Goddess of the Week

This is the first time I've picked Ceres for the Goddess of the Week. Not too surprising given the time of year up here, that being late summer with its long golden days and the harvest fast approaching.

Ceres is the Roman Earth Goddess, and is especial patroness of the cereal crops like wheat, barley, and spelt. Her name comes from a root meaning 'to grow' or 'to nourish'; and cereal means 'that of Ceres.' She is a very old Goddess, and though She was early on assimilated to the Greek Great Mother Demeter, Her roots go back at least as far as the beginning days of Rome.

She is a Goddess of women, nourishment and growth; at Her rites in August, which were only open to women, She was given the first fruits of the harvest.

Though it is not yet quite the traditional harvest time, I can tell you that my garden at least is currently overflowing with tomatoes and green beans. (It would be overflowing with other stuff, had not the rabbits/groundhogs/deer nibbled everything else to the ground. One of these days, dammit, I will grow some zucchini.)

So, then, I'd say Ceres this week is about early harvest, a sort of preliminary or unlooked-for bit of abundance and bounty; something, maybe, that you were not expecting was going to be done or ready quite so soon. Something, even, that you may not recognize as a harvest. Look around. See what in your life is already bearing fruit.

Also, could be that you are looking at the beginning signs of a major harvest or the first stirrings that a project is finally coming to completion. Keep tending to it, for it is not over yet; it also may require a bit of work to keep up as the harvest continues to roll in.

What does She say?

I bring beginnings, too, don't forget; I am the Goddess of the sprouting seed. Yes, of course being who I am my timing, my schedule is intrinsically bound to the seasons; still, beginnings, creation, growth, new or continued is mine. So while you plan for the harvest, and it is wise to do so, look also to the seeds that are coming up still. There are all kinds of harvests. One might even plant lettuce in December, further north than you might have thought possible. So do not forget to look to a circumstance of what you might think unusual timing. It is still mine.

But mostly, yes, harvest. Gather the wealth in to you and yours; tend the plants and the fields, whatever form they make take; and remember to give thanks. Gratitude always makes the crops grow higher and more abundant. This I promise you.

Happy Happy Happy!!

Well I sat down to write today, encouraged by the feedback I had gotten from a recent post I'd left at the Aeclectic Tarot Forum (if you'd like to participate over there it's in the Tarot Deck Creation board, although, granted, my deck isn't a Tarot one but an Oracle, as they call them), and having gotten overwhelmed by just how much information there is out there on Diana (and me without a copy of Roman Religion and the Cult of Diana at Aricia--can you tell I am lusting, lusting, after this book?), so much information, actually, as to be almost useless (kinda like trying to define just what Isis is the 'Goddess of' in a single sentence) I instead decided that maybe I'd be best off getting back into the groove of things by starting a little smaller. So I chose Laverna, the Goddess of Thieves, as a good place to start.

And so I went through the books I've got on Roman religion (most of which just say She had an altar in Rome by the gate named after Her the porta Lavernalis, and a grove somewhere near by); and after going through those I turned to the internet.

Where I found that someone had lifted, word for word and including my titles and picture, and not of course crediting me, my entry for Laverna on a random forum. I couldn't decide at first if it was simply Divine irony (being that She is Goddess of thieves) or if it was in fact worth getting my panties in a bunch about; in the end I concluded, that, since I'd have to sign up to the damned place to comment that it wasn't worth my time.

And so I went through my usual routine of research for the Roman Goddesses, looking up the Latin, &c. When I came to an old bookmark, an old sad bookmark.

It was for the Ancient Library site, one that used to have the entirety of William Smith's 3700-page Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology, which, though written in 1867, is still an indispensable resource, and surprisingly less outdated than you'd think. After all, in the 19th century they had pretty much all the texts we have now; and though some of the interpretations may have changed, the basic references are the same.

But Ancient Library had disappeared a while back, I don't know why (funding, maybe?) and that had made me very, very, sad. Now, Smith's stuff has also been entered into Perseus over at Tufts, but I've never been able to get that site to work in anything approaching a timely fashion, and, so, well, rather than tear my hair out I just kind of gave up on the damned thing.

But lo and behold today when I nostalgically clicked on the Ancient Library link there it was, back to its former glory! I suppose only a Goddess-geek like me finds this that wonderful, but let me tell you it has made my day.

Because it will make writing the Goddess Oracle Deck book a Hel of a lot easier. I'm taking it as a sign.

Goddess of the Week

And for the third time we get the Black Virgin.

My first thought upon seeing Her was that, gee, maybe I should get around to painting an image of Cybele one of these days. (It surprises me the major Goddesses I have not drawn; there are some interesting loopholes in my work, like, say, Demeter. All right then, I'll officially take that as a hint.)

