Mad Dogs & Englishmen—in Solstice 2020 Heat, Invoke Water, Rainbows

MAD DOGS AND ENGLISHMEN…SOLSTICE 2020 HEAT, INVOKE WATER, RAINBOWS and IRIS
First Wednesday Monthly Writing Corner for Writers Unlimited, IWSGs, NaNoWriMoers, Indies et al
They say astro signs show portents of changes before they occur. We humans are often slow to comprehend.

Iris, ancient Greek, Egyptian, Sumerian goddess of the Eye & the Rainbow, daughter of the West Wind (Zephyr), she joined ocean and sky, sending healing messages to earth’s creatures

With a significant lunar eclipse coming to occult the Full Rose Moon this Friday, June 5th, and despite challenging earth changes flourishing through rapid temperature rise worldwide, we writerly brigade feel it necessary to inject a positive attitude—and some long-forgotten traditions—into the pastry mix before we all stir the recipe into oblivion.

Venus, ancient love symbol, lately gloriously brightest in our evening skies, is now retrograde, tonight drowning in the Sun, and about to enter the Underworld.

She will emerge later this month as a ‘morning star’. This is a time of wild emotions, but inner beauty can be expressed, too. Venus, Aphrodite, Ishtar, Isis were all facets of goddess of love capable of helping the human race.

MesoAmerican study of Venus cycles provided help to ancient races transfixed by Venus’s precision in the sky. Modern man could use such help.

We need it. There’s currently no help from the Crop Circle brigade unfortunately—As of June 1st, there had been total ONE Crop Circle in the so-called 2020 Season—and that in Belgium!

So—to Ancient Greece—and pre-Roman, hereditary Arabic star clusters and constellations for inspiration and sky-watching between sporadic bouts of earthbound television [not advised]. There we find hidden in myth, but shining in light elusive Iris who gives us the word iridescent—the word itself brings sparkle.

Brief background on this tiny reclusive spirit:

The goddess Iris, using her rainbow bridge, linked the sea and the sky, and she was allowed to enter the underworld and dive in the depths of the sea. The oldest Greek tradition imagined her as the goddess who supplied the clouds with water she scooped from the seas using a golden amphora or storage vessel aka pitcher, and thus stimulated the rains that brought growth and fertility to the earth. This originated from observing actual rainbows, whose one end can hide deep beyond the horizon, often in the sea or a body of wate, with its other end reaching for the heavens. She is responsible for healthy summer fertility and growth.

In Roman tradition (often similar to Greek), god Mercury is Messenger to the Gods. Not so in earliest tradition in ancient Greece and Egypt:

Iris alone was Messenger to the Greek gods and goddesses at first. Child of the West Wind—father Zephyr— and her mother Electra, a cloud nymph as well as one of the seven Pleiades, she could bring and deliver messages to all corners of Ocean and Sky. The Pleiades themselves were associated with water in all forms—rain, frost, ice, snow, lakes, rivers, and oceans.

Iris was the rainbow bridge.

Maiden Goddess with Iridescent Golden Wings
In some texts she is depicted wearing a coat of many colors. With this coat she actually creates the rainbows she rides to get from place to place. Iris’s wings were said to be so beautiful that she could even light up a dark cavern, a trait observable from all her stories.

Her cult held her as goddess supreme of communication, messages—exterior and intuitive—and her appearance was believed to mark major cultural change and new endeavors.

Though Iris was principally associated with communication and messages, she was also believed to aid in the fulfillment of humans’ prayers, either by fulfilling them herself or by bringing them to the attention of other higher deities.

In some texts she is depicted wearing a coat of many colors. With this coat she actually creates the rainbows she rides to get from place to place. Iris’s wings were said to be so beautiful that she could even light up a dark cavern, a trait observable from in the story of her visit to Somnus in order to relay a message to Alcyone.[9]

Though Iris was principally associated with communication and messages, she was also believed to aid in the fulfillment of humans’ prayers, either by fulfilling them herself or by bringing them to the attention of other deities.

Because no place in Creation was forbidden to her, she was delegated to carry water which she dived to collect from the River Styx [mythological river division between living and dead] and fly with it to Mount Olympus for the Gods to use to swear their oaths by.

Pleiades ocean sky nymphs reflect earth’s fairies/elves in many traditions

In Aboriginal & European mythology the Pleiades are often referred to as ocean or sea nymphs; as water girls and ice maidens. Their relationship with water is multi-layered and multi-faceted and we see numerous connections of the Pleiades with the weather, agriculture, navigation and sailing
Munya Andrews

In earliest Hellenist tradition, Iris monopolized the function of Messenger to the Gods. In early records, like Homer’s Trojan War epic the Iliad, she is the only one allowed to relay messages from Zeus–and, once, Hera–to other gods or mortals, with Hermes being given the much smaller rôle of guide and guardian.

