Messages In This Digest (3 Messages)
- 1.
- St. Patricks Day - Wear A Snake From: Silver Fox
- 2a.
- Croach Patrick From: Silver Fox
- 3a.
- Ostara From: Silver Fox
Messages
- 1.
-
St. Patricks Day - Wear A Snake
Posted by: "Silver Fox" silverfox_57@hotmail.com trickster9993
Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:12 am (PST)
St. Patricks Day - Wear A Snake
Source: SeekingWolf
A day that St.Patrick chased the snakes out of Ireland. Well, the snakes were the Pagans. And they weren't just chased out. They were executed; Men, women and children. So, I've started a tradition with my coven and other friends.
On St. Patricks Day , all Pagans should wear something with a snake on it. A t-shirt, necklace, ring, etc.... This is our way of saying that the "snakes" are still here and that we are here to stay.
The Snake is a symbol of wisdom and free will. Which is why the church wants to get rid of all Pagans. We believe in free will and responsibility for our own actions. So, I am reaching out to all my pagan friends to join me in this new tradition and to pass it on to all other pagans you know. If we can get at least 1,000 people wearing a snake this year, it would be a definite great start.
Please Pass this on. Thank You and Blessed Be. And May the Goddess Kiss Your Brow and Bring Light into Your Darkness.
Silver Fox
"It is all true, it is not true. The more I tell you, the more I shall lie. What is story but jesting Pilate's cry. I am not paid to tell you the truth."
Jane Yolen; The Storyteller
- 2a.
-
Croach Patrick
Posted by: "Silver Fox" silverfox_57@hotmail.com trickster9993
Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:13 am (PST)
Croach Patrick
St. Patrick's Day information
http://www.sacredsites.com/1st30/ mtcroach. html
Rising to 2510 feet (765 meters) near the town of Westport in County Mayo, the quartzite peak of Croach Patrick was a pagan sacred place long before the arrival of Christianity. For the Celtic peoples of Ireland it was the dwelling place of the deity Crom Dubh and the principal site of the harvest festival of Lughnasa, traditionally held around August 1. According to popular Christian stories, St. Patrick visited the sacred mountain during the festival time in AD 441 and spent forty days and forty nights banishing dragons, snakes, and demonic forces from the site. Were there dragons and demonic forces actually living atop this mountain, or does the legend have a metaphorical rather than a literal meaning? To shed light on this matter it is important to know something of the person known as St. Patrick, the patron saint of Ireland.
Patrick is not actually Irish. He was born in Britain around AD 385. Captured in his youth by Irish pirates raiding the Scottish coast, he was sold into slavery in Ireland. Later escaping to Europe, Patrick spent some years studying at the monastery of St. Martin of Tours in France, where he was ordained as a priest. Deeply affected by the Christian missionary zeal so prevalent in the early fifth century, he decided to return to Ireland to undertake the conversion of the Celtic pagans and their Druid priests. Arriving in Ireland in AD 432, Patrick spent nearly thirty years traveling about the countryside, bringing Christianity to the local people and establishing churches and monastic foundations upon many Druidic sacred sites (Patrick later retired to Glastonbury, England, where he died at the age of 111). It was common for early Christians to view pagan religious practices as devil worship; thus the legend of Patrick slaying dragons and demonic forces on the sacred mountain is actually a metaphor for his subjugation and conversion of the pagan priests. By the seventh century the holy mountain had become one of the two most important Christian pilgrimage sites in all Ireland (the other being Station Island, also called St. Patrick's Purgatory, in Lough Derg near the town of Sligo). Prior to AD 1113 the pilgrims came to the mountain during Lent, but following a wild storm in which thirty pilgrims died upon the peak, the pilgrimage period was changed to summer, with the most popular days being the last Friday and Sunday of July. Currently it is estimated that nearly one million pilgrims climb to the summit each year, as many as forty thousand on the last Sunday in July. In the Irish Christian tradition the ascent is undertaken as an act of penance for wrongdoing, and many of the pilgrims climb barefooted or even on their knees. I feel it is important to note that the ancient worship at Mt. Croach Patrick had nothing to do with matters of penence and supposed wrongdoing. The holy mountain was a sanctuary for the giving of thanks and the celebration of life's abundance. Similar to what has occurred at so many other prehistoric sacred places, at Croach Patrick Christianity has warped, stifled, and corrupted the natural human tendency to venerate life and the Earth's beauty, imposing ideas of fear, guilt, and control. This great sacred mountain certainly does not wallow in such limiting, life-denying concepts nor does it require or support humans in doing so. Mt. Croach Patrick was - and still is - a place to experience and give thanks for the exquisite sweetness of life.
