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Post by Hunny on Apr 28, 2012 21:23:40 GMT
We are all from... Countries Around The World
Tell us about your upcoming holiday the rest of us may not know of, or maybe we celebrate it differently. You can post a piece, to teach others of what's important to you. Or just let us know what's coming up and maybe I'll skype, erm, I mean lovingly craft a finely written piece about it for you. (Okay, yea, half the time I do spend 30 hours writing, but the other half I just paraphrase a few sources, but either way we get the idea. So feel free to quote wikipedia if you'd like. Or go out and take pictures for us! Play reporter. Have fun!
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Post by Hunny on Apr 28, 2012 21:34:38 GMT
Walpurgis Night (Walpurgisnacht) is a spring festival celebrated on April 30 or May 1 by the Dutch, Germans, Swedes, Finns, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, and Czechs. Its celebration is associated with dancing and bonfires.
The current festival is named after Saint Walburga ( 710-777 AD). As Walburga was canonized on May 1, 870 AD, she became associated with May Day, especially in the Finnish and Swedish calendars. The eve of May day, traditionally celebrated with dancing, came to be known as Walpurgisnacht ("Walpurga's night").
In Germany, the 17th century tradition of a meeting of sorcerers and witches on May Day is influenced by the descriptions of Witches' Sabbaths in 15th and 16th century literature.
In The Czech Republic, April 30 is pálení čarodějnic ("burning of the witches"), the day that winter is ceremonially brought to an end by the burning of rag and straw witches or just broomsticks on bonfires around the country. The festival offers Czechs the chance to eat, drink and be merry around a roaring fire.
In Estonia, Volbriöö is celebrated throughout the night of April 30 and into the early hours of May 1, which is a public holiday called "Spring Day" (Kevadpüha). Volbriöö is an important celebration of the arrival of spring in the country. Influenced by German culture, the night originally stood for the gathering and meeting of witches. Modern people still dress up as witches to wander the streets in a carnival-like mood.
In Finland, Walpurgis day (Vappu) is, along with New Year's Eve and Midsummer (Juhannus), the biggest carnival-style festival held in the streets of Finland's towns and cities. The celebration, which begins on the evening of April 30 and continues to May 1, typically centers on copious consumption of wine and other alcoholic beverages. Student traditions, particularly those of the engineering students, are one of the main characteristics of Vappu. Since the end of the 19th century, this traditional upper-class feast has been appropriated by university students. Many graduates from lukio, and thus traditionally assumed as university students or alumni, wear a cap. Most people think the caps of the engineering students are distinguished by pom-poms hanging from them; however, nurses and some other vocational school graduates also have caps with pom-poms. One tradition is to drink sima, a home-made non-alcohol mead, along with freshly cooked funnel cakes.
In the capital Helsinki and its surrounding region, fixtures include the capping (on April 30, at 6 pm) of the Havis Amanda, a nude female statue, and the biannually alternating publications of ribald matter called Äpy and Julkku, by engineering students of Aalto University School of Science and Technology. Both are sophomoric; but while Julkku is a standard magazine, Äpy is always a gimmick. Classic forms have included an Äpy printed on toilet paper and a bedsheet. Often, the magazine has been stuffed inside standard industrial packages, such as sardine cans and milk cartons. For most university students, Vappu starts a week before the day of celebration. The festivities also include a picnic on May 1, which is sometimes prepared in a lavish manner, particularly in Ullanlinnanmäki—and Kaisaniemi for the Swedish-speaking population—in Helsinki city.
The Finnish tradition is also a shadowing of the Socialist May Day parade. Expanding from the parties of the left, the whole of the Finnish political scene has adopted Vappu as the day to go out on stumps and agitate. This does not only include political activists: other institutions, such as the church, have followed suit, marching and making speeches. Left-wing activists who were active in the 1970s still party on May Day. They arrange carnivals, and radio stations play leftist songs from the 1970s.[/color] People at a Vappu picnic in Kaivopuisto in 2008 Traditionally, May 1 is celebrated by a picnic in a park (Kaivopuisto or Kaisaniemi in the case of Helsinki). For most, the picnic is enjoyed with friends on a blanket with good food and sparkling wine. Some people, however, arrange extremely lavish picnics with pavilions, white tablecloths, silver candelabras, classical music and extravagant food. The picnic usually starts early in the morning, where some of the previous night's party-goers continue their celebrations undaunted by lack of sleep.
