farmdoc's blog post number 300

The email trickle started two weeks ago. Promoting chocolates, flowers, watches, flights, romantic getaways. Valentine’s Day was approaching. And today it’s here. According to Wikipedia, several early Christian martyrs were named Valentine. Until 1969 the Catholic Church recognised 11 Valentine’s Days, 14 February being the burial date of two Valentines. In the second and third centuries when those two lived and died, neither had any love/romantic biographic associations. But in the fourteenth century, folklore began portraying Valentine – by then the two had merged, like computer files – as a priest who opposed Roman imperial law forbidding young men to marry, by performing secret marriage ceremonies. Valentine was arrested and gaoled, and legend says on his execution eve he wrote the first ‘Valentine’ beginning ‘From your Valentine’. Valentine’s, or St Valentine’s, Day is when lovers traditionally express their love via cards, flowers or confectionery. Its symbols are hearts, doves, and winged cupids. It’s never been a big deal in my life, creeping into my consciousness only in the last 10-15 years – simultaneously with its emerging commercialisation which, like the emails, started with a trickle and is now a torrent. I resent this commercialisation; its replacement of the intangible by the tangible; its monetarisation of emotion. If, as is likely, the original Valentines were ascetics, we need to emulate them that. Our planet doesn’t need more landfill masquerading as love symbols. If my Sweetheart Vivienne doesn’t know how much I adore her, no tangible objects, however shaped and however expensive, will change that.