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.

The Djanggawul Sisters

A Haiku by Luthiena o Lorien

Endlessly pregnant,

Produced the world's first sacred,

Holy artifacts

According to the Aboriginal people of north eastern Amhem Land, the human race evolved from three great ancestorial beings, known as Djanggawul and his two sisters: Bildiwuwiju (or Bildjiwuraru), the elder sister who had many children; and Muralaidj (or Miralaidj), who had just reached puberty.  Together, they lived on an island known as Baralku, the island of the dead.

One day they decided to load up their canoe with sacred objects and emblems (which they kept in a conical mat basket) and travel to Australia.  They landed on the Arnhem Land coast at a place called Yelanghara beach near Port Bradshaw.   When Djanggawul plunged his mawalan (walking stick) into the sand, a freshwater spring formed.  The stick then grew into a she-oak tree.

White Ribon Day - 25 November 2012

In 1991, a group of Canadian men initiated a White Ribbon campaign to recognise the anniversary of the deaths of 14 Canadian women massacred by a gunman in Montreal two years prior. Wearing a white ribbon was a public pledge by these men to never commit, condone or remain silent about violence against women.

Since that time, the White Ribbon campaign has spread to countries on every continent. It is now the largest organised worldwide event condemning violence against women.

Each year, 25 November marks both the United Nations International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, and White Ribbon Day.

More about White Ribbon Day can be found here.

November Devotional Service

As the year is quickly coming to an end, various other commitments are amounting up.  As such, a regrettable decision has been made to cancel the November devotional service that was to be held at The Goddess House this coming Tuesday, 13 November 2012. 

 

A private healing circle will still take place so if you would like a name to be added to the list, please contact the Priestess in Residence.

 

The final devotional service for 2012 to be held on Tuesday, 11 December 2012, will still go ahead.  The theme of this service will be to honour the God and Goddess of the Summer.  I hope to see you there.

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.