wolves and sheep

Valentine's day almost here. I didn't realise quite how many different pagan festivals it is historically linked to. In ancient Rome mid February they celebrated Lupercalia, to celebrate the keeping out of wolves from the city (which was v small and had lots of sheep then). Maybe also in part celebrating the essence of wolfishness, as young men sacrificed goats and dog, whipping young maidens with strips of goat hide in order to help purify them (huh, you beleive everything that a loin clothed blood smeared Roman youth tells you?). Perhaps at this same time, young men pulled out the names of young single women from an urn, and coupled accordingly for the duration of the festival. Now tell me that doesn't beat a heelmark card and a rose with gyp? Later, as in early middleagesish, the same thing happend, but it was a chivalrous coupling of chaste gift exchange, ongoing association and protection rather than wild hillside fornication (and they call that progress?)

In between all this, around 496 AD, Pope Gelasius did away with the festival of Lupercalia, citing that it was pagan and immoral. The lover's lottery was in particular a bit of a no no. Instead, Catholic Church, funsters that they were, introduced a Saints lotto, where you would pull out the name of a saint to research and emulate over the coming year. Woo hoo.

A number of Saint Valentines were tied to the festival at this stage, all fairly obscure, for example possibly one a martyr from early Christianity who was persecuted for preaching and finally put to death for curing a girl from blindness. Allegedly before* he was clubbed to death and then beheaded he wrote the girl a note telling her that he loved her, signing it 'your Valentine'. Not really the stuff of chocolates and red hearts is it - the dying words of a martyred Saint reassuring the person who he was killed for helping that he still lover her (no doubt in a saintly way) and held no grudge. Happy Valentine's day!

Of course the very notion of romantic love was not conjured up until quite recently. The first recorded association of St. Valentine's Day with romantic love was in the 14th century in England and France, where February 14 was traditionally the day on which birds paired off to mate.

* I'm not suggesting that it was likely to be after, just that I read the whole thing on a dodgy website which was hardly a refereed text if you know what I mean. One could with confidence say that 'arguably' he is the Saint on which the whole thing is named.

Tomorrow is my first day at work, btw. New job and all. Feels like I should be putting my name on coloured pencils and covering excercise books with pictures of bands that I like in preparation. Or something. Instead I will be catching the dawnish train and sipping on a coffee out of my travelcup, snoozing, possibly being annoyed by chirrupy school kids flirting and possibly dribbling on a stocky businessman sitting next to me. Feeling glad that I went to a planning session with new work peoplelast week, as now I at least know some names and have met my new *buddy*. Gotta love a workplace that has a buddy system. Also love that what I have seen so far has been exciting, and I am therefore in good spirits about starting. Gotta love:
- Senior management who are adept at the whiteboard,
- Directors who talk about wanting staff to be working on things that excite them,
- Managers who aren't dorks and who you'd be happy to talk to at a party,
- Staff talking earnestly about the finer points of sustainable work places,
- People turning up to a planning day in funky lurexskirt and fishnets, being proud of their work, being honest about mistakes, listening to each other, disagreeing respectfully... and last but not least,
- White wine on the corporate credit card.

The Pod is dead. Long live the Pod.