Carmentalia, January 11th

Carmentalia

Today we celebrate the the goddess Carmenta. She might be better known to you as Metis, the Titaness of Wisdom, and inventor the 15-letter Latin alphabet. But, again, she might not be familiar.

Carmenta is one of the many goddesses of childbirth, and so her holiday is mainly observed by midwives, and women of childbirthing age, but she has a really cool power of being able to see backward into the past and forward into the future at the same time, so I think that everyone should should take a moment to ponder how cool that would be.

Carmenta is also credited for naming the Caryae, which are walnut trees, and the Carytids, the nut nymphs, and really, what would we do without walnut trees.

The correct way to celebrate this holiday is to not wear animal skins, (dang, I am wearing leather shoes today) to offer rice, (I'm not sure where) and to eat pastries (but, since this is a PG-ish blog, I won't share the shape of the traditional pastries).

Happy Carmentalia-ing!