Holiday Gift Ideas & Traditions Blog

When I was a boy, Christmas was a time of great rejoicing and hilarity. It was kept up for twelve days, during which there was ball-playing, wrestling matches and games of various kinds. In every house was placed on the table a decanter of rum with a very large sweet cake, baked in a Dutch oven or a large iron bake-pot. Those who could afford it, in addition to rum, had also gin, brandy and wine placed on the table. All visitors were expected to help themselves.

Then there were the mummers - those who went around by day and those who went around by night. The day mummers - the men had white shirts over their clothes, trimmed with ribbons, with fanciful hats. Each man had a partner - a man dressed in women’s clothes. Into whatever house they entered they recited their lessons, ate and drank, had a dance, their own fiddler playing the tunes. The night mummers were dressed in the most grotesque manner: some with humpbacks, cow hides and horns projecting, with hobby-horses, small bags of flour, which they used to throw over their followers. Then there were the boy mummers, who went around day and night. On two Christmases I had John Bemister as a partner. He acted as the Duke of Wellington, and I personated Oliver Cromwell.  

Isis was creatrix, protectress, healer, and deliverer from suffering. She also offered the promise and hope of rebirth and rejuvenation, and this seems to be at the core of her rituals. Initiation into the cult of Isis in antiquity was a mysterious process, and we know very little since the steps to conversion were private and guarded, rarely spoken about, just as the Eleusinian rites to Ceres were. Apuleius does give us a glimmer of the magic moment in which he was reborn: “I underwent a near death experience as I descended to the underworld ruled by Persephone. Yet I returned. It was midnight, yet I saw the sun shining in all of its majesty. I touched the gods below and the gods above. I stood next to them. I worshiped them…. I was born again”.

Indeed, this is a very powerful statement describing a very personal moment of enlightenment and union with the divine. Isis promised rebirth and salvation to those who believed. During the Isia, on a special day called the “Finding of Osiris,” worshipers reenacted the myth of Isis and Osiris, sharing the grief and the joy of Isis searching for the body of Osiris and finally finding it and embalming it. They shouted in unison, “Heurekamen, synchairomen,” “We have found! We rejoice together!” It is also said that in one rite during the Isia worshipers gathered in a darkened room and mourned over a prone statue of Osiris. During the ritual, a light was carried into the room; a priest then anointed the throats of the mourners with oil and whispered, “Take heart, 0 Initiates, for the god is saved, and we shall have salvation”.

Hope and salvation from all of our troubles and suffering, overcoming our fear of death, and living a blessed life on earth are promises that resonate in all religions throughout the ages. These words of
Isis can find meaning for each of us especially during the dark and doubt-filled days of October, when the end of the year and darkness looms in the path ahead.

Modern Ritual of Promise and Hope: The Ship of
Isis

In antiquity, a yearly ritual to Isis was carried out on a beach or near water. A model ship was prepared. It was painted with sacred words and text, bearing a special message for the year’s prosperous journey. Worshipers gathered around the boat, first purifying it with flame, egg, and sulfur and chanting solemn prayers. They then piled it with small gifts, winnowing fans, perfumes, and incense and threw libations of milk mixed with grain into the water. The small ship was set adrift and allowed to sail away on its own, following its own course. Thus, the rite ended.

• Adapt this rite, adding your own very personal prayers and messages.
• Give a small offering to the goddess. remembering that she does not ask for riches or wealth, but commitment. In return she offers faith, hope, and love.
• Set your ship adrift upon the water to be guided by the goddess.

The Promise of
Isis

Behold. I come to you in your time of trouble. I come with solace and aid. Put an end to your crying and tears, send your sorrows away. Soon through my benevolence will the sun of salvation rise up. Listen to what I say with great care.

You will live a blessed life. You will have a glorious life under my care and guidance. When you have traveled your full length of time and go down unto death, there also. I will be beside you. You will see me shining on amidst the darkness.

Through your religious devotion and constant faith, you may learn that I have it within my power to prolong your life beyond the limits set to it by Fate. Through me, you may be reborn.

