The mystery uncovered

So today is one of the statisticcally most celebrated days. Most of us do not even know what we are celebrating except for common believe, we have no clue whatsoever, what it really means, that it is a day of lovers. Every one who considers themself a lover is seen on this day worldwide, showing love to people close to their heart today. Most lovers go out on romantic dates, some receive romantic gift hampers and flower bouquets mainly roses. Red and black are normaly the order of the day on such a time and precisely so, the whole month of February. This year as the excitement of the month started brewing again, and as I observed how commercially cashing in the month is to most business people, with sales being observed from almost every retail shop, but cards & gift shops, perfume shops, jewellery shops and candyshops being top of the favourites of the month, I just thought to my self why not look deep into the origin of this day and why it seems so significant to many, yet very much one of the most controversial days, in view of the varied perceptions centred around it. This led me to an intresting read around the internet and social networks. It is funny how many perceptions there are to this day and my favourite from my read today is this little explanation below. I don know much, this may not be true, but it sounded convinsing and made some sense to me.

The History of Saint Valentine's Day

Valentine's Day started in the time of the Roman Empire. In ancient Rome, February 14th was a holiday to honour Juno. Juno was the Queen of the Roman Gods and Goddesses. The Romans also knew her as the Goddess of women and marriage. The following day, February 15th, began the Feast of Lupercalia.

The lives of young boys and girls were strictly separate. However, one of the customs of the young people was name drawing. On the eve of the festival of Lupercalia the names of Roman girls were written on slips of paper and placed into jars. Each young man would draw a girl's name from the jar and would then be partners for the duration of the festival with the girl whom he chose. Sometimes the pairing of the children lasted an entire year, and often, they would fall in love and would later marry.

Under the rule of Emperor Claudius II Rome was involved in many bloody and unpopular campaigns. Claudius the Cruel was having a difficult time getting soldiers to join his military leagues. He believed that the reason was that roman men did not want to leave their loves or families. As a result, Claudius cancelled all marriages and engagements in Rome. The good Saint Valentine was a priest at Rome in the days of Claudius II. He and Saint Marius aided the Christian martyrs and secretly married couples, and for this kind deed Saint Valentine was apprehended and dragged before the Prefect of Rome, who condemned him to be beaten to death with clubs and to have his head cut off. He suffered martyrdom on the 14th day of February, about the year 270. At that time it was the custom in Rome, a very ancient custom, indeed, to celebrate in the month of February the Lupercalia, feasts in honour of a heathen god. On these occasions, amidst a variety of pagan ceremonies, the names of young women were placed in a box, from which they were drawn by the men as chance directed.

The pastors of the early Christian Church in Rome endeavoured to do away with the pagan element in these feasts by substituting the names of saints for those of maidens. And as the Lupercalia began about the middle of February, the pastors appear to have chosen Saint Valentine's Day for the celebration of this new feaSt. So it seems that the custom of young men choosing maidens for valentines, or saints as patrons for the coming year, arose in this way.

Source: http://www.pictureframes.co.uk/pages/saint_valentine.htm

With the history done with follows a read so dear to my life and heart. I have treasured it since laying eyes on it. 1 Corinthians 13 - ⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. ⁶ Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.  ⁸ Love never fails.   

Yes I am of a Christian stand, and though I have heard from fellow Christian bethren that it is not good to celebrate valentine, I have a different view. I may have always been of the orientation that never celebrated the day, well that is only because to me it held no significance as I prefered to celebrate my love for whomever I choose to love any day and really was never a fan of the comotion and traffic of the day. I however do not think that this day is in any sense ungodly. I think any day that the Lord has made is good and perfect as long as it is centred around him and honours him. He is the author of love and if peope use this day to honour love and give him glory, Good and perfect as far as am concerned. I however do not concurr with the abuse of the day and using it to manipulate any individual dishonestly, or pretend things that are not. I preach and root for genuine love and intimacy within the rightful boundaries and without judgement to anyone. 

So for everyone choosing to celebrate this day for whatever reasons, I wish you well and speak prosperity in your wonderful day, for those who choose to reserve from the day, let us not find ourselves judgemental and rather remain blameless and enjoy the day too, however we may not like anything about it. 

