Samuel L. Clemens

aka Mark Twain, born November 30, 1835.  

Some Twain quotations, food for thought:    

                      

Thanksgiving Day, a function which originated in New England two or three centuries ago when those people recognized that they really had something to be thankful for -- annually, not oftener -- if they had succeeded in exterminating their neighbors, the Indians, during the previous twelve months instead of getting exterminated by their neighbors, the Indians. Thanksgiving Day became a habit, for the reason that in the course of time, as the years drifted on, it was perceived that the exterminating had ceased to be mutual and was all on the white man's side, consequently on the Lord's side; hence it was proper to thank the Lord for it and extend the usual annual compliments. - Mark Twain's Autobiography

The peoples furthest from civilization are the ones where equality between man and woman are furthest apart--and we consider this one of the signs of savagery. - Notebook, 1895

...nothing so liberalizes a man and expands the kindly instincts that nature put in him as travel and contact with many kinds of people. - Letter to San Francisco Alta California, dated May 18th, 1867; published June 23, 1867

Censorship is telling a man he can't have a steak just because a baby can't chew it.

- response to the banning of The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn

from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn:

So I was full of trouble, full as I could be; and didn't know what to do. At last I had an idea; and I says, I'll go and write the letter...So I got a piece of paper and a pencil, all glad and excited, and set down and wrote: Miss Watson, your runaway nigger Jim is down here two mile below Pikesville, and Mr. Phelps has got him and he will give him up for the reward if you send. Huck Finn.

I felt good and all washed clean of sin for the first time I had ever felt so in my life, and I knowed I could pray now. But I didn't do it straight off, but laid the paper down and set there thinking - thinking how good it was all this happened so, and how near I come to being lost and going to hell. And went on thinking. And got to thinking over our trip down the river; and I see Jim before me all the time: in the day and in the night-time, sometimes moonlight, sometimes storms, and we a-floating along, talking and singing and laughing. But somehow I couldn't seem to strike no places to harden me against him, but only the other kind...and at last I struck the time I saved him by telling the men we had smallpox aboard, and he was so grateful, and said I was the best friend old Jim ever had in the world, and the only one he's got now; and then I happened to look around and see that paper.

It was a close place. I took it up, and held it in my hand. I was a-trembling, because I'd got to decide, forever, betwixt two things, and I knowed it. I studied a minute, sort of holding my breath, and then says to myself:

"All right, then, I'll go to hell" - and tore it up.

If Christ were here there is one thing he would not be--a Christian. - Mark Twain's Notebook

St. Andrew's eve, the Roman Brumalia, a tree and cross wheel

Romanian strigoli vampires come out tonight, you can see them at the crossroads, fading into the mist at cockcrow.  Yet Andrew, whose feast day is tomorrow, is also patron saint of lovers.  The saint's name comes from Andros, a Greek word for "man," and the Greek diety Dionysus, who personified male virility, is associated with certain male saints, including Andrew.

Brumalia was an ancient Greek solstice festival honouring Dionysos, the name deriving from the Greek word bruma, "shortest day".  The Byzantine Church condemned it but it continued to be celebrated until the 12th century or later.

The Roman Feria Brumalia (Latin bruma, "frost") was a feast of Bacchus (Roman equivalent of Dionysus), celebrated over the span of a month, beginning November 24.  It was instituted very early on by Romulus.  Amidst the feasting and merrymaking, prophecies were sought to determine the course of the winter.

On St Andrew's eve in Hungary, young people pour melted lead into a glass of cold water through the handle of a key, the form it takes foretelling the occupation of the future spouse. We did this once at a New Year's eve party, but as a general fortune telling not specifically about a spouse.  Mine took the shape of a flag. 

Lace makers, on both St. Andrew's and St. Catherine's days (see Nov 25),  celebrate with feasts and sports, and the drinking of elderberry wine.  In the Celtic tree calendar, the month of the Elder commenced on November 25.  The Elder, aka elle (elfin) tree, is related to the Honeysuckle, and considered a tree of wisdom.  It's worth mentioning that syrup from Sambucus (Elderberry) is widely credited with staving off the H1N1 and other flu viruses. 

