It is that time of the year when all over then Northern Hemisphere there are special traditions to mark the change in time, acknowledge the lengthening of days, the relenting of winter, notice the defrosting lakes, heed the call of new saplings, listen to the roar of breaking of the ice that had lay sleeping over the last 5 months.
Today, March, 2011, Tuesday (Fat Tuesday) is also the Semla Day
A note: as I sit down to complete this, it is already first week of April. So, dates become ultra important in giving a frame of reference. This may be late, but believe me this post has a point….:))
Mardigras, is usually associated with festivities, especially the carnival in Brazil. A huge party before 40 days of lent.
Lent, as Catholics know, is the forty days before Easter. According to wikipedia, "The traditional purpose of Lent is the preparation of the believer --through prayer, repentance, almsgiving and self-denial — for the annual commemoration during Holy Week of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus, which recalls the events linked to the Passion of Christ and culminates in Easter, the celebration of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.
I learnt about Lent when I lived in Botswana. A close friend would observe Lent. I loved the idea. Although growing up in India, in a family that followed Hindu customs, I knew much about fasting. But when I heard things like, “I am giving up coca cola or Chocolate for Lent. I am giving up swearing for Lent” I found it fascinating that fasting could be used to kick addiction or things similar. I guess in India fasting is such a usual part of our everyday life that we never think of doing it for forty straight days. Well, we do, but it is not that standardized. (Nothing in Hinduism is standardized. There is nothing that everyone must do. May be that is why there so many ‘ways’ of doing the same thing. Simply to acknowledge the diversity in our world). Although there is something called the “chaliya” (meaning ‘the forty”). Chailya usually applies to doing something for forty days straight, e.g. Walking bare-feet to a specific temple, reciting a 3 page prayer once everyday for forty days, etc.
However, fasting in Hindusim is a life-long, on-going, never stopping phenonmenon. Practically everyone born in a hindu family does it at some point, to a certain degree. Yes, there are degrees of fasting. No grains for a day, a fast without water, a fast with only fruits, and sugar, no salt fasting, and the list goes on. It is common for people to fast once a week--which amounts to 52 days a year, for several years or their entire adult life. Also, we have several one-day-once-a-year fasts--which can easily add extra ten to twenty days of fasting. During these days, one usually abstains from meat (flesh foods is better way of putting it. Fish and chicken are included when Indians talk of ‘meat’), onions and garlic, eggs, and many other things.).
So those observing Lent abstain from ‘something’ for forty days. After I moved to the US, I would know Lent by Ash Wednesday. Ash Wednesday is the day after Fettisdag or Mardi Gras. Essentially the day Lent begins. Catholic students would come with a cross on their forehead, “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, a reminder that we were all going to return to the dust we came from. The cross made of ash on the forehead of each believer (or those who attend the church on Ash Wednesday) serves as a reminder of a period that is associated with mourning and self-appraisal. Basically examining what Jesus did for us, and then asking ourselves where we are on that ‘scale’ of sacrifice.
In many ways then, it is a death within, to resurrect to a new self.
Here, I cannot help but think of something I learnt in Fiji. That Chautal, song-singing festival that starts on Basant Panchami, the first day of Spring in North India, ends forty days later on Holi--a spring festival celebrated in North India. Holi is celebrated everywhere North Indians went----from Suriname to Fiji to Guyana to South Africa to Kenya…..
The festival is celebrated by throwing color and flower petals on each other and ofcourse followed by a huge feast.
A day before Holi, there are bon fires all over the country. Although a few stories are associated with it. The main reason is to ‘burn’ and forget the old, and begin with the new. I knew all the stories associated with Holi and loved the festival, but no one had ever told me about the forty days between Basant Panchami and Holi. A friend in Fiji just stated it matter-of-factly.
That made me confirm, what I have always believed-that there are similarities in religions and philosophies, that were always a response not to some divine command, but basic human consciousness, or maybe some sort of an organic order --which knows no boundaries, nations, religions, philosophies or languages. Like blood, though its constitution (different blood types) may differ, or it performs the same function. Nourishment!!
Forty days!! What is the significance of forty days? I had heard somewhere that 40 days is a month and half, - the time needed to break an old habit or establish a new one. I believe that these time periods, that may be applied to our subconscious, were very important in establishing the festivals that, combined with seasonal changes would bring us stories that would be passed down the generations. And these stories, with a little variation, will be told around the world.
For example, Holi falls in the same time period as Easter. What time period? Spring!! Seasonal change. Which, we all know, affects the state of our mind.
And as if these similarities are not uncanny enough, here are some more.
Passover a Jewish holiday is also a spring festival, celebrating the freedom of Jews. ‘Freedom’, resurrection, newness, new life.
Noruz --meaning New day is a Persian festival that is celebrated on March 20, the day of spring equinox, when day and night are the same length. How do they celebrate it? With bonfires, dancing around bonfires and coloring boiled eggs. Wait, isn’t that Easter? Or Holi?
