10 more reasons to party

What do Freemasonic "amateur theater," gavel raps, circumambulations of the lodge, and maybe even fish frys have in common with monkey feasts, beer drinking, betting on when the ice will crack, food fights and looking for a naked man have in common?

Ritual! Tradition! Celebration! Solstices!

Travel + Leisure magazine's site gives us a look at what it calls the world's strangest festivals in a new article accompanied by a photo slideshow.

The article tells us:

The famed French sociologist Émile Durkheim wrote that social life is made of "high peaks" (ceremonies, festivals, and holidays) and "low peaks" (ordinary life and routine). "High peaks can't last — they’re exhausting," says Sarah Daynes, an assistant professor of sociology at the New School in New York City. "Individuals come together, celebrate, and social life is extreme."

In Japan, on the coldest day of the year men strip down to a loincloth and run around cities, looking for a naked man. Whoever finds him first earns 12 months of good luck, or so they believe.

At the Tomatina Festival in Buñol, Spain, each year they have the world's biggest food fight, and no one remembers why.

In Lopburi, Thailand, a feast and tea party is held for the indigenous macaque monkeys who have overrun the town.

In Cuzco, Peru, each June 24 (near the winter solstice in the southern hemisphere) the Incan sun ceremony is re-enacted, with a man representing the Sun God being carried about on a golden throne.

On December 23 (near the winter solstice in the northern hemisphere, farmers in Oaxaca, Mexico carve their radishes into figures associated with Jesus.

In Iceland on March 1 of each year, the entire country does a pub crawl, drinking lots of beer, to celebrate the end of Beer Prohibition there in 1989. All other alcohol was only prohibited from 1915 to 1922.

Check out the slideshow for more freaky, funky festivals.

Pick a reason, name the season, and party hardy.

Masons | Masonic Trial | Small Town Freemasonry | Freemasonry | Grand Lodge of Georgia | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!

The earliest May Day celebrations were in pre-Christian Europe. The Celtic celebration of Beltane and the Walpurgis Night of the Germanic countries are the earliest known festivals on May 1. Archetypal echoes of those events have come down through the ages in schools and churches of Europe. I remember as a school child going outside to wrap a big pole in streamers and crepe paper and then walking/dancing around it in a group.

Also known as:

• Law Day, in the U.S. The holiday was first proclaimed by President Dwight D. Eisenhower in 1958, and written into federal law in 1961.


• Loyalty Day, originally known as Americanization Day, an official (though not federal) holiday in the U.S. It was first celebrated in 1921. Codified into law in 1958, Pres. Eisenhower proclaimed the first Loyalty Day in 1959.


• International Workers Day, observed in many countries, is a celebration of the social and economic achievements of the international labor movement. Originally created as a commemoration of the Haymarket protests in Chicago in 1886, the International Socialist Conference, meeting in Amsterdam in 1904, called upon the workers of the world to show solidarity by not working on May 1. The creations of Law Day and Loyalty Day in the U.S. were a backlash against the socialist/communist celebrations of International Workers Day.


• Walpurgis, derived from pagan customs, but named for Saint Walburga, niece of Saint Boniface, who lived in the eighth century. She was canonized on May 1, 779. In Germany, Walpurgisnacht is known as Hexennacht, meaning Witches' Night, the night from April 30 to May 1. It is the night when allegedly the witches hold a large celebration and await the arrival of Spring.


• Beltane, a spring fertility festival of pagans and Wiccans, modeled after the traditional Celtic holiday honoring the Sun god Bel, or Belenus, a god imported from Phoenicia.


• Mange-les-Morts, the feast of the ancestral spirits in the Vodoun (Voodoo) religion.


• National Love Day, when Czechs gather in public to kiss.


• It's also the liturgical feast days in the Catholic Church for Saint Joseph the Worker, Saint James the Less, Saint Philip the Apostle, Saint Andeol, Saint Brieuc, Saint Evermaar of Rutten, Saint Jeremiah, Saint Sigismund of Burgundy, Saint Theodulf, Saint Augustin Schoeffer, and Saint Florine.

Go enjoy yourself. Celebrate something.

Festivals | Celebrations | May Day | May 1 | May the First | Burning Taper | BurningTaper.com