I found this article a while back (or, according to OneNote, “a long time ago”), and had been meaning to share it. The author of this article is a Kemetic Reconstructionist, a follower of the reconstructed religion of Kemet as it was practiced thousands of years ago in what is now known widely as ancient Egypt.

It is a common misconception that all Pagans are of a “nature-oriented” religion. This simply is not the case. While yes, most of those who are pagans-are-nature-oriented/">Pagan, in our area especially, are Wiccan, which is a heavily nature-oriented path, there are those of us in the community who simply do not fit that bill.

Being a Modern Kemetic, I worship the Neteru, the Gods and Goddesses of Kemet, now so well known as ancient Egypt. My beliefs, methods of worship, of prayer, of rites and rituals vary so much from what most concider “the norm.” The religion itself varies so much from what most people percieve Paganism as, and even from the more well-known Kemetic faiths such as the Kemetic Orthodox and Kemetic Reconstructionism.

I did have my start in my studies with wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca, but it never truly sat well with me. As I walked my path, I eventually found what was right for me, and watched it unfold before me. It’s been an adventure, as anyone’s path should be, and the knowledge I’ve gained from my first stumbling years has granted me an understanding of how different our perceptions can really be.

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On Reconstruction and “Nature-Orientation”

I’ve finally managed to pin down one of the reasons that “well, the reconstructions are nature-oriented too, the Gods are personifications of natural phenomena” or “tied to natural phenomena” bothers me.

It’s disrespectful of the Gods. It diminishes Them, it reduces them to less than They are.

Most of the Gods have theophanies or symbols that are natural forms, yes, but that does not distinguish their forms and symbols strongly. Stars, doves, beasts of burden such as Burak, flaming vegetation — similar things from more mainstream religions. And if the point of more abstract symbols or those derived from manmade objects is raised, remember that the ankh, symbol of life and frequently prated about as some sort of unification of male and female principles or some similar hogwash, is a slightly abstracted representation of a sandal strap. Prosaic, manufactured, and pretty damn boring.

But back to the main thing: The myths that are bound up with the natural world and natural cycles are, for the most part, merely parts of the nature of the Gods, manifestations of portions of Their domains. When I see someone point at Proserpine and Her cycle as evidence of the nature focus of reconstructionist religions, I wonder how She feels about being treated as just a calendar.

Merely knowing the natural affiliations or associations of a God is not sufficient to know the God; they often derive from the God’s core nature rather than being that nature. If I say that Set is God of storms, of the desert, of the darkness, that is not sufficient to understand His domain unless one is exceptionally good at riddles. If I add to that that He governs the queer, unusual, and deviant; that He protects the left-handed and favors the redhead, that He is considered to be God of foreigners, then the picture becomes more complicated, less tied to hostile forces of the natural world. If I give chaos, destruction, the role of tester and challenger, the One who makes certain that the king is strong enough to face the job of kingship, still greater complexity. If He is named as the one who is ultimately responsible for the protection of that which is, the one who is capable of facing the forces of annihilation and unmaking and defeating them, one is left entirely in the realms of the philosophical and mystical, without natural referents at all.

Somewhere in there one can find the mysteries that are the core of this God, can come to know Him as fully Himself. If one stays stuck on just the projections of that core into the world of nature, the playing field has been limited too much to meet Him face to face. Yes, Set storms; it is His nature to do so, and one can meet Him there, but not if He is just the storm, if that is the sole, central most, or essentially defining thing. He is not a “God of nature”; His manifestations include portions of the natural world, but then again, Whose don’t?

Of course, at the same time as this, I find myself baffled by the Gods who are cut off from their manifestations in the natural world in the way many people look at them. When people speak of Wesir, I hear a lot of “God of the dead” and very little of His angry declaration to the Gods that it is by His will and nature that the grain that feeds Them grows — so They had better do right by His son. The regenerative power, the nature of the sown grain, His mysteries of the hidden green, those I rarely hear people mention. Baffles me no end.

Many of the ancient Gods were city Gods, dealing with the concerns of settled people. The Gods of Greece came into conflict over patronage of cities; They had territories, shrines, personal quirks that depended on the particular histories of Their time in those places.

Yes, there were agricultural festivals and the passage of the natural year, but that is a human trait, not something particular to paganisms, ancient or modern. I know that there are rituals and prayers for the planting in the Catholic Church, because I looked the bloody things up a while back. That this is not common knowledge and common concern is mostly a sign that much of the population is not strongly involved in agricultural cycles these days, not a distinguishing mark between religious categories.

And there are festivals of heroes or military victories, the accessions of leaders, and similar things. Human things, things that are the byproducts of human culture and human decisions and human institutions. Nothing in the natural world demands the celebration of the sed festival or the commemoration of Marathon.

Source: Unknown

Anu - Celtic Goddess of Fertility

Anu, pronounced an-oo, (aka Anann, Dana, Dana-Ana) is the Irish Goddess of
plenty and is the maiden aspect of the Morrigu. She is the Mother-Earth
Goddess and the flowering fertility Goddess. Ireland - Mother Earth; Goddess
of plenty, another aspect of the Morrigu; Great Goddess; greatest of all
goddesses. The flowering fertility goddess, sometimes she formed a trinity
with Badb and Macha. Her priestesses comforted and taught the dying. Fires
were lit for her at Midsummer. Two hills in Kerry are called the Paps of Anu
Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess in Ireland. Guardian of cattle and
health. Goddess of fertility, prosperity, and comfort. Anu is associated
with the Celts as the mother Goddess of the ancestors, reaching so far back
into time there is very little record of her… externally at least. She is
identified with the Goddess Danu and the Children of Danu (Tuatha De Danaan)
and the four great cities Falias, Gorias, Finias and Murias. In the
beginning it was Anu who watered the first Oak tree Bile from the heavens
and granted life to the earth, from the tree fell two acorns which Anu
nurtured as her own and in turn they became the God Dagda and the Goddess
Brighid. Anu has been known to appear in the form of a swan, representing
the purity of the female and gracefulness in motherhood.

Anu is considered to be the ancestor of all the Gods, the Tuatha dí-anann,
who found themselves obliged to reside in the Otherworld when Miled brought
the Celts to the British Isles. She still looks down on us from the night’s
sky where she appears as Llys Don, better known as the constellation of
Casseopeia. Anu was especially popular in Munster, though her most lasting
memorial is a mountain in County Kerry called the Dá ƒhí£¨ Anann or “Breast of
Anu”. The Dane Hills in Leicestershire are also named after her and this
area, perhaps a major centre for her cult, is where her memory lives on as
Black Annis. This hideous old crone’s habit of eating young children was, no
doubt, invented by incoming Christians to blacken the name of the Celtic
Goddess. In Christendom, the lady usually took on the guise of St. Anne,
however, in order to smooth the path of conversion. This saint’s popularity
in Brittany probably stems from the previous worship of the Celtic Goddess
there. Anu was also the patroness of springs and fountains, hence the
numerous St. Anne’s Wells throughout Britain today. Symbols: Emeralds, Blood
Moonstones

Mythical Creatures

A long, long time ago, the Earth belonged to the creatures of the wood.
By creatures of the wood I mean gnomes and elves, fauns and faeries,
goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies, nymphs, sprites, and dryads. They
tended it and took care of it, played in it, danced and sang in it,
cared for wounded animals, worked out disputes between species, sat on
mushrooms discussing matters of import and drinking Labrador tea, rode
down streams on leaves and bark, and parachuted from trees with
dandelion seeds. This was the world into which mankind was born. These
early days, when man was but a newly arrived dinner guest who hadn’t yet
taken over the entire house, are fairly well documented in the
literature and folklore of the world, so there’s no need to go into it
here. What I am interested in, and what I am asking you to be interested
in, is the question, “Where did all the gnomes and elves, fauns and
faeries, goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies, nymphs, sprites and dryads
go?”
The friction between man and the wood creatures began with the discovery
of agriculture. With the discovery of agriculture, civilization arose
and spread. The forests were cleared to provide wood for shelter and
fields for pasture and crops. Mankind had set up camp. No longer just a
visitor in someone else’s world, he pushed the wild back from his newly
built doorstep.

At first this wasn’t a problem. There weren’t many people and everyone
else felt that it was only fair to allot them their own little half acre
to do with as they wished. Some of them even decided to help out. Gnomes
moved into the barnhouses and helped out with the gardening chores. The
devic spirits of the vegetables helped the humans better organize their
crops and plan rotation, and taught them the correlation between
planetary and lunar cycles and the agricultural year, plant radishes
when the moon is in Cancer, harvest when the moon is in Taurus. Many
trolls felt that the heaping piles of manure were a change for the
better, and decided to stick around too The rest of the wood creatures
just backed off into the wood, occasionally playing mischievous tricks
on the new settlers, like turning the milk sour, rearranging furniture
tipping the cows, tickling people’s faces in their sleep, and
occasionally stealing babies and leaving bundles of wood in their place.

But man’s dominion spread (and spread and spread and spread), and the
forests got smaller and smaller and smaller. Things got real crowded in
the woods, and things were getting worse in civilization. Most farmers
weren’t listening to the devic spirits anymore. People found that they
could increase their output by disregarding the needs of the Earth. They
were raising productivity and killing the soil. Petrochemicals were just
a step away. Most of the devic spirits and the gnomes fled. The trolls
stayed.

Today they live mostly under bridges and in the shallow, mucky ditches
beneath the metal grating on farm roads that cows are afraid to cross.
Be sure to honk your horn before driving over one of these. A troll may
be hanging from the grate, swinging over its living room, as they are
apt to do after rolling in muck and manure, If you don’t give a warning
honk, you may run over its fingers, and it’s not a great idea to get
either your name or your license plate number on a troll’s shit list.

Now there is little wild land left at all, and even that is shrinking at
an unprecedented rate. There is simply not enough space for all the
gnomes and elves, fauns and faeries, goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies,
nymphs,sprites, and dryads.

So where are they?

Are they dead?

No.

So where did they go?

The answer is a bit surprising. They didn’t go anywhere. We did. Early
humans had an intuitive knowledge of their role in nature, just as bears
and raccoons and mice and every other critter does. They understood,
from the ways of the wild around them, that nothing ever comes from
nowhere and nothing ever just disappears. Things change form. Death is
necessary for life to continue. They offered up their kills as
sacrifices to the gods of nature.
They offered praise, prayer, sacrifice, and song to the spirits of the
wild, to brother buffalo, brother deer, brother fish, and brother tree.
Now we know that everything that has ever existed continues to exist, in
one form of another, and as for as we can tell, they were more aware of
that back then than we are now.
So the sacrifice, song, praise and prayer did not ensure the immortality
of the slaughtered, either in body or in spirit. That was already taken
care of. What it did ensure was the continuance of the connection
between the spirit of the slaughterer and the spirit of the slaughtered.
Killing is risky business. The membrane separating the internal from the
external is not necessarily as thick or as dearly defined as we have
come to believe. Every time we kill, we risk killing the reality of that
thing inside ourselves as well as outside. We risk breaking the
connections that lead in and out of the membrane. Taking life to feed
life requires a keen understanding of the natural law of give and take.
When we lost that understanding, gave up the songs, the sacrifice, the
prayers, the praise, we lost the connection. Saying grace is not enough.