On October 17, 1878, Sir John A. Macdonald became prime minister of
Canada for the second time. In 1838 or 1839, Sir John served as the second in a duel and was dissuaded from fighting a duel of his own in 1849. Dueling has a long history:

• Judicial duels began in 6th-century
  Burgundy, as trial by combat to learn the “judgment of God.” As recently as 1817, an accused murderer in
  Britain had to be acquitted because he chose the right to “wage his battle” over trial by jury, and no one wanted to fight him.
• On the European continent, the challenger in a personal duel had the right to choose the weapons, usually swords or pistols. In English-speaking countries, the challenged party had this right. In r843, billiard balls were the weapons in a fatal duel fought in
  France.
• Duels were fought in New France as early as r646. The last recorded fight in what is now known as Canada took place in St. John’s in r873′ The death toll in the years between: at least nine in New France, two in Lower Canada, five in Upper Canada, two each in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick, and one in Newfoundland.
• The last legal duel in Canada was fought on the campus of Dalhousie University in r8r6. Although such encounters were consiered a crime, Canadian juries consistently refused to convict duelists if they thought the fights had been fair.

My parents have been married for over forty years. I cannot judge whether it has been a satisfying marriage, but it has endured through moments of crisis and great pain and so, on some level, it has been a success. In trying to come to terms with my own marriage, I find myself looking back.

From my own observations (and without the benefit of statistically significant sampling or scientific inquiry), it seems that marriages of long duration have rituals that form the fabric of the relationship. As in my parents’ case, arguing is an important one.

I often think about the scene repeated year after year in my home during the Jewish holidays. On each holiday my mother and grandmother would spend a frenzied day completing the preparations for the evening meal - cooking and baking, seasoning and tasting, and seasoning yet again. Each holiday morning, as my father left for work, my mother would admonish him to come home early. That evening my father would invariably return an hour late with wilted flowers in hand, muttering about the terrible holiday traffic (which he seemed to regard as a completely unexpected development even though holiday traffic was bad every year).

My mother, of course, would be waiting at the door and, upon my father’s arrival, burst into a litany of angry complaints about the ruined meal-how she had worked all day to prepare a wonderful dinner and now the pot roast was overcooked and the vegetables were limp and, worst of all, the family would have to rush through the meal so my father could get to synagogue on time. He would invariably throw up his hands and, in turn, complain about how hard he worked and how my mother always gave him a hard time regardless of what he did. A few minutes later we would sit down to dinner, all the while assuring my mother that the food tasted just fine.

After watching this scene year after year, I finally asked why she just did not prepare a simpler meal or start cooking later in the day, since she knew my father always came home late on the holidays. (And on every other occasion, since my father, as optimistic about travel times as he is about every other aspect of his life, always assumed there would be clear roads and strong tailwinds.) She rebuked me for interfering in an area that was none of my concern and then pointedly informed me that she and my father enjoyed having this argument.

At the time I was puzzled by her response. After all, it did not look like they were enjoying themselves. Now, after more than a decade of being married, I think I understand. The Jewish holiday fight was a safety valve for them, an opportunity to vent their frustrations safely. Since it was, after all, a holiday, they had to make up quickly. Moreover, it had become a ritual for them and gave them a sense of continuity and comfort.

In my own marriage, our arguments have essentially the same theme, which, come to think of it, is not so different from my parents’. Wife to husband: “If you really loved me, you would be more sensitive to my needs (that is, share more of the household burden, give me more emotional support, and value what is important to me).” Husband to wife: “If you really loved me, you would appreciate me for who I am, stop expecting me to change, and stop nagging me.”

With a high degree of accuracy I can predict we will have this fight (in one variation or another) not on the Jewish holidays but on the first day of any vacation, on Mother’s Day (the unnatural reversal of roles creates tension in our house), and before we go out (my husband puts on his oldest clothes, I express outrage, he tells me I am a nag and then changes into something acceptable, something he probably intended to wear all along).

