Fight the Amoral Fight

Februum
Posted by: sp34n119w, 03 02, 2012 05:14 GMT +3
I think I've written about February before. That's okay – it's a good month!

There are sweet oranges on my tree, the tangerines are almost ready, and a friend gave me a bag of guavas from the first harvest of his backyard tree. Awesome.

Usually, February is a green month. By now we should have had enough rain interspersed with enough sun to waken the natives. There is some green on the hills this year.
Of course, it's also a great month for overnight freezes and floods but, hey, gotta take the bad with the good, right?
This is a fantastic time of year to go to Disneyland or the museums or any of the other Southern California lowland attractions. There are very few tourists and the locals are saving money and energy for Spring and Summer activities.

It isn't Spring. The deserts are still dormant (or had better be) and the mountains are cold (good if you ski, obviously, though not so much this year). Another couple months and there will be a lot more flowers, for sure. In the meantime, enjoy fresh-picked oranges and other transplanted fruits, soak up whatever green there is (it won't last long), and dream of fields of bright orange poppies.

…..

I looked on wikipedia for the etymology of “February” and there are no gods, this time. Not in the beginning. Seems that the winter months didn't really have names to differentiate one from the other until about 713 BC – it was just “winter”. I'm with that.

Still, it was the Romans who gave us February. Februarius comes from the Latin Februum, meaning purification, and was used because there was a purification festival in the middle of the old lunar month, at the full moon. Something like “Spring cleaning”, sounds like.
Later, the Romans thought up a god of purification to go along with the ritual and the month name.

…..

I have done some Spring cleaning this week without even knowing that! Perhaps I have some Roman blood in me … or the god put it into my heart to do so, as Homer would say.
I haven't finished listening to the Iliad* but I'm getting there. Book 15 and those crazy Trojans are in retreat again. Hera is going to be in BIG trouble when Zeus wakes up!


* I want to note that I made a mistake in the last blog about where I found the audio recordings of the two Homerian epics. I did find Odyssey at gutenberg.org but they got it from LibriVox, which is where I found the Iliad. Amazing and wonderful what people will do.

…..

Same old graphics …

Sweeping Swirls:



For the bigger picture, have a look at the NE Pac WVloop.

Clearing Clouds :



Passing Precip:




I expect I'll get all random and stuff so don't feel that you must only comment on purification ... though, if you have purification rituals you're willing to share, that could get interesting ... or really gross ...
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When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle. - Edmund Burke

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