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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

Saint George he was for England
Saint Denis was for France.
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Old ballad (Percy: Reliques: St George for England) (Today is St Denys's Day – Patron Saint of France)

St Denys had his head cut off, he did not care for that,
He took it up and carried it two miles without his hat.
Traditional English saying

Every civil building connected with Mahommedan tradition should be levelled to the ground without regard to antiquarian veneration or artistic predilection.
British Prime Minister Palmerston in a letter to Lord Canning, Viceroy of India, October 9, 1857, Canning Papers

For what Australia is worth I rank in it as its only therefore its foremost therefore its worst anarchist poet. Editors who will print me on literary-artistic lines are confined to those starting new publications, which as new publications must, make a bid for revolutionary support, by featuring me. The inevitable respectable commercial success, if they are 'lucky', follows, and I am dropped – to our mutual satisfaction. Things are only good at their inception.
Harry Hooton, Australian anarchist poet, born on October 9, 1908; letter to Leslie Woolf Hedley, March 5, 1953, Margaret Fink Collection   Source

Nowadays we suppose that poetry and philosophy are quite separate activities; that philosophy is a more exact and abstract and and examination of things, logically and coolly and detachedly, whereas poetry is some sort of mysterious and mystical intuition that anyone can attain into the nature of things. But of course the ancients had no such view as that. The early philosophies were all expressed in poetry or at least in verse and there was not that distinction that we draw today between philosophy and poetry or science and art ... incidentally, and somewhat contradictorily, I didn't like poetry when I was young. My critics may not be surprised to hear that, since they might contend that my attempts to essay poetry have not always been successful ... That was, of course, until I realised again that poetry is much closer to prose, much closer to philosophy and to damn solid talk, speeches and sloganeering, than we suppose.
Harry Hooton  Source

Language is not eternal. It will be replaced. We are not going to talk for ever.
Harry Hooton   Source

Christianity will go. It will vanish and shrink. I needn't argue about that, I'm right and will be proved right. We're more popular than Jesus Christ now. I don't know which will go first, rock 'n' roll or Christianity. Jesus was all right, but his disciples were thick and ordinary. It's them twisting it that ruins it for me.
John Lennon, born on October 9, 1940

You have to do it yourself. That's what the great masters and mistresses have been saying ever since time began. They can point the way, leave signposts and little instructions in various books that are now called holy and worshipped for the cover of the book and not what it says; but the instructions are there for all to see, have always been you.
John Lennon

Well we all shine on
Like the moon and the stars and the sun.
John Lennon

Words are flowing out like endless rain into a paper cup,
They slither wildly as they slip away across the universe
Pools of sorrow, waves of joy are drifting through my open mind,
Possessing and caressing me.
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.

Images of broken light which dance before me like a million eyes,
That call me on and on across the universe,
Thoughts meander like a restless wind inside a letter box
They tumble blindly as they make their way
Across the universe
Jai guru de va om
Nothing's gonna change my world,
Nothing's gonna change my world.
John Lennon

The bigger we got, the more unreality we had to face. One has to completely humiliate oneself to be what The Beatles were, and that's what I resent. I didn't know; I didn't foresee. It happened bit by bit, gradually until this complete craziness is surrounding you, and you're doing exactly what you don't want to do with people you can't stand--the people you hated when you were ten. Fuckin' big bastards, that's what The Beatles were. You have to be a bastard to make it, that's a fact, and The Beatles are the biggest bastards on earth. All the handouts, the bribery, the police, all the fucking hype. Everybody wanted in and some of them are still trying to cling to this. Don't take it from us, otherwise you're mad, John, you're crazy. Silly John wants to take all this away.
John Lennon

Laurel and Hardy, that's John and Yoko. And we stand a better chance under that guise because all the serious people like Martin Luther King and Kennedy and Gandhi got shot.
John Lennon

I Wandered 
On balmy sea and pernie schooners
On strivers and warming things
In a peanut coalshed clad
I wandered happy as a jew
To meet good Doris King.