Not only do our arguments have the same theme, but like many other couples, I suspect, our arguments have certain parameters. Fighting is unacceptable in front of certain people-professional associates, in-laws, acquaintances, and even certain friends-and is certainly restrained (but, for better or worse, not avoided) in front of the children.

More important, although we have never acknowledged this to each other, there are certain things we will never say, even in the heat of battle, because we know instinctively that, once said, these words can never be forgiven. The forbidden words relate to those areas the other person is most acutely and painfully sensitive about, the words that, dagger-like, quickly and sharply pierce the heart.

Reflecting on thee highly structured, repetitive nature of our arguments, it seems that they actually strengthen our marriage, rather than weaken it. We can let off steam within accepted boundaries; in ways we know will not “rend us asunder.” We can secretly mouth the other’s expected rejoinders when we begin to argue, and we know when it is time to stop.

In the end, I suppose, what makes a marriage last is not how much you love the other person but how the marriage provides structure, comfort, and predictability in a world that is chaotic, uncontrollable, and profoundly indifferent.

On May 3, 1915, about 7 A.M., it was a bright spring morning near Poperinghe, Belgium - the first spring of the First World War. The sky was deep blue, the larks were singing and circling, and a gentle east wind was blowing the poppies about. Maj. John McCrae, a 42-year-old doctor/soldier with the Canadian Field Artillery, was sitting on the rear step of an ambulance, composing poetry. In about 20 minutes, he wrote “In Flanders Fields.” Some notes:

• The previous night, Major McCrae had buried his best friend, 25-year-old Lt. Alexis Helmer, who had been a medical student at McGill University when the poet was a professor of pathology. The young man, one of the brigade’s best-liked officers, had been blown to bits by an artillery shell the previous day. (He was buried under cover of darkness for fear of attracting more enemy fire.) The barrage of The Second Battle of Ypres was in its ninth day.
• As the poet wrote, Sgt. Maj. Cyril Allinson arrived on horseback, bringing mail and supplies from the rear. “I saw (Major McCrae) sitting on the ambulance step, a pad on his knee. He looked up as I approached but continued to write,” recalled Mr. Allinson, who was the first to read the work. “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote …. The poem was almost an exact description of the scene in front of us both.”
• Major McCrae (who had been promoted to lieutenantcolonel in 1914, though the news did not reach him until June I, 1915) made several copies of “In Flanders Fields,” with slight variations, and gave them to friends. He sent a copy to Punch magazine, which ran the poem on December 18, 1915, with no byline.
• The verses were reprinted around the world, but the author’s name was not known. By the time it was, Colonel .McCrae’s “perfect war poem” was famous. It has been called the bestknown Canadian poem.
• Colonel McCrae, who had been at the front from the beginning, was made consultant physician to the British 1^st Army in January 1918. Five days later, he was dead from pneumonia and a cerebral infection.
• “In Flanders Fields” was used in the first observance of Armistice Day in 1918, and this poem and poppies have been part of the November I I ceremonies since. “It never occurred to me at the time that it would ever be published,” Mr. Allinson admitted. “It seemed to me to be just an exact description of the scene.”

The older woman is respected in many cultures as the wise woman, the one to be revered whose advice and opinion is sought out by younger women. With the emphasis on youth in our own culture, this vital dimension of the older woman is often disregarded and ignored. As we each age, we must be mindful of the gifts that an older woman can offer. She can counsel with sage advice, she can lead and guide, and she can teach many of life’s lessons. It is equally important for the older woman herself, the crone, to feel valued, appreciated and powerful.

Hold up a mirror and look closely at your face. Take your time, and take a careful look. Come to see the inner strength that you possess. Acknowledge your wisdom, your love and your beauty. You have earned this respect, from others and from yourself.

