About this episode
Allie Canton explores the meaning of being festive and the historical significance of festivals in various cultures.
Now that we’re in the throes of the holiday season, I’ve been thinking about what it actually means to be festive . This contemplation started for me a few months ago when I was listening to The Emerald (a must-listen podcast on myth & meaning, btw). Josh Schrei was talking about festivals, wildness, and how earlier cultures created intentional spaces for rupture. It sent me down a little rabbit hole on what “festive” really means. The word festive comes from festival , which in turn traces back to the Latin festum and festivus . These words referred to feasts, holy days and occasions set apart from ordinary time. A festival wasn’t just a “holiday party.” It was a pocket of time where regular rules softened or flipped, and people stepped out of their everyday roles into something stranger and more alive. Going further back, festive is connected to a Proto-Indo-European word for “God.” In ancient and medieval life, there was much more structure in our shared cultural rhythms, especially around holidays. For most of the year, people lived inside fairly narrow bands of “appropriate” behavior. You knew your role. It was clear what was expected of you. You knew where your body was…
People in this episode
Host: Allie Canton
Topics covered
- festivals
- holiday season
- cultural rhythms
- celebration
- historical practices
Keywords
- festive
- festival
- holiday
- cultural practices
- celebration
- historical context
Mentioned in this episode
Books & works: The Emerald
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