Samhain

All Hallow's Eve!

What we celebrate as Halloween 
has its roots in the 
Great Festival of Samhain 
(pronounced Sow-in) 
of pre-Christian Celtic times. 
The Celts were a culture thought to
 have migrated into Europe 
from somewhere north of the Black Sea 
about seven thousand years ago.

These old traditions still hold fast in this modern world and are the least diluted in the country of Ireland. For everyone who loves them, they are a repository of ancestral magick that vibrates as powerfully as ever in our lives today.

Samhain was, and is, one of the four

 Great Festivals in the Celtic calendar. 
It's the end of summer, time for final harvest 
and to bring animals in from the fields. 
 The old year is over, 
and all who've passed are honored
   along with the ancestors. 
 The New Year is born 
with the light of a great bonfire. 
 It's a crossroads time, an in-between, 
a void, when there's easy passage out
 of what the Celts called the Otherworld.

  Today's Halloween is a remnant
 of the Celtic Fire festival, 
with add-ons from the later 
Roman and Christian church overlay. 

 Around 7th Century AD, 

the Christian hierarchy
 began its demonization

 of the nature spirits and the"craft of the wise." 

A new holy day was created 
called 

 Hallowmas 
or Allhallows,

 now called All Saints' or All Souls' Day. 

 Over the centuries All Hallows' Eve became All Hallow e'en, which today we know 

as Halloween.

At Halloween and Samhain, 
it's said that the veil is thin between the worlds.  

The Otherworld in Celtic myth
 is a land where nobody dies or gets old, 
there's plenty of honey, fruit and wine 
and treasures of all kinds.

 It was known as Tir na n-Og, 

the Land of Youth, 

Heaven. 

At Samhain, the divine race of the other world, the Tuatha De Danann, or Dannanns for short, would go walkabout and freely roam.

 They came out of the Otherword through the

 fairy mounds, to make mischief.

From this sense of collapsed boundaries 
between worlds 
came warnings to stay home, 
and rituals of scaring away spirits 
 or playing with them by wearing masks.

Dressing up in costumes

 was a way of making the ancestors feel safe to come and mingle amongst the living 

for a night.

The Druids were the shamanic elders of the Celts, not unlike the wizard Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Rather than being an intermediary for a sky-God, they had intimate knowledge of the terrestrial, ethereal, elemental and the primordial.

Some of their wisdom has been lost, because they passed it on through an oral tradition. 
And yet, what's been lost, can be remembered 
and reclaimed, as many are doing now.
 

With the enhanced psychic sight of Scorpio time, it seems possible to see 
mystical 
and mythical creatures. 
 Like ghosts,
 I suspect they're
 most at home in overgrown, 
natural places. 

It's a time to see rare entities, 
or bring them to life through the imagination;

such as 
the trickster pixies, 
gnomes, and watery spirits
 like the sprites, 
silkies and 
nymphs.

Look no further 
than the nearest Oak
 and its spirit known as the dryad, 
to bring the sacred into the season.
 For all it gave, 
the Oak 
 was sacred 
to the Celtic people, 
as a door to the underworld.

 It's interesting to note 
that the word door comes from 
the Celtic word for oak, which is duir. 
And since the Celts considered trees the ancestors, 
it's a wonderful time to sit 
under your favorite  
Duir to the underworld, 
or give one a hug.

Samhain is the gateway into winter, 
taking us on a journey where the night gains more and more strength
 until we reach the rebirth 
found on Winter Solstice,
 and as such these celebrations 
are at the sunset of the dying year.
 Give thanks for all the love, life 
and experiences of 
your last year.
 What would you like to place on the bonfire of this fire celebration? 
What no longer serves you and can be 
tossed into the cauldron, 
to be cooked down into raw life energy that will fuel your next cycle of rebirth?

Halloween is a bewitching time of the year, when the sharper psychic powers could find you having breakthroughs of inter-species understanding.

 

The familiar of the witch or wizard 
is traditionally a black cat, toad or owl, 
the predator bird 
with night vision. 
Each of the three witches in Macbeth 
 has a familiar;
a cat named Graymalkin, 
a hedge-hog named Paddock 
and an owl called
 Harpier.

Just as the indigenous North Americans used animals as messengers and scouts, witches' familiars are thought to be little helpers.
Life just wouldn't be the same without them!

  Halloween is a season

 of magically re-wilding our culture,
 which is way too over domesticated!

 It's one of the few times for some, 
of giving embodiment to the primordial soul through costume. 

 It's Scorpio's season, 
Zodiac sign of death and transformation, 
and the time of solar diminishing. 
 All this evokes the dark mysteries of dying, 
being held by an unseen force (demons), 
being haunted, and of entities trapped
 between worlds.

Some mythic beasts, however, come to live through the power of the human imagination.

