Pre-made piñatas are readily available online for purchase and these Zebra versions are more typically black and white. For those creative people who wish to make their own, more festive looking Zebra piñata, ‘Pinata Boy’ (a Chemistry Professor and children’s book writer in Texas) offers detailed, step-by-step instructions on how to make a colourful Rainbow Zebra Piñata. Its bright, cheerful finish is the perfect piece for party entertainment.

Unlike many traditions, Wendy Devlin explains how this custom is not restricted to one time of year and was originally a religious symbol which is now lost. She delves into the history of the piñata in some depth which makes for an interesting read in Mexico Connect.

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Zebra Piñata

It turns out that it is a huge celebration held in early September of local produce where vegetables, fruits and seeds are used to create beautiful art pieces. Many of the towns and villages work for months putting together magnificent floats for this unique event made entirely of fruits and vegetables and the results are extraordinary.

Naturally, I particularly fell in love with the ‘Zebra’ float and the amount of detail in this design is mind boggling. You have to remember that this is only ONE float that I am focussing on, the others in the parade are just as creative and detailed!!!

If I was travelling to the Netherlands, I would most definitely time it to be there for this festival. Seeing these enormous works of art in person would be a memorable experience. I  very much doubt anyone would see so many fruits, vegetables and seeds gathered on such scale in the one place at the one time as in the Fruit Corso in Tiel.

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Fruit Corso in Tiel

My father at the age of 17,  joined and fought with the Partisans in what was then known as Yugoslavia during the Second World War. His contribution to the war effort in his country of birth made me more aware of the sacrifices many people made in war time to help us live better lives.

The least we can do is to acknowledge their sacrifice by remembering all those who have fallen for our benefit. If it had not been for their fearless courage, many countries including Australia, would not be the wonderful places to live in as they are n0w.

Tribute to ANZAC Day

With their hair a little whiter, their step not quite so sure
Still they march on proudly as they did the year before.
Theirs were the hands that saved us, their courage showed the way
Their lives they laid down for us, that we may live today.

From Gallipoli’s rugged hillsides, to the sands of Alamein
On rolling seas and in the skies, those memories will remain.
Of airmen and the sailors, of Lone Pine and Suvla Bay
The boys of the Dardenelles are remembered on this day.

They fought their way through jungles, their blood soaked desert sands
They still remember comrades who rest in foreign lands.
They remember the siege of old Tobruk, the mud of the Kokoda Trail
Some paying the supreme sacrifice with courage that did not fail.
To the icy land of Korea, the steamy jungles of Vietnam
And the heroic battle of Kapyong and that epic victory at Long Tan.

Fathers, sons and brothers, together they fought and died
That we may live in peace together, while at home their mothers cried.
When that final bugle calls them to cross that great divide
Those comrades will be waiting when they reach the other side.

~ Ken Bunker ~

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Remembering on Anzac Day

Easter is another religious based celebration which has become somewhat commercialised. I have been most fortunate to have grown up with a European background where the symbolism of Easter was more than just chocolate easter eggs.

I will always remember the  night before Easter when my father would prepare the dye for the hard boiled eggs in separate pots on the stove and we would dye the eggs first: some red, some blue, some green and some yellow. Sometimes we would mix the colours to make orange or purple. After the eggs had been dyed, we would either scratch designs and patterns on them or even use textas to draw patterns on the egg. When the designs were finished, we rubbed lard over the eggs to give them a beautiful shine.

On Easter Sunday, our creative efforts from the night before were displayed proudly on the kitchen table with eggs and ham our typical Easter breakfast food and there was always plenty of it (too bad if you did not like eggs or ham – LOL)!!!

According to Wikipedia, the symbolism of the egg in Christian practice has a specific meaning:

The egg is widely used as a symbol of the start of new life, just as new life emerges from an egg when the chick hatches out. The egg is seen as symbolic of the grave and life renewed or resurrected by breaking out of it. The red supposedly symbolizes the blood of Christ redeeming the world and human redemption through the blood shed in the sacrifice of the crucifixion. The egg itself is a symbol of resurrection: while being dormant it contains a new life sealed within it.

