Ash Wednesday

On Ash Wednesday Jack and I traveled into the city to 5th Avenue. To have ashes of repentance marked as a cross on our foreheads. Jack was not a Catholic. As an atheist Catholic I baptised her from the entrance font. We lit candles afore Bridget of Clare an old pagan saint of healing and then chanted 'mea culpa mea culpa mea maxima culpa' before the anointing priest. I was an altar boy. Latin was my first second language. Amo amas amat the verb to love was first learned. Mea culpa means I'm sorry. For what? There's always something. Numquam amare obliviscor If there is no sin, there is no reason to repent. My friend Alison had attended a Swiss bordering school and wrote to me that Mea culpa doesn't quite translate to "forgive me I have sinned". Close enough I guess for a paganist. Ash Wednesday's origins date back to Babylon. Isthar's consort dies and after forty days of fasting is revived with the coming of Spring. ps Isthar is the goddess of fertility and dates further back to the Sumerians 2000BCE