The Rite of Spring

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_21

"April Is Sacred Sex Workers Month"  
by Finnchuill

Along with transgender and genderqueer people modern paganism has by and large shied away from celebrating the sacred sex work that was an important part of many ancient cultures. Many well-known deities like Venus had aspects that were matrons of sex workers, and others had sex workers involved in their festivities and rites like those of Bona Dea.
Prostitutes had a role in several ancient Roman religious observances, mainly in the month of April. On April 1, women honored Fortuna Virilis, "Masculine Luck," on the day of the Veneralia, a festival of Venus. According to Ovid, prostitutes joined married women (matronae) in the ritual cleansing and reclothing of the cult statue of Fortuna Virilis. Usually, the boundary between respectable women and the infames was carefully drawn: for example, when a priestess traveled through the streets, attendants moved prostitutes along with other "impurities" out of her path.
On April 23, prostitutes made offerings at the Temple of Venus Erycina which had been dedicated on that date in 181 BC, as the second temple in Rome to Venus Erycina (Venus of Eryx), a goddess associated with prostitutes. The date coincided with the Vinalia, a wine festival. So-called ‘pimped-out boys; (the pueri lenonii) were celebrated on April 25, the same day as the Robigalia, an archaic agricultural festival aimed at protecting the grain crops from the plant pathogen rust. It was dedicated to a god or numen of ambiguous gender, either named as Robigus or Robigo who was propitiated with the sacrifice of a puppy (the Romans were weird!).
On April 27, the Floralia, held in honor of the goddess Flora , women characterized as prostitutes erotic dancing and stripping. According to the Christian writer Lactantius, "in addition to the freedom of speech that pours forth every obscenity, the prostitutes, at the importunities of the rabble, strip off their clothing and act as mimes in full view of the crowd, and this they continue until full satiety comes to the shameless lookers-on, holding their attention with their wriggling buttocks." The poet Juvenal also wrote about the nude dancing, and perhaps prostitutes fighting in gladiatorial contests.

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Flora-lora-laralia. Meanwhile, we at Revue Blanche celebrate the next event. Read Lara's latest interview at Pick Your Poison Book Reviews: 

http://pickyourpoisonbookreviews.blogspot.ru/2013/04/author-interview-lara-biyuts.html

Hope Springs a Turtle

Hope Springs a Turtle is available to order now!!
This book is an ideal gift for the young and old showing everybody the importance and joy that hope brings.
Lara Biyuts is one of the contributors. Her poems’ titles in the anthology are 2: a poem from her novel "La Arme Blanche" and a poem "Secret".
“Inspirational.”
The kindle ebook version is ISBN-13: 978-1481039130 and costs £3.40
Click here to order:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Hope-Springs-Turtle-Messages-Around/dp/148103913X/ref=sr_1_3?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1364237042&sr=1-3
The money this book raises for the mental health charity can be seen on Lost Tower Publications website.

at Amazon or your favourite bookshops.
This anthology is an eclectic collection of beautiful photographs and inspiring poetry from all over the planet, proving that hope is the power that unites everyone.

Secret 

Snow. The town looking blind.
Light. No colours, only white.
Town--like a ship stuck fast in the ice.
Souls--lost in the universal vice.
Wind grasping a will of your will.
Stoned, you never thought it’s so real.
Town… But I know a secret. Listen:
the ice soon will thaw,
and your sunlit town will sail
at the height of springtide.
                                         
Lara Biyuts © 2007

poem from the novel La Arme Blanche

The long dark autumn-evenings came.
The greenish-smoky sea.
The milky shining foam in darkness.
Exalted pray within the soul,
and shining icy clearness in the mind.
On the dark autumn evening, hail oh winter,
which comes from the far mounts!
Oh messenger of springtime, ever new!
We meet each other at the plage, and there
we wander over boulder-stones.
Then we go home. At home,
we shall recall how we would wander.
That’s all, and nothing more. But we enjoy so much!
Tell me oh darling why?
Your lips in silence, in the long dark evening.
The soul is quiet like the sea. We are in hoar frost, in lilac silver.
Am I myself? Are you yourself right now?
Becalmed, the sea is like the soul; it plashes, slightly,
all over turquoise-clad, because of tenderness.
It moves, it breaths, it heeds.
You are so beautiful! How beautiful you are!
You’re waiting for springtime like springtime’s waiting
for you. You’ll meet each other, two springstimes, two lovely youths,
and our world will hardly be enough,
and other will be dreamt by you again:
you two, two springtimes will inevitably dream of frost,
its furs and diamonds, dawns and gloamings,
the rose-like frosting over panes, the ice-drifts and white sun.
The village’s sleeping. Snow-clad roofs
like flags of truce. It’s quiet oh so quiet.
In the defoliated shrubbery, a head of a Satyr shows menace.
The runners of a sleigh, on end, are gleaming. Heavenwards,
the soul flies. The mind is dreamless.

Lara Biyuts © 2010

Some comments:

“I loved the photos in this book, they took me on a spiritual journey around the world.”
“A beautiful book.”
The paperback is ISBN-13: 978-1481039130 and costs £11.69