From "Brighid's Place" at technoharp.com:

Celtic shamanism uses the elder tree to form the sacred hoop on which the shield of the shaman is strung, and fires of elderwood afforded dreams wherein the shaman could walk between the worlds and retrieve the wisdom of the ancestors...The Mighty Dead, wise ones of the ancient clans, were thought to take up residence in elder trees, whose branches then sighed their names when the wind blew. An Elder tree growing where no tree had been before, alone and separate from other trees, was probably a Witch enchanted, and such wood was never gathered....

The 'True Cross' of Jesus Christ was said by some in England to have been made of elder-wood. St. Andrew was also crucified, but on a "cross saltire", which, as Waverly Fitzgerald tells us in School of the Seasons, "is also a sun symbol...similar to a Catherine wheel or the rune of Gefjon, the Giver, which is associated with Freya, the great Scandinavian goddess who is much honored at wintertide." Wilson's Almanac associates St. Andrew's "Ixion wheel" type cross with Leonardo Davinci's Vitruvian Man, which brings us back to man/andros/St. Andrew. 

 leonardo_man_sm.jpg 

The Advent Wheel

The 4-point solar cross is a very potent symbol of both the sun and the earth, the medicine wheel, the magic circle and the calling of the quarters that is an essential rite of magick for many.

And so too the Advent wreath, which neo-pagans have adapted from christians who have adapted it from older pagan rituals.  Advent means "waiting" and so the rite of the advent wreath is done to call back the Light. This can be done on four levels, one for each arm of the cross:

• Physical: the return of the sun's warming rays to heal illness and fructify the earth
• Mental: enlightenment and clarity of the mind
• Emotional: a return of love and happiness in our lives
• Spiritual: the Light of the World, a reawakening of Christ consciousness and/or the light within us all (which is essentially the same thing) to bring forth world harmony

For history, lore and ways to celebrate a pan-theistic Advent, see here  and here.

Wheel of Fortune and St. Catherine's Day

At this time of year people start putting wreaths on their doors. Scandinavians began this tradition to commemorate their New Year at Yule (the word means "wheel"), symbolizing the Wheel of the Year, a circle illustrating that time revolves back to its point of origin and that every ending is a new beginning in the cycle of life.

The Tarot card Wheel of Fortune depicts this concept, that "what comes up, must come down, spinnin' wheel got to go 'round" (as the song goes), so this is a good day to contemplate the symbolism and meaning of that card. Pictured here is the Wheel of Fortune card from the Tarot of the Saints by Robert M. Place, published by Llewellyn (from the Tarot of the Sevenfold Mystery, copyright Robert M. Place, used with permission. See more @  Alchemical Egg). It depicts St. Catherine, whose feast day is November 25.   

Her legend is pretty gruesome, as are many stories about martyred saints. For refusing to marry an emperor, she was condemned to be placed on a contraption of wheels designed to tear her apart and because of this, Catherine is matron saint of all who use a wheel, spinners (and spinsters!), potters and so forth. She is considered to be the christian version of many goddesses of the wheel, including:

• Arianrhod (Celtic) starr goddess whose name means 'silver wheel'
• Fortuna (Roman) goddess associated with the Wheel of Fortune in most tarot decks
• Kali (Hindu), whose emblem is, like St. Catherine's, the fiery wheel
• Nemesis (Italian) goddess of the Wheel of Fortune and divine retribution
• Persephone (Greek) goddess of the underworld, not specifically the wheel, but shares the feast day November 23, which is aka "Womens Merrymaking Day"
• also the Roman fire goddess Feronia, whose feast day is November 13, a time when the Stregherian season of Shadowfest is ending and the tide of the Winter Solstice begins
• and even another saint, St. Lucia, or St Lucy, who wears a fiery crown of candles at Yuletide

Waverly Fitzgerald* writes that in England, women went about during the day, often dressed in men's clothes, singing working songs and visiting their neighbors who offered them wiggs [spicy ginger muffins that look like wigs] and a drink made of warm beer, beaten eggs and rum. After dark, they set off fireworks, particularly Catherine wheels.

The Catherine wheel is a giant spoked wheel with an effigy of a person bound to it, covered with tar, set aflame, and rolled down a hill.  This was done at this time of year in medieval rural Germany, but more often this occurred at Lammas, another time of year when St. Catherine has a feast day. The wheel was set aflame as both a symbol of sacrifice and a petition to bring some warmth into the cold winter.