Sit Arthur Rackham, 1867-1939, pictured young Iris as the embodiment of a mystical rainbow bridge between heaven and earth

Like the part of the eye named after her, she was the Kore, Virgin, or Female Soul, a form of the Great Shakti who was both the organ of sight and the visible world that it saw. Her spectrum spanned all possible colors
Barbara G.Walker

It is only in later proto-Roman Greece that Hermes becomes the ‘official’ messenger to the Gods, aka Roman Mercury. By then Zeus relied on Hermes; but Hera continued to rely on Iris because she could manifest, transmit her message and disappear instantly.

No known sanctuary exists where Iris’s cult was held. However, in the lion-ramparted island of Delos, however, annual feasts were prepared in June with offerings of wheat cake, honey and fig delicacies for the youthful idol.

Rainbow appearance and disappearance is still viewed in some cultures as a ‘magical sign’. And many traditions view a double rainbow as double good fortune.

Greek Constellation Cepheus Shelters Iris
Iris appears from Mediterranean skies as far as the Equator as a Nebula within Cepheus, itself a member of the Perseid group. Cepheus is named for mythical King Cepheus of Aethiopia, husband of Cassiopeia and father of Andromeda, all represented by neighboring constellations. Like other constellations in the Perseus family, Cepheus was catalogued by the Greek astronomer Ptolemy in the 2nd century.

Iris used rainbows to travel phenomenal distances at the ‘speed of the winds’

The constellation is home to VV Cephei and the Garnet Star (Mu Cephei), both among the largest known stars in the Milky Way, and to several well-known deep sky objects: the Wizard Nebula, the Iris Nebula, and the Fireworks Galaxy.

According to Space.com, Cepheus is the 27th largest constellation in the night sky, occupying an area of 588 square degrees. It is located in the fourth quadrant of the northern hemisphere (NQ4) and can be seen at latitudes between +90° and -10°. Neighboring constellations are Camelopardalis, Cassiopeia, Cygnus, Draco, Lacerta, and Ursa Minor.

Cepheus belongs to the Perseus family of constellations, along with Andromeda, Auriga, Cassiopeia, Cetus, Lacerta, Pegasus, Perseus, and Triangulum. Sky Map here.

Almost all this group can be seen close-to-overhead in Northern night sky around summer solstice—even with the full moon.

[Insecure] Writerly Benefits of Lockdown—Keep On Writing
While looking skyward in the next few weeks may just take our (introvert writing) minds off forced re-entry into normal world affairs, I am the first to encourage the habits gleaned from social isolation to get to the old computah—or manifest a brand new one—and write it all out before anyone outside our charmed inner sanctum gets in and tells us it’s all a dream.

No, it’s not a fantasy. Life, writing and speaking daily to one’s Muse are part of the Dream we signed up for, didn’t we? And a little background levity alongside learning never went amiss. Check back here when summer’s over and we’ll see how we all fared. And keep those fans blowing. ‘Cos it’s hot out there.
©2020 Marian Youngblood

Names and Name-Calling—Generational Giveaway

NAMES AND NAME-CALLING—A GENERATIONAL GIVEAWAY
Attempt at Humor in Monthly Writerly Cave, When All Around Are Losing Theirs…

Lavendar’s blue, dilly dilly
Lavendar’s green
When you are King, dilly dilly
I shall be Queen

Don’t Despair—Humor Crosses All Borders

Roland, der Riese am Rathaus zu Bremen… North German iconic past

Traditional girls’ and boys’ names seem to be in disfavor at the mo—both with Millennials and with their offspring—iGens. Who these days would name their child Guinevere (Wessex-Saxon), Marian (Anglian Northumbrian), Marjory (last Pictish countess of Buchan), Eric (Viking), Roland or Norbert (Norddeutsch, with appropriate refined accent)? Or even Eve or Luke (multi-purpose Biblical)? unless to commemorate a generational icon within the family.