At Halloween, 

we come closest to living out 

the inner beast, 

or encountering the killer instinct

 of the mythic (or real) predator, 

through scary costumes.

 The minotaur is half-man and half-bull, the centaur is half horse and half man, and the satyr is half man and half goat. 
 Then there are ogres, trolls and goblins! 
Take your pick.

This potent remnant of indigenous Europe has become fixed in the modern imagination,
 and it's yet another way 
that Halloween reminds us of the past, 
when the dark mysteries and supernatural
 were part of everyday life. 
 And those considered wise, were the ones who understood animal medicine,
 and were close intimates 
with these relations.

It is our incredibly rich birthright 
to remember, reclaim

 and celebrate the essence of this deliciously Scorpionic time.

Today October 22, 2012 at 5:14pm PDT
the Sun has moved into the sign of Scorpio.
 Here the Sun (identity) joins a newly entered Saturn(big lessons), 
Mercury(perception, citta)
 as well as
 the north node of the Moon
(evolutionary growth edge).
 Its is a potent time people. 
 

 

Heroes of the Dawn, Celtic Myth, Time-Life Books: 1996.

Pagan Origins of Halloween, by Rowan Moonstone  

 Halloween, by Joanne O’Sullivan, Lark Books: 2003.

The Eleusinian Mysteries at Equinox

The Eleusinian Mysteries (Greek: Ἐλευσίνια Μυστήρια) were ceremonies held every year for the cult of Demeter and Persephone based at Eleusis in ancient Greece.  They were practiced at this autumnal equinox time of the year.

Persephone by Patricia Ariel

They were religious practices characterized by initiation rites, cathartic and ecstatic practices, and a code of silence.
These myths and mysteries were the most famous and begun in the Mycenean period (c. 1700 BC) and lasting two thousand years, were a major festival during the Hellenic era, later spreading to Rome.
The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept secret, as initiation was believed to unite the worshipper with the gods and included promises of divine power and rewards in the afterlife.
Since the Mysteries involved visions and conjuring of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from psychedelic agents.

Eleuseos means “the coming,” so the word Eleusinian refers to a spiritual advent.
 

Mysteria signified an event defined by closing the lips, closing the eyes, and entering into darkness.
The journey of consciousness taken from that point onward was a mystery indeed.

Long ago, humans felt a deep need to celebrate and honor times of sowing, reaping and harvest, keenly aware that, should anything untoward negatively affect nature's cycle, many people - perhaps all - would die in the ensuing famine. For instance, this day, 20 September, in ancient Greece, would have marked the 7th day of the Eleusinian Mysteries: revered initiation ceremonies held every 4 or 5 years (sources vary), lasting 9 days, honoring Demeter the Mother Goddess of agriculture and fertility, and Persephone, Queen of the Underworld.

Persephone was the daughter of Demeter, goddess of agriculture and grain.  She was stolen away to the realm of death by Hades, king of the underworld, who had seen her and fallen in love(major clue here: in some earlier versions, Hades is called Pharmacia.)

 No-one could tell Demeter where Persephone had vanished to, so Demeter wandered the world with Hecate, goddess of childbirth and secrets who carried two torches, seeking her daughter and refusing to let anything grow until she had Persephone back.  Hecate finally found Persephone. 

 But Persephone had in hunger nibbled four pomegranate seeds, and the Fates decreed that since she ate the food of Hades in the underworld she must stay.  Demeter would have let the world starve, but instead a compromise was arranged where Hades would have Persephone for the four months of winter (when no crops would grow) and Demeter for the rest of the year.  (Anglocentric retellings changed this to six seeds and six months to accommodate the longer northern European winter.)

The Mysteries originated in the city of Eleusis, 15 miles west of Athens, possibly as far back as the early Mycenaean period (c.1600 B.C), and continued for almost two thousand years, in a world both alien yet oddly familiar to us, in the twenty-first century. Theirs was a world permeated with anxiety and dread, perhaps not unlike that of the USA after 9/11, or during the Cold War years.....or right now! Famine was, for them, a persistent threat. A single crop failure could spell the difference between life and death. The risk of war, whether from marauding bands or organized armies, was constant. Death or slavery awaited the losers of a conflict. Family provided the only social safety net for most. People lived constantly on the edge of disaster.


The long drawn-out structured rituals of the Mysteries produced a change of consciousness in the participants bringing about a kind of spiritual birth, intended to reunite the person with the divine spirit of the cosmos. The rites, ceremonies, and beliefs were kept strictly secret. Since The Mysteries involved visions of an afterlife, some scholars believe that the power and longevity of the Eleusinian Mysteries came from psychedelic agents.  

