Dawn Dreams at Candlemas and La Morenita, Mother of All Peoples

I woke up late the morning of February 3. It was one of those cold mornings when sleep was deep as nights were longer than days and dreaming was vivid. So my son missed schoolbus.. (sigh) confessions of a single parent. In the car, I explained to my son that I had a fantastic dream of his great grandmother set in the mountains of the sky a la avatar but with a bonus Chinese theme that showed me details in jade-work.  So I snored through the alarm and its several snoozes; fascinated as I was with my own dream sequences.

Some parents will frown but I see no harm in being honest with your child.  I don’t believe in projecting a supermom image to kids who see a lot of what adults do as perplexing enough as it is.

So he asked “But what about nightmares, Mom?” and I advised that the next time he got a nightmare all he had to do was “switch channels” by waking himself up a little and willing a better dream to come visit him. Two mornings after, he wakes up with a smile and reports that he tried it and it worked!  Next stop towards lucid dreaming — beginner’s meditation or maybe a dream log?

Anyway, he missed schoolbus so I drove him to Cathedral school and went to mass at the nice little chapel.  I was pleasantly surprised when after mass, people lined up for a blessing with two candles crossed over the throat and resting on both shoulders while the Bishop invoked the intercession of St. Blaise for healing from all manner of illnesses.

I really like Cathedral school for my son.  They recently announced their new vision and mission was to mold “servant leaders” providing not just academic foundation but moral fiber for servant leadership.  So I agreed when he asked for some books on saints.

Wikipedia reports the legend of St. Blaise by E.H. Vollet, in the Grande Encyclopedia as follows:

Blaise had studied philosophy in his youth, was a doctor in Sebaste in Armenia, the city of his birth and exercised his art with miraculous ability, good-will, and piety. When the bishop of the city died, he was chosen to succeed him, with the acclamation of all the people. His holiness was manifest through many miracles: from all around, people came to him to find cures for their spirit and their body; even wild animals came in herds to receive his blessing. In 316, Agricola, the governor of Cappadocia and of Lesser Armenia, having arrived in Sebastia at the order of the emperor Licinius to kill the Christians, arrested the bishop. As he was being led to prison, a mother set her only son, choking to death of a fish-bone, at his feet, and the child was cured straight away. Regardless, the governor, unable to make Blaise renounce his faith, beat him with a stick, ripped his flesh with iron combs (used for wool gathering), and beheaded him.

Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria’s feast day was the day before, on February 2.  It commemorates the Presentation at the Temple of the Child Jesus.  Under Mosaic Law, a woman must purify herself for forty days after giving birth, and, at the end of her purification, should present herself to the priest at the temple with the child and offer either white doves or a lamb holocaust as a sacrifice (Leviticus 12:6-7). Since Christmas was celebrated by the Roman Church on December 25th (even if the actual birth could not have happened on such date if we go by the biblical account), then the fortieth day fell on February 2.

That date is also the mid-point between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, when various ancient Celtic celebrations commemorate the annual beginnings of the agricultural season.  This year’s first full moon was reportedly the brightest moon bathing our little balcony with shimmering moonlight just a few days before.

Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria is popularly known as “La Morenita” for the dark skin on a miraculous wooden statue that was washed ashore during pre- Castillan conquest, on the island of Tenerife of the Spanish Canary Islands.

A wooden statue of the Virgin Mary bearing a child in one arm and a green candle in the other was discovered in 1392 on the beach of Chimisay and found by two Guanche (indigenous peoples of the Island) goatherds.  One tried to throw a stone at the statue, but his arm became paralyzed; the other tried to stab the statue with a knife but ended up stabbing himself.

Tenerife was, at that time, divided into 9 kingdoms with 9 “mencey” kings who each rose to power either by autocracy or by election under customary law.  The statue was taken by the mencey Acaymo to the cave of Chinguaro. The Guanches believed it was an apparition of the mother of the gods, Chaxiraxi bearing her son Chijoraji.

Later, it was recognized by Antón, a Guanche who had been enslaved and converted to Christianity by the Castilians, as the Virgin Mary, upon his return to Tenerife. He told the mencey of his conversion and the statue was thus venerated by the Guanches, who transferred the statue to the cave of Achbinico (also known as San Blas or St. Blaise).

Then the statue was stolen and taken away to the far island of Lanzarote. It was returned after the statue reputedly caused various catastrophes to occur on Lanzarote.

From 1730 to 1736 (for 2,053 days), Lanzarote was hit by a series of volcanic eruptions, creating 32 new volcanoes in a stretch of 18 km. Lava covered a quarter of the island’s surface, including the most fertile soils and eleven villages. One hundred smaller volcanoes were located in the area called Montañas del Fuego. In 1768, drought affected the island and winter rains did not fall. Much of the population was forced to emigrate to Cuba and the Americas.

Wikipedia does not state exactly when the statue was brought back to Tenerife.  Only that it was also eventually lost from Tenerife when the sea reclaimed it in a tidal wave in 1826.  A Basilica was built in front of the Achbinico cave and a bejeweled copy of the statue now sits in the Basilica.  Pilgrims regularly flock the two holy caves of Chinguaro and Achbinico where Guanche aboriginals were baptized into Christianity after conquest.

Who should be any wiser to say that it cannot have been that, in dreams, the Guanches had divinated the Virgin Mother and venerated her as Chaxiraxi and the Baby Jesus as Chijoraji? And so the Guanches converted and eventually embraced Christianity, because they were already believers.

February 2 (and August 15) are also celebrated as fiesta days in the town of Candelaria, Quezon closer to home here in Las Islas Filipinas, another conquest of Spain Per Mariam Ad Jesum.  A long procession from Church and back to it for the blessing of candles celebrates the feast of La Virgen de la Candelaria.

Down the ages from Earthmother and the Guanches’ worship of Chaxilaxi to La Morenita; Nuestra Señora dela Candelaria to the fiesta at Candelaria, Quezon to Saint Blaise’ Blessing of the Throat, here’s to avatar dreams of mothers snuggled with their young sons on Candlemas at dawn on the first week of February, 2010.