It’s All Divine

It’s all divine; the smiles, the snot, the birthing, the dying, the aroma of a bloom, the stench of decay… the light and the dark. It’s all divine. And the mother holds it all.” ~ Nancy Lankston

Patriarchy may try to negate body and flee Earth with its constant heartbeat of death, but Goddess forces us back to embrace them, to take our human life in our arms and clasp it for the divine life it is— the nice, sanitary, harmonious moments as well as the painful, dark, splintered ones.

If such a consciousness truly is set loose in the world, nothing will be the same.

It will free us to be in a sacred body, on a sacred planet, in sacred communion with all of it. It will infect the universe with holiness. We will discover the Divine deep within the earth and the cells of our bodies,and we will love her there with all our hearts and all our souls and all our minds.

~Sue Monk Kidd

Image: Catacomb Bones
by Nancy L

Lunar & Solar Gates Align

“This is Lunar Samhain (the New Moon in Scorpio is the Lunar gate for Samhain) AND it is the precise Solar gate of Samhain (the exact midpoint between Fall Equinox and Winter Solstice is when the Sun cross 15 Scorpio).

“We have a rare event of Solar and Lunar gates aligning- a Hierosgamos, a sacred marriage in the depths, in the dark and in the abyss. This is a VERY POWERFUL SAMHAIN PORTAL. The massive endings, releasing, letting go and completion of old karmic patterns that you commit to, initiate and follow through on in the coming months until Winter Solstice is nothing short of profound.

… Something massive is ending, something quite significant is about to begin- and right now we are in that fallow period where the degree to which we can let go, surrender and truly sit with loss, grief and endings (rather than fill them up with the next person/place/thing/substance so as to avoid the feelings that arise) informs the heights to which the phoenix can rise once this deep, internal period is over…

We have the promise of new life amidst the inevitability of death. we are reminded that how we end things informs the next cycle of new beginnings….”

~Divine Harmony
full text here

 

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Explore Celtic Samhain

 

The Dark Season

“Life’s waters flow from the darkness.
Search the darkness, don’t run from it.”

~Rumi

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Now is the season of tricks and treats
When the veils between the worlds grow thin
And the ancestors walk among us.

We descend into the dark season in the north
A time to reflect, take stock,
Clear the old, make space for the new.

What do you hope for and dream of?
What do you wish to leave behind?
What will you honor with your love and care?

As within, so without
To change your world
Start with you.

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Tarot Card Guidance for Halloween and The Day of the Dead:
Two of Stones (pentacles) – Challenges face you. hold your ground, honor your own needs, guard your integrity.

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Traditional Ritual / Celebration Days in early November include:

November 1:  Día de los Muertos or Day of the Dead –  a holiday celebrated throughout Mexico that focuses on praying for and remembering friends and family members who have died. Rituals are also done to help support the spiritual journey of the departed beyond this reality.

Nov 6:  Tiamat’s birth. Tiamat is the primordial creative force of the Cosmos, the ancient Mesopotamian mother of all the Gods. Tiamat is depicted as a Dragon Goddess who emerges from the Sea and gives birth to all the other deities. She is the  Sacred Feminine itself – fierce,  protective, loving and nurturing. Tiamat is “Ummu-Hubur, who formed all things”.

Nov 7:  Celtic Samhain Cross-Quarter Day falls on the boundary between autumn and winter halfway between autumn equinox and winter solstice (November 7th this year). The light is slowly fading away as our Sun drops lower and lower in the sky and our nights grow longer. This is a potent in-between time. The veils between the worlds grow very thin during this sacred in-between time.  Loved ones who have departed this Earth are believed to be nearby. Samhain is  a time to acknowledge and celebrate the sacred cycles of birth – growth – death – rebirth that are an integral part of Nature.

The Goddess Hekate was also celebrated and honored in ancient Greece at this time of year. Hekate is the guardian of the gateways between the worlds. She is a wisewoman crone Goddess of the Moon and Magick who stands at the crossroads and assists with all kinds of transitions, including birth and death.

Hindu Diwali  or Festival of the Lights is also celebrated at this time of year (November 5-9 this year). This popular festival celebrates the victory of light over darkness, good over evil. In some traditions, the Diwali night’s lights and firecrackers represent a celebratory and symbolic farewell to the departed ancestral souls.

