Sopdet - The Goddess of the New Year

Sopdet (Sepdet, Sothis) personified the 'dog star' Sirius.  This star was the most important of the stars to the ancient Egyptians, and the heliacal rising of this star came at the time of inundation and the start of the Egyptian New Year. As a Goddess of the inundation, she was a Goddess of fertility. She also was linked to the pharaoh and his journey in the afterlife.

She was represented as a woman with a star on top of her head dress, or as a seated cow with a plant between her horns as depicted on an ivory tablet of King Djer. The plant may have been symbolic of the year, and thus linking her to the yearly rising of Sirius and the New Year. She was very occasionally depicted as a large dog, or in Roman times, as the goddess Isis-Sopdet, she was shown riding side-saddle on a large dog.

 

Sirius was both the most important star of ancient Egyptian astronomy, and one of the Decans (star groups into which the night sky was divided, with each group appearing for ten days annually). The heliacal rising (the first night that Sirius is seen, just before dawn) was noticed every year during July, and the Egyptians used this to mark the start of the New Year (wp rnpt, 'The Opening of the Year').

It was celebrated with a festival known as 'The Coming of Sopdet'.

"The time period between Sothic risings is called the Sothic Cycle and it is one of the tools Egyptologists use to create a chronology of Egyptian history." -- Sopdet, April McDevitt

Source: Sopdet, Goddess of Sirius, New Year and Inundation by Caroline Seawright

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.

Summer and the Mother Goddess

The Spring (Vernal) Equinox has passed and as the sacred Wheel turns, Summer is around the corner, with it the festival of Bealtaine.  It is time for the young Mother Goddess to step forward and to take the reigns.  The following is an excerpt from The Gaia Tradition: Celebrating the Earth in Her Seasons by Kisma Stephanich(Llewellyn Publications, 1991) that is most appropriate to share at this time of the year.

Summer is a combustion of activity.  The warmth of the Sun dances across the deserts, caresses the trees of the forests and sparkles off the movement of the waters in the oceans as it rises and splashes against the shoreline or softly gurgles and rushes on downstream.  All life is in full celebration of active energy.

Nearing the end of the Year

With it also being November already, it is hard to believe that the end of the year is only about 10 weeks away.  I am wondering just where the time has gone and what have I done with nearly a whole year's worth.  In reality however, a lot has been happening, especially behind the scenes, even if the result of which is not easily noticed at this stage.

February saw the resumption of devotional services to the Goddess at The Goddess House, something that I am rather passionate about as I personally do not believe that there is enough "giving back" or even a simple "thank you" shown in a lot of spiritual practices.

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.

Celtic Warrior Goddesses

Cartimandua

With the theme for this month's devotional service at The Goddess House being "Warrior Goddess", the following is an extract from Merlin Stone's Ancient Mirrors of Womanhood about the Celtic Warrior Goddess.

 

In ancient Europe the major Deity was the Great Earth Mother.  The first works of art were of female figures and images of a fertility nature represented by female genitals or breasts.  The Earth Mother represented sensuality, the erotic, regeneration and fertility.  She was the relatedness of all life forms and in later agricultural societies a pregnant woman symbolised this.