1980 Ash Wednesday bushfires

The first Ash Wednesday fires were a series of bushfires that began in the Adelaide Hills, South Australia, on Ash Wednesday, 20 February 1980. 51 homes and 25 other buildings were destroyed, and 75 farms were affected. 40 people were injured, with 150 left homeless. The fire burnt an area of 3,770 ha (14.6 sq mi), and caused an estimated $34,000,000 damage.

In 1983, after the Ash Wednesday fires in February that year, the 1980 fire became known in South Australia as the "first" Ash Wednesday, or Ash Wednesday I.

References

Coordinates: 34°54′40.28″S 138°42′26.46″E / 34.9111889°S 138.7073500°E / -34.9111889; 138.7073500

Ash Wednesday

Ash Wednesday, a day of fasting, is the first day of Lent in Western Christianity. It occurs 46 days (40 fasting days, if the six Sundays, which are not days of fast, are excluded) before Easter and can fall as early as February 4th or as late as 10 March. Ash Wednesday is observed by many Western Christians, including Anglicans, Lutherans, Methodists, Presbyterians, and Roman Catholics.

According to the canonical gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke, Jesus Christ spent 40 days fasting in the desert, where he endured temptation by Satan. Lent originated as a mirroring of this, fasting 40 days as preparation for Easter. Every Sunday was seen as a commemoration of the Sunday of Christ's resurrection and so as a feast day on which fasting was inappropriate. Accordingly, Christians fasted from Monday to Saturday (six days) during six weeks and from Wednesday to Saturday (four days) in the preceding week, thus making up the number of 40 days.

Ash Wednesday derives its name from the practice of blessing ashes made from palm branches blessed on the previous year's Palm Sunday, and placing them on the heads of participants to the accompaniment of the words "Repent, and believe in the Gospel" or "Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return".

Ash Wednesday (poem)

Ash Wednesday (sometimes Ash-Wednesday) is the first long poem written by T. S. Eliot after his 1927 conversion to Anglicanism. Published in 1930, this poem deals with the struggle that ensues when one who has lacked faith in the past strives to move towards God.

Sometimes referred to as Eliot's "conversion poem", Ash-Wednesday, with a base of Dante's Purgatorio, is richly but ambiguously allusive and deals with the move from spiritual barrenness to hope for human salvation. The style is different from his poetry which predates his conversion. "Ash-Wednesday" and the poems that followed had a more casual, melodic, and contemplative method.

Many critics were "particularly enthusiastic concerning 'Ash-Wednesday'", while in other quarters it was not well received. Among many of the more secular literati its groundwork of orthodox Christianity was discomfiting. Edwin Muir maintained that "'Ash-Wednesday' is one of the most moving poems he [Eliot] has written, and perhaps the most perfect."

Ash Wednesday (album)

Ash Wednesday is the debut studio album by singer songwriter Elvis Perkins, released on February 20, 2007, on XL Recordings. It is a chronologically sequenced album of songs written before (Tracks 1 to 6) and after (Tracks 7 to 11) the death of his mother, who died on 9/11. In a 2009 interview, Perkins states that the album "[has] been made out to be bleaker than it really is, [...] there were moments of hopefulness on Ash Wednesday too."

Regarding the album's title, Perkins states that it:

"All the Night Without Love" was the lead single off the album; "Moon Woman II" appears on the Fast Food Nation soundtrack, and "While You Were Sleeping" was featured in a season 4 episode of The O.C.. The album was released on XL Records and includes backing vocals by Ariana Lenarsky, Shana Levy of indie band Let's Go Sailing, and others.

Track listing