INVOCATION for Mabon

Brushwood 2016 by Theresa Guzman

You that create the diversity of the forms:

Open to my words
You that divide it and multiply it

Hear my sounds

Ancient associates and fellow wanderers
You that move the heart in fur and scale

I join with you

You that sing bright and subtle
Making shapes 
that my throat cannot tell

You that harden the horn
And make quick the eye

You that run the fast fox 
and the zigzag fly

You sizeless makers of the mole
And of the whale

aid me and I will aid you

I make a blood pact with you

You that lift the blossom
and the green branch
You who make symmetries more true

Who dance in slower time

Who watch the patterns

You rough coated
Who eat water

Who stretch deep and high
With your green blood
My red blood 

let it be mingled

Aid me and I will aid you

I call upon you

You who are unconfined
Who have no shape
Who are not seen

But only in your action
I will call upon you

You who have no depth
But choose direction

Who bring what is willed
That you blow love
upon the summers of my loved ones
That you blow summers
 upon those loves of my love


Aid me and I will aid you

I make a pact with you

You who are the liquid
Of the waters
And the spark of the flame:

I call upon you

You who make fertile the soft earth
And guard the growth of the growing things
I make peace with you

You who are the blueness of the blue sky
And the wrath of the storm
I take the cup with you

Earth shakers

And with you
the sharp and the hollow hills
I make reverence to you

Round wakefulness 

We call the Earth

I make wide eyes to you

You who are awake

Every created thing
both solid and sleepy
Or airy light,
I weave colors 'round you

You who will come with me

I will consider it Beauty

I will consider it

Beauty, beauty

by Robin Williamson 

Published by  WARLOCK MUSIC, LTD.

https://youtu.be/7xvIDX9gKhg

Re-membering John Barley Corn

Somebody recently asked me about "John Barleycorn", and I found myself reflecting on this so ancient and ubiquitous myth ........ the wonderful  pagan agricultural God who dies and is born again, along with the return of the sun and the return of the barley and the corn and the wheat.  And like Opheus and Dionysis, he even becomes the source of ecstasy, be it beer, or wine, or music.  

John Barleycorn Must Die is a traditional English song - records of its origins go back as far as the 1300s, and it is probably much older than that.    Over time, many variations have arisen, and the Scottish poet Robert Burns wrote his own famous version of the story of John Barleycorn. In the 70's, John Renbourne, Traffic**, and Steel eye Span popularized the song, along with many folk artists. 

John Barleycorn is a very prime myth indeed  - the Great King who is sacrificed, dies and is reborn in the agricultural cycle.  The motif is found as the Sumarian Dumuzi, the Shepherd husband of the Goddess Inanna who goes into the underworld for part of the year, and returns to her in the Spring.  The same idea of the dying and reborn King is found with the Egyptian Osiris, who is reborn in the Sun God Horus.

John Barleycorn is the personification of the grain, and the life of the grain from planting to harvest, transformation into beer, and then sowing.  After Barleycorn’s first death he is buried, and laid within the ground.  In midsummer he grows a “long golden beard” and “becomes a man”.  

The song goes on to describe threshing and harvesting. Barleycorn is bailed and taken to the barn. And then the grain is parceled out. Some is taken to the miller to make flour for bread. And some is saved and brewed in a vat to make ale. And some is planted, so that the whole cycle can begin again.  It is likely that versions of John Barleycorn were sung in pre-Christian times, to accompany harvest rituals. Some of these rituals survive to this day in modified form, most famously the sacrifice of the wicker man. These rituals tell the story of the death and rebirth of the god of the grain.

  Photo with thanks to  Avalon Revisited

John Barleycorn is, in particular, also the God of Ecstasy - because he provides celebration and ecstasy as the barley becomes the source of beer and the beloved malt whiskey of the Highlands.  The malting and fermentation is also a part of his "life cycle" and divinity. Perhaps one of the most famous "ecstatic"  manifestations of the Wicker Man, his rituals of sacrifice, rebirth, and  celebration is Burning Man, the  festival that happens in Nevada every fall.  Originally associated with the burning of the Wicker Man at the Lammas Harvest Festival by neo-Pagans in the Bay Area, 

it's grown to become a fantastic festival and art event.  I'd be willing to bet however that  many

of the people who attend Burning Man don't know that it began with that in mind...........