Having said that, there is also the pagan connection to Easter and Stella Woods describes this in her article:

Easter, Eostre or Ishtar?

By Stella Woods
March 2008

Did you know that Easter Sunday always falls on the Sunday after the first full moon of the northern hemisphere spring? This full moon is known as the paschal moon and also marks Pesach, the Hebrew name for Passover. Because Jesus was crucified on a Friday and resurrected the following Sunday during the eight day Jewish holiday of Passover (the first eight days after the first full moon of spring) Christians take the paschal moon, the equinox and the Julian calendar to fix the date of Easter, which varies from year to year. Good Friday this year falls on the 21st March and Easter Sunday on the 23rd. The 2008 paschal full moon is on Easter Saturday in the sign of Libra.

The Catholic Encyclopaedia tells us that Easter is named after an Anglo-Saxon goddess, Eostre, goddess of the dawn, but in fact the real origins of Easter and its story of death and resurrection date back much further.

In 3000 BCE, Inanna the Sumerian goddess was worshipped throughout the Mesopotamian world (modern day Iraq) as the main deity. The Akkadians called her Ishtar, the word from which Easter is derived. Inanna-Ishtar’s closest western equivalents are the Greek and Roman goddesses, Aphrodite and Venus. Inanna-Ishtar was worshipped as the Queen of Heaven and her principal symbols were the Moon and Venus, the morning and evening star. Eight was the number sacred to Venus, being the number of years it took the planet to return to the exact same point in the zodiac on the exact same date and the goddess was often depicted as an eight pointed star.

One of the most important myths about Inanna-Ishtar is the Sumerian story of ‘Inanna’s Descent to the Underworld’. According to the myth, the goddess plans to visit the underworld ruled by her dark sister Ereshkigal. After dressing in jewels and fine clothing, Inanna descends and is met by Ereshkigal’s servant, who at each of the seven gates to the underworld removes one of her garments. Finally she approaches her sister naked and humiliated. An angry Ereshkigal orders that she be killed and hangs her body on a peg to rot. After three days Inanna’s servant becomes worried by her absence and fashions little creatures who descend unseen to the underworld with materials to breathe life back into the goddess. They resurrect her and she reascends to heaven.

There are many variations on this myth, but its importance lies in the theme of death and rebirth. At the time of the new moon, the moon (Inanna) disappears from sight for three days as she conjuncts the Sun and is then revealed again. Similarly, the planet Venus (Inanna) disappears from sight when moving from being the Morning Star (rising before the Sun) to the Evening Star (setting after the Sun). On a physical level Inanna’s rebirth heralds the coming of spring (remember these myths are set in the Northern hemisphere where Easter is in spring). On a psychological level, Inanna’s descent to meet her dark sister Ereshkigal represents the encounter with our shadow side or unconscious. When we return to the light after a period of darkness, we have the opportunity to become whole. This same theme is reflected in the tarot card of the Hanged Man who voluntarily hangs upside down in an act of sacrifice as a prelude to death and transformation.

Note the similarities between the Inanna-Ishtar myth and the story of Jesus. As Ishtar descended, she was stripped and humiliated; Jesus was stripped, beaten and humbled. Ishtar was killed and hung on a stake; Jesus was hung on a cross. Ishtar was resurrected after three days; Jesus rose from the dead on the third day. Both achieved eternal life. Easter is in fact the same story as Ishtar.

For many of us festivals such as Easter and Christmas have lost their original meaning and simply become holidays or times of conspicuous consumption. We do not realise that in celebrating Easter, we are participating in an age-old ritual celebrating the return to the light after a period of darkness and death.

Christianity has had many turbulent transitions throughout history and the pagan influence of Easter is not really surprising. What is most important, is the meaning Easter has for each of us individually and to our dearest ones. It is a time for giving and sharing and focussing on being thankful for what we do have rather than complaining about what we don’t have.

I wish all who cross my path a very special, spiritual, Happy Easter.

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Easter ritual

That is one of my favourite quotations on the theme of love and I had it engraved on a Russian wedding ring I gave to my husband six years ago.

Ignoring the present day commercialism, what does Valentine’s Day mean to you? For some it may be a joyous occasion, for others it may be full of sadness, and then there are those who totally resent the day for a number of reasons. Expectations can be very high for some people as we allow ourselves to get caught up in the hype of this day thus losing the underlying meaning of it.

