Pregnancy

Beautiful Amberella may have legs or a mermaid’s tail. She wears an amber crown and is bedecked with amber jewelry.

Although amber is the product of trees, because it was often found tossed up by waves, it was associated with the sea. Amber is the vehicle with which to communicate with Amberella. She is a completely benevolent spirit and may be requested to assist with love (especially forbidden love), fertility, pregnancy, and relief from poverty.

An Amberella Altar

Amber is considered magickally beneficial during pregnancy. Place amber jewelry on an altar dedicated to Amberella, requesting her blessings before you wear it. Decorate her altar with sea treasures such as shells, sea glass, and small stones, as well as images of mermaids and sea creatures.

Lithuanian Myth of Amberella

The beautiful maiden Amberella lived on the shores of the sea with her fisherman father and his wife. While swimming, Amberella is drawn into a whirlpool and pulled into the depths of the sea. Amberella finds that she has been captured by the Prince of the Seas to serve as his princess.

He keeps her as his wife in a fabulous undersea palace of amber. When Amberella begs to be returned to her parents, the prince is enraged. He mounts white foaming horses, grasps his princess in his arms, and rises to the surface in a furious storm.

As the Prince of the Seas and Amberella rise from the water, her parents see her in his grasp. She is adorned with an amber crown and amber necklace. In her hands she holds lumps of amber which she tosses to her grieving parents. As the prince and Amberella sink back into the sea, they realize their daughter is lost forever.

Now, when the Prince of Seas becomes angry, the seas begins to churn and storms rage. From her prison-palace below, Amberella tosses pieces of amber onto the shores to show her parents how much she misses and loves them.

Source: The Encyclopedia of Spirits

eileithyia_by_demisanguimagus-d6wcej6

  • Names: Eleutheria, Ilithyia, Genetyllis
  • Origin: Crete
  • Favored People: Midwives
  • Attribute: Torch

Eileithyia is the ancient goddess of childbirth, midwifery, and birthing pains. Eleithyia’s name translates as “Fluid of Generation,” giving her strong fertile aspects, and she also has a hand in personal fate.

According to myth, Eleithyia was the midwife of the gods and even birthed Eos, the creative force behind all things. When Eleithyia’s hands were closed, birth was delayed. When Eleithyia opened her body, a child arrived effortlessly.

Eileithyia is believed to be a Minoan goddess assimilated into the Greek pantheon as Hera’s daughter. She works very closely with Hera and is Hera’s weapon in her struggle to prevent Zeus’ other wives from giving birth and threatening the sovereignty and status of her own children. Without Eileithyia’s cooperation, labor cannot go well and perhaps cannot occur at all.

Eileithyia was venerated by pregnant women and those in labor to provide safety success and to lessen pain. Although comparatively little attention is paid to her in mythology books, she was actually subject of great popular veneration. She had many shrines and was considered an extremely significant deity.

Iconography: A woman bearing a torch or with hands upraised, as if beckoning. Sometimes there is one Eileithyia, but sometimes she is portrayed as a pair of spirits.

Sacred site: The cave of Eileithyia near Knossis, Crete, is allegedly her birthplace and was an important pilgrimage site. She is associated with caves, in general. Eileithyia was a widely venerated goddess with shrines throughout Greece.

Offerings: Ex-votos (milagros) in the shape of breasts; incense; water

 

prayer-to-saint-anne-the-mother-of-mary

In the Catholic tradition, Saint Anne intervenes against poverty and for cabinetmakers; carpenters; childless couples; equestrians; grandmothers; grandparents; homemakers; housewives; miners; mothers; pregnancy; pregnant women; and women in labor.

Of St. Anne we have no certain knowledge. She is not mentioned in the New Testament, and we must depend on apocryphal literature, chiefly the Protoevangelium of James, which dates back only to the second century.

In this document we are told that Anne, wife of Joachim, was advanced in years and that her prayers for a child had not been answered. Once as she prayed beneath a laurel tree near her home in Galilee, an angel appeared and said to her, “Anne, the Lord hath heard thy prayer and thou shalt conceive and bring forth, and thy seed shall be spoken of in all the world.” Anne replied, “As the Lord my God liveth, if I beget either male or female, I will bring it as a gift to the Lord my God; and it shall minister to Him in holy things all the days of its life ” And thus Anne became the mother of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

The devotion of St. Anne was known in the East in the fifth century, but it was not diffused in the West until the thirteenth. A shrine at Douai, in northern France, was one of the early centers of the devotion. In 1382 her feast was extended to the whole Western Church, and she became very popular, especially in France. Her two most famous shrines are at St. Anne d’Auray in Brittany and at St. Anne-de Beaupre in the province of Quebec.

She is patroness of housewives, women in labor, cabinet-makers, and miners. Her emblem is a door. St. Anne has been frequently represented in art, and the lovely face depicted by Leonardo da Vinci comes first to mind in this connection. The name Anne derives from the Hebrew Hannah, meaning “grace.”

Saint Anne is often shown in paintings with Jesus and Mary as St. Anne is the mother of Mary, and the grandmother of Jesus. Two great shrines – that of Ste. Anne d’Auray in Brittany, France, and that of Ste. Anne de Beaupre near Quebec in Canada – are dedicated to her. The church of St. Ann in Jerusalem is believed to be built on the site of the home of Saints Joachim and Anne. There are even foods related to St. Anne and Joachim.

Saint Anne’s symbols are her careful instruction of Mary; crown; nest of young birds; door; Golden Gate of Jerusalem; infant Virgin in crib. Her shield has a silver border masoned in black, with silver lily on a blue field referring to the girlhood of the Virgin. She is often pictured as the Woman holding Mary or Jesus in her arms or lap; Woman at her betrothal to Joachim; Mother teaching Mary to read the Bible; Woman greeting Saint Joachim at Golden Gate; Woman with a book in her hand.

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Source: EWTN


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