Pony Party, The Valentine Thing….

If you’re celebrating Lupercalia instead of Valentine’s Day today, please enjoy my blessings on your celebration.  

The Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through February 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility….(snip)…The Lupercalia festival was in honor of the She-Wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome. Explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, which translates out into “Wolf Festival.”(snip)…The sacrificial feast followed, after which the Luperci cut thongs from the skins of the victims, which were called Februa, dressed themselves in the skins of the sacrificed goats, in imitation of Lupercus, and ran round the walls of the old Palatine city, the line of which was marked with stones, with the thongs in their hands in two bands, striking the people who crowded near. Girls and young women would line up on their route to receive lashes from these whips. This was supposed to ensure fertility, prevent sterility in women and ease the pains of childbirth. This tradition itself may survive (Christianised, and shifted to Spring) in certain ritual Easter Monday whippings.

…though I’ll sadly not be participating.  Fertility is the LAST thing i need right now…  😉

To the rest of us,

♥ Happy Valentine’s Day ♥

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Love has no desire but to fulfill itself.

But if you love and must needs have desires, let these be your desires;

To melt and be like a running brook that sings its melody to the night.

To know the pain of too much tenderness.

To be wounded by your own understanding of love;

And to bleed willingly and joyfully.

-Kahlil Gibran, The Prophet

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Love makes your soul crawl out from its hiding place.

-Zora Neale Hurston

♥♥♥♥♥♥

Be excellent to each other.

-Bill S. Preston, Esq., Ted Theodore Logan, Rufus, and Buhdydharma