For me it an important day to acknowledge my loved one and not necessarily through commercial means i.e. jewellery and/or roses with exorbitant price tags because retailers mark up their products for this occasion. The day is more symbolic in nature, therefore over-expenditure is not expected nor required. Small gifts and/or gestures are perfectly acceptable. Take time to show you care and appreciate your partner. We live such busy lives in this day and age and it is far too easy to get caught up in the rush of things and unintentionally forget what is really important to us. Just saying I love you can make a world of difference.

Remember, it is the thought that counts on occasions like this and you do not have to do much to make your significant other happy. As the saying goes:

It isn’t the big pleasures that count the most;
it’s making a great deal out of the little ones.

~ Jean Webster ~

Want to know more about Valentine’s Day? The following links are full of interesting information:

• Valentine’s Day from Wikipedia
• The History of Valentine’s Day
• Virtual Museum in Canada

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Valentine’s Day

Wikipedia continues its historical outline:

The earliest known documented reference in English occurs in an 1869 biography of Gioachino Rossini (Italian composer of the opera, ‘Barber of Seville’):

[Rossini] was surrounded to the last by admiring and affectionate friends; and if it be true that, like so many other Italians, he regarded Friday as an unlucky day, and thirteen as an unlucky number, it is remarkable that on Friday, the 13th of November, he died.

However, some folklore is passed on through oral traditions. In addition, “determining the origins of superstitions is an inexact science, at best. In fact, it’s mostly guesswork.” Consequently, several theories have been proposed about the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition.

One theory states that it is a modern amalgamation of two older superstitions: that thirteen is an unlucky number and that Friday is an unlucky day.

• In numerology, the number twelve is considered the number of completeness, as reflected in the twelve months of the year, twelve signs of the zodiac, twelve hours of the clock, twelve tribes of Israel, twelve Apostles of Jesus, twelve gods of Olympus, etc., whereas the number thirteen was considered irregular, transgressing this completeness. There is also a superstition, thought by some to derive from the Last Supper or a Norse myth, that having thirteen people seated at a table will result in the death of one of the diners.
• Friday has been considered an unlucky day at least since the 14th century’s The Canterbury Tales, and many other professions have regarded Friday as an unlucky day to undertake journeys or begin new projects. Black Friday has been associated with stock market crashes and other disasters since the 1800s.

On the other hand, another theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of “Origins” maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil – a gathering of thirteen – and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as “Witches’ Sabbath”.

Another theory about the origin of the superstition traces the event to the arrest of the legendary Knights Templar. According to one expert:

The Knights Templar were a monastic military order founded in Jerusalem in 1118 C.E., whose mission was to protect Christian pilgrims during the Crusades. Over the next two centuries, the Knights Templar became extraordinarily powerful and wealthy. Threatened by that power and eager to acquire their wealth, King Philip secretly ordered the mass arrest of all the Knights Templar in France on Friday, October 13, 1307 – Friday the 13th.

The connection between the superstition and the Knights Templar was popularized in the 2003 novel The Da Vinci Code, however, some experts think that it is relatively recent and is a modern-day invention. For example, the superstition is rarely found before the 20th century, when it became extremely common. One author, noting that references are all but nonexistent before 1907 but frequently seen thereafter, has argued that its popularity derives from the publication that year of Thomas W. Lawson’s popular novel Friday, the Thirteenth, in which an unscrupulous broker takes advantage of the superstition to create a Wall Street panic on a Friday the 13th.

standpoint. My lucky numbers are “even” numbers when they are added together and using this premise, 1+3= 4 which is an even number and therefore, lucky for me!

According to Wikipedia:

The fear of Friday the 13th is called paraskavedekatriaphobia^, a word derived from the concatenation of the Greek words Paraskeví (Παρασκευή) (meaning Friday), and dekatreís (δεκατρείς) (meaning thirteen), attached to phobía (φοβία) (meaning fear). This is a specialized form of triskaidekaphobia, a simple phobia (fear) of the number thirteen, and is also known as friggatriskaidekaphobia. The term triskaidekaphobia was derived in 1911 and first appeared in a mainstream source in 1953.

