The Live Your Legend challenge of the day is to write about why people thank you. We all get thanked for lots of things but one thing that stands out for me is teaching. Over the years I have had received many heartfelt thanks, sometimes running to pages, from people who had had awful learning experiences and now their perspective is changed. One friend even told me teaching was my first, best, destiny. I’m no superman and I can’t reach everyone but my trick is to be interesting so I can hold people’s attention and to spend a little extra time with students who are challenged. You can go a long way by showing a little interest in what makes people tick. It’s not a glamorous job and you don’t make a lot of money, but it is very useful. The LYL “thing” is all about knowing yourself and being useful. I do like to be useful and this is what I am good at.
People are so distracted these days by social media and entertainment that they don’t have space to think for themselves. I try to counter that by pointing out things in their everyday experience that they take for granted. Maybe it will change their perspective a little bit, make them think. Everyday life can be grand and rich if you just look at it. Each day has Majesty.
Today is Wednesday because of the Viking invasions of England, culminating in the Battle of Hastings in 1066. Their big gods were Wotan, Thor, and Frigg (Mrs. Wotan) – Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Frigg is also mashed together with Venus, the Latin god of love, and Venus does look very much like an egg.
That mashup is a good example of the whole problem with English. Take the original old Latin with Celtic sprinkled in, add a few Viking invasions and you end up with half Latin and half Germanic. Talk about a big shaggy dog of a language. That is why half the week is Germanic and the other half is Latin. Satur(n)day, Sunday and Mo(o)nday are easy to spot. Tuesday you have to go to French to figure out. In French it’s Mardi – Mars. Think Mardi Gras. For a fascinating trip through the creation of this crazy tongue I highly recommend The Story of English, by Robert MaCrum, William Cran, and Robert MacNeil.
But why is our week full of planets and gods in the first place? About 5000 years ago the Babylonians (present day Iraqi’s) were great astronomers, because without Facebook there is nothing to do but pay attention to the world around you. They noticed that there were seven lights in the sky that moved across the fixed stars. They must be gods! Seven must be an important number! Still considered to be lucky. So you can thank the Babylonians for the seven day week, and naming the days after gods/planets. In many cultures there is a mystique about names and a kind of immortality. As long as a name is said, the entity lives. Every time you say a day of the week, you are speaking to the gods. Pagan!
Sunday 
Monday 
Tuesday 
Wednesday
Thursday 
Friday
Saturday 
So why doesn’t JC get his own day. Jesus come lately was a couple of thousand years behind the curve with all this, so he had to usurp somebody else’s day, naturally taking from the top of the list. Apollo doesn’t seem to mind though. Ironically it’s the sun god that got us to the moon in 1969. The Eagle landed on a Sunday.