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 ...