Feb 6: Aphrodisia; Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier; Bob Marley;

Aphrodisia, festival of Aphrodite, ancient Greece

Aphrodite ('risen from sea-foam'), the Greek goddess of love, sex and beauty, bears some likeness to other deities in the ancient world. These include Astarte, Branwen, Aida Wedo, Xochiquetzal, Venus, Freya and Oshun. Her Roman analogue is Venus. Her Mesopotamian counterpart was Ishtar and her Syro-Palestinian counterpart was Astarte; her Etruscan equivalent was Turan. Her festival is the Aphrodisia which was celebrated in various centres of Greece, especially in Athens and Corinth.

Aphrodite was associated with, and often depicted with dolphins, doves, swans, pomegranates and lime trees. She was also called Kypris or Cytherea after her alleged birth-places in Cyprus and Cythera, respectively. Originally she was considered a daughter of Zeus and Dione, one of the ocean nymphs. By classical times, however, an alternate story of her birth had gained precedence, that she was born of the sea foam near Paphos, Cyprus after Cronus cut off Uranus' genitals and the god's blood dropped on the sea. The Iliad refers to both versions.

 
When she was born on the foam of the sea, the seas boiled and turned a rosy hue. Aphrodite arose, already full grown, wonderfully beautiful and standing on a seashell. She floated to Cyprus, arriving in April; the moment her feet touched the shore, grass and flowers sprang up at her feet and she was received by the Three Graces, Aglaea, Euphrosyne and Thalia.
Deities of many cultures in the Book of Days    Festivals in ancient Greece

 

1976 Canada: Native American activist Leonard Peltier was captured and, on the basis of allegedly fictitious affidavits generated by the FBI, was later extradited to the USA. Federal prosecutors later admitted they didn't have a clue who committed the crime for which they convicted Peltier.
International Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier (February 6)    More    More    Peltier chronology
  

International Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier
February 6 of each year has become the International Day in Solidarity with Leonard Peltier. Protest gatherings to publicize Peltier's plight and help gain his release are held around the world, from a few individuals in small towns, to thousands on the Internet registering their protest with elected officials and the White House.

1945 Bob Marley (d. May 11, 1981), Jamaican roots rock reggae singer and musician. My then partner, Mikla Lewis, founder of WIRES, danced with him once, at a party in Adelaide.

Redemption man
The poor boy from Trenchtown, Jamaica, was born to a white father and black mother. At only 15, he formed The Wailers with school mates Peter Tosh, Rita Anderson (later his wife, Rita Marley) and Bunny Livingston (Bunny Wailer). After his premature death (aged 36) from lung cancer, the huge National Arena of Jamaica was too small to hold the mourners; his grave is now a national shrine. Today is a public holiday in Jamaica.

From 'Redemption Song'
Bob Marley
Old pirates yes they rob I
Sold I to the merchant ships
Minutes after they took I from the bottomless pit
But my hand was made strong
By the hand of the Almighty
We forward in this generation, triumphantly
Won't you help to sing these songs of freedom
Cause all I ever had redemption songs,
Redemption songs
Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery
None but ourselves can free our minds
Have no fear for atomic energy
Cause none of them can stop the time
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look
Yes, some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfil the book ...

What is Rastafari?
The religion adhered to by reggae artist Bob Marley and thousands or millions of others, is called Rastafari. Its name is derived from Ras Tafari, a name for the one-time Emperor of Ethiopia, Haile Selassie, whom Rastafarians believe to be divine.

Feb 3: Mayan Creation/Timewave Zero; St Blaize; Ryan executed

3114 BCE February 3 is the eciprocal date for Mayan Creation, the laying out of the ecliptic. (See also our article on the 2012 calendar convergence.)

Below the article online (the page is very much under reconstruction today) are Internet resources on this topic.

December 21, 2012 Timewave Zero? 4 Ollin? The Mayan calendar ends.