And along those lines I'm inclined to interpret this card, for this week anyway, as Cybele Herself, and not just as an unusual form of the Virgin Mary Who is linked to the worship of the old Goddesses such as Cybele and Isis. After all, this card is about roots, and the old under the mask of the new: what would happen if this time we focused on the old, those roots?

Now, Cybele is an ancient Anatolian Goddess, Anatolia being the name for (roughly) modern Turkey; Her worship was adopted in Greece, and later Rome. She was known for orgiastic worship, with wild dances and drumming and cymbal-playing; but Her worship was looked upon a little askance, at least by the Romans (who could be pretty uptight about some things, like, oh I don't know, fun). Probably this was because, in addition to the raucous partying aspect, some of Her priests practiced self-castration, in imitation of the story of Attys, the beloved of the Goddess.

Attys was a beautiful boy, the son of a river-nymph, conceived when She ate an almond (i.e. parthenogenetically, a virgin birth); Cybele fell in love with Him, and made Him promise to be faithful to Her. Her swore He would; but in time He fell in love with a hamadryad named Sagaritis. When Cybele found out She cut the nymph's tree down, thus killing Sagaritis; and Attys went mad on a mountaintop, castrating Himself. He died under a pine tree, and the blood from His wound sprang up as violets.

A three-day festival was celebrated to Him in the Spring, in which a pine tree was decorated with violets (echoes of the Maypole, though I don't know that they are necessarily connected); and for two days the participants mourned and searched for Attys with wild rites. On the third day, however, He was found; and the mourning and sadness turned to joy at His rebirth.

Attys, then, falls into the category of the (vegetation) God Who dies and is reborn, like Dionysos, Adonis, or even Inanna's Dumuzi; and Cybele, as the Great Nature Mother, is properly His lover (or mother).

That, of course, is the Classical version of Her story. But we are interested in roots today: so what of Cybele's actual Anatolian origins?

Well, first of all, the Attys story is something that was attached to Cybele at rather a late date and is not known before the 6th century BCE. Cybele Herself is a particularly complex Goddess, and would appear to have a variety of strands making Her up; one of them may trace back to the deified Sumerian Queen Kubaba, Who was eventually adopted into the Hittite pantheon through the Hurrians, where She was identified with Hannahhannah (She, Who, in the story of Telipinu sent the bee to wake Him); She may also be related to the Hurrian Mother-Goddess Hebat. She may even, though this is pretty speculative, be related to the Goddess depicted in the famous statue from Çatalhöyük, a neolithic city in southern Anatolia, dating from the eight to sixth millennia BCE. This small statue shows a large, nearly nude woman perhaps giving birth, seated on a throne flanked by lionesses; though there is quite a large gap in time, it does recall later depictions of Cybele, Who was shown in much the same way, enthroned with a lion to either side.

Old roots, then. Old Mountain Mother Cybele, old as the hills, old as the mountains; old as the first cities, whose walls She wears as crown. She is wildness and civilization both; or, She is the wildness within us that does not go away despite civilization.

And I recall, that while I was away last week on my vacation at an event of the large festival type, that one night I stood behind the drummers drumming loud and wild and watched the dancers, while I added my zils, my little finger cymbals, to the drumming. I have, myself, been celebrating Cybele.

So, then, what does She have to say?

Old Mountain Mother am I. Yes. I am old, old old, old as the first stirrings of humans, old as the first bands of hunters following the wild animals, old as the green and dangerous mountains themselves.

And I am still here.

Remember your wildness; it will connect you with something vital, something not to be ignored, something that must be remembered to life live best; the drum is the heartbeat, after all, the very center of who you are.

Fireworks and drumming and dancing, all open your heart, all BAM! explode it out, open it up, loudly, joyously, raucously. It must needs be done. Especially now, when the world is inhabited by the timid, those who have forgotten what it is like to live.

Strip off your civilization! Dance far into the night! Collapse exhausted at dawn, then do it again the next night! Mourn, mourn the old you, then celebrate the new that is born through my grace; I will be here to birth you.

Always.

Well then! What do you think?

Home Again Home Again Jiggetty Jig

I've been to London to visit a pig?

No, wait, that's not quite right.

At any rate I am back; I will have a Goddess of the Week up tonight.

Off A While

Just a note to say that I will be off on a trip for the next couple of weeks and incommunicado, so there will be no Goddess of the Week posts until I get back, sometime in the first week of August.