Past grisby trees and hulky builds 
Past ratters and bradder sheep 
In a resus baby stooped 
I wandered hairy as a dog 
To get a goobites sleep 

Down hovey lanes and stoney claves 
Down ricketts and sticklys myth 
In a fatty hebrew gurth 
I wandered humply as a sock 
To meet bad Bernie Smith.
John Lennon

Sean was born on October the 9th, which I was, so we're almost like twins. It's a pleasure for me to hang around the house. I was always a homebody. I think a lot of musicians are. I had been so locked in to home environment, and completely switched my way of thinking, that I really didn't think about music at all. My guitar was sort of hung up behind the bed, literally. And I just don't think I took it down in 5 years.
John Lennon

I'd go through periods of panic, because I was not in Billboard or being seen at Studio 54 with Mick and Bianca. I mean, I didn't exist anymore. And I realized there was a life without it. I thought, "This reminds me of being 15!" I didn't have to write songs at 15. I wrote if I wanted to. That's when I suddenly could do it again with ease. All the songs that are on Double Fantasy all came within a period of 3 weeks.
John Lennon

If everyone demanded peace instead of another television set, then there'd be peace.
John Lennon

We've been on our peace gig, as we call it, for a year solid. And people say, "Do you think it's having any effect?" I can't answer that. It's like asking me in the Cavern, "Are you gonna make it?" In the back of my mind I thought, I'm gonna make it, but I couldn't lay it on the line. And I think that peace is more tangible than Beatles.
John Lennon

Now, in the sixties we were naive, like children. Everybody went back to their rooms, and said, "We didn't get a wonderful world of just flowers and peace and happy chocolate, and it won't be just pretty and beautiful all the time," and just like babies everyone went back to their rooms and sulked. "We're going to stay in our rooms and play rock and roll and not do anything else, because the world's a horrible place, because it didn't give us everything we cried for." Right?
John Lennon

It just was a gradual development over the years. I mean last year was "all you need is Love." This year, it's "all you need is Love and peace, baby." Give peace a chance, and remember Love. The only hope for us is peace. Violence begets violence. You can have peace as soon as you like if we all pull together. You're all geniuses, and you're all beautiful. You don't need anyone to tell you who you are. You are what you are. Get out there and get peace, think peace, and live peace and breathe peace, and you'll get it as soon as you like.
John Lennon

My role in society, or any artist's or poet's role, is to try and express what we all feel. Not to tell people how to feel. Not as a preacher, not as a leader, but as a reflection of us all.
John Lennon

Crazy with fury I will stain my rifle red while slaughtering any enemy that falls in my hands! My nostrils dilate while savoring the acrid odor of gunpowder and blood. With the deaths of my enemies I prepare my being for the sacred fight and join the triumphant proletariat with a bestial howl!
Che Guevara, who died on October 9, 1967; 'Motorcycle Diaries'

I've learned some lessons in my life/lessons in my life/Always be careful of my friends/be careful of my friends/Money can make friendship end/it makes friendship end.
Peter Tosh, Jamaican reggae artist born on October 9, 1944, from No Nuclear War

I think that Peter Tosh was Malcolm X to Bob Marley's Martin Luther King. He wasn't nearly as loveable and accommodating as Bob was. As such, he was more of a threat to those in charge: record companies and Babylon.
Robert Nelson   Source

October 9 is the 282^nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (283^rd in leap years), with 83 days remaining.
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Feast day of Felicitas, Roman Empire

Felicitas is a minor Roman goddess of good luck. Known particularly from the second century BCE, in Roman mythology, this goddess of success was very closely associated with the Imperial Family. 

She had multiple temples in Rome, including one on the Forum Romanum. Felicitas personified happy events and was linked with agricultural prosperity; she became the special protector of successful commanders. To the emperors she symbolized the blessings of their regime, and so they presented her to the people. Ovid's Roman calendar, the Fasti, tells us she was associated with the numen Augusti. Julius Caesar planned to erect another temple to her; this was built by the triumvir M. Aemilius Lepidus. 

There is also a St Felicitas.

Source of date: Nigel Pennick, The Pagan Book of Days, Destiny Books, Rochester, Vermont, USA, 1992, 116

Roman festivals and notable days in the Book of Days

Feast day of Helena, wife of Emperor Julian, Roman Empire
A deified Roman queen.
Pennick, ibid 126

Feast day of St Dionysus (Denys, Denis or Dennis) of Paris

(Milky agaric, Agaricus lactiflorus is today's plant, dedicated to this saint, and his companions, martyrs.)

