood is smooth
and straight the man will be slim and well built; if it is
crooked, or knotted, he will be ill-developed or even a
hunchback.
"These are but a few of the many ways in which girls seek to
peer into the future and learn something about the most
important event in their lives. Far less numerous, but not
altogether absent on this night, are other
kinds of prognostication. A person, for instance, who wishes to
know whether he will die in the coming year, must on St.
Andrew's Eve before going to bed make on the table a little
pointed heap of flour. If by the
morning it has fallen asunder, the maker will die.
"The association of St. Andrew's Eve with the foreseeing of the
future is not confined to the German race; it is found also on
Slavonic and Roumanian ground. In Croatia he who fasts then will
behold his future
wife in a dream, and among the Roumanians mothers anxious about
their children's luck break small sprays from fruit-trees, bind
them together in bunches, one for each child, and put them in a
glass of
water. The branch of the lucky one will blossom.
"In Roumania St. Andrew's Eve is a creepy time, for on it
vampires are supposed to rise from their graves, and with
coffins on their heads walk about the houses in which they once
lived. Before nightfall
every woman takes some garlic and anoints with it the door locks
and window casements; this will keep away the vampires. At the
cross-roads there is a great fight of these loathsome beings
until the first cock
crows; and not only the dead take part in this, but also some
living men who are vampires from their birth. Sometimes it is
only the souls of these living vampires that join in the fight;
the soul comes out through
the mouth in the form of a bluish flame, takes the shape of an
animal, and runs to the crossway. If the body meanwhile is moved
from its place the person dies, for the soul cannot find its way
back.
"St. Andrew's Day is sometimes the last, sometimes the first
important festival of the western Church's year. It is regarded
in parts of Germany as the beginning of winter, as witness the
saying:--
"'Suenten-Dres-Misse,
es de Winter gewisse.'
"The nights
are now almost at their longest, and as November passes away,
giving place to the last month of the year, Christmas is felt to
be near at hand.
"In northern Bohemia it is customary for peasant girls to keep
for themselves all the yarn they spin on St. Andrew's Eve, and
the 'Hausfrau' gives them also some flax and a little money.
With this they buy coffee
and other refreshments for the lads who come to visit the
parlours where in the long winter evenings the women sit
spinning. These evenings, when many gather together in a
brightly lighted room and sing songs and tell stories while they
spin, are cheerful enough, and spice is added by the visits of
the village lads, who in some places come to see the girls
home." Clement A Miles, Christmas In
Ritual and Tradition, Christian and Pagan,
T. Fisher
Unwin, London, 1912
Egyptian day (dies egypticus, dies ćgypticus or
dies mala), unlucky day in
Medieval Europe. ("But, notwithstanding, I will trust the Lord"
was the associated saying.)
Last Saturday of November, Brotherhood of Goat Meat Eaters Festival,
Bellegarde-en-Marche, France
"In the tiny commune of
Bellegarde-en-Marche, they've got a bit of a thing about goats. Once a
year, the 'Brotherhood of Goat Meat
Eaters' assembles to induct new members, while the pride of the goat
fraternity are paraded through the streets in costume.
"Legend has it that in the Middle Ages, in one of their
interminable battles against the warlike English, the
inhabitants of this ancient village were saved by the sharpened
goat horns that they carried as weapons. Goat's meat may be an
acquired taste, but for the residents of Bellegarde-en-Marche,
it is also a lifelong passion."Source
Day of Mawu, Africa "Dahomey
Great Mother, creator of the universe from chaos." (Source: The Phoenix and Arabeth 1992
Calendar)
1898CS Lewis(d. November 22, 1963), Irish scholar and author of science fiction,
religious books and children's stories, many about the mythical land
of Narnia. He was a relatively
orthodox Christian, although one website calls him an "indoctrinating
tool of witchcraft" and is critical of his allegedly
sympathetic treatment in his literature of the pagan deities Dionysus, Bacchus, Silenus and
the Maenads. Lewis's passing went relatively unnoticed by
the world, despite his fame, because his death was overshadowed by
that of US President
JF Kennedy
on the same day.