Goddess of the Week

Amaterasu is the Japanese Sun-Goddess; She represents order and civilization. She is said to have invented weaving and rice cultivation, and is still honored today as the foremother of the Imperial line. She came up here just around the time of Samhain here in the northern hemisphere.

I keep thinking of the theme of opposites, of both the dark and the light. Maybe it's just that the weather here in New England has not felt much like summer, being uncommonly cool and rainy, but I have had this craving for Yule and for the dark. And Amaterasu, here, as I've shown Her, is meant to be a rising Sun, one just coming out into the world again after the winter solstice.

Now of course it is not the middle of winter here, rain or no; but it is the middle of winter in the southern hemisphere.

I don't know if it's just me, but lately I think these cards have been picking up on a theme of a certain kind of balance, on a world-wide scale, balance of a whole, entire kind; at any one moment in time taking the earth as a whole there is both night and day, dark and light, winter and summer. Not balance as in one after the other, or each in their own time, a point of view one necessarily has as a creature who can only be in one place at one time; but a global, bigger than ourselves, and/both, big picture, paradoxical, almost, kind of balance. This is about both brilliant light and the deepest dark at once. And for some reason it seems important at this time that we are able to hold both the dark and the light in our minds simultaneously.

Now, in this picture I have drawn Amaterasu as the rising sun, the sun of increase and growing brightness, the sun coaxed from Her hidey-hole in a cave and coming out to discover Her own beauty. So I would usually interpret this card as increase, growing, growth, the pull upward towards the light; but I think this time given all that talk about balance we must be aware also that there is a pull in the opposite direction as well. Rather how the tide is not only a swelling in the ocean on the side of the Earth which faces the Moon, but a swelling on the opposite side as well (and I'm going to guess mathematically an ellipse, like an orbit). This week it may feel like we are being pulled in two directions at once; but consider that it may be a deepening, a broadening of horizons and experience.

(I can see Her. She is all in white, very brilliant, black black hair flowing like water, face chalked in white like in a Heian painting; there is a light behind Her and She is nearly too bright to look at.)

So I ask, as always, What do You have to say?

I am glory and brilliance; I am the sudden flash of your own beauty and brilliance seen in the mirror. Do not be ashamed to look, nor afraid. I am intelligence; I am very bright, after all, of light and of mind.

I challenge you to recognize your own brilliance.

My gaze is piercing, my insight keen, my ability to find the truth very great. Sunshine is the best disinfectant, is it not?

I watch from the sky. I have more pull than the moon on water. As I rise, as I grow in strength so do the plants rise and grow. It is a longer cycle to be sure; do not make the mistake of thinking it applicable only to Gods, or men, the male; after all I am a Goddess, a female. And I am an ancestor, a great ancestor; my line continues even today, and is known and honored as mine.

I bring justice and balance, and, and this is important, rest. Rest in the heat of day. Even I had to cease from my relentless work and rest in the dark and the quiet for a time. If it is too bright, go someplace dark. This is balance, this is justice.

She is very strong, certainly, and very very very smart. Brilliant, in fact.

I am finding I am having a difficult time articulating this idea of balance as a whole; I think I need to go back and review the past entries in the Goddess of the Week feature to see, maybe, a larger pattern.

What do you think of all this?

Even More Critters

I've been knitting and sewing up a storm the last couple days, and so have another batch of critters to put up at the Etsy store. They include:

This guy, in a lovely soft raspberry mohair, that, though it's synthetic is, seriously, kitteny soft:



Another one of the striped cats, this time in an op-artish bright red and bright turquoise stripe:



And another of the little Satan-guys:



Also, these are toys twelve, thirteen, and fourteen of the One Hundred Toys Project. That's almost a sixth of the way there!

More Critters Up at The Imporium

Just put these three guys up at The Imporium:

This one, a red and black knitty kitty



This purple fuzzy monster dude



And this guy, a funny-looking imp with a mohawk



I've already sold two of the ones of the batch I put up before, so if you want them you might want to hurry!

The Imporium Grand Opening!

That's right, the Imporium, my new shop at Etsy, is now open! Check it out:

The Imporium at Etsy

Right now I've got four of the knitty-kitties up, three stripeys, one in shades of blue, one in green and chartreuse, one in chartreuse and purple, and a solid-colored one in a purple/magenta heather fuzzy yarn, with more to follow.

Remember, for all your familiar needs (har har), the Imporium is the place to be!

Goddess of the Week

The Black Virgin last showed up here in April for Easter week back in the spring.