Silver Fox
"It is all true, it is not true. The more I tell you, the more I shall lie. What is story but jesting Pilate's cry. I am not paid to tell you the truth."
Jane Yolen; The Storyteller
- 3a.
-
Ostara
Posted by: "Silver Fox" silverfox_57@hotmail.com trickster9993
Sat Mar 12, 2011 8:16 am (PST)
Ostara
(March 20 or 21)
Related Deities: Eostre, the adolescent Spring Maiden, the adolescent Spring Lord
Related Herbs: Acorn, Alder, Celandine, Cinquefoil, Daffodil, Dandelion, Dogwood, Honeysuckle, Jasmine, Jonquils, Rose, Tansy, Violet, Woodruff, Gorse, Olive, Peony, Iris, Narcissus, Jasmine, rose, violet, all spring flowers.
Related Colors: Yellow and Green
Related Incense: Jasmine, Rose, Strawberry, Floral of any type.
Related Stones: Moss Agate, Green Moonstone, Orange Calcite, Rose Quartz, Jasper
Traditional Foods: Leafy green vegetables, Dairy foods, Nuts such as Pumpkin, Sunflower and Pine. Flower Dishes and Sprouts.
Special Activities: Planting seeds or starting a Magickal Herb Garden. Taking a long walk in nature with no intent other than reflecting on the Magick of nature and our Great Mother and her bounty.
Also known as the Vernal Equinox, Alban Eiber, Bacchanalia, Lady Day and Jack in the Green Day, Eostara
More commonly known as Easter among the Christians, Ostara marks the renewal of life within the Earth and the renewal of fertility to our spiritual lives. The name Easter coming from the Anglo-Saxon free-spirited fertility goddess known as Eostre. Legend has it that while entertaining a group of childern, Eostre changed a bird into a rabbit. To the delight and amusement of the childern, the bewitched animal laid colored eggs. Thus the origin of the Easter Bunny and Easter Egg hunts. Both of which are fertility symbols. Rabbits for being very prolific. The egg, the white represents the all-encompassing nature of the Goddess while the yolk represents the virility of the Sun God. The symmetrical outer shell binding the two together, sealing their fertility and love for each other.
The year is in perfect balance between light and darkness. Ostara also marks the first day of true Spring. The God is now a green youth and the Goddess is in her maiden aspect. Their courtship dance begins.
We think that the customs surrounding the celebration of the spring equinox were imported from Mediterranean lands, although there can be no doubt that the first inhabitants of the British Isles observed it, as evidence from megalithic sites shows. But it was certainly more popular to the south, where people celebrated the holiday as New Year's Day, and claimed it as the first day of the first sign of the Zodiac, Aries. However you look at it, it is certainly a time of new beginnings, as a simple glance at Nature will prove.
In the Roman Catholic Church, there are two holidays which get mixed up with the Vernal Equinox. The first, occurring on the fixed calendar day of March 25th in the old liturgical calendar, is called the Feast of the Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary (or B.V.M., as she was typically abbreviated in Catholic Missals). "Annunciation" means an announcement. This is the day that the angel Gabriel announced to Mary that she was "in the family way". Naturally, this had to be announced since Mary, being still a virgin, would have no other means of knowing it. (Quit scoffing, O ye of little faith!) Why did the Church pick the Vernal Equinox for the commemoration of this event? Because it was necessary to have Mary conceive the child Jesus a full nine months before his birth at the Winter Solstice (i.e., Christmas, celebrated on the fixed calendar date of December 25). Mary's pregnancy would take the natural nine months to complete, even if the conception was a bit unorthodox.
