Dreaming Back the Sisters

On this day when families gather, and others remember, and as we journey ever closer to the ending of one calendar year  pausing for the new year to commence, I would like to share with you this beautiful poem by Marie Elena Gaspari. In doing so, I would also like to invite you all to dream back your sisters, your feminine line (both biological and spiritual) as an inspiring and beautiful intention for 2017.

A wonderful way to continue this dreaming back is to join other women as we gather together.  One type of such gathering are Sister Moon Circles that welcome women of all ages.  The first of the Sister Moons Circles for 2017 will be taking place at the Isian Centre of Metaphysics from Friday, 21 April 2017.

Sister Moon Circles in 2017

After much delay, 2017 will bring with it a number of long awaited programmes, commencing with the Sister Moon Circles.

These circles for women will be held on a Friday evening on or around the new moon - the esoteric time of new beginnings, the first of which will be Friday, 26 May 2017, after the summer heat has passed and to coincide with the commencement of the "dark half" of the year, when we are drawn naturally to go within.

With 2017 being a "1" year in esoteric numerology, a time of new beginnings and as such, let us gather once more and strengthen the bounds of sisterhood.

Floating Amidst the Stars

The night's sky, in particular Nut as she was known by the ancient Egyptians, has been on my mind as late.  Maybe it has something to do with my recent trip interstate where I was able to marvel at all the stars without them being hidden in the increasing amount of "light pollution" we have in suburbia these days.  Or maybe it is because Nut is one of the 13 Goddesses covered in In Her Sacred Names: Writings on the Divine Feminine which is due to be released by the end of this month and that pre-orders are now being taken.  Whatever the reasoningm this star gazing meditation from Daily Om seems to hit the spot.

Rite of Her Sacred Fires in Adelaide

Every year The Goddess House, together with the Temple of the Dark Moon, include the Rite of Her Sacred Fires in with the May Full Moon Gathering ritual. 

 

 

The Rite of Her Sacred Fires is a unique international devotional celebration of the mysteries and magic of the Goddess Hekate.  It was born out of the Hekate Her Sacred Fires anthology project and written by Sorita d’Este who offered it as an act of devotion for all who wished to participate in May 2010.  The first year saw the Rite of Her Sacred Fires translated into numerous languages, with several thousand people from around the world participating by doing the ritual on the Full Moon that month.  To read more about the Rite of Her Sacred Fires, please visit the Covenant of Hekate (where the above information has been sourced from).

 

Dancing in the Luna Light Again

April marks the return to the Full Moon Gatherings that are held during the winter months in Adelaide's beautiful Botanic Park, and what a rather auspicious occasion this month's Gathering will be with the moon being called a "blood moon".

 

According to NASA, the total lunar eclipse will turn the full moon a coppery red in colour, one of four such moons during the next 18 months, with the other dates being 8 October 2014, 4 April 2015, and 28 September 28 2015.

 

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.

Lunar Eclipse in a Sagittarius Full Moon

At tonight's Full Moon Gathering, the moon will not only be in the astrological sign of Sagittarius, but it will also be under the influence of a partial lunar eclipse.  This is when the Earth lines up between the Sun (in the astrological sign of Gemini) and the Moon so that it blocks the Sun's light from fully reaching the Moon. 

During a lunar eclipse the Earth cuts the energy between Sun and Moon, dissolving the energetic structures on Earth and within us.  This opens a portal through which we can release old complexes, habits, ideas, beliefs and wounds that no longer serve our life.   

Soft Moon Shining

My beloved Divine Mother
  Dance with me
    under the soft moon shining
    in the wide open fields
      far beyond the toil and trouble
      of my busy mind

  Dance with me
    before the night grows old
      while the winds of love
      still bow the grasses
        and the coyotes howl for you
        to step their way

  Dance with me my beloved
    while the Mystery's Edge
      still flirts in the shadow
        of your radiant light

By Ethan Walker III from his beautiful devotional book Soft Moon Shining

Bast - a Solar and Lunar Goddess

Bast is a Kemetic (ancient Egyptian) Goddess worshiped at Bubastis in the Nile Delta where she was enthroned as the cat-headed incarnation of Isis, or alternately as the seated sacred cat. In ancient artwork, Bast is typically shown as a beautiful girl with the head of a cat.  she is commonly shown with black, white, yellow, or glowing skin, but often she is depicted fully in cat form.

