Valentine's Day

There are plenty of problems with Valentine's Day. There's the consumeristic cultural pressure to conform to purchasing some fetish object that signifies a perceived-appropriate kind and level of affective significance. There's the capitalistic exploitation of (genuine or contrived) affection and desire to sell, well, everything. There's the matter of poor St. Valentine, himself, brutally martyred

Last night, our small band of Lydians gathered in Brooklyn's Atlantic-Barclay's subway terminal, same busy corridor as last year, with a fiddle, shruti, and drum, we offered ashes to all who want them. Again, strangers came out of the river of traveling people to ask for ashes. And they thanked us for offering a simple ritual

Historically, all we know about St. Valentine is that he was martyred in about 269, making today all the more morose and macabre.