LUPERCALIA Imbolc start of february driving out the wolves of winter pagan ritual

LUPERCALIA Imbolc start of february driving out the wolves of winter pagan ritual.

Also called Imbolc, Lupercalia, February 2, is the time of the year when the Great Horned God, newly born of the Goddess and grown to his youthful strength and bravery, begins his role as the Protector of Life. The Horned God rises up and drives the wolves of winter from the world, bringing in with him the springtime, that will once again bring the green back to the world. It is here that the Horned God makes way for his future love, the Maiden to begin her frolics in the fields and hills of the world.

video below is information on all the pagan holidays.

The Pagan Past of Modern Holidays Pt. 1 of 2



The Pagan Past of Modern Holidays Pt. 2 of 2



(video description)

"By Megan Christensen through Professor Rev. Dr. James Kenneth Powell II, opensourcebuddhism.org. Nice thesis statement: the pagan past is not dead. I like the definition even of the word holiday. You describe the old Celtic calendar as the source of our north European holidays nicely. New Year's is a good place to start for the natural holidays. Past and future meet here -- nice Janus discussion. I had no idea about Groundhog's day and Imbolc. Valentine's Day and the Lupercalia were vaguely familiar, but now, I know more! Easter too, I did know basically the origins and there is even a Sanskrit Aryan original "Usras" -- the Dawn Goddess. The egg in fact goes back to ancient Egypt I understand. I had no idea of April Fool's day and Loki et. al. I like how you tie in the Roman with the Celtic along the way. Beltane sounds like one to bring back. Looks fun and the origins of the Maypole -- interesting. Halloween as you say, is the one that is most clearly "pagan". The trick-or-treat origins were new to me. Yule and All Saints Day and the connection with sun worship was also a new one for me. And that caroling came from Romans -- wow! You definitely made your case, and one as you know with which I would agree: the religions never die, they just fade away...a bit."

LUPERCALIA RITE

The alter is adorned with the wildflowers and a fire is set with incense burning in it.

Cast a circle

Invoke the Goddess and the God

Stand before the lit cauldron and say these words;

O wondrous God

Strength and power flowing

through the rippling muscles of your back

your wide horns and sharp spear

attacking and wolves

and driving them from our doors

We thank thee!

The Maiden Goddess may

now frolic upon these hills

and bring forth with thee the new life

that will come to us this spring

May you run free

across this world of yours

and reclaim it from the death that wraps

around it

Your Power is great

and we revere it and you

this night.

Works of magic may follow if needed.

Celebrate the feast.

Release the circle.

LUPERCALIA according to wikipedia article below

"Lupercalia was a very ancient, possibly pre-Roman pastoral festival, observed on February 13 through 15 to avert evil spirits and purify the city, releasing health and fertility. Lupercalia subsumed Februa, a possibly earlier-origin spring cleansing ritual held on the same date, which gives the month of February its name.
The Lupercalia by name was believed in antiquity to have some connection with the Ancient Greek festival of the Arcadian Lykaia (from Ancient Greek: λύκος — lykos, "wolf", Latin lupus) and the worship of Lycaean Pan, the Greek equivalent to Faunus, as instituted by Evander.[1]

In Roman mythology, Lupercus is a god sometimes identified with the Roman god Faunus, who is the Roman equivalent of the Greek god Pan.[2] Lupercus is the god of shepherds. His festival, celebrated on the anniversary of the founding of his temple on February 15, was called the Lupercalia. His priests wore goatskins. The second-century Christian apologist Justin Martyr mentions an image of "the Lycaean god, whom the Greeks call Pan and the Romans Lupercus,"[3] nude save for the girdle of goatskin, which stood in the Lupercal, the cave where Romulus and Remus were suckled by a she-wolf. There, on the Ides of February, a goat and a dog were sacrificed, and salt mealcakes prepared by the Vestal Virgins were burnt.

The celebration during the Late Republic and Empire

Plutarch described Lupercalia:
Lupercalia, of which many write that it was anciently celebrated by shepherds, and has also some connection with the Arcadian Lycaea. At this time many of the noble youths and of the magistrates run up and down through the city naked, for sport and laughter striking those they meet with shaggy thongs. And many women of rank also purposely get in their way, and like children at school present their hands to be struck, believing that the pregnant will thus be helped in delivery, and the barren to pregnancy.[4]

The Lupercalia festival was partly in honor of Lupa, the she-wolf who suckled the infant orphans, Romulus and Remus, the founders of Rome,[5] explaining the name of the festival, Lupercalia, or "Wolf Festival." The festival was celebrated near the cave of Lupercal on the Palatine Hill (the central hill where Rome was traditionally founded[6]), to expiate and purify new life in the Spring. The Lupercal cave, which had fallen into a state of decay, was rebuilt by Augustus; the celebration of the festival had been maintained, as we know from the famous occurrence of it in 44 BC. A highly decorated cavern 50 feet (15 m) below Augustus' palace in the correct approximate location was discovered by archeologists in October 2007, which may prove to be the Lupercal cave when analyzed.

The religious ceremonies were directed by the Luperci, the "brothers of the wolf (lupus)", a corporation of priests of Faunus, dressed only in a goatskin, whose institution is attributed either to the Arcadian Evander, or to Romulus and Remus. The Luperci were divided into two collegia, called Quinctiliani (or Quinctiales) and Fabiani, from the gens Quinctilia (or Quinctia) and gens Fabia; at the head of each of these colleges was a magister. In 44 BC. a third college, the Julii, was instituted in honor of Julius Caesar, the first magister of which was Mark Antony. In imperial times the members were usually of equestrian standing.
The festival began with the sacrifice by the Luperci (or the flamen dialis) of two male goats and a dog.[7] Next two young patrician Luperci were led to the altar, to be anointed on their foreheads with the sacrificial blood, which was wiped off the bloody knife with wool soaked in milk, after which they were expected to smile and laugh.

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.
[edit]The Lupercalia in the fifth century

By the fifth century, when the public performance of pagan rites had been outlawed, a nominally Christian Roman populace still clung to the Lupercalia in the time of Gelasius (494–96). It had been literally degraded since the first century, when in 44 BC the consul Mark Antony did not scruple to run with the Luperci;[8] now the upper classes left the festivities to the rabble.[9] Whatever the fortunes of the rites in the meantime, in the last decade of the fifth century they prompted Pope Gelasius I's taunt to the senators who were intent on preserving them: "If you assert that this rite has salutary force, celebrate it yourselves in the ancestral fashion; run nude yourselves that you may properly carry out the mockery."[10] The remark was addressed to the senator Andromachus by Gelasius in an extended literary epistle that was virtually a diatribe against the Lupercalia. Gelasius finally abolished the Lupercalia after a long dispute.
[edit]References in art

William Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar begins during the Lupercalia, with the tradition described above.

Mark Antony is instructed by Caesar to strike his wife Calpurnia, in the hope that she will be able to conceive:

CAESAR (to Calpurnia)
Stand you directly in Antonius' way,
When he doth run his course. Antonius!

ANTONY
Caesar, my lord?

CAESAR
Forget not, in your speed, Antonius,
To touch Calpurnia; for our elders say,
The barren touched in this holy chase,
Shake off their sterile curse.
[edit]See also

Roman festivals
Roman mythology
Valentine's Day