PaganSquare


PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.

  • Home
    Home This is where you can find all the blog posts throughout the site.
  • Tags
    Tags Displays a list of tags that have been used in the blog.
  • Bloggers
    Bloggers Search for your favorite blogger from this site.
  • Login
    Login Login form
Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Sun worship

Posted by on in Culture Blogs

“The only religion that really makes any sense is Sun-worship,” a (non-pagan) friend once said to me years ago.

 

Name of the Sun

 

What the Sun's Name to himself may be, we do not know.

(Let me relent and say here, Deep initiates to the Sun there may be who know that Name. If so, I myself am not among them.)

The Sun's Name to us, though: this we know, for it is a relational Name, and we know it of and by our own relation.

Last modified on
Recent comment in this post - Show all comments
  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Mr. Posch, Thanks for sharing! Ave Mithras Sol Invicti!
The Single Most Important Pagan Ritual That You Can Ever Do

What's the single most important pagan ritual that you can ever do?

Hint: you don't need either a temple or a magic circle to do it.

Here it is: Go forth and watch the Sun rise, or set.

Do this as often as you can, and better it be if you do it from a wild place.

At sunset, I often blow a horn when the Sun first touches the horizon. As the Sun sets, I address him. (You can call this prayer if you want to.) This is also a good time to pour out a libation. Then, when he slips entirely below the horizon, I blow the horn again. Then I sing a hymn.

You can elaborate if you want to, but you don't have to. The watching is all that's really necessary.

We have it from the ancestors that the most auspicious time to address oneself to the Sun is when he is on the horizon. In my experience, this is a time of special face-to-face intimacy, not usually present at other times of the day.

If you don't know where to go in your area for a clear view of the sunset and sunrise horizon at various times of year, what kind of pagan are you? Real pagans, being people of the place, are territorial beings.

Last modified on
Saturday Pagans, or: Paganisms-of-Convenience

 O do not tell the priest of our rite,

for he would call it a sin:

but we've been out in the woods all night,

a-conjuring Summer in.

 

An e-mail went around to the coven: Can anyone attend the NoW Zoom meeting on Friday?

(NoW—National Organization of Witches—isn't the organization's real name.)

Now, wait a minute: let me get this straight. A national organization of witches is holding a business meeting on Midsummer's Eve?

Well, I suppose that one could find a certain amount of precedent for such a thing in Received Tradition. According to the Lore, most successful mythological invasions of Ireland took place either at Samhain or at Bealtaine. It makes a certain amount of sense to begin an important endeavor on a Day of Power.

I wish I could believe that such logic underlies NoW's Midsummer's Eve business meeting. Alas, though, I fear that the main motivator here is the logic of pragmatism: in our time and place, most pagan holidays get deferred to the nearest Saturday.

Well, the pagan world is a world of graduated values. It's better to do than not to do. Accordingly, the holiday waits until it's convenient for people to get together.

You'll gather that I don't wholly approve of such Paganisms-of-Convenience. There's something about such a cavalier approach to timing that seems to me, frankly, un-pagan. Is our paganism something that we do in our heads, or does it connect us with Something Real Out There? Is three nights into the Wane really still Full Moon?

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Against Covid, Which God?

Monotheists have it easy. They never have to ask: Which god?

For the rest of us, things get rather more complicated.

In time of plague, as now, to Whom do you turn?

Well, when you need help, who do you usually ask for assistance? The near-by, those with whom you already have good friendship: kin, friends, neighbors.

In time of epidemic, for protection for you and yours, you turn to your luck-god, Whomever that may be.

(Bear in mind, of course, that intangible protections are always best used in partnership with tangible ones as well.)

But collectively, to Whom do we turn for aid in time of plague?

In the Old Ways, there's no wall of separation between reality and mythology. Let us start with a simple fact: sunlight kills covid.

Last modified on
Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Steven Posch
    Steven Posch says #
    Makes good sense, Earth being the center of everything that we know. One of the advantages of polytheism is that there's always mo
  • Victoria
    Victoria says #
    Interesting post. I turn to Еогþe, from surviving Old English literature Еогþe was associated with healing magic and has power ove

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Consummation

Silent, ineluctable, the golden shaft of light streams into the darkness of my room.

Because the street-grid of Minneapolis is laid out East-West, on Evenday mornings the Spring (and Harvest) Sun rising due east shines in through the eastern windows, down the hall, and into my bedroom on the west side of the house.

It's like living in Newgrange, but with heat and running water.

They say that Zeus appeared to Danaë in a Shower of Gold.

They say that Shiva revealed himself as a Lingam of Fire.

I jump out of bed and stand in the Lordly Light. His godly touch gilds my naked skin.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Three Three-Second Rituals for Daily Use

 DN = Divine Name

 

When you're outside and see the Sun for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my [DN].

If you are not wont to address the Sun by Name, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my Light.

 

When you're outside and see the Moon for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my [DN].

If you are not wont to address the Moon by Name, kiss your hand and say:

Love to you, my Light.

 

When you're outside and see the major River in your area for the first time after waking, kiss your hand and say:

[Name of River], I kiss my hand to you.

If you are not wont to address the River by Name, kiss your hand and say:

River of Life, I kiss my hand to you.

Last modified on

Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Sun Run

In traditional societies as far removed as Zuñi Pueblo of the American Southwest and the Kalasha valleys of what is now northwestern Pakistan, the Winter Solstice is marked—among other activities—by footraces.

I've long wondered why this would be so, but this morning—watching the Sun leap up over the horizon—it suddenly occurred to me why.

It's sympathetic magic. The Sun is a runner.

Every day, the Sun walks across the Sky. Even on the day of his birth, he walks from one horizon to the other. Well, he's a god; he can.

(During the Bronze Age, when we became a Horse People, people began to say that the Sun drove across the sky daily in his chariot. In those days, nobles and warriors rode horses and drove chariots, unlike us common folks who walked; when we rode, it was in ox-carts. Surely, went the logic, the Sun was more like nobility and the warrior-kind: hence his chariot. These days, though, we understand that to walk is more sacred than to ride.)

Three-some weeks until the Evenday and his due Eastern rising. This morning he came up still considerably south of east.

“He'll have to run to catch up,” I thought.

Aha.

Last modified on

Additional information