In some cultures, the number 13 is considered good luck. David Emery makes some interesting observations.

Despite whatever terrors the numerical unknown held for their hunter-gatherer ancestors, ancient civilizations weren’t unanimous in their dread of 13. The Chinese regarded the number as lucky, some commentators note, as did the Egyptians in the time of the pharaohs.

To the ancient Egyptians, these sources tell us, life was a quest for spiritual ascension which unfolded in stages — twelve in this life and a thirteenth beyond, thought to be the eternal afterlife. The number 13 therefore symbolized death, not in terms of dust and decay but as a glorious and desirable transformation. Though Egyptian civilization perished, the symbolism conferred on the number 13 by its priesthood survived, we may speculate, only to be corrupted by subsequent cultures who came to associate 13 with a fear of death instead of a reverence for the afterlife.

Anathema

Still other sources speculate that the number 13 may have been purposely vilified by the founders of patriarchal religions in the early days of western civilization because it represented femininity. Thirteen had been revered in prehistoric goddess-worshiping cultures, we are told, because it corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year (13 x 28 = 364 days). The “Earth Mother of Laussel,” for example — a 27,000-year-old carving found near the Lascaux caves in France often cited as an icon of matriarchal spirituality — depicts a female figure holding a cresent-shaped horn bearing 13 notches. As the solar calendar triumphed over the lunar with the rise of male-dominated civilization, it is surmised, so did the “perfect” number 12 over the “imperfect” number 13, thereafter considered anathema.

All this information about ONE SUPERSTITION is quite mind blowing. What I find extraordinary is the way in which the fear of this superstition is actually demonstrated. And here I will refer back to Wikipedia which has the most comprehensive examples:

Buildings

An elevator without a 13th-floor button

• In the US and Canada, many tall buildings do not have a floor numbered 13.
  • In Buffalo, New York, the downtown city hall has no 13th floor. The number buttons in the elevators have 12, then P, then 14. The P floor is like the cellar, with cement walls and floors, and is a storage unit.
  • Many apartments and other buildings use M as the thirteenth floor (12, M, 14) because it is the thirteenth letter in the English alphabet.
  • Some buildings replace the thirteenth floor with 12A (12, 12A, 14). The A distinguishes the floor one level up from the twelfth.

• In Kerala (India), The Kerala High Court building has not assigned Number 13 to any of its courtrooms.

• In the Philippines, The Makati City Hall had number 33 as the 13th floor instead of 13

• In most places in Iran, in house numbering, 12+1 comes instead of 13.

• In Hoyts Carousel in Perth, Western Australia, there is no cinema number 13.

Streets

• In Los Angeles, California, Pico Boulevard appears where 13th Street would have been.

• In San Francisco, California, Funston Avenue appears where 13th Avenue would have been. Most of 13th Street (though not all) has been renamed Duboce Avenue.

• In Longview, Washington, Commerce Avenue appears where 13th Avenue would be.

• In Claremont, California, Baughman Avenue appears where 13th Street would be.

Aeronautics and space

• Some airport terminals do not have gates numbered 13.

• On some passenger aircraft, such as those of Continental Airlines, Alitalia, and Meridiana, there is no seating row numbered 13.

• So far, there has been no F-13 Aircraft, with the F-14 succeeding the F-12.

Apollo 13

• Perhaps the most famous example was NASA’s Apollo 13 mission. The craft lifted off from Cape Kennedy, Florida at 13:13 in Houston, Texas on April 11, 1970. The mission was interrupted by an explosion on April 13 but the crew was brought back alive.

Sport

• Formula 1 has not had a car numbered 13 since 1974.

Are you superstitious? Do you believe that Friday the 13th is unlucky for you? Fortunately I do not allow my thoughts to put faith into such things and prefer to view the number 13 as a lucky number for me from a Numerology standpoint. My lucky numbers are “even” numbers when they are added together and using this premise, 1+3= 4 which is an even number and therefore, lucky for me!

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Friday the 13th

Seriously, although I live in Queensland, I did not move here for the sand and surf despite this being one of our main assets on the Gold Coast (hence the name). And some people see this country as being nothing other than beaches.