Roland, der Riese, am Rathaus zu Bremen
Stand er ein Standbilt, standhaft und stark*
North German medieval icon in Bremen marketplace, used to teach ‘correct’ purist pronunciation in Hansestadt accent

Saturn Return (30) and Uranus (86) Cycle
Experiencing the joy of knowing a friend from Old School times—he’s on his third Saturn Return while I am delicately navigating the waters towards my Uranian first; it occurs to me that iGens and their offspriing (yes, it’s happening) may be missing a huge opportunity, nay, treasure trove of centuries, in calling themselves Lavendar or Thyme (‘Sixties and ‘Seventies cool); Bron, Zion or Dwayne (‘Eighties/Nineties) or (Noughties) Star, Elf, Lake.

I met a man the other evening calling himself Vivid. As a token Boomer, I am now almost totally deaf; so I heard him call himself Ribbit. Like the frog, I thought; and enjoyed repeating it a couple times, until a sensitive friend gently corrected me. Guess if you are Vivid, all the world must look bright to you—or at least rainbow-hued. I kept the Ribbit joke to myself.

In 1969, when the Hippie Generation resolved to have only one child—or fewer—world population was 3.6 billion souls. In 2020 we have reached a staggering 7.8 billion. I register astonishment that we have doubled in my lifetime; but wonder how Mother Earth can sustain. [Coronavirus and Gay/Lesbian marriages notwithstanding, perhaps we have some responsibility to curb our enthusiasm for progeny]. Imho.

Days of Week, Months show Opposing Ancient Traditions

Brigantian bronze mirror, AD600-900, found 2019 in elite grave Birdlip, Glos. Brittonic-Pictish women made all tribal and lineage decisions

If Roman names were still with us, we might name a child Mars, Venus or Cupid. Where English and German went Viking/Saxon, weekdays in France still recall Roman gods. Lundi is Monday/Montag for the Moon, jeudi for Jupiter; where in the Saxon world, Thursday/Donnerstag god Thor (thunder) is in charge, with Freya, Norse goddess of Love and wife of Odin, giving her name to Friday/Freitag. The French venerate the same goddess but with a Roman name: Venus = vendredi. Saturday, Sunday and Monday align both calendars: Saturn-day, Samstag; Sonntag for the Sun; Montag for the Moon.

Name-calling Reaches New Heights
I laughed a little when I first heard that for iGens, Stoopid is considered almost the worst epithet you could use. For us Star Trek generation, it’s like using the F-word continuously, or Mr Spock’s version of a ‘Colorful Metaphor’. I don’t get it. There are some doozies out there—Oxford dictionary, Wikipedia, take your pick—and yet that’s all they can come up with? Nothing personal, but poor show, Drama-ah, Lagoon and Racie: your expletives seem lame.

I’m not complaining. My fellow writers’-cave IWSGers probably agree the English language is a source of untold wealth, maintaining an open door—through time, culture and imagination—to whatever the next generation devises.

What we may be seeing is the cultural influence of Smartphones and, with instant messaging, a dwindling of tradition in the written word.

I hope I’m wrong.

Language has so much to offer—it influences a whole half hemisphere of our brain. Without it, the human race rushes towards what? A bunch of Lefties with Right-hemisphere conceptual retention and overloaded emotion without words?

All this—and what currently serves as World News—may make us Bring on the Budgerigar, top, or any current fave instant laughter-producing image. My fellow generational writing stalwarts*, like Space Capt. Alex, will empathize if I quietly hum the 1948 Woody Woodpecker Song.
*Just happens stalwart is North German standhaft 😉
Spoken so initial ‘s’ is pronounced pure ‘s’, not (lower German)’sch’ Translation:
Roland, the Giant, at the Town Hall in Bremen
There he stands, a statue, stalwart and strong.

Guess what? Maybe they need us Oldies after all—if only for our mental filing system.
©2020 Marian Youngblood

Wrapping Troubles in Fog-Ocean Dreams

POWER OF A Piscean Stellium
Monthly IWSG Corner
Many times during a new transition, a house move, rearrangement of one’s life, writing has to go on the back burner. Much though we would like to keep up the pace, our stamina—our ability to get through it—flags and we feel the need to let it all go.

Ocean pulls in her skirts gracefully; see poem below

So it seems poignant and synchronous that some of us IWSGers over the last month have felt ourselves swayed, influenced—in our writing flow and in other ways—by a huge swelling wave, a virtual convocation of planets and heavenly bodies in the astrological sign of Pisces, the Fish. It is the ultimate watery sign of duality, emotional excess, unbridled boundlessness—some say chaos. A return to our primeval form.