 Before experiencing the final soul-shattering vision of the Greater Mysteries, initiates drank kykeon, an entheogenic potion made from ergot, from which LSD is derived. The initiates then spent the night in a darkened hall, where they beheld a great vision, which was “new, astonishing, inaccessible to rational cognition.” Most of the initiates were women, but men (including Sophocles, Aristides and Cicero), as well as slaves (anyone who could afford it was allowed except for unrepentant murderers), also took part. Whatever the vision, there is no doubt that the effects were profound. Some hold that a night in the Eleusinian sanctuary may have inspired Plato's “ideas” and world of archetypes. In times much closer to our own, ingesting similar potions inspired the composition of iconic music and song.

"Those who take part possess better hopes in regard to the end of life and in regard to the whole of eternity.' - Isokrates

So the Eleusinian Mysteries drew to an end. After the Final Vision the Initiates partook of one more day of the Rites, this time involving food, drink and celebration in honour of the abundance and fertility of Demeter - the Gift of the Grain. Thus after Death had been faced and transcended the bounty of Nature was rejoiced in. After that, the Mystai were free to return to the world, their understanding of their place in it transformed...



Why are the Eleusinian Mysteries so important to us? For the Greeks, as we have seen, they were crucial: the axis, as it were, around which the Universe of Gods and Men revolved. For two thousand years (as long as Christianity has been on this Earth and longer than Islam) they performed this vital role for Greek culture, only being discontinued several centuries after Christianity had become the official religion of the Roman Empire. 

 
What makes the Rites of Eleusis important is their influence on almost all the Mystery Traditions that followed them. In their exploration of Immortality and their focus on imagery of grain and corn they almost certainly found their way into the New Testament. We have seen how the iconography of corn is used in the Gospel of John, for instance and, of course, there are other such images in parables such as that of the sower of seed. Historians of religion have done a great deal to unearth how all sorts of pre-Christian Mysticism worked its way into the Gospels. We forget how at the time of Christ's birth and ministry nearby Alexandria was a focus for spirituality in the known world at the time. Alexandria was a centre for Jewish religion and mysticism, Zoroastrianism, Platonic, Pythagorean and Hermetic spirituality and the old Egyptian Mysteries. It should come as no surprise that the new spirituality of Christianity should encounter and absorb these traditions.  One can see that it became a synthesis of all that came before embodied in the human/divine figure of Christ. Whatever the case there would seem to be no doubt that the Mysteries of Eleusis found their way into the new religion. Taken with the Mysteries of Dionysus and their imagery of the Vine, those of Eleusis reappear in the bread and wine of the Last Supper.  

Artist	Anthony Frederick Augustus Sandys

 As an image of the life-giving energy of the Divine Feminine, the Mysteries found themselves reworked in a complex way in the figures of the Virgin Mary, Mary Magdelene and the Sophia.  And just as the Eleusinian Final Vision took place in the Inner Sanctum, Christ's Resurrection, witnessed by the Persephone counterpart Mary Magdelene, takes place in the Tomb which is itself an image of the Womb of the Divine Mother.  Thus the life-giving energy of the Divine Feminine is inextricably associated with the Resurrection of Christ all of which, the two Marys, the Shekhinah, become expressions of the Wisdom of God, the Sophia. Without her and the energies she represents, the central miracle of the Christian Mysteries cannot happen.

In esotericism, the Rites appear vividly in the Empress Card as depicted in the Rider-Waite pack. Waite's Empress is pure Demeter-Persephone. Her robe is covered in pomegranates, associated with the Daughter while at her feet is the wheat of the Mother. Also associated with Demeter is the diadem of stars the Empress wears. In astrology, Virgo is linked to the Mysteries, being often represented as maiden carrying a sheaf of corn in each hand. People who have been on the ball will have noticed that the ten days of the Rites fell during harvest time, the period we associate with September, the month of Virgo. Thus they would have been presided over by this constellation which rules the ninth month, nine months being, of course, the nine months of gestation before birth. So all these images of femininity, fertility and fecundity all merge into one.

Happy Equinox!

http://templeofpegasus.blogspot.com/2008/09/dont-dis-demeter-eleusinian-mysteries_30.html

http://twilightstarsong.blogspot.com/2011/09/eleusinian-mysteries-what-did-60s-have.html

http://designldg.wordpress.com/category/2-the-human-study/fallacies-of-ambiguity/

http://alessandrakelley.com/artblog/?p=95

Summer Solstice - The Day of the Wedding of Heaven and Earth

I've said it before and I'll say it again;

 This time of the year, ramping up to solstice,

 each and every year is sooo manic!

 Sooo much daylight.

We are all drunk on daylight. 

And by daylight I mean a Red Bull Vodka cocktail!

 Its fun but its always really nice when the energy

 finally peaks with solstice 

and settles down a bit into the sign of Cancer.

