Saint February

"And the days you miss, oh February, may be given to us in heaven..."

Tasos Livaditis

The earth has just begun to conceive... and Persephone... begins her rise...

Like the footsteps of Persephone returning to the Upper World, the sterility of winter, slowly and gradually, gestates within the darkness of the earth the manifestation of fertility (once Spring arrives) of the seed it hosts. Similarly, the common table is transformed into a space of initiation, containing a scene of philosophical revelation through the interaction of the common gathering.

Tsiknopempti, with its rising smoke and communal meal, carries an archetypal symbolism: Food is not a simple consumption, but an act of encounter. Around the table, people equalize, chat, laugh, share.

The Love that is unleashed during Carnival manifests itself not only between individuals, but also within the social bond itself, transformed from an irrational sexual impulse into a force of attraction, cohesion and communication.

As in the Platonic Symposium, so today, the common meal can serve as a reminder that man is not nourished only by matter, by chthonic nature. He is nourished by the Word, the presence of the other, the sense of “togetherness.” Love begins with the tangible, but does not stop there; it calls us to something higher: to conscious union, to participation, to harmonious coexistence.

Through the ritual of the common table, of the carnival frenzy, the sharing of food and the sexual urge become a bridge. At the table, as in love, instinct finds a way to express itself without dominating, to rise from the chthonic depths and meet the other - the fellow diner - in the light of relationship.

Matter, the enjoyment of basic instincts, then ceases to be an end in itself.

Tsiknopempti seals the cycle of pleasure before the purification that leads to the overcoming of abstinence from corruption, and thus the common dinner completes the tension, giving space to conscience.

Love, dinner, and purification, creating a triptych, are revealed as stages of the same experience: the coming of spring, the reception of Life and Creation.

When this ceremony is over, purification comes—not as a rejection of instinct, but as its transformation.

Because only what has been experienced with awareness can transcend the chthonic and pave the way to a more mature, creative form of existence.