 
Feast day of St Blaize (Blaise; Blasien; Blasius; Blas;Biagio; Sveti Vlaho; Vlasü) Bishop of Sebaste

(Great water moss, Fontinalis antepyretica, is today's plant, dedicated to this saint(pictured).)

A physician and bishop of Sebaste (modern Sivas), Armenia, Blaize was martyred by being beaten, attacked with iron carding combs, and beheaded in the persecution of Licinius in about the year 316 CE. Because iron combs were used to tear his flesh, he is the patron saint of wool-combers. Wool-combers in Bradford and other English towns, particularly in Essex, Yorkshire, Wiltshire and Norwich, had a septennial jubilee on this day, in honour of the saint and of the Greek god, Jason (he of the Golden Fleece).

At the head of the procession, the masters went on horseback, each bearing a white sliver, or ribbon, of wool. Then their sons followed, then their colours, then apprentices, uniformed and mounted on a horse. Persons representing the royal family and attendants followed. Then came Jason and Bishop Blaize, followed by shepherds, shepherdesses, wool-combers, dyers and so on, some in woollen wigs.

Apparently for no other reason than the sound of the saint's name, in England it was customary to light fires on this evening, on hill-tops. "Country women went about during the day in an idle merry humour, making good cheer; and if they found a neighbour spinning, they thought themselves justified in making a conflagration of the distaff," says Chambers (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' Book of Days]).

It was earlier believed that by a charm in the saint's name, a thorn could be extracted from the flesh, or a bone from the throat. One held the patient and said: "Blaize, the martyr and servant of Jesus Christ, commands thee (in the case of a bone) to pass up or down; (in the case of a thorn) to come forth."  

St Blaize can cure sore throats. He lived in a cave; wild beasts came daily to be cured by him, and if he was praying, they did not interrupt. He once cured a youth who had a fish-bone caught in his throat, by praying ...

1967 Ronald Ryan (b. 1925) was executed at Pentridge Prison, Victoria, Australia and his body buried in an unmarked grave. The killing of Ryan, who was probably not guilty, caused such outrage in the land that no Australian has been killed by Australian lawyers or politicians since – not officially, anyway. Within twenty years, capital punishment was abolished federally and in all State and territory jurisdictions.

In 1967, Ronald Ryan, the last person to be executed in Australia, was killed by the State. It was a killing that helped the Premier of the State of Victoria, Henry Bolte, win an election, but it split the community deeply, such that no politician or judge ever again dared take anyone's life. Bolte brushed aside all protests, appeals and petitions, including one signed by seven of the jurors who sat on the Ryan case.

The judge, who had to impose a mandatory death penalty, was summoned by the Premier, who was soon to go before the electorate. Bolte asked the judge if there was any chance Ryan might have been innocent. The judge, who, despite the evidence, believed Ryan guilty, could have won a State reprieve by telling a white lie, but as a Roman Catholic, he felt he could not tell a mistruth to the premier. He thought it more ethical, rather, to allow a man to be hanged by the neck until dead. Years later, the troubled judge said on TV that he prayed to Ryan each night. I wrote a poem about it because I think this incident says a lot about people and belief.

'I could not tell a lie'
By Pip Wilson
(Based on an anecdote; avowedly a true story)
The judge sat through the weeks of trial
and sentenced Ryan to hang.
Premier Bolte sent for him
and asked him if this man,
this Ronald Ryan was truly guilty,
or was there "some way out,
with the election coming up and all" –
said the judge, "No reasonable doubt".
 
So Ronald Ryan's neck was stretched;
the judge spoke to the press:
"I could not tell a lie", he said
"I'm of the faith" he stressed.
 
And further pressed on how he felt,
said the judge, "Ryan had the right
to absolution, he's now in heaven.
I pray to him each night."

