Goddess of the Week

I shuffled, honest!

It would seem that last week's energy is sticking around for another week, and that we are being called upon to dig deeper into Blodeuwedd's myth.

As I said in last week's post, in the Welsh tale, Blodeuwedd was created from flowers to be the wife of Lleu after His mother Arianrhod set a curse on Him, saying He would never have a wife from any race of the earth. But Blodeuwedd betrayed Him, and helped to cause His death (or His rebirth, anyway); and as punishment She was changed into an owl.

Now, that She was transformed into an owl means the owl was Hers anyway; and a Welsh name for the owl is Her name, blodeuwedd, which means "Face Like A Flower." In another Welsh legend, Culhwch and Olwen, King Arthur asks various old animals for help, in seeking the lost youth Mabon son of Modron; but none of the animals know his whereabouts, and so each brings him to an animal who is older and wiser still. The Owl of Cwn Calwyd is the third of the animals Arthur asks for information, and she refers him to the Eagle of Gwernabwy, "the oldest creature in the world." (Not that he knows either; in the end it is the Salmon of Llyn Llyw, who had once dragged the Eagle "down into the depths" who does know where Mabon is.)

So the owl is associated in Welsh legend with great age as well as great knowledge, both of which link it with the Crone; and in Scotland, another Celtic country, the owl is known as cailleach oidhche, the Old Hag of the Night. This is the wisdom of the dark, the night; and of winter, too, as the Cailleach is also the name of a constellation of Celtic Goddesses Who personify that season.

Perhaps we are being asked to look into the darkness, now, into the winter and the cold, and to see the wisdom and the beauty there. This is the time that the darkness gets deeper and deeper (in the northern lands, anyway). This is the time also that it is traditional to celebrate, with great festivals, joy, mirth, and the hanging of lights; but the last couple of years these traditions have felt to me to be based, somewhat, in denial of the dark. (Or faith, perhaps, in the light returning.) I think what this card is saying is that we do need to sit with this dark and acknowledge it, for a spell, at least. It will turn soon enough.

So I asked Her, What do we have to learn from You this week? And She said:

I am the turning of the earth. I am the moving balance. I am the force of spring which follows autumn which follows spring which follows autumn. I am the balance and the contrast. I am the in-between. The realms of neither this nor that, or both this and that, are mine. The black night and the white snow both. I am the black in the white and the white in the black; nothing is purely one or the other, ever. Winter descends. You descend. All is white.

And rebirth also is mine, though the circumstances may seem unlikely.

Why am I here again this week?

Because I have not yet left.

Well, what do you think?