When we lose those connections, everything becomes dead - fish, rivers,
frogs, mice, even each other. There is no way they can reach inside us
any more. The five senses we are left with are not enough. We have given
up those connections in exchange for the freedom to clearcut forests
with skidders, turn cows into milk machines and chickens into egg
factories. We can experiment on animals, club seals, wear mink coats,
exterminate passenger pigeons, dodo birds, whales, bear, dolphin and
condor. Not a twinge of guilt. The lines have been severed.

And we are all under the impression that it is the forests, the
creatures, the spirits, and the wildlands that are disappearing from the
universe and not us. Not so. Thinking that is like thinking that if you
stand on the end of a limb and saw that limb from the tree, the tree
will fall and you will remain standing. Bugs Bunny might be able to get
away with that, but we can’t. When a marionette cuts its strings, the
puppeteer doesn’t collapse to the ground.
When a spider severs the lines that connect its web to the trees, the
forest doesn’t fall away.

It is we who have fallen away from the real world into a world where we
may carry out our twisted sterile dreams without threatening the Earth
and its inhabitants. Ever wonder why the trees and stones and rivers and
streams, the birds, the snakes, the bears and the frogs no longer talk
to us as they did in the early tales of the Native Americans, the
Hindus, the Africans, the Bible? It’s because we’re not around to talk
to any more Every clearcut, every vivisection, every mechanized
slaughter of cow, pig, or chicken moves our dreamworld farther and
farther from the tree, making a reunification, which is still possible,
more and more difficult.
Somewhere not so far from here, in the real world, the ancient forests
are still standing, the buffalo roam the prairies, the sky is full of
condors, the deer and the antelope play, and dodo birds wander the sandy
beaches, bumping into things.

Where there are still wildlands in our dreamworld, strong connections
still exist. Bridges, tunnels, and portals. Occasionally a traveler will
get lost in the wilderness and find himself in the real world, returning
the next day to find that a hundred years have passed, or never
returning at all, There are more ephemeral connections as well - brooks
and waterfalls where you can still hear voices from the other side, if
you listen carefully enough. When they sit by these waters they hear
loud clanking and screams.

When they eat psilocybin everything stops glowing, and condos rise where
forests stand. Our children can see their world in their dreams. Their
children see ours in their nightmares.

And there is another connection. Sometimes agents from the other side
infiltrate our world in an attempt to expedite the reunification.
Believe it or not, they miss us over there. Sometimes - more often than
you might think - they send souls over to our world to be born as human
babies. Sort of like a socialist, communist, or anarchist entering the
American political arena and running for office in an attempt to effect
change from the inside. There are quite a lot of them actually - gnomes
and elves, fauns and faeries, goblins, ogres, trolls and bogies, nymphs,
sprites, and dryads - running around in human bodies, doing crazy things
like writing on walls, working in co-ops, running inns in the mountains,
talking to themselves in the streets, making pottery, illustrating
children’s books, spiking trees and blowing up tractors. They are
planting bio-dynamic gardens, sitting in the back yard naked, arguing
with Satan. They are in asylums pumped full of thorazine, in the
classroom on Ritalin and lithium. They live with Indians. They run
recycling centers. They are starting revolutions, corrupting the young,
inventing paranoid conspiracy theories, making up religions. They’re
directing movies, gobbling acid, drinking heavily and writing poetry.

The transition from their world to ours is not an easy one. Intricate
rituals and incantations are involved. The transition is not easy on the
soul.
A great deal is lost. They may have no idea who or what they are at
first. They may or may not find out. They will know that they are not
like everyone else. They will know that this world is not theirs. They
will faintly remember something better, where things made sense and
worked like they ought to, where love and magic had the power to heal.

They will know that what makes other people happy does not make them
happy, and that what makes them happy makes them happier than anyone
else alive. They will see things others cannot see, hear things others
cannot hear, feel things others cannot feel, and know things others do
not know.

They will laugh a great deal or cry a great deal or both. They will love
humans individually, but have a hard time with humanity as a whole that
may occasionally approach loathing. They will have a handful of very
close friends, and often be very lonely. They will be unhappiest when
forced to act like a human and do the things that humans do, want the
things that humans want, or when they are convinced that they actually
are one.

Things will not be easy for them. Because of their memories of the other
side, the world will seem to them to be a wondrous calliope with just a
few teeth missing on one of the cogs, and because of this tiny
deficiency, the music is all off key, the horses are crashing into each
other, and the children are frightened, bruised and crying.

The solutions will seem obvious and no one else will listen. They will
be repeatedly punished for shouting FIRE! in a crowded theater when the
buildings are in flames no one else can see. They will get slapped on
the wrist for pointing to the EXIT signs when everyone else is running
around screaming and trampling each other.

They will be zealous, fanatical, and didactic about their beliefs. They
will feel utterly confused. They will have ecstatic visions and babble
incoherently. They will be extremely articulate. They are prone to long
periods of silence. They have no idea how to say what they really mean.

They will spend a lot of time with children and animals. They will
become drunkards and dope fiends, organic gardeners, Essene soapmakers,
carpenters, madmen, magicians, jugglers and clowns, lunatic physicists,
painters and scribblers, travelers and wanderers.

They will dress in bright colors, frumpy sweaters, or all black. They
will smoke too much and drink too much. They will eat only macrobiotic
foods. They will develop addictions to Mountain Dew. They will often be
accused of living in their own fantasy world.

They will make great lovers. Yeah, even the trolls.

They will spend too much time either making love or thinking about it.
They will speak to inanimate objects.

They will have much brighter eyes than everyone else. They will expect
their magic to work in this world and their love to heal, and they will
be crushed by this world, and often they won’t expect it.

It will come close to killing them.

They will visit the places where the connections still exist: the
waterfalls, the mountains, the ocean, the forests. They will draw on all
the power they have, and sometimes, sometimes, the magic will work. And
everything will be wondrously easy. The teeth will grow back on the
calliope’s cog, the tune will right itself, the horses will bob
gracefully up and down, around and around, and the children will giggle
and sing with cotton candy stuck to their cheeks and noses.

They will spend their days trying to reconnect a branch that millions
are still busy sawing away at. Often it will be more than they can bear.
While the rest of humanity is busy working on new and more efficient
ways to lay waste to the Earth with the push of a button, they are
saving it, a handful at a time.

They will share a common conviction that they are the only sane
individuals in a world gone mad.

They’re right.

-Buck Young

Baba Yaga

I mentioned Baba Yaga having a place on my personal store alter and I thought I would share what I know about her.

Baba Yaga is a Slavic Goddess and she is a Crone. She is what we would think of as the Hag. She flies in her mortar and uses her pestle to steer. My Baba Yaga has her broom laying on top of her pestle as she stands in her mortar. The broom sweeps her tracks.

She has a house that moves on chicken legs, which I think is a little odd. She has been known to kill a visitor or kidnap a few children and eat them. She also has a tender side and has been known as a source of guidance and may help you on your quest.

Baba Yaga can be a little scary as all dark goddesses can be. I think she reminds us that she is not a “sugar coater” and if we don’t want to know the truth we better stay away from her. Her darkness lets us know that many times to come through to the light we have to go through the darkness. We usually have to look at the darkness within ourselves to truly understand our light. After all what would light be without the dark?

Baba Yaba is a Goddess soaked in lore and some of that lore has been preserved. There are many folk tales and fairy tales written about her giving the student a Christianized version Baba Yaga to look between the lines and find her true message. Her message is concerned with the Crone, The Hag, The keeper of death and rebirth. She is a true representation of life that encompasses both pain and the joy.

The older I get the more attachments I find toward the Dark Goddesses.