* I love Waverly's blog Living in Season, which can be accessed via my Lynx (at left). She also has much more info about St. Catherine's feast day at http://schooloftheseasons.com/novdays2.html#cath

Zero Year

So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. 

Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. 

Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. 

Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. 

Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. 

Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. 

Show respect to all people and grovel to none. 

When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the 

joy of living. 

If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. 

Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. 

When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. 

Sing your death song and die like a hero going home. 

- Chief Tecumseh, Shawnee Nation

November 24, 1812 marks the death of Tecumseh's nephew Spenicalawba, who scouted for the Americans during the War of 1812, having been captured as a young boy by a general who raised him. "Captain Logan", as he was also known, tried to temper Tecumseh's hostility toward the Euro-Americans.

Wasn't gonna happen. Tecumseh (Tekoomsē: "Shooting Star" or "Panther Across The Sky") allied with the British in Canada, hoping by this effort to drive the Americans away for good, giving up his life in the effort.

A year earlier while he was away traveling, his forces were defeated in the Battle of Tippecanoe.  His brother Tenskwatawa was there.  Tenskwatawa was a religious leader who also advocated a return to the ancestral lifestyle of the tribes.  He put a curse on governor William Henry Harrison that he would never be President but instead die.

True. Harrison's presidency lasted one month.  He died of pneumonia.  This began a long series of what became known as "Tecumseh's Curse" whereby Presidents elected in a year ending in zero would die is office. 

Here is the "Zero Year" list of fated Presidents:

1840 – William Henry Harrison (pneumonia)

1860 – Abraham Lincoln (shot in head)

1880 – James A. Garfield (shot in back)

1900 – William McKinley (shot while shaking hands with well-wishers after making speech)

1920 – Warren G. Harding (stroke – may also have been poisoned by wife)

1940 – Franklin D. Roosevelt (massive cerebral hemorrhage in fourth term while on vacation with mistress)

1960 – John F. Kennedy (shot in head)

While some claim Ronald Reagan, elected in 1980, "broke the chain of zero-year voodoo", others say the curse is only sleeping.  

"W" also managed to escape, does this mean the spell was indeed broken?

Or does it mean that the Presidency itself "died in office" in 1980, replaced by corporate rule?

Catterning and Clementing

"Clemany! Clemany! Clemany mine!

A good red apple and a pint of wine..."

This is the song Staffordshire ironworkers would sing as they went door to door, and  in many pre-Reformation English counties, they would do likewise, singing their own versions of the song, bearing an effigy of St. Clement, or "Old Clem", tricked out in wig beard and pipe.  They would thus beg contributions to a meal, or at least at drink; hence this day was marked with a pot on old ‘clog almanacs’. (pictured) Originally made of a "clog", or log of wood, these were calendars of four faces, each divided by notches into three months, containing saints' days, festivals, moon phases, etc in Runic characters and so it is also called a Runic staff.

In Asatru and among the Saxons, Weyland the Smith is a metalworker whose feast day on November 23 is the same as St. Clement's Day.  Clement is credited with being the first man to refine iron from ore, and to shoe a horse, and the present day English custom of blacksmiths firing their anvils by exploding gunpowder on them  in honour of Old Clem may have its roots in an earlier tradition. In some areas, today marks the beginning of winter.

Children also would go 'clementing and cattering' for fruit and pennies, singing a somewhat surprising song both on St. Clement's Day and St. Catherine's day on November 25:

‘Cattern and Clemen, be here be here! Some of your apples and some of your beer!’  

I guess in this case "beer" means pennies.

The symbol of St. Clement is an anchor, because one of his legends says he was thrown into the sea tied to an anchor. Besides metalworkers, he is also patron of boatmen, marble workers, mariners, sailors, sick children, stonecutters and watermen.

And hatters. Another legend says while fleeing his persecutors his feet blistered and he put wool in his sandals; the constant wear while running turned the wool into felt, which he is also credited with inventing.

Other customs associated with the late November saints days included men and women exchanging clothes with each other and inviting friends in for elderberry wine.  A local winery even credits this wine with staving off the flu.  Cheers!

