Birds, Love & the Origins of Valentine's Day

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Subject: Birds, Love & the Origins of Valentine's Day

Hi Friend,

'Tis Valentine's Day! As a child, I used to get really into putting together Valentine's Day cards for all of my fellow classmates. Perhaps that is where this current pension for writing weekly letters to you, fair reader, comes from?

Amidst a lot of heaviness, it’s nice to take a moment for some lighter histories. A bit of historical research yielded some origin stories around this holiday includes an old poem about birds! Keep reading!

First: a few related resources...

- This year, I've been offering Circular Time sessions for Couples. This is a GREAT activity for partners - it is similar to the 'regular' circular time reflective work (you are looking at your last year around the sun, from February to February) but there's an additional Couples Worksheet and you are invited to look at your life together. There’s no predesignated times- we find a time that works for you and your sweetie.

So far, the couples who have participated in this offering have really enjoyed it, and are telling me how its been a wonderful way of thinking about the next steps in their relationship, whether they are newly engaged, married for ten years with young kids, or preparing to start a new venture together! Relationships take - and really deserve - a lot of work, so I'm glad to be able to offer something to help you lean into the preciousness and fullness of your primary relationship!

Circular Time for couples

- I've been pretty excited about last weekend's Superbowl half-time show (I admit I was much more interested in the music than the game itself!), where Bad Bunny did some major re-storying of "what is America", including reviewing some critical all-American history. My fb social media post about it hit some kind of algorithm…. Leading to an unexpected whirlwind of over a thousand views in less than two hours and a lot of mean comments from people/bots who were being accusatory, calling names, and saying a lot of things that were untrue. I don’t want to grant space to that kind of behavior (regardless of the side) so I took the whole post down….

Amongst other things, Bad Bunny highlighted sugar plantations, which played a huge role in the history and contemporary dynamics of Puerto Rico and the Americas more broadly. We highlight this history in our ReMembering Course (and our course on the history of sugar).

I wrote my first major article about this history around Valentine's Day - one of many sugar-heavy holidays. Many people have really appreciated it, and you too might appreciate this history of sugar - Not So Sweet.

- Speaking of Origin Stories, we are starting the course in March, and our next informational webinar about the course is Feb 26, followed by another one on March 3.

- A note on this season of love… Love has many, many manifestations. I've spent at least as much of my adult life single as I have in relationships, and so I always want to give a shout out to all the solo folks out there, and acknowledge the many ways that you can experience love outside of a primary relationship, the incredible importance of self-love regardless of your relationship status.....and that loneliness is as much a state of mind as it is a state of external relationships. I hope you find a way to treat yourself at some point this month to something delicious - which might be a massage, a conversation with the ocean, or some excellent chocolate. Krissy and I take chocolate very seriously, and are fans of one of our local chocolate companies, Fruition Chocolate Works (I recommend their bars over their bon bons).

Here's an article about Love beyond romantic partnerships that I just wrote this week.

Read the full article

Now, as part of our ongoing inquiry into the major holidays on the calendar, and how we engage with them as part of growing our eco-spiritual practices and as part of changing our relationship to time itself, here's an interesting Valentine Day historical tidbit for you....

Valentine's Day refers to St. Valentine, the third-century Roman priest named Valentine who defied Emperor Claudius II's ban on marriage for young soldiers and continued marrying couples in secret, leading to his execution around 270 CE on February 14. According to at least one legend (we have very little historical data from that moment), the night before his execution, he wrote a letter to the jailer's daughter who would bring him food (some say she was blind, and he had healed her blindness with his touch) which he signed, "from your Valentine", a phrase that got passed down the ages.

There is a possible (but not especially strong) relationship between St Valentine's Day and Lupercalia, an ancient Roman pastoral festival which was observed annually on February 15 to purify the city and promote health and fertility.

The close association between love and Valentine's Day seems to be first strongly linked by the great English bard, Chaucer, in his 1382-ish poem, "The Parlement of Briddes/Foueles (the Parliament of the Birds)." (a subsequent rendition is pictured below)

In the poem, Chaucer describes reading another piece of literature by Cicero, dozing off, and having a vision of a parliament of birds governed by Lady Nature. It is St. Valentine's Day, which Chaucer clearly links to lovers, and they are discussing whom shall pair/mate with whom.

The crux of the discussion is three male eagles vying to mate with a particular female eagle; after much gallant talking by the three male eagles, the female eagle decides not to mate with any of them but to hold off mating altogether for (at least) another year. Her wish is upheld by Lady Nature, much to the chagrin of the male eagles. The other birds, meanwhile, think this whole attempt at a display of courtly love is taking far too much of their valuable time, and they should move on to their own mates. The poem ends with Chaucer waking up from his vision and realizing he still has not finished the piece of literature that he was reading, somewhat to his dismay.

There's a lot here that's quite fun - Chaucer seems to be lightly poking fun of himself as well as of the literature he is reading; he is poking at the ridiculousness of courtly love, and giving primacy to the feminine (both the female eagle and Lady Nature) for having choice and decision making at a moment when, socially, this was often not the case. February is, in Britain, the early stage of the bird courtship and mating season - many birds might spend several weeks courting before nest-building as the weather warms up. And here it is that we see the linking of love birds to Valentine's Day - a motif that is centuries old!

I rather like the idea of a parliament of birds, as well as the visions that might come to us whilst reading something in the midst of winter. And it’s a lovely reminder of how poets can shape calendars and symbols for generations of centuries to come!