Category Archives: All Fools’ Day

Springtide, and Your April Book of Days

April First now and here is your printable Convivio Book of Days calendar for the month. Cover star this time around: a rainy Easter Eve (in Paris, is my guess), painted in 1907 by John Sloan. We just reached Midlent this past Sunday, or Laetare Sunday, which means we are halfway through our Lenten journey, on the road to Easter, which this year comes on April 20. These are all movable days in the calendar, based on the timing of the full moon that follows the Vernal Equinox. I’ve never quite had the wherewithal to sit down and learn the calculations that determine the date each year of Easter. All I know is Lent began late this year and, following course, Easter comes late, too. I like when things are late, as I don’t feel so rushed.

Today, of course, is the First of April, which brings All Fools’ Day, and that is not a movable holiday. The origins of the day’s shenanigans are tough to pin down. Most signs point to the fact that March 25 was once New Year’s Day, making the First of April the Octave of New Year and the end of the new year revels, and it is thought that perhaps the foolishness of the date goes back to very old new year customs. The tricks and practical jokes traditionally end at noon, but not everyone understands this and so I think it’s a good day to remain generally wary and on guard.

April also brings Passover this year, and all the days of Holy Week that lead us to Easter, including one of my favorite nights of the year: Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, when we visit three churches to sit in the close and holy darkness, together with other pilgrims doing the same. It is always such a lovely night: candle-lit, peaceful, a night when you can hear each old church’s creaks and groans. Our niece comes with us now on this pilgrimage, and I don’t even know if she realizes we do this each year because my grandma, Assunta, taught me to do it when I was a boy, the same age as my niece is now.

April also brings a springtime excuse to drink eggnog with San Jacinto’s Day on the 21st, and romantic divination a few nights later, on St. Mark’s Eve, and then comes Independent Bookstore Day on Saturday April 26. I’m generally not one for these newfangled holidays, but this one has new meaning for Convivio Bookworks now that we fancy ourselves a bit of an independent bookshop. We’ll be making a weekend-long celebration of it at the shop, where you may come print on our 1950s Nolan Tabletop Press and learn how to make your own book, too. Walpurgis Night wraps up the month, as the night of April 30 drifts into the morning of May the First, and May Day, an unoffocial first day of summer.

If you live in the South Florida area, please consider joining us at the shop for any of these upcoming events pictured below. The workshops require advance registration. Our Springtide Saturdays are perfect days to gather what you need for Easter. And Independent Bookstore Days are just going to be a whole lot of fun as we celebrate these things we love so much: books and reading. Click on any of the images to make them larger for easier reading, and find more details by visiting our Convivio Bookworks catalog pages. The shop is easy to find but off the beaten path at 1110 North G Street, Suite D, in Lake Worth Beach, Florida 33460.

 

Top image: “Easter Eve” by John Sloan. Oil on canvas, 1907 [Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.]

 

Easter Triduum, or Your April Book of Days

April has begun. It begins, of course, with All Fools’ Day, April Fools. There is an old Welsh saying: If every fool wore a crown, we should all be kings. The tricks and practical jokes traditionally end at noon, but not everyone understands this and so I think it’s a good day to remain generally wary and on guard. The origins of this day are tough to pin down. There is a Norse god named Loki whose feast day is today, and Loki happens to be a trickster god. So that could be it. But there also is the fact that March 25 was once New Year’s Day, making the First of April the Octave of New Year and the end of the new year revels, and it is thought that perhaps the foolishness of the date goes back to very old new year customs.

Being the First of the month, it’s also time for the April edition of the ongoing Convivio Book of Days calendar. We offer it to you as a printable PDF. The calendar makes a fine companion to this blog. Enjoy it with our compliments.

This year, what begins as All Fools’ Day ends as Holy Thursday, or Maundy Thursday, the night when we are invited to visit churches that will remain unlocked all night long, welcoming portals inviting us to be present with Jesus in his hours of tribulation as Good Friday approaches. Like last year, though, we will remain home, but typically it is a night when we visit three churches, as my grandmother Assunta taught us, though some people visit seven. I love this night, typically. It is such a bridge for me across time and space with the ones I love and the ones I miss, as I sit in the close and holy darkness of these quiet churches, meditating, praying, simply being. The moon is always present as I journey from church to church, a constant companion. This year, perhaps, a simple fire in the back yard may be the most appropriate way to mark the night. The moon will still be present, and where two or three are gathered… well, you know the story. But here ends the Lenten season, and here begins the Easter or Paschal Triduum: Holy Thursday, Good Friday, and Holy Saturday: the Last Supper, the Passion, and the Resurrection through the Easter Vigil on Saturday night.

There is much more to read about these closing days of this week known as Holy Week, and you may do so in the previous chapter of this blog. (Just click “Previous Post” when you get to the bottom of this one, or click here.) Cover star for this month’s Convivio Book of Days calendar is a painting called “Easter Morning,” by Caspar David Friedrich, from 1833. The trees have yet to leaf out in this painting, but by the end of this month certainly the rivers will be a’running and the vernal push will be rising through sap from root to bud as trees erupt in new green leaves. And sometimes we need a reminder like this: of how so much wonder can happen over the course of a month.

Image: “Easter Morning” by Caspar David Friedrich, oil on canvas, 1833, [Public domain], via WikiPaintings.

Your April Book of Days

April First brings All Fools Day, April Fools… and your Convivio Book of Days Calendar for April. The tricks and practical jokes today are traditionally supposed to end at noon, but I’d be wary all day long if I were you. I’ll admit here and now: I’ve got nothing up my sleeve this year. Not a thing. But I always love hearing about your April Fools pranks, so please, share them. The comments below are an excellent place to do so.

Our Lenten journey is fast coming to a close and we come this month, in April’s second week, to Holy Week, with all its beautiful mysteries. Maundy Thursday always is one of my favorite nights: a pilgrimage of sorts. There are years when I don’t enter a church all year and there are years where I go more often, but Holy Thursday is the night when I go, typically, to three of them, in the dark and quiet late night hours, to sit there and breathe in the stillness. My grandmother Assunta taught me this, and each year I go and I think of her. This, to me, the core of tradition: to maintain those bridges across time and space. This year, I will think of my father, too. I suspect it will not be an easy night for me, but it will be an important one.

I know my writings have been few and far between lately, and for this I apologize. I’m here with you, I’m just having a hard time lately getting out of my own way. But folks tell me this is to be expected, and while the pain of losing a loved one never goes away, it does, I know, evolve. And so I am evolving. I’ll write to you when I can. Sometime during Holy Week, I am sure. Maybe twice, who knows? And most likely for St. Mark’s Eve on the 24th, and again for May Eve, Walpurgis Night… as the wheel of the year clicks again by one more cog, this time toward summer. There is magic to be had in all of these holy days/holidays … and my wish for me, for you, is that we all tap into that magic. My dad believed in the value of hard work and a job done well. I’ve got a job to do in writing this Book of Days, and I’d best get to it. He wouldn’t put up with me slacking off.

By the way, if you miss us, well… we do a better job of keeping in touch these days via our Instagram feed: @conviviobookworks. More of a picture book!