Ante Diem V Kalendas March

Modern Date : February 25th

Ante Diem V Kalendas March
Fifth Day to the Kalends of March

This is one of the dies comitiales when committees of citizens could vote on political or criminal matters.

Being at the end of the original Roman year, and preceding New Year's Day on March 1st, made this and the following days especially representative of rebirth, renewal and full of the promise of the coming Spring.

This day was Phamenoth 1 (Macedonian Artimisius 1), the first day of the month Phamenoth, in the Egyptian calendar.

February is a month sacred to the gods Mars (as Quirinus, or Romulus) and Juno, the wife of Jupiter. Juno (Hera, was the mother of Mars. Mars was known to the Greeks as Ares, the god of war. The war god was wild and ungovernable, a god who glorified in strife for its own sake and revelled in slaughter. He was thought to gloat over the death and destruction he caused. He was typically accompanied by his two sons Deimos (Fear or Terror) and Phobos (Dismay or Flight from Fear).


St Walburga
This sixth century Anglo-Saxon nun, who became the abbess of the double monastery of Heidenheim in Germany, was also known as a grain protectress. She was depicted holding a sheaf of wheat and was considered a matron of good crops, farmers and pregnant women.

Apparently sheaves of grain dressed like a woman were called Walburga. A legend tells how she disguised herself in a sheaf of grain while fleeing from a pursuer. Her other feast day is Walpurgishnacht (Apr 30), the date her relics were translated, a Christian date superimposed over an old Germanic spring revel, honoring a fertility goddess.


Muhyi ad-Din Ibn El Arabi
This day is sacred to the memory of the Sufi saint Muhyi ad-Din Ibn El Arabi (d. 1240), who taught that Allah manifests the Divine energy in all the myriad forms of nature, female as well as male.


Wen Chang Di Jun
In the Chinese Taoist calendar, this is the birthday of Wen Chang Di Jun, god of literature and the arts.