Stellium in Pisces
With the present swing in public fancy to the ‘Astroview’, it will astonish nobody to learn that we are currently midway through a major stellium in Pisces. For the uninitiated, this is astrospeak for turmoil of the heart/emotional mayhem throughout the run-up to the new moon [in Pisces] March 10-11th, 2013.
On those nights, the Sun, Moon, Mercury, Chiron, Venus, Mars, Neptune are held in a crucible within the bosom of Pisces—the most emotional, watery, spiritual sign of the zodiac. These bodies already stand in close conjunction, waiting for the Moon.

Following in the wake of the recurring potent three-year-long stress of a Grand Cross, it isn’t surprising that we now feel like a wet dish rag.

March 2013: crucible astro-chart: Piscean emotion holds seven planets suspended in a ‘stellium’, while Jupiter & Saturn maintain balance on either side

Psychic Piscean ‘Go with the Flow’
Life-affirming Piscean tendencies include:
Compassion, forgiveness and healing without sacrificing your self-esteem
Using the energy of the dream/fantasy to create something that touches people
Faith in what’s healthy for you
Letting go of what drags you down
Seeing what lies beyond the mundane world
Allowing things to happen

Less-than constructive qualities include:
Compassion, forgiveness and healing that drains you
Using the energy of the dream/fantasy to become addicted to someone
Faith in anything/everything, whether it’s healthy or not
Letting go of all boundaries
Denying the mundane world
Passively waiting for things to happen

For those who like specifics,
Neptune entered its watery home sign two years ago and will remain in Pisces through 2024;
Mars moved into Pisces: February 1st
Mercury into Pisces: February 5th
Sun into Pisces: February 18th
Venus into Pisces: February 25th
Moon stood in Virgo (full) on February 28th and
will move (new moon) into Pisces March 11th.

The immediate window extends through March 21st, equinox. So, brace yourself!

Being guided by one’s heart and following one’s intuition seems the only way. Or, to translate that in psychiatric concepts: allowing the left hemisphere to dominate—right handedness—will only lead to grief. By allowing our right hemisphere to guide us—left handed creativity—we may pull through this massive—planet-wide—emotional storm.

Sometimes, during Insecure Writers’ Support Week, we get to throw out a little nugget of a favorite subject—astro being one of mine—and our tolerant Ninja Cap’n Alex allows us the liberty of rabbiting on about matters unrelated to the honored art of writing. Such is this post; but since it DOES have a ‘space’ theme, and gives us a little insight into what we’re currently experiencing, never before having been exposed to such a degree of cosmic force, may I wish us all Godspeed and stamina to sail these choppy waters in uncertain times.

Cassini’s fragile Venus cradled in Saturn’s G-ring

To end on a (positive) romantic note, when in trouble, dream…
… and a poem-let of inspiration by my nine-year old muse, inspired by [Neptune and] her ocean vista, top.

The Ocean by Oriah
The Ocean’s waves gracefully in the sunset
Where the seagulls fly
Pink clouds gently float away while the Moon rises
Then the Ocean comes back

No doubt our SpaceCaptain feels mucho at home in the rarified reaches of planetary atmospheres—Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn are all familiar territory; so maybe wishing ourselves well through this emotional roller-coaster is the best support we can give each other. May all our blogs be guided by superlative cosmic forces… sounds like a phrase from his forthcoming CassaStorm.
Thanks again for being there, fellow IWSGers and Alex.
©2013 Marian Youngblood

Hathor Blessing: Crop Circle Finale & Farewell

Salutation to Hathor, goddess of love, music and beauty and Lady of the Stars, whose ritual Menat necklace represents the Souls of the blessed ones

Last week on Friday the thirteenth what may be seen as the swan song of the 2010 Crop Circle season appeared: an Egyptian-style ritual collar with trailing neckgear shining from a Wiltshire field of golden corn. It is the height of the harvest, days before they start wholesale cutting of wheat and barley in the western countryside.

The formation’s simple lines and clear message to crop circle followers may be overlooked among a plethora of dimensional designs which have dominated the 2010 crop circle season.

Linking its unadorned but glorious glittering shape to a Menat necklace — the symbol of primeval mother goddess Hathor in both the Old and New Kingdoms of ancient Egypt — is not difficult. A ritual curving jewelled shoal of splendour, its form is emblazoned in our collective memory, even as a northern species, derived from classical and prehistoric civilization of Europe and the Mideast.

She is the world’s most ancient goddess, embodiment of the planet Earth herself. It is she who cradles the sun each night as he sinks in the west.

Even the current fashion in heavy female neckware harks back to that classical curve: row upon row of minute turquoise beadwork and beauty created to invoke delight in a child, desire and pleasure in a model on the catwalk.