Here's an excellent  quote I take from a Druid's Blog called "The Dance of Life" 

about the Wicker Man:

"In English folklore, the folksong representing John Barleycorn as the crop of barley corresponds to the same cyclic nature of planting, growing, harvesting, death and rebirth.  Sir James Frazer cites this tale of John Barleycorn in The Golden Bough as proof that there was a Pagan cult in England that worshiped a god of vegetation, who was then sacrificed to bring fertility to the fields.  It is tempting to see in this  echoes of human sacrifice as portrayed in The Wickerman film (1973), but that is not really what this time is about.  Whilst there was a Celtic ritual of weaving the last sheaf of corn to be harvested into a wicker-like man or woman, it was believed that the Sun 's spirit was trapped in the grain and needed to be set free by fire and so the effigy was burned........In other regions a corn dolly is made of plaited straw from this sheaf, carried to a place of honor at the celebrations and kept until the following spring for good luck."

It's interesting that in Robert Burn's poem, there are "three kings", similar to the kings from the east in the Nativity story.  Early Christians who came to the British Isles (and elsewhere) often absorbed native pagan mythologies and traditional rituals into Christian theology, and the evolution of the Story of Christ is full of such imagery in order to help the natives accept Christianity. Certainly John Barleycorn shares with the Christ Story the ancient, ubiquitous  theme of the death and rebirth of the sacrificed agricultural King. 

I am a great admirer of the wisdom traditions of Gnostic and esoteric Christianity, but I also believe it is necessary to separate the spiritual teachings of Christianity from  the mingling (and  literalization) of earlier  mythologies throughout  in the development of the Church.  For example, I believe the metaphor used to describe Jesus as the "Lamb of God" directly relates to Biblical practices prevalent in his lifetime  of sacrifice of lambs and goats to Yahwah (indeed, the sacrifice of animals was common

thoughout the Roman and Jewish world.)  The later development of  the doctrine that Christ   "died for our sins"   may have some of its origins in the important, and quite ancient,  Semitic Scapegoat Rituals,  wherein the "sins and tribulations" of the tribe were ritually placed on the back of a goat, which was then driven away from the village to literally "carry away the sins" into the desert.

Observing recently a Catholic "Communion" ritual ("This is my Body, This is my Blood") I was impressed by the many layers of mythologies and archaic cultures inherant in that ceremony, still important to so many people today.  And one of those threads may very well originate in the prime agricultural myth of  the dying and reborn God, a long tradition from which John Barleycorn arises re-born  every spring, and is finally "killed" in the fall. 

Ubiquitous indeed!  This same idea is found in variations throughout the Americas, this time with

the story of the Corn Mother (among the Cherokee, Selu) who is killed, dismembered, and reborn in 

the spring.

John Barleycorn
by Robert Burns

There was three kings into the east,
Three kings both great and high,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn should die.
They took a plough and plough'd him down,
Put clods upon his head,
And they hae sworn a solemn oath
John Barleycorn was dead. 

But the cheerful Spring came kindly on,
And show'rs began to fall;
John Barleycorn got up again,
And sore surpris'd them all.
The sultry suns of Summer came,
And he grew thick and strong,
His head weel arm'd wi' pointed spears,
That no one should him wrong.

The sober Autumn enter'd mild,
When he grew wan and pale;
His bending joints and drooping head
Show'd he began to fail.
His coulour sicken'd more and more,
He faded into age;
And then his enemies began
To show their deadly rage.
They've taen a weapon, long and sharp,
And cut him by the knee;
Then ty'd him fast upon a cart,
Like a rogue for forgerie.

They laid him down upon his back,
And cudgell'd him full sore;
They hung him up before the storm,
And turn'd him o'er and o'er.
They filled up a darksome pit
With water to the brim,
They heaved in John Barleycorn,
There let him sink or swim.
They laid him out upon the floor,
To work him farther woe,
And still, as signs of life appear'd,
They toss'd him to and fro.

They wasted, o'er a scorching flame,
The marrow of his bones;
But a Miller us'd him worst of all,
For he crush'd him between two stones.
And they hae taen his very heart's blood,
And drank it round and round;
And still the more and more they drank,
Their joy did more abound.

John Barleycorn was a hero bold,
Of noble enterprise,
For if you do but taste his blood,
'Twill make your courage rise.
'Twill make a man forget his woe;
'Twill heighten all his joy:
'Twill make the widow's heart to sing,
Tho' the tear were in her eye.
Then let us toast John Barleycorn,
Each man a glass in hand;
And may his great posterity
Ne'er fail in old Scotland!

** Here's a link to the song being sung in  a 1972 Concert by Traffic 

http://youtu.be/fsIdhSzyx8M

And here is wonderful Steeleye Span:

http://youtu.be/tlL9RCznuU8

Beltane Comes Again!

“Flora” Mask (2013)

 Happy May Day to all!

Ah, the RITES OF SPRING!  I've posted this article before, but I still like it, and felt like sharing previous year's Beltane post once again, for any who may be interested.

May Day was celebrated everywhere in Britain and Europe  with Maypole, flower garlands, May wine and love.  The birth of spring on May Day in Elizabethan England would send villagers into the woods to collect flowers and boughs, and then they would wait for the sun to rise as it brought the fully opened year flowering into spring.  

