The centuries-old tradition of Valentine’s Day was called LUPERCALIA – THE FESTIVAL OF THE WOLVE in pre-Christian times and was held on February 13th & 15th, with people celebrating the end of a year and the beginning of the next year and the goddesses Juno Februata and Acca Larentia.
The focal point of the festival was the Lupercal grotto, the place where – according to tradition – the she-wolf (actually: the goddess Acca = the creator) suckled the twins Romulus and Remus. At the same time, the february was and is the time of the goddess Juno Februarata, the mistress of GLOWING EROTIC LOVE, to whom flowers were traditionally offered as offerings. At the Lupercalia, men then offered flowers to the women as the goddess’s representatives.
JUNO goes back to the Sabine-Etruscan mother goddess UNI, whose name is in turn related to “YONI” and “UNI-VERSUM”. She is the Almighty, the All-Mother, the Mother of all Life.
For the festival itself, it was customized that the celebrating women wrote their names on pieces of paper, threw them into a vessel and men pulled “their lot” out of them .. the couples came together for a temporary partnership, which was primarily intended to celebrate pleasure and life , a SPIRITUALLY SENSUAL ECSTATIC UNION that, with its primal power, fueled the fertility of the country and its inhabitants.
Sometimes these couples brought together by the goddess also married for a year and a day – that is, until the next Lupercalia…
In antiquity, the patriarchy then assumed the importance of the festival and a portrait of the God Faunus was placed in the grotto of the she-wolf. Significantly, from then on the god also bore the epithet Lupercus (Latin: “wolf defense”).
The taming of the wolf’s wild festival began: the official ceremonies were now carried out without the participation of women.
Instead of the ecstatic associations of the ancestors, there was only one solemn procession – the priests of the god Faunus, dressed in goatskin, went around the Palatine hill. The married (!) Women lined the path and were whipped with buckskin straps to conjure up marriage blessings.
From then on, the official festival remained in male hands, but the connection to the Goddesses could not be easily erased from the people. It can be assumed that the old (unofficial) and the new (official) cult existed side by side for a while; as so often in history. Only the Christian church “couldn’t” let it go like this: belief in Goddesses and then women who live self-determined and joyful sexuality…! Unthinkable!
Pope Gelasius finally succeeded in redesigning this festival in such a way that a Martyr, Saint VALENTINE, was worshiped on that day.
What actually happened is that men gave women a SIGN OF THE SAINT AS AGIFT to let them know that they loved and worshipped them. This custom later turned into what we know today as Valentine’s Day.
So the Lupercalia survived …
Feel invited to rediscover the real meaning and the power of the festival!
Let the eternal flame of the GODDESS burn bright and hot… 🔥🔥🔥
Connect with the power of the GODDESS…
CELEBRATE A WILD and FREE and wonderful WOLFISH 🐺 🐺 PASSIONATE (LOVE) LIFE!
From heart to heart ♥ ️
Elisabeth & Team