Some student organizations reserve areas where they traditionally camp every year. Student caps, mead, streamers and balloons have their role in the picnic, as well as in the celebration as a whole.
Vappu/Valborg and Midsummer are Finland's two main holidays in the summer half of the year, on a par with Christmas Eve and New Year's Eve in the winter half.
In Sweden, Walpurgis Night (Swedish: Valborgsmässoafton or simply Valborg) has more or less become a de facto half holiday. The forms of celebration in Sweden vary in different parts of the country. One of the main traditions in Sweden is to light large bonfires, a custom that is most firmly established in Svealand and may have begun in Uppland during the 18th century: "At Walpurgis (Valborg), farm animals were let out to graze, and ever since the early 18th century bonfires (majbrasor, kasar) have been lit to scare away predators." In Southern Sweden, an older tradition, no longer practiced, was for the younger people to collect greenery and branches from the woods at twilight, these were used to adorn the houses of the village. The expected reward for this task was to be paid in eggs.
Singing traditional songs of spring is widespread throughout the country. The songs are mostly from the 19th century and were spread by students' spring festivities. The strongest and most traditional spring festivities are also found in the old university cities, such as Uppsala and Lund, where undergraduates, graduates and alumni gather at events that last most of the day from early morning to late night on April 30, or sista april ("The Last Day Of April") as it is called in Lund. More modern Valborg celebrations, particularly among Uppsala students, oftentimes consist of enjoying a breakfast including champagne and strawberries. During the day, people gather in parks, drink considerable amounts of alcoholic beverages, barbecue and generally enjoy the weather, if it happens to be favorable.
In Uppsala, since the mid-1970s, students also go rafting on Fyrisån through the center of town with home-made, in fact quite easily wreckable, and often humorously decorated rafts. Several nations also hold "Champagne Races", where students go to drink and spray champagne or somewhat more modestly priced sparkling wine on each other. The walls and floors of the old nation buildings are covered in plastic for this occasion, as the champagne is poured around recklessly and sometimes spilled enough to wade in. Spraying champagne is, however, a fairly recent addition to the Champagne Race. The name derives from the students running down the downhill slope from the Carolina Rediviva library, toward the Student Nations, to drink champagne.
In Linköping, the students and public gather at the courtyard of Linköping Castle. Spring songs are sung by the Linköping University Male Voice Choir, and speeches are made by representatives of the students and the university teachers.
In Gothenburg, the carnival parade, The Cortège, which has been held since 1909 by the students at Chalmers University of Technology, is an important part of the celebration. It is seen by around 250,000 people each year. Another major event is the gathering of students in Trädgårdsföreningen to listen to student choirs, orchestras and speeches. An important part of the gathering is the ceremonial donning of the student cap, which stems from the time when students wore their caps daily and switched from black winter cap to white summer cap.
In Landskrona, people gather at the Citadel to play beer-brännboll, a game in which one drinks beer and plays brännboll at the same time.
Walpurgis Day, or May Day, is also known as Worker's Day
May Day is internationally known as a "Workers Day". In 1889 "May Day" was chosen as a workers celebration day in the Congress of Paris. On May Day, even today, many strikes and Demonstrations were organized by workers. In the United States, May 1 was the day when working contracts were renewed, "moving day", and this automatically caused restlessness among the workers. "May Day" is traditionally a day when political parties and union leaders address "workers", at various central locations. In Finland "May Day" became an official flag- raising day in 1978, and was named "The Day of Finnish Work".
