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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in peace

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

“We come in peace!”

These days, if you need a visual symbol to indicate peaceable intent from a distance, you hold up a white flag.

How a white cloth came to mean “peace,” I don't know. I suspect that, in part at least, it's a matter of pragmatism: holding up a cloth shows that you have no weapon in hand. White tends to be visible from a distance, which is good—you want to be sure that they don't fill you full of arrows before you get close enough to be heard—and I'm guessing that, in any given group of people, we could probably come up with at least one piece of white clothing to keep us from getting our butts shot off before we're close enough to parley.

Of course, this wouldn't get you very far if you happened to be traveling with witch-folk, we being, in the main, wearers of black. Fortunately, there's another option for a sign of peace: an old sign, a pagan sign.

“We come in frith!” we say (“frith” is Witch—and Heathen—for peace), holding up our green branches.

The green branch makes a good symbol of peace. Like the white cloth, it shows that you have no weapon in hand.

Unlike a white cloth, you can find a green branch almost anywhere. Even during the winter, there are generally evergreen branches to hand. A green branch is like unto that old pagan distance weapon, a spear, but it's a spear of peace.

A green branch is alive, growing. (Well, it was up until just a little while ago, anyway.) Think of it as a branch from the Tree of Life.

We may even find a theological statement here. How if the Green God, lord of vegetation, is the proper pagan god of truce, of peace? It's the Red God, lord of beasts, that's the fighter; but under the sign of the Leafy One, we meet in frith. The trees are a peaceful people. Where but beneath the branches of a tree do we hold our peace parley?

In half a Moon's time, on Midsummer's Eve, the coven will be up on the hill, dancing the traditional Dance of the Wheel with fresh, green branches in our hands.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

These past few months have been increadibly hard. I've tried throwing myself into various studies, using this isolation/quarantine time to my best. 

Yet, I find that inside I'm hurting. I've loved having my family home and around me, yet, there's an ache. 

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
Strange Serenity

The snow has finally arrived here in NW PA. 

It's a mixed blessing for me. I worry about my young drivers, I worry about my husband who drives for a living, I worry about me driving. Icy snowy roads make me nervous, and here I am, living on top of a hill that I have to descend to get anywhere. As well, to get anywhere in this town, you either have to go up or down a hill.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Under the Sign of the Green Branch

Why is the Green God, Lord of Leaf and Tendril, called 'Frith-God,' god of peace?

Not hard.

In days before the White Flag came to denote cessation of hostilities, truce, and peaceful negotiation, the Green Branch bore these meanings, and its bearers.

The wielders of the Green Branch bear no weapon, but the sign of life and growth.

Indeed, they bear the sign of the strong God Who Makes War on None, yet in the end wins nonetheless, through patience and persistence.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Stands-In-the-Sky

In the old language of the Witches, frith means “peace.”

They say that it's also the name of the Goddess of the Rainbow.

Why? Not difficult.

Daughter of Sun and Thunder, contentious couple that they are, she is child of their reconciliation.

Last new moon I set out for our coven meeting just before sunset. Although the day had been gray and rainy throughout, suddenly the clouds parted and everything began to glow with a long, red equinox light.

And there in the east She stood in the sky with Her twin sister, vast and shining.

I live in a gritty urban neighborhood where it's sound practice to be a little chary of people you pass on the street.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Summer in Winter

After the second Battle of Moy Tura, Macha traveled throughout Ireland. “What news?” they would ask wherever she went, and this is what she told them.

Although there is no evidence that the Kelts of Bronze and Iron Age Ireland observed the winter solstice—unlike their Stone Age predecessors who raised New Grange—Macha's proclamation of peace has long seemed to me a fitting articulation of the hope—and promise—of Yule.

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