Spring in Corfu 2014

Good day everyone! 

Lets welcome Spring with this amazing weather!

Today 20.3.2014  Longas, North East Corfu 

Photo by Giannis Mazis: www.mazisphotography.com

www.facebook.com/GiannisMazisPhotografy

Today is the first day of Spring or Vernal Equinox : 20th of March at 16:57 UTC.

This means that today we will have exactly 12 hour of light and 12 hours of dark in every latitude of our amazingly beautiful planet Earth.

So if the weather is great where you live, go for a walk. This is the first day of Spring!

From tomorrow, the days in the Northern Hemisphere will grow longer and the the days in the Southern Hemisphere will grow shorter. If you live in the Northern part, prepare yourselves for  Summer....

But here we are preparing for Easter!

From tonight, look daily at the moon. As the moon grows fuller, we will be nearing Easter. The night that will shine bright with the full moon will be the full moon before Easter.

To be exact, in 31 days from now, I will be in the garden of my parents house on Corfu, with friends and family, eating lamb, salads, Easter bread and eggs coloured red. We will probably have a few delicious desserts and an incredible warm sun to accompany us eating outside.

Pictures have been streaming in from friends, who have been walking on the beaches of Corfu and sharing the amazing Pasxalies that have started to bloom.

Here some pictures of Corfu this past week:

Photo by Giannis Mazis: www.mazisphotography.com

www.facebook.com/GiannisMazisPhotografy

Photo by Giannis Mazis: www.mazisphotography.com

www.facebook.com/GiannisMazisPhotografy

Photo by Giannis Mazis: www.mazisphotography.com

www.facebook.com/GiannisMazisPhotografy

Photo by Maria Victoria Douka: victoriasphotostigmes.blogspot.gr 

www.facebook.com/mariavictoria.douka

Photo by Maria Victoria Douka: victoriasphotostigmes.blogspot.gr 

www.facebook.com/mariavictoria.douka

Photo by Maria Victoria Douka: victoriasphotostigmes.blogspot.gr 

www.facebook.com/mariavictoria.douka

Photo by Lizan Marie Moraiti:  www.facebook.com/pages/Photo-Studio-Lizan-Marie

Photo by Lizan Marie Moraiti:  www.facebook.com/pages/Photo-Studio-Lizan-Marie

 

Enjoy :-)

Corfu Easter 2014 "Η Κυρά Σαρακοστή"

" Την κυρά Σαρακοστή 

που 'ναι έθιμο παλιό 

οι γιαγιάδες μας την φτιάχναν 

με αλεύρι και νερό. 

Για στολίδι της φορούσαν 

στο κεφάλι ένα σταυρό 

μα το στόμα της ξεχνούσαν 

γιατί νήστευε καιρό. 

Και τις μέρες τις μετρούσαν 

με τα πόδια της τα επτά 

κόβαν ένα τη βδομάδα 

μέχρι να 'ρθει η Πασχαλιά"

source e-children.blogspot.nl

Lent, or in Greek "Sarakosti", is a period of seven weeks before Easter. During Lent we prepare physically and spiritually for the great event of Easter.

Everything actually begins three weeks before Lent. During the three weekends of Carnival, we start to refrain ourselves first from meat and then dairy products. 

The first Monday of Lent is called "Kathara Deutera" (exact translation Clean Monday) and it is the first day of fasting: we do not eat meat, fish, diary products, eggs. We do eat shellfish, fish roe, squid, cuttlefish and octopus. During Lent there are also days we do not use olive oil, like Kathara Deutera, and that is often the hardest. Try eating a nice salad without any dressing.....

During Sarakosti, the services on Sunday are different than the rest of the year. I really enjoyed going to church with my father on those Sundays. I loved the melodies, the psalms and the stories. You, as a person, stand central. The virtues that you should cultivate are to be found in the parables and you are given a centreline to work on during the following week. Your spiritual evolution is really important. Every year this is the period of reflexion and growth, after the long winter and before the even longer summer.

The picture and the poem at the beginning of this post are about Kura Sarakosti (freely translated mrs Lent). In some areas of Greece, grandmothers used to make this pastry out of a simple wheat and water dough. She was usually pictured as a nun, with a headscarf, a cross, she had no mouth and had seven feet. Those feet were cut off, one each week of Lent. Thus they could easily see how many weeks there are left for Easter. I can not remember anyone on the island who made a Kura Sarakosti. First time I read about it was at school and we probably made one.

Sarakosti is a wonderful time. The sun start to grow warmer, spring is at its best and flowers are coming out everywhere! Of course there is the occasional rain and the storm passing by. Maybe even a bit of frost or hail. The first swallows arrive and at the nearing Easter the pink flamingoes pass by on a salt lake on the south of the island.

The whole island is preparing for the great event and everyone is feeling the anticipation grow. These days here in the Netherlands the weather is warm and sunny. It feels like here too the spring has taken over nature. I feel a little bit like home, wearing a t-shirt when sitting in the sun.

Easter is coming! How many weeks still to go?

  

Corfu Easter 2014

One month to go!

This year the Greek Orthodox Easter is on the same Sunday as the Catholic Easter: 20 April 2014

The first thing everyone asks is why is Easter celebrated on a different date each year and why is the Catholic Easter often on another Sunday then the Orthodox? My first reply is actually a question. "Do you want the short explanation or the long story?"

The short version is that Easter is celebrated on the first Sunday, after the first Full Moon, after the Vernal Equinox. The date of the Vernal Equinox is fixed. With the New Calendar that the Catholics use it is on the 21st of March and with the old calendar it is thirteen days later. When the first Full Moon after both those dates is the same one, then Easter is celebrated all over the world on the same Sunday.

Confused? Let me know in the comments below: what you want to know next!