In present-day Wiltshire, we may not admit to being familiar with Egyptian hieroglyphics, hieratic script or deathmasks and tomb-paintings of the earliest dynasties (Great Pyramid of Khufu, 2589 – 2566 BC). But we have dormant memory banks, our bodies contain suppressed genetic code which probably remembers such a time, can ‘feel’ the weight of such a beautiful collar round our necks, desire the touch of such a ritual necklace.

It belonged to the Earth’s primeval goddess, Hathor: bringer of love, abundance, joy, fertility and regeneration.

As a swan song for the Wiltshire crop circle season of 2010, it seems a fitting statement to place at the height of English summer, when crops of wheat, barley, maize and even oats glorify in eight-hour days of beating sunrays pounding health and vitality into their stems and cells, literally seconds on the cosmic clock before the combine harvesters slice through life, growth and celestial graffiti.

Judging by a pronounced extra-terrestrial bent to this season‘s creations — despite a fairly good supporting cast of ‘plankers’ (man-made designs) — and with Science now firmly convinced of genuine CC enhancement in grain nutrient value and crop size by ET’s ‘light treatment’, I fervently hope someone is buying up Wiltshire wheat to bake into ‘DNA-enhanced’ bread, or wonder-pasta for our general wellbeing!

While there have been many man-made attempts this summer to emulate the light-bent nodes of superluminary crop circles, the Beckhampton message from the goddess appears to be genuine.

But, back to symbolism. Why Hathor? Why choose to imprint English fields — and thereby all of croppiedom — with a blessing from an ancient goddess who ruled heaven and earth before most of the western world could write?

Hathor, Earth-Mother Cow-Goddess bestowed bounty

Some time in Egypt’s pre-dynastic past the Goddess Hathor came into being, considered a major force in the creation of the world. Hathor was worshipped for over 3,000 years. Alternate forms of her name are Hwt-Hrw, Het-Hor, Het-Hert, Athor or Athyr.

Hathor, frequently seen as Egyptian Cow Goddess whose horns ‘held the Sun’, is probably Earth’s most ancient female deity. She encompassed so many different qualities and roles that it’s near impossible to list them all. She has been known as Sky Goddess, Sun Goddess, Moon Goddess and Goddess of the West. She was known as goddess of Moisture, and of Fertility, Agriculture and Motherhood; Goddess of the Underworld, Mistress of the Necropolis and, in her role as Protectress of the City of the Dead at Thebes, she became Goddess of the Dead.

Amenhotep III's ritual Menat necklace of bronze, faience, stone, glass and turquoise was gifted by goddess Hathor to pharaoh to engender his rebirth; courtesy Metropolitan Museum of New York

She was worshipped as Goddess of Love, Ecstasy and Beauty, and enriched the lives of her followers as Goddess of Music, Dance, Drinking and Joy. She was patroness of Women and Marriage and Protectress of Pregnancy. Hathor ultimately became special guardian spirit for all women and all female animals, and had such titles as ‘Lady of the Turquoise’ and ‘Lady of the Sycamore.’

The Menat Necklace was a ritual object first seen adorning the neck of the goddess and later used in ritual ceremonies to Hathor. The bejeweled necklace had many strands which ended in a counterpiece that, when originally worn as a collar, would hang down the back of the neck. In later use it had a ceremonial purpose and was wafted and waved as an amulet over the devoted to convey a blessing from the Goddess. The Menat symbolized fertility, and some sources see its offering a mystical union between the Goddess and her followers.

Are we earthlings now ‘followers’ of the wise goddess? Do we rate a heavenly blessing from the most high?

All summer long we’ve been expecting a message from God. Finally, as the year turns to autumn, we get a blessing from Goddess.

Much like the goddess Ishtar, Hathor’s attributes were a complex combination of the sacred feminine, death and the afterlife. It was she who bore bodies of the dead to the Underworld, she who actually took ownership of them. In this role Hathor became Queen of the Underworld.

Sun blessing embedded in a Wiltshire crop circle: Hathor regalia ends the 2010 season

In her association with Sun God Ra, Hathor was granted the title ‘Golden One’, while also sharing the name, ‘Eye of Ra’ with goddesses Sekhmet and Bast. Hathor was Protectress of Horus, the falcon god, and called a wide variety of names in that role. Some attributes appear conflicting and confusing and, as Mother Goddess, Hathor was often confused with both Isis and Nut. What confuses even more is the fact that she subsequently ‘became’ Isis who, in a later period, absorbed and acquired many of the aspects previously attributed to Hathor.

