Lupercalia & Valentine's Day

[Ophidia]

Re: Lupercalia & Valentine's Day

Hmm. I don't know about Lupercalia, but you can always have your coworkers read this: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/how-...s-the-economy/

I usually tell them Valentine's Day was invented by Woolworth's in the late 1800s to buck up their 1st Quarter slump, lol.

[DanieMarie]

Re: Lupercalia & Valentine's Day

I feel the same way about Valentines that I do about modern versions of most holidays...TOTALLY secularized. I celebrate most secular holidays even though they have a Christian background and I'm not a Christian, because they're a large part of our society and have been so for thousands of years, and are practiced in places such as Berlin, were religion doesn't hold much weight (this is allegedly one of the most atheist western cities in the world...)

I do V-day. I like the idea of having a day set aside to celebrate love. It might not be traditionally Greek in its current form, but I'm an eclectic and I'm not overly concerned...call me bad or fluffy but I'm just not. As a devotee of Aphrodite I think it's a nice thing to celebrate, no matter where the tradition comes from

[Juniper]

Re: Lupercalia & Valentine's Day

Hmm. I don't know about Lupercalia, but you can always have your coworkers read this: http://www.mint.com/blog/trends/how-...s-the-economy/

[Ophidia]

Soooo, since it's pretty obvious to my co-workers that I place no importance on Valentine's Day at all, they've all made it a point to tell me that Valentine's Day is a 'Christianized' version of Lupercalia and I'm a 'bad Pagan' for not celebrating it :P

The truth is, I'm not versed enough on Lupercalia or any of the multitudinous St. Valentines to have a worthwhile rebuttal. All I know is that Lupercalia somehow involved the cave where Romulus & Remus' wolf-mother suckled them... and topless women running the streets being lashed by young priests wielding goat-skin thongs. Or maybe its young men in thongs wielding goats?

Even though I do include Mediterranean pantheons in my eclectic worship, most spring festivals aren't included in my practices because I'm not that big on fertility rites. Yes, I know they can be used to 'seed' or 'grow' projects, but my personal experiences with deities who love to take things literally make me leery of trying anything out, lest my 'seeded project' somehow ends up w/me being subject to alien impregnation (or my husband's vasectomy spontaneously reversing) or some crap like that.

Anyway, can anyone give me better information on Lupercalia & its links to Valentines Day (and not just dubious links to misleading websites)?