As I said in the earlier post, the Black Madonna is an unusual mostly European type of the Virgin Mary depicted with dark or black skin; various reasons are given for this coloration, including mundane things like candle soot or changes in pigment over time. (Such effect, however, seems to be limited to paintings or statues of the Virgin Mary, not, to, oh I don't know, statues of Jesus or something.) More than a few of the Black Madonnas are from churches sited over former temples to the Goddess in one form or another, so She has been linked to the worship of older Goddesses such as Isis and Cybele of Anatolia.

In painting Her for the deck, I had in my head the famous Stone of Cybele, a black stone fallen from the heavens and regarded as sacred, as aeroliths often were in that part of the world; according to some traditions it was incorporated into a statue of the Goddess, though according to others it was left unadorned and unshaped. I was going with the former idea when I painted Her, hence the face black like Cybele's Stone while the rest of Her is the typical European version of the Madonna.

So, the Black Virgin represents a strange mix of old and new. Her roots are old, very old; and since She proved too powerful and too well-loved to be out-and-out destroyed, She was adapted into the new faith with a little change of clothing. But She is still there, and so has been worshiped continuously for a couple thousand years at the least.

What in your life now has such old roots? Look for them; finding the old habits, old threads, old connections is important this week. Also be aware of the process by which something has changed, or been adapted to fit--has it been done in an ethical manner? Is this adaptation or appropriation? What, also, in you has had to go underground for a while, because showing its true face was a risk or a danger? It may very well be time to release that disguise, and let that true part of you show.

Also I'm getting renewal, still, probably because the Black Virgin last showed up around Easter-time, and because of the cards I've picked the last two weeks; I don't know what's up, and I couldn't even tell you how that relates to my own circumstances. Perhaps it's a slow kind of renewal, one taking place in the depths and hard to see right now? I suspect it will become apparent soon enough.

What does She say?

I am here. I am always here. Whatever face I wear I am here. I am the Great Mother and so long as there is life on this Earth then I will be here, for there is no life without mothers.

I am here as Mother to tell you it is being born. The World-Egg has a hairline crack; it will soon split wide and a new life, a new way of being shall be. To you it may seem slow, you whose lives are so short; but in the life of the Earth it is very short indeed. And it has begun. There is no stopping it. A baby cannot be unborn.

For each of you, my children? Remember me, seek me out in your lives, in the mundane, the worldly, the earth, all those things. Find me wherever you are. For I am there hidden in plain sight, before all your eyes all this time with that secret smile in my eyes. I know Who I am. I have never forgotten it.

Remember, the trials of your time are birth-throes. Remember that. It is very important that you do. It will help you to understand, and it will keep fear away. And especially remember, I know what I am doing.

Well. What do you think?

Goddess of the Week

Nü Kua, the primaeval Chinese Goddess credited with creating the human race, is another repeat Goddess, last seen here on the 11th of January in the middle of the winter hibernation season, that time of preparation for the coming spring. She appears here, again, as close to an even half-year as is about possible. Interestingly enough, that means the southern hemisphere is in the same place, cycle-wise, as the north was when She was last here, which I find a marvelous bit of symmetry and balance.

And yes, She is in a lot of ways concerned with balance; but it's not so much a black-and-white-and-shades-of-grey sort but a rounder, fuller one.

In the legend Nü Kua was the one to repair the sky after a great battle had ripped it apart. She put to right what had been broken, so that the world could begin anew. To do so She used stones of five colors, symbolising the five elements, the Wu Xing, of the Chinese system: wood, fire, earth, metal, and water. The five elements of the Chinese are commonly thought of as a cycle, of movement or stages; and so this is a balance that is three-dimensional, in motion and always changing.

(And yes, given that it is five elements interacting a lot of the diagrams of the Wu Xing are pentacle-shaped; I'm not sure if that is traditional, though, or a more Western interpretation. Still, it certainly resonates with a Witch and a Pagan such as myself.)

So, then: something has been torn down or broken, something of a rather basic sort. This something can be repaired, but you can't just patch it; it will need to be remade from the basic stuff of it, its elements. Now is the time to judge just what elements are before you. What do you have? What do you lack? What must be added at the start of remaking things to ensure it will be a balanced venture from the start?

Keep in mind that Nü Kua was often depicted in serpent-form, that ancient symbol of renewal. What is this skin you are shedding, or have already shed? What will you not make use of in your rebuilding efforts?

Now last week for whatever reason the young Norse Goddess Idun was coming across to me in a decidedly wintry-crone manner; interpreting Her more properly as a Goddess of youth and springtime and renewal, however, would dovetail very nicely with Nü Kua's appearance this week. And I think that including Idun here as a previous step is important, as is acknowledging her oddly wintry appearance last week in the midst of my northern summer; they are both about balance. There is a theme of completeness, of a greater whole in all of this, I think. What do you see? Can you back up far enough to take it all in? Do you have that kind of perspective now?