Loki

Native American Deities
ANGUTA (Inuit/Eskimo)
Gatherer of the dead. Anguta carries the dead down to the underworld, where they must sleep with him for a year.
ANINGAN (Inuit/Eskimo)
The moon, brother to the sun whom Moon chases across the sky. Aningan has a great igloo in the sky where he rests. Irdlirvirissong, his demon cousin, lives there as well. The moon is a great hunter, and his sledge is always piled high with seal skins and meat.
ASGAYA GIGAGEI (Cherokee)
The Red Man or Woman evoked in spells to cure the ill. Asgaya Gigagei is either male or female, depending on the sex of the patient.
ATIRA (Pawnee)
The Earth, Sacred Mother of every living creature.
AWONAWILONA (Pueblo Indians)
” The One Who Contains Everything.” The Supreme God, the Creator of All. Before the creation there was only Awonawilona; all else was darkness and emptiness. Both male and female, Awonawilona created everything from himself and taking form became the maker of light, the Sun.
BIG HEADS (Iroquois)
Demon gods. Giand heads without bodies which fly about in storms. They find men very tasty.
BREATHMAKER (Seminole)
Breathmaker taught men to fish and dig wells, and made the Milky Way. When the virtuous die, they follow the Milky Way to a glorious city in the western sky.
COYOTE (Southwestern Indians, but known in other areas as well)
A trickster, a clown. The creator and teacher of men. Like Loki, Coyote is always lurking about, causing trouble and playing pranks. To the Zunis, Coyote is a hero who set forth the laws by which men may live in peace. The Pomo Indians maintain that Coyote created the human race and stole the sun to keep them warm. The Montana Sioux say that Coyote created the horse.
DEOHAKO (Iroquois/Seneca)
Spirits of maize, beans and gourds who live together in a single hill. Searching for dew, the maize spirit Onatha was captured by the evil spirit Hahgwehdaetgah who took her off to the underworld. Sun rescued her, and ever since she has remained in the cornfields until the corn is ripe.
ESTANATLEHI (Navajo)
First Woman’s adopted daughter. To punish mankind for pride, First Man and First Woman sent a plague of monsters to kill and devour them. The time came when First Woman repented of the evils she and First Man had visited upon men, and she sought a means for their deliverance. First Woman discovered the infant Estanatlehi lying on the ground near First Woman’s mountain, and took her in. The infant Estanatlehi grew to adulthood in four days. Making love with the Sun, she gave birth to the Twin Brothers who after many adventures slew the monsters.
EVENING STAR (Pawnee)
An evil star who drives the sun down out of the sky and send his daughter to hinder Morning Star from the sun back up again.
FIRST MAN AND FIRST WOMAN (Navajo)
In the beginning, First Man and First Woman ascended from the underworld together with Coyote, leading the people through trials and tribulations into the surface world which became their home. Deciding that the sky was too empty with only Sun and Moon, First Man, First Woman and Coyote gathered up glittering stones and placed them in the sky to serve as stars.
GAHE Also GA’AN (Apache)
Supernatural beings who dwell inside mountains. The can sometimes be heard dancing and beating drums. Because they can heal and drive away disease, they are worshipped. In the ritual dances of the Chiricahua Apache masked dancers painted a different color for each point of the compass represent all the Gahe except the Grey One. The Grey One, though he appears as a clown, is really the mightiest of all the Gahe.
GLUSKAP (Algonquin)
The Creator, or more exactly, the creator force. Generally benevolent, but often whimsical. Gluskap created the plains, the food plants, the animals and the human race from the body of the Mother Earth. His rival was his wolf brother Malsum, who made rocks, thickets and poisonous animals. After a long struggle Gluskap killed Malsum and drove his evil magic under the earth. Gluskap drove away monsters, fought stone giants, taught hunting and farming to men, and gave names to the stars. His work done, Gluskap paddled towards the sunrise in a birch bark canoe. Some day he may return.
HINO (Iroquois)
Thunder god, god of the sky. The Rainbow is his consort. With his fire arrows, Hino destroys evil beings.
IRDLIRVIRISISSONG (Inuit/Eskimo)
The demon cousin of the moon. Sometimes Irdlirvirissong comes out into the sky to dance and clown and make the people laugh. But if anyone is nearby, the people must restrain themselves or the demon clown will dry them up and eat their intestines.
KACHINAS (Hopi)
Nature spirits which inhabit and control everything — animal spirits, spirits of departed ancestors, spirits of natural resources such as wind, rain and thunder. Their exact number is not known, but at least five hundred appear in the mythologies of the different villages.
KANATI (Cherokee)
” The Lucky Hunter.” Sometimes called First Man. He lives with his wife Selu (”Corn”) in the east where the sun rises, and their sons, the Twin Thunder Boys, live in the west.
KITCKI MANITOU (Algonquin)
The Great Spirit, the Supreme Being. The Uncreated, the Father of Life, God of the Winds. The Great Spirit is present in some way in nearly every North American Indian mythology.
MICHABO (Algonquin)
The Great Hare. A trickster. A shape-shifter. Creator of men, the earth, deer, water and fish. Michabo drives away cannibal spirits. In the House of Dawn, Michabo is host to the souls of good men, feeding them succulent fruits and fish.
MORNING STAR (Pawnee)
A protector who leads the sun upward into the sky. A soldier god.
NAGENATZANI (Navajo)
Elder Twin Brother.
NESARU (Arikara)
Sky spirit. In the beginning, Nesaru had charge over all creation. Displeased with a race of giants in the underworld who would not respect his authority, Nesaru sent a new race to the underworld to replace them and sent a flood which destroyed the giants without destroying the new men. When the new men cried out to be released from the underworld, Nesaru sent the Corn Mother for their deliverance.
NOKOMIS (Algonquin)
” Grandmother. ” The Sacred Earth Mother. Nokomis nurtures all living things.
NORTH STAR (Pawnee)
A creator god. Beneficiant and venerated.
OCASTA (Cherokee)
” Stonecoat.” The name comes from his coat which was made of pieces of flint. Equally good and evil, Ocasta was one of the Creator’s helpers. Ocasta created witches and drifted from village to village stirring up turmoil. Some women trapped Ocasta, pinning him to the ground with a stick through his heart. The men cremated the dying Ocasta, who while burning on his funeral pyre taught them songs and dances for hunting, fighting wars and healing. Some of the men were granted great power and became the first medicine men.
OLELBIS (Wintun, Pacific Coast)
The Creator who lived in Olelpanti (Heaven) with two old women. When the first people destroyed the world with fire, Olelbis sent wind and rain to quench the flames, and repaired the earth. Olelbis intended men to live forever. When they grew old, they were to climb to heaven and join Olelbis in paradise. Olelbis set two vultures to the task of building a ladder to Olelpanti for men to ascend, but Coyote persuaded them to stop work.
RABBIT (Southeastern tribes)
Like Coyote and Michabo, a trickster god. Through a sly trick, Rabbit brought fire to man.
RAVEN (Northwestern tribes)
Another trickster god. Very greedy, forever seeking food. Raven stole the moon from a miser and placed it in the sky.
SEDNA (Inuit/Eskimo)
Goddess of the sea and the creatures of the sea. A one-eyed giant. A frightfull old hag, but she was young and beautiful when her father threw her in the sea as a sacrifice. A sorcerer wishing to visit Sedna must pass through the realms of death and then cross an abyss where a wheel of ice spins eternally and a cauldron of seal meat stews endlessly. To return he must cross another abyss on a bridge as narrow as a knife edge.
SELU (Cherokee)
” Corn.” Sometimes known as First Woman. Kanati’s wife. Selu created corn in secret by rubbing her belly or by defecating. Her sons, the Twin Thunder Boys, killed her when they spied upon her and decided she was a witch.
SHAKURA (Pawnee)
Sun god. The Pawnee performed their famous Sun Dance for Shakura’s sake. Young warriors attached themselves to tall poles with strips of hide which were tied to sharp stakes. The stakes were driven through the skin and flesh on the chest. The young brave would then support his entire weight with the hide ropes as he slowly circled the pole following the sun’s movement in the sky. This lasted until the sun went down or the stakes ripped out of the brave’s flesh.
SOUTH STAR (Pawnee)
God of the underworld, the opposite of North Star. Magical and feared.
SUN (Cherokee)
A goddess. When Sun’s daughter was bitten by a snake and taken to the Ghost Country, Sun hid herself in grief. The world was ever dark, and Sun’s tears became a flood. At last the Cherokee sent their young men and women to heal Sun’s grief, which they did with singing and dancing.
SUN (Inuit/Eskimo)
A beautiful young maiden carrying a torch who is chased through the sky by her brother Aningan, the moon. The planet Jupiter is the mother of the sun and very dangerous to magicians. If they are careless, she will devour their livers.
TEKKEITSERKTOCK (Inuit/Eskimo)
The earth god, master of hunting to whom all deer belong.
TIRAWA-ATIUS (Pawnee)
The Power Above, creator of the heavens and the earth.
THOBADESTCHIN (Navajo)
Youngest Twin Brother.
THOUME’ (Chitimacha)
Thoume’ taught the people to make clothing and fire, and how to make love. After making the moon and the sun, Thoume’ sent the trickster god Kutnahin to teach medicine and food preparation to men. Kutnahin traveled through the world disguised as a derelict covered with buzzard dung.
TORNGASAK (Inuit/Eskimo)
The good spirit, representing everything in nature good and helpful to man.
TWIN THUNDER BOYS (Cherokee)
The sons of Kanati and Selu. Kanati and Selu live in the east, the Twin Thunder Boys live in the west. When thunder sounds, the boys are playing ball.
WACHABE (Sioux/Osage)
Black Bear. A guardian. Symbol of long life, strength and courage.
Copyright 1994, DW Owens
This work may be reproduced without permission, in its entirety and without alteration, together with the other parts which make up the entire work, for free distribution. For any other distribution, please contact the author.

assembled by emily0690

Ideas for Honoring Your Kitchen Goddess

Set up an altar in her honor. This should include a picture, statue, or
other symbolic representation of your chosen
goddess, as well as objects that are sacred to her.
Light a candle in her honor while cleaning and say,”[kitchen goddess],
cleanse and bless this sacred space.”
Light a candle for her while preparing meals and say,”I cook with [kitchen
goddess]’s fire.”
Put out a small bowl or plate for offerings to her. Offerings might be bits
and pieces from whatever you’re
cooking (a bit of pasta, carrot peels, pumpkin seeds, a small bit of bread)
which you can add to your compost
pile or bury in your yard. You can offer her seeds or nuts, scattering them
outside at the end of the day for the
wildlife to enjoy. Or you can give her libations of water, tea, or broth,
which can also be poured out onto the
earth later on. This helps connect us to the cycle of life, death and
rebirth, and it’s nice to return something
to the earth which provided our food.
Compose a simple prayer or invocation to say each time you enter the kitchen
and greet her. This can be
memorized or printed out and framed on the wall. I have a picture of the
Venus of Willendorf on my wall
above the stove that reads:

Earth Mother
Thank you for providing us with this food
to nourish our bodies and spirits.
Please bless and energize this sacred space
where our meals are prepared.
May all who feast here be deeply healed
and nurtured by your love.
Blessed be.
Have a feast in honor of your kitchen goddess. What would your kitchen
goddess like to eat? What region
or culture does your goddess evoke? Think of ways to honour her with food.
Athena or Artemis may enjoy
Greek-style grape leaves stuffed with rice and nuts and feta cheese. Irish
Brigid might be partial to oatcakes or
potatoes and cabbage. Then again, your goddess may be heartily sick of the
same old thing: you could expand
her food horizons and offer her something wildly different from her usual
fare. Invite your friends-you could take
turns hosting Kitchen Goddess dinners. Wear costumes and play special
music, if you like.
The Goddess loves a good time.

* Goddesses of the Dark Moon

Often these types of Goddesses symbolise Menopause. The dark moon is the
transpersonal experience of ‘All is One’, knowing that love is all of life.
The recognition that anything that isn’t love, is fear. The Goddess invites
us to experience the different levels of love. The Dark Goddess did not
exist 5,000 years ago as there was only one Goddess, one image.

For three and one-half days, before the New Moon, during the dark of the
moon, this is the time of endings and represents death and re-birth. This
organic cycle is reflected in the dark of the moon when the plant dies and
is now compost. The Cauldron, or the tomb, symbolises the dark of the moon,
which becomes the womb. When we have the wisdom to let something go, or the
need to wait for the right moment, there is a sense of surrender and
honouring what we feel. Especially when it involves dark emotions. If we can

be with that time, without fear, we can heal. The saying ‘you can’t heal
what you can’t feel’ is very appropriate for the Dark Moon time. The Dark of

the Moon is introverted energy. A time of darkness and a time of powerful
energy.

In ancient times, it was the occasion when the oracles were consulted to see

the inner light. This time is connected with intuition, the female wisdom
and what is learned through the pain of life and how to work with these
cycles to somehow know when is the right time. It is a time to learn to let
go and be aware of the natural cycle of life. Rituals associated with this
time were banishings and cuttings but these terms can be considered
patriarchal. The Goddess of the Dark Moon inspires us to own our own shadow
which usually exists because of our fears we’ve learned or in which have
been instilled. When we wish to banish or cut a problem, it just goes deeper

and is harder to reach.

