Yemaya Blessing of the Waters Event

For the last ten years, around the first full moon of the year, I have lead a special beach side devotional rite in order to  Yemaya (also spelt Yemoja and Iemoja), the Yorùbá Orisha or Goddess of the living ocean around.  This year is no different.

On Thursday, 12th January I invite you to join me in this informal rite that will be held at Grange Beach where we will be asking Yemaya to bless the world's waterways, seas creations and all other beings that fall under Her protection.

Around 8.00pm we will be gathering on the grassed area along the forefront in front of the Grange Hotel (look for the purple banner) before heading down to the shore at 8.15pm.  The rite will commence around 8:30pm.

How will you honour your Sacred Gift of Womankind?

In her book, The Thirteen Original Clan Mothers, author Jamie Sams asks us:

 

“We are being asked to honour the gifts of womankind and to call on the strength of our sisters in order to discover ourselves. The circle will come full when every human can see the beauty within the Self, as well as in all others.  The transmutation of competition, separateness, hierarchy, jealousy, envy, manipulation, control, selfishness, greed, dependency, old wounds, and self-righteousness must be accomplished before we will come to wholeness.  These attitudes are the enemies of humankind and are found within the Shadow-self, rather than outside ourselves.

 

Your Cup of Milk Matters

In the 16th century, the Mogul Emperor of India, Akbar, ordered the construction in his royal gardens of a vast marble pond for his recently acquired rare white Himalayan swans.  Akbar wished to inaugurate their entry into his new pond by filling it with a sea of milk.  A proclamation was read throughout the capital inviting each citizen to come to the royal gardens during the hours of darkness and pour one cup of milk into the new pond before departing.

 

The next morning Akbar awoke to a pond filled with water.

 

Love Shows the Way - We Are Here to Serve

The following is a wonderful posting by Madisyn Taylor of Daily Om

 

Love Shows the Way - We Are Here to Serve 

 

Every movement in the universe

is a movement toward love.

 

We are living in a time of great change. Many thinkers and seers agree that humanity and the planet Earth are evolving at a quickened pace, and that this evolution will necessarily be severe and seemingly chaotic at times. It is natural for people to react with fear, because these changes will doubtless bring some level of difficulty and loss to many of us. However, it is essential that we all remember that our souls chose to be here at this time and to be part of this process. Every movement in the universe is a movement toward love. This is true even in situations that appear on the surface to be the opposite of loving. 

 

Brighid to be honoured in the first Sacred Goddess Circle for 2014

Brighid, both the Goddess and the Saint, is associated with the sun and fire. In fact, her name is said to mean "fiery dart", and she is associated with "fiery pursuits" such as smithcrafting, as well as the inspirational "fires" of creativity.

 

As many of the myths associated with the Pagan Goddess Brighid have merged with the Christianised saint, this only proves that even today, Brighid is seen as a powerful role model and source of inspiration for the modern woman regardless of her spiritual belief.

 

Queen of Olympos devotional now available

I am very excited to announce that Queen of Olympos: A Devotional Anthology for Hera and Iuno is now available via Amazon.com.  This anthology, the fourth to date that something I have submitted has been publishe, explores the often misunderstood long suffering "wife" of Zeus (and his Roman counterpart, Jupiter).  However, as readers will discover, there is so much more to Hera/Iuno that what is commonly considered today.

 

Riding the Wave of Life

Avebury Stone Circle, England

For the last five weeks I have been travelling the lands of my ancestors and as such, have been lucky enough to visit a number of wonderful ancient sites that are at least 3,000 to even 5,000 years old.  These sites were built by people for reasons we are yet to understand and probably never will.  A number of them however were built to align with astrological and astronomical occurrences, and when we find ourselves standing amongst such monuments we can't help but wonder "what were these monuments really built for" and "why were they built in the first place"?

 

In order to help ascertain insight into these questions, and many more, a moment of stillness always comes in handy.  And as I take a moment to collect my thoughts, I would like to share this essay from Madisyn Taylor about "Riding the Wave of Life".

Hymn to the Divine Mother

Here in Australia is it the day that we honour our Mothers Day.  As such, I thought I would share the following poem entitled "Hymn to the Divine Mother" (author is unknown):

Hymn to the Divine Mother

O thou the giver of all blessings,
O thou the doer of all good,
O thou the fulfiller of all desires,
O thou the giver of refuge -
Our salutations to thee, O Mother Divine.

Yemaya and New Year

Around the first Full Moon of the year the Temple of the Dark Moon together The Goddess House will be hosting the annual "Blessing of the Waters" at Grange Beach, Adelaide.  This event is dedicated to the Africo-Carribean Mami Wata, the "Mother of the Waters", commonly known as Yemaya. 
 