Goddess of the Silver Wheel

Corona Borealis

Celtic Goddess Arianrhod (ah-ree-AHN-rhohd) has a long and celebrated history. Through the years, she has gone by many names: Goddess of the Silver Wheel, Goddess of Reincarnation, Welsh Star, Mother-Moon Goddess, and the Silver Wheel that Descends into the Sea. Her name actually translates as ‘silver’ (Arian) ‘wheel’ (Rhod) in Welsh.

With skin as pale as the moon, Arianrhod is a beautiful and powerful Dark Goddess. She is the daughter of the Great Mother Goddess Don and her consort Beli.  And like her mother before her, Arianrhod is a symbol of feminine power and sovereignty. She rules fertility, birth and rebirth. She is also a weaver of cosmic time and fate, the one who decides when a Soul is ready to be reborn.

Arianrhod lives in the far north, on the magical island of Caer Sidi (Revolving Castle) with her female attendants. The ancients believed that her castle, Caer Arianrhod, was located in the Corona Borealis, a group of circumpolar stars that appear to rotate around the North Star. Corona Borealis means Northern Crown, which is very fitting for a powerful sovereign Goddess.  Legend tells us that poets and astrologers learned the wisdom of the stars at Caer Sidi.

The moon is an archetypal symbol of the ancient Mother Goddess that is connected to the female womb, death, rebirth and the sacred feminine power of creation. The Celtic people counted time not by days, but by nights, and made their calendars focused on the moon instead of the sun. Ancient Celtic astrologers took their observations from the position of the moon and its progress in relation to the northern stars. They were guided by Arianrhod’s silver wheel of stars.

Arianrhod’s starry home is also known as Annwn, the Otherworld or Land of the Dead.  When people die, it is said that Arianrhod’s attendants bring them to Caer Sidi. There, in the stillness of the hub of Arianrhod’s silver wheel, the Souls of the dead are nurtured by Arianrhod’s attendants while waiting for their fate to be decided.  Arianrhod is able to shape shift into a large owl. Like the moon,  the owl is an ancient symbol of death, rebirth, magic, spiritual wisdom and initiation. With her great owl eyes, Arianrhod can see into the depths of each human soul. She is said to move through the dark of night with power and purpose, her wings spreading to give comfort and healing to all who seek her.

As is the case with most of the powerful Goddesses, stories tell us that Arianrhod was eventually humiliated, tricked and stripped of her children and her sovereignty by a Christian warlord. For Arianrhod, death was said to come when the sea reclaimed the land where the Christian lord had forced her to live in exile.

And yet… when I look up and see her silver wheel of circumpolar stars that continues to revolve in our night sky year after year, I can still feel her power and grace. Arianrhod is there amongst the stars, patiently waiting for us to rediscover her.

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Messenger of the Dark

Raven Eye by Henry Percy

Image by Henry Percy

“Crow is a symbol of solitude, spiritual strength, and the secret magic of the creative life. Black is the colour of creation, the dark womb out of which the new is born. The three crows were the messengers, reminding me of my intuitive, creative nature, waiting to emerge. Three crows, three sisters, three fates, three witches. They are the triple goddess in her dark, shadowy form. 

The Dark Goddess reigns in the space without borders or boundaries. She is the dark side of the moon. She is the creative space, the womb space, the feminine blood mysteries. She is guardian of the life/death/re-birth cycles, and the mistress of transformation and change.

She is Pele, destroying everything that is not useful on our path; she is Lilith, reminding us of our deepest yearning and sexual desires; she is Kali, slaying the demons of our past; she is Sekhmet, showing us how to unlock our anger and our rage. She is the shadow side of our personality – what we try to hide, what we are ashamed of,
what we fear within ourselves, what we have been told to lock away.”

~Kristen Roderick

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As the nights lengthen

Dark Goddess whispers in the stillness,

waiting to initiate us into

a time of deep dreaming and seeing.

she pulls away the veils, and we are ushered into

a sacred dark space where we can remember, release, and recharge.

Aspens In Fall by Henry Percy

In this season of change and letting go

Meditate or call on the archetypal energies of

The Dark Goddess

Learn to release all that is complete, all that longer serves you.