The Agony of Struggle

The word “agony” connotes extreme pain and long suffering; mortal agony is the futile struggle that comes before death. The word agony stems from the ancient Greek word meaning “struggle.” The Greek word, however, also contained the sense of competition at philosophical debates, public issues, beauty contests, literary and musical events, and especially the athletic games. These contests pitting rival against rival were called agones - fights or struggles for supremacy, for survival and conquest. The most ancient agones were sacred competitions following funerals, especially of heroes or leaders, as Homer describes in the Iliad to honor the death of Patroc1es, friend of Achilles.

November 4-17, Plebeian Games

The Plebeian Games, or “Games of the People,” were held in
Rome. They were first mentioned in 216BC and firmly established as an annual event by 220BC. The central event was the Feast of Jupiter on November 15, or the Ides.

Funeral games following religious services at the grave site were customarily held by the Etruscans, the early settlers of the
Tuscany region of
Italy, who passed on the custom to the Romans. Contest and rivalry for the prize in such events as the foot race, boxing, wrestling, long jump, javelin throwing, and chariot racing may have been a way to express and channel the strong emotions of anger, rage, and grief among the friends of the deceased. Though the origin of the games, the “Agones,” or Ludi as the Romans called them, was funereal, they grew in size and popularity as
Rome itself grew. Annual games to honor deceased heroes were instituted and even added to the religious calendars combining athletic events with competitions in poetry, drama, and music. Eventually, games were established to celebrate events not associated with a funeral, yet they always maintained their religious character, including sacrifice to a deity During November, the Plebeian Games, the “Games of the People,” offered Roman citizens two weeks of clever theatrical presentations juxtaposed with athletic competition. These games were a tribute to the best minds and bodies of the times; they were a religious ritual in November.

The Games of the People were established in the third century BC and held for several weeks in the first part of November. They marked the second most popular and impressive games held during the Roman year, the first being the Roman Games in September. The focal point of these games was the Feast of Jupiter, held on the Ides.

The first week, November 4-12, was set aside for theatrical and scenic performances. The last three days, November 15-17, were given over to the athletic games held in the Circus Maximus. The two-week event began with a solemn procession led by
Rome’s magistrates and high priests from the Capitol through the Forum along the

to the Circus Maximus.

The eight days of theatrical events were a busy time for art patrons in ancient
Rome. Plays, both drama and comedy, were important aspects of Roman religion. A number of religious rites that we have already discussed were always accompanied by games: the festival of Dea Dia in May, Magna Mater in April, Apollo in July, and Jupiter in September. Both the Greeks and Etruscans held funereal games in honor of the deceased, while the regular Greek games such as those held every four years at Olympia (actually there were four or more pan-Hellenic games) were in honor of a deity. At the New Age, or saeculum, of Augustus in 17BC, very special Saecular Games were only part of the ritual for the New Order of Ages and the millennium.

November 13, Jupiter

The Feast of Jupiter was held on November 13, marking a transition point in the Games of the People from the theatrical to the athletic. There was a solemn rite to Jupiter and a banquet.

November 13, Feronia

Feronia is a most ancient goddess associated with agriculture, for she received the first fruits as her offering. Feronia was especially popular throughout central
Italy, yet she also had a sacred grove and temple in
Rome. Feronia was also seen as a patroness of freed slaves, the “Goddess of Freedom” she was called. An inscription on her temple at Terracina, where slaves were freed and given the symbolic cap of the freedman, read, “Let the deserving sit down as slaves and rise as freemen.”

November 13, Pietas

Pietas was a goddess who embodied the quality of respect and duty to the gods,
Rome, and one’s parents. The quality of devotion exemplified by a child’s piety and respect for the mother or father was honored by the Romans. Pietas was depicted as a young women often accompanied by a stork representing the loyalty of child to parent Pietas warns us to be dutiful to parents, country, and the gods.

