Mango Languages

Fall is All Around

Hello friends,

When you look out of your window, do you experience as amazing fall colors as we do here in Michigan? Red, yellow, green, brown…  Monet would surely be inspired looking at this beautiful array of colors and would probably create another great masterpiece inspired by Michigan’s beauty.  Mother Nature was very gracious to Detroit these last few days. She granted us with lots of sun and warm air. What about smell? No, I am not talking about the pollution in the city! If you are outside, stop for a moment, close your eyes, forget about the world and smell….. I smell fresh fall leaves, a little bit of rain. And just when you think the gloom of winter is near, out comes the sun – oops, a sunbeam just touched my nose! I love fall!! Isn’t life amazing when we actually stop for a moment to enjoy all the beauty that this planet has to offer?

Looking at all the fall colors I always remember my home country, Ukraine, which is also very beautiful during the fall. Ukraine has very similar weather, breathtaking fall colors, and lots of apples.  Speaking of apples, this past weekend my one-year-old daughter enjoyed her first trip to the Cider Mill with my family and she loooooved the apple cider.  It is amazing because she gets the privilege to experience so many things for the first time in her life. Even though she might not be able to remember them for a long time being so young, childhood memories do build up and amazingly influence our being.

How do you experience fall?

Ukrainian Easter Egg

We can almost feel the breeze of spring in the air and for many Catholics throughout the world spring time is often associated with Easter. If someone sent you an Easter postcard with the following message

would you be able to read it?
Don’t worry, after reading this blog you will be an encoding pro!

Signs and symbols had been the means of ancient communication for ages.  These particular signs and many others are used in Ukrainian pysanky and mean wishes for good health, fortune, and prosperity.  Pysanky is the ancient Eastern European art of egg decorating, and Ukrainian pysanky are famous throughout the world.  The name comes from the verb to write (pysaty), as you use a stylus to write with wax on the egg shell.

Ukrainian Easter egg decorating has been handed down through generations of Ukrainian people.  Over 2,000 years ago, before the time of Christ, people decorated eggs believing that great powers were embodied in the egg.  Eggs symbolized the release of the earth from the shackles of winter and the coming of spring with its promise of new hope, new life, and prosperity.  With the advent of Christianity, Easter eggs came to symbolize the Resurrection and the promise of eternal life.  Legend has it that as long as pysanky are decorated, goodness will prevail over evil throughout the world.

A completed Ukrainian pysanka may look like one of these:

While a standard pysanka is the size of an egg, some countries are known for building the world largest pysanky. For example, a 13-meter pysanka was built in the year 2000 in Ukraine in the city of Kolomyya as a part of the museum structure.  Almost 45 feet–pretty amazing!

So, if you would like to get a little more creative this year and send either an Easter postcard or an egg, be proactive and intrigue the recipient with one of the messages encoded in signs.

Click here to see a few examples of other commonly used pysanka signs.

Happy Easter! What are some of your Easter traditions?