Owning a Dark Side

The denial of this lunar phase has resulted in the creation of destructive
images of the Crone often due to the fear of death and womens’ wisdom. Under

patriarchy, it has been males who intrepreted the oracles. Western world has

not come to terms with the ageing and death fear. The Crone time is the most

powerful time for a woman, instead they often feel invisible, powerless,
disempowered and misogynised. But until women start valuing themselves, know

they’ve got something to offer, this destructive time with continue. The
peak of misogyny was reached during the Inquisition and witch burning. At
that time, darkness was (and still is) associated with evil. 5,000 years
ago, there was only one goddess image. Now the Goddess is considered evil,
i.e. Kali, Lilith, Medus (who is really, the dark side of Aphrodite). Women
have not had access to full empowerment. How they’ve dealt with this is by
becoming victims and blaming themselves and some becoming manipulative and
bitchy, so aggression comes out inappropriately. Women have been socialised
to be nice, dutiful daughters, loving mothers, trusting wifes, etc. Women
need to re-claim the dark side/the shadow (the Furies/The
Fates/Hecate/ Persephone) . If we explore the stories of the dark goddesses,
it provides a container so we will not get lost.

The rejected aspects of feminine energy and power are all related to fear
and loss of love which need to be re-integrated. The Dark Goddesses
represents the journey and require proper recognition and respect. This is
the part we re-claim through our pain. Often when a woman re-connects with
the Dark Goddess energy, she can become very angry. To experience the Dark
Goddess must be felt, not known intellectually. The journey is one of
descent to the Underworld and return. If we do not, we suicide or suffer
clinical depression. The myths of the descent are associated with
Persephones’ story, Medusa, Lilith (but in a sense, she is still in exile)
and Inanna.

Hecate

Hecate (means `influence from afar´),
also Hekat, & Hekate, along with Silver-Footed Queen of the Night, Queen
of Ghosts, Tricephalus the 3-headed, Trioditis the Goddess of the 3
Roads, Prytania Invincible Queen of the Dead, Kléidouchos, Keeper of
the Keys, Enodia, Goddess of the Paths, Phosphoros, The Light-Bringer,
Soteira, the Saviour.

SYMBOLS: 3-way crossroads, poles erected at the crossroads with three
faces, each pointed down one road, black female dog, pair of torches (in
her role as bringer of wisdom), keys (in her role as “Keybearing Queen
of the Whole Cosmos,”) flowers, pomegranate (in her role as the helper
of Persephone,) frog, rope, knife (in her role as midwife,) the
Strophalos of Hecate or Hecate’s Wheel, a serpentine labyrinth
representing the serpents power of rebirth.

USUAL IMAGE: The earliest images of her show her as a woman setting on a
throne, later she is shown with one head & three bodies or one body and
three head, she is often shown holding a torch in each hand & being
attended by one to three phantom dogs. Other images representing her are
human female bodies with the heads of a dog, serpent & lioness, or dog,
horse & bear, as well as other groupings.

HOLY BOOKS: Hesiod’s Theogony, The Chaldean Oracles.

HOLY DAYS: August 13th & November 30th (Greeks), the 29th of every month
(Romans.)

PLACE OF WORSHIP: Temples, At the crossroads, especially those in wild
areas, bounders between wild and domesticated areas, city walls, city
gates, graveyards.

RELATIVES: Astemis, Star Goddess (mother,) Perses (father,) or in some
accounts Demeter. while others give Gaia as her mother & Kronos as her
father, Scylla the sea monster. (child)

FORM OF WORSHIP: Prayers, sometimes dogs were sacrificed to her at the
crossroads, meat was also a common offering at the crossroads for her.

SYNODEITIES: Heket or Hequit (Egyptian midwife goddess), Kali-Ma
(Hindu), Baba-Yaga (Russian), Morgan Le Fay (Arthurian.)

DETAILS: Some followers of some gods have a problem with the concept of
evolution, the gods however don’t seem to have that problem.
Just look at the Goddess Hecate, still worshipped today, while other of
the old gods & goddesses have been either forgotten or turned into
fictional characters or corporate logos.

Over the millennia she has gone from Mother Goddess, to divine midwife,
to guardian against ghosts, to queen of ghosts, to triple goddess.

Where Hecate came from is not known, however it’s safe to assume that in
pre-historic times she was a highly regarded fertility goddess, like
Hera, who was absorbed by the growing Greek civilization and “married”
off to one of the gods of new conquering paradigm, Hecate was too
powerful to be made the bride of one of the newer gods.

Called a Titan, one of the pre-Olympian gods, she was said to be the
only one to help in the overthrowing of Kronos, as “a reward,” while the
other Titans were killed, tossed into Tartarus or otherwise imprisoned,
Zeus gave her partial command of the earth, ocean & starry sky, giving
her dominion over part of the realms of the three most powerful of the
Greek gods.

As such she was the goddess to call on for a number of different things,
giving aid in childbirth, war, business & games.

However she was also known as a goddess that did not gladly suffer
fools, slackers, or those who tried to trick or abuse her bounty and
give defeat as easily as she did victory to those who proved unworthy.

At one point she became a goddess to be called on to protect cities &
homes against evil spirits, as well as such evil ghosts that might
waylay travelers, after all why call on first, Zeus, then Poseidon for
travel on the sea, then Hades against evil spirits when Hecate could
handle all three!

It was not long before it came to be thought that any goddess that could
protect against ghosts, and like Hecate turn on those who had fallen out
of her favor, might also send wicked ghosts as a punishment, leading to
her title of Queen of the Ghosts, and perhaps more than a little fear in
some worshippers.

While in her earlier depictions she was shown as a single goddess, she
became, as she because a goddess of multiple domains, to be shown as
either having three bodies and one head, or three heads, or to be
represented by a woman with the head of a dog, serpent, & lioness, or
dog, horse & bear along with other groupings.

As such some today have taken to confusing her with goddesses who are
seen in the form of maiden, mother & crone. This however was never the
case with Hecate.

Her three aspect is as a goddess was one who rules birth, life & death,
or earth, sky, & sea or underworld.

However those who insist on doing that can be forgiven, as even a light
reading of the changes Hecate has gone though shows she is one divine
being who is not adverse to change, and I suspect would only be pleased
followers who display that same attribute.

Taranis

Lord of the Thunder

Taranis, whose name comes from the Gaelic meaning ‘thunder’,
was one of three pan-celtic gods forming the great triad. With
Esus and Teutatis, Taranis was worshiped especially by the
continental Celts, although there is widespread evidence of his
pan-celtic worship.

The great thunder lord shares attributes with other Northern
European Sky gods, Thor, most notably and several similarities
with the Roman Jupiter. After the Roman incursion into Celtic
lands, this great god was worshiped as Jupiter-Taranis.
An interesting aspect of the worship of Taranis was his
association with time. He was seen as the Lord of the Wheel of
the seasons, which he controlled through his ritual mating with
the feminine spirit of the sacred Duir, the oak tree. The Duir was
the most sacred of trees held holy by the Celts. They worshiped
in its groves, feed off of the acorns it produced and noticed the
fondness of the Thunder Lord for striking it with his blasts of
lightening. This act was itself the vehicle for the mating of the Sky
Lord with the earth bound oak. Pieces of lightning blasted oak
are still carried by modern Celts as an amulet of protection
granted by Taranis.

The Evidence for Taranis

The Roman poet Lucan (b. 39 CE in Cordoba Spain, d. 65 CE in
Rome), provides the only literary evidence we have for the Celtic
God Taranis. In his poem Bellum civile, better known as the
Pharsalia, he writes:

“…and those Gauls who propitiate with human sacrifices the
merciless gods Teutas, Esus and Taranis - at whose alters the
visitany shudders because they are as awe-inspiring as those of
the Scythian Diana.”

Lucan, Pharsalia I, 422-465

Miranda Green in The World of the Druids, p. 78 states,
regarding Lucan:

“Lucan was writing in the mid-first century AD about deities
allegedly encountered by Caesar’s army in Gaul in the mid-first
century BCE (P. 23). Lucan refers to human sacrifice in general
terms, but a commentator on his poem, writing in Switzerland in
the ninth century AD, clearly had access to early documents that
have since been lost, for he elaborates on Lucan’s comments in
his description of the most appropriate human sacrifice for each
of the three gods. Taranis, the thunder-god, was appeased by
fire; the victims of Esus (the ‘Lord’) were stabbed and hanged
from a tree until they bled to death; and those assigned to
Teutates were drowned. The link between Taranis and fire has
led to the assumption that the construction and burning of the
Wicker Man (p. 75), described by Caesar and Strabo, were
associated with the Thunderer. We cannot be sure about this,
but the immolation of human victims by fire was a fitting rite for a
god who was responsible for lightning.”

The name Taranis derives from the Celtic (or Indo-European)
root ‘taran’ meaning thunderer or thunder. The above bronze
figurine was found in Le Chatelet, France and is dated to the 1st
to 2nd century BCE. It shows a wise, patriarchal being holding a
lightening bolt and a solar wheel. As one who grew up in the
Western traditions, this figure is almost instantly recognizable as
Jupiter, only the solar wheel giving away the fact that this is a
Celtic and not a Roman figure.

“The oldest known coherent account of the Celtic pantheon is
Caesar’s, who lists their major deities, defining their respective
functions briefly though clearly. Unfortunately, Caesar does not
give their Gaulish names, only their Roman equivalents. The first
to be mentioned is Mercury, the most highly revered among the
Gauls and presumably corresponding to Lugh, the supreme
lord. Then comes Apollo, said to “drive away disease,” then
Minerva, who “transmits the principles of arts and crafts,” then
Jupiter, who “rules over the skies,” and finally Mars, who
“oversees war.” Scholars agree that these deities correspond to
the three main functions of the Indo-European system: the
sacred (Jupiter), war (Mars), and productivity (Apollo and
Minerva).” (Kruta et al., p. 132)

The association of Taranis with Fire is clear from the above
figure and Caesar’s words., the fire of the skies, the Sun, and the
fire of the air, lightening and its voice thunder, giving the God his
name, Taranis. “Elsewhere we find Jove ‘complete with wheel,’
thought to represent the Celtic god of thunder, Taranis, who,
hurling his wheel through the clouds, unleashed the terrible din.
He turns up in ‘classical’ styles which must surely be official. A
link is thus established from the little ‘ritual wheels’ of the Bronze
and Iron Ages to the Gundestrup cauldron, and to
representations of the Empires.”

The Archeological Evidence:

There are 7 alters to Taranis still in existence, all bearing
inscriptions in Latin or Greek. These are in Chester in Britain;
Bockingen and Godramstein in Germany; Orgon, Thauron and
Tours in France and Scardona in Yugoslavia, throughout the
Celtic world.

