We took Valentines Day a little easy this season. I procured red roses a week or so ago, and a quite delightful new ceramic vase suitable for attractive term coffee storage has appeared. So, external holidy aspects are complete, and it seems appropriate to concentrate on the essence of the day itself. It is busy, with UFOs and Real Estate papers flying around in seemingly elliptical sorts of formations. We are hoping there is nothing untoward if NORAD is tracking Cupid over North America. Then there is the talk that ground combat for the Spring offensive may be starting in Ukraine. Americans have been directed to depart Russia, which strikes some of us as a tension indicator.

So, the problem on this Valentine’s Day is focus. Most folks conventionally do something special today- a meal or flowers as a gift. Something to honor the festival of romantic love and commitment. It is a worthy goal the Christians invented to replace- or maybe “reinforce”- the old Roman tradition of the Lupercal. The secular holiday we enjoy today has roots in the change of seasons in Rome, where the breath of Spring arrives a little earlier than it does here. Lupercalia was a festival observed in Mid-February to “purify the city” by celebrating health and fertility to get prepared for Spring.

Most of us have been through Rome and have a visceral appreciation for its remarkable history. And of course for its essence in art and food and amore. We understand that the Romans viewed the Lupercalia as a purification and fertility rite. It may have a relation to the Wolf’s lair below the Palatine Hill where Romulus and Remus were found and only shepherds worked the slope, eight hundred years before Christ. There are stories of the rituals that went along with it, including participation by young women, since the ritual was considered to promote fertility and easy childbirth. The ceremony was accompanied by much revelry and drinking.

The last part, coupled with romantic theme made it an enduring holiday. It continued through the end of the Western Empire and the rise of the One Church. In 494 AD, the Pope made February 15 the feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary making the observation a two-day affair.

We are going with the Lupercal on a traditional Tuesday. We reserve Wednesday to honor the sailors lost in the explosion of the USS Maine in Havana Harbor in 1898. The sinking precipitated the war against Spain, and replaced their arthritic empire with a new and more vigorous one. We seem to be exploring the edges of that period at the moment, so we will concentrate on romance and purification.

It is a point of honor to consider a holiday that celebrates love and some purification of the burden imposed by the last year. And peace would be nice. Let’s remember that last part, since it makes all the other ones a bit easier.

Copyright 2023 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com