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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Return of the Goddess

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

When, while camping this summer, I lost the little silver goddess that I've worn for years—alas the day!—I did what any “21st” century pagan would do.

I gave myself some time to mourn, then image-searched “goddess pendant silver.”

Of course, I turned up many different images of many different pendants. What surprised me most—try it for yourself—was that not just the majority, but that the vast majority of them, took on a single iconic form:

a stylized (usually nude) female with legs together, pointed toes, and arms raised over her head, often in such a way that her raised arms form a circle whose curves mirror those of her lower body.

What intrigued me most about this imagery is that it does not reflect any known (to me, anyway) historical prototype. This representation of the Goddess is new to our day.

If this really is so—at this point, of course, all conclusions must be tentative ones—just what does this new iconography say about the Goddess and her reemergence in our time?

First off, of course, we must remark that the image does, in many ways, follow historical precedent: the nudity, the pointed toes, are characteristic of much ancient “goddess” imagery. Our new imagery has continuity with the old.

It is the port-de-bras which distinguishes these figures from those that came before them. Goddesses with raised arms, of course, do occur in antiquity, though not commonly (detached arms invite breakage): certain pre-Dynastic Egyptian figurines come to mind, not to mention the charming little faience “Snake Goddesses” from Knossos.

It is the joined arms though, in their circularity, that mark off this representation as new.

Stand up tall. Raise your arms over your head and touch the tips of your fingers together, enhaloing your head. What do you feel?

This is not, of course, an everyday gesture. It has a special, balletic feel. What we see here, paradoxically, is kinesis in stillness: one movement from a dance.

This is a goddess in motion.

The gesture is one of opening, of self-revelation. This is a goddess revealing herself, herself her own revelation. This is a glyph of the Return of the Goddess.

The main axis of the image being primarily vertical, heightened by the upswept arms, we see here, frozen in mid-movement, the act of upward self-extension. Behold the Goddess Rising.

Her arms frame her head. She is her own context, rotating on her own axis.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

Robert Graves - Novelist & Poet | SeeMallorca.com

 

How do you tell when you're in the presence of a pagan elder?

Hear what biographer Richard Perceval Graves has to say of his uncle Robert Graves (1895-1985), author of The White Goddess and prophet of the Return of the Goddess:

Graves's dedication to the Moon Goddess meant that at times...he had seemed to bring with him a breath of the ancient world, and in his presence Deyá [RG's longtime residence in the island of Mallorca] itself would sometimes appear to be a land of ancient days.

There it is. A pagan elder is one in whose presence—at least sometimes—you gain the sense of an older world, a pagan world, the way things once were.

Note also the corollary: that this elder's presence transforms his—or her—very environment.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
The Columns of Aya Sofia

All of the world's big-box religions—including, be it noted, Hinduism and Buddhism—have built their houses on pagan foundations.

As we rebuild the paganisms of the future, this fact has implications.

Let us be frank: much—most—of the Old Lore has been lost forever; there's simply no way ever to recover it.

So, when it comes to the intangibles—tunes, tropes, vocabulary—I would contend that, as pagans, it's our right to take from the Dispossessors whatever we might wish.

Think of it as Reparations: the making-good of that which has been taken from us. In the old Hwicce/Witch language, this would have been called a grith-geld (as in wergeld): payment to make peace between communities.

As for the tangibles: the places, the fungibles? All in good time, my little pretty: all in good time.

If we're wise, for now, we'll draw the line at intangibles. Remember that pagans are the Original People.

If there's one thing we know, it's how to wait.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Elvish Spring

Our Equinox ritual is punctuated multiple times by call-and-response acclamations of Spring in many different languages, including (if you can believe it) Old English and Akkadian.

This year, we had a request for one in Elvish. Well, what's the point of ritual if you can't play a little?

Though not myself a Sindarin-speaker, I do (as my friend Magenta puts it) have contacts in the Realm.

So for those who wish to welcome Spring in the Fair Tongue, here you go.

 

Si cuielen i Híril o Coi! Ele, si cuielen!

See-kwee-ELL-en ee HEER-il oh koi. EY-ley see-kwee-ELL-en!

Lit. “The Lady of Life is living again!” “Behold: She is living again!”

 

i Híril = the Lady (hír = lord + il = feminine ending)

o coi = of life

cui = to live

-iel = participial ending

-en = again (suffix)

si = now

ele = behold (This word bears a particularly mythic resonance, having been the first word spoken by the Quendi [elves, lit. “speakers”] after their coming into being.)

 

Well folks, fun's fun, but—I'm sorry—as long as I'm alive, there will be absolutely NO KLINGON in this ritual! Really, one has to draw the line somewhere.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Oh Happy Day

 Oh happy day

Oh happy day

Oh happy day

Oh happy day

when She came back

when She came back

when She came back

when the Lady came back

when She came back

when the Goddess came back

when She came back to stay

Oh happy day

Oh happy day

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Ghost Eggs

Ostara begins with a hunt.

On the Eve of the Equinox, we gather in the temple, but (O and woe!) the Goddess is gone; so we kindle lights and seek Her throughout the house. She Herself is nowhere to be found, but signs of Her presence are everywhere.

Well, it's a fortnight and odd days till we seek (and eventually, nether-faring to the Underworld, find) Her; meanwhile, the winter-scouring, the spring lustrations have begun. The sanctuary must be clean to welcome its Goddess's Return.

Only now I'm seeing ghost eggs everywhere, eggs that aren't there.

There's one, I'll think, reaching under the radiator, only to find that there isn't.

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    What a peculiar species we are.
  • Murphy Pizza
    Murphy Pizza says #
    No, funnier....some local lore about a cryogenically frozen Norwegian immigrant dude...
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    You have heard that they're predicting another foot of snow for this weekend, yes? Sometimes--like any wheel--the Wheel gets stuc
  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    I think that's why Pagans/Witches have so many festivals. So they will have something to grab onto when they turn the Wheel. Like
  • Murphy Pizza
    Murphy Pizza says #
    Indeed... and then we start making up new ones... My friend in CO is going to be attending something called the Frozen Dead Guy Fe

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Goddess Revisionist History

They say that as Muhammad lay dying, he saw in the corner of his tent a tall, standing shadow.

“Is that you?” he asks.

“I am,” She says.

His entire life had been a struggle against the Goddess, known in Arabic as al-Lât. (“Allah” is the masculine form of this name.)

For a while, he even thought that he had won. He destroyed Her idols, rooted out Her worship, did everything that he could to crush women's power.

Now he lays dying. He is silent for a long time.

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