The Finnish name for May Day, "Vappu", originates from Catholic St. Walpurgis, who's commemoration day was celebrated on the 1st of May. In Central-Europe, this day has been celebrated as a festival of spring since medieval times. The first May Day festivities in Finland started in parsonages and upper-class families in the 1700's. At that time people celebrated the day by going horse riding enjoying the greenery of spring, and held "Mead" parties at home together with friends and family. The Finnish May Day celebration, as it is nowadays, was started by secondary school graduates in the 1800's. Even back then the festival was a time of rejoicing and very "Damp" students. Student caps might have been worn from 1st of May until the end of September, but nowadays students and past students wear it on the eve of May Day and on the actual day.
In Finland May Day celebrations begin on May Day Eve. In Helsinki the statue "Havis Amanda", which lies near to the Helsinki market square, receives her white student's cap at six o'clock, at the same time as people put their caps on. This has been a tradition since 1932. Similar ceremonies take place in cities all around Finland, with different statues being "capped". The celebrations have begun and soon a carnival like atmosphere spreads among the normally quite and reserved Finns, who enthusiastically chat and raise their glasses together with persons they have never met before. May Day markets are full of knick-knacks, serpentines, flowers, whistles, May Day whisks, balloons and masks for children and childlike adults. Sparkling wines flow and there is spring in the air, and what does it matter if it is snowing, as it sometimes still does at the end of April.
The next day people head for parks to have picnics together with friends and family and brunches served in restaurants are also popular meeting points. Traditional May Day delicacies are fritters called "tippaleipä" and they are served together with homemade mead, "sima".Traditional Finnish Recipes:In Finland May Day Fritters (tippaleipä) and Mead (sima) are traditionally served and enjoyed on May Day (Vappu). Recipes for baking and preparing May Day Fritters and Mead can be found here: RECIPES~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ May Day ceremonies that stem from the centuries-old May Day traditions are celebrated across the world... Originally a celebration of spring and the rebirth taking place in nature, May Day dates back to Pagan times. Traditionally, the day is characterized by the gathering of flowers and the fertility rite of dancing around the maypole.
A maypole is a tall wooden pole erected as a part of various European folk festivals, particularly on May Day, or Pentecost (Whitsun) although in some countries it is instead erected at Midsummer. In some cases the maypole is a permanent feature that is only utilized during the festival, although in other cases it is erected specifically for the purpose before being taken down again.
Primarily found within the nations of Germanic Europe and the neighboring areas which they have influenced, its origins remain unknown, although it has been speculated that it originally had some importance in the Germanic paganism of Iron Age and early Medieval cultures {*tree worship. the pole was meant to represent a tree, an important symbol}, and that the tradition survived Christianization, albeit losing any original meaning that it had. It has been a recorded practice in many parts of Europe throughout the Medieval and Early Modern periods, although became less popular in the 18th and 19th centuries. Today, the tradition is still observed in some parts of Europe and amongst European communities in North America.
In England, for instance, May Day is still celebrated in many towns with the crowning of the May Queen. Maypoles can still be found in some towns and May Day traditions may include hobby horses and local people dressed in costumes. In Oxford, traditions are upheld for May Day celebrations, starting with the choir of Magdalen College singing from the top of the chapel tower.
It is a common factor, in all our holiday's histories, that the holiday begins as a pre-Christian practice; which is then eclipsed (taken over and changed) by the arrival of Christianity; which in turn is changed again as we enter the modern age.
So this is why we start with "May Day" -a celebration of spring / rebirth / fertility and nature- and then transition to a women-burning ceremony, and then transition again, to a "Worker's Day" or "Labor Day"...In many countries it has evolved into "Labor Day In recent years, particularly in socialist and Communist countries, May Day has become a labor festival honoring the military and industrial efforts of the country.
It is referred to as Labor Day in many countries, as it also evolved from efforts of the labor union movement to celebrate the economic and social achievements of workers.
It is a national holiday across many countries in continents around the world.
In Mexico, it's referred to as Primero de Mayo.
In Chile, it is referred to as Día del trabajador (Workers Day).
