I AM! yet what I am none cares or knows,

My friends forsake me like a memory lost;

I am the self-consumer of my woes,

They rise and vanish, an oblivious host,

Like shades in love and death's oblivion lost;

And yet I am! and live with shadows tost

Into the nothingness of scorn and noise,

Into the living sea of waking dreams,

Where there is neither sense of life nor joys,

But the vast shipwreck of my life's esteems;

And e'en the dearest--that I loved the best--

Are strange--nay, rather stranger than the rest.

I long for scenes where man has never trod;

A place where woman never smil'd or wept;

There to abide with my creator, God,

And sleep as I in childhood sweetly slept:

Untroubling and untroubled where I lie;

The grass below--above the vaulted sky.

John Clare

A poll of almost 10,000 Americans conducted in January shows there is no consensus on the topic of Black History Month. The survey, conducted by MSN and Zogby International, found that 43 percent of Americans believe setting one month of the year to focus on a racially defined observance is a token gesture, while 39 percent say that is an opportunity to raise awareness of African-American history and accomplishments (18 percent are not sure).

In the interests of political correctness I hope to see the following months dedicated to: The original tribes of the north and southern Americas. To the Viking Empire. To The British Empire, Persian Empire, Greek Empire, Roman Empire, The Dynastic Empires of China, The Japanese Empire, African nations and tribes and finally Australasia. It may come as a surprise to some that history began before 1776 and that the rich tapestry of life today is nt down to one 'people' or one 'colour'.

Nobody knows just how long people have been making and eating pancakes, but you could almost call the flat bread made by Bronze Age families, twelve thousand years ago, a pancake. Pancakes were made by grinding grains and nuts and adding water or milk. This mixture was then shaped into flattened cakes and baked on the hot stones surrounding the fire.

Shrove Tueday is when traditionally the house is cleaned of ‘fat’ and also ‘yeast’ before the Christian season of Lent leading up to Easter. [The word shrove is a past tense of the English verb "shrive," which means to obtain absolution. Shrove Tuesday, in the Christian calendar, is the day before ash wednesday, which marks the beginning of lent ,a period of fasting. When Lent was observed more rigorously than it is now, the two or three days prior to Ash Wednesday, known as Shrovetide, were celebrated by games, sports, feasting, dancing, and general merrymaking.  

In Germany, Shrove Tuesday is called Fastnacht (Eve of the Fast); in Italy and other southern European countries it is called Carnival (Farewell to Meat); and in Brazil and the United States, Mardi Gras (Fat Tuesday). Shrovetide feasts were designed to use up the food that could not be eaten during the Lenten fast. In Britain, Collop Monday was when people ate up their supplies of bacon, eggs, and meat and on Shrove Tuesday (now more generally known as Pancake Day) flour, eggs, milk, and butter were used up in the making of pancakes. According to tradition, revelry began with the ringing of the Pancake or Shriving Bell soon after midday, which was the signal for villagers to cease work and go home to make pancakes or join in the games and merrymaking. Pancake Day races are still held in parts of Britain today. In Slovenia, a 10 day carnival called Kurentovanje marks the passing of winter. As Kurent is thought to be an ancient God of hedonism, you can take a guess at the flavour of festivities.

In France the main ceremonial day for pancake eating is Candlemas on the 2nd of February. This holy day is six weeks after Christmas and is the day that Christ was presented at the temple by his mother. During this festival, French children wear masks and demand pancakes and fritters. In various parts of the country, there are different customs. In Provence, if you hold a coin in your left hand while you toss a pancake, you'll be rich. And in Brie the first pancake (which is never very good anyway) is always given to the hen that laid the eggs that made the pancake. And it's always regarded as bad luck to let a pancake fall on the floor while tossing it. Legend has it that Napoleon, who liked to make and eat them with Josephine, blamed the failure of his Russian campaign on one he had dropped years before at Malmaison during Candlemas.

Pancakes are the traditional treat of the Jewish Hanukkah festival. They are fried in oil to commemorate the oil found by the Maccabeans when they recaptured Jerusalem from the Syrians, two thousand years ago. The one day's supply of oil for the temple lamps burned miraculously for one week. And, tradition says, the wives of the soldiers hurriedly cooked pancakes behind the lines for their warring husbands. Large or small, fat or wafer thin and made with a wide range of flours, pancakes are given different names by different peoples. There are Hungarian palacsinta, Chinese egg rolls, Jewish blintzes, Russian blini, Italian cannelloni, Swedish plattar, Mexican tortillas, American hotcakes, German pfannkucken, Norwegian lefser, Austrian nockerin, Welsh crempog and Australian pikelets: but undoubtedly the most famous of them all is the great French crepe.

My favorite filling? A Sprinkling of sugar and lemon juice. I have sampled a chocolate filling at a Creperie in Vichy - but that is another story.

New Year's Eve and New Year's Day are celebrated as a family affair, a time of reunion and thanksgiving. The celebration was traditionally highlighted with a religious ceremony given in honor of Heaven and Earth, the gods of the household and the family ancestors.

The sacrifice to the ancestors, the most vital of all the rituals, united the living members with those who had passed away. Departed relatives are remembered with great respect because they were responsible for laying the foundations for the fortune and glory of the family.

