Halloween vs Day of all Saints

Halloween has its origins in Celtic culture.

2000 years ago, in the territory now called Ireland, Celts feasted Samhain, this festival happen on the 1th November. This festival marked the end of the year, the winter beginning and the last harvest.
At that time some people believe that in this date the souls had their last and final chance to return to the realm of the living

In this festival people gathered and lit fires and offer sacrifices to the deceased, believing this would stop them to return. Celts also dressed in clothes made from animal skins and offer food to the dead. As time passed by the festival changed and the people started dressing as ghosts, witches and other creatures known to be malevolent, and asking food and drinks. It is thought that this was the origin of the famous "trick-or-treat".

In the Catholic Church November 1st celebrates the day of "All Saints", in Mexico, for example, is celebrated as the day of "los Muertos" (Day of the Dead).

Samhain or All Saints Day?
People celebrate Samhain (Halloween) on the night of 31 October to 1 November, but using new and present rituals adapted to each country.
The All Saints Day comes as an attempt by the Catholic Church to annul the pagan festivals of the Celtic people. This attempt, despite being brilliant (according to some experts), has not had the desired impact, and the reunion of families around the table with the goal of honoring the Saints never managed to replace Samhain with the desired success.
Today we have a kind of fusion between the two parties- the Hallowe'en and All Hallows, or Halloween and All Saints Day (Hollow has its roots in the word sanctified or holy). The current version of Samhain on the evening of October 31 to November 1, and All Saints Day on November 1, are exactly the same, honoring the dead and settle down.
actividades de outono, Halloween, mitos,
sources:
http://www.history.com
http://ancienthistory.about.com

Et voilá!
Trick-or-treat?

Enjoy!

Instant facts- Just add water 77

Black coffee with no sugar contains no calories.
in http://gomestic.com

Instant facts- Just add water 68

There are many ancient religions believe that cats are exalted souls, companions or guides for humans, that they are all-knowing but are mute so they cannot influence decisions made by humans.
in http://www.catfacts.org

Instant facts- Just add water 57

Yin and yang are the two opposing and complementary forces that make up all phenomena of life. Both proceed from the Supreme Ultimate and together they represent the process of the universe and all that is in it.
in http://www.religionfacts.com

Tangram legend- Yu and God of Thunder

We can find a lot of legends about Tangram, its impossible to know witch one is true. we found 4 different versions about the origin of this millenary game. The first three are the most common, but the fourth one is the most surprising and interesting. 

The messenger and the Emperor
"Once upon a time 4000 ago, a messenger came to the Emperor Tan with a square mirror, when he dropped to the ground. But he dropped the mirror on the ground and it shattered into seven pieces.
The messenger tried to join the seven pieces in order to reassemble the square. While trying to solve the problem, the messenger has created hundreds of types of people, animals, plants, until finally he made it. "
from here

The disciple and the master
"Once upon a time a young chinese was saying goobye to his master.He was about to take a great trip around the world.
On this occasion, the master handed him a square mirror and said:
-With this mirror, record everything you see on your trip to show me when you get back.
The disciple, surprised, asked:
-But master, how can I show you, with this simple mirror, all I see during the trip?
At this moment the mirror fell from his hands and broke into seven pieces.
Then the Master said:
- Now, with these seven pieces, you can build figures to illustrate your trip. "from here

Mr. Tan and the tile

"Once upon a time, in a land far away, there was a Chinese gentleman named Tan. Mr. Tan lived in a golden palace, with a lake. He loved walk around the lake for hours ... One day while wandered among the reeds, he saw a bright object on the ground. He bent down and found a magnificent silver tile. He took it and admired it, the tile was smooth as the surface of the lake, soft as a feather, bright as his outfit.
Unfortunately, the beautiful tile escaped from his hands and broke into seven pieces on the floor! Mr. Tan, disappointed, tried to reconstitute it. Putting the pieces together, created a form, a little character!, shifted a few more pieces, and to his astonishment, formed a beautiful house!
Mr. Tan returned to the palace so excited to have invented a new game.
He called it TANGRAM and offered one to everyone in his kingdom!"

from here

All this stories share several things: the object geometry, a square tile or a square mirror; the object falls; the object split in seven pieces (Tans); someone try to reconstruct the square and various forms are formed.
As we said earlier, we found a quite a different story, so that caught my attention, the Legend of Yu and the God of Thunder.

Yu and God of Thunder

 "Thousands and thousands of years ago, Yu , the Great Dragon, lived among humans, who venerated him because he was 'yang', good, and was always ready to help them.

One day, the God of Thunder, jealous of the offerings the men had brought to Yu, in a burst of anger, crushed the sky with his hatchet. So, the sky fell on Earth in seven pieces black like coal. Light disappeared taking with it all existing things.

At first Yu felt sad for the world, and then felt nostalgic. So he decided to collect the seven black pieces of the sky and, in memory of the former world, began to reassemble several kinds of shapes: animals, plants and human beings that had disappeared. But after finishing each shape, its shadow left it and wandered the deserted world crying about its misfortune.

These complaints reached the ears of the God of Thunder who was touched and, to remedy the harm he had caused, he pulled from each shadow the body of a living being to repopulate the Earth.

From that time on, our shadow faithfully follows every move we make and with the seven pieces of the sky, called Qi Qiao Ban (literally 'seven boards of cunning'), everything on Earth can still be shaped".

from here

You can read more about Tangram here.