Whatever way you celebrate it, I wish you all Happy Worker's Day / Happy May Day / Happy Walpurgis Day / Happy Beltaine / Happy Volbriöö / Happy Spring Day / Happy Vappu / Happy pálení čarodějnic etc, etc etc !
Until next time, we are all from "Countries Around The World"...
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Post by Hunny on Apr 28, 2012 21:46:36 GMT
I feel obliged to add an apology for not covering Beltaine, the holy day of Wiccans. It's such a magical tradition (no wordplay intended); it seems a shame not to do a proper article on it.
Christianity did horrible things to oppress women, so it could take over. And if not to disallow the hiding of Christianity's murderous means of conquest, at the least we should speak of how women had power before it was taken away. The modern Wiccan tradition honors that, remembers and reclaims it. It's a charming, peaceful and natural religion; someone should speak of it.
In the meantime, I want to point out how horrible I think it is that the world has holiday traditions which take so flippantly that more than a million women were tortured and then burned alive (as the scene pictured above is intended to portray). Why people take it so lightly, how entirely heinous what happened was, I don't know. But in this enlightened time of "political correctness", it seems ceremonies like pretending to burn a woman alive (and for even the children to watch) should be banned.
Happy Beltaine to you! Blessed be.
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Post by Deleted on May 1, 2012 6:09:34 GMT
May Day is a new holiday for England - well, relatively new; I can remember when it was introduced. May 1st is, as you say, the workers' festival, but the silly thing is that the public holiday is only ON May 1st when it happens to be a Monday. There is a plan to scrap it and move it to October.
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Post by toby on May 1, 2012 14:24:48 GMT
Toby comments.:- Well done Hunny ! the most interesting couple of articles so far this year. I used to love working in the Nordic Countries and Finland, they really do try to keep alive the old traditions !
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Post by alanseago on May 1, 2012 16:28:23 GMT
The worker's holiday. A big home grown .flower and vegetable market in the square. A bright blue sky and the first warm day this year. Had a phone call from the town hall yesterday evening to tell me that I was entitled to a 20 square metre pitch.
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Post by Hunny on Jun 16, 2012 22:10:48 GMT
"Sodankylän elokuvajuhlat" The Midnight Sun Film Festival in Sodankyla, Finland Right now is when the sun never sets on Northern Finland (it's a curse put on them by Santa Claus for eating his reindeer) (Alright, it's not that. It's special.) It's light 24 hours right now, because they're in the Arctic Circle and that's what happens mid-summer (mid-winter it's dark around the clock, and 40 below F) The Midnight Sun Film Festival is an annual five-day festival in the second week of June. The theme is to show films without a break all day and night long, while the sun keeps on shining. The Festival is non-competitive, showing films of the main guests, 20–30 modern movies from all parts of the world, contemporary Finnish films and cinema classics, some of which are usually presented as "master classes" by various film theory experts. Typically the festival introduces 4–5 directors from the younger generation who are also guests at the festival. In recent years, attendance has been between 15,000 and 25,000. The festival was first arranged in 1986 and the first international director guests were Samuel Fuller, Jonathan Demme, Bertrand Tavernier and Jean-Pierre Gorin. It has since hosted some of the biggest names in cinema, such as Jim Jarmusch, Krzysztof Kieslowski, Roger Corman,Terry Gilliam, Francis Ford Coppola, Abbas Kiarostami and Milos Forman. __________________________ I'm not entirely sure if it's all considered part of the same "Midnight Sun" celebration, but they also ride snowmobiles on water there, this time of year ("Watercross"). I think the Finns are insane, and i just love them for it. Check it out! It does take a bit of skill to do this, and not everyone has it... Okay, this isn't Finland, or the film festival. But apparently, if you're nuts enough to try it, you can ride your bike across water too! (*that's not a suggestion)
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Post by Hunny on Jun 23, 2012 15:37:04 GMT
In Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Poland, it is
Ivana Kupala Day
-By Hunny Ivana Kupala Day is a holiday in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus and Poland. It's their version of the "Midsummer" holiday celebrated across Europe, marking the summer solstice (the longest day of the year).