November 14 is the birthday of the anti-communist U.S senator Joseph McCarthy (1908-57). From February 1950 until December 1954, he was a powerful force in Washington:

• In 1939, McCarthy began his political career as a judge in
  Wisconsin, after inflating his opponent’s age to 89 (from 66) and reducing his own to 29 (from 31). His campaign slogan was Justice is Truth in Action.
• McCarthy was a marine from 1942 to 1944. He said he was known in the Pacific as Tail-Gunner Joe - serving on 14, then 17, then 30 missions. In 1951, he applied for, and was given, the Distinguished Flying Cross. He had only flown on a few air strikes, as a passenger when resistance was light.
• In 1946, he was elected to the Senate; his campaign slogan was Congress Needs a Tail-Gunner.
• In 1950, looking for a dramatic issue for the 1952 election, he was advised that communism was a hot topic. He made a radio speech, claiming to have a list of 205 Communists in the State Department. Surprised by the stir he caused, McCarthy later tried to get a copy of that speech to check what he had said. Ultimately, he was unable to produce a single name - this led to his downfall.
• Postwar events created sympathy for McCarthyism: Canada’s Gouzenko case, the fall of China, the first Soviet atomic test, the treachery of Julius and Ethel Rosenburg, the perjury of Alger Hiss, the Korean War, Republican frustration at being out of power for two decades, and the belief Hollywood was influenced by Communists.
• It is unlikely that McCarthy had deep feelings about what he did. In 1956, at a party, he met a civil servant and former drinking companion he had ruined and said to the man his wife was “talking about you the other night. How come we never see you? What the hell are you trying to do - avoid us?”

On October 19, 1944, Japanese vice-admiral Takajiro Ohnishi asked 23 young navy pilots to volunteer for suicide missions against Allied warships; those who crashed into aircraft carriers would get posthumous double promotions. They all agreed, creating the first “special attack group” in time for the Battle of Leyte Gulf, which began the next day. Notes on Japan’s kamikaze attacks:

• Some suicide fliers were volunteers, others under orders. There were kamikaze boats and rafts.
• By October 25, the U.S. navy realized that suicide crash landings on its ships were not just being improvised. It clamped a news blackout on kamikaze fliers and began to figure out how to deal with their strategies (such as their habit of tailing a group of American aircraft back home to the carrier). One in every four kamikaze flights inflicted damage, and the navy was seriously concerned that Tokyo not find out the success of its tactical surprise.
• A hero during the indoctrination of the kamikaze pilots, sailors, and swimmers was naval warrant officer Magoshiche Sugino. Japanese believed that he had given his life in 1904, during the Russo-Japanese war, while sinking a ship to bottle up the Russian fleet at Port Arthur. In 1946, he was discovered living quietly in
  Manchuria. Mr. Sugino had been rescued by a Chinese boat and, upon learning he was a dead hero, decided to keep a low profile.

Some of the dimensions of the 1914-18 war to end all wars:

• The conflict cost both sides a total of 8,5 million dead. Even on the quietest days, thousands of troops were killed or wounded - a process termed “wastage” by British officers.
• The western front soon bogged down into a stalemate from Belgium to
  Switzerland. Both sides built networks of trenches long enough in total, by some estimates, to circle the Earth. + German troops built the best trenches: they picked the high ground and designed their earthworks to be permanent. Sometimes their dugouts included wallpaper and varnished woodwork. Ramshackle British and French efforts were always wet and sometimes flooded. Opposing lines could be as close as seven metres.
• The front lines, especially during winter in low-lying
  Flanders, were a sea of trenches, craters, latrines, corpses, and vermin. Approaching troops could smell the trenches before they saw them.
• The men were small (by modern standards) and their packs heavy. The average British recruit weighed 132 pounds and carried accoutrements of 77 pounds, including a greatcoat that might weigh 20 to 50 pounds more when soggy. Wounded ~en drowned by the thousands in the mud; so did unlucky sleepers.
• By 1916, both sides had steel helmets instead of cloth hats.
• The enemy was rarely seen; his bullets and shells were more common. During heavy shelling, troops endured up to 30 shells a minute - a “thunderstorm” or “symphony” of sound that was felt as much as heard. Across the English Channel, the barrages of
  Flanders were plainly audible.
• Informal truces sprang up when barbed wire needed mending or there were soldiers to retrieve (the wounded might moan in no man’s land for days).
• Big attacks were rarely surprises; they were preceded by heavy shelling and openings of the barbed wire. On July I, 1916, when the British attacked in the Sornme, they had 60,000 casualties - one man for every 18 inches of the front.
• Record heaps of munitions were used. For instance, south of
  Ypres, British miners tunnelled for a year to place a million pounds of high explosives into 21 shafts. On June 7, 1917, the complex was detonated; 19 shafts went up, burying 10,000 Germans and jolting the British prime minister 130 miles away in
  Downing Street. In 1955, another shaft exploded, jolting thevillage of
  Ploegsteert but causing no injuries. The last shaft, deep under Ploegsteert ‘Vood, has yet to be heard from.
• Today; bones are still being discovered. The war’s battlefields will yield their metal fragments for centuries, experts say. On a rainy day in Albert, France, near the
  Somme, the fields give off a smell of rusting iron. (Sources: The Great War and Modern Memory, Goodbye to All That, The First Day on the
  Somme, EyeDeep in Hell.)

