Honouring the Celtic Warrior Queens

Last Saturday I was joined with 15 other women at a beautiful location north of Adelaide where we honoured a number of Celtic Warrior Queens as well as Goddesses who were renown for their displays of "feminine power" - being initiators of heroes, as well as defenders of their pride and tribal homelands.

 

The timing of this workshop could not have been any better as SBS had recently started to screen a series on Britain's "She Wolves", where historian Dr Helen Castor explores the lives of seven English queens who challenged male power and the fierce reactions they provoked.  The first episode explored the lives of Matilda, who some 800 years ago, came within a hairs breadth of being the first woman to be crowned queen of England, as well as her daughter-in-law Eleanor of Aquitaine, who divorced one king, married another, only to lead a rebellion against him.

 

Contemplating the Divine Union

"Peace by being Peace"
by Willow Arlenea

With the seasonal celebration of Bealtaine just around the corner which marks the gateway to Summer in the Southern Hemisphere, the next service at The Goddess House will be on the divine union between the God (the forces of the divine masculine) and the Goddess (the forces of the divine feminine).  On the 13 November 2012, not only will we be acknowledging this union externally, but also internally as well.



Swiss psycho-analysist Carl Jung was of the opinion that each of us has the ability of perfect balance in that within each man, there resided the anima (unconscious feminine psychological qualities), and similiarly within each woman the animus (unconscious masculine psychological qualities) also resided.

Blodeuwedd - "Flower Face"

Blodeuwedd by Christopher Williams (1930)

In the Welsh story of "Math ap Mathonwy", Blodeuwedd is created out of three or nine different flowers (depending on what version you read) to be the perfect wife for Llew Llaw Gyffes.  And she remains so until being left alone while her husband decides to visit Math and her magician uncle, Gwydion (Blodeuwedd's creators), who is also the son of Don (an ancient Welsh Goddess).

During this time, a young hunter,  Gronw Pebyr, the Lord of Penllyn, passes Blodeuwedd's castle while hunting a stag.  The two fall in love and the only way they can be together is for Llew to be killed.  However, Llew is the magical son of Arianhrod (another powerful Welsh Goddess and sister of Gwydion), which means he can only be killed if he is "struck by spear one year in the making, not within a house or without and not on horseback or on foot".

Green Tara and the Buddha

 The next devotional service to be held at The Goddess House (next Tuesday, 9 October 2012) will be in honour of the Green Tara and the Buddha. 

The Green Tara is often referred to as the "Buddha of the Enlightened Activity".  She is known as the "Mother of Mercy and Compassion" and is the female aspect of the universe, which gives birth to warmth, compassion and relief from bad karma as experienced by ordinary beings in cyclic existence.