The alter dedicated to Taranis in Bockingen, Germany. The
inscription reads, Deo Taranucno Veriatus Primus ex iussu: “To
the God Taranis, Veratius Primus, by order…”

The alter in Chester, England, though weathered has been
transcribed and reads: “To Jupiter Best and Greatest Tanarus,
Lucius Bruttius Praesens, of the Galerian Voting Tribe, from
Clunia, princeps of Legion XX Valeria Victrix, willing and
deservedly fulfilled his vow, in the consulships of Commodus
and Lateranus” (154 CE)

The alter at Orgon(Bouches-du-Rhône),France

The Orgon inscription is in Gaulish using Greek letters. the
name Tarano…
Chris Gwinn has kindly provided a translation” It is a common
Gaulish dedicatory statement: X (personal name) DEDE (verb
“gives”) Y (Divine name in the dative, thus “to Taranus” in this
case) BRATOU “in thanks (from the celtic root Brat-
“thought/mind”)” DECANTEM “a tithe(donation-from the celtic root
Deca-”ten”)” The personal name in this case is Uebromaros “the
great amber(haired) one” See P.Y. Lambert’s La Langue
Gauloise (CNRS 1992/94, Paris) for more on Gaulish grammar
as well as translations of the major inscriptions.

Green, (Dictionary of Celtic Myth and Legend p. 206) interprets
the inscription as refering to ‘Thunder’ as an “elemental force”
which had been deified. In contrast the inscriptions at Scardona,
Thauron and Chester use Taranis as a “surname or epithet” of
the Roman Jupiter.

The “Symbolic” or Imaginary Evidence:

Many others have equated Celtic images with Taranis on the
basis of symbols (e.g., the solar wheel) or from conflations of the
imagination and esoteric sources. This evidence, while
‘imaginary’, perhaps bests describes Taranis as some would
like him to be today.

Proinsias Mac Cana considers the solar wheel to be the symbol
of Taranis If he is correct, then Taranis was among the highest
deities of the Celts as the solar wheel is one of the most
prevalent symbol on Celtic artifacts.

Taranis Rituals

Ritual acts to honour Taranis

Carry a piece of lighting blasted oak on your person or in your
car.

At Ritual Gathering weekends, begin your celebrations by
offering a ritual libation and burnt offering to Taranis for good
weather. At the conclusion of the Gathering, be sure to offer
another libation and burnt offering in thanksgiving.

Honour Taranis with a ritual on his sacred day, 7 July. The
Caledonii celebrate Taranis with three days of festival, 6th, 7th,
and 8th of July. It is the traditional time of Consecration for the
Draoi of the Caledonii.

When thunder and lightning threaten, light a candle and offer a
simple prayer to Taranis reminding him that you and your
household honour him.

Ritually harvest the sacred Mistletoe on the first quarter of the
Moon closest to Samhain, Mean Geimhraidh, Bealtinne, and
Mean Samhraidh. Keep these in a place of honour and in the
eves of the roof to protect from lightning and to honour Taranis.

Freyja Lady of Love and Life
Originally published in Sagewoman, Summer, 2002

It is midnight in the far North of the world. The sun has gone down, but a gentle twilight still glows in the sky. You are dancing with your people around a bonfire. Music lifts your feet and your hearts– a birch bark flute is lilting merrily, supported by the quick tap tap of a drum. When the musician stops to breathe, many voices take up the song, praising the goddess who gives life to the land, dancing luck and fertility into the earth so that the cattle will thrive and the grain will grow.

You link arms with your lover, twirling giddily around the fire. Together you leap over it, then, laughing, dance away from the circle into the shelter of the pine trees and still embracing, fall to the ground. The drum beat throbs through the earth, pounding like the pulse in your veins.

Your bodies move in time to that compelling rhythm, pulling frantically at your clothing as you strain together. Mouths meet in devouring kisses; your hands are eager upon each other’s bodies, nipples tingle with excitement. And now your thighs open; you are melting within. For a moment you both try to halt at that moment of anticipation; then you can wait no longer. Your arms tighten, pulling your beloved down against you, and you are one.

Passion mounts as you move together, spiraling upward with such intensity that you wonder if you will survive. Suddenly you can contain it no longer. As you offer it to the goddess, the ecstasy is released in a great shout, and with it consciousness whirls away as well . . . .

The scene has changed. The grass on which you are standing is so green it seems to glow with its own light, starred with tiny golden flowers. Beyond the meadow are forests and mountains, and they, too, seem to shine with their own light. On the hill above rises a high-built hall. Its roof-timbers are carved in the forms of fantastic beasts, picked out in red and gold. Through the open door you can see many benches, but tonight, no one is sitting on them. Everyone seems to be outdoors, dancing around the fire.

There are a lot of men– some are young and handsome, others scarred by the years, but they all move with the centered grace of warriors. There are women there as well, of all ages, from young maidens to wisewomen wearing furs and amber. They dance with the warriors or with each other, around and around the fire. You blink, for now you see animals as well– golden furred cats, a white mare, a pig with a bristling hide. For a moment you wonder what you are doing there– they all, whatever their age or form, have an inner glow that makes them beautiful. Then someone takes your hand and draws you into the dance.

As you link hands with the others a shock of energy flares through your body. Now it seems easy to skip to the drum beat, moving faster and faster as you circle the fire. The forest, the meadow, the faces of the dancers become a blur of color. The fire itself shimmers and flows skyward in a column of light.

Sound vibrates through a hundred throats– a song, a shout, a name! “Freyja! Freyja!” you cry. Your spirit is opening, melting, knowing only desire . . . .

And the fire flares outward, shaping itself into the form of a woman whose body glows and whose hair whirls up like flame. Love flares outward, filling you as it fills the others, the earth and sky and all that is as the Goddess comes . . . .

Who is this golden goddess, this radiant figure who blesses the cold fields of the north? She is, of course, beautiful, able to inspire anyone with desire, but though she enjoys her sexuality, she remains independent, maintaining her own household and pursuing her own goals. She is the Lady of the Vanir, a goddess of wealth as well as love, and she is a witch, teacher of the most powerful magics.

Freyja (also spelled “Freya”) was the first of the Germanic goddesses with whom I had a “close encounter”, when she became the focus of my second novel, Brisingamen. Whatever they may do for other people, my novels are usually initiatory for me, and by the time I had finished writing the book, Freyja was a part of my life.

She was the last of the Norse gods to still be worshipped in Viking times, and one of the first to attract followers when the heathen religion began to revive. After Odin, she is the “pushiest” of that pantheon, being not only approachable, but often taking an active role in contacting those who need her. Furthermore, she is one of the few goddesses who is served in almost equal numbers by women and by men.

More information about Freyja than about any of the other northern goddesses has survived. In the Younger Edda, a compendium of lore for poets, we learn–

Freyja is the most glorious of the asynjur (goddesses). She has a dwelling in heaven called Folkvangr (army-plain), and wherever she rides to battle she gets half the slain, and the other half go to Odin… Sessrumnir (the many seated), her hall, is large and beautiful. And when she travels she drives two cats and sits in a chariot. She is the most approachable one for people to pray to. . . She is very fond of love songs. It is good to pray to her concerning love affairs.

Edda, p 24

One of the things she is known for is sexual activity. The giantess Hyndla says:

(You) ran, ever-longing, after Odhr,
you let many creep beneath your fore-skirt-
atheling-friend, you leap about at night
like Heidhrun among the goats.

(”Lay of Hyndla”:47)

We learn more about the sexual mores of the Vanir in a poem from the Elder Edda called “Lokasenna”, in which Loki crashes a party and proceeds to insult all the gods and goddesses. When he insults Odin’s wife Frigga, Freyja tries to defend her. Loki then says:

“Hush thee, Freya, I full well know thee:
Thou art not free from fault:
All Æsir and alfswithin this hall
thou hast lured to love with thee.”

and,

“Hush thee, Freya,a whore thou art,
and aye wast bent on ill;
in thy brother’s bed the blessed gods caught thee,
when, Freya, thou didst fart.”

at this point, her father Njordh steps in,

“Little sin me seemeth,though beside her mate
a wedded wife have a lover. . .”

(”Lokasenna” v.30-33)

This attitude is less surprising when one remembers that the Vanir were a different “clan” of deities, with different customs. “Whilst Niord was with the Vanir he had married his own sister (for that was lawful with them), and their children were Freyr and Freyja.” (Ynglingasaga, p.3)

It has been suggested that Njordh’s first wife was the goddess Nerthus. This cannot be proven, since our only information on Nerthus comes from Tacitus, a Roman who wrote about the religion of the tribes in the Low Countries in the first century, whereas all that we know about Njordh comes from Icelandic sources written down in the 13th century. However the similarity in names does make it possible that Njordh, who is responsible for getting wealth from the sea, and Nerthus, a goddess invoked at the spring plowing, were originally a pair of fertility deities like Freyr and Freyja. It is also possible that Njordh originally was Nerthus, and changed gender during the intervening centuries. . . .

Transmission of the stories from Frisia to Iceland can also be explained by supposing that the people who worshipped the Vanir (Njordh, Freyr, Freyja and presumably others) and those who followed the Æsir (all the other Norse deities) first encountered each other in the area which is now Denmark on the coasts of the North Sea. The Icelanders, located at the furthest extremity of Norse migration, conserved many aspects of the old culture long after the Germanic homeland had been absorbed into Christendom. They knew the stories of Sigfrid and Brunhild as well as many other legends from the Continent, though they may have given them their own interpretation.

Although the story of the Æsir and the Vanir has sometimes been interpreted as a myth about the conquest of peaceful, agricultural people by warlike, nomadic, barbarians, the evidence does not really support that view. At the beginning of “Völuspá” (”The Words of the Seeress”), we are told:

Then gathered togetherthe gods for counsel,
the holy hosts,and held converse:
should the Æsir a trucewith tribute buy,
or should all godsshare in the feast?

His spear had Othinsped o’er the host:
the first of feudswas thus fought in the world;
was broken in battlethe breastwork of Asgarth,
fighting Vanirtrod the field of battle.

(”Völuspá” 23-24)

In The Literary History of Hamlet, Kemp Malone suggests that the cult of Freyr was brought to Sweden and Denmark from some point farther east, and eventually displaced an earlier cult in which the Sky God Tiwaz and the Earth Goddess Nerthus were honored. By the time the Icelandic poets were writing, Odin had replaced Tyr as chief of the gods, but the important point remains the same– it is just as likely that rather than being the victims, the Vanir were a more advanced agricultural people who moved into the lands of the cattle-breeding Æsir.

