Mahashivratri

The Great Night of Shiva, a festival of fasting and worship of the Lord Shiva from Hindu faith. I found a couple of stories as to why this day is the one in which Lord Shiva is worshiped. They vary from it being his favorite day to it being the day he saved the world from destruction at the request of his wife (Parvati). There is also a story I found about Lord Shiva drinking up a great poison that was created during an event known as the "churning of the ocean." This poison was so strong that it turned his throat blue from the heat of it. A snake was found and wrapped around his neck, cooling his throat off. I did not see how this connected with the celebration, but it was a pretty cool story so I thought I would mention it anyway.

The proper celebration of this is to offer Bael leaves to Lord Shiva, as well as an all day fast and an all night vigil. There is also mention of Ganja being used in spme places.

I, having no access to a lingam (let alone ganja or bael leaves) had to make do with merely mentioning the day to those I spoke with and offering Lord Shiva my devotion for the day.

A quick note here. I have not been able to properly celebrate any of the Hindu holidays very well at all. Due to a combination of lack of proper materials and lack of information on the proper activities. I would dearly like any feedback on how to remedy this situation. I feel bad not having the ability to properly celebrate any of these, and would like to fix this before the year is out.

Jesus Christ and Reading Lists

So, today was a bit of a big day for me. No holidays this week, but I did keep busy with the project. I went shopping for some books to supplement my celebrations. Prior to this, I had a handful of books of religion. Now I have a lot of books of religion.

My collection includes:

• Bhagavad-Gita
• Buckland's Book of Witchcraft
• Dhammapada
• I Ching
• King James Bible
• Koran
• Megilah
• New Oxford Annotated Bible (for the Apocrypha)
• Pocket Book of Zen
• Principia Discordia
• Satanic Bible
• Tao Te Ching
• The Analects of Confucius
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to World Religions
• The Complete Idiot's Guide to Eastern Philosophy
• The Teachings of Buddha
• Tibetan Book of the Dead
• Torah
• Upanishads

Books I still need are:

• Chang Yung
• Hsiao Ching
• Kojiki
• Li Ching
• Mishnah
• Shih Ching
• Shinto
• Shuh Ching
• Talmud
• Any other books I am unaware of so far...

So, yeah, decent start but far from enough. I seems that it is difficult to find non-Christian religious books in a mainstream bookstore. I am sure I could special order somewhere, but I have not really had the inclination to do so yet. I likely will, at some point.

In other, more entertainment than religious news, I went to see Jesus Christ Superstar tonight. It included the original actor to play Jesus in the movie version back in the 70's. Man, does he still have a great voice. A little disconcerting to see a young cast with a 60 year old Jesus, but it was still a great show. One of my all time favorite musicals, and full of a lot of my favorite songs. Now I have to pull out my CDs of the original cast to listen to. Also want to find a copy of that movie. That was my introduction to the show so it has a special place in my heart.

One thing that I have always been struck by is how in this show, Judas is not really a bad guy. He has good intentions, that sort of spiral out of his control. It is very interesting, and has influenced my own personal view of Judas and his part in the story in general. I also find that this play is much like Shakespeare's Othello in that the play is named after one character (Jesus/Othello) but really more about a different character (Judas/Iago).

Anyhow, great fun.

Makar Sankrant

So, first holiday of the year. This is a Hindu festival recognizing the transition of the sun from one celestial sign (Sagittarius) to another (Capricorn). According to the article I read, most Hindu holidays are based on the lunar calendar, but since this is a sun festival it is based on the position of the sun and therefore remains on January 14 all the time.

There are a handful of beliefs tied in with this holiday. One is that this is the day Surya (the Sun) visits the house of his son Shani(Saturn). The father and son do not get along, but take this one time every year to see each other. As such, it is a representation of the father/son bond. It is also said that this was the day that Vishnu ended the terror caused by the Asuras (Hindu deities commonly portrayed as demons). He buried their heads after finishing them off. This makes the day one of ending negativity as well.

Traditional celebration of this day seems to entail cleaning out the old the day before, followed by focusing on the positive and new. The handing out of sweets also looks to be important. Brothers traditionally give gifts to their married sisters as a sign of filial love. The most common form of celebration is prayer to Surya and flying colorful paper kites.

My form of celebration was pretty poor. I did not have access to a kite, nor the time to fly one. I also do not have a married sister. I pretty much stayed up later than normal so I could watch the sun rise. Not the best start for the year, but this was a celebration that not only snuck up on me, but also tends to not work with my work schedule of swing/graveyard shifts.

Hope the rest of the year goes a little better.