 

A few years back I found myself  singing "Lady Godiva", an old song  by Peter and Gordon from the 60's.  When I find myself with  mental "muszak"  that just won’t go away, I’m kind of forced  to pay attention.  According to legend, Lady Godiva rode naked on a horse through the streets of Coventry, England, to ease the tax burden of the citizens imposed by her husband, who agreed to relieve the toll if she did this.  Pulling out my Jungian “Inner Pun”  book, I decided that it had something to do with "Lady God", this being what I get from the word.   “Godiva” has both “God” and  “Diva or Deva” which means divine, shining.      Words can tell us much about the origins of  things.“Coventry" is an interesting addendum as well. If you look it up in the dictionary, besides being a  city in England, the actual definition of the word "coventry" means:

"the state of being banished or ostracized (excluded from society by general consent); ie,  "the association should get rid of its elderly members--not by euthanasia, of course, but by Coventry"**

Thus, "coventry" is the opposite of "coven", "covenant", or "to convene", which means to bring together.  So, perhaps in all of this linguistic trail one can see the way the pagan Rites of Spring were “ostracized”.   A Blog friend, Robur D'Amour, wrote a fascinating article about Lady Godiva,  and commented that the origins of this legend are almost certainly found in the ride of the May Queen to the sacred tree (Maypole), the "coven tree".  

 He wrote:

" A very early spelling, 1050, is Couaentree.  I found, by chance, a reference to Coventry as bring a rebus for 'a coven round a tree'…….. There was a widespread practice for dancing round a tree on May Eve, which is the maypole. Perhaps there really was a tree that was used for festivities.  The story that Lady Godiva was protesting against taxes is untrue.  Apparently, at the time the procession dates from, Coventry was a village, and there were no taxes.  The procession is actually a May-Eve fertility procession, many of which are found across Europe.  What happened at Coventry was that there was a Benedictine monastery there. The monks did not approve of  people watching the fertility procession, and so invented the story about taxes. "1

The origin of the “peeping Tom” legend also derives from the famous ride of Lady Godiva -  the May Queen in all of her glory being, from a Benedictine point of view, perilous for  eyes to see.  The May Queen is the young  Goddess Herself, riding to bless the rising fertility of the land and to meet the May King.

Villagers celebrating  Rites of Spring throughout Merrie Old England and much of Europe would bear flowers, all the while capering around the new Maypole.  Often it was only unmarried girls who would be allowed to plant the phallic Maypole into the fertile Earth, which then would be woven in dance by men and women with ribbons or twine.  Dancers took hold of the ends in a weaving courtship dance.  A procession led by  Jack O' the Green (a variant of the Green Man), fantastically arrayed with flowers, leaves and ribbons, might also be part of the celebration.  And of course there would be  Morris Dancers.     Crowned with a garland, the May Queen, no matter how capricious, was to be obeyed throughout the day's celebrations, and everyone would vie for the honor of doing her homage.

“Guenivere as the May Queen” by John Collier

 

 A  lovely ritual with ancient origins in pagan practices of sympathetic magic.   In other words, "the world is waking up and making love, so we too wake up and make love, and all will bear fruit".

The union of the May Queen with the May King (or the Green Man) probably has its origins in very ancient traditions of the Sacred Marriage, going back as far as Sumeria and the marriage of Inanna and Dumuzi.  Perhaps, much farther than that into unknown origins in prehistory.  

In ancient times, the spring ritual union of the King with the priestess (representing the Earth Mother) was a very significant rite; in later times, even in early Christian Europe, church morality may have been suspended for Beltane, as couples went out into the fields to participate in the worlds ripening fertility.   

 

In Italy,  Flora was the Roman Goddess of Flowers and it’s not surprising that her festival was also held on the first day of May. The May Dance festivals of Europe have many of their origins in the ancient  “Feast of Flora”, the ecstatic Roman Rites of Spring.

This celebration of the fecundity of Spring has always made the Church nervous.  In the late 19th century, May 1 became associated with the growing labor movement, and since then many countries have celebrated May Day as International Workers' Day.  In 1955, Pope Pius XII instituted May 1 as the "feast of St. Joseph the Worker" with the intention of emphasizing the spiritual aspect of labor.

I'm sure the advent of this secondary meaning to May Day came as a belated relief to the Catholic Church, along with Lady Godiva's famous ride becoming a  folk legend about taxes.    For myself,  I am happy to see the Pagan origins of May Day, and the true tale of Lady Godiva,  continually  re-discovered and re-invented.  The re-sacralization of sexuality, in tandem with the Spring  blossoming of the world, which  was the original meaning of May Day,  is truly a  Holy Day.  And I am always surprised by  how little most people today know of its origins.   

