FAT & ASH

Fat Tuesday and Ash Wednesday.  I searched my old blogs for "mardi gras" "lent" etc.  I am surprised I haven't written more about this time of year.  Not only do I generally like and approve of annual drunken, orgiastic, public rites, the roots of these two days are very old.

The year, like a person, is composed of many different elements and cycles.  There are the seasons, a solar cycle that accords climate and weather.  There are lunar cycles.  Each has their place. The sun is steady; the moon fluctuates and changes. 

And then there are the tides.  Not the oceanic tides, but the agricultural and pastoral tides.  (From whence comes the rites of most religions, in my opinion.)  The tide of sowing, the tiding of reaping, the tide of resting, the tide of destruction.

I believe the need for Lenten type fasting came from the need at this time of year, in the past, to let the calves have the milk, and the earth have the seed.  Spring was swift approaching, and new green things- like sorrel- were beginning to appear.  That bit of promising tartness could sustain the a person through the last of the moldy, winter-long stored apples and potatoes.

And there would be foods that would need to be eaten, before they spoiled, sweets and treats carefully hoarded, and what finer way to celebrate then a party before the next six weeks of labour and sacrifice would take place?

Moreover, we are ending the Age of Pisces, the Sacrificial Fish, the All Powerful Father and the Sacrificed Son.  Now that we are coming to the Age of Aquarius, or the Age of Avatars, as I call it, we will be our own saviours, but the Piscean Age was dependent on the past and tradition, and it will not let go so easily.

And even Avatars and Messiahs need a reason to celebrate, whether bread and wine, or beads and boobs.

;o)