My Japanese Maple

Goddess Sexuality

I blogged a while ago about a festival in Kerala, a monthlong festival that begins in Kumbha (February-March) and finishes in Meena (March-April). It’s . . .the annual gathering for thousands of largely lower caste, practising oracles (among whom women appear to lead) from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. At the Bharani, old oracles offer themselves to the goddess again and new ones are chosen.


Here's an interesting discussion of the cultural issues inherent in the festival.

And, some additional information about the festival:

The festival is also unique for its ‘Bharani pattu’ – sexually explicit songs, meant to appease the Goddess. These songs deal with the sexuality of the Goddess and humans and emphasises sex as part of natural life, while deriding sexual hypocrisy – especially of upper caste women. The songs make it clear that sexuality is not only natural, but is also present everywhere. In a place like Kerala, with itfrighteningly crude mechanisms of sexual repression, the Bharani provides a venue for people to be freed of the need to pretend that the sexual does not exist.

Picture found here.

Um, OK

The ever-controversial Kevin Carlyton, who is now, apparently, not only the "High Priest of British White Witches," but also "The Official Protector of Lock Ness and the Loch Ness Creature," is is organizing an event to "show" that Nessie is a ghost.


The High Priest of British White Witches, Kevin Carlyton - who calls himself "The Official Protector of Loch Ness and the Loch Ness Creature" - is organising the one-off psychic gathering and is hoping to prove the monster is in fact a ghost.

The white witch, who claims to have thwarted the plans of "monster hunter" Jan Sundberg from Sweden coming to Loch Ness to attempt to capture Nessie a few years ago, believes the monster will never be caught, because she's not actually alive.

Kevin explained: "The creature is a ghost from a bygone era and its image has been captured by the surrounding landscape. On certain weather conditions, particularly very warm or thunderous with a lot of static in the air, images of the creature are 'replayed' and people who are slightly psychic see the creature as if it is here now."

Now the white witch hopes to prove his point about the monster, which drums up hundreds of thousands of pounds in tourism business every year for the area, by organising the coming together for those who have psychic abilities.

He said: "I predict there will be at least 200 people present at the event. I've only mentioned a small bit about the event on my website and the interest so far has been phenomenal.

I'm sure the lovely people from the Loch Ness Tourist Association will welcome the visitors.

Picture found here.

Are You A Good Witch Or A Bad Witch?

Here's an interesting discussion about the difference between witches and witch doctors in African tradition. Interesting contrast with European traditions, as well.

Old map found here.

Thursday Garden Blogging

Blue barlow columbine.

Photo by the author; if you copy, please link back.

Thursday Poetry Blogging

A Mermaid Questions God by Kelli Russell Agodon

As a girl, she hated the grain of anything
on her fins. Now she is part fire ant, part centipede.
Where dunes stretch into pathways, arteries appear.
Her blood pressure is temperature plus wind speed.

Where religion is a thousand miles of coastline,
she is familiar with moon size, with tide changes.
She wears the cream of waves like a vestment,
knows undertow is imaginary, not something to pray to.

Now her questions involve fairytales, begin
in a garden and lead to hands painted on a chapel's ceiling.
She wants to hold the ribbon grass, the shadow of angels
across the shore. She steals a Bible from the Seashore Inn;

she will trust it only if it floats.

Picture found here.

Forty Years? Where Are Ms. Krause's Grandchildren?

Where the Hel did the time go?

Why the Hel aren't we farther along?

And, Right Away, I Know: My Pipple

Four horses passed us, their riders cloaked in maroon blankets, their faces painted black. At the top of the hill of Uisneach in County Westmeath there is a vast saucer-shaped meadow, of more than 40 acres, which was dotted with wicker huts, wigwams, and sculptures of horses and other creatures, made from willow rods. There were stalls selling cider, and roasted pig, potato cakes and rashers. There was a vegetarian soup, a bouncy castle, and hundreds of people eating sausages, and listening to Sharon Shannon.

. . .

Everyone was unwinding. Phoning each other. Eating bacon. Looking for music sessions. There were ribbons on a hawthorn bush in the middle of a clump of stones.

. . .

Summer had been inaugurated. People sat around the fire as if some fragment of eternity had broken through the night, for everyone.