Sources:
http://www.archimedes-lab.org/tangramagicus/Tangram_legend.html
http://peixinhosnosotao.blogspot.com/2009/02/tangram-lenda.html
http://pt.scribd.com/doc/42133445/A-Lenda-Do-Tangram-1
http://www.eb1-setubal-n17-amoreiras.rcts.pt/projectos/fotostangram/a_lenda_do_tangram.htm

Et Voilá!
We found this story so wonderful and so restless that we couldn’t help sharing it
Enjoy!

Who's Santa

The end of Halloween anticipates Christmas. The beginning of another holyday season, originally pagan but now well integrated among most of the families: The Christmas. This is the children favourite season, a lot of presents, a lot of colour, huge chocolates figures, a green and most of the times huge tree… and a fat, handsome man, dressed in red suit with a big big big bag of gifts, on a sled being pulled by reindeer. 

On the Internet we can find lots of information about this nice and kind old man. Most of it trying to explain who is he and what he has done. 

Of course everyone knows he is a fat, nice and kind man who lives in North Pole, he controls the time, and he has magical powers that allow him to move around with a bag of presents.
But who was he? In fact Santa really exists, around the year 300. We have look around a lot of sources and the next paragraphs show what we did found. Most of the information we got is in fact more legend then history, but it give us a good inside view.

Who is Santa?

Saint Nicholas was born in Patara, on IV century, on the North of Turkey, he was born in a Christian wealthy family. As adult he was named Myra Bishop, we estimated he was dead around December 6 on a unknown year, we estimated this because that was the day medieval church dedicated to him. His remains were buried in a church outside the city wall and taken to Italy on the year of 1087, everything else is not certain and the legend becomes “alive”.

The first reference to this man was made by Proclus de Constantinople in the year of 440., and clearly points that this subject belongs to legend domain, we also notice that the first written reference to Myra Bishop was made 300 years after he died by an unknown biographer called Michael. This fact is not a problem by itself; the problem is that no one seems to know who informed Michael about those facts.

With this biographer we learn several things:

The history of the poor man and their three daughters:

Nicholas heard that this poor man is unable to offer a dowry for their three daughters. "They were so poor," Michael writes, "that no man of their order wanted them as his wife. Not even men of lower rank thought about marrying them. Therefore, their father thought about ordering them to work in a brothel, so that he and the family would have some income."

Fortunately, Nicholas acts. During the night, he throws a pouch with money through the poor man window. Now the oldest daughter can married. This gesture is repeated three times and soon the poor man has all three daughter well married.

The story tells us, Nicholas was caught by the poor man throwing the pouches. The man expressed his gratitude and Nicholas promise that he won’t tell a word about the subject. That live us with a question, if no one spoke, how we know this story?

There are several other identical stories about Nicholas, he was well known for his generosity with the less fortunate and his love for children. He uses to give presents anonymously to children throwing them thru the windows. It’s said the he made several miracles, another story tell us he helped some sailors saving them from drowning.
After he “was free” from the fortune he had inherited from the father Nicholas is made Bishop of Myra. It’s said that the Bishop appeared to the officials that were keeping 3 innocent generals in Constantinople prison, and because of that they were sent free, the story also tell that Nicholas was seen at the same time in Myra, at his office.
The credibility of these stories isn’t supported by the fact that too many parallels exists between Saint Nicholas and other older stories.

Let’s take Pythagoras Apollonius example. He was born in Tiana, not far from Myra. This wise man also remains chaste and gives all his property to allow a poor man to give their daughters a dowry, he involves himself in a trial to save someone who is sentenced to death, he also has the power of bilocation.


Santa Claus and his pagans origins


Its not unusual a Christian Saint be adorned with pagan stories..

Mythologist Helene Adeline Guerber outlined the as similarities between our Santa and Nordic God Thor.
In Sweden Thor represents Santa Claus. Santa Claus researchers think that this Nordic God was used as a mold to Santa Claus of our days. Thor was the god of the peasants and common people. He was very friendly, young, heavy and presented a long beard. His element was the fire and his colour red. He drove a chariot pulled by two white goats. He fought against giants of ice and snow. He lived in North Pole, where he had his palace among the icebergs! The fireplace in every home was sacred and it is known that he came down the chimney to its element, the fire!


In the mid-5th century AD, was habit in the winter an old man of the community dress in furs and visit people in their homes. This man was designated as the "Old Man Winter" or "King Frost", and took food and drink. Tradition says that this old would take the cold and the bad winter with him and therefore population did not suffer much with the cold.
 
This tradition became stronger during the invasion of Scandinavia by the Vikings between the sec sec VIII and XI. They took many of their traditions as the God Odin, who is traditionally represented by a portly elderly man with white beard.

Before 1880 images of Santa Claus show him as a well feeded man with a long white beard and dressed in green.

• When dutch went to America they took with them St. Nicholas lengend, they called him Klaas Sinter. When this one was americanized as Santa Claus lost his bishop suit..
• Since then Santa Claus dressed several colours, that’s because he was transformed into an miix with the god Thor.
• In the XIX century Thomas Nast, a famouse cartoonist added the red tunic, the white beard, and the tos bag to a cartoon.
•  In 1822 Clemente Clark Moore wrote a Cristmas poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas",
• Some Christmas Cards published in 1885 shown a Santa Clause in a red coat instead of the green one.
• Thor car pushed by goats was replaced by reindeer and a sleigh.

Sources: stnicholascenter.org; lone-star.net; arthuriana.co.uk

Et voilá!
Saint Nicholas, Mytra Bishop, St Nicholas, Santa Claus, Thor, Odin, Whatever you call it he is coming to town

Enjoy!