The fact that the names of Freyr and Freyja do not appear in German or Anglo-Saxon mythology or place names suggests that they had an origin elsewhere, whether to the north in Scandinavia or somewhere further south and east, and that the two groups became part of the same religious system after the fifth century.

If one wants to become extremely speculative, the image of Freyja with her magic necklace, riding in a wagon drawn by cats, does bring to mind the statues of the Near Eastern goddess Cybele sitting in her cart drawn by two lions. Indeed, the association of the Goddess with two felines goes all the way back to the Neolithic birth-giving goddess of Catal Huyuk in Turkey, which would make Freyja a very ancient goddess indeed.

In the early Middle Ages it was traditional for nationalistic poets to trace the origins of their peoples back to pre-Classical times, which may explain why Snorri states that the name “Æsir” comes from the word for Asia, and that both they and the Vanir originally came from an area near the Black Sea. He therefore sets the story of the war between the two groups in this ancient period, and explains that after making a truce, they migrated north together. But no matter where they may have been living when the alliance was made, the story is essentially the same. The two groups exchanged hostages, and the Vanir who came to live with the Æsir were Njordh and his two children, Freyja and Freyr.

After that, life in Asgard was never quite the same. Freyja’s most prized possession was the necklace Brisingamen. It was said that she encountered four dwarves while they were crafting it, and was so taken with its beauty that she agreed to spend a night with each of them as payment. It is not known whether Brisingamen was made of gold or of amber, but it apparently had some magic power, for at one point Loki tried to steal it for Odin. Loki and the god Heimdall, guardian of the Rainbow Bridge and according to some, the father of humankind, fought in the form of seals until Heimdall won and recovered it. Sacred images clad only in a necklace and sometimes a short skirt have been found in bog burials from very early times, and it seems probable that the necklace was an emblem of the Goddess. I have always believed Brisingamen represents the power of the goddess to revitalize nature.

It is possible that the giants who were continually trying to acquire Freyja were motivated by lust, but it may also be that they coveted this ecstatic power. On one of the most notable occasions, the gods had hired a giant to build Valhalla, promising him Freyja and the sun and moon in exchange, because Loki assured them he would find a way to avoid paying. This is the episode that forms the basis for the plot of Wagner’s opera, Das Rheingold, although in the opera, Wagner appears to have gotten Freyja confused with Idunna, who guarded the apples of eternal youth. Wagner’s conclusion also differs from the original story. The Ring of the Nibelungs is not mentioned in the Younger Edda (it belongs to a different mythological cycle). Instead, Loki solves the problem by transforming himself into a mare in heat, who lures the giant’s horse away so that the work cannot be completed on schedule. Some months later (still in mare form), Loki gives birth to the eight-legged horse, Sleipnir.

As we have seen above, Freyja makes her own choices regarding sexual partners, and shares her favors freely. She may even act as a “spirit-wife” to mortal men who serve her. “The Lay of Hyndla” tells how Freyja transformed her devotee Ottar into a boar, and rode him to visit the giantess Hyndla, who alone had the information about his ancestry that would enable him to win a wager. In several places, Hyndla refers to Ottar as Freyja’s lover. But Freyja herself says only that he won her favor by making offerings:

“He a high altar made me of heaped stones–
All glassy have grown the gathered rocks,
And reddened anewwith blood of cows’ fresh blood,
For always believed Ottar in the goddeses.”

(”Lay of Hyndla”: 10)

Alfgeir Freyjasgodhi, a modern male devotee of the goddess, says, “On a very few occasions She, taking me ‘along for the ride’, lets me experience things through Her– no, this is not sex in any commonly understood sense, it is happening on a different level, and is much more, well, impressive. . . I suspect Ottar’s experience of Her in ‘Hyndluljod’ was comparable to the above. Whatever form these communions take, I am left feeling charged and ecstatic, and do the best I can to remember them in poetry.” (Idunna #35, p. 29)

Elsewhere we are told that she gets first choice of the slain warriors. Since as far as we know, none of the goddesses will be involved in the last battle of Ragnarök, we may assume that these warrior-spirits will help her to create life anew in the new world after the battle is done. After death, women might also go to Freyja, as when Egil Skallagrimsson’s daughter Thorgerd swears she will take no food until she sups in Freyja’s hall.

Although Freyja is given a husband, he is a rather shadowy figure about whom the only thing we know is that he left her. According to Snorri,

Freyja is highest in rank next to Frigg. She was married to someone called Odh (Ecstasy). Hnoss is the name of their daughter. She is so beautiful that from her name whatever is beautiful and precious is called hnossir (treasures). Odh went off on long travels, and Freyja stayed behind, weeping, and her tears are red gold. Freyja has many names, and the reason for this is that she adopted various names when she was travelling among strange peoples looking for Odh. She is known as Mardöll and Horn, Gefn, Syr.

(Edda, p. 29-30)

These names are interesting. “Gefn” means “the giver”. According to Ellis-Davidson, “Mardöll suggests a connection with the sea (marr). Syr ’sow’ reminds us that the boar symbol belonged to her as well as to Freyr. Hörn is another name which occurs in the place-names in east Sweden, and may be connected with hörr, ‘flax’, indicating a special local variant of the cult of the vegetation goddess.” (p. 116)

Freyja is associated not only with the cat (the lore does not give us the names of the cats who draw her cart– in Brisingamen I assigned them the names “Tregul” (Tree-gold, or Amber) and “Bygul” (Bee-gold, or Honey), but with the pig (sacred in many cultures to the earth-goddess). We also know that she had a falcon-cloak which she used for shape-changing and travel because in another story, she loaned it to Loki so that he could rescue Idunna. In medieval sources she is compared to a she-goat or a mare in heat. I would associate her with fertile female animals in general. Her other major title is “Vanadis”– the dis, or guardian female spirit, of the Vanir.

Considering how essential sex is to human life and culture, it is not surprising that even after Christianity had replaced the worship of the old gods in most areas of life, Freyja still had worshippers. This may be reflected in what Snorri Sturlusson says of her in his History of the Norse Kings. The book begins with a summary of the mythology in which all of the gods are interpreted as having been human kings.

In this account, he also tells us that after all the other “gods” had died, “Freya held to the sacrifices still, for she alone of the gods still lived. She then became so very renowned, that they called all their noble women by her name, even as they are now called fruer; so every woman is called Freya (Frue) who rules over her own property…” (Ynglingasaga, p. From this usage, some heathens refer to Freyja by a more ancient Germanic title, “the Frowe”.

Some of this, of course, is Snorri’s attempt to explain the etymology, but it has a number of significant implications. The first is that Freyja’s name means, in essence, “Lady”, or perhaps “The” Lady, just as the name of her brother Freyr can be translated “Lord”. The May King and Queen, garbed in green and crowned with flowers, may represent a survival of rites of the Vanir.

Taken together, they are “the Lord and the Lady”, a phrase which will ring bells for those who are familiar with wiccan-or-witch/">Wicca, although as Gundarsson points out, “The main difference between the Frowe and the Wiccan lady is that the Frowe is not motherly in any way.” (Our Troth, p. 196) Wiccan traditions are fond of claiming Celtic roots, but in fact it is quite likely that a number of characteristic elements in English witchcraft were survivals of the cult of the Vanir, which came to Britain with the Vikings.

The Witch, whether young and beautiful or ancient and sinister, who lives alone with her cats and works magic, is as much a priestess of Freyja as is the May Queen. Snorri tells us that, “Niord’s daughter was Freya. She was a priestess and she first taught the Asaland people seið, which was in use with the Vanir. (Ynglingasaga, p. 3) Later we learn that Odin himself was a master of seið, which includes such skills as spirit journeying, weatherworking, affecting people’s minds and prophecy. Presumably, it was Freyja who taught him.

Of course, there is often a connection between the energies used for sex and those used for magic. At the end of the passage describing Odin’s skills in seidh, comes the statement, “. . .but after such witchcraft, unmanliness (ergi) followed so much that it was considered shameful for men to deal with it, and this craft was therefore taught to priestesses.” (Ynglingasaga, p. 5). As Jenny Blain points out, (applied to men, ergi is “. . .primarily an insult, that can be used to convey the meaning (perjoratively) of ‘homosexual’, or of ‘acted upon sexually’, or simply ‘coward’. . . . Ergi applied to women is most often read as ’sexually promiscuous’ (Meulengracht Sørensen, 1984), but can be construed as ‘taking the initiative sexually’. In this sense Freya is ergi (Høst, pers. com.).” (p. 124). I have always felt that the term indicates “receptivity”, whether in a sexual or psychic sense. For a man conditioned to Christian European concepts of masculinity to “open up” to the kind of inrush of energy that can occur in trance might well have been considered dangerous and unmanly.

But it is possible that the Æsir had encountered Freyja’s magic even before she moved to Asgard. At the beginning of the passage describing the war between the Æsir and the Vanir, the seeress says,

I ween that the first war in the world was this,
When the gods Gullveiggashed with their spears,
And in the hall of H´r (Odin) burned her–
Three times burned theythe thrice reborn,
Ever and anon:even now she liveth.

Heidh she was hightwhere to houses she came,
the well-speaking Völva, she knew gand-craft,
seidh she knew,seidh she plied,
always was she welcometo ill (or wicked) women.

(”Völuspá”: 21-22)

Gullveig, a name meaning “gold-mad” or “intoxicated by gold”, has been identified as Freyja. If so, her first appearance among the Æsir frightened them so much they tried to kill her– and failed. For this reason, I call upon the goddess in this aspect as protector and patroness of all women who practice witchcraft. She has faced the fire and survived.

The exact meaning of the second stanza has been greatly disputed. As is usual in Norse poetry, the original is rather cryptic. “Heidh” can itself be a proper name, meaning either “radiant”, or “of the heath”, but it is also often translated “witch”. So this is a name the goddess calls herself when she is practicing magic. Heidh is also sometimes seen as a separate goddess, or as the wisewoman aspect of Freyja.

“Völva” is a title for a senior witch or wisewoman, especially for one skilled in prophecy, such as the speaker of the poem “Völuspá” itself. A “gand” is a wand, and its craft may involve work with talismans, incantation, or spells. “Seidh” is a term which is sometimes translated as “witchcraft”, and includes a range of practices, many of them shamanistic, involving changing one’s own consciousness or affecting the minds of others. Freyja is thus the patroness of those who practice oracular seidh today (for more information on seidh, see my website). The final line, “illrar brudhr”, could mean anything from “wicked women”, to “sick brides”– that is, women in labor– either an expression of male fears of women’s power, or a reference to one of the primary concerns of a village wisewoman.

