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St. Valentine’s Day’s Mysterious Origins and a Path to Love

Awotunde Ifaseyin Yao Karade

© 2003

 

 

From http://store.yahoo.com/www-poetrygifts-com/valentinesday.html

 

 

Yes, it is once again February and another Valentine’s Day is approaching.  Valentine’s Day means different things to different people. For some it is a time to celebrate romantic love and/or to project their personal love interests. For others Valentine’s Day has a more inclusive and universal meaning that expresses not only individual love but a love for all those around them. Whatever your purpose for celebrating people should know what they are actually celebrating and how it came to be.  In that way one can make a more intelligent choice as to how to approach these days that have been made to be so venerated in Western society.

 

Valentine the Man

 

Through research there has not been much found on the life of Valentine before the events surrounding his death.  We do know that he incurred the wrath and disfavor of the Emperor Claudius in the year 269 CE for what appears to be two possible but uncertain reasons.  One version of the story says that he was jailed and eventually executed because he defied Emperor Claudius’ injunction to stop marrying young men. Claudius felt that married men made poor soldiers because they were always thinking of their families instead of Rome.  Therefore, Valentine was supposedly killed on Feb. 14.  It is assumed that though Valentine was supposedly chaste and unmarried he became associated with the holiday because of marriage (“love”).

 

Another version of the story says that the jailer’s daughter where he was jailed took care of him while locked up after he cured her of her blindness. He supposedly fell in love with her and cared for her intensely.  Right before his death he supposedly sent her a letter signed, of course, “From your Valentine.”  Hence, the “origin” of sending “Valentine’s” to a dear and loved one.  Though not documented his date of death was set at February 14. 

 

The Real Roots of February 14th as Valentine’s Day

 

In Rome, since at least the 7th century BCE, February 14 was always the day of Juno, a Roman Goddess of fertility and goddess of all of the Roman gods and goddesses.  She was widely celebrated in Rome, and this day was particularly sacred to her.  February 15 was dedicated to the Roman god Lupercus, and the celebration day was called Lupercalia.  In short, it was a “feast of eroticism” that in all actually also honored Juno Februata, the goddess of the feverish (febris) love.  Annually, love notes or “billets” would be drawn to partner men with women for feasting and sexual “game playing.”  For those that do not know what Greco-Roman “sexual game playing” means I will put in plain view for you. In other words, it was a time for free and open orgies.

 

Some of the rituals involved youths of noble birth to run through the streets with goatskin thongs on.  Young women would crowd around the street in the hope of lashing the sacred thongs believing it would help them better be able to bear children.  The goatskin thongs were known as februa and the lashing the februatio, both coming from a Latin word meaning to purify.  The word February is from this.

 

February marked a point in the year celebrating a young man’s rite of passage. The god that represented this rite was Lupercus. The above-mentioned “lottery” was usually held in mid February.  The names of teenage girls that had been rounded up for these purposes were placed in a box and drawn at random by the teenage men.  By this lottery a young man was provided a young woman concubine of sorts for sexual pleasure for 1 year.  After the year was up another lottery would be held and the process would start again. 

 

Cupid and other Symbols

 

Cupid was the son of Venus and in some myths he is a mischievous matchmaker.  He was a symbol of passionate but unstrained (orgiastic) love.  His Greek counterpart is Eros, son of Aphrodite.

 

According to one Greek myth, cupid somehow fell in love with the mortal Psyche.  Venus, his own mother, was jealous of this and tried to do all things to get rid of her.  She eventually tricked Psyche with several difficult stunts.  Venus gave her a bag that was said to contain all the beauty of the universe, but was told not to look into it. She looked into the bag as Venus had planned, but beauty was not in the bag. Instead she fell into a deep coma like sleep.  Cupid eventually found her and awoke her by touching her heart with his “arrow” (of course this is a metaphor for something sexual).  They supposedly lived happily ever after with one another after that. In fact, the gods rewarded her by making her a god.

 

Now the way Cupid is associated with Valentine’s Day is because Venus, as a goddess of love, is associated with Juno, who is also a god of love and Juno being the actual goddess that is more directly associated with what is now Valentine (or at least the date that has been made to be Valentine’s Day).

 

In the European Dark Ages, it was believed by the populace the ALL birds mated in mid-February. The actual fact is that only the missel thrush, the partridge, and the blackbird mated in mid February.  By default the dove came to be associated with Valentine’s Day because IT WAS SYMBOL OF VENUS.

 

Roses were sacred to Bacchus, god of wine and joy, and Venus (love/beauty) and were also connected to Cupid.  Of course, red was associated with strong emotions.

 

Ase, Ase, Ase O!

 

 

 

 

References

 

Ackerman, Diane. A Natural History of Love, Vintage, c1995.

Badejo, Diedre. Osun Seegesi: The Elegant Deity of Wealth, Power, and Femininity. Africa World Press, c1995.

Barth, Edna. Hearts, Cupids, and Red Roses: The Story of the Valentine Symbols. New York: Clarion, c1974.

Bulla, Clyde Robert. The Story of Valentine's Day. Harper Trophy, c2000.

Gibbons, Gail. Valentine's Day. New York: Holiday, c1986.

Odu Ifa, the sacred oral scriptures of Ifa

Picture provided by:  http://store.yahoo.com/www-poetrygifts-com/valentinesday.html

Sabuda, Robert. Saint Valentine. New York: Atheneum, c1992