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| | Happy Valentines Day | | | Tuesday, February 10, 2009 (7:30 AM)
(I'm feeling loved) | |
History of St Valentines Day
Valentine's Day - the popular festival of love and romances traces its origin to ancient Roman festival and has not been created by card companies as some people believe it to be. There are various legends associated with the festival along with the belief that birds began to mate from this day. Popularity of the Valentine's Day festival stems from the combined effects of all these legends, beliefs and of course the wish to glorify the unparalleled feeling of love.
Legends of St Valentine's Day
There are various popular and interesting legends of St Valentine's Day. Some legends trace the origin of Valentine's Day to pagan times while others link it one or more Saints of early Christian Church. Yet another point of view on the origin of Valentine's Day links it to the beginning of birds mating season. Popularity of the festival is perhaps due to the combined effect of all these legends along with the notion that spring is the time for love.
Some famous legends of Valentine's day are:
Feast of Lupercalia
Saint Valentine of Rome - I
Saint Valentine of Rome - II
Birds Mating Time
Feast of Lupercalia
Several historians trace the origin of Valentine's Day to pagan times in ancient Roman Empire. In those times, people organized a holiday on February 14 to honor Juno - the mythological Queen of Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also regarded Juno as the Goddess of Women and Marriage. From the following day - February 15 started the Fertility Festival called the Feast of Lupercalia. This feast was organized to protect humans from wolves and to honor the Roman Gods of Agriculture - Lupercus and Faunus besides the founders of Rome - Romulus and Remus. During the Feast of Lupecalia, members of Lupercali - an order of the Roman priest used to gather in a sacred cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf or lupa. Following the tradition, the priest would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. Boys would slice the goats hide into strips, dipped them in sacrificial blood and move about the streets gently slapping women and fields with the animal hide. Womenfolk gladly received a slap, as they believed that the practice would make them more fertile. Later, during the Feast of Lupecalia, all the young women in the city would place a chit of their name in a big urn. Bachelors in the city would each then take a chit out of the urn and became paired for the girl whose name was on the chit for the rest of the year. Quite often, the paired couple would fall in love and marry.
Later, when Christianity spread through Rome, the practice of finding mate through ‘lottery' was deemed un-Christian and outlawed. Around 498 AD, Pope Gelasius is said to have declared February 14 St. Valentine's Day. Some writers link Valentine's Day with Feast of Lupercalia because of similar date and connection with fertility.
Legends of Saint Valentine
Early Christian Church indicates the presence of at least two saints names Valentine. Some scholars however, says that there were as many as seven saints credited with the name of Saint Valentine or Valentinus all of whom lived in the Third Century and apparently died on the same day. Given here are some of the most popular of all legends of Saint Valentine:
Saint Valentine of Rome - I
According to one very popular legend, Valentine was a priest in Rome who lived during the reign of Emperor Claudius II. Under his regime, Claudius is said to have engaged Rome into several bloody battles. To strengthen his army, the Emperor continuously needed to recruit soldiers. However, Claudius found that not many soldiers were keen to join the army because of attachment with their wives and families. In order to sever the bond of attachment, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. Valentine - a romantic at heart priest, defied this callous decree of Claudius by secretly arranging marriages of young men and women. When Valentine's defiance was discovered by the Emperor, he was brutally beaten up and put to death on February 14, about 270 AD.
For his martyrdom and dedication for the cause Valentine was name a Saint after his death. By Middle Ages, Saint Valentine became popular as the patron saint of love and lovers in England and France to the extent that Pope Gelasius declared February 14 as Valentine's Day on 498 AD and put an end to pagan celebrations. Thus, Saint Valentine's martyrdom day became an occasion to celebrate love.
Saint Valentine of Rome - II
Another famous legend on Saint Valentine states Valentine was an early Christian in Rome who was very popular amongst children. But during the time when Valentine lived, Roman regime was not in favour of Christianity and it even persecuted Christians to make Rome free of the followers of Christianity. In spite of this strict law, Valentine continued to practice his faith and refused to worship Roman Gods. This enraged Emperor Claudius II and he put Valentine into prison.
Valentine is said to have spent a year in rigorous imprisonment during which he was missed a lot by children. They began to toss loving notes and flowers between the bars of his cell window. To an extent, this legend may explain the tradition of exchanging notes and flowers on Valentine's Day.
Some scholars believe that during his stay in prison Valentine made friends with jailer's blind daughter who at times brought to him notes and flowers from children. Whenever, possible Valentine also replied to the notes. Days before his execution, Valentine prayed for the jailer's daughter and she regained her sight. Before his death, Valentine is also said to have written a farewell note for the jailer's daughter and signed it "From Your Valentine”. This expression is popular even till date.
Some scholars believe that Valentine was killed because he tried to help Christians escape from the Roman prison as they were being tortured and beaten. Yet another set of scholars say Emperor Claudius II was impressed by Valentine's kindness and good behavior. He even stated that Valentine could be freed if he agreed to worship Roman Gods. Valentine not just refused he even tried to convert Emperor to Christianity. This made Claudius very angry and he ordered his execution. Valentine was beheaded on February 14.