Teenagers wrapped in blankets, gazed at each other, full of desire, as if they had stepped, not just into summer, but through a portal to some magical “now”, where they were about to enjoy the time of their lives.

Being old, I left them there and walked back down the path, where sculpted angels stood in line with outstretched wings. I passed a boy and girl hugging each other at an upturned barrel of flames, their faces lit like something from Carravaggio’s dreams.

Read about the whole thing here.

PIcture found here.

Tuesday Poetry Blogging

A reader sent this to me and it seems quite appropriate as we all focus on the Gulf:

BY JACK SPICER

Any fool can get into an ocean
But it takes a Goddess
To get out of one.
What’s true of oceans is true, of course,
Of labyrinths and poems. When you start swimming
Through riptide of rhythms and the metaphor’s seaweed
You need to be a good swimmer or a born Goddess
To get back out of them
Look at the sea otters bobbing wildly
Out in the middle of the poem
They look so eager and peaceful playing out there where the
water hardly moves
You might get out through all the waves and rocks
Into the middle of the poem to touch them
But when you’ve tried the blessed water long
Enough to want to start backward
That’s when the fun starts
Unless you’re a poet or an otter or something supernatural
You’ll drown, dear. You’ll drown
Any Greek can get you into a labyrinth
But it takes a hero to get out of one
What’s true of labyrinths is true of course
Of love and memory. When you start remembering.

We're Witches. Maybe We Can Do Something About This.

As noted below, the Moon is currently waning (in Sagittarius, today), which makes this a good time to do magic to decrease the flow of the oil well that is threatening the Gulf of Mexico. I'll be at my altar tonight; please join me if you feel moved to do so. This sort of disaster seems to me to be ideal for knot magic, but whatever works for you works between the worlds. And, what we do between them, affects them all.

Here's a short list of Goddesses and Gods associated with the Ocean:

Yemaja - Goddess of the Ocean

Mama Cocha - Inca Goddess of the sea and provider of the sea's bounty. She is a favorite of sefarers and fishermen.

Enki - God of Water

Branwyn - Goddess of love, sexuality and the sea

Latis - Goddess of Water and Beer

Morgan LeFay - Goddess of Death, Fate, the Sea and of Curses

Aegir - God of the Sea

Njord - God of Fire, Wind and Sea

Oceanus - Produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs with his wife Tethys

Tethys - Produced the rivers and the three thousand ocean nymphs with her husband Oceanus

Poseidon - God of Horses, Earthquakes, Storms and the Sea. Brother of Zeus

Naunet - Goddess of the Ocean

Nun - God of Water and Chaos

Namu - Goddess of the Sea

Since the oil is gushing forth from the Underworld, here's a list of Goddesses and Gods associated with the Underworld:

Cernunnos

Hades

Persephone


Dress your altar with shells. Go skyclad or clad in shells. Burn candles of blue and green. Wear water and fish, listen to the sound of waves, burn incense related to water.

Call the Elements, with an emphasis on Wind and Water. Invoke the Goddesses and Gods of your choosing and cast your circle with salt water and visions of dolphins.

Meditate on your objective: seeing the gushing of oil from the Underworld stopped, capped, undone. See the proper seals between the Worlds restored.

Raise energy. Raise it by dancing, swimming, singing, chanting, floating. And, then, release the energy into the Gulf.

Ground. Thank Deity. Thank the Elements. Open your circle. Enjoy rum and seaweed crackers or water and shrimp skewers or margaritas and cerviche for cakes and ale.

Ground again.

Blessed be.

Picture found here.

I stole the title from a comment by Mr. Penzack.

Waning Moon

Good time to do some magic to decrease the flow of oil in the Gulf. You in?

Sunday Dance Blogging

My State Has The Stupidest Attorney General In The Entire Country

No. Really. We do.

Good thing there's no crime or consumer fraud or anything here in the Old Dominion and we've got tons of tax dollars to spend on making colleges discriminate against gay people and covering up the Goddess on our state seal. Oh, wait.

I have come to understand that xianity is about nothing -- and I do mean nothing -- so much as control of sex and the female body.

May the Goddess Virtus (lovely naked breast and all) guard us.

Picture found here.

Sounds Like Fun

Now here's a book I'd like to read with G/Son. Positive children's story about witches, plus, you know, raspberry pie.