First bishop of Paris, martyr, and a patron saint of France

Saint George he was for England
Saint Denis was for France.
Sing, Honi soit qui mal y pense.
Old ballad (Percy: Reliques: St George for England)

St Dionysus (Denys, Denis or Dennis) is a Christianized form of the pagan god of the same name. There is actually a number of saints by this name, the best known being this St Dionysus, the patron of France (whose feast day the Christian church set at around the time of the Oschophoria – see October 3 in the Book of Days).   

St Denys had his head cut off, he did not care for that,
He took it up and carried it two miles without his hat.
Traditional English

St Denys was the Apostle to the Gauls, and traditional patron of France. He was beheaded at Paris 258 or 272, but after martyrdom he carried his head for two miles (at the famous Parisian district of Montmartre, 'Mount of the Martyr'), where he laid it down and was buried. The site where he stopped preaching and actually died was made into a small shrine that developed into the Saint Denis Basilica, which became the burial place for the Kings of France.

"The tale may have arisen from an ancient painting of his martyrdom in which the artist placed the head between the hands so that the martyr might be identified"  (Ivor H Evans, Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, Cassell, London, 1988). It is worth noting that the ancient Greek festival of Dionysus (Dionysos), the god of wine and revelry, was held at about this time and known as the Oschophoria. Perhaps today's ancient Christian feast is a relic of the Greek festivities based around Dionysus, as his is the name from which Denis, Denys and Dennis are derived.

He lived seven years in the form of a hart, or deer. Or, so it is said. (Richard Johnson: The Famous History of the Seven Champions of Christendom, 1596) (More on Christian saints, stags, deer and the Horned God in the Scriptorium.)

St Denys's body was venerated in France, and another at Ratisbonne (Regensburg), Germany.

During the French Revolution, a Paris watchmaker went mad while trying to discover the principles of perpetual motion. He believed he had been guillotined with a number of other people, and that he had had another victim's head sewn onto his body. Once, he was defending the belief that St Denys had lost his head and that the saint had kissed his head as he was walking with it. He received the reply, "How could St Denys have kissed his own head? With his heels?" This jolted him back to reality and the watchmaker's mental illness disappeared.

St Dionysus/Denys introduced Christianity to France and was executed during the persecution of the emperor Valerian. His body, and those of his companions, was buried by a Christian lady named Catalla, near the place of their death. The chapel built at the spot in the fifth century became a place of pilgrimage, and the abbey of St Denys was erected there in the seventh century. In art, he is depicted as a deacon carrying his head. Denys was one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers (feast day, August 8), saints venerated together in Roman Catholicism because prayer to them was thought to be particularly effective, especially against various diseases. During the Middle Ages, especially in France and Germany these saints were credited with particularly efficacious intercessory power. All of them also had or have individual feast days, but most of them probably never even existed, or are shadowy figures of early Christianity popularised by imaginative and embellished tales.

St Denis's patronage includes against frenzy, against strife, France, headaches, Paris and possessed people.

Image above right: Saint Denis et ses diacres sont décapités, Chapelle Saint-Érige, Auron, France

The god Dionysus, in the Scriptorium    Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days