It should be clear from the foregoing that Freyja is a goddess of many aspects, and one can work with her in many ways. She is a goddess of prosperity, whose revitalizing energy can bring you what you need. She is a goddess of magic, especially trance work. Her ecstasies can take place entirely on the non-physical plane. As Raudhildr, a priestess of Freyja, puts it,

She is the core of fire at the center of my being. She is the storm that washes over me in sleep. She is the heart of the dream. She is the lover of my soul. She is darkness unspeakable and light beyond bearing. . . .I am moved into places of resistanace that I do not understand and then into the twin-flames of pain and transformation. She does not ask me for my leave. It is as though the world shifts around me and I find I once more face the burning. Yet, She brings an unfathomable beauty into my days. She pours out joy like mead. Peace flows through my heart like water. Her love is a never-failing fountain of strength. I would never willingly be parted from her.

(Idunna #35, p. 38)

Certainly Freyja is a goddess of love, but it is a sacred sexuality– that of the Great Rite, which is not limited to personal fertility or individual orgasm. Indeed, to try and limit the power of Freyja’s ecstasy to a single couple might very well be dangerous. The energy of an especially intense orgasm, the kind of moment in which you feel that if it gets any better you will explode or die, can be offered to the goddess. So can the energy we raise through song or dance. Freyja’s ecstasy can begin in the body, through any sensual activity that gives pleasure, but when the goddess is involved it becomes more than that, a fountaining of energy that links us to the love that moves the world.

To work with Freyja, begin by making friends with your body. It is not by chance, I think, that one of her primary animals is the cat. Learn to relax, anoint yourself with scented oils, get a massage. Walk through a garden or a wild meadow, breathing deeply of the fresh green smell. Pleasing your senses will make it easier for the life force to flow through you. If you cannot dance wildly around a bonfire, move in whatever way you can, even if it is only by putting on some music and swaying as you sit in a chair.

Visit Freyja by meditating in front of her altar. Freyja altars tend to be draped in tones of amber and dark red or green. They acquire images of her totem animals, vases holding stalks of wheat or flowers, golden ornaments and large chunks of amber.

She likes scented oils, “amber” or sandalwood incense, chocolate and caramel, Goldwasser, fruit beers or cordials, and honey-mead. To honor her, wear comfortable, sensuous clothing in her colors and lots of amber. Other items commonly attributed to Freyja are the elder tree (whose name means “fire”), the herbs yarrow and dill, and the dog-rose. Her visual symbol is the heart.

In the past few years, the “Nordic Roots” movement has made many CD’s of Scandinavian traditional and folk-rock music available. Some of my favorites are listed at the end of the bibliography. You will find it very easy to feel Freyja’s energy when you listen to these dance tunes and songs.
A Ritual for Freyja
1. Boundaries

(carry a sheaf of wheat or a leafy branch around the circle)

Circle of life, circle of love,
Brisingamen binds us below as above……

2. Balancing

Austri and Vestri, Nordhri and Sudhri
(face east, west, north, & south)
Dwarves in all directions dwelling,
From the center here we summon,
Watchers of the world, now ward us.
3. Welcoming Song

You lead the dance among the witches,
and bring the people joy and riches,
radiant Lady, ever dear,
Freyja, hasten to us here!
4. Working

(This is a “moving meditation”, in which we allow ourselves to enjoy the movement of our own bodies while honoring the Goddess. As our energy rises, we may direct it towards a particular purpose, such as help or healing for an individual, the fertility of the earth, etc.)

Freyja is the Lady of Life and love, and we are dresses of hers.
We honor her with our bodies, moving to her rhythms,
feeling the flow of her power.
First we must teach our bodies how to move–

(sway and stretch)

Now we sing and dance in her honor–

(all sing the chorus to the following song, move into drumming and dancing, and from there, perhaps, to sitting and meditating)

Solo verse:

From Folkvangr a falcon comes a flying,
From Folkvangr a falcon comes a flying,
From Folkvangr a falcon comes a flying,
From Folkvangr a falcon comes a flying,

Chorus:

Freyja fairest, Vanadis, oh Freya,
Freyja fairest, Vanadis, oh Vanadis, oh Freya,

More Verses:

To win her favor stallions strong are vying, etc.
The golden cats that draw her cart are purring, etc.
Her love for all of Midgard is enduring, etc.
Upon her breast a necklace bright is shining, etc.
She wears a trophy of the dwarf-smiths’ mining, etc.
On golden boar she rides the skies to glory, etc.
We praise her name and sing of Ottar’s story, etc.
Lovely lady luck to us you’re bringing, etc.
Oh, when we love it is your song we’re singing, etc.
Drums beat out the pulse of life within us, etc.
Laughing goddess, all of life enhancing, etc.
Joyful goddess, set our feet to dancing, etc.
Blessed one, the gift of life bestowing, etc.
In the fields the golden grain is growing, etc.
In our blood the fire of love is burning, etc.
Vanadis, it is for you we’re yearning, etc.
Lead us in the dance of life unending, etc.
Lovely lady, grace and power lending, etc.
Mistress, Magic’s mysteries unfolding, etc.
Blest are we, your beauty now beholding, etc.
Secrets of the seidhhjallr revealing, etc.
Fire of magic in the blood we’re feeling, etc.

(additional verses can be improvised, with or without rhyme)
5. Feast

(when all are tired from dancing, bless food and drink in Freyja’s name and share it. Appropriate foods include sweet things, fruit, roast pork, etc., and drinks may be apple cider, mead, fruit beers, etc. Say something like:)

We give thanks to the Lady of Life and Love who has shared with us the delight of dance, music and movement, the sweetness of honey, the fire of wine. We give thanks for your gifts of spirit and flesh:

You may follow with this poem:

When sunlight gilds the growing grain,
And scatters gold upon the sea,
When apple-blossom scents the air,
In these things, Freyja, I find Thee.

The mare whose call the stallion summons,
The cat that swift pursues her prey,
Fierce falcons in their mating flight,
All these art Thou, and this Thy play.

Oh, I am drunken with desire!
Love-bright Lady, come to me,
And mirrored in my lover’s eyes
Immortal beauty let me see!

I am the dress that Thou dost don,
I am the fuel to feed Thy fire!
Make manifest in me Thy power,
The free fulfillment of desire!

6. Farewells

Everyone thanks Freyja for her gifts.
7. Returning to the World

Let us now thank the Powers which have protected us:
NORDHRI and SUDHRI, AUSTRI and VESTRI,
dwarf-kin, we dismiss you, with thanks for your kindness!

Open Circle.

In love, we part– Brisingamen’s round–
Circle of life, be now unbound.

References:

Jenny Blain, Nine Worlds of Seid-Magic, London: Routledge, 2002

H.R. Ellis Davidson, Gods and Myths of the Viking Age (originally, Gods and Myths of Northern Europe, (1964)), New York: Barnes and Noble, 1996

_____________, Roles of the Northern Goddess, London: Routledge, 1998

Stephan Grundy, “Freyja and Frigg”, The Concept of the Goddess, London: Routledge, 1996

Kveldulf Gundarsson, Teutonic Religion, St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1993

Idunna #35, Spring, 1998, The Troth, Box 472, Berkeley, CA 94701.

Idunna #51, Spring, 2002, The Troth, Box 472, Berkeley, CA 94701.

Kemp Malone, The Literary History of Hamlet, (1923), New York: Haskell House, 1964

Britt-Mari Nästrom, Freyja, the Great Goddess of the North, Lund Studies in the History of Religions 5, Lund: Lund University, 1995

Diana L. Paxson, Brisingamen, New York: Ace Books, 1984

Our Troth, ed. Kveldulf Gundarsson, The Ring of Troth, 1993

The Poetic Edda (The Elder Edda) (”Völuspá”, “Lokasenna”, “Lay of Hyndla”), translated by Lee M. Hollander, Austin: University of Texas, 1986

Snorri Sturluson, “Ynglingasaga”, Heimskringla, or The Lives of the Norse Kings, translated Erling Monsen and A.H. Smith (1932), New York: Dover, 1990

Snorri Sturluson, Edda (the Younger Edda), translated by Anthony Faulkes, London: Everyman’s Library, 1987
Discography

Nordic Roots 1, 2, and 3, (1998-2001)
Wizard Women of the North (1999)
all available from: Northside, 510 North 3rd St., Minneapolis, MN 55402
Nordisk Sang
available from: New Albion Records, Inc., 584 Castro, San Francisco, CA 94114 (1991)
Suede-Norvege
Ocora, Radio France (1993)
The Sweet Sunny North

*The Dark Goddess Lilith–Part 2
** The Three Liliths **

*Astrologically, there are three Liliths and you need three different
ephemerides to find them. She doesn’t make it easy. These include the
Asteroid Lilith, found orbiting in the asteroid belt between Mars and
Jupiter; the controversial Dark Moon Lilith, said to be the Earth’s
second Moon by those who have claimed to see it over the last four
centuries; and Black Moon Lilith, an abstract, geometrical point in
space (see diagram *). *

**Asteroid Lilith **

*Asteroid #1181 bears Lilith’s name and orbits around the Sun
approximately every four years. I think of the female-named asteroids as
aspects of the Great Goddess, and Lilith is one of the most ancient. The
asteroid seems to represent split-off, demonized aspects of the
feminine, the result of long-standing cultural projections that perceive
feminine roles and attributes as shameful, untrustworthy, and dangerous.
Our personal Lilith placement may show where we struggle with social
judgments that define how the feminine qualities should be expressed in
order to “fit in.” These cultural projections define us, but are not us.
Here we may not be seen clearly. A prominent Asteroid Lilith in the
birth chart may indicate a person who does not fit the cultural stereoty
pe, leading to some kind of exile from the community. *

*One woman with the asteroid on her Ascendant has a dark, gloomy visage
and her straggly hair adds an unkempt look. She does not speak much and
is uncomfortable in social situations. She lives simply in the country
and works best in the outdoors. This woman could not and would not
conform to social expectations. *

*The symbol for Asteroid Lilith is a stylized hand that signals warning,
greeting, or blessing.(5) Perhaps it is how we approach her that will
determine what this hand gesture means. In the classic book, Asteroid
Goddesses, Lilith is described as signifying resentment and inner rage;
she sets herself apart, flies into exile. She is fiercely independent.
She refuses to submit to the assumed authority of another or to
compromise her beliefs. Lilith asks us to deal with confrontation and
issues of equality in relationship. Her asteroid ephemeris can also be
found in this book.(6) *

**Dark Moon Lilith **

*Some say there is a second Moon circling Earth, a mysterious dark moon
that is only seen on rare dates when it is opposite the Sun or when its
shadowy silhouette crosses in front of the Sun. Although its existence
has not been verified, those astronomers who claim to have viewed it say
it is one-fourth the size of our familiar Moon and three times as far
away.(7) It takes 119 days to orbit Earth, about ten days per sign. This
is Dark Moon Lilith. Supposedly sighted as long ago as 1618, this body
came to broader attention through the work of astrologer Sepharial in
1918, and more recently through the writings of Delphine Jay, who also
published an ephemeris for the Dark Moon Lilith.(8) *

