The Green Tara

The September devotional service held at The Goddess House will be in honour of the Bodhisattva of compassion and action, the Green Tara, one of some 21 aspects of Tara herself.

Tara is the much-loved Tibetan Buddhist Mother Goddess.  she represents all that is and her energy can permeate all things. Tara is worshiped in both mild and wild forms, and exists in a rainbow of colours based on various attributes.  The Green and White Tara of the Tibetan Tantric tradition are the most popular forms, with Green Tara seen as her fiercer, most dynamic form.

Hekate - The Goddess of the Crossroads

For the third year, The Goddess House, together with the Temple of the Dark Moon, hosted a Hekate's Supper on 13 August, a day auspicious to Hekate herself, in particular as Hekate Soteira ("saviour").

Oftern considered to be a Crone Goddess who is associated with the Underworld, death and destruction, it is refreshing that through the work of modern researchers, in particular Sorita d'Este and David Rankine of Avalonia Publishing, that this "Crone" perception is being dismissed. 

Early Spring by Alfred Lord Tennyson

Once more the Heavenly Power
Makes all things new,
And domes the red-plowed hills
With loving blue;
The blackbirds have their wills,
The throstles too.

Opens a door in Heaven;

From skies of glass
A Jacob's ladder falls
On greening grass,
And o'er the mountain-walls
Young angels pass.

Imbolc in the Southern Hemisphere

As the first rays of the morning sun creeps through the gap of houses and across my back yard, the ground almost shivers with anticipation of its subtle warmth.  Winter is finally losing its grip upon the land, making way for Imbolc, the season of rebirth.

It is within a collection of Irish medieval myths known as “Tochmarc Emire” that the word “Imbolc” is first mentioned.  Within the story of the wooing of Emer by the Ulster hero Cu Chulainn, Emer sets a series of challenges for the young hero include him going sleepless for a year.  The calendar she refers to is denoted by the “opening of the four seasons”, with one of these seasons being named as Imbolc, marking the beginning of Spring when “the sheep are milked and Spring’s beginning". 

Please Call me by my True Names

From: Peace is Every Step: The Path of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

In Plum Village, where I live in France, we receive many letters from the refugee camps in Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand, and the Philippines, hundreds each week. It is very painful to read them, but we have to do it, we have to be in contact. We try our best to help, but the suffering is enormous, and sometimes we are discouraged. It is said that half the boat people die in the ocean. Only half arrive at the shores in Southeast Asia, and even then they may not be safe.

In Honour of Kuan Yin

Altar ready for the July Devotional Service

With the next devotional service only a few days away, finally a decision has been made as to what aspect of the Goddess will be honoured next Tuesday night.  The start of this new financial year, as with any time of change, seems to have brought with it a number of huge personal shifts of late.  Not only have people been required to move in order to seek a better standard of living, but even amongst the people I know, a number of beloved ones have passed on.  Added to this the spiralling increase in a lack of tolerance towards our follow brothers and sisters ... regardless of gender, race or religious/spiritual orientation.