When she governed in her principal place of worship at Dendera, Hathor’s role as Goddess of Fertility, Women and Childbirth was venerated specifically. Her temple there was filled with incense, intoxication and pleasure. At her other temple in Thebes, however, Hathor changed into her robes as Goddess of the Dead, known as ‘Lady of the West.’ In Thebes she cradled in her arms the sun god Ra, as he descended below the horizon in the west.

Goddess Hathor wearing the Menat, holding her sacred Sistrum (rattle)

Hathor has represented the erotic in femininity and procreation, and was frequently identified with Greek goddess Aphrodite, Roman Venus. In her role as Goddess of Fertility, Hathor represented Nature’s creativity, and as Goddess of Moisture, she was associated with the annual inundation of the river Nile. In this aspect, Hathor was linked to dog-shaped constellation Sothis (Sirius, ‘dog-star’) which, at its heliacal rising on the eastern horizon — immediately before the Sun — announced yearly flooding of the Nile in July.

Eventually, in a later period, when Hathor’s role began to change, Isis/Osiris (Serapis) cults gained popularity in Egypt and then spread through the Roman empire and Greece. Because of her fertile and life-bringing nature, Hathor was considered capable of reviving the dead; she welcomed them to the Underworld, dispensed water to them from the branches of a sycamore tree, and offered them food. In various New Kingdom tombs at Thebes Hathor is depicted embracing the dead.

In pre-dynastic times, and certainly in the early dynasties, Hathor is seen as the cow-consort of the Bull of Amenti, the original deity of the Necropolis. As queen or ‘Lady of the West’, her mortuary title as Protectress of the Necropolis valley on the west bank of the Nile, in her role as protector she not only oversaw where the sun (Ra) went down, but this choice location for later kingdoms’ burial tombs.

Amazingly Hathor, one of the world’s greatest goddesses, was worshipped for a longer period than Christianity or Islam have reigned. Hathor’s religion of joy and celebration dominated for over 3,000 years. It continued strong throughout Egypt, and through both Greek and Roman empires, where it spread and became assimilated.

Her cult was in its heyday when the first great pyramids were built and used as sacred pharaonic tombs, and lasted until pyramids were no longer used for that purpose, by which time royal patrons continued under her protection on the west bank of the Nile in the great Necropolis Valley of the Kings.

She is the equivalent in Nordic, Celtic and Anglian territories of the Old Goddess of the pagans. She perpetuated in popular speech, in rituals of hearth and earth, in festival custom with its cargo of symbol and myth. She was seen as the source of life, power and wisdom. People prayed to her for wellbeing, abundance, protection, and healing. They invoked her during birth, and the dead returned to her and moved in her retinue.

They say that the Old Goddess, Crone who rode the winds, caused rain and snow and hail on earth, and that she revealed omens of weather and death and other momentous things to come.

In this sense she and Hathor are one and the same: primeval Eve, Brittonic Bride, Norse Auohumla, the great cow-giant goddess, true ancestor of the Norse gods. She is also Gaia, Sumerian Antu (who later ‘became’ Ishtar, goddess of love and procreation).

Apex of inspirational 'Hathor crop circle' at Northdowns, Beckhampton, Wiltshire, photo courtesy Bert Janssen

It is significant, too, that the ‘Hathor crop circle’ at Beckhampton appeared on a Friday the 13th.

The superstition held today of Friday the 13th being unlucky may stem from the betrayal of the Knights Templar on Friday, October 13th 1307 (Old calendar) when their monastic military order in France was arrested en masse by King Philip. The Spanish, however, hold Tuesday as their unlucky day; so the suggestion is a tentative one. Perhaps ET used the date merely to get our attention. It’s a familiar technique he’s employed over the years to combine crop images and Calendar.

An alternate explanation occurs: in later European tradition Friday was observed as ‘holy day of the goddess’, beginning with its eve on Thursday night. In that sense she is Norse goddess Freyja. The dark of the year was sacred to Old Goddess. On winter solstice nights, she was said to fly over the land with her spirit hosts. Tradition added that shamanic witches rode in her wake on the great pagan festivals, along with the ancestral dead.

Reverting to the Hathor connection, one ancient tale is retold of a group of goddesses, bearing cow horns and playing tambourines who went by the name the Seven Hathors. These Hathors were able to foretell a child’s destiny; similar in many ways to the weaving of the Tapestry of Life by the Fates, the Norns or the Disir. The Hathors were more than clairvoyants who could see into the future. They were questioners of the soul as it made its way to the Land of the West. In addition to knowing a child’s destiny, the Seven Hathors could foretell the exact hour of his death.