*Like a dust cloud, Dark Moon Lilith absorbs the light into itself, a
very different process from that of our Sun-reflecting Moon. Whereas the
reflective Moon represents personal, subjective feelings, the Dark Moon
represents a primal, impersonal, creative instinct that seeks
identification apart from the physical and emotional realms. *

*According to Delphine Jay’s research, the effect of Dark Moon Lilith is
distinctly impersonal. When her expression is self-centered, she can be
quite negative; when the emotional content is directed to higher
centers, she enhances creative, mental, aesthetic, and even spiritual
expression. “Lilith strictly symbolizes the objective thinking approach.
Anything else is unsuccessful.”(9) The Dark Moon position is where we
must grow beyond our habitual patterns of our early Moon conditioning in
order to remember the ancient exaltation of our true spiritual parentage. *

**Black Moon Lilith* *

*Perhaps the most subtle and intriguing of the three Liliths, Black Moon
is not a physical body but an abstract, geometrical point, like the
Ascendant or the Vertex. Because the Moon’s path around the Earth is
elliptical, as opposed to circular, it has two foci, or centers, the
Earth being one and Black Moon Lilith the other. We can also describe
this point as the apogee of the Moon’s orbit - the place where it is
farthest from Earth. *

*The center of gravity between the Earth and Moon is inside the Earth.
As part of the Earth-Moon system, Black Moon is a point or energetic
vortex intimately bound to the center of the Earth. Within this context,
Lilith is a twin to the core energy of the Earth, the deep heart of fire
that feeds and sustains our bodies and the body of the Earth. The
creative vitality of the Sun gives life to the Earth and fuels this
central core fire. *

*As a centerpoint of the Moon’s orbit, Black Moon Lilith works in
relationship with the Earth-Moon system and with the Sun. As a second
center of reference, she gives a sense of rhythm to the Earth, taking
the dynamics of relationship beyond the personal Moon-Venus energies
into more subtle dimensions that are essential to our lives. For this
reason Black Moon Lilith has a strong impact on relationship dynamics.
Representing the closest reach of the Moon to the Sun, she is also a
reference point in our personal lives that brings us into relationship
with the heart of our Sun-fueled experience on Earth, an emotional
intelligence informed by the wisdom of earthy instinct. Since our
culture has lost - even rejected, as Lilith was rejected - this kind of
natural wisdom, it is more difficult to tap into and trust it.
Relationships that carry the Lilith energy are initiatory, soul-to-soul
meetings that open into a deeper center where personal and impersonal
experience merge. Can we trust this energy that is unraveling our edges,
tapping into such a deep well? Can we trust ourselves? *

*The Black Moon point is where we are lured into our more self-centered
illusions for the purpose of purging negative desires, thereby leading
us to the deeper truth within our hearts, the longings and yearnings of
our souls. She insists that we feel through, let go, and surrender to
something essential and transparent in us that is primary - the bedrock
beneath the shifting sands, the passion of the soul. *

*In /Unremembered Country/, Susan Griffin beautifully articulates the
essence of this core energy: /”As I go into the Earth, she pierces my
heart. As I penetrate further, she unveils me. When I have reached her
center, I am weeping openly. I have known her all my life, yet she
reveals stories to me, and these stories are revelations, and I am
transformed. Each time I go to her I am born like this. Her renewal
washes over me endlessly, her wounds caress me; I become aware of all
that has come between us, of the noise between us, the blindness, of
something sleeping between us. Now my body reaches out to her.”/(10) *

**Mean or True? **

*Like the Moon’s nodes, Black Moon Lilith has both Mean and True
positions, and the difference between them can be significant, even up
to 30 degrees. I understand that most Europeans use the Mean Black Moon.
Of course Lilith can be Mean, but I think she is also True. In her True
position, she moves very quickly - up to 6¡ per day - and retrogrades
often. I will have to do more research before speculating on the
meanings of these two positions. Sabian symbols are one way to start.
For now, I propose considering a Black Moon corridor, using the section
of the zodiac encompassed by the True-Mean section of the chart. For
some people Lilith would cover a larger territory, sometimes even
expressing through two signs, with transiting planets making a longer
passage. Others, with a narrow band of Lilith influence, may have a more
focused, intensified experience of her energies. *

**Triple Goddess Lilith **

*I find the three Liliths intriguing as a mirror of the triple goddess.
Essentially Tantric, Lilith transforms energy to higher octaves. Her
impersonal energy opens transparent areas of the mind, not clouded by
the weight of collective judgment or the limitations of ego identity.
The three aspects vibrate at different frequencies and open channels to
clear and spiritualize the emotional body. Dark Moon has the fastest
orbital cycle, like clouds passing across the face of the Sun. It
represents highly individualized soul desires that are denied
satisfaction on a personal level in favor of a higher expression of
social and spiritual values. Asteroid Lilith is the most embodied
Lilith, and signifies repressed elements, often relating to sexuality,
anger, and assertion, that require full, embodied expression. Black Moon
is an energy vortex that cuts through the veils of illusion with the
sword of truth. Its orbital cycle of eight years and ten months
correlates with the Moon’s nodal cycles and has a similar karmic impact. *

*I have been working with all three Liliths in charts to discover how
they work together to evoke this deep, dark, mysterious realm of soul.
Much work is yet to be done with such new material, but what I have seen
so far is quite provocative. Astro-mythologist Demetra George suggests
that, although each Lilith contains the entire symbolic meaning of the
archetype, each one may also represent different phases of her
mythology, in which “the cycle of our Lilith experience is initiated by
the asteroid Lilith, developed by the Dark Moon Lilith, and completed by
the Black Moon Lilith.”(11) I believe this is a good initial approach.
Personal life stories will show the intertwining of the three with
unique individual coloring. *

*I’ve learned a lot from my own experience. I have Asteroid Lilith in
Scorpio on my 4th-house cusp. I associate this placement with memories
of my mother, a Scorpio, muttering darkly under her breath in the
kitchen. It is after cocktail hour and she is cooking while my father
calls out instructions from the living room. This inherited,
soul-damaging image of the feminine has haunted me in my search for full
expression of my feelings and mutual respect in relationships. *

*I have Dark Moon Lilith in the 4th house, very close to the 5th-house
cusp and conjunct Chiron and Sun in Sagittarius. During a New Moon
eclipse that fell on this point in my chart, my young son died. The
eclipse was conjunct his Sun as well. In earlier times, Lilith was known
as a child-killer, her revenge for having had her own children taken
away. In the Middle East, amulets were worn to ward off her danger. I
had to face and give voice, again and again, to the guilt, emptiness,
and release within me that was so deeply stirred by this death. This is
when I first began to speak for the Dark Goddess through writing and
performance. In another version of her story, Lilith takes children out
of this dark, lower world and returns them to the Lord. I came to know
my son’s death as an initiation, even a gift. *

*One of my male clients had a fascinating Lilith encounter that helped
to transform his experience of life. He has Dark Moon Lilith conjunct an
Aries Sun and square Black Moon Lilith, Mars, and Juno in Capricorn. He
often confided that he felt emotionally abused by his wife over several
years of their marriage. One night he dreamt that a 15-foot scorpion
emerged from her vagina, which prompted intensive therapy where he
worked through what he called “a murderous rage.” Inner visions then
revealed the Divine Mother with many faces giving birth to a huge
star-like egg. This new and healing female archetype transformed his
emotional body, “enabling me to hold the whole,” to delight in the
“erotic, creative, juicy life force, beyond judgment.” *

**A Fourth Lilith? **

*On yet another frequency, and to leave you with a tantalizing thought,
as Lilith would, I’d like to mention the possibility of a fourth Lilith.
The star Algol in the constellation Perseus has a reputation as the most
evil star in the sky. Most often envisioned as the Eye or Head of
Medusa, Algol was also called Lilith by Hebrew star watchers.(12) Such
an Eye perceives “with an objectivity like that of nature itself and our
dreams, boring into the soul to find the naked truth, to see reality
beneath all its myriad forms and the illusions and defenses it
displays.”(13) Lilith indeed. All the better to see you with, my dear. *

The Dark Goddess Lilith

by M. Kelley Hunter

A female tiger. She is magnificent, powerful. We treat her with respect,
awe. She can hurt, but we are allowed to stroke her. She is surrounded
by a round enclosure, trapped. A number of male cats come in and rape
her. She is covered in blood after the second attack. After, she is left
encaged, her heart destroyed. Anyone who approaches her is met by a
terrible, hateful, warning snarl. She is dangerous, ferocious,
destructive, defensive. Why is one of such a royal upbringing led to
this fate?

Thus Lilith entered my dreams. One of the dark goddesses, like
Persephone, Hecate, and Kali, Lilith expresses the feminine power of the
divine, creative life force. If we follow the mythological trail of
these dark goddesses back in time to find the source of their darkness
and negativity, we discover not only the possibility of a major shift in
the collective human image of the feminine, but also some deep
undercurrent of unease that needs to be acknowledged and healed in our
personal lives.

Lilith first appeared in Sumerian mythology about 5,000 years ago. As
“handmaid” to the Goddess Inanna, Queen of Heaven, she would gather men
in from the fields for the sacred rites. In another Sumerian story,
Lilith lives in the sacred huluppu tree that Inanna has planted in her
holy garden, accompanied by the snake who cannot be charmed and the wild
Anzu-bird and her young. These creatures are part of Lilith’s untamed
nature and have knowledge to give Inanna, who is not yet ready to accept
it. So Inanna calls in her brother, Gilgamesh, to cut down the tree. The
serpent is killed, the Anzu-bird and its family fly off to the
mountains, and Lilith departs for the wilderness.(1)

This story may be the foundation of the most well-known Hebrew myth of
Lilith as the first wife of Adam. According to one version of the story,
Yahweh creates both Adam and Lilith from earth, but with one important
difference: he uses impure sediments to create Lilith, whereas Adam has
been fashioned from pure dust. Because of this, Adam expects Lilith to
be submissive to him, but, claiming equality, she will not be put
beneath him and flies away to lifelong exile near the Red Sea, where she
mates with evil spirits and bears scores of demonic children. Meanwhile,
Yahweh again tries to create a partner for Adam, this time taking one of
his ribs and turning it into Eve - now she is a creation from Adam and
not one in her own right, like Lilith. Myth has it that the jealousy and
rage generated by Adam’s rejection motivate Lilith to come in the night
for her revenge, strangling babies and giving men wet dreams to sap
their strength. Amulets were worn to ward her off.