Category Archives: Goddesses

My World, And Welcome to It

Yesterday, my amazing Circle of amazing women got together and did one of our rituals that focuses, in a direct way, on our skyclad, physical bodies as a gateway to the magic of our lives. Our bodies are women's bodies, not the idealized bodies splayed across tv and magazines, but the bodies of real women who are trying to bear children, have born children, will never bear children, have had cramps, have had cravings, have gone through the "slash, poison, & burn" of breast cancer, have gone on diets, have done Pilates, have belly danced, have walked on treadmills, have had amazing sex (of all kinds), and have eaten both healing herbs and too much plastic-enclosed, high-fructose corn syrup because we were too busy/poor/uninformed to do anything else.

I love each of those bodies. I do. I love my Sister's bodies. One of the greatest privileges of my life, and I say this as a completely straight (but not narrow) woman has been the opportunity to adore the bodies of my Sisters, scars, burns, fertility-treatment-changes, and all. I would be so much poorer had I never come to this religion where the Goddess commands:
Listen to the words of the Great Mother, Who of old was called Artemis, Astarte, Dione, Melusine, Aphrodite, Cerridwen, Diana, Arionrhod, Brigid, and by many other names:

Whenever you have need of anything, once a month, and better it be when the moon is full, you shall assemble in some secret place and adore the spirit of Me Who is Queen of all the Wise.

You shall be free from slavery, and as a sign that you be free you shall be naked in your rites.



May it be so for you.

Ivo! Evoe! Hail, Kore! Ivo! Evoe!


One of the morning prayers that I say is, "Mother, Wash away from my eyes the enchantment of forgetfulness. Allow me, as much as I can know, as much as I can see, to realize that we are all connected. Remind me Mother, that it's all just You pouring You into You." A bit of this prayer is based upon a quote from J. D. Salinger and I forget the source from which I borrowed the rest of it, but I'm grateful to that person for helping me to articulate how I feel about those times when we allow ourselves to be ensorcelled by the Overculture into thinking that the world can be divided into the Sacred and the Mundane, that there are "muggles," that magic and mystery and connection to the Ineffable is what happens only inside a sacred circle, censed with sage and inscribed with occult symbols. And I work hard most days, I do, to keep my eyes open, to see with True Sight, to remember that it's all one immense and breathtakingly beautiful and dangerous and perfect and safe and glittering Web and that I'm a node on that Web, but also that I am the Web and the Web is me. I work at it and some days I do better than others.

And then some days, Grace comes flooding through some phloem in the Universe and I'm synchronistically, randomly, at the right corner, on the right street, at the right moment and there's no work involved at all. The Web is so real and visible and crystal clear that I can't imagine, literally can't imagine, how it can ever seem otherwise. And then I'm the Web wondering how that node ever imagined itself anything but a part of the whole. And then even that is part, a perfect part, of the Web.

I had to go to my office this morning, Sabbat or no, but I left at 2:00 to head home, do some errands, and make ready for Ostara. Sitting at the light, I caught a glimpse of her: a girl at that exact age after her childhood and before her teens. She was reedy and thin, not self-conscious, but unconsciously conscious of herself in the way that no child can ever be. She carried some kind of a book or folder, up flat against her chest, and was skip-running a bit to catch up to her father. I looked away, waiting for the light to turn green, thinking of what needed to be done when I got home. I glanced back; she and her father were now at the corner, waiting for the same light to change. She said something to her father, I could see her braces.

And, then, it happened. All in a moment, all of the enchantment washed away from my eyes, and my body and all my senses were simply, perfectly, by Grace, a mechanism for perceiving the Web from inside the Web, the Web's own unconscious self-consciousness of itself. The sun got inside the girl's hair, which was that heart-wrenchingly beautiful color of carroty-red that is not replicated anywhere else in nature. Her hair was simply, perfectly, by Grace, a mechanism for the Sun to make itself manifest and to show its beauty; without that hair, that color, at that moment, on that girl, at that corner, the Sun could never have been all that it was born to be, and the Sun knew it and I knew it and we were both awed by it.

