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Feast day of the Mania, ancient Rome (third day)
Opening of Mundus Cereris,
ancient Rome
Mundus Cereris was the womb or labyrinthine
passage to the underworld, the domain of Ceres, the
great Mother of vegetation. The structure was vaulted in the
shape of an inverted sky, divided into two parts, and had a cover.
We do not know for certain where the Mundus Cereris was, or is, but
in 1914 Giacomo Boni discovered on the Palatine Hill
in Rome a subterranean structure which he identified with the Mundus.
The cover was removed on August 24, October 5
and November 8, and these days were religiosi, when the way
was supposed to be open to the lower world. First-fruits of the
season would be offered to the Manes
(ancestral spirits) and placed in the pit.
Because the cover to the Mundus, the
Lapis
Manalis (Stone of the Manes), is considered an Ostium Orci
(Gate of Hades), the Manes (ancestral spirits) are freed to roam for
the day, so marriage was not permitted today, and nor were battles
nor business considered advisable.
One of the numerous spheres over which the
goddess Ceres had influence was liminality, that is, boundaries and transitions between different stages of social
life, a function that she shared with
Janus. We note that this
commemoration almost precisely coincides with the Celtic Samhain (October 31),
at which time the veil between the living world and that of the dead
is said to be its thinnest, and its Christian corollaries, All
Saints' Day and All Souls' Day, November 1
and 2
respectively.
Departed ancestors were
remembered at this time.
Roman
festivals and notable days in the Book of Days
Deities
of many cultures in the Book of Days
Fuigo
Matsuri, Feast of Bellows, Japan, in honour of the god/goddess Inari
Today is the Shinto festival in honour of Inari or Hettsui
no Kami, the Kitchen-range Goddess. Fires are lit in honour of
Inari and other deities in the courts of Shinto temples. 'Fuigo'
means bellows. Inari is androgynous,
each year descending from a mountain to the rice fields.
During the Fuigo
Matsuri in former times, blacksmiths used to stop work and
extinguish the fire in their smithy, dedicating the bellows and
oranges on the household Shinto altar. At the end of the festival,
the oranges were thrown to children, so many boys and girls would
gather in front of the blacksmith shops for their treats.
Wikipedia
says: Inari is the Shinto
god of fertility,
rice, agriculture,
and foxes.
Inari's foxes, or kitsune,
are pure white and act as his messengers. Inari is often identified
with the Buddhist
deity
Dakiniten.
Inari is a popular deity in Japan,
with temples located in most places throughout. The main shrine is
the Fushimi
Inari Shrine in Fushimi,
Kyoto,
Japan, where the paths up the shrine hill are marked with vermilion
torii and statues of foxes, which are always adorned with a red bib
out of respect. These statues are at times taken for a form of
Inari. In Japan, Japanese foxes guard the shrines of Inari. Inari-zushi,
a Japanese sushi roll of packaged fried tofu, has pointed corners
that resemble fox ears. A favorite food of Japanese foxes is fried
tofu, and it is left for them to eat near the shrines of Inari, thus
reinforcing the association. Offerings of rice,
sake,
and other food are given at the shrine to appease and please these
messengers. Inari is variously depicted as either male or female.
The god often appears as an old man, carrying a sack of rice,
followed by two white foxes; however, Inari also frequently appears
as a woman. It seems to be the case that, at one point, there
existed two separate gods known as Inari — one male, one female;
one a god of rice, the other a more general god of food and
fertility. Over time, the separate gods became one composite
mythological entity, who continued to be depicted as both male and
female. The preferred gender of depiction varies by region and by
one's personal beliefs. Because of Inari's close association with
kitsune, Inari is also sometimes depicted as a fox. Folklore
also attests to his shape-shifting abilities: on one occasion, Inari
appeared to a wicked man in the shape of a monstrous spider
as a way of teaching him a lesson. In some parts of Kyushu,
a festival or praying period is started five days before the full
moon in November; occasionally it is extended to a full week. This
is accompanied by bringing offerings of rice products to a shrine to
Inari each day and receiving o-mamori
(protection
charms). The festival is particularly popular in the countryside
near Nagasaki.
Feast day of St Castorus
Feast day of St Clair
Feast day of St Claudius
Feast day of St Cybi
Feast day of St Deusdedit
Feast day of St Drouet
Feast day of St Elizabeth
of the Trinity
Feast day of the Four
Crowned Martyrs (Four Crowned Brothers), sculptor/masons and
martyrs – Simpronian,
Claudius, Nicostratus and Castorius
(Cape aletris, Veltheimia glauca, is
today's plant,
dedicated to these saints.)
These four were martyred in the Diocletian
Persecution, when they refused to make a sacrifice to the sun god. When Roman Emperor Diocletian's
officer, Lampadius, suddenly died, just as he was trying to convince
them to make the sacrifice, his relatives accused the brothers of
his death. To placate the relatives, Diocletian had them bound,
fastened in leaden boxes and drowned in the river.
"Working
masons of the Middle Ages held the Four Crowned Martyrs in special
honor, and this has been perpetuated in English Freemasonry; there
is a Quatuor Coronati lodge in London that has published its
annual report for 75 years under the title of Ars Quatuor
Coronatorum. There was already a chapel of the Four Crowned
Martyrs in Canterbury in the year 619 (Attwater, Benedictines,
Bentley, Encyclopedia, Husenbeth).
"In
art they are, of course, represented by four men with sculptor's
tools. At times the picture will include a chisel, column and
sculptor's tools; or Claudius planing a plank, Simplician (Simpronian)
with a pickaxe, and Castor as an old man.
