Yearly Archives: 2017
Doreen Virtue in her book Earth Angels tells how some of us are Incarnated Elementals (Nature Spirits) and animals. There are five categories of Earth Angels: Wise Ones, Incarnated Angels, Starpeople, Walk-Ins, and Incarnated Elementals. According to Doreen, the following are characteristics of each category:
Incarnated Angels tend to – have sweet, heart shaped faces; have overeating and weight issues; be a fixed astrological sign (Leo, Taurus, Sagittarius, Scorpio and Aquarius); be professional helpers (teachers, healers, customer service); lighten or highlight their hair; have difficulty saying no; love angel objects; have extra guardian angels; seem to glow; fall in love with someone’s potential and tend to coax their greatness; have co-dependent relationships with addicts; have voluptuous bodies; have mellow personalities; stay in relationships much longer than they should; and obey rules.
Incarnated Elementals/Nature Spirits tend to – disobey rules; have mischief in their eyes; have slim bodies or fast metabolisms; have sensitive nervous systems; be addicts; love to party; prefer the company of animals over people; be warriors for the Earth; love nature; have comedic, musical or artistic skills; be noncommittal or immature; have Celtic origins; play practical jokes; fiercely independent; have finances that are feast or famine; and have powerful energy to manifest things they desire.
Star People tend to – be socially awkward; believe in UFO’s or ET’s; be compulsively thoughtful without need for appreciation; conduct Reiki or other energy healing; follow their life’s mission which may be more important than getting married or having kids; and don’t feel Earth is their home.
Walk-In’s tend to – have had a life changing accident or experience; have attempted suicide; have changed names; are “different” than they used to be; have made drastic changes to their life; and have a deep spiritual knowledge. (through a life changing event or near death experience, these souls have entered into a body mid-life.)
Wise Ones tend to – get along well with most people; have magical abilities; have past life memories of Arthurian or Atlantean times; believe that they were persecuted for their beliefs in a past life; study tarot or astrology; and be drawn to earth-based spirituality like shamanism or full-moon ceremonies.
- Also known as: Hella, Hela
- Origin: Norse
- Colors: Black and white
- Rune: Hagalaz
- Mount: Hel rides a black mare
- Animals: She has a pack of dogs, the original Hell Hounds, as well as horses and wolves
- Spirit allies: Hel’s staff includes servants named “Delay” (male) and “Slowness” (female)
Manifestations:
Hel is simultaneously half-dead and half-alive. Half of her body (cut vertically) is that of a fair, beautiful woman; the other half is necrotized flesh. She is half living woman, half corpse.
Attributes:
Rake and broom; the Black Plague was especially devastating in Scandinavia. Allegedly Hel roamed the land armed with her rake and broom. Villages totally wiped out by the Plague were said to have been swept away; where there were survivors, Hel had raked instead.
The Mythology:
Once upon a time, being sent to Hel may have been inevitable, but it wasn’t perceived as punishment: Hel, daughter of Angerboda and Loki, rules the Norse realm of the dead. She is the keeper of the souls of the departed. Those who die at sea or in battle have other destinations; everyone else goes to Hel, who welcomes them into her home, Helhaim, regardless of whether they were good, bad, sinful, or saintly while alive.
Hel’s realm is not a sulphurous, fiery torture chamber. Rather it is a kind of inn or way station for the dead, although once checked in, one can never check out. Helhaim is a bleak gray, damp, misty realm; the concept of heat as punishment was imported from hotter, southern climes alongside Christianity. Lack of warmth with no hope of Spring was the Norse equivalent of desolation. That said, some regions of Helhaim are more comfortable than others; Hel judges and decides exactly where each individual soul is directed.
Hel’s name may derive from the Old German halja, meaning “covering.” She may or may not be the same spirit as Hulda (Holle). Hel and her brothers, a wolf and a snake, were raised by their mother, the witch Angerboda, in the Iron Wood. Prophecy suggested that the siblings would someday lead a Host of Destruction against the Aesir, and so Odin had them “brought” to Asgard, where each was ultimately entrapped. Odin personally seized Hel and flung her as far as he could; she landed in the Realm of Death and became its Queen. She lives in a great hall, Eliundnir, within Helhaim. She remains destined to lead an uprising of rebellious spirits and ghosts.