And there, sitting at the red light, surrounded by the city, headed for the Teddy Roosevelt bridge, there, I was -- and best of all, knew myself to be -- in the presence of The Kore, in the sunlight, on the day of Osara. Not, symbolically, not metaphorically, not in any of the ways that it would make sense to say that I was, just a few feet North of that girl, in the presence of The Kore, but, simply, in the presence of The Kore. Not that The Kore "rode" her or that she somehow pulled The Kore down into her. Not that she stopped being a flesh-and-blood girl with a history and a future and braces. Not that she had ever not been The Kore and not that . . . . Well, that is why the Goddess says, "And you who seek to know Me, know that the seeking and yearning will avail you not, unless you know the Mystery: for if that which you seek, you find not within yourself, you will never find it without. For behold, I have been with you from the beginning, and I am That which is attained at the end of desire." Words stop working.

And the light changed and I turned my eyes, full of tears and light, back to the road and, shaking, drove on, deeper into the Web.

May your Ostara be blessed, may all that is good and healthy and fresh bloom into your life, and may you have reason to exclaim, "Hail, Kore! Ivo Evoe!"

Picture found here.

Susanoo and Amaterasu


The shining sun Goddess Amaterasu had a brother, Susanoo, lord of storms and of the sea.

Susanoo was an uncontrollable man, often given to violence. When he quarreled with his sister, Susanoo lifted up Amaterasu's beloved pony and threw it at Amaterasu and her priestesses.

Amaterasu was so angry that she hid in the cave called Iwayado, and there was no warmth or light upon the Earth.

The other Kami, or Goddesses and Gods, tried to lure Amaterasu out of her cave, but her anger still burned, and she refused to come out. Ame-no-Uzume, the Kami of joy, knew what to do. She placed a mirror near the entrance of the cave. Then, she did a bawdy dance, which made all of the other Kami roar with laughter. Amaterasu was still angry at her brother, the Kami of the stormy sea, but she wanted to know what made everyone laugh. She crept to the edge of the cave and peeked out at Ame-no-Uzume and, angry as she was, Amaterasu had to laugh. In that moment, a ray of her sunlight escaped from the dark cave and reflected in the mirror. Amaterasu saw her own lovely face and could no longer remain angry. She returned to the world, bringing sunlight and warmth.

Today, in Japan, Susanoo's violence was great and the uncontrollable sea stormed over Amaterasu's land. It must seem to the people of Japan as if the lovely sun Kami has again withdrawn from them. My own heart is heavy with sadness at the loss of lives, homes, family altars, and pets and with fear for the damage done to Japan's nuclear plants. I'm going to go to my altar, light a candle to reflect in my scrying mirror, and dance like Ame-no-Uzume, in the hopes that the people of Japan will soon bask under Amaterasu's warm light, rather than Susanoo's angry seas.

You come too.

Picture found here.

My New Name for a Blog


What Sara A. Said.
"Most witches don't believe in gods. They know that the gods exist, of course. They even deal with them occasionally. But they don't believe in them. They know them too well. It would be like believing in the postman." ~ Terry Pratchett, Witches Abroad

Once upon a time, a long time ago, I was a cute little witchlet armed with a copy of The Spiral Dance in one hand and The White Goddess in the other. I dove in, like you do, with exuberance. Reading Tarot! Casting spells! Trance journeys! Rituals! Meditations! Communing with trees! I did a self-dedication rite that I wrote myself! My awesomely shiny ear-wet witchiness was a sight to behold.

Possibly because I was kicking up such a fuss, a being started talking to me. She said I should call her Rowan.

"Are you THE GODDESS?" I asked.

"No, I'm something you can talk to," was the reply.

"Well, how come I don't get to talk to the real thing?" I wanted to know.

Suddenly, I was aware of the vast, cosmically profound black and starry depths of the Universe, and the intelligence that permeates it all, an intelligence so immense and complex that it is impossible to apprehend even how immense, complex, and profound it really is, only that the least touch from it overwhelms.

My brain did that thing that computers do when you try to run too much information through them. I blue-screened. *BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE BOGGLE*

. . . then it went away. Rowan said, "That's why."

You should definitely read the whole thing.

Hat tip: Angela Raincatcher

Picture found here.

Nekhbet’s Children


My brilliant friend NTodd has a good post that shows the historical developments in the growing field of performing effective revolutions. One hopes that, as people gain more experience with the business of overthrowing repressive regimes, they'll pay attention to lessons learned from previous attempts. I've no idea what's really going on in Egypt (no one has, just now, not even the Egyptians), but NTodd's post provides reason to hope that the young people in Egypt have been paying attention.