It is yet another pagan fertility rite which was conquered and distorted by the christians. The name combines the words "Ivan" (Slavic for "John the Baptist"), and "Kupala" ("bathing"), as the church men -in order to replace the holiday with one that would control people, as they desired to do- declared it the first day of the year when they sanctioned bathing and swimming in rivers and ponds -as if it was up to them.
In spite of the christian interference, however, Kupala Day has been one of the most expressive East Slavic folk and pagan holidays. Many of its rites are connected with water, fertility and purification. The girls float flower garlands on the water of rivers and tell their fortunes from their movement. Lads and girls jump over the flames of bonfires, to show their love will last. The festival was originally a fertility rite intended to assure a good harvest. Kupala was the Pagan Goddess of Harvest and Love. She was personified as the Earth's fertility. As part of that, the Eve of Kupala featured also courting and sexual rituals.
The christian conquerors tried to suppress the festival -not because of the mating- but because they wanted to blot out whatever culture there was and replace it with their own, as conquerors do. The sexuality was just something they grabbed as an excuse.
And this was a part of why christianity became "against" sexuality, nudity, and natural things. They needed to invent reasons why those they wished to condemn for replacement were bad. If it was a fertility right, call it "bad". It could have been about balloons, and they would have said balloons were bad.
Well they were unsuccessful at suppressing the festival, so the men of the church did what they normally did: they concocted a holiday of their own to replace it with, by combining with it. And they called this new day "Ivan Kupala" (which translated means "John the Baptist's Bathing Day" or more to their point, "Church-Authorized Bathing Day"). They did manage to sanitize the customs a bit, but in spite of the efforts of some allegedly sexless, dress-wearing men-who-live-with-other-men, it's still a festival for young unmarried people, with plenty of opportunities for hooking up.
Originally, celebrating this holy day involved people gathering outside the village, in the forest, or near a stream or pond where they built bonfires. The fires were not allowed to go out, and were used to burn herbs and various items that were blessed. One legend has it that this is the only night of the year when you can see the flowers of the fern glow in the dark. There is an ancient belief that whoever finds a fern-flower would become immensely rich. Hence, on that night village folk would roam through the forests in search of magical herbs.
Other legends suggest that the sun is playing games, that trees can walk from place to place, and that this night is a perfect opportunity to find out who is the village witch.
[EDIT: And maybe they can burn the poor woman alive, and cheer, just for old time's sake, and so the kids can watch? The Wiccan Sabbath occurs on the Eve of Ivan Kupala. It is the same people celebrating the same thing, but in our history, brutal people vilify and dehumanize defenseless people, just to show the rest of the people who to be scared of, and do as they're told by. The christians tortured and burned alive an estimated 1.2 million women. This practice went on for centuries. Yet most people today have no sense of horror that this happened, because of various holiday traditions which take lightly, or even celebrate, that we did this -even by burning a woman in effigy. It's abysmally wrong, and we need to stop it.]
Celebrations usually go on all night, especially in the countryside. The young unmarried men in the village make the Kupalytsia doll and dress it as a woman. The young women work on the Kupala doll and dress it as a man. At the end of the celebration, the Kupala doll is burned in a fire, and the Kupalytsia is drowned in water.
The girls sing special songs ("kupalni"), with a lot of references to love and marriage. They also put a burning candle in the middle of a flower garland and float it on the water and tell their fortunes from the behavior of the garland in the water. Young boys and girls jump over a fire holding hands. According to the legend, the couple will stay together as long as they do not let go of each other’s hands.
Why 'fire & water'... Life's dependence on the Sun is obvious to the farmer. In Slavic countries the most important cyclical feasts were linked with the summer and winter solstices. On June 24, near the longest day of the year, Slavs for centuries have celebrated nocturnal rites of fire and water, life and death. This is Kupala Day (in Poland, Sobótka). The focus of the ritual is the burning of bonfires. Up until the 19th century, the fire was made in a ritual way - rubbing wood. Fire kindled in this way was known as 'living fire'. Women girdled in mugwort, a magical and healing herb, danced around the bonfires. Men jumped over them, singly or in pairs. And songs were sung: as fortune telling, matchmaking of young couples, and as incantation with sun symbols. Songs and dances of erotic nature were often accompanied by orgiastic behavior of the young participants in the ritual.
