February 14th, 2015

I had been going to compose a post today about how St. Valentine was not only the patron saint of love but also pestilence and bees, and then I got distracted by the realization that the Roman festival of Lupercalia runs from February 13th through the 15th.

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Some scholars are of the opinion that Valentine's Day was introduced by the Catholic church to try to supercede Lupercalia, but given that there's little to no evidence actually supporting this claim, it sounds like that theory's been pretty well disproven. That being said, there are some thematic similarities, which we will explore next.

Lupercalia was observed to banish evil spirits from the city of Rome, and to purify the city by invoking health and fertility (seeing the "love and romance" correlation yet?). It replaced the earlier spring festival of Februa, which was also a cleansing festival held at the same time (a later Roman god, Februus, personified both the month and the cleansing; the month of February is named for the festival, not for the deity).

The word "Lupercalia" is believed to have come from the Roman "lupus", meaning wolf. Lupercus, a Roman god

often identified with Faunus (the Roman Pan), was god of shepherds, and his festival on the 15th honored the founding of his temple. Ceremonies were held in the Lupercal, a cave on the south side of Palatine Hill, where it was believed Remus and Romulus (the founders of Rome) were raised by a female wolf.

Lupercalia, which literally translates to "Wolf Festival", was directed by priests of Faunus called the Luperci. They dressed in goatskins and officiated the ceremonies. In the Shakespeare play Julius Caesar, Mark Antony (historically, the head of the Luperci) bestows a ceremonial crown on Caesar to foreshadow his intent to become king during the Lupercalia rituals.

The festivities themselves involved the sacrifice of two goats and a dog. A pair of young Luperci were then anointed with the sacrificial blood, and the hides of the animals were cut into thongs. The Luperci dressed in the remnants of the skins and ran around the old Palatine city. The citizens would gather to be struck by the thongs - getting hit with one was meant to ensure fertility and ease the pains of childbirth.

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Interested in celebrating something a little more Pagan with your partner? I'll grant you, spring cleaning doesn't make for the most romantic of dates (and if you're into getting whipped with thongs, that's your prerogative, but I can't give you a whole lot of advice there, myself). Still, there's nothing stopping you from skipping out on all the hype of the 14th, buying a boat-load of half priced chocolate tomorrow, and then going out to dinner or a movie the evening of the 15th when places will be much less busy. Then there's always the option for a formalized ritual of romance - this asexual hasn't got much for you in the way of sex magick tips, but again, if that's your thing, I imagine there's all kinds of advice out on the web for coming up with creative costuming and dialogue for one heck of a night in.

Whatever you do (or don't do - focusing on yourself and self-care is just as important this weekend as ever), be safe, and have a good time!