Zell-Ravenheart considers himself to be a
Wizard, and is one of the founding faculty
members of the
Grey School of Wizardry. He has presented,
lectured, and led rituals at many Pagan festivals as well as other
religious events,
science fiction conventions,
Renaissance fairs, and similar types of
events.
An early advocate of
deep ecology, he was also founder and editor of Green Egg magazine,
publishing 116 issues over 28 years. This came to an end quite
abruptly in September, 1996, when he was involuntarily removed from
all decision-making power by the Church of All Worlds Board of
Directors, of whom many were at that time also members of the
magazine staff. Publication
ceased in 2001.
The
charismatic and internationally famous Kelly was the first Green in
any parliament in the world and the first German female head of a
political party.
While working at the European Commission (Brussels, Belgium, 1971 -
83), she
participated in numerous peace and environment campaigns in Germany and other
countries. Kelly received the Right Livelihood Award (also known as
the Alternative Nobel Prize) in 1982"...
for
forging and implementing a new vision uniting ecological concerns
with disarmament, social justice and human rights".
Kelly was also a tireless campaigner on issues
of human rights, an anti-Apartheid activist and organiser of the
first international hearing on human rights violations in Tibet. At
the time of her tragic death, she was the moderator of a weekly
television show on environmental issues, that wove the threads of
environment, health, peace, disarmament and human rights together in
complex fabric that has been the model for today's resurgence of
global environmental activism.
One source says that Kelly cited
Sydney's green bans
as her touchstone.
The bodies of Kelly and former NATO general
and peace campaigner, Gert
Bastian (b. 1923), her long-time companion, were found on
October 19, 1992, both with gunshot wounds from a Derringer pistol.
The circumstances of their death are still uncertain.
"Last
October 19, German police entered an unimposing row house on the
outskirts of Bonn, and made a gruesome discovery: the decomposing,
bullet-pierced bodies of Petra Kelly, a founder of Germany's Green
party, and Gert Bastian, Kelly's longtime companion. Conspiracists
sniffed a double murder, possibly by neo-Nazis or by government
agents. After investigating, however, police raised an even more
troubling possibility. Mother Jones interviewed author Mark
Hertsgaard, who recently traveled to Bonn to look into the case."Source:
Who killed Petra Kelly?
1951Don Walker,
pianist/writer with Australian rock band, Cold Chisel, and author
of their hit song 'Khe Sanh'
(often affectionately called 'the Australian National Anthem'), about a Vietnam War soldier
returning to Australia and not being able to fit into society again
I
left my heart to the
sappers round
Khe Sanh
And I sold my soul with my cigarettes to the black market man
I've had the Vietnam cold turkey
From the ocean to the
Silver City
And it's only other vets could understand
About the long forgotten dockside guarantees
How there were no V-Day heroes in 1973
How we sailed into Sydney Harbour
Saw an old friend but couldn't kiss her
She was lined, and I was home to the
lucky land ...
And the legal pads were yellow, hours long, paypacket lean
And the telex writers clattered where the gunships once had been
But the car parks made me jumpy
And I never stopped the dreams
Or the growing need for speed and novacaine ...
Well the last plane out of Sydney's almost gone
Only seven flying hours, and I'll be landing in Hong Kong
There ain't nothing like the kisses
From a jaded Chinese princess
I'm gonna hit some Hong Kong mattress all night long ...
From
'Khe Sanh', by Aussie band
Cold Chisel, lyrics by Don Walker.
This hit song is probably that nation's most
popular song of the rock era; the full lyrics are on
this page at ColdChisel.com.au.
The song, written
from the perspective of a veteran, or 'vet' (returned soldier), describes
the bitterness felt by many Australian
conscripts following return from the
Vietnam War.
'Khe Sanh', sung by the band's lead singer,
Jimmy Barnes, was released as a 45
rpmsingle in May,
1978.
In August 1978, censors
gave it an A Classification, meaning that it was "not suitable
for airplay", due to sex and drug references (the line "their
legs were often open, but their minds were always closed" was
seen as particularly offensive). A single station in Adelaide
defied this censorship, and was the instigator of the song's
popularity.