As mentioned before, the older Pagan equivalent of this scene focuses on the joyous process of natural conception, when the young virgin Goddess (in this case, "virgin" in the original sense of meaning "unmarried") mates with the young solar God, who has just displaced his rival. This is probably not their first mating, however. In the mythical sense, the couple may have been lovers since Candlemas, when the young God reached puberty. But the young Goddess was recently a mother (at the Winter Solstice) and is probably still nursing her new child. Therefore, conception is naturally delayed for six weeks or so and, despite earlier matings with the God, She does not conceive until (surprise!) the Vernal Equinox. This may also be their Hand-fasting, a sacred marriage between God and Goddess called a Hierogamy, the ultimate Great Rite. Probably the nicest study of this theme occurs in M. Esther Harding's book, "Woman's Mysteries". Probably the nicest description of it occurs in M. Z. Bradley's "Mists of Avalon", in the scene where Morgan and Arthur assume the sacred roles. (Bradley follows the British custom of transferring the episode to Beltain, when the climate is more suited to its outdoor celebration.)
The other Christian holiday which gets mixed up in this is Easter. Easter, too, celebrates the victory of a god of light (Jesus) over darkness (death), so it makes sense to place it at this season. Ironically, the name "Easter" was taken from the name of a Teutonic lunar Goddess, Eostre (from whence we also get the name of the female hormone, estrogen). Her chief symbols were the bunny (both for fertility and because her worshipers saw a hare in the full moon) and the egg (symbolic of the cosmic egg of creation), images which Christians have been hard pressed to explain. Her holiday, the Eostara, was held on the Vernal Equinox Full Moon. Of course, the Church doesn't celebrate full moons, even if they do calculate by them, so they planted their Easter on the following Sunday. Thus, Easter is always the first Sunday, after the first Full Moon, after the Vernal Equinox. If you've ever wondered why Easter moved all around the calendar, now you know. (By the way, the Catholic Church was so adamant about NOT incorporating lunar Goddess symbolism that they added a further calculation: if Easter Sunday were to fall on the Full Moon itself, then Easter was postponed to the following Sunday instead.)
Incidentally, this raises another point: recently, some Pagan traditions began referring to the Vernal Equinox as Eostara. Historically, this is incorrect. Eostara is a lunar holiday, honoring a lunar Goddess, at the Vernal Full Moon. Hence, the name "Eostara" is best reserved to the nearest Esbat, rather than the Sabbat itself. How this happened is difficult to say. However, it is notable that some of the same groups misappropriated the term "Lady Day" for Beltain, which left no good folk name for the Equinox. Thus, Oestara was misappropriated for it, completing a chain-reaction of displacement. Needless to say, the old and accepted folk name for the Vernal Equinox is "Lady Day". Christians sometimes insist that the title is in honor of Mary and her Annunciation, but Pagans will smile knowingly.
Another mythological motif which must surely arrest our attention at this time of year is that of the descent of the God or Goddess into the Underworld. Perhaps we see this most clearly in the Christian tradition. Beginning with his death on the cross on Good Friday, it is said that Jesus "descended into hell" for the three days that his body lay entombed. But on the third day (that is, Easter Sunday), his body and soul rejoined, he arose from the dead and ascended into heaven. By a strange "coincidence", most ancient Pagan religions speak of the Goddess descending into the Underworld, also for a period of three days.
Why three days? If we remember that we are here dealing with the lunar aspect of the Goddess, the reason should be obvious. As the text of one Book of Shadows gives it, "...as the moon waxes and wanes, and walks three nights in darkness, so the Goddess once spent three nights in the Kingdom of Death." In our modern world, alienated as it is from nature, we tend to mark the time of the New Moon (when no moon is visible) as a single date on a calendar. We tend to forget that the moon is also hidden from our view on the day before and the day after our calendar date. But this did not go unnoticed by our ancestors, who always speak of the Goddess's sojourn into the land of Death as lasting for three days. Is it any wonder then, that we celebrate the next Full Moon (the Eostara) as the return of the Goddess from chthonic regions?
Naturally, this is the season to celebrate the victory of life over death, as any nature-lover will affirm. And the Christian religion was not misguided by celebrating Christ's victory over death at this same season. Nor is Christ the only solar hero to journey into the underworld. King Arthur, for example, does the same thing when he sets sail in his magical ship, Prydwen, to bring back precious gifts (i.e. the gifts of life) from the Land of the Dead, as we are told in the "Mabinogi". Welsh triads allude to Gwydion and Amaethon doing much the same thing. In fact, this theme is so universal that mythologists refer to it by a common phrase, "the harrowing of hell".