March 20, in Sweden is called Vårdagjämningen--(Var-Spring, Dag, day, jamningen-Equinox--Spring Equinox). March 25th is called Varfrudagen or the Spring Lady day. Vafrudagen sounds very much like "Våffeldagen" meaning‘Waffle Day’. The holiday coincides with the Feast of Annunciation, the day when Archangel Gabriel announced to Mother Mary that she will give birth to Jesus, despite being a virgin. Notice, March 25, is exactly 9 months before December 25. Very carefully chosen, the day also symbolizes conception, newness, a new idea, new birth, and hope. On Vaffeldagen, the Waffle day, last year my landlord Erik had made waffles for us (me and my french flat mate A) at midnight. “Since you will not be here C,” he had said, “I am going to cook for you today” I had a research retreat to attend on 25 and 26th.
I thought it was a wonderful tradition. Later I would find out that Sweden has another ‘heathen holiday” (that is the term I have heard my colleagues use a lot--but as a matter of fact and without any judgement). That day like Holi, and Noruz, there are bon fires and with people dancing around it…..all over the country to ‘ring in the spring’. April 30 Walpurgis Nacht (Walpurgis Night), a festival associated with bonfires, and dancing. (Many other European countries observe the day and celebrate it with bonfires, dancing and singing. According to legends, bonfires are to turn away witches and evil spirits).
Hmm, forty days, bon fires, abstaining from things that have control over us, dancing, colors, coloring eggs, bunnies, chickens, new life, green and feathers…...see some similarity?
We are all celebrating nature freeing itself from the clutches of winter, recognizing that in death lies the seed of birth and rebirth. We may call it by different names, we may call them religious or heathen, Pagan or Christian or Jewish or Hindu or Muslim, but deep down we are all looking for reasons to get together and recognize that inherent need for ‘newness, new life and most of all hope.”
Is it a surprise then that March 17, is St. Patrick’s day? And it is celebrated by drinking green beer and wearing green for good luck?
April 13 is Baisakhi in north India. A harvest festival and people wear yellow and there are melas (fairs) all over north India.
In Northern Thailand (Chiang Mai) April 13-15, is the time for Songkran (Sanskrit: Sankranti), the water-festival. (Sankranti, in India is celebrated on January 14th symbolizing the beginning of end of winter).
Hmm, Just a coincidence?
Newness brings hope!!
It cleans the windows of the mind, and prepares us to see things are they are. Fasting was necessary before initiation for many shamanic religions. It was supposed to bring ‘clarity of mind‘ that was necessary before ‘transcending the limits of the body.’I am sure I am sure there are others that I do not remember and/know. I am sure that before the world was taken over by the idea that one religion or thought process should rule the world there were different festivals in southern hemisphere where seasons came in inverse order to that in the northern hemisphere. Christmas and Easter in Botswana and Fiji made little sense.
For years I held this anger over the fact that often times people are asked to or taught to believe, especially in the religions of conversion that their form of faith is the only way to the divine. I could not believe that young people with rational thoughts could agree with it. But having lived in so many countries, I have seen it happen all the time. Why would we hail democracy as an appropriate form of governing system (the best among all others tried so far), but not question the limiting ways we are told to think of the divine (if such a thing exists), are taught with fear, ‘if you do not believe this….then….” or “until you believe this….”
Thankfully,many keep the debate alive, so there is still room for some hope. The saddest part is that I have heard these forms of beliefs from both the very young and the very educated--both of these groups are known to be rational and unbiased. If youth and education does not free us from limitations of rigidity, then what else…
But after years of frustration----
Today, I simply let it all go. (or am walking towards that path).
Try to work on Gandhian idea of “khud jiyo auron ko bhi jeene do” (Live and let live). I will talk about this in detail else where. (still not always successful).
I have little time or energy to go into the details of my own re-conversion to Asian philosophies. I celebrate all the spring and winter festivals I can, regardless of what geographical region or religion they belong to. People must come to terms with their own ‘birth’ in their own sweet time. I am grateful that my thought process and the way I was raised encourages me to accept that the ‘truth is one, and the wise call it by different names.” (Rig Veda).
For me though, Semla Samay (time) is to see life and celebrations like Semla itself….sweet like the sweet Semla bun, light and fluffy like the whipped cream, but most importantly sugary--the sweetness that has been blended into everything, almonds that are crushed and whipped in the cream, you feel them, you relish them, a little nutty, a little sweet, and no right way to eat it….you can lick the cream or chew the bun first, or eat it like cake, ---no right way to eat it---like life itself.
As Emerson said, Don't be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment.”
Let Semla Samay be your own personal renewal time, (at least for those in the northern hemisphere.) Every Easter Noruz, Passover, Holi, --Feb to April, ---go through a self-appraisal process and ask yourself….if it feels like spring in your heart…..because it should!!
