What’s the connection between Purim, Mardi Gras and St Patrick’s Day?
It’s a time where weird is normal and a celebration of things not being as they seem.
Purim
Many Jewish festivals are described as “they hated us, they tried to kill us, we won, let’s eat”.
This is especially so with Purim. The events of this story occurred around 500BC. Haman, the Hitler of his time, was determined to destroy the Jewish people.
Obviously, he didn’t succeed (just like his 20th Century counterpart). In commemoration, the Rabbis (at the behest of Esther) established the festival of Purim.
It’s celebrated by dressing up and lots of partying. According to Wikipedia: “customs include drinking wine or any other alcoholic beverage, wearing of masks and costumes, and public celebration.”
One of the significant elements of Purim is the directive to get so drunk that one can’t tell the difference between “blessed is Mordechai” (the hero of the story) and “cursed is Haman” (obviously the villain). (This is a reference to a highly elevated spiritual state which is beyond the scope of the discussion here.)
Another important element in the Purim story is the heroine, Esther, a powerful and significant woman. (Again, for discussion somewhere else.)
So Purim, for the Jews, is celebrated with drinking and dressing up (see the above picture taken by Motti Kimchi in TelAviv).
Mardi Gras
Mardi Gras is celebrated throughout the Christian world at this time.
Wikipedia “Popular practices on Mardi Gras include wearing masks and costumes, overturning social conventions, dancing, sports competitions, parades, debauchery (LH – does that mean drinking?)“.
This sounds very much like the practices of Purim, although I’m not sure what Wikipedia means by “debauchery”.
This picture is from a Mardi Gras parade in Belgium.
In Australia, the Christian event has been taken over and is now the Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras. It involves dressing up and parades (although the costumes in Australia tend to channel Rio rather than Belgium).
As you can see, there are a number of similarities between Purim and Mardis Gras.
How does St Pat fit into this?
St Patrick’s Day
SPD is celebrated on the 17th March.
Wikipedia again: “Celebrations generally involve public parades and festivals, cĂ©ilithe (social gatherings), and the wearing of green attire or shamrocks. Christians also attend church services, and the Lenten restrictions on eating and drinking alcohol are lifted for the day, which has encouraged and propagated the holiday’s tradition of alcohol consumption”.
Are you seeing the pattern here?
The Astrological Connection
So now, we see a number of festivals, celebrated at a similar time, having similar rituals and practices.
Being of an Astrological bent I see this timing as quite significant.
These all occur during the time when the Sun is in Pisces. Pisces is ruled by the planet Neptune which is related to alcohol, illusion and the use of symbols. (For more explanation see my Cosmic Compass post about Neptune.)
The sign Pisces is also the end of the astrological year (which traditionally starts with Aries) and so all this partying is a kind of New Year celebration. Interestingly, it also corresponds with the Chinese New Year.
Lots of fascinating connections/synchronicities – for more on this let’s grab a drink and have a long and interesting discussion, just not right now.
The weirdest open house inspection
As an example of this time of weirdness, Danita and I went to an open-house a couple of doors down from where we’re living. (That’s not the weird part – what happened is.)
Real estate is the main focus of attention for anyone living in Sydney.
Consequently, when there’s a house open for inspection one is duty-bound to check it out.
The house I’m talking about doesn’t have a For Sale sign outside and it was only due to the open-house notice that we even realised it was up for sale.
On arriving we found the Real Estate agent deeply involved in conversation with another couple.
Not wanting to interrupt (or get caught having to provide our contact details – we really don’t want to be called, emailed etc by someone wanting to sell us a property or offering sell ours – which we don’t have anyway) I tried to go in the front door.
The door was locked and when the agent noticed me he told me we could only go in via the back – weird situation number 1. It went downhill from there.
After giving him our details (as minimal as possible and being adamant we didn’t want to be contacted) we went to the back of the house.
The yard had once upon a time had a nice garden. It was now seriously run down and overgrown with weeds.
Inside, the house looked pretty empty. However, we could only get as far as the dining room.
Standing in the passageway was another gentleman who informed us we couldn’t see the rest of the house because it had tenants and they were home.
Pretty weird – huh???
An open inspection on a house, with no For Sale signage, where you couldn’t actually see the house.
Who buys a place like that?
We left thinking we needed a drink. Perhaps that would help make sense of it all – clearly a sign of the times.
Pisces finishes on the 21st March. Hopefully, things will then return to some kind of “normality”, whatever that means.