In honour of this day I wish to share some pictures from a masquarade I attended at work a couple of weeks back, that I kind of happened to have had my early valentine celebration on :-) Happy viewing! 

Any empty seat resembling my missing valentine.. all I can is reminice the good days

Any day can be valentine- a random personalised choco banner he made me about 4 years ago

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moments I miss..feeling his heartbeat

Missing him has become but a norm and comes by everyday

Happy valentine my love. This is our 1st valentine since we got hitched

Someone back that side of the earth please remind him for me how much he is loved and cherished.

Stolen sunshine

Feeling A little under the weather today. My better half not feeling too well either. It does not help the situation that what has been lately promising to be a great month, weather wise, the past 2 weeks, has now taken a toll to narrate a different story. This morning marked the 1st day of snowfall since the winter began. Mind you, this is supposedly so, the last few weeks of winter where it is unusual to see snow falling. I know others else where would kill for an incy bit more cold and I should be more greatful. I had been looking forward to my final white Christmas but it did not happen, and unlike the other years when snow had been fun and managed to play in it and experience a snow man.

Winter 2008/2009

The 1st experience of a snow man. Very cold days there were you can't even afford to dress up. At-least I couldn't

So yes when there was no snow fall this year I was disappointed, but I got over it, and had already gotten attached to the sun and the new possibilities it offered. Just this week I had embarked on a new journey of capturing golden photographic moments of nature and just random stuff at their bloom and glory. as you will see in the pics to follow. 

If you read my post when introducing Feb, I am sure you have come across a pic' of me similar to the one above, and also bet you wondered then what it could possibly be all about. hahaha sure I was wearing Red which was very convenient, but I simply snapped myself on my way home from the gym, to mark the day when I started intentionally taking shots of my beautiful exteriors and celebrating nature and the soon to start spring season.

Nothing could compare to the uplift in spirit I received from the beauty I discovered in the flowers which are now covered with Snow flakes as we speak. I saw some of my old time favourite colour pallets in the flowers I saw planted in people's porches or along roadsides.

Even managed to rock some shades on other very Good days

D.K (partner in crime) and I doing what we do best - giving my phone's front camera some love

So evidently it had been Good happy days and my camera and I were very excited bout the plans we had up in store, all up until this morning. when I woke up to a slap from the cold and surprisingly so, snowfall right at the gateway of Spring. Now that has gotta be interpreted as a stolen Sunshine or I no longer know how else to communicate why I want back my yesterday.

Okay, as if this was not enough, as the snow kept piling, it started to drizzle as well..that calls for slipping and falling, so I decided to force myself to step out the door at least and make the best of the situation. Well, here is the deal, I have never had an opportunity to have a share on the writings on the beach. I have been to the Mozambique coast yes, but I never thought 'bout writing on the coast like I had seen people do before, hihihi I was still shocked at the site of so much water then. So today because my precious one was not well and constantly on my mind I decided to do a writing on the snow for him.

Get well soon my lovely, miss you more with every new dawn

It's not just a writing, I actually really really really do

Don't panick yet...it's actually the right blog

As I kissed January goodbye and welcomed the fabulous February. I felt just as fab myself. So I was reviewing the great month now behind us and taking a peek into the promising future, when I decided to do but, just a young revamp.

Our old look which you had become accustomed to and hopefully loved too

Not quite the destructive makeover and by no means setting a monthly routine. Hence said, you are not LOST, it is still your favourite "colour" blog spot I hope. And top of my wishlist is that you will still enjoy your time spent in here.

This month I have decided to take up a different approach to my blogging. After a review of the 1st month posting frequency and consideration of how busy the next 3 months are promising to be, I have sat down and pre-planned my posts for the month of Feb.

For obvious reasons, the colour to look out for this month is colour RED. I also did a post earlier last month highlighting how dear the colour is to me, so it should not come as a suprise that I am excited Feb is a good excuse of a month to go over board with it

Unlike other posts where you do not know what is coming next, this time around for February, I have allowed you to have a sneak preview (in random order) of a couple of things on the pipeline to look out for in here this month as we celebrate love and this beautiful colour.

Image source: google

Image source: google