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nocturne

While the feast of Saint Lucy (Luciadagen or Lussimesse) is not exclusive to the great white north, marking a moment of rebirth and illumination during the darkest time of the year and promising that if one has made it this far one can expect to survive the rest of the harsh winter and the daylight will soon begin to outshine the night (going by the Julian calendar—13 December would be the Winter Solstice, instead of 21 December, the longest night of the year), it is strongly connected to Norwegian and Scandinavian tradition.

Parents of daughters can also expect a special breakfast in bed, in addition to the pageantry and ceremony.  Though perhaps symbolism is divided between celebrations in far climes and in the Mediterranean south, where the lighted crown born by the saint represents the non-consuming fire at her martyrdom rather than a night-light, customs evolved at both poles—in places like Malta, Italy and Finland, Sweden but little in between.  Recognition, however, has spread and new and unique traditions and interpretations have formed. One area where Saint Lucy has taken root is Denmark, who honour the insertion of an unfamiliar holiday, which came about quite recently and an export from their Nordic neighbours as a means to subtly protest occupation during World War II, both with a flame that does not sear but also does not waiver.

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Since the federal moratorium on purchasing pilfered or questionable data—far from quality intelligence and doing far greater damage to German/Swiss relations, some constituent states are still engaging the bounty of opportunists and scorned employees for compact-disks whose authenticity and reconnaissance is never guaranteed. One of the latest dossiers is apparently little more than a screen-capture from a bank’s terminal, but it still fetched a high price.

Bavaria, among the other states, is a hold-out and so far has refrained from seeking out or taking up any offers that purpose to tattle on tax-avoiders—directly, least, but has allowed other authorities in some cases to extend their jurisdiction and have cooperated in investigations. While in America one’s identity is tethered to a social security number (though it was never intended to be a universal identifier and certainly not a better or more secure system) or the like, in Germany one is triangulated through name, residence and date of birth. In a case of mistaken and insisted identity from earlier in the year that was only very recently resolved (not identity-theft but rather identity-burden), a woman from a community in Bavaria with the very ubiquitous name of Kristin Muller was approached by out-of-state tax-agents (Bavaria had agreed to allow these agents to fight crime by proxy) who rifled through this housewife’s modest home and accused her of hoarding a half-million euro in Swiss institutions. The woman was aghast, naturally, but at quite a loss when it came to distinguishing herself from her sister-in-name, who remains unknown and at-large. When Muller tried to clear her record with the reporting bank, no one was able to confirm or deny whether Muller and Muller-Prime were the same individual or not, since this data list only contained names and account numbers, due to Swiss banking secrecy laws and even if the bank knew more, it was legally bound not to disclose it. What an awful mess to untangle for Frau Muller and other potential victims of circumstance, and I wonder if should could have claimed the balance of the deposit along with the liability the tax-agents insisted she owed. Perhaps Bavaria has been right in not pursuing what’s lauded as maverick justice and a way to level the playing field but in reality does not always deliver.

making spirits blithe

It’s funny how the latitude of bad (but not chaotic) weather compartmentalizes things, not in a way, hopefully, to create a chore or hardship out of every errand but rather to mask, imbue it with some seasonally fun challenges. Of course, a lot of underlying support goes along with the invitation to be out-of-doors and resist the urge to hibernate or curse the snow and ice, reliability to oppose the exception throughout the rest year of good health and adequate sanitation and infrastructure.

I suppose (though I am the first to admit to being not among the it-getters when it comes to skiing) it’s like the thrill of being outside of one’s comfort-zone that comes with winter-sports and being able to take to the slopes and to push oneself to enjoy the elements. Jingle, jangle, jolly.