Egyptian mythology held that a person’s destiny was decided by the hour of his death and therefore his fortune, or lack of it, stayed with him throughout his life. The Hathors were known to have extreme powers, and were able to replace a prince, born with a bad fortune, with a child born with a good one. In this way they had the ability to protect both the Dynasty and the nation. The Seven Hathors are presently receiving some attention through the works of musician and psychic channeler, Tom Kenyon. When Hathor’s ‘old’ attributes became overshadowed by those of Isis and new kingdom beliefs, the Hathors were sent into the sky. There they have become identified with the Pleiades.

In more northern latitudes, reverence was paid for centuries to the Old Goddess in planting and harvesting, baking, spinning and weaving. The fateful Spinner was worshipped as Holle or Perchta by the Germans, as Mari by the Basques, and as Laima by Lithuanians and Latvians. She appears as Befana in northern Italy and as a myriad faery goddesses in France, Spain, and Celtic countries (Brittonic Bride). In Serbia she is Srecha; in Russia Mokosh, Kostroma or the apocryphal Saint Paraska.

Corn dollies embody ancient goddess Mother Earth

The Old Goddess was commonly pictured as a crone or aged woman, and origins of her veneration are lost in the mists of time. While goddesses of ancient ethnic cultures have unique qualities, they share traits, a deep international genetic root. Old Goddess is like the weathered Earth, ancestor of all, a tangible presence in forests, grottos and fountains. In her infinite guises she manifests countless forms: as females of various ages, she shapeshifts to tree, serpent, frog, bird, deer, mare and other creatures. Surviving the European Reformation, she remained beloved by the common people.

When farmers, and those who worked the land, were less dependent on technology to produce our food, Mother Earth and nature played a much more important role in the annual cycle of life. In particular, the harvest of cereal crops was a major event in the calendar.

We are now three weeks into ancient Lammas, the traditional harvest season.

In pre-industrial times a summertime ‘Lord of the Harvest’ would be given the responsibility of planning the harvest and marshalling the workforce, and when harvest was finally done they would celebrate with a ‘Harvest Home’ feast.

Corn Dolly made from the last (Clyack) cut sheaf, held sacred through winter, a blessing of Earth's bounty

The first and last sheaves of corn to be cut had major significance. Grain from the first sheaf (the ‘Maiden’) was made into a sacred loaf of bread while the last sheaf – the Clyack – was reserved for transformation into a corn dolly: symbolic of Mother Earth and the Spirit of the Corn.

Straw from this last sheaf was woven or plaited into the complex shapes of corn dollies, as cornucopiae, horns of plenty, horse shoes, knots, fans and lanterns. Ultimately, shape depended on local tradition, but in every case a symbolic ‘dolly’ graced the top table at the end-of-harvest feast and was then carefully guarded over the winter months. When spring crops were sown, the dolly re-emerged to be carried round the fields to pray that Nature and corn goddess delivered up another good crop.

In Wiltshire they’ve already started the harvest. Even in my native Aberdeenshire winter barley is going under the combine. Three weeks into Lammas (which pivots round August 1st), harvest is in full swing.

Our consciousness these days has become less aware of such natural cycles of food-cultivating-and-cutting; we are lulled into ignorance of the provenance of our daily bread. Perhaps it is this lulling that the crop circle presence wants to jerk us out of: to rekindle in us an appreciation — even reverence — for Earth’s bounty and her unconditional gifts of life and nourishment. More significant may be the appearance of a ritual symbol in the crop to help us understand our civilization’s most ancient ancestral traditions which show respect for (Earth’s) sacred creator gods.

Hathor was probably civilization’s earliest goddess. Her blessing showered on us now from above, five thousand years after the zenith of her devoted following, emblazoned in golden grain for our delectation and visual appreciation (aerial photographs superbly provided by Frank Laumen and Bert Janssen, thank you guys); it sparks our earliest memories of civilization. Are we being given a futuristic jab in the arm, to trigger our DNA? or to learn to appreciate more fully what our ancestors understood?

Our senses are being stroked, honed, we are receiving her gifts again. Not only was she goddess of birth and death, she was goddess of REBIRTH.

It’s just possible she has returned in essence now to show us that — at the end of the 2010 season of remarkable cosmic signs — our species is poised on the brink of rebirth: that we humankind are jointly headed for regeneration.

Dare we hope? As we come together as a race, as we feel joy in our rebirth, may we also see a faint promise of Hathor’s greatest gift? Immortality?