However, one might conjecture that the descent into hell, or the land of the dead, was originally accomplished, not by a solar male deity, but by a lunar female deity. It is Nature Herself who, in Spring, returns from the Underworld with her gift of abundant life. Solar heroes may have laid claim to this theme much later. The very fact that we are dealing with a three-day period of absence should tell us we are dealing with a lunar, not solar, theme. (Although one must make exception for those occasional MALE lunar deities, such as the Assyrian god, Sin.) At any rate, one of the nicest modern renditions of the harrowing of hell appears in many Books of Shadows as "The Descent of the Goddess". Lady Day may be especially appropriate for the celebration of this theme, whether by storytelling, reading, or dramatic re-enactment.
For modern Witches, Lady Day is one of the Lesser Sabbats or Low Holidays of the year, one of the four quarter-days. And what date will Witches choose to celebrate? They may choose the traditional folk "fixed" date of March 25th, starting on its Eve. Or they may choose the actual equinox point, when the Sun crosses the Equator and enters the astrological sign of Aries.
A new of beginnings, action, planting and spells for future gains. A time to go out for nature walks, celebrating the renewed life. Seeds are blessed for future plantings.
Ostara Traditions
Spring egg hunts have origins in many lands. Some think that the egg hunt was symbolic of our ancestors, who would search for birds nests in early Spring. The eggs in them provided much needed fresh protein to add to the diet after a long, lean winter. Of course, egg hunts also have origins in India and China, where they were tied to the Karmic belief that we must each find our own path in each new life. Egg hunts became popular in the United States thanks to Abraham Lincoln, who, in 1862, invited children form the Washington D.C. area to hunt for eggs on the White House lawn. This tradition continues even today.
Eggs were buried by the Teutons to infuse the Earth with the life-giving properties of the egg. They were planted in fields, flower beds, window boxes and even animal barns for fertility. People would eat eggs in order to gain from the life-giving benefits of the egg.
The Teutons believed it was very bad luck to wear your spring clothes before Ostara. They would secretly work all winter on beautiful new clothing for the Ostara celebration. This is where the tradition of having new, fancy clothes for Easter morning came from. It is also the origin of the 'Easter parade' to show off the new, beautiful clothing you now have.
One activity is to go out to a field and collect wild flowers, or go to a florist and buy a couple that appeal. Take them home and look up their meanings. The flowers chosen reflect your thoughts and emotions.
Other activities can include: Light a fire in the circle during your Ostra rite, or light the fire in a cauldron place a lit green candle in a dish full of moist earth, let it burn down and then bury the remainders (except the dish) Plant some seeds in pots or in your garden Dye or paint eggs with pagan/wiccan symbols on them and God/Goddess signs Fill up a dish with green yellow candies and leave them out for everyone to enjoy
The correct day is the first full moon after the equinox. The reason for this was because the goddess Eostre was highly interwoven with lunar lore.
Silver Fox
"It is all true, it is not true. The more I tell you, the more I shall lie. What is story but jesting Pilate's cry. I am not paid to tell you the truth."
Jane Yolen; The Storyteller
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ø¤º°` Earthwise ø¤º°`
<:::::::::::::::::::::::::::::]]======0
The Worldwide Spirit of Paganism
in Australia, America & Worldwide!
Take a Look at Our Huge EBay Store
For all your Magickal & Ritual Supplies
http://stores.ebay.com.au/Astarte-Earthwise
___________________________________________________________________________
This Earthwise Book of Shadows group holds the expectation
that a tolerant, mature and respectful dialogue be strived
for in our communications with each other. Members are
encouraged to challenge anyone not adhering to these
principles and to notify the list owner Astarte if you are
offended by a posting, write to me at
earthwise@bigpond.com
Thank you.
___________________________________________________________________________
Earthwise is a world wide group.
We are based in Western Sydney, NSW. Australia.
Located in the valley before the beautiful Blue Mountains were
we hold sacred rituals, workshops, social events and outings,
for more information see our calendar of events at Witches Meetup
http://witches.meetup.com/1293/
___________________________________________________________________________
Astarte also works full time as a Psychic Counsellor, Medium,
Clairvoyant, Healer and Teacher.
If she can be of assistance to you, please see her home page at
www.earthwise.net.au
___________________________________________________________________________
ARE YOU CREATIVE?
Astarte is always sourcing new suppliers of quality pagan
related items, to purchase wholesale or even put on consignment,
she willing to purchase worldwide items for the Earthwise Store.
If you have something of interest please contact Astarte
earthwise@bigpond.com
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