Tarot cards of the day: 8 Pentacles, also 5 and 6 Pentlacles (because of the begging door to door); in the Romany deck, also trump #5 and the 9 Chivs (swords)

The Huntress is a Muse

The month of the Archer, Sagittarius, begins tomorrow. Our local hunting season started earlier on in October and the infamous Wild Hunt commenced at Hallows. By now harvest is in and hunting's in full swing, and the dropping temperature inclines some of us to become more carnivorous, replacing fresh fruits and salads with chili, soup and stews. I don't think of the American Thanksgiving that falls during this season as a harvest festival but more of a "predators' feast" (more about that later...maybe)

The Leonid meteor showers that peaked last Tuesday can be imaged as multitudinous brilliant arrows shot from the crescent moon bow of the Huntress Diana - Artemis.  In the Roman calendar the entire month November is dedicated to Diana, and this Greco-Roman goddess along with Chiron the centaur are mythological archetypes for the zodiac sign Sagittarius.

November 22 is the feast day of St. Cecilia, one of the "canonized deities". Christians adapted the legends of venerable pagan gods and goddesses into those of saints; the ones they disliked became devils and demons. I see it going the other way now, where the god of the old testament is demonized among some modern pagans, but I digress.

St. Cecilia is therefore considered to be an aspect of Artemis Calliste (Gr. Kalliste, "most beautiful"), likely because Pope Paschal I discovered her bones in a Roman catacomb bearing the name Calliste. Artemis in her guise as  the "Lily of Heaven" Calliste (not to be confused with her beloved nymph Callisto) is, like Euterpe, a muse of music.

So it comes as no surprise that Cecilia is the patron saint of musicians and is still celebrated by music lovers with concerts and recitals. In art she is usually portrayed with a stringed instrument, but sometimes with an organ, which she is credited with inventing.

Some local musical events happening on St. Cecilia's Day this year:

• CrossCurrents Culture presents "Notorious"  39th & Harrison
• UMKC Conservatory opera "Handsel & Gretel"
• "Wicked" at the Music Hall
• Briarcliff Village lighting ceremony w/fireworks, a street organ grinder and other musical entertainment
• KC Rep "A Christmas Story: the Musical" on the Plaza

Night of Hecate

Goddess of Crossroads, Goddess of the Moon, Most Lovely One, Most Distant One, Queen of Spirits, Keeper of the Keys to the Universe, Hecate - the quintessential Goddess of Witchcraft. All the Secret powers of Nature are at her command. To Romans she is Ecate, Diana Lucifera and the Black Madonna, goddess of light and darkness. One of her birthplaces is Mt Cynthos in Delos, hence she is called Cynthia. Her title Trivia has nothing to do with triviality, but is tri - via, "three ways", referring to crossroads and the triple aspects of Lady Moon - Maiden, Mother and Crone.  Hecate embodies all 3, but it is in her Crone aspect that her power is strongest. Therefore she manifests most potently at the dark of the moon, and offerings are made to her at a spot where three roads intersect. In Wicca, November 16 is the Night of Hecate, to Italian Streghe, it is the 13th day of the moon in August, and traditionally, it is the dark of the moon every month.  This year November 16 happens to fall at the dark of the moon.  So we have the "falling" season, aka the dark tide of the year at the dark of the moon on a designated Night of Hecate. What better time could there possibly be to call upon the Dark Goddess? Here is an invocation adapted from a poem.  I wish I could find and credit the source...

So the moon is dark and the path obscured

    before you

So the bodies sway and the incense curls

    to the sky

Draw the veil aside as She graces us with

    Her presence

Draw the star of flame blue points

    upon Her.

Old and knarled is She like the ancient tree

    of the Earth

Old and wise is She like a snowy owl

    from the Sky

Gently flow Her words like a deepcut    

    brook from afar

Gently see Her eyes like the bonfire embers

    burning low

She is white and black, she is tender and hard,

    She is Wisdom

She is light as a feather, She is heavy with knowledge,

    She is Hecate

Come to Her altar and pour out your pain

    like wine

Come into Her arms and heed well Her words

    of wisdom

Let the anguish drain like the welcome rains

    in the desert

So the sky is full and the paths open up

    before you...

Tarot card of the day: The Moon, Death (Spiral deck)

Fragrance: vetivert, patchouli, cypress, musk