Festival of Carna

• Themes: Health; Kinship; Change; Opportunity
• Symbols: Beans; Pork
• Presiding Goddess: Carna

About Carna:

Goddess of protection, and of health and well-being of humans, especially small children. She presided over the intestines, heart, and other human organs. Some scholars have described Carna as being a Goddess of good digestion.

When parents appealed to Carna, this Goddess would enter the home and perform certain rites to bar a strix from entering the house. The strix was sort of a supernatural screech owl. If this evil creature could, it would fly in at night and eat a sleeping child’s intestines so the child would not get good nourishment and waste away.

To do today:

Romans traditionally gathered with their family on this day, offering Carna beans and pork to thank her for continued good health. This translates into a meal of pork, beans, and bacon to internalize her well-being! If you’re a vegetarian, just stick with the beans.

To get Carna’s assistance in getting an opportunity to open up, try this bit of sympathetic magic: Take any bean and go to your door. Stand before the door and say:

Carna, help this magic begin;
my future turns on your hinge.
Open the way, starting today!

Open the door as you say “open the way” and put the bean outside in a safe place to draw Carna’s opportunities to you.

To permanently close a chapter in your life, just alter the spell a bit. This time begin with the door open, saying:

Carna, help me leave the past behind;
by this spell this situation bind.
Away it goes, the door is closed!

Put the bean outside the door and close it as you say “the door is closed,” leaving the problem outside your life.

From: 365 Goddess
and The Goddess Dictionary