Hel manifests in dreams, most famously to Balder, Odin’s son. She appeared to him three days before his death, advising him (accurately) that in three days she would clasp him in her arms. Because her father was instrumental in killing Balder, it’s unclear how much inside information Hel possessed.
Places:
Mount Hekla, an active volcano in southern Iceland, was allegedly among the entrances to Hel’s realm. A nearby town is named Hella. Some have suggested that the mountain shares its name with the goddess, although others protest that Hekla means “slab” or covering,” which would still make it cognate with Hel as that is what her name means, too. It’s also theorized that the Belgian city of Hal may be named in her honor.
Feast Days:
The Anglo-Saxon and Norse Goddess of the Underworld is honored annually on the Day of Hel (July 10th) with prayers, the lighting of black candles, and offerings of rose petals.
Found in: Encyclopedia of Spirits
- Also known as: Bella Donna; Duellona
- Origin: Rome; possibly Etruscan
- Feast Day: June 3
Bellona, Goddess of War and Conquest, was once extremely popular with Roman soldiers. Roman senate meetings pertaining to foreign wars were conducted in Bellona’s temple on the Capitoline Hill.
Bellona’s name derives from the same root as bellicose and belligerent. Some consider it safer to call her Bella Donna. Bella Donna, literally “Beautiful Lady,” contains the name Bellona within it. It may be a euphemistic pun so that one could refer to Bellona without actually calling upon this beautiful but fierce lady.
Classical Roman mythology classifies Bellona, Lady of War, as belonging to the family of Mars. She is variously described as the wife or sister of Mars, less often his daughter, and sometimes his charioteer or nurse.
- Favored people: Soldiers, those who battle.
- Manifestation: A beautiful woman with long windswept hair, girded for battle.
- Attributes: Scourge; whip (to whip troops into frenzy); torch (to light her opponents’ funeral pyres).
- Sacred plant: Belladonna, (atropa belladonna), a beautiful but lethal killer, shares her essence.
- Sacred Sites: In addition to her Roman temple, Bellona had a temple outside York, England, and a shrine in Arfeuilles, France, now home of the Black Madonna of the Hollies. She was venerated wherever Roman soldiers traveled.
This goddess did not play a significant role in either myth or legend, and her worship appears to have been promoted in Rome chiefly by the family of the Claudii, whose Sabine origin, together with their use of the name of Nero, has suggested an identification of Bellona with the Sabine war goddess Nerio.
Her temple at Rome, dedicated by Appius Claudius Caecus (296 B.C.) in fulfillment of a a vow during the Third Samnite War with the Samnites and Etruscans, stood in the Campus Martius, near the Flaminian Circus and Porta Carmentalis (the Carmenta gate), and outside the gates of the city. It was there that the senate met to discuss a general’s claim to a triumph, and to receive ambassadors from foreign states. In front of it was the columna bellica, where the fetialis ceremony of declaring war was performed, in which a spear was cast against the distant enemy.
Note:
This native Italian goddess should not be mistaken for the Asiatic Bellona, whose worship was introduced into Rome apparently by Sulla, to whom she had appeared, urging him to march to Rome and bathe in the blood of his enemies. Her feast day was changed to the 24th of March, after the confusion of the Roman Bellona with her Asiatic namesake. See Day of Blood
In his book Deutsche Mythologie (1835), Jacob Grimm noted that Russians used the word kupala to describe the bonfires they lit at the summer solstice, and recorded that some people explained the word as the name Kupulo, a harvest god.
Gods such as Koleda and Kupala were constructed from misinterpreted names of popular Slavic folk festivals; Koledo was the Slavic name for Christmas processions of carol singers, whilst Kupala comes from Ivan Kupala (literally: John the Baptist), whose festivity day is celebrated at the summer solstice in many Slavic countries.