After the Cosmic Blast | Chicken Out

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Happy chicks make happy hens make phenomenal eggs

 

Back to normal: day in the life of a chicken

 

 

All this Ascension is exhausting.  I spent most of the ‘energy window’ – all of July through three eclipses, meteor showers and most of August til 20th’s new moon of Ramadan – feeling like a pawn on the Chessboard of the Cosmos. After the much-acclaimed stargate of August 8th (blog below), until the moon reappeared in the western sky last night, I felt alternately like an empowered new being and a wet rag. Now, with the crescent moon once again returning to grace the heavens, the wet rag syndrome persists.

During the Window, that’s going on for a month and a half now, I found myself unusually alone, without disturbance of any kind except for the hens, one surviving cockerel (fox got the rest)  a couple of late-hatching chicks; a multitude of swallows and other more resident avians and my cats.  I don’t have to explain I live in the wilds of Scotland; it is not uncommon for people round here to have more bird and mammal company than human. The ancient (and infrastructurally-challenged) parish in which I live has more organic veggie gardens and freerange hens and ducks per capita than Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s neighbourhood at River Cottage.  As a writer, this suits me rather well.  In my time I’ve been described as a loner, ‘self-sufficient’ not always meant in a kindly way, and able to get on with the daily Zen tasks of chopping wood and carrying water.  

But during the Window, there was an urge to do more.

I was daily attempting peaceful meditation, weeding, tending zucchini and tomato patches, and feeding birds; but appearances were bringing me messages from places so remotely unearthly, that it was a struggle to sleep.   I was nightly communicating like a mad thing with other ‘light-beings’ on and off the web.  By this I mean in dreams, but also on such miraculous dot-ning sites as Humanity Healing  >http://humanityhealing.ning.com/< as well as other spiritual bloggers, because we admitted to being energized by something greater than ourselves.

We all saw at least one of the eclipses (didn’t we?): however I seem to have chosen strange moments to go outside at night to be greeted, for example, by the astonishing brightness of Venus close to the waning moon, the Perseid meteors, and quite an array of noctilucent clouds, passing satellites, even one brief glimpse of (was it?) aurora borealis in the darkening August night.  

All my sleepless nights could be attributed to too much activity in the daytime and maybe (I’m loathe to admit) too much time tapping the keyboard of my beloved laptop.   My father, (which art in heaven, bless his woolly socks) used to tell me I had an overactive brain.  I have come, not uncharacteristically, to believe him, but also to thank him for passing on the genetic strain.  It serves me well.  I like using it, continue to lubricate it and enjoy watching where it will take me.  But the upshot of this, the energy Window (Infinity Gate 8/8), is that post-new-moon I am now completely blah. Done.  Wrung-out.  

They say two things: esoterically, ‘Let Go and Let God’ …

   … and journalistically, ‘Write About What You Know’.

So today, in surfing to see if, post-energetic-blast,  the globe and its earthlings had learned anything from the cosmic trigger to our light-code, our DNA-enhancement;  I came upon two movements of note.

The first is a New Zealand impetus to remove the world’s plastic rubbish from the North Pacific Gyre (Google it: trash vortex twice the size of Texas; it’s been going on for years, but only recently been getting attention in northern countries, many of whose trash ships dump there) where ocean animals are dying needlessly at our own thoughtless hand. The North Pacific Gyre coalesces and holds  the world’s discarded plastic.  Throwing ‘Away’ – this is where ‘Away’ is.

Second: Chicken Out.  Bet you wondered when I’d get to it.  

I love it: but I don’t have to proselytize: Jamie Oliver, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall and Bill Oddie are already doing a magnificent job getting the Brit public to wake up and care for some of the birds in our midst.  Hence Chicken Out.

More plastic than plankton in the North Pacific Gyre

 I tried to get one of their gang (another tv presenter who shall be nameless) to do the same with Tesco  and other supermarkets’ shameful stance on (not) taking responsibility for their overuse of plastic… but that’s for another day, another blog.

 

I think I’ll just go outside now and see how Henrietta and Phoenix and Mrs Brown are getting on.  They didn’t lay this morning.  I think they were a little miffed that I wasn’t up betimes with their usual plate of leftovers and a handful of barley (thanks to my neighbour, Jimmy) to top up their flaccid crops and set them pecking again: vying with blackbirds and thrush for worms in the newly-turned earth.

The light-workers, soothsayers, astrologers say we’re not done yet.  Saturn’s in Virgo at the moment.  The Sun just entered that same zodiacal sign. In round about ten days from now the two bodies will astrologically appear conjunct.  It is said something profound will happen then to the human race.  Don’t ask.  I’m only the wet rag, here.  What do I know?