OPINION (AN COLÚN): Feeling positive during the month of May

Ancient Greek thinkers believed that our personalities, or temperaments, depended on the strengths of various fluids, or “humours,” in our bodies. According to the Greek physicians Hippocrates and Galen, there were four main humours, each of which was responsible for a particular personality type.
One of these humours was blood, an excess of which was thought to produce a cheerful, optimistic, positive (“sanguine”) temperament. Another was black bile, which in excess was believed to cause a depressive (“melancholic”) temperament. An excess of the humour called yellow bile was considered responsible for an angry (“choleric”) temperament. And an excess of the remaining humour, phlegm, was seen as the basis of a calm (“phlegmatic”) temperament.
Now, obviously, there is no empirical evidence to back up this ancient Greek theory, but it's interesting because it shows an awareness of the impact of outer and inner events on our moods (the events of life, inevitably, adversely beat us around but it's possible to control our reactions to them, to a certain extent). The terms are also interesting because we continue to use them in contemporary parlance. Sanguine is a word I like using in both negative and positive contexts. Negatively, it can be applied to a particular type of politician or social commentator who remains breezily optimistic even when the situation on the ground is pretty dire. Spin doctors love this kind of approach to the vicissitudes of existence. This aversion to the truth creates a mood of psychopathy.
Many companies are experts in surface propaganda and in adopting sanguine moods even as they relentlessly engage in a race to the bottom in terms of staff numbers and conditions of employment. The truth is they are motivated by greed and are utterly selfish. They mask this behind bland, self-serving smiles and trite clichés.
The positive aspect of the sanguine response to life is something which many of us have been enjoying during the last couple of months with the easing of the pandemic restrictions. Once again we are participating in social occasions which are energetic, enthusiastic and cheerful. Most of us need a certain amount of social interaction to feel fully human, fully alive, and that was taken away from us during the pandemic. Now we are drinking deep once again from the social well and it's a great experience.
I was at one such positive social event last Wednesday in St Joseph's Community Centre in Kilcormac when the local Development Association celebrated its 40th anniversary. I have attended many KDA events over the last three decades and it is great to see them still going strong. They represent many of the best qualities of Irish life, including community spirit, being inclusive and trying to lift up the weak not just the strong (as opposed to the ruthless capitalist qualities of strength, competition and survival of the fittest). Fr Michael Walsh said mass in the Centre, the KDA Chairman John Leahy said a few words and Danny Guinan sang a rousing rendition of “Bring Flowers of the Rarest” - “O Mary! We crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May, O Mary! We crown thee with blossoms today, Queen of the Angels, Queen of the May.”
The Queen of the Angels is of course associated with May, which is very appropriate as it's arguably the most beautiful month of the year, filled with colour and birdsong; the weather during this month can feel like a balm for the soul after several cold and harsh preceding months.
Traditionally, we Catholics devote the whole month of May to celebrating and honouring Mary, the mother of Jesus. There is sometimes a ‘May Crowning’, where an image or statue of Mary is crowned, sometimes with flowers. There are also ‘May altars’, which might be in a church or at home.
We are not certain why May is associated with Mary, but it has been the tradition for a long time. It's believed this tradition originated in Italy.
Mary is a personage filled with compassion and understanding. She embodies the finest aspects of the maternal instinct including unconditional love. We may stray (and stray often) but she is willing to welcome us back into her comforting embrace, so long as we have shed our arrogance and are truly humble. Mary has been a very important source of immense comfort to billions of people for many centuries.
She is of course not unique to Catholicism and counterparts can be found in other creeds. The early Christians were inspired by Egyptian religion. They adopted the idea of the Trinity from the ancient Egyptians (while making some significant changes). The early Christians also found inspiration from other religions from around the Mediterranean. The region was full of stories involving resurrection, salvation, virgin births, and central figures who were the sons of supreme gods. In ancient Egypt one key concept was the relationship among three deities, Asar, Aset, and Heru (also known as Osiris, Isis, and Horus, respectively.) Like many Egyptian gods, these divine beings started out as humans. Asar was a revered king who was murdered by a usurper but became king of the afterlife, or spiritual realm. His wife, Aset, took their son, Heru, into hiding, in the marshes of the Nile delta until her son was fully grown and could avenge his father and claim his throne. Heru eventually returned to reclaim the earthly throne. Aset parallels the Virgin Mary in some respects but differs in others. But in the Roman Empire, in which the concept of the Christian Trinity developed between the first and fourth centuries AD, the concept of a feminine deity in a divine trinity would not find the same favour; the Virgin Mary was left without Aset’s divine powers, and outside the Christian Trinity.
Her cult spread from Alexandria during Greco-Roman times. It's highly likely that images of the Goddess nursing the baby Horus influenced the early Christian artists who depicted the Virgin Mary with the baby Jesus.
Both Mary and Isis are the protectors and nourishers of a divine child and, by extension, of all humanity. Faced with the vagaries of existence, worshippers looked and look to them for protection, healing, love and compassion. The divinity which created all things is love itself; and the Mother of God and the Egyptian Goddess were and are manifestations of that love. In the chaos of the universe they were and are homing beacons for the weary souls of humanity.