Although the word kupala (or kupalo) is usually explained as “bather” (from kupat(i) ‘to bathe’), some scholars claim that it is not an epithet of John the Baptist, but a name of a pre-Christian Slavic deity, derived from some other root.
According to Vyacheslav Ivanov and Vladimir Toporov, the name Kupala is derived from the same Indo-European root as the name of Cupid, Roman god of love, which means ‘passion’ or ‘desire’. The cult of Kupala, the god of fertility and sexuality, was presumably replaced by worship of John the Baptist.
According to some texts on Slavic mythology, Kapalo or Kupalo is the god of the summer solstice. Kupalo is the mature, the aging Yarilo. Yarilo comes into human world (Yav) every spring to bring new life, fertility and rich harvest. In the summer he turns into Kupalo. His life on the world gradually moves to its end.
He has accomplished his mission in our world and sets off for the Underworld, so he can return again next summer.
This is why the Kupalo festival (summer solstice) is actually bidding farewell to the old-aged Yarilo – a preparation for his later ritual burial. During the celebrations, for the last time people express their joy of god Yarilo’s visit in their world, the happiness he had brought; they sing incantations and prayers to the fertile god to come again next year.
The year is half-way through, last fruitful months are elapsing and then winter will come – the time of death goddess Mora, time of darkness, cold, misery, illness and death.
Sources: Various
A great many cultures around the world have believed in beings that we call angels. These great helpers of humankind are described in nearly all the sacred books of the world religions. Among the ancient religions and races that believed in angels were the Egyptians, Romans, Greeks, Persians, Muslims, Japanese Shintoists, Jewish Qabalists, Hindus, and the Maoris.
The deep teachings of the Jewish Qabala called the the “shining ones.” The Old and New Testaments and the aprocyphal books of the Hebrews and Christians are full of references to these beings. Even the Arabic Koran tells of angels, especially the four main archangels. The Koran says that it is the responsibility of these archangls to watch over humankind from their vantage point near God’s throne and record all their deeds.
Some of the world’s greatest thinkers and writers believed in angelic existence. References to angels can be found in the works of Socrates, Plato, St. Augustine, Paracelsus, Thomas Moore, William Blake, Milton, Shakespeare, Pythagoras, Homer, St. Thomas Aquinas, Jacob Boehme, and Swendenborg.
The archangels and all classes of angels are considered spiritual, celestial beings said to be made of the Element of Fire, or pure radiant energy. They are said to have evolved from a different line than humans. In Rosicrucian and Illuminati writings, these celestial beings were further described as being like small suns with an aura of radiant energy that gives off streamers of force.
In most descriptions this force is described as a brilliant light that comes from the crown of their head and encircles their form, giving them an appearance of having wings of light. It was said that they propelled themselves by manipulation of this force-field.
The word angel (Hebru, malakh) comes from the Sanskrit word angiras, a divine spirit; from the Persion angaros, a courier; and from the Greek angelos, a messenger or one sent. The meaning is actually closer to the Greek word daimon, a supernatural being who mediates between God and humans.
There are angels for the months, the zodiac, the days of the week, the four directions, and a multitude of other things, including the hours of the day.
- Also known as: Ca Ong; Mr. Fish; Grandfather Fish; Lord Fish
- Origin: Vietnam
- Favored people: Fishermen and men in general; Sir Fish is a men’s deity.
Sir Fish is not exactly a fish: he’s a whale. Sir Fish, King of the Sea, is a guardian deity in the form of a whale. He is the patron of fishermen whom he protects out on open waters.
Sir Fish is widely venerated along the central and southern coasts of Vietnam. Festivals are held in his honor. He may be an incarnation of the Lord of the South Seas. Sir Fish is associated with prominent Vietnamese male military or naval heroes and may be enshrined alongside them.
Whales are Sir Fish’s sacred messengers and must be treated with immense respect. Disrespect directed toward his messengers is the equivalent of disrespect directed towards Sir Fish.