During the feast of Kupala, along with rites linked to life and fire, were those linked to death and water. The custom of drowning a straw effigy (the Kupalytsia, the female doll the young men make) is a remnant of the ancient practice of human sacrificing. The words various peoples have for these dolls mean "death, ghost, nightmare, or dream". To die submerged in water is significant, symbolically, because water represents the vast unconscious which life supposedly emanates from, like a dream which becomes physical. (Hence the notion of death being not an end, but a "submersion" in the realm where we are dreamed of and so re-born again into the world). So sacrificing wasn't intended to be about killing. Quite the opposite, they were very interested in re-birth, in the cycle of death and re-birth. To drown you, to them, was to let you live again; to send you to God so you can come back.
The christian practice of baptizing -and their ideas of being "born again" and of "resurrection"- stem from this ancient idea as well.
In some parts of these countries, instead of burning or drowning a doll, a circle on a pole is burned - symbol of the sun.
From another source...
Kupała was the festival celebrated on the Summer solstice in June. It was a sacred holy day honoring the two most important elements: Fire and Water. The tradition is to burn fires at the end of the day and bathe in open waters at sunset, singing and dancing around till midnight. Then, under the pretext of searching for the "flower of the Fern", unmarried men and women would run into the forest. Ladies with a crown of flowers on their head, a symbol of their unmarried state, go first, singing. Next they are followed by single men. If you find the "flower of the Fern" the wishes of life may be fulfilled. The lucky man would return with a flower ring on his head, with the now engaged lady._____________________________________________
Modern times... Below is what you tube shows as a modern version of the fire ceremony. Notice they stay clean. There's no Earth under foot, no pond of water, no messy, potential lawsuit-producing jumping over fire. And it's not a fire that will stay lit. ...It seems as if all the holidays have ceased having any significant meaning. Like "Xmas", they've been reduced to rituals that seem like..just rituals. Kupala Day has even been moved from June 24 to July 7, for convenience, so it isn't held on the solstice any more. That's how little it matters that it still mean what it meant.
As someone who researches and writes of the holidays, I've noticed they were mostly pagan holy days when they started - significant meaningful activities that were very real to people, and relevant to their lives.
But these holy days all got changed into something ridiculous by the christians: buffoonish re-castings of those real and important things, into recommendations of repression and being obedient and worshiping to those who demand it.
Then those bastardized versions of the holidays were themselves changed, and made entirely empty, by the industrial revolution and information age. Now we all know, for instance, that Valentine's Day is just about giving cards, because "we're obliged to" so that some rich people can make even more money they don't need. And we know that "Xmas" is likewise just an obligation on our time and money. Few of us attach meaning to the occasion any more. And the businesses who turned it this way even told us we must say the generic term "Seasons Greetings", not "Merry Christmas", because we aren't even to be allowed to have the uniqueness, which was the meaning, of the holiday anymore. ( It "wouldn't be fair to others", they said. )
I'm not really complaining about this, but I do lament living in a time which has no meaningful traditions the people own...
We do what the church threatened people into doing hundreds of years ago, which was awful then, and senseless now.
We do what the business people who enslave us tell us to do (buy cheap crappy products with the pauper's wages they give us, so we have to give the money back).
And we do as the government bids: celebrate war and encourage our kids, and the future, to value it too.
Nice. Why don't we make up a few holidays of our own? - relevant to our lives, and our time (and screw the government)? Why not? That's what I want. Meaning. And ownership. And celebration of real important things, of our lives, that we value.
