Yesterday was the Vernal Equinox, but my women friends and I celebrated it today, with our usual pot-luck gathering. where we sit around and complain about the aches and pains that plague our bodies and the aches and pains of the plague that is our country’s leadership. And then we share in some sort of creative ritual or ceremony. Today, it was a variation on this.
Of course, I can’t pass up the opportunity to pass along some Equinox lore, which just shows how contemporary religious Spring rituals and stories harken back to other, much, much older ones.
In ancient Rome, the 10-day rite in honor of Attis, son of the great goddess Cybele, began on March 15th. A pine tree, which represented Attis, was chopped down, wrapped in a linen shroud, decorated with violets and placed in a sepulchre in the temple. On the Day of Blood or Black Friday, the priests of the cult gashed themselves with knives as they danced ecstatically, sympathizing with Cybele in her grief and helping to restore Attis to life. Two days later, a priest opened the sepulchre at dawn, revealing that it was empty and announcing that the god was saved. This day was known as Hilaria or the Day of Joy, a time of feasting and merriment.
Sound familiar? Easter is the Christian version of the same myth. Even the name Easter is stolen. It comes from the Saxon dawn-goddess Eostre, whose festival was celebrated on spring equinox. The date of Easter is still determined by the old moon cycle. It is always the first Sunday on or after the first full moon after the spring equinox.
One can only hope that there will be some kind of rebirth for this country after its looming demise at the hands of the Almighty Burning Bush (see previous post), who needs some major help finding his way out of his own Fog of War. He would do well to internalize the “Eleven Lessons from the Life of Robert S. McNamara.”
Like that’s ever going to happen. Unless course, god tells him to. Oh Yeah!

A report released on March 16 by the House of Representatives Committee on Government Reform, Special Investigations Unit is described as
…a comprehensive examination of the statements made by the five [Bush] Administration officials most responsible for providing public information and shaping public opinion on Iraq…. It finds that the five officals made misleading statements about the threat posed by Iraq in 125 public appearances. The report and an accompanying database identify 237 specific misleading statements by the five officials.
Complete with charts, graphs, timelines, quotes, and categories of disinformation, the report, Iraq on the Record offers substantial proof of either the incompetence or the deviousness of our leadership. Or maybe both.
Meanwhile, In Cincinnati, Claire Mugavin wore a biohazard suit to a protest that drew several hundred people. She pretended to look for weapons of mass destruction beneath benches and garbage cans. “We figure they’re not in Iraq,” said the 24-year-old Cincinnati resident. “So we figured we’d come look for them in Fountain Square.”
I like nonblogger myrln’s response to that:
You gotta love it. What we need is a National Mockery Movement that daily mocks Dumbya and his gang…a relentless, ruthless campaign for the next 8 months. Make them into a national joke, and we’d get rid of them. Laughter may indeed be not only the best medicine but maybe the best weapon, too.
The Ben of Ben and Jerry’s is already full speed on that one. To keep up with the lies being shoveled at us about even more than Iraq, keep checking here.