I, the natural mother of all life, the mistress of the elements, the first child of time, the supreme divinity, the queen of those in hell, the first among those in heaven, the uniform manifestation of all the gods and goddesses-

I, who govern by my nod the crests of light in the sky, the purifying wafts of the ocean, and the lamentable silences of hell-

I, whose single godhead is venerated all over the earth under manifold forms, varying rites, and changing names.

Isis and Isia

Since the worship of Isis was another mystery religion, very little is known of the events of the Isia. The procession to her shrine, however, was a mesmerizing event. The parade began with men and women dressed “as their votive fancy desired” leading the way. A chorus of women followed wearing only white and strewing the path with flower blossoms and perfumed oils. Others came in order carrying torches and waxen candles to honor She Who Made the Stars of Heaven.

Next followed musicians and a choir of young people in snow-white garments singing songs to the pipers’ tune. Then came the priests and priestess shouting. “Make way for the goddess.” A band of men and women of all classes and ages who had been initiated into the mysteries of the goddess and who wore linen clothes of the purest white followed. The women had their hair done up with veils of the finest silk covering their heads; the men had all shaven their heads. They each carried a silver or bronze sistrum, rattling the sacred instrument as they walked.

Isis was accessible to slave and emperor alike and could be approached through personal prayer. She listened to all supplications and required only faith and devotion from her followers, not money or expensive offerings. Two thousand years ago, Apuleius invoked her presence with devout faith as follows:

Queen of Heaven, who wanders through many sacred groves, and who is worshiped and esteemed in different ways, 0, Goddess of the Moon who shines upon the walls of cities with beams of female light, who nurtures the seeds in the earth with your moist heat, and glows with divine radiance when the sun has set. ° by whatever name, and by whatever rites, and in whatever form that you may be invoked, come now and help me in my hour of need. And, moved by the prayer and declaration of faith, she appeared:

The first thing that I noticed was her abundant dark hair falling gently in soft curls onto her neck. Upon her head, she wore a garland woven with a great variety of flowers. She was crowned with a divine tiara worthy of description, for in the center, just above her forehead, was a plain circular object that was in fact a miniature full moon that glowed with a soft clear white light. On either side of the moonlike globe, two serpents were placed together with sheaves of grain.

Her multicolored gown was of the finest linen, a part was pure white, another was dyed the color of yellow crocuses, with a third the color of rich red roses. Yet, the pitch-black cloak around her shoulders caught my eye, for it shone with a dark glow. This amazing garment fell in soft folds of fabric, swaying gracefully to the ground in a hem of knotted fringe. The elaborate border seemed to cling to the garment of its own accord, of brilliant hues, comprising every kind of fruit and flower. This magical cloak was sprinkled with glowing stars and in the center was a full moon emitting soft moon beams in every direction. The goddess held in her right hand a bronze rattle, a sistrum, her sacred instrument. She carried a miniature golden boat in her left. An asp with raised head and puffed out throat encircled her right arm. Such was the goddess Isis.