Your family and friends will get a
kick when they hear their own name being sung in 'Happy Birthday'!!
You can schedule your singing cards in advance, and even add your
own face to funny animations. (Pay cards)
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application. Further details
The Mayan people looked
for signs in stars and calendars
in order to do with more certainty many things in their lives. This date was
chosen by the astronomers of Dos Pilas to coincide with the rising of Venus.
In Mesoamerica, the planet Venus looms in the dawn sky with extraordinary
brilliance. Both the Maya and the
Nahua astronomers devoted special attention to
the planet, and particularly to its heliacal rising. Seibal's ruler was captured alive and, twelve years later
at an inferior conjunction of Venus, the leader's heart was cut from his body.
The Mayan calendar was adopted by the other
Mesoamerican nations, such as the Aztecs and the Toltecs, which adopted the
mechanics of the calendar unaltered. However, these people changed the names of
the days of the week and the months. An Aztec calendar stone is shown in the
calendar
above on this page (just above the quotations section).
Mayan beauty
"The Maya would bind a newborn infant's head between two boards for several days. This pressure was sufficient to reshape the skull on a permanent basis, leaving it elongated and backswept. The process would have no effect on intelligence because the brain has a great deal of plasticity in infancy, and would simply accommodate itself to the new shape.
"It is thought that this was done to make the head resemble an ear of corn, the Maya staple crop, and the substance, according to The Popol Vuh, from which all humankind was originally created. The corn god himself was often depicted with this sort of elongated head, with a husk attached to it."Source
"Mayans pierced their ears and used ear flares;
Mayans drilled holes in their teeth and put jade or other jewels in the holes.
The also filled their teeth into different shapes;
Mayans painted their bodies and got tatoos [sic];
The Maya would bind a newborn infant's head between two boards for several days.
This pressure was sufficient to reshape the skull on a permanent basis;
The Maya found a slight degree of cross- eyedness attractive. To achieve this
they would hang a ball of resin so that it fell between their children's eyes
...
To make their heads flatter, nose bridges were used;
Lip piecing was in style;
The larger your hat, the more powerful you were;
Ruling men wore jaguar-skin sandals and all successful men wore jaguar-pelts." Mayan
civilization slideshow
1484 The Convention of Spanish Inquisitors was held,
and the Constitution of the Holy Office written, under the leadership of Tomás de Torquemada.
1530 Cardinal Thomas Wolsey, English
clergyman, and Lord Chancellor, adviser to King Henry VIII of England, died on his way from his York diocese to London.
"When the
cardinal was thus arrested the king sent Sir William Kingston
Knight, captain of the guard and constable of the Tower of
London with some of the yeomen of the guard to Sheffield, to
fetch the cardinal to the Tower. When the cardinal saw the
captain of the guard he was much astonished and shortly became
ill, for he foresaw some great trouble, and for that reason men
said he willingly took so much strong purgative that his
constitution could not bear it. But Sir William Kingston
comforted him, and by easy journeys he brought him to the Abbey
of Leicester on 27 November, where through weakness caused by
purgatives and vomiting he died the second night following, and
is buried in the same Abbey." By the chronicler Edward HallSource
Cardinal Wolsey was
Henry VIII's chief minister for fourteen years. During that time he also had
great influence over the English church and was a patron of arts such as music,
sculpture, stained glass, work in precious metals, and architecture.
Forewarned
Wolsey, the legend says, had
been warned to "beware of Kingston". Naturally, he thought that he
should avoid the town of Kingston, so he took great pains to avoid it, even
though that town was on the way between his palace at Esher and that at Hampton
Court. But when he was arrested by Sir William Kingston and taken to the Abbey
of Leicester, he said "Father Abbot, I am come to leave my bones among
you", for he knew that his end was at hand.
1781 The slave ship the Zong dumped
living cargo into the sea in order to claim insurance.
1814The Timesof London was the first newspaper printed by a steam-operated press. The
machine was invented by a German named König, and was built by his countryman
Bauer. The lead article said, in part, "The reader of this paragraph now
holds in his hands one of the many thousands of impressions of The Times
newspaper which were taken off last night by a mechanical apparatus".