The first person to catch sight of a whale carcass is considered as one of Sir Fish’s elder sons and must arrange and observe appropriate funeral rites for the whale. The whale carcass must be respectfully interred. In return, the man will receive blessings of good fortune from Sir Fish.
Sacred sites: Whale bones that have washed ashore are enshrined in his many temples along vietnam’s southern coast.
From: Encyclopedia of Spirits
Bona Dea (“The Good Goddess”) was a divinity in ancient Roman religion. She was associated with chastity and fertility in women, healing, and the protection of the Roman state and people. According to Roman literary sources, she was brought from Magna Graecia at some time during the early or middle Republic, and was given her own state cult on the Aventine Hill.
Bona Dea was worshipped only by women. In fact, the presence of a man at rites in her honor were a sacrilige. May 1 was the annual, state-sponsored festival to Bona Dea at her temple. In early December, there was another private festival as well.
Her rites allowed women the use of strong wine and blood-sacrifice, things otherwise forbidden them by Roman tradition. Men were barred from her mysteries and the possession of her true name. Given that male authors had limited knowledge of her rites and attributes, ancient speculations about her identity abound, among them that she was an aspect of Terra, Ops, the Magna Mater, or Ceres, or a Latin form of Damia. Most often, she was identified as the wife, sister or daughter of the god Faunus, thus an equivalent or aspect of the nature-goddess Fauna, who could prophesy the fates of women.
The Good Goddess was a patron of the good of the earth and of chastity and fertility in women, she was invoked for healing and for freedom from slavery. Many of her worshippers were freed slaves and plebians, and many were women seeking aid in sickness or for fertility. She was also considered a protector from earthquakes.
Bona Dea was sometimes depicted with a scepter, vine leaves, wine, and a serpent, usually curled around her arm. Sometimes she was depicted seated, holding a cornucopia. Her image appeared on many coins.
The temple to Bona Dea in Rome stood over an overhanging rock, or cave, and both serpents and healing herbs are associated with the cave. The temple contained many kinds of healing herbs and snakes (both associated with medicine). Men were not allowed in her temple or at her festivals, nor were male animals.
The temple was decorated with vine-branches, and other plants and flowers (although myrtle was not permitted). Wine was served, but it was referred to as “milk” and the jar in which it was served, a “honey-pot.” A sow was sacrificed to her at the ritual.
Another ceremony was held in December in honor of the Bona Dea. The rites were conducted annually by the wife of the senior magistrate present in Rome in his home. She was assisted by the Vestal Virgins. The December rite was interesting because unlike the festival in May, it was not held in the goddess’ temple, not paid for by the state and the night of its celebration was not fixed. Unlike the May celebration, the December ceremony was an invitation only affair and pretty exclusive.
The celebrations for the Bona Dea seem to have been in the nature of a mystery cult. Men were strictly forbidden and the details that we have of the ceremony are from a late source, Macrobius. The worship seems to have been agricultural in origin and the careful exclusion of myrtle (associated with flagellation) may actually suggest origins as a purification ceremony.
In the year 62 BCE, the celebration was held in the home of Julius Caesar, then praetor and Pontifex Maximus, on December 3rd. His wife Pompeia and his mother, Aurelia, were in charge. A notorious Roman politician, Publius Clodius, dressed up as a woman and sneaked into the house. He was eventually caught by Caesar’s mother and kicked out. The ceremony had to be performed anew.
Caesar divorced his wife over it (claiming even she had to be above suspicion). Publius Clodius was sued and at his trial Cicero blew his alibi. The two became mortal enemies over the affair. The rites seemed to have fallen into disrepute over the events, and by the early empire, Juvenal suggested that it was nothing but a drunken orgy for girls.