The presence of the ancestors is acknowledged on New Year's Eve with a dinner arranged for them at the family banquet table. The spirits of the ancestors, together with the living, celebrate the onset of the New Year as one great community. The communal feast called "surrounding the stove" or weilu. It symbolizes family unity and honours the past and present generations. The older people in the family usually give the youngsters a red bag in which is placed a sum of money. A symbol of good luck and bright blessing in the new year. Finally there are the fireworks . . . !

The Lupercalia was celebrated on the fifteenth day before the kalends of March (February 15th).  One unusual aspect of this festival was that it was not associated with a temple of a god.   The focal point of this festival was a site on the Palatine hill: the Lupercal, the cave in which, according to legend, the wolf suckled Romulus and Remus.
 Lupercalia recalled the primitive days of Rome's existence, when, according to Roman tradition, a small community of shepherds lived in thatched huts on the Palatine hill, ruled by the founder of Rome, Romulus.  Dionysius of Halicarnassus tells us that in his day (first century BC), one of these huts, made out of sticks and reeds, stood on the slope of the Palatine toward the Circus Maximus.   This hut was honored as a sacred place. This primitive settlement, however,  was more than just a popular tradition; modern archaeology has discovered the post holes of huts dating to the eighth century BC (the traditional date of Rome's foundation was 753 BC).  It seems probable that the name of the festival was derived from lupus ("wolf").  This derivation makes sense for a festival that was connected with a settlement of shepherds, whose most feared predator was the wolf.

In general, the ancients viewed the Lupercalia as a purification and fertility rite.  The ritual involved the sacrifice of goats and a dog in the Lupercal by priests called Luperci, who smeared the foreheads of two noble young men with the blood of the sacrificed animals and then wiped it off.  At this point, the youths were required to laugh.  Then the luperci, clothed in loincloths, ran about the area, lashing everyone they met with strips of skin from the sacrificed goats.  Young wives were particularly eager to receive these blows, because it was believed that the ritual promoted fertility and easy childbirth.  These ceremonies were accompanied by much revelry and drinking.

The Lupercalia was so popular that it survived the onset of Christianity until Pope Gelasius I outlawed them in 494 . The Church instituted the Purification of the Blessed Virgin. The feast day of St Valentine was added to the calendar two years later. Yet another example of the of the roman church's attempt to destroy paganism. Some accounts suggest that in Roman-occupied Gaul and Albion, at Lupercalia, single women wrote their names on clay tablets and placed them in an earthen jar. Unmarried young men then picked out a name at random, and the two were paired off. Depending on which account you accept, this lasted a few hours, a day, or even a year. The habit of sending love tokens on this date goes back to at least the 14th century

Being is . . .

Being is not only beyond but also deep within every form as its innermost invisible and indestructible essence. This means that it is accessible to you now as your own deepest self, your true nature. But don't seek to grasp it with your mind. Don't try to understand it. You can know it only when the mind is still. When you are present, when your attention is fully and intensely in the Now, Being can be felt, but it can never be understood mentally. To regain awareness of Being and to abide in that state of "feeling-realization" is enlightenment. 

 Having access to the "Now"

Having access to that formless realm is truly liberating. It frees you from bondage to form and identification with form. It is life in its undifferentiated state prior to its fragmentation into multiplicity. We may call it the Unmanifested, the invisible Source of all things, the Being within all beings. It is a realm of deep stillness and peace, but also of joy and intense aliveness. Whenever you are present, you become "transparent" to some extent to the light, the pure consciousness that emanates from this Source. You also realize that the light is not separate from who you are but constitutes your very essence.

  From The Power of Now by Eckhart Tolle

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The government has been quick to point out that BIRD FLU is serious for birds, not humans, and that the risk to the general public is 'remote'. Humans who have caught the disease in the past have done so by getting close to the infected birds, and by breathing in dried faeces, saliva or nasal secretions from infected birds. It is thought that there may have been incidences where the virus has passed from human to human (two sisters died in 2004 after probably contacting it from their brother, who also died), but the virus has not yet mutated into a form that would allow it to pass easily from person to person. Only 270 confirmed human cases in Azerbaijan, Cambodia, China, Djibouti, Egypt, Indonesia, Iraq, Nigeria, Thailand, Turkey and Vietnam. There have only been 165 human deaths caused by bird flu.

 The 2nd of February was Candlemas Day or if you are working by the old Julian calendar it is the 15th of February. The day marks the end of the old 40 day Christmas period and marks the halfway point of winter. This ancient day has been a day associated with the meeting of witch's covens and pagans celebrate this as the 'Festival Of Lights'. It was from this point onwards the days got steadily lighter and heralded the approaching Spring.

We saw the heavens break and all the world go down to sleep
and rocks on mossy banks drip acid rain from craggy steeps
Saw fiery angels kiss the dawn
Wish you goodbye till further on
Will you still be there further on?

And troubled dynasties, like legions lost, have blown away
Hounds hard upon their heels call to their quarry
wait and play
Before the last faint light has gone
Wish you goodbye till further on
Will you still be there further on?

The angry waves grow high
cut icy teeth on northern shores
Brave fires that flicker, cough
give way to winds
through broken doors
And with the last line almost drawn
wish you goodbye till further on
Will you still be there further on? 

      Jethro Tull - Lyric