Bast was said to be the daughter of Ra, though long after he created the primal Gods. She was originally a sun goddess, but after contact with the Greeks, she changed to a Moon Goddess, probably due to the Greeks associating her with Artemis, although some sources connect Bast with the ancient Egyptian Godddess Neith.  Like Artemis, Bast was a wild Goddess. To those who were in her favour, she gave great blessings, but her wrath was legendary and she was sometimes listed as one of Ra's avenging Deities who punish the sinful and the enemies of Egypt.

She was also the Egyptian Goddess of pleasure, music, dancing and joy, associated with cats, the rising sun, the moon, truth, enlightenment, lesbians, sexuality, physical pleasures, fertility, bounty, birth, plenty, the household and protector of the home, civilization, creation, music, dance, the arts, hemp, and the battler of serpents which attack the Sun God.  Bast also viewed as the beneficent side of the lioness Goddess Sekhmet.

Yemaya Blessing of the Waters

On Monday, 9 January 2012, the first public Full Moon Gathering hosted by the Temple of the Dark Moon together The Goddess House will be hosting a special gathering down at Grange Beach, Adelaide which will be dedicated to the Africo-Carribean Goddess Yemaya.

Yemaya, or Ymoja as she was known to the Yoruban people of West Africa, was the Mother of the Ogun River and referrred to as the "Mother of the Waters".  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.

Goddess Prayer Beads

Strings of beads are used in various religions and spiritual traditions as a way of counting when reciting a mantra, a prayer, or even blessings, with two examples being rosary beads (used within the Catholic faith) and mala beads (within Buddhism). The beads can also be used when giving thanks as well as assisting when aligning one's self with the Divine.

Goddess beads can be used in a similar way, with the colour of the beads being up to the individual.  However, recently beads in honour of the Moon Goddess were made where the beads used reflected her triple nature of Maiden (white), Mother (red) and Crone (black), with 13 of each colour being used - representing the 13 months contained within a lunar year.

Call and Response with the Gemini New Moon

It’s another new moon: when the magically minded make wishes and astrologers attempt to divine this cycle’s intentions. But fates are personal. Even if a new moon chart could be forced to describe them all, no single astrologer could tell that many stories. The wishes you make now may indeed be super-powered, but if you don’t have a strong relationship with the archetypes, don’t expect special favours.

If you rarely spend quality time with your siblings or neighbours, don’t expect them to leap at the chance to board your aging dog. New Moons are potent times to forge new alliances with the gods. Visit the invisible world. Bow and open yourself to their touch. Make an offering. Humans have been rendezvousing with these archetypes for thousands of years. When you call out to the gods, they do respond!

Blood Mysteries

In the beginning, according to the Wise Woman tradition, everything began, as everything does, at birth. The Great Mother of All gave birth and the earth appeared out of the void. Then the Great Mother of All gave birth again, and again, and again, and people, and animals, and plants appeared on the earth. They were all very hungry. "What shall we eat?" they asked the Great Mother. "Now you eat me," she said, smiling. Soon there were a very great many lives, but the Great Mother of All was enjoying creating and giving birth so much that she didn't want to stop. "Ah," she said smiling, "now I eat you." And so she still does.

We all come from the same mother. She is the wise woman. We all return to her embrace, her bloody-rich womb place, when we die. Every woman is a whole/holy form of her, able to be whole/holy mother of all life, able to be whole/holy destroyer of life. Her power is her blood that flows and flows, her blood which is life and gives life. Every woman's menstrual blood and birth-time blood is a holy mystery.

Aquarius New Moon: Vessels for Living Water

by Jean Hinson Lall

The New Moon occurs on 3 February (1:01pm here in Adelaide, South Australia) and will occur in the sign of Aquarius, the third and last of the Air signs in the Zodiac, which is often thought to represent the highest development of the intellect – dry, cool, remote, impersonal and objective. Its image, however, is not that of the tweedy scholar lugging a briefcase or a white-coated scientist loading data into a laptop, but that of a lightly-clad human figure carrying vessels of water from which the contents are being poured forth.