Trees and the Life of the Planet17:43 Apr 10 2007
Times Read: 648
"Every tree is a living watercourse; its roots, trunk and branches
conduct water up from the soil to the leaves, from which it then
passes into the atmosphere." -- Nigel Pennick, "Celtic Sacred Landscapes"
The interdependence of all living things is something we often take for granted. It goes unnoticed in the daily round, so we forget that what happens in one place has its effect upon another place. It is only now that deforestation has been revealed to be a terrible legacy to our children that we begin to appreciate the contribution of trees to the life of our planet.
At this time of year, the spring rains have an important function in the revivification of the land, especially around the full moon. Trees are able to draw up the rainfall from their roots to their highest branches so that the canopy can become green again. As the leaves emerge from their buds, we notice a corresponding unfurling of spirit in ourselves as we respond with gladness to the annual re-greening of the world.
As those leaves unfurl, they exude oxygen, so vital for our planet's atmosphere and our own living breath. The carbon dioxide that human beings exhale is absorbed and transformed by trees. Our lives and those of the trees are beautifully and aptly intertwined as we share and replenish the atmosphere for each other. Our breath and the exhalation of trees have a symbiotic link that is necessary to our very life.
Verdancy of spirit comes when the sap rises in our souls, when we return to a state of thankfulness and welcome the spring with joy.
"Attune to the life of a tree that grows near you. Meditate upon the life that you share.
Even better, plant a tree."
[Source: "The Celtic Spirit: Daily Meditations for the Turning Year" by Caitlin Matthews]
Spring Goddesses ~ Eostre, Ostara17:40 Apr 10 2007
Times Read: 649
The Fire Mother in the East is also Eostre or Ostara, a form of
Astarte, who is also a Queen of the Stars. Hers is the energy of the
Spring Equinox when light and darkness are held in equal measure. She
brings all of Nature alive igniting the Fires of Life in the seeds
lying beneath the ground, in the roots deep in the earth. In Her
season sap rises in plants and trees and animals, birds and human
beings respond to Her call to become sexually active. The bright
green of Her springtime nature appears in plants and trees. The
colors of Her direction is Green/Gold and Her talisman is the Magic
Wand or Rod of Fire of the Mind who represents the Priestess's Secret
Consort and fertilizing Force.
The Christian festival of Easter comes on the first Sunday after
Eostre's Aries Full Moon. Eostre'e Red Hen's eggs are exchanged as
symbols of rebirth after the dark days of winter. In the past
particularly in eastern Europe, the eggs were usually colored red,
the color of life and menstrual blood.
Eostre's companion creatures are the Bear, the Moon Hare, the Red
Hen and the Cat. The Moon Hare became the Easter Bunny who is
magically able to lay eggs. Witches are said to be able to assume the
form of hares or cats and according to Barbara Walker in her
wonderful "Women's Encyclopedia or Myths and Secrets," Queen
Boudicca's banners born an image of the Moon Hare.
Cats of all kinds have long been associated with the Goddess from
Cybele with Her lions to the Egyptian Lion-headed Sekhmet and the Cat
Goddess Bast, to Britiannia with Her lion, to Scandinavian Mother
Freya who rode in a chariot drawn by cats. As well as being the Great
She Bear Artemis Calliste (Artha) was called the Mother of Cats and
was identified by the Greeks with Bast.
At the Spring Equinox we celebrate Eostre, Artha, and Grainne
honoring the fires of the heavens and in the earth. The gifts they
offer us are warmth, enthusiasm, the fire of the mind, passion,
creativity, protection, strength and courage.
[Source: "The Ancient British Goddess" by Kathy Jones]
The Voices of the Wells
17:17 Apr 10 2007
Times Read: 651
Flowing water is a feminine element. In Ireland almost all the
rivers are named after goddesses. In Wales, faery women live in the
lakes. At Bath the local native goddess Sul gave her name to the
Roman hot springs, Aquae Sulis, while in Carrowbaugh a ruined temple
lies over the well dedicated to Coventina, the Romanized name of
another native deity. A votive tablet shows her floating on a water-
lily leaf; while a relief depicts three of her female attendants
bearing goblets; out of one pours a stream of water. In Christian
times pagan wells were rededicated to saints, many of them female:
to Saint Anne, Saint Catherine, and Saint Mary as well as Brigit or
Bride. In some places a ghostly White Lady is seen haunting an
ancient well. In many urban districts the wells have disappeared
altogether, leaving only an echo of her name: Brideswell, Marywell,
Ladywell.
From the beginning of civilization, water has been considered
the 'home of wisdom,' and prophecy and wisdom went hand in hand in
the ancient world. In classical Greece priestesses took up residence
within a nearby grotto or cave and drank the waters before going into
trance for oracular knowledge. Traces of a well priestess tradition
survived into the seventeenth century in west Cornwall. An old woman
looked after Gulval Well and broadcast the "virtues and divine
qualities of those waters" in return for a fee. She gave oracles to
strangers and revealed the whereabouts of lost and stolen objects,
including local cattle. For miles around she was highly regarded as
the "priestess of the well," probably the last in Britain.
Once, so the legend goes, every well had its attendant priestess.
These were the mysterious "damsels of the wells" described in a
medieval Grail text. The story goes that long ago in the rich country
of Logres (an archaic term for Britain), tired hunters or travelers
found refreshment at sacred grottos where a spring gushed out. Here
they were given food and drink by the "damsels of the wells," maidens
who were the guardians - or perhaps the spirits - of those holy
places. But one day an evil king raped one of them and stole her
golden cup, and his followers treated the other maidens likewise.
After this the grottos were empty, the wells dried up, and the
countryside was stricken with drought:
"The land was dead and desert...
So that they lost the voices of the wells,
And the maidens who were in them."
The 'voices of the wells' suggests that the maidens were also
oracles. Like the priestesses of ancient, Greece, they sat at the
entrance to a sacred well, one of the gates into the Otherworld,
where they had a direct line to the spirit within the earth. When the
Damsels of the Wells were violated, the channels to the Otherworld
were severed, leaving the world cut off from its wisdom. Its
spiritual riches, once so accessible to humankind, were withdrawn:
"And since then the court of the Rich
Fisher which made the land to shine
with gold and silver, with furs and precious
stuffs, with food of all kinds, with falcons,
hawks, and sparrow hawks could
no longer be found. In those days
when the court could still be found,
there were riches and abundance
everywhere. But now all these were
lost to the land of Logres."
This extraordinary little tale makes the point clearly that violence
done to women is violence done to the Earth - and to the feminine
within each one of us, be we man or woman. Living in a world that
constantly devalues the feminine principle - that which is oriented
to intuition, feeling, art, relationship, and process - it is no
wonder that the image of the Wasteland is as fresh today as it was
seven hundred years ago. T. S. Eliot sounded the anguished note of
the modern age with his great poem of the same name, where dryness
become a metaphor for spiritual bankruptcy:
"What are the roots that clutch, what branches grow
Out of this stony rubbish? Son of man,
You cannot say or guess, for you know only
A heap of broken images, where the sun beats,
And the dead tree gives no shelter, the cricket no relief,
And the dry stone no sound of water."
A good exercise to help you garner inspiration and ideas for your
spiritual goals in the coming months is to sit before your altar and
light a candle so that it shines over the bowl or chalice filled with
water. Gaze at the patterns of light on water, letter your focus go
soft, and your mind relax
into a dreamy state. Notice what images and ideas arise for you, and
jot them down.
[Source: "Kindling the Celtic Spirit" by Mara Freeman]
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