And so I ask again, as always, for a message from the Goddess. And Nü Kua says:

My people are in turmoil. Their sky is falling, is broken; remember those who have died in China these last few days. Half a world away from you, remember what is happening. Summer and winter, north and south; but also west and east.

But yes, you are on the right track. Also, though, it is not just the four directions, the legs of the turtle, that stability that four represents; there is the fifth, too, the living one that sets it all in motion. It is a tricky thing, to learn balance within movement. But you have the knack, all of you, inborn to you each. And I would know; for I placed it there in within you all, didn't I?

Repair this world in balance and stability, strength and rightness. The world very much needs balance right now. If you do not know where to begin, start with your own self. Study it, learn it, live it; let it radiate and ripple from you--that will begin setting the rest of things to right.

What do you think?

Knitty Kitties

A sneak peek at about half the batch of new knitty kitties, to be put up for sale in my soon-to-be Etsy shoppe. (Yes, with two P's and an E. We're highfalutin', don'tcha know).

Also, toys number seven through eleven of the One Hundred Toys Project.

Goddess of the Week

Idun (also spelled Iðunn) is the Norse Goddess of springtime and youth Who keeps the golden apples that keep the Gods eternally young. Her name means "Ever-young" or "She Who Renews." She passes Her apples out at feasts, and no matter how many She takes from Her basket the same amount remain within.

She was once enticed out by one Loki to be captured by the jötunn (giant) Thjazi or Þjazi (Skaði's father, by the by) who desired the apples; though once imprisoned, to Thjazi's dismay, She refused to share them.

Without Idun the Gods soon began to age; and so they sent Loki out to retrieve Her on pain of death, which He did, though not without a bit of drama. But all was made right in the end, and She was returned unscathed; and the Gods were soon young and strong again.

There is another, though fragmentary legend about Idun: one day Idun accidentally slipped down into Niflheim, the land of mists and cold, where Hel's realm is located. Once there She fell into a stupor or coma; and though Her husband Bragi and other Gods tried to warm Her up by wrapping Her in furs She would not respond. The other Gods eventually left, but Bragi promised to remain with Her until She could be roused.

That's where that story breaks off; but we can see in both tales the common idea of youth and renewal being absent for a time, in much the way that winter and cold descend upon the land every year.

I don't think, however, that Her appearance now is connected with the actual seasons, given we just had a solstice and aren't particularly near springtime in either hemisphere; more likely this is a personal sort of renewal to be had this week. Perhaps something from your youth or childhood may be rekindled now, or may prove inspirational; how may you find renewal through such things?

Alternately, what have you been hoarding? What resources or energy have you been keeping close? There is no need to hoard; this energy is self-renewing and generous now. Remember that no matter how many apples Idun takes from Her basket, there are always the same amount left.

And so I ask Her, What do You have to say to us this week?

Hoard, hoard, spare a penny
I am one and I am many
Old is new and new is old
All the world will end in cold

Yes I am young, for spring is young. But likewise I am ancient too, for spring is the most ancient of all.

All lies within the apple. It is eternal; it is the food of the dead. Who are eternal, after all.

I am the living face of Hel. Where do you think I am in the winter?

It is more complicated than you think. I am not all shining blond hair and big blue eyes; I am the process by which the old becomes new. It is not a painless one. But you knew that, didn't you?

For to be eternally renewed, you must always be dying. Not so fun now, is it? But take it. It is your best, truest path.

And then She is gone, very very quickly, like a blast of the north wind.

That was not at all what I was expecting, and I am not sure what to do with that. What do you think? Any ideas?

Flashy Panel

Ooooh check this out:





Now if I were the type to have a MySpace page (I'm not; I've been dragged kicking and screaming into this technology stuff as it is and would much rather sit on the porch yelling at the damn kids to just GET OFF MY LAWN ALREADY) this would fit quite nicely. I can't decide if it's hypnotic or vertigo-inducing, but still, kind of fun.

New Card Line at Zazzle!

I've put everybody up but the Sheila-na-Gig (for some reason, publishers seem to think She is 'obscene'), including the new version of al-Uzza and the second Hera I did for the SageWoman cover.

There are several nice things about Zazzle's cards: first, you can customize the inside to read whatever you like at no extra cost; second, you start seeing discounts when you buy ten or more of them (and they'll put them in a box too); and, third, and at long last, you can mix and match cards within your set.

So go check it out! Here's the link.

ETA: Whoa, checked my email and apparently someone at Zazzle likes my Hekate card, as it's been put up on their Awards Showcase, for today anyway. The thing wasn't even up an hour!