Thursday 14 February 2002

Alternative Festivals, anyone?

I hate-hate-hate St Valentine's Day (SVD) and always have. I used to think that my attitude was due to a severe case of sour grapes; I didn't much like being single even if I wasn't out and out desperate about it.  Even though I knew at the bottom of my dark little heart that SVD was an exceedingly crass commercial exercise to push sales of cards and gifts, all that ostentatious flaunting of perfume, flowers, Belgian chocolate, jewellery, romantic declarations by other women from their "significant others" made me feel even more inadequate and generally self-conscious of my singleton status.

It actually became rather spooky, as when February of any given year rolled around, and regardless of whether or not I was decidedly solo or in some manner "involved" with a young man or three, I somehow managed to always be single on/around every single SVD throughout my adult life. Was beginning to suspect it was a plot or a sign of some kind.

Here I am, though, well and truly partnered with a husband of all things, and yes I still loathe SVD, and the fact that it is a total fabrication by Hallmark and advertisers and commercial enterprises to flog more "stuff", all in the name of lurve. Excuse me, but ahem, love has nothing to do with it. Let's be honest about it and go ahead and call it "Hope you get lucky and if you don't then you're obviously too vile to be allowed to live Day".

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Whatever the true meaning of SVD, and whatever St Valentine himself may or may not have done, many of the festivals we celebrate today were originally pagan/druidic in origin, and were hijacked by an emerging Christian faith to ensure more fluid and successful assimilation of populations into the new belief system.  I have already stated my preference for acknowledging those alternative/pagan festivals - Easter and Christmas are examples I have already discussed here - particularly as increasing globalisation and merging of different cultures means that many festivals are not relevant or appropriate to the majority of the population.

As for the seasonal inappropriateness of celebrating the Northern Hemispherical Winter Solstice in the middle of a Southern summer ... The majority of my Christmas Day memories feature a very hot and flustered mother trying to cook and serve a gaggle of incompatible relatives the enormous "traditional" Christmas feast of hot roast animals and flaming plum puddings, and no one enjoying themselves in the slightest owing to the 35C heat. Most Australians are happily moving toward more appealing feasts of seafood barbeques and fruit - spitting watermelon pips out onto the lawn and having the occasional dash through sprinklers or hunt through a wall of Eskies for more cold drinks sounds much much more enjoyable.

In addition to my already-expressed preference to reintroduce the use of the Festival of Light" for the end of the year, a "Festival of Joy or Grace"  for the mid year solstice might also be fun and interesting. I'm also very much in favour of celebrating the equinoxes and thanksgiving festivals - Samhain in particular. As I understand it Samhain was an ancient druidic thanksgiving festival, held around the (Northern Hemisphere's) autumn equinox, and of course there were other celebrations for the purpose of offering up prayers for a good harvest, and thanksgiving for a good harvest. Given that in agrarian times a surplus of foodstuffs was absolutely necessary to ensure the survival of the tribe/clan during winter, a good harvest was vital. Sometimes a sacrifice would be made - most usually a goat, but sometimes the sacrifice of a virgin would be thought necessary if the  situation wasn't looking great.

(I can imagine the Hallmark-ised cards now:

You are invited to a Samhain party!

BYO Booze and goat

(virgins optional)

... hoo yes indeedy).

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I'd like to see festivals to mark gains in human rights and developments in health and sciences -- and I don't mean those pussy "International X Day"s, I mean full on Mardi Gras carnivale festivals with lots of food and dancing in the streets. Say for example, to celebrate votes for women, and (if it ever happens) legalisation of gay marriages and the ordination of women into the Church; then festivals for the discovery of blue mould, the invention of the polio vaccine, birth control (although whether that's a human rights or a medical festival could be debated - ah heck, just make it a two day long weekend!).

Then, naturally, there's all the weird, funny, meaningful personal anniversaries. Wedding anniversaries, of course, engagement anniversary, first night together, first kiss, first date (in my case many of these are somewhat close together!)  ... move to the Northern Hemisphere and arrival in N. Ireland, anniversaries of various diagnoses, first gym/rehab appointment ... the list goes on. While some of these will be celebrated with a special night out, others I will merely meditate on, think of how far I've come, what I've achieved.

And that, to my mind, is the real significance of personal anniversaries and festivals.

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And no, just in case you were wondering if this year would indeed be different vis a vis SVD:  we didn't "do" anything distinctly SVD-ish. We had a quiet night together, at home, with a marvellous dinner cooked by moi, lots of declarations of love and affection, much snuggling ...  but we did that yesterday, and will do it some more tomorrow, and next week, next month, next year - and that's how love and togetherness and trust and forgiveness and all the rest of it should be celebrated, not by some hypocritical and commercial yardstick as directed by Hallmark, one single day a year.

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