Collected from various sources including: Women’s History, Ancient History, and Wikipedia
The Three Mothers, or Triple Goddess, were known around the world. The Triple Goddess represented the three stages of human life: youth and puberty, parenthood and maturity, old age and wisdom; or body, mind, and spirit. This triad symbolizes the three phases of the Moon: Crescent, Full, and Dark. The goddesses were most often known by the titles of Maid, Mother, and Crone. The ancient Mystery schools, which were originally centers of Goddess knowledge, had three main steps or degrees.
The number three was a sacred number from the time of the ancient Babylonians on. Pythagoras wrote that the Universal Order had to manifest itself in threes. The ancient Chinese thought that three engendered all things. Even today, in numerology the number three stands for activity, creativity, talent, and knowledge.
The Celtic countries, in particular, honored this triad as the bringer of prosperity and a good harvest. The Celts considered the Horned God of the Forests to be Her consort and help-mate. During the month of May, especially at the ceremony of Beltane, wearing of the color green and freely expressing themselves sexually was widely practiced by the Celts. This practice became a real headache for the Christians when they took over. They tried to curb this custom by declaring that the color green was unlucky ant that sex was sinful and dirty.
We can look at the Three Mothers as more than sexual activity. They are symbols of the cycles of growth upon the Earth, the phases we physically go through in our present life, cycles of events within our lives.
Sometimes we are uncertain as to where we actually are in a cycle of events. This can be frustrating and depressing. We may have to endure until the completion of the cycle, but it’s comforting to have some idea how much longer we must grin and bear it. The Three Mothers Tarot Divination can give you some insight.
From: Moon Magick
Flora is the Roman Goddess of flowering plants, especially those that bear fruit. Spring, of course, is Her season, and She has elements of a Love-Goddess, with its attendant attributes of fertility, sex, and blossoming. She is quite ancient; the Sabines are said to have named a month for Her (which corresponds to our and the Roman April), and She was known among the Samnites as well as the Oscans, where She was called Flusia.
She was originally the Goddess specifically of the flowering crops, such as the grain or fruit-trees, and Her function was to make the grain, vegetables and trees bloom so that autumn’s harvest would be good. She was invoked to avert rust, a nasty fungal disease of plants that causes orange growths the exact color of rusting iron, and which was (is) an especial problem affecting wheat.
Hers is the beginning of the process that finds its completion with Pomona, the Goddess of Fruit and the Harvest; and like Pomona, Flora had Her own flamen, one of a small number of priests each in service to a specific Deity. The flamens were said to have been instituted by Numa, the legendary second King of Rome who succeeded Romulus; and whether Numa really existed or not, the flamens were undoubtedly of ancient origin, as were the Deities they served.
In later times Flora became the Goddess of all flowering plants, including the ornamental varieties. Her name is related to Latin floris, meaning naturally enough “a flower”, with the additional meaning of “[something] in its prime”; other related words have meanings like “prospering”, “flourishing”, “abounding”, and “fresh or blooming”.
In one story, Flora was said to have provided Juno with a magic flower that would allow Her to conceive with no help from a man; from this virgin-birth Mars was born. A late tale calls Flora a courtesan and gives Her a story similar to Acca Larentia: Flora was said to have made a fortune as a courtesan, which She bequeathed to Rome upon Her death, and for which She was honored with the festival of the Floralia. As Flora was originally a Sabine Goddess, and as the Sabines were a neighboring tribe whom the Romans conquered and assimilated into Rome, perhaps this is an acknowledgement of the land so acquired, put into legendary terms.
Flora had two temples in Rome, one near the Circus Maximus, the great “stadium” of Rome where chariot races were held, and another on the slopes of the Quirinal Hill. The temple on the Quirinal was most likely built on the site of an earlier altar to Her said to have been dedicated by Titus Tatius, King of the Sabines, who ruled alongside Romulus for a time in the very early (hence legendary) days of Rome. Her other temple was built quite near to the Circus Maximus, though its exact site has not been found, and was associated with a neighboring temple dedicated to the triad of Ceres (the Grain Goddess) and Liber and Libera (God and Goddess of the Vine). These Deities and Flora were all concerned with the fertility and health of the crops.
