Is that all? Probably not. Let's see. The hands are out, as if the woman was receiving something. Well, OK, she is. A blow. But, let's say she's receiving more than that. There's the baby that this ritual is supposed to aid her deliver of, someday. Given that her husband was, quite probably, inconsiderate in bed, she is probably used to the act of physical love feeling like a blow. That which people are used to seeing together, they tend to associate. Seed enters wife, sudden physical pain. Baby leaves wife, a lot more pain. That which entered, has been transformed, and is now leaving, somebody might think.

So, what we might restore, is the symbolic entrance of something into the woman. Part of the essence of that which will become a child. I'd like to think that we've moved past the point at which the woman would feel the need for something unpleasant to put her in mind of such a moment. Perhaps the consumption of a symbolic food, containing many seeds might be an appropriate addition.

But this might well be, as one of my advisors would put it, "like growing flowers in the sky" : an activity so unrooted in practical matters as to be pointless. Is this even a festival which we can hold, here at the Shrine? And how do we restore the spirit to the form? To address the second question first, we have not vanished so far into our ivory tower as to imagine that the subject of sexual arousal is something that can very well be discussed in the abstract. What would turn you on, were you to take part in such a festival? How would we know? Such reactions are so individualized that were we to hold a Lupercalia observance, much of the ritual would be hashed out on site in a deliberately ad hoc way, not reconstructed from memory and enriched by our readings like our Saturnalia observance. Initially, our thought was that we should create a discussion list for those who might be interested in such things, where they could share their ideas.

Question :

"So, what was your final decision? Did you set up the forum, and decide to hold the event, or did you decide to pass?

Answer : ..... Click here

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Creating a Modern Lupercalia Celebration

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This is all still in the process of being thought about, and written, or at least will be if we see signs of sufficient interest (see comments in the introduction to this site). Click here to return.