Random Stories of Note, Anniversary, April Fools

Today is me and my lovely life-partner’s first wedding anniversary today. So posting and online activity will be minimal and slap-dash. But here are a few items that caught my eye this morning that I thought I would share with you.

Rabbi Jill Hammer writing for Zeek, a Jewish culture journal, discusses the need for feminine manifestations of G-d within the Jewish tradition.

“I too see God in these ways. I want to be a monotheist, but I also want to recognize the godliness in many images of feminine and masculine divinity, and not only those in Jewish text. I want not to edit my moments of contact with the Divine to get rid of any “pagan” influence. I want not to demonize goddess-imagery while thunder-god imagery rolls through the Hebrew Bible without comment or controversy. In short, I want not to be afraid of goddesses.”

Just in time for spring, The Guardian presents a list of songs about trees, grass and flowers culled from reader suggestions on the “Culture Vulture” blog. I’m pleased that some favorites of mine made the list, including a selection from “The Wicker Man” soundtrack.

“But when it comes to the dark side of nature, nothing beats The Wicker Man. From Paul Giovanni’s soundtrack, Maypole is a cycle-of-life pagan chant that’s creepy enough to put you off the countryside all together.”

Finally, the web site ChessBase.com participates in the annual April Fools fake story tradition with a noted twist. This year they cite the “pagan history” of April Fools Day and sadly exclaim that they won’t be publishing a fake story this year due to the notorious “League for Truth and Veracity” and their threats of legal action.

“In the past years our web site has published a series of elaborate April Fool’s stories. Not this year, and not any more. An international watchdog group which calls itself League for Truth and Veracity, is threatening news services as well as private pranksters all over the world with lawsuits for publishing false information. This unfortunate activity spells the end of an old tradition. The April Fool tradition has it roots in ancient Rome, where playing practical jokes on friends was part of the celebrations of Hilaria (March 25). It evolved into the current-day April 1st practice in 18th century Europe. In England you were supposed to play your pranks during the first half of the day. The Scots reserved 48 hours for it. In France the tradition is known as “April Fish”, in Spanish the “dia de los Santos Inocentes”. The tradition came to America with early Scottish, English, and French settlers, where it was mainly about sending people on fool’s errands.”

You can keep track of this years crop of April Fools hoaxes, here.

Have a good day. Back tomorrow!

Tags: Paganism