My heart will always be in Melbourne where I grew up and will eventually return one day. My point however has nothing to do with where I physically live now, but how I feel about being an Australian and what that means to me. And to answer the question, I need to fill you in on a little of my background first.

My heritage is Croatian and Russian and my parents migrated to Australia in the early 1950′s to make a better life for themselves and their two girls at that time (my younger sister and I were born in Australia almost a decade later).

What I greatly respect my parents for is their intuitive balance in maintaining aspects of their own culture so we would be proud of our heritage and to also appreciate the wonderful opportunity this new country called Australia had given them (and consequently us).

Thankfully my parents did not follow the norm and they did not gravitate to a suburb where others from their home country settled so that assimilation would be easier for them. In my opinion, had they done that, assimilation was less likely to occur at all and it would have been more of a hindrance as the need to learn English would not have been as necessary.

Why hurry to learn English when your neighbours and shop owners speak your native tongue? Unlike my relatives who followed my parents to Australia a few years later, and did exactly what many migrants do i.e. move to suburbs where people from their own culture are prolific, my father chose to live on the other side of Melbourne in the opposite direction to where every other migrant from his home country was settling. Not only that, we lived on one acre of land instead of a small suburban block.

In my little town on the outskirts of Melbourne there were only a handful of “European” children at my school (mostly Dutch from what I can recall). That did not faze me and my parents had even thoughtfully given me and my younger sister, anglo-saxon sounding names as we were born here and would be living our lives in their adopted country. Having said that, both our christian names still end in ‘a’ which is a Croatian tradition for female names!

My mother was also extremely conscious of the fact that English was not our first language at home and pedantic about us keeping up with spelling homework throughout our schooling. Consequently, I ended up with better English skills than my native Australian counterparts (by which I mean, those who were at least second generation Australian born or more).

I had no choice but to fit in and learn English or I would not have been able to communicate. Yes, I was teased occasionally and called a “wog” and that happened to the few other Europeans at my school so I was not totally alone in that regard. Over time, “wogs” became less unusual and the term eventually went out of fashion.

Did I hate Australia or the people for giving me such a hard time? No I didn’t. My parents helped me to understand that our culture was a new experience for Australians and the teasing was not directed at me personally, but at a culture they misunderstood.

In Australia my father was able to build a beautiful, comfortable house on a large block of land and a real treehouse which was the envy of my friends. We were surrounded by fresh air, natural bush, green grass, dirt roads and friendly neighbours. Although life not always rosy and sometimes a financial struggle, overall opportunities were far greater than my parents could ever have dreamed possible in their old country.

Getting back to answering my question: what Australia Day means to me?

To me it is a day to give thanks to the country which gave my parents a better life and as a consequence, greater privileges and opportunities to me and my sisters.

My parents at the age of 83, have now lived longer in Australia than in their homeland. And they appreciate their good fortune and feel truly patriotic towards their adopted country.

Check out the great iconic Australian images by John White

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My thoughts on Australia Day

Speaking of country, one of my favourite poems is ‘My Country’ by Dorothea Mackellar published in 1908. The second stanza is the one we are most familiar with and the poem is worth reading in its entirety. If you wish to know more about Mackellar and where she grew up and how that influenced this particular poem, Wikipedia has more detailed information.

MY COUNTRY

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes,
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance,
Brown streams and soft dim skies,
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains;
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

The tragic ringbarked forests,
Stark white beneath the moon,
The sapphire misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon,
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree tops
And ferns the crimson soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart around us
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady soaking rain.

Core of my heart my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine
She pays us back threefold,
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country,
My homing thoughts will fly.

~ Dorothea Mackellar ~
(1885 – 1968)

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Feeling patriotic?

It is probably fair to say that most of us until now, when thinking of Cleopatra, would have been referencing the image Elizabeth Taylor portrayed of her. That will be no more thanks to the 3D recreation of her likeness which makes very interesting reading in an article entitled Sorry Liz, but THIS is the real face of Cleopatra.

If you do not know much about Cleopatra, the Egyptology Online website offers a wonderful insight to the Infamous Cleopatra.

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The face of Cleopatra