*  Robur D’Amour   https://www.blogger.com/profile/02966938808921010638

**http://www.thefreedictionary.com/Coventry

Santa Claus, Father Christmas and.........Odin?

Odin on his 8 legged horse (Image source:   http://www.designboom.com/design/santa-claus-changing-design/)

Yule   The Winter Solstice has been celebrated since time immemorial, and in the  cold Nordic countries, where the return of the Sun's life giving warmth is of particular concern, there is evidence that it's been celebrated since the time of the Megalith builders and before.  Yule/Jól was was probably connected to the full moon nearest the winter solstice. 

Santa with his flying Reindeer

According to Wikipedia: 

Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time") is a religious festival observed by the historical Germanic peoples, later being absorbed into and equated with the Christian festival of Christmas. The earliest references to Yule are by way of indigenous Germanic month names (Ærra Jéola (Before Yule) or Jiuli and Æftera Jéola (After Yule). Scholars have connected the celebration to the Wild Hunt, the god Odin and the pagan Anglo-Saxon Modranicht.    Yule is also used to a lesser extent in English-speaking countries to refer to Christmas. Customs such as the Yule log, Yule goat, Yule boar, Yule singing, and others stem from Yule or Yuletide ("Yule time"). 

Yule is the modern English representative of the Old English words ġéol or ġéohol and ġéola or ġéoli, with the former indicating the 12-day festival of "Yule" (later: "Christmastime") and the latter indicating the month of "Yule", whereby ǽrra ġéola referred to the period before the Yule festival (December) and æftera ġéola referred to the period after Yule (January). Both words are thought to be derived from Common Germanic *jeχʷla-, and are cognate with Gothic (fruma) jiuleis and Old Norse.   The word is attested in an explicitly pre-Christian context primarily in Old Norse.

 Among many others  the long-bearded god Odin bears the names jólfaðr (Old Norse 'Yule father') and jólnir (Old Norse 'the Yule one'). ^"

 The  Yule Log

The origins of  the Nordic Yule go back to a feast to honor the Norse God Odin, who among other things was the jolly  God of Intoxicating Drink. The custom of  the Yule Log or Yule Tree  emerged from this winter festival as well.  

The custom of Yule log varies from region to region.  It's good to remember the primal importance of the gift of warmth and of fire to early people living in the cold North, the "flame at the Hearth" for ancient families.  The Log may have originally been a large tree (Christmas Trees)  brought to the house with great ceremony. 

On Christmas, people light the Yule log placed in the hearth.   The burning of the Yule Log brings good fortune for family and friends.   After Christmas celebrations, a piece of the Yule log is retained to relight next year along with next year's log.

Origins of Santa Claus 

"The appearance of Santa Claus or Father Christmas, whose day is 25th of December, owes much to Odin, the old blue-hooded, cloaked, white-bearded Gift bringer of the north, who rode the midwinter sky on his eight-footed steed Sleipnir, visiting his people with gifts. … Odin, transformed into Father Christmas, then Santa Claus, prospered with St Nicholas on the Christmas stage."

......Margaret Baker 

St.  Nicholas was a 4th-century Christian bishop from Lycia (now in Turkey), who was  known for his charity, and giving gifts to the poor. In one notable story, he met a pious but impoverished man who had three daughters. He presented them with dowries to save them from a life of prostitution. In most traditional Iconic images,  St. Nicholas is portrayed as a bearded bishop, wearing clerical robes, an important patron saint of  children, the poor, and prostitutes.

So few people know that Santa Claus is a blend of an early Christian saint living in Turkey (Saint Nickolaus)  and the Norse god Odin, with a few other influence thrown in over the ages. But I guess that would take away the fun............

The other mythos from which Santa Claus derives is much earlier,  Odin, the ruler of Asgard.    Odin was often depicted as leading a hunting party through the skies, during which he rode his eight-legged horse, Sleipnir. In the 13th-century Poetic Edda, Sleipnir is described as being able to leap great distances, which some scholars have compared to the legends of Santa's reindeer (and, of course, the Edda are from Finland, which once abounded with reindeer). Odin was portrayed as an old man with a long, white beard. 

Odin (1886) by Georg von Rosen

I read that during the winter, in some pagan folklore, children would place their  boots near the chimney (and in the cold of a Nordic winter, it's a good place to put them), filling them with carrots or straw as a gift for Sleipnir. When Odin flew by, he rewarded the little ones by leaving gifts in their boots. Like traditions of the "Green Man" in England, in rural areas of Germanic countries  this practice survived despite the adoption of Christianity. As a result,  gift-giving became associated with St. Nicholas rather than the earlier Pagan god Odin.  Only now we hang stockings by the chimney, and leave cake and brandy rather than carrots and straw.