Not Superstitious

Tree gods, and spewing our souls . . .

      Not superstitious? Well, maybe so, maybe so, but…have you ever felt a qualm about raising an umbrella while inside the house? Wished upon-a-falling-star? And before we became both wise enough not to smoke, did you know people who would never light a third cigarette on one match, but would toss the match aside, light another, while shaking their head and murmuring “Three-on-a-match, you know.”

       So, where did they start? Course, no one can be sure, but researchers in ancient lore believe wishing-on-a-falling-star originated with the Star of Bethlehem, and while That Star didn’t fall, its light most certainly did, o’er all the earth, too.

       The three-on-a-match fear came into being during the Crimean war when the men realized that if a match remained lit long enough for three ‘smokes’ to be lit, it also gave the enemy time to zero their guns on the target.

       Knocking-on-wood dates back to the Druids whose gods lived in trees, and so when they wished for good fortune, they knocked on the trees to alert the Druids of their needs, just as we knock-on-wood to ward off disfavor today.

       An interesting side-light of this tree superstition is our Christmas trees. In the darkest days of winter, when the sun was in evidence only short hours a day, the ancient Druids retired to the forest and prayed to the tree gods to let the sun linger longer.

       And, ya know what? They were right, for immediately afterwards the sun slowly did light the sky for a longer time each day. This was also, it’s said, for the beginning of a tree being taken to the house in the deep of winter for ‘worship’.

       Friday is considered the unlucky day of the week and when it coincides with thirteen, it’s murder. Adam and Eve ‘fell’ on a Friday, the Flood came on that day and so did the confusion at Babel. the death of Christ, and there were thirteen at the Last Supper.

       And the result is so strong that people bow to it today, and many a high rise building has no 13th floor. Of course they go from the Twelfth floor to the Fourteenth, but the busy people who use those buildings today, don’t stop to count, they just know their apartment or business is not cursed with being on the 13th floor.

      No less a personage that Winston Churchill, the man who saved the Free World during WW !!, refused to travel on Friday the thirteenth and insisted on bringing any handy person to make the diners at a table number 14. He also, if he couldn’t find anyone to join them, would ask some unlucky person to leave the table to reduce the number to 12.

       Roosevelt, our President who worked side by side with Churchill for long hours, days and weeks, secretly told that getting around that number 13, with Churchill took a lot of maneuvering. Even to how many hours in flight or aboard ships.

       Do you cover your mouth when you yawn? Say “God bless you” when someone sneezes? Well, way, way back our ancestors believed our souls were in our very breath and so, when we sneezed we stood in danger of spewing out our souls and suddenly finding ourselves dead.

      And in close relationship. they feared yawning and while we cover our gaping mouths as a social nicety, they covered theirs to keep ‘evil’ spirits from being sucked in with the sudden intake of breath that accompanies the yawn.

       Superstitions are far from being musty relics of the past. New ones are as contemporary as garden weeds. Which is quite apparent when you think how many ‘Lucky Charms’ are made, sold, worn and toted around by people every day of the year. And on TV shows where money can be won or lost, it’s common for the contestants to have a Lucky something or other, in their pocket or hand.

       But you aren’t superstitious? Better give it a second thought cause chances are, in some way, we both are.

8 thoughts on “Not Superstitious

  1. Fun stuff, it is amazing how many of these items fall under the heading of idols, e.g. Knock on wood, as in remind the wooden totem to bless them, etc.

  2. Ethel, you forgot all about all the superstitions that are followed at weddings. You know, the “something blue, and something borrowed”. Brides follow these old habits, and I bet not many know why they do so. Not even guessing they are old superstitions. I like your ‘stuff.

    Dawna’

  3. You are playing with fire

    1 Timothy 4:7
    Have nothing to do with irreverent, silly myths. Rather train yourself for godliness;

    Deuteronomy 18:10-12
    There shall not be found among you anyone who burns his son or his daughter as an offering, anyone who practices divination or tells fortunes or interprets omens, or a sorcerer or a charmer or a medium or a necromancer or one who inquires of the dead, for whoever does these things is an abomination to the Lord. And because of these abominations the Lord your God is driving them out before you.

    Ezekiel 25:17.
    The path of the righteous man is beset on all sides by the inequities of the selfish and the
    tyranny of evil men. Blessed is he who, in the name of charity and good will, shepherds the weak through the valley of darkness, for he is truly his brother’s keeper and the finder of lost children. And I will strike down upon thee with great vengeance and furious anger those who attempt to poison and destroy my brothers. And you will know my name is the Lord when I lay my vengeance upon you!

  4. Nice except for a few details about the “Druids . . .”

    Like Jesus Christ, the Druids have no contemporary historical proof of their existance. Their stories begin to be written some 200 years later. So with that assumption, we can discuss both.

    The Druids performed human sacrifice, and believed in a form of reincarnation. Jesus I think did not have people killed. Those who organized after him, in his name did and still do. Julius Ceasar made the Druids famous 50 years before Jesus in his Commentary on Gaul War. In later ages the Druids had what they called the wicker man. A giant stick man used to burn and sacrifice people. I believe the Burning Man event held in Nevada each year is a direct off shoot of this foul practice.

    Superstition is a different thing all together, relating to neither or both of either of Jesus and the Druids. Please for the sake of clairity, do not mix these metaphores or more, the meanings.

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