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Hangul Day, South 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 the late James D McCawley, celebrate this day yearly to recognise the creation of the Korean alphabet as a linguistic achievement of global significance.   Ram Mating Ceremony, Anatolia, Turkey (Oct 1 - 20) Feast day of St Aaron the Patriarch Feast day of St Abraham the Patriarch Feast day of St Anicet Adolfo Feast day of St Augusto Andrés Feast day of St Benito de Jesús Feast day of St Benjamín Julián Feast day of St Cirilo Bertrán Feast day of St Dionysius the Aeropagite Feast day of St Eleutherius Feast day of St Geminus Feast day of St Gislenus Feast day of St Goswin Feast day of St Gunther Feast day of St Inocencio de la Immaculada Feast day of St John of Bridlington Feast day of St Julián Alfredo Feast day of St Louis Bertran Feast day of St Marciano José Feast day of St Publia Feast day of St Richarius Feast day of St Rusticus Feast day of St Victoriano Pío Shop Saints Click for Eastern Orthodox liturgical days   Leif Erikson Day, Norway, USA and elsewhere (Various spellings: Leifur Eiriksson, Leif Erikson, Leif Ericsson, Leif Eriksson, Leif Erickson, Leiv Eiriksson, Leiv Eriksson) Leif Erikson, known as Leif the Lucky, the alleged European discoverer of America some 500 years before Christopher Columbus, is commemorated in Norway and the USA. President William J Clinton proclaimed October 9, 1997 Leif Erikson Day. "The discovery of Wineland the Good and other lands on the eastern coast of North America is recorded at greater length in two mediaeval Iceland sagas, the Saga of Eric the Red and the Saga of the Greenlanders. These were probably written around or soon after the year 1200, just over two centuries after the events they record."   Source  Write Your Name in Runes    Vikings    The Norse Discovery of America (1906 book online) Petition to proclaim Leif Ericson Day in Canada (petition failed)   Black Walnut Festival, Spencer, Roane County, West Virginia, USA (Oct 9 - 12) Wina'Kwari, Mexico Green squash festival of Ojos de Dios (God's Eye). World Post Day (UN) Independence Day, Uganda (from Britain, 1962) Guayaquil's Independence Day, Ecuador (from Spain 1820) (Dia de la independencia de Guayaquil) Romanian Holocaust Remembrance Day, Romania Nagasaki Kunchi, Suwa-Jinja Shrine, Nagasaki-shi, Nagasaki, Japan (Oct 7 - 9) World Space Week (Oct 4 - 10)       On which day of the week were you born? Find out here 1201 Robert de Sorbon (d. 1274), French theologian and founder of the Sorbonne 1221 Salimbene di Adam, Italian chronicler 1261 King Dinis of Portugal 1328 King Peter I of Cyprus (d. 1369) 1585 Heinrich Schütz, composer 1757 King Charles X of France 1835 Camille Saint-Saëns (d. 1921), French composer (Samson et Dalila; Danse Macabre) 1859 Alfred Dreyfus (d. 1935), French military officer 1864 Brigadier-General Reginald Dyer, CB (d. July 23, 1927), British Indian Army officer infamous for initiating the Jallianwala Bagh Massacre of 1919 1873 Charles Walgreen (d. 1939), entrepreneur 1879 Bertram Stevens (d. February 14, 1922), Australian literary and art critic, anthologist (An Anthology of Australian Verse [which contained five poems by Henry Lawson]; The Golden Treasury of Australian Verse). He succeeded AG Stephens as editor of the 'Red Page' of The Bulletin. Stevens was a member of the exclusive Dawn and Dusk drinking club, along with Victor Daley, Henry Lawson and other Sydney bohemians. At the time of his death he was preparing A History of Australian Literature (unpublished). "Stevens was a modest man of quiet charm. He was completely unselfish, always anxious to help the literary beginner or struggling poet. He was a sound, though not great critic of both literature and art, for both of which he did an immense amount of work, which had much influence on the cultural life of Australia."   Source "Bertram Stevens was born at Inverell, New South Wales. In 1882 he moved with his family to Sydney where he was educated at public schools. In 1895 he began a fifteen-year period as a solicitor's clerk. During this time he read widely and worked as a freelance journalist, coming into contact with a number of literary figures. He was a founding member of the Dawn and Dusk Club, a society of artists and writers that included Victor Daley, F. J. Broomfield, Norman Lindsay, Henry Lawson …"   Source Not to be confused with this Bertram Stevens, UAP Premier of New South Wales May 16, 1932 - August 5, 1939. Lawson & Co: associations with Henry and Louisa Lawson   1888 Nikolai Ivanovich Bukharin, Russian politician 1890 Aimee Semple McPherson (d. 1944), American evangelist 1892 Marina Tsvetaeva, Russian poet 1892 Ivo Andrić (d. 1975), Croatian writer 1900 Alastair Sim (d. 1976), actor 1907 Quintin Hogg (d. 2001), later Lord Hailsham of St Marylebone, British politician   1908 Harry Hooton (b. Henry Arthur Hooton; d. 1961), Australian anarchist poet.  Hooton was an Australian poet and philosopher ahead of his time. He was part of the libertarian Sydney Push in Sydney during the 1950s. In 1943, Hooton met the authors Nettie Palmer