Birds Mating Time
During the Middle Ages, people in England and France held a popular belief that birds started to look for a mate from February 14. This popular notion further strengthened the idea that Valentine's Day festival that falls in the middle of February should be celebrated as the day of love and romance. The concept soon gained ground amongst the lovers and they began to celebrate the day by exchanging love notes and simple gifts like flower. | | | 36 Views | 0  Thumbs Up | 0 Comments |  |
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| | What is Real Love? | | | Tuesday, March 11, 2008 (11:13 AM)
(I'm feeling creative) | |
Real Love: The Love We’ve All Been Looking For — Unconditional Love
We've heard songs about it, seen it in the movies, heard it talked about on Oprah by relationship experts, and read about it in thousands of self help books. But, what is unconditional love? We all want to feel loved. We think about it, hope for it, fantasize about it, go to great lengths to achieve it, and feel that our lives are incomplete without it. The lack of unconditional love is the cause of most of our anger and confusion. It is no exaggeration to say that our emotional need for unconditional love is just as great as our physical need for air and food.
It is especially unfortunate, then, that most of us have no idea what unconditional love really is, and we prove our ignorance with our horrifying divorce rate, the incidence of alcohol and drug addiction in our country, the violence in our schools, and our overflowing jails.
Our misconceptions of unconditional love began in early childhood, where we saw that when we did all the right things—when we were clean, quiet, obedient and otherwise “good”—people “loved” us. They smiled at us and spoke in gentle tones. But we also saw that when we were “bad,” all those signs of “love” instantly vanished. In short, we were taught by consistent experience that love was conditional, that we had to buy “love” from the people around us with our words and behavior.
So what’s wrong with conditional love? We see it everywhere we look, so what could be wrong with it? Imagine that every time you pay me fifty dollars, I tell you I love you. We could do that all day, but at the end of the day would you feel loved? No, because you’d know that I “loved” you only because you paid me. We simply can’t feel fulfilled by love we pay for. We can feel loved only when it is freely, unconditionally given to us. The instant we do anything at all to win the approval or respect of other people—with what we say, what we do, how we look—we are paying for the attention and affection we receive, and we can’t feel genuinely loved.
A New Definition of Love: Real Love
There’s only one kind of love that can fill us up, make us whole, and give us the happiness we all want: unconditional love or true love. It is unconditional love that we all seek, and somehow we intuitively realize that anything other than that kind of love isn’t really love at all—it’s an imitation of the real thing.
Unconditional love—true love—is so different from the kind of love most of us have known all our lives that it deserves both a name—Real Love—and definition of its own: Real Love is caring about the happiness of another person without any thought for what we might get for ourselves. It’s also Real Love when other people care about our happiness unconditionally. It is not Real Love when other people like us for doing what they want. Under those conditions we’re just paying for love again. We can be certain that we’re receiving Real Love only when we make foolish mistakes, when we fail to do what other people want, and even when we get in their way, but they don’t feel disappointed or irritated at us. That is Real Love (true unconditional love), and that love alone has the power to heal all wounds, bind people together, and create relationships quite beyond our present capacity to imagine.
What we Do Without Real Love: Imitation Love
If we don’t have enough Real Love in our lives, the resulting emptiness is unbearable. We then compulsively try to fill our emptiness with whatever feels good in the moment—money, anger, sex, alcohol, drugs, violence, power, and the conditional approval of others. Anything we use as a substitute for Real Love becomes a form of Imitation Love, and although Imitation Love feels good for a moment, it never lasts and never gives us the feeling of genuine happiness that Real Love provides.
Most people spend their entire lives trying to fill their emptiness with Imitation Love, but all they achieve is an ever-deepening frustration, punctuated by brief moments of superficial satisfaction. All the unhappiness in our lives is due to that lack of Real Love and to the frustration we experience as we desperately and hopelessly try to create happiness from a flawed foundation of Imitation Love. The beauty of Real Love is that it ALWAYS will eliminate our anger, confusion, and pain.
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| | For My Friend | | | | Sunday, March 2, 2008 (2:05 PM) | |
Glitter Angel Graphics
For My Friend
by Carol Miller
across the miles
you touched my life,
opened my eyes, and
filled my empty heart-
strangers, yet friends,
our spirits reach out,
always touching, never apart- -
you in the east,
me in the west,
never together,
never apart- -
To all my
friends
Angel Glitters
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| | What is the definition of Friendship? | | | Sunday, March 2, 2008 (5:35 PM)
(I'm feeling calm) | |
Friends Glitters
- No one knows you better than your friend. Your friend knows what you stand for.
- You feel relaxed and do not have to pretend. You are on the same level. You do not have to brag to your friend, you can discuss even the most difficult matters.
- You finish each others sentences and read each others mind. One look at the other and you know exactly what she means!
- You share everything. When something important happens, your first thought is to call your friend. That is what makes the bonding between you.
- You have your own jokes, expressions or gestures. That`s what makes your friendship stand out from others.
- You can confide in her. She knows your family secrets no one else knows, secrets you would never let anyone else into!
- Your friend knows your darkest fears and sweetest dreams as well as which size you wear. She knows you hate fish but love chocolate! She knows you love shopping and hate cooking!
Keep your true friends and let go of the others. If a friendship is wearing you out, let go. Not all friendships are worth your time.
In rough times you will see who are your best friends and who is not.
Glitter Friends Graphics
| | | | 208 Views | 6 Thumbs Up | 7 Comments | |
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