Yemaya, or Ymoja as she was known to the Yoruban people of West Africa, was the Mother of the Ogun River. This is because she was said to have given birth to the world's waters ... and that new springs would appear whenever she turned over in her sleep, and springs would gush forth whenever she walked.

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.

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.

The Independent Goddesses

This year has been a rather productive year for me with respect to my writing.  Not only am I in the final stages of completing the manuscript of my first book for printing, but I have also had a number of essays appear in various anthologies.

 

The first of these anthologies is Unto Herself: A Devotional Anthology for Independent Goddesses, edited by from Ashley Horn and Bibliotheca Alexandrina, which is now available.

 

This volume consists a collection of prayers, poems, rituals, essays, and short stories written about various independent Goddesses including Artemis, Athena, Columbia, Coventina, Freyja, Hekate, Hestia, Isis, Kuan Yin, Lilith, Mary, Minerva, the Morrigan, Nehalennia, Neith, Skadhi, Tabiti, and Vesta.   Amongst the contributions is my own essay on Neith, who was an extremely early Egyptian Goddess.

Spring has arrived at The Goddess House

Growing over the verandah to the The Goddess House is a beautiful old wisteria (Wisteria sinensis) that, with the help of my partner a number of years ago, we restrung the wire in order to "encourage" it to provide shading from the intensive northerly Summer sun we get here in Adelaide.  Alas, like anything we try to tame from nature, it showed that it had its own will and continued to grow according to that ... and not mine.

 

With Spring well and truly upon us, the wisteria is bursting into gorgeous lilac coloured flower, and on the breeze, its delicate scent is found.  Little wonder then that wisteria is associated with the element of Air and attracts to it powers of gentleness, inspiration, as well a sacred knowledge and wisdom.

Prayer to Persephone

Honouring Bast and Anubis

The August service at The Goddess House carried an Egyptian theme Bast (the cat headed Goddess associated with women and the moon) and Anubis (the jackal headed God associated with guiding the souls into the Underworld) were honoured.

Probably the most famous Egyptian Goddess after Isis, Bast (or Bastet) was believed to have originally been a Sun Goddess, but during the Greek rule of Egypt, she became associated with Artemis and the Moon.

The Goddess is very much alive

What a wonderful Goddessy week this week has been.  It commenced with the first devotional service for 2012 that was held on Tuesday night in honour of the Bone Mother and the Child of Winter.  Then I received notification on Wednesday that one of the anthologies I had submitted essays for, Unto Herself: A Devotional Anthology for Indepent Goddesses was now available to purchase.  This anthology contains my essay on the ancient Goddess Neith.  I am also eagerly awaiting notification as to when the other anthologies that I have also submitted essays to will be available, and have blogged about this on my Musings of a High Priestess blog.

Dark Night, Dark Fears

With the Mid Winter Solstice almost upon us as well as the dark of the Moon, I thought I would share the following poem written by Beth Clare Johnson.

DARK NIGHT, DARK FEARS

It was a dark night, and cold.
I found myself in a strange landscape
Light gray clouds floating in the sky,
Barely lit by the moon.

Using Devotional Beads



Triple Goddess Devotional Beads

The use of beads as a devotional tool can be found within many spiritual paths and traditions.  Known by various names, the purpose of using devotional, prayer, mala or even rosary beads is largely the same -that of being a counter when prayers, mantras or chants are repeated.

Sacred Strands is a wonderful site that outlines the use of such beads.

Hymn to Isis

I call upon you, Isis, most graceful and high of the High Ones
Hear your lowly servitor and grant your blessings
Most full and gentle
You whose crescent moon and stars
Encompass the world.

Wave your arm, and strew the glittering dust of many worlds
Like seeds to be planted in the vast blackness of space
Step gently across the bridge of many colors
And rest in the mountains of flowers I wish for your offering
That they may shine.

Swell the fruit of the land, make mother with child
Cause flying birds to nest, and bees to swarm
Make the endless procession of life grow full and bountiful
Bring water to the well and rain to the clouds
Cause your veils to fall upon barren earth
And make it holy.

When a Language Becomes a Mother/Goddess

I came across a rather interesting essay about Tamil, a language spoken by over 70 million people in India and Sri Lanka, Singapore, Malaysia, as well as other parts of the global South Asian diaspora.

Rivaled only by Sanskrit, Tamil inspired the praise and adoration of many of its speakers from its early recorded literary history.  In the later half of the 19th century in colonial India, this admiration intensified to the point that the language was imagined as a mother/goddess variously referred to as Tamiḻttāy, Tamil Aṉṉai, and Tamiḻ Tēvi.

Over the course of the first half of the 20th century, the veneration of and devotion to the Mother/Goddess Tamil variously fueled powerful movements for religious revitalization, the deepening of linguistic pride and love for Tamil literature, a vigorous assertion of Tamil identity, even a separatist movement for independent statehood free of India.