At 8:00 am Ryan fell through the trapdoor and died on the same gallows as Ned Kelly. Ronald Ryan is buried in quicklime within the grounds of Pentridge Prison. His family are forbidden to visit the unmarked grave. On November 28, 2005 on ABC Radio National, elderly Judge Philip Opas, who was Ronald Ryan's lawyer to the end, stated that he still firmly believes that Ryan was innocent ...

Whim

 

When I was recently quite innocently prodded a bit as I sat in church, and I jumped a little, I was immediately reminded of Kassia Klinger. I knew Kassia in the 1990s. Kassia had a manner of coming up behind me when I was using the Macquarie Uni library catalogue, and poke me in the ribs. I believe Kassia, whose mother and father owned the Left-Handed Shop at The Rocks, Sydney, kinda liked me. I found it infuriating to have my kidneys poked, but I was single, and Kassia seemed somewhat interested in me. When I lived at 22 Bardo Road, Newport, in a small bedsit, converted from a garage, Kassia stayed one night, and although nothing was said, I felt that Kassia might have wanted to spend the night with me, but closer. But I was enjoying my solitude. At about this time, I published the Hope Calendar. You can read about it here, a page which will change as I get a working scanner, as I have a few Hope Calendars, any one of which I can scan. The Hope Calendar was for a door, or very large fridgedoor. It had hundreds of images from Wilson's Almanac, merged into a large image of a man jumping for joy. Regi Ziorjen, from Switzerland, and I had worked on it for many tens of hours at my place, a home unit perched on the southern headland of Av (Avalon), on Sydney's Northern Beaches, and at the Stone House at Bilgola Plateau, where Walter Burleigh Griffin's spirit hovered. (I also lived a Narrabeen, the suburb known for many things, including being mentioned in the Beach Boys song, Surfin' USA rival of Narrabeen people. A shop in Narrabeen parodied the Vegemite label, 'Somewhere on the Australian toast', by selling its own stickers about Avalon.

Since New Year's Day, 2012, I've been calling it to myself, The Regi Principle. Maybe someone else will. I encourage that it will get around, to honour Regi and his family, and in the hope that it will increase the presence of people's and organisations' links to me and Wilson's Almanac, just as the Peter Principlepromoted the career and influence of Dr Laurence J Peter and Raymond Hull.   I was a dreadfully shy boy, but I'm a gregarious man, who paradoxically loves his solitude. I have enough fruit and other food, which is generally vegetarian, radio, my jug of delicious(to me) keffa-with-honey, water(but no alcohol, as I have a policy of never drinking alone), things to fascinate me and work on, that I could easily sit in this chair at my desk for weeks on end if I wanted to, and still be gainfully active. I have plenty of organic home-grown tobacco from my burgeoning permaculture garden, and so on, in my Paradise. I fully endorse the Hindu principle of fasting for a calendar month. I always enjoy fasting. And Ralph Waldo Emerson said he wanted to see house-name signs with the word 'whim' painted above the doorway of every residence in the USA. My wish is that every home in Australia, whether McMansion or any type of shelter, will have such a sign. I'm in the process of painting one over my bedroom door, above the hardwood floor, so I'm having it framed well, in case it falls and breaks. I'm loving living like this. I can do whatever I want, promote the Almy, and not die, all at the same time, from my chair. I can change anything on the Almanac, frequency of being blogged, or emailed, how big, how small, how many words to a page or paragraph, how many images and youtubes, tunes, audio clips, cartoons, symphonies, new ideas ˗ anything I choose. I can ignore anything, or read it to within an inch of its life. Just gotta trust myself. It's pretty cool. It's sure as hellmuch better than the alternative, or being poked in the eye with a burnt stick. And amen to that, Ralph, mate. I believe that when I go, I'm going upstairs to Heaven, seeing the gods and goddesses, beautiful scenery and art, and hearing beautful music and poetry, insects, suns, stars, planets, subatomic particles, birds, animals, all stars and planets in the Universe, and all my my departed loved ones in complete peace,