Picture found here.

Local Coverage

Here's a nicely-done article about Ontario Pagan groups and how they practice and perceive Beltane. It avoids the usual, "And they really don't eat babies or worship the devil!" trope and includes some interesting discussion of volunteer burn-out.

Now if only they could manage to capitalize the name of a religion. I don't suppose they'd write about catholics at xmas, jews at Passover, or moslems at Ramadan.

Oh, Yes, I Know It Well

You know that feeling you get after dancing around a great bonfire with drums melting your bones and the stars burning in the shining black sky, and there’s a kind of green wick blazing inside your stomach and your heart, and you feel like at any moment you’re going crack wholly open, and all the love and joy and the sobbing sobbing laughing laughing because of life life will pour out of you and flood the gate and wash the wood clean and you welcome it and you can’t wait and the wind rips through your hands and says yes do this do this now this is the moment and then laughs like a maniac and then you laugh like a maniac and then the drums start again and the night goes on and on and you are the most beautiful thing dancing in the whole of the shocking, gorgeous and perfect world?

More here.

Picture found here.

Poetry For A Beltane Morning

On May Morning
by John Milton

Now the bright morning Star, Day's harbinger,
Comes dancing from the East, and leads with her
The Flowery May, who from her green lap throws
The yellow Cowslip, and the pale Primrose.
Hail bounteous May that dost inspire
Mirth and youth, and warm desire,
Woods and Groves, are of thy dressing,
Hill and Dale, doth boast thy blessing.
Thus we salute thee with our early Song,
And welcome thee, and wish thee long.

Beltane's Coming!

The month of May was come, when every lusty heart beginneth
to blossom, and to bring forth fruit; for like as herbs and trees
bring forth fruit and flourish in May, in likewise every lusty heart
that is in any manner a lover, springeth and flourisheth in lusty
deeds. For it giveth unto all lovers courage,
that lusty month of May.
- Sir Thomas Malory, Le Morte d'Arthur, 1485

Picture found here.

Wholesome or Un

Vanessa's whisper to the horse, "Proper . . . or im" gets me every time. I do think this may have been as close as the mainstream culture of my girlhood came to acknowledging my religion.

If you're going to make a mistake, making a "divine mistake" makes more sense.

First Of The Month Bazooms Blogging

Ladies! Listen up! Detecting breast cancer early is the key to surviving it! Breast Self Exams (BSEs) can help you to detect breast cancer in its earlier stages. So, on the first of every month, give yourself a breast self-exam. It's easy to do. Here's how. If you prefer to do your BSE at a particular time in your cycle, calendar it now. But, don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good.

And, once a year, get yourself a mammogram. Mammograms cost between $150 and $300. If you have to take a temp job one weekend a year, if you have to sell something on e-Bay, if you have to go cash in all the change in various jars all over the house, if you have to work the holiday season wrapping gifts at Macy's, for the love of the Goddess, please go get a mammogram once a year.

Or: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pays all or some of the cost of breast cancer screening services through its National Breast and Cervical Cancer Early Detection Program. This program provides mammograms and breast exams by a health professional to low-income, underinsured, and underserved women in all 50 states, six U.S. territories, the District of Columbia, and 14 American Indian/Alaska Native organizations. For more information, contact your state health department or call the Cancer Information Service at 1-800-4-CANCER.

I know that a recent study indicated that early detection via breast self exams might not be "cost effective." I'm not a scientist, but when I read those studies, they appear to be saying that sometimes women find a lump during the BSE that turns out not to be cancer. Those women have caused some expense and have gone through some discomfort in order to find out that the lump wasn't cancer. I don't know about you, but when that happens to me, as it has a few times since my first mammogram found a small, curable, cancerous lump, I go out and buy a new scarf, take myself out for a decadent lunch, call everyone I know, and declare it a good day.

Send me an email after you get your mammogram and I will do an annual free tarot reading for you. Just, please, examine your own breasts once a month and get your sweet, round ass to a mammogram once a year. If you have a deck, pick three cards and e-mail me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading. If you don't have a deck, go to Lunea's tarot listed on the right-hand side in my blog links. Pick three cards from her free, on-line tarot and email me at hecatedemetersdatter@hotmail.com. I'll email you back your reading.


Picture found here.