1909
Russian novelist, Maxim Gorky, was expelled from the Revolutionary Party because
of his bourgeois lifestyle.
1929
Long claimed as the date that US Admiral Richard Byrd became the
first person to fly over the South Pole, but recent evidence
indicates that Norwegian explorer Roald Amundsen beat him
to it. A study of Byrd's diary has now revealed that in all probability he did not reach the North Pole at all.
1943 The second session of AVNOJ, the
Anti-fascist council of national liberation of Yugoslavia, was held in Jajce, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, determining the post-war ordering of the country.
1948Port
Melbourne,
Victoria,
Australia: To
the strains of a ten-piece orchestra, Prime Minister
Ben Chifley launched the first mass-produced Australian car, the
Holden 48/215, fondly known as the Holden FX. The retail price was
AUŁ760
(AU$1,520).
1952 Korean War: US
president-elect Dwight D Eisenhower
fulfilled a campaign promise by travelling to Korea to find out what could be
done to end the conflict.
1963 One week
after the assassination of
JFK, US President Lyndon B Johnson established a
special commission (Warren Commission), headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, to
investigate the assassination. In 1978, the House Select Committee on
Assassinations concluded in a preliminary report that Kennedy was "probably
assassinated as a result of a conspiracy", possibly involving organized crime
and more than one marksman. The committee's findings, as with the findings of
the Warren Commission, are still widely disputed.
1989 Nadia Comăneci
(Nadia Comaneci), who as a child had amazed the world with perfect scores for
gymnastics
in the Olympics, escaped from Romania and asked for political asylum in
Hungary.
There'll
come a time when all of us must leave here
Then nothing sister Mary can do
Will keep me here with you
As nothing in this life that I've been trying
Could equal or surpass the art of dying
Do you believe me?
There'll come a time when all your hopes are fading
When things that seemed so very plain
Become an awful pain
Searching for the truth among the lying
And answered when you've learned the art of dying
But you're still with me
But if you want it
Then you must find it
But when you have it
There'll be no need for it
There'll come a time when most of us return here
Brought back by our desire to be
A perfect entity
Living through a million years of crying
Until you've realized the Art of Dying
Do you believe me?
Throughout the 1990s, Harrison, a
former smoker, endured an ongoing battle with cancer, having
growths removed first from his throat, then his lung. There was also a 1999 attempt on his
life by a crazed fan who stabbed him at his home, Friar Park
in Henley-on-Thames, puncturing his lung.
Harrison married twice. His first wife was the model,
Patti Boyd, for whom Harrison is supposed to have written
the song, 'Something'. Following their divorce, Boyd married
Eric Clapton (said to have written 'Layla' for her after their earlier
affair). Harrison married for a second time to
Olivia Arias, in September 1978. The ceremony took
place at their home, with Joe Brown acting as best man. They had one son, Dhani
Harrison, born the previous month.
George passed away at the home of a friend in Los Angeles,
California
on Thursday, November 29, 2001, at the age of
58, death being ascribed to a brain tumour. He was cremated and his ashes were
scattered in the River Ganges.
His final album, Brainwashed, was completed by
Dhani Harrison and Jeff Lynne and released in November 2002.
2002
"Hoping for diminished attention from the public on this Friday following
Thanksgiving US minority-president George 'Dubya' Bush announces by E-mail that
he is using his [creepingly dictatorial] 'authority' to deny civilian Federal
employees the pay raise they were to receive starting on 01 January 2003,
limiting it to 3.1%. (He does not cut the military's 4.1% increase in pay). His
pretext: 'A national emergency has existed since Sept. 11, 2001. Such cost
increases would threaten our efforts against terrorism or force deep cuts in
discretionary spending or federal employment to stay within budget. Neither
outcome is acceptable.' Dubya ignores his own administration's estimate that
Federal workers earn an average of 18.6% less than private workers in similar
jobs."Source
Tomorrow: Advent
begins, so we'll discuss Yule lore till New Year
reetings from Australia.
How it works
Feast day
of St
Saturninus (Sernin; Saturnin; Saturnino; Cernin), Bishop of
Toulouse, France, martyr
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