Happy "Slap your woman with a bloody goat hide" day!

(This post was initially started on February 14th, at 10:30 PM. I just got distracted, and ended up going to bed, so I finished it on the morning of the 15th.)

Hey all,

Well, today is Valentines day. I personally detest the holiday, not only because it's a highly commercialized holiday, but also, I had a family member die on February 14th. Anyway, enough of that...

Some history on the holiday:

There is a lot of mystery surrounding this man we know as "Saint Valentine." Some say that he was a priest who served in third century Rome under Emperor Claudius II. Now, Emperor Claudius wasn't such a nice guy, and he decreed that single men were better fit to go to war than those with a wife and children. You might think, "Brad, that seems pretty nice to me!" but you just wait. Dear old Claudius, he also outlawed marriage, which basically gave him a whole generation of fresh, ripe soldiers. Now here is where the mysterious St. Valentine comes in. It is thought that Valentine frequently married young lovers in secret to defy the injustice Claudius had imposed. Once these secret marriages were discovered, Valentine was of course put to death. It is for this reason that we celebrate the holiday some say.

Now, others believe that Valentine was killed because he tried to help persecuted Christians escape scary Roman prisons. One legend has it that while in prison for this crime, he wrote the first "Valentine" himself. It is thought that he had fallen in love with a girl who frequently visited him in jail, probably the jail-keepers daughter, and before he died his heroic death, he wrote her a little love letter signed, "From your Valentine" thus bringing about the expression.

In my opinion, just looking at papal decree and how so many holidays come about, this next theory seems the most reliable to me: Most think that Valentine's day was celebrated near the middle of February in order to commemorate the burial of Saint Valentine, which occurred about 270 AD, but I and many others thing that the time of the celebration was an attempt to "Christianize" the existing pagan festival of Lupercalia. In ancient Rome, February was considered the beginning of spring, and a time for purification. Ritual house cleaning took place (spring cleaning?), and salt and wheat spelt where sprinkled around the inside of the house. Lupercalia officially began on February 15th. This festival was dedicated to the Roman god of agriculture, Faunus, as well as Roman founders Romulus and Remus.

To begin the festival, the Luperci, an order of Roman priests, would gather at the sacred cave where Romulus and Remus were believed to have been cared for by a she-wolf. There they would sacrifice a goat for fertility and a dog for purification. The young priests would then slice the goat hide into strips, dip them in the sacrificial blood, and take to the streets, gently slapping the women and the crops to ensure future fertility. Contrary to what you might think, the women and girls actually liked and encouraged being slapped with these bloody hides, because evidently, everyone was into getting pregnant.

It is thought that later in the day the Roman lottery system was put to work. All the women and girls of age in the city would write their names on a slip of paper and put them in a large urn. After that, all the city's bachelors would draw a name from the urn. Whoever they drew was to be there mate for the year. These pairing often led to marriage, and the practice was widely supported for years.

Then the Christians came and ruined everything.

Pope Gelasius declared February 14th St. Valentine's Day, and the Roman lottery was declared as un-Christian, and outlawed. Later on during the Middle Ages in France, when people actually started studying birds, they determined for some reason that February 14th was the official start of all birds' mating season. This idea brought about the notion that Valentine's Day should be a romantic holiday. Which is ironic, considering the root word in romantic.

Valentine's Day has since progressed into one of the biggest cash holidays of the year. According the American Greeting Card Association (What the hell? Who starts an association for greeting cards? That is so stupid!), an estimated one billion Valentine's cards are sent every year. This makes Valentine's day the second largest card-selling holiday, just behind Christmas.

If this doesn't say something about our society, I don't know what does.

Anyway, as for my own Valentine's day, it was spent in my room, alone. How sad. Sydney is out of town, but she's got a surprise in store for when she gets back.

I'll keep you updated.

Speaking of which, I'd like to take a moment to say that Ms. L. Sydney Tanner is one of the best things that's ever happened to me. I don't deserve her or the kindness, generosity and stubborn beauty she presents to the world. She puts up with me and my oddities better than a lot of people, and I really just want to tell everyone how much I appreciate her. She's influenced me in great ways, and I can never repay her. So Sydney, here's to you. Here's to your strong will, your hard-to-crack shell. Here's to your beauty, and to your strength. I hope to go with you on whatever journey life presents, and I hope to grow with you, no matter how hard it gets.

Thanks for being there.

-Brad




P.S. This video is not related to Valentine's day, but it's still really cool. I hope you appreciate it as much as I do.