Ever since this revolution began, several days ago, I've had this huge sense of Hecate floating gigantically over that part of the world. For me, Hecate is that magical power that creates the situation in which change (personal, political (of course, that's redundant), world-shaping, time-sensitive) can occur. She doesn't cause the change, She shifts the atmosphere, gets a butterfly to flap its wings in Brazil, moves the molecules of air just a bit farther apart so that something new can begin to infill, opens up a doorway, signals liminality. And that's what makes Her both a dangerous and a deeply-beloved Goddess. And I can see Her floating -- three-headed, key-bearing, sycle-weilding, filth-eating, and holding Her torches high -- over every map of Egypt that I've looked at.

I am not a devotee of the Egyptian pantheon, although I've called to Isis, Nekhbet, and Nuit in extremis and I see much to honor in all of those alien and strange deities. But I have a candle burning on my altar for Egypt, for the young people there who hope to affect positive change, and for the protection of the many ancient temples and artifacts. May mighty Hecate, who strode out of the Anatolian planes into Greece and thence to Egypt and the world shift the winds for positive change. Whoooosh.

Update:

Janet Kane says:
I hate to say I told you so, but for the last few months I have stated that the Uranus/Pluto Square is the next evolution of the Uranus Conjunct Pluto that we experienced in 1964 to 1969. Uranus/Pluto brings in revolutionary energy and the promise to totally transform society. Of course, all of the astrologers I know predicted the same thing. I didn’t realize that the revolutionary activates would take place in the Middle East.

At the same time that Uranus/Pluto is square, Saturn is opposing and squaring Pluto. Saturn turned retrograde on the day the protests started in Egypt. Saturn was opposite Uranus from 1917 to 1923 when we had the Russian Revolution. Also, Jupiter entered Aries on Jan 22. Jupiter is expansive and Aries is the energy needed to go out and express the need for freedom. This complex configuration of planets started in 2010 and will be with us for the next 4 years.

More Janet here. She's v good.
Picture found here.

This and That



Good on the Daytona Beach News Journal for an informative, correctly-capitalized article about Pagan Pride Day in New Smyrna Beach. None of the "they don't worship Satan" nonsense and a decent description of what "Pagan" means. More like this.


I've never seen conservatives as willing to accept witchcraft as some of Christine O'Donnell's fans are turning out to be.

It's been out for a bit and I'm still waiting to find it. Terry Pratchett's new and brilliantly-titled book, I Shall Wear Midnight, sounds great. I can't wait to get ahold of it.

I Shall Wear Midnight picks up Tiffany's story as she settles - or not - into life as "town witch" on The Chalk, taking care of the things people generally don't like to think about.

There, with the assistance of the spectacularly argumentative, kilt-wearing, wee but hardy Nac Mac Feegle, she tends to the needs of her village, always riding a knife-edge between being useful and being an object of suspicion who meddles in unmentionables.

But Tiffany's skills as a witch have caught the attention of the Cunning Man (surely one of Pratchett's spookiest villains), a no-eyed spectre who menaces our heroine as she goes about the business of seeing her village through a change in baron.


Archeologists have found a wall painting of Tyche, the Greek Goddess of fortune, during excavations on the east shore of the Sea of Galilee. The picture appears to date from the 3rd to 4th Centuries, C.E.

Her head is crowned, her youthful gaze is focused, and she has abundant brown hair beneath her crown.
. . .

Apart from goddess Tyche, researchers also found a wonderfully etched relief of a maenad, one of a group of female followers of Dionysus, the god of wine on a bone plate.


(I believe the author meant to say that researchers also found a wonderfully etched relief, on a bone plate, of a maenad, not that Dionysus was the God of wine on a bone plate. )

And, in Egypt, a recently re-discovered tomb includes paintings of astrological scenes and the Goddess Nut.

The room is in very good condition and contains beautiful painted scenes in vivid colors. Blue and yellow dominate the ceiling, as the goddess Nut welcomes with raised arms the body of the deceased.


(Not clear if the author meant "astrological" or "astronomical," at least from the article. )