Flora’s temple by the Circus was dedicated on the 28th of April in 241 (or 248) BCE in response to a great drought at the command of the Sybilline books, and this day became the starting date of Her great festival, the Floralia. In Imperial times (1st century CE) this temple was rededicated (I assume after some restorations were made) on the 13th of August, and this date was given to a second festival of Flora, coinciding with the ripening of the grain, whose flowers She had set forth.
The Floralia of April was originally a moveable feast to coincide with the blossoming of the plants, later becoming fixed with the dedication of Her temple on the 28th (or 27th, before the calendar was reformed–I mention this because holidays were almost always held on odd-numbered days as it was considered unlucky to start a festival on an even-numbered day), though ludi or “games”–horse-races or athletic contests–were not held every year.
By the Empire the festival had grown (or should I say, blossomed) to seven days, and included chariot-races and theatrical performances, some of which were notoriously bawdy. It was given over to merriment and celebrations of an amorous nature, much like that northern flower-and-sex festival Beltaine whose date neatly coincides. Prostitutes considered it their own special time, and the Floralia gained a reputation as being more licentious and abandoned than the Saturnalia of December, whose name is legendary even now.
At the chariot-races and circus games of the Floralia it was traditional to let goats and hares loose, and lupines, bean-flowers and vetch (all of which have similarly-shaped blossoms and are a sort of showier version of wheat in bloom) were scattered, symbolic of fertility. Brightly colored clothes were a must, as were wreaths of flowers, especially roses; and the celebrations drew great crowds. Of the two nationalized chariot-teams who shared a deep rivalry, the Greens and the Blues, the Greens (of course) were Hers, and She had been invoked at chariot-races from ancient times.
The last day of the festival, May 3rd, was called Florae; it may be a special name for the closing day of the Floralia, or it may refer to a seperate ceremony conducted in Her temple on the Quirinal.
Flora was depicted by the Romans wearing light spring clothing, holding small bouquets of flowers, sometimes crowned with blossoms. Honey, made from flowers, is one of Her gifts, and Her name is said to be one of the secret (holy) names of Rome. She is sometimes called the handmaiden of Ceres. Ovid identifies Her with the Greek flower-nymph Chloris, whose name means “yellow or pale green”, the color of Spring. The word flora is still used as a general name for the plants of a region.
Alternate names/epithets: Flora Rustica, “Flora the Countrywoman” or “Flora of the Countryside”, and Flora Mater, or “Flora the Mother”, in respect to Her ancient origins. Among the Oscans She was known as Flusia.
Source: Thaliatook.com
The Easter Bunny has its origin in the tradition of honoring of rabbits during spring as an animal sacred to the goddess Eostre. According to lore, she is the goddess of spring who presides over the birth of babies, both animal and human, and of the pollination, flowering and ripening of fruits in the plant kingdom.
The modern belief that eggs are delivered by a rabbit, comes from a popular Pagan legend about Eostre. According to the legend, Eostre was walking one fine spring day and came upon a beautiful little bird. The poor bird’s wing was badly injured and Eostre, feeling great compassion for the little creature, wanted to heal it. But the little bird’s wing was so badly damaged that Eostre knew it would never be able to fly again even after she healed it.
Eostre decided to help the bird by healing it in a way that would give it mobility and a little something more; she turned it into a rabbit. During the transformation, the rabbit retained the ability to lay eggs.
The rabbit was so grateful to Eostre for saving her life that she laid a sacred egg in Eostre’s honor. The rabbit decorated the egg and then presented it to the Goddess. She was so pleased by the rabbit’s gift that she wished all humankind to share in her joy.
In honoring her wishes, the rabbit went all over the world distributing beautifully decorated little gifts of life and continues to do so even today.
For modern Pagans, Ostara is a sabbat of light, of humor, of celebrating and growing. It’s considered to be a time for balancing the light and dark, for starting new paths. These are concepts that all people, even those with different religious beliefs, can appreciate.
Source: When God Was A Woman
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