Literal translations of months in Finnish

  1. Tammikuu = Oak moon.
  2. Helmikuu = Pearl moon.
  3. Maaliskuu = Earthy moon.
  4. Huhtikuu = ‘Burn-beaten fir trees’ moon.
  5. Toukokuu = Sowing moon.
  6. Kesäkuu = Summer moon.
  7. Heinäkuu = Hay moon.
  8. Elokuu = Crop moon.
  9. Syyskuu = Autumnal moon.
  10. Lokakuu = Mud moon.
  11. Marraskuu = ‘Death of herbs/ plants’ moon.
  12. Joulukuu = Yule/ Christmas moon.

Phurba (dagger), late 15th century
The ritual dagger (Sanskrit: kila; Tibetan: phurba) is essential to the dispelling of evil and understood as being especially helpful in neutralizing the forces that impede Tantric Buddhist practice. Its origins are ancient, appearing in the Indian Rg Veda as the central blade of the vajra that Indra used to slay the primordial cosmic snake Vritra. Its Sanskrit term, kila, which means peg or stake, was probably linked to Vedic sacrifices. The three-headed Vajrakila Buddha is invoked through meditation on the Vajrakila Tantra, an early Indian text first propagated in Tibet in the eighth century by Padmasambhava, one of the founding masters of Tibetan Buddhism. In this phurba, a half-vajra projects from Vajrakila’s chignon, and a fully elaborated vajra serves as the hilt, below which project boars’ heads. Rock crystal, valued for its purity and ability to transmit light, is a prized material in this context and thus seen as analogous to the Buddha’s dharma and its immutable higher reality. Along with examples in meteoritic iron, rock-crystal phurba are regarded as the most efficacious in the destruction of obstacles to enlightenment.

Sylvia Likens was sixteen and her sister Jenny was fifteen in July of 1965, when they were entrusted to the care of a skinny, asthmatic, chain smoking – and as it turned out, psychotic – woman named Gertrude Baniszewski. Likens’ parents had offered Baniszewski $20 a week to let their girls live with her while they traveled with a carnival, operating a concession stand. Soon – and no one seems to know why – Baniszewski started to beat the girls, but then she focused her illogical rage on Sylvia. She also began to invite neighborhood kids, who hung out at Gertrude’s house, to beat and torture Sylvia as well. Some kids would practice judo on her, and some would put out their cigarettes on her skin. On at least one occasion, Gertrude put Sylvia in scalding hot water to “cleanse her of her sins.” For a time Sylvia was allowed to leave the house, but eventually she became a kidnapped victim and was locked in the cellar and fed minimal food. Baniszewski used a needle to carve the words “I am a prostitute” onto her stomach. On October 26, 1965, Sylvia died from brain swelling, internal bleeding, and shock. Baniszewski and the family members and neighbors who took part in the torture, kidnapping, and murder were tried and convicted of various degrees of crime. Sylvia’s parents were not charged. Her sister Jenny died in 2004 at the age of 54, and Baniszewski, who had been released from prison on parole in 1985, died of lung cancer in 1990.

Jean Benner’s painting of Salome with the head of John the Baptist (1899)
Salome, the Daughter of Herodias (c. AD 14 – between 62 and 71), is known from the New Testament (Mark 6:17-29 and Matthew 14:3-11, where, however, her name is not given). Another source from Antiquity, Flavius Josephus’s Jewish Antiquities, gives her name and some detail about her family relations.

Christian traditions depict her as an icon of dangerous female seductiveness, notably in regard to the dance mentioned in the New Testament, which is thought to have had an erotic element to it, and in some later transformations it has further been iconized as the Dance of the Seven Veils. Other elements of Christian tradition concentrate on her lighthearted and cold foolishness that, according to the gospels, led to John the Baptist’s death.

A new motif was added by Oscar Wilde in his Salome, in which she plays the role of femme fatale. This last interpretation, made even more memorable by Richard Strauss’ opera based on Wilde’s work, is not consistent with Josephus’ account; according to the Romanized Jewish historian, Salome lived long enough to marry twice and raise several children. Few literary accounts elaborate the biographical data given by Josephus.

According to Mark 6:21-29 (Salome is not mentioned by name in this passage so reference is incomplete), Salome was the stepdaughter of Herod Antipas. Salome danced before Herod and her mother Herodias at the occasion of his birthday, and in doing so gave her mother the opportunity to obtain the head of John the Baptist. According to Mark’s gospel Herodias bore a grudge against John for stating that Herod’s marriage to her was unlawful; she encouraged Salome to demand that John be executed.