Frankly, our holidays are an embarrassment. We're always imitating things people did in the past, which we don't understand, believe in or care about. The holidays (at least in the United States) are just viewed as "days off" now, by people. Well, you can blame the christians for this, because before their brutal conquest, the pagans were not mimicking obsolete superstition, nor some asinine nonsense they'd been forced to adopt. They were celebrating their real life stuff, with zest. Why don't we do that? Or do you think we should just continue to do as the child-molesting priests would have us do, and the business owners who own us, whom - between the two interest groups - collectively wish for us to *eat chocolate chicken eggs laid by rabbits because this lends meaning to resurrection??? (*using Easter as an example). Well..
Back to Kupala: Is this holiday just empty nonsense now too? Because they do seem to be having a little fun, in the video. (Although that's a human effigy their burning. Check it out.
This seems a little more like it. It's a shame I can't translate the Russian though.
__________________________
I can't understand the language, but these songs are charming. Kupala is a rare holiday that still observes its original meaning mostly. Living in the US means we have no Pagan past, and our holidays here all seem to be produced for government interest. How drab. Perhaps this is why I find Kupala Day so likable.
_______________________________________
*I would love to ask a Christian from that part of the world -not an excuse-making one, a devout one, a fundamentalist believer- to tell me what does this holiday mean to you? I mean, "John the Baptist Bathing Day"?? Could the notion of a day, pronouncing when the church says it's okay to take a bath, be important? -regarding God and spirituality? How? And what do you think of the Pagan rituals still in practice (including baptism)? Is the Eve of Kupala a good night for finding "witches"? Christianity said it is. How do you reconcile belonging to an organization with a history of obscene evil, of mass-murder on a vast, centuries-long scale ( the million+ women your progenitors tortured and burned alive?) (for one example) Did GOD do that? Was it okay at the time? - And how do you real christians celebrate this holiday now? What are the traditions and meanings? Or do you not celebrate it; do you hide and pray while the people act like "pagans" for a day (gasp)?
Next year, for Kupala Day, I will use this list of questions for interviews, and post the replies here.
I will not, however, refer to the day as "Ivana's". It was not Ivana's. And therefore Ivana should not get to keep it. To the church I say: homosexual pedophile priests, and faithless soldiers with crosses on their weapons, had no right to oppress a people, take their sacred things from them, torture them, and burn them alive. It is YOUR RELIGION which should be defamed and oppressed. For time going by does NOT make what your organization has done okay. You should have to make reparations, and you should be sued for burning women in effigy even now. I'm glad it came out that your holy men all screw little boys. Pedophiles are the most hated people among us, and for your long horrible history of killing and torturing and culture-wrecking, it seems just that you should be hated that much now and lose your power.
__________
Stay tuned to this thread folks. We're going to dig up all the sociological dirt. We're going to look at the reality, not the fiction. (You can get that anywhere.)
Until then, we are all from "Countries Around The World"...
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Post by Deleted on Jun 16, 2013 17:14:34 GMT
Canada day! 1st of July. I always enjoy it
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Post by Big Lin on Jun 16, 2013 22:03:51 GMT
We went to Canada a few years ago and saw Canada Day celebrated in Edmonton.
it was a lot of fun!
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Post by Deleted on Jun 17, 2013 2:09:38 GMT
Glad you enjoyed it, Lin Each large city (as well as the smaller ones) celebrate it. It's a nice 'feel good' kind of day.
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Post by Hunny on Jun 17, 2013 15:59:26 GMT
Thank you for the tip, Deyana. That's what this thread is for And I'll be sure and do a Daily Buzz on it. (this thread kind of turned into the daily buzz)( em..ok everything I do seems to turn into a magazine, like this comment which just gets longer and longer while you... aargh *hook*
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2013 14:26:50 GMT
oops, sorry, hunny. I guess I shouldn't have posted on this thread? You can delete my comments if you like..
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Post by Hunny on Jun 19, 2013 16:10:43 GMT
Oh on the contrary, hun, you did just right! Letting me know what upcoming holiday may matter to you is just what this thread is for
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Post by Deleted on Jun 20, 2013 1:43:01 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Mar 21, 2021 14:16:20 GMT
Easter too
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