"They
are the patrons of sculptors, stone-cutters, and marble-workers,
as well as protectors of cattle."
Source
Feast day of St Gervadius
Feast day of St Godfrey,
Bishop of Amiens, confessor
Feast day of St Gregory of
Einsiedeln
Feast day of St John
Baptist Con
Feast day of St Joseph Nghi
Feast day of St Maria
Crucified Satellico
Feast day of St Martin Tho
Feast day of St Martin Tinh
Feast day of St Maurus of
Verdun
Feast day of St Michael and All Angels (Orthodox)
This commemoration is held on September 29
(qv) in the calendar of the Western Christian Church.
Orthodox
calendar
Feast day of St Moroc of
Scotland
Feast day of St Nicostratus
Feast day of St Paul Ngan
Feast day of St Simpronian
Feast day of St Tysilio
Feast day of St Willehad,
Bishop of Bremen, and Apostle of Saxony
Feast day of St WiomadShop Saints
Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days
Wuwuchim
(Hopi) Fire Ceremony (Nov 5 - 21)
Kitano
Odori, Kyoto, Japan (Nov 1 - 15)
Disappearance
day of Swami Prabhupad, Hare Krishna faith
Disappearance
day of His Divine Grace Srila AC Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupad, held
on this day (the event occurred on November 14,
1977 at 7:25pm in Vrindavan India). Date of commemoration might
vary.
Election
Day, United
States (2005)
On which day of the week were you born? Find out here
35 Nerva, Roman emperor (Marcus Cocceius Nerva
at Narnia)
1622 Charles X Gustav, king of Sweden
1836 Milton Bradley (d. 1911), manufacturer,
lithographer, game maker
1847 Bram
Stoker (d. 1912), Irish novelist (Dracula)
1848 Gottlob Frege, German
mathematician and logician
1866 Herbert Austin, automobile
pioneer (Austin-Healey)
1868 Felix Hausdorff (d. 1942), German
mathematician
1883 Arnold
Bax, composer
1884 Hermann Rorschach, psychiatrist
1893 Clarence Williams, (d. 1965) American jazz
pianist and composer
 If they come for the innocent without stepping over your body, cursed be your religion and your life.
Dorothy Day
1897
Dorothy
Day (d. November 29,
1980), American editor, humanitarian,
pacifist,
Christian-anarchist, women's rights advocate who co-founded the
Catholic Worker Movement in 1933.
Initially Marxist, she became Catholic
in 1927.
The movement
started with the Catholic Worker
newspaper
that she and Peter
Maurin (1877 - 1949) founded on May
1,
1933 in New York City to stake out a neutral, pacifist position in
the increasingly war-torn 1930s. She was
rejected for the Nobel Peace Prize as "too radical". There
are conflicting campaigns for and against her canonization.
"Today over
185 Catholic Worker communities remain committed to nonviolence,
voluntary poverty, prayer, and hospitality for the homeless, exiled,
hungry, and foresaken. Catholic Workers continue to protest
injustice, war, racism, and violence of all forms."
Source
Roots of the Catholic Worker Movement: Saints and Philosophers who Influenced Dorothy Day and Peter Maurin
Dorothy Day links
Catholic
Worker/Dorothy Day collection A new collection of writings by Dorothy Day
Dorothy
Day, Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker Movement: Who Will Inherit
the Legacy of Dorothy Day?Dorothy
Day, Peter Maurin and the Catholic Worker Movement: All Souls: The
Day of the Dead
Dorothy
Day's Pilgrimage Continues at Casa Juan Diego The Houston
Catholic Worker, a Publication of Casa Juan Diego Fight War and Conscription: Be like St Francis of
Assisi (Catholic Worker)
Entertaining Angels: The Dorothy Day Story
The Way of Love: Dorothy Day and the American Right
More
1898 Marie Prevost
(d. 1937), actress
1900 Margaret Mitchell (d. 1949), American author (Gone With the Wind)
1914
Norman Lloyd, actor
1918 Hermann Zapf, German
designer
1919 PL Deshpande, Indian
author
1920 Esther Rolle (d. 1998), actress
1922 Christiaan Barnard, South African heart transplant
pioneer
1927 Patti
Page, US popular singer ('[How
Much Is] That Doggie in the Window?')
1927 Nguyen Khanh, Prime Minister of South Vietnam
1931
Morley Safer, journalist
1931 Darla
Hood (d. 1979), actress
1935 Alain
Delon, French actor
1947
Minnie Riperton,
American pop singer (member of Stevie Wonder's
backing group, Wonderlove before her solo career) who died of cancer
in 1979 ('Lovin' You'). A year after her death, Capitol released a posthumous
album, Love Lives Forever, featuring her recorded vocals with
various singers like
Peabo
Bryson, Michael
Jackson and
Stevie Wonder. Her daughter,
Maya Rudolph, was a
regular cast member on
Saturday Night Live.
Aside from her various hits, Riperton is perhaps best remembered
today for her ability to sing in the whistle
register.
Wilson's
Almanac Book of Days hip list
1949 Bonnie Raitt, American singer
1953 Alfre Woodard, actress
1954 Jeanette McGruder, musician (P Funk)
1954 Rickie Lee Jones, singer, composer
1961
Leif Garrett, American
actor and singer
1967 Courtney Thorne-Smith, actress
1968 Parker Posey, actress
2003 Lady Louise Windsor, daughter of
Prince Edward, Earl of Wessex
Phew!!
Have a rest before the big This
day in history section
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