Good
Friday
“Good
Friday is the day Jesus gave his life on the cross...Christians believe his
shed blood brings salvation and eternal life. Consequently, Good Friday is
considered to be a good day for the nurturing, life-giving activities of
planting and sowing.”
Arty
Schronce (Georgia Dept. of Agriculture, March 24, 2013)
Today
is that oxymoron day called Good Friday when Jesus was crucified. Most of the
Christian world celebrates by enacting the stations of the cross, a morose undertaking
of suffering and death. I’ve never been sure what is Good about the day. My best
guess is that it involves some gain for us—we are saved by that blood. But one wonders how that got associated with planting a garden on Good Friday. Oh, wait
a minute! It’s a pagan thing—like Easter eggs and greenery at Christmas! In the
ancient earth-based religions all around the world, a blood sacrifice was made
to bless the land (and appease the gods) so that it would produce more food for
the people. Remember those pictures in your history books of the Inca priest
sacrificing the virgin? Or even the Hebrew people bringing their perfect lambs
and doves to the temple for sacrifice.
In some
parts of the world, in ancient times this was when the king, in the guise of a buck,
antlers and all, mated with the priestess of the temple in order to make the
land fertile. If the king was old and sickly, he was killed and a young, virile king was sent to ensure the land's fertility. A lot of paganism has found its way into Christian theology and
gained respectability. But you must admit there’s not a lot of difference
between the Inca’s sacrifice, the temple sacrifices of Jesus day, and the
observance of Good Friday. Even the sign over Jesus’ head read, “King of the
Jews.”
All of that aside, let me
recommend that you not plant your garden today. We will have, hopefully, our
last freeze of the year tonight. Easter can fall any Sunday between March 22
and April 25, because it is timed by another earth-based observance—the Spring
Equinox—when the earth’s axis begins to tilt its northern hemispheres toward
the sun. Stonehenge and other Druidic standing-stone temples were built to celebrate
equinoxes and solstices. Easter is the first Sunday after the
first full moon after the spring equinox. So, Easter’s date is moveable, which
means that Good Friday is also moveable. If Easter were on April 25th,
Good Friday would be April 23rd. That might be a better time for
planting a garden.
When I was a kid, my
grandmother always grew a big garden. Her advice was, “Never plant BEFORE Good
Friday.” That makes more sense to me. Wait until after Easter when the ground
has thawed, and all chance of freezing is past. And then, plant those glorious
gardens! I recommend a little bone meal be mixed into the soil. It’s as close
to blood sacrifice as I’m inclined to go! Good Friday to you.
In the Spirit,
Jane
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