   

   
  The Summer Solstice

  occurs exactly 

when the Earth’s axial tilt is most inclined 

towards the sun. 
 Though the Summer Solstice is an instant in time,
 the term is also colloquially used
 like Midsummer 
to refer to the day on which it occurs. 
Except in the polar regions 
(where daylight is continuous for half of the year), 
the day on which the Summer Solstice occurs
 is the day of the year with the longest period of daylight.

Thus the seasonal significance of the Summer Solstice is in the reversal of the gradual shortening of nights and lengthening of days. The summer solstice occurs in June in the Northern Hemisphere, in December in the Southern Hemisphere.

 

 

Summer Solstice, sometimes known as Midsummer, 
Litha, or St. John's Day, 
occurs in the middle of June.
  It has been a grand tribal gathering time since ancient times. 
The Goddess manifests as Mother Earth 
and the God as the Sun King.

  Dawn procession on Summer Solstice at Stonehenge

All throughout the ages
 you will find rituals, spells, and magic 
associated with this day.  
 The roots of magic predate recorded history.
 History shows us that all Pre-Christian civilizations,
 regardless of their cultural landscapes, 
 practiced “Magic”.
 It was time when humanity existed in harmony
 with God, the Elemental Forces of Nature and the Universe. 
Today magic is perceived as an archaic worldview,
 a form of superstition 
lacking the intrinsic spiritual value of religion
 or the rational logic of science.

Fools!!!


 

Ancient cultures had wise women and men that were honored and respected in the community.
 They were an integral part of the tribe.
 They were the healers, the midwives, medicine men,
 the spiritual advisers, the priests and priestesses. 
Slowly, over hundreds of years 
and with intention
 these beloved and respected sages and mystics 
became transformed into the evil creatures 
that we think of
 when we hear the word
 witch.

 
 

 Looking back you’ll find a violent history that aimed to exterminate these “heretics”. Any act of naturopathic healing, herbalism, pagan rites, etc. were now interpreted as sinister and the practitioner accused of consorting with the devil. In the story of Creation written in the Book of Genesis, it was Eve, the female who bears responsibility for the fall of mankind. 
 Once revered symbols, 
the goddess (Divine Feminine),
the tree (The Tree of Life) 

and the serpent (Kundalini-Life Force Energy)

 would soon come to represent evil. 

It is no surprise that modern society still perpetuates misogynist thought. Women around the world are still fighting for equal rights. It is no surprise that in pursuit of technological and scientific advancement, 
we are destroying the very ecosystem
 that sustains us. 
  Joni Mitchell said it best... 
 "We are stardust, We are golden, And we've got to get ourselves back to the garden".
ladylavona 

  

Many know it as the longest day of the year; 
others call it the first day of summer, 
but to Pagans, in this hemisphere, 
Summer Solstice is a fire festival 
and an important holiday.

The festivals go back to agrarian times when people were dependent on the land to sustain all their needs .
 So they would feast
 on the newly harvested grains
 and meat from first cows slaughtered.
Likewise, at celebrations
 Pagans will attend on the solstice this year
  which begin June 20 at 4:09 p.m. (PST)  
there will be a circle, a ritual and feasting on foods
 appropriate to the season, 
such as berries, bread, grilled meat
 and fruit wine.





Many forms of Paganism 
revere two deities, a god and a goddess, and give both many personalities and names.
 Part of both ancient and current solstice celebrations, 
 is the presentation of a mystery play, 
wherein the Sun King and the Winter King
 battle each other for dominance and the hand of the goddess.

 They win in turn when seasons change 
at both solstices (winter and summer)
and both equinoxes (the first day of spring 
and the first day of fall). 
 These observances 
would have been very important to people 
who depended on the land for sustenance and, 
today, serve to remind us of our agrarian roots, though we are deeply rooted 
in the 
technological 
age.

 

The change of season reminds people that there are limited resources 

and that we must

 care for the planet.

 

 

If the ritual is outside, 
they will light a balefire, 
as Celts would have in times of old.

All the fires in the house would be put out and relit with torches dipped in this balefire, considered holy, to purify 
and celebrate the sun.

They would also light two fires and the livestock would be driven between them to purify them with the holy fires. This ritual also had a practical purpose because ticks and other bugs would fall off from the heat.




The fires would burn through the night – from solstice eve and all through the day – until they went out and the ashes would be scattered on the fields to bless them and ensure fertility of the crops.

  

 Whether you reflect on June 20 as the longest day of the year, the first day of summer or as summer solstice, take a moment to think about humanity’s ties to the earth. 


 

Modern industrial society
 likes to think of itself as separate from nature, 
and so many people nowadays 
have forgotten about celebrating the cycle of the year. 
 That's really unfortunate,
 since all our lives 
are supported by the living earth
 and share in its cycles, 
whether we know it or not,” 

Jill Ellis and John Michael Greer

The following are my favorite images of Titania and Bottom from 
 

 

Happy Midsummer's Eve y'all!!