Let's March Straight to Church, Nekkid in an Ugly Mask
Mardi Gras seems none too Christian to me. I don't care if it means "Fat Tuesday" in French--those French people never followed those commandments anyway. Here's the dish: Mardi Gras comes to us as a remnant of Saturnalia--an ancient drinking and partying holiday that used to come around Christmas time--but got moved by those wacky Christians because it conflicted with celebrating some martyr's birthday. Saturnalia wasn't a holiday, exactly. Y'see, in the old days, they kept track of time by a lunar calendar and a solar calendar, and they didn't match up, so some geniuses decided that the days in between JUST DIDN'T COUNT. So you could do anything that you wanted--smoke, drink, parade around the streets naked but for grease paint and ugly masks. They dedicated this time to Saturn (if you want to know, is a God of Time) and that's where all those ugly masks come from. Because Saturn is one ugly dude.If you want to learn more, click here.
posted by Suki at 1:53 PM
3 Comments:
Oh, well, now, ummm ...
Most "Christian" holy days are pagan. I suppose that means most "Christians" are thinly disguised pagans.
Now, that woman in the photo may be disguised, but she's not exactly thin. Is she?
Now about that word verification thing, what is this? xozdnjxl? That has to mean something like, "Xandor Oz dwells (in) New Jersey. Xandor lives!" That makes perfect sense to me.
Mardi Gras might have also been aided by Cathar (Albegensian) celebrations of Rex Mundi that ran concurrently with European celebrations of Mardi Gras.
Rex Mundi (King of the World) was the god of physical reality as opposed to Rex Coeli (King of the Heavens), the god of emotions, abstract thought, intellect, etc.
The Cathars believed that physicality was bad, and abstraction was good. Nevertheless, they felt it important to appease and worship both gods.
Worshipping Rex Coeli wasn't much of a problem within late-medieval Christianity. All you had to do was substitute the phrase "King of Heaven" for the word 'Yahweh," and your local conservative cleric wouldn't know the difference.
Worshipping Rex Mundi, was a bit more challenging. Mardi Gras was a chance to celebrate the physical, to enjoy the pleasures of the body whether eaten, drunk, or inserted.
Sha'el's got a point. If there's any such thing as Xandor Oz living in in the US, it would be in Jersey.
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