Pagaian Cosmology Forum
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#1 2008-08-29 00:53:43
Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
This year - 2008, planet Earth has just carried out and witnessed again, the ancient ritual of the huge sporting event known in the last couple of millennia as the "Olympics": they are actually older than the Olympian pantheon. They were once Hera's event: when She was still Amazon Queen of Her Land, before being married off to Zeus ... but that is another and long story, some of which can be found in PaGaian Cosmology Appendix F The "Olympics" are full of stories of heras and heros (spelled decidedly that way) - beings who have suffered serious injury and debilitating depression, and have made a comeback ... returned and won the gold.
This is an essential theme of the Spring Equinox: it is the Return of the Lost Beloved One, "victorious". We have all been "lost", and we may perceive that in these times we as a human species seem to be quite lost. To quote from PaGaian Cosmology:
This Return of the Beloved Lost One may be understood as an individual experience, but also as a collective experience – as we emerge into a new Era as a species. Thomas Berry and Brian Swimme speak of the ending of the 65 million year geological Era – the Cenozoic Era – in our times, and our possible emergence into an Ecozoic Era. Joanna Macy speaks of the “Great Turning" of our times. Collectively many of us we have been away from the Mother for some time – and there is a lot of pain in connection to this absence of consciousness and practice. In the Eostar ritual, we may contemplate not only our own individual “lost" wanderings, but also that of the human species. We may contemplate being part of a collective Return. We may be part of making it happen. It is a return to the Mother in Self, Earth and Cosmos.
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#2 2008-09-01 20:24:06
Re: Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
Eostar may be a good Seasonal Moment for celebrating the chlorophyll molecule. The advent of the chlorophyll molecule was "one of the great moments in the history of the Earth ... early creatures began to fashion molecules to capture the Sun" (Swimme, Canticle to the Cosmos #2 "The Primeval Fireball" ). Capturing a photon of light is a very delicate process - it has to be just right. Without the chlorophyll molecule, life on Earth would wither up. And the development of it was a process worked out in relationship of Earth-Sun: that is, it is particular to this Sun and Earth. The particularity of the eventual structure of this molecule, and that it is the communion of Earth and Sun, is something to contemplate in connection to all relationships. What Creativity may come forth from "hearing" each other in this way? Could we mimic this behavour a little more? as well as celebrate what Creativity does already come forth everyday from this magical achievement of the plants, of Earth.
Further, the retinal molecule - with which our eyes capture photons and we experience light - is a development of the chlorophyll molecule. The only reason we see at all is because plants figured out a way to capture the Sun (Swimme). The chlorophyll molecule is alive within the vertebrate eye ... Swimme says: First the Earth noticed the Sun, now it notices itself. And it has often been said by Poets:
The sun is in the eye.
We see by the same process that plants use to capture the Sun. This is something to wonder about. The ancients did wonder and "get" it too, apparently ... Marija Gimbutas draws out these connections in The Language of the Goddess p.56 particularly (and possibly other places).
In our Spring Equinox/Eostar ritual this year we will drink chlorophyll water for Communion (along with eating the usual poppyseed cake), and we will be blessed with:
"Take and drink this Greenness, the magic of the chlorophyll molecule and Earth-Sun communion - do this in remembrance of She who gives Life."
And when I understand how my eyes are kin to the plants in this way, it adds significance to the chant and dance we do at Eostar: She who is alive is alive in us, and we who are alive are alive in Her!
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#3 2008-09-03 22:25:04
Re: Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
The "Return of the Beloved One" that may be celebrated at Eostar is the reTurn to a "Mother mind" ... a state of consciousness that has regeneration as central in its priorities. I am writing reTurn that way to emphasize that it is not a going backwards to a moment to space and time that is never retrievable even if desired, but it is a Turning of the tides, to other deeper layers of consciousness that have always remained accessible (I am thinking of Jean Gebser's analysis of layers of consciousness in The Ever Present Origin). Such a Turning would be with all the gifts of this new place we find ourselves in, having journeyed as we have through lost places. It will be New Wisdom. As the invitation to Eostar says:
Demeter stretches out her arms to receive & rejoice.
We may leave behind the binds of the past …
and step into the Power of Being with new Wisdom.
She is alive in us, and we in Her!
In the Eostar ritual we play Jennifer Berezan's ReTURNING music as we each take turns at enacting our journey to the dark lost places, and as the others watch and wait. Jennifer chants: "reTURNING to the Mother of us all."
Most humans on the planet today are "wildly unmothered" - to use an expression of poet and author, Adrienne Rich: our mothers and our mother's mothers ... all unmothered. What we need is a mother-mind - a Mother-mind.
Personally, it is the consistent (religious) ritual celebration of the Seasonal Wheel that has Mothered me: the sacred site that I have "created" (actually become conscious of) with this year-long meditation (on Her everyday Creativity), has held me ... like a Womb. And I have constructed a small portable Wheel of Stones that I can sit within - to recreate a tangible replica of the Whole cycle ... a medicine wheel (described at the end of Chapter 1 of PaGaian Cosmology). I lay it out and sit within it when I need serious medicine, when there are big changes afoot. I feel it as "Gaia's Womb" - a safe place for transformation.
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#4 2008-09-14 23:31:45
Re: Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
This is an image that I understand as expressive of Eostar - the emergence from the depths:
She has Her eyes open. She sees clearly. It takes a lot of self-centredness in the best and whole sense of that word, to hold what one must see. This is an image of one who has travelled the depths, seen the pain and horror, yet emerges, with a vision of the gold: She is the Gold ... and She is also able to see it in other and All. Eostar emergence is about having the eyes to see the beauty - the "flowers" - wrested from disintegration: having the Wisdom to See the everyday precious beauty.
This is what "Easter" is supposed to be about, but its significance has been and is appropriated - narrowed - to a "Saviour" and to benefit an empire. Eostar/Spring Equinox is a Gaian event: all may participate consciously in Her magic and "salvation" (transformation) ... which is happening everyday.
In the Eostar ritual, participants are blessed with :"Blessed are you who have seen these things. You know the end of life and you know its sacred beginnings. May you enjoy the Wisdom of your journey." Eostar/Spring Equinox is about knowing what is involved in the precious moment of emergence and Joy. It is a balance point of light and dark, joy and grief. The courageous returned One remembers what it has taken. It is good to remember that Autumn Equinox is happening at the same time on EarthGaia - the descent and return celebrated simultaneously.
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#5 2008-09-21 00:03:43
Re: Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
Last night when we stomped on the Earth in our Eostar ritual in our backyard, the chooks were fascinated. It was funny watching them watching us. I reckon they wondered what us humans were making such a song and dance about! We were chanting: "She who is alive is alive in us, and we who are alive are alive in Her!" The chooks probably thought "well what's the big deal? We know that .. we lay an egg every day!"
But that is what humans do ... make a Song and Dance about it: it's called "ritual". Brian Swimme and Thomas Berry say that that is the essence of what it is to be human. See Swimme's Canticle #8 or PaGaian Cosmology Introduction ... The Cosmos is a Ritual
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#6 2008-09-28 11:45:41
Re: Eostar/Spring Equinox S.H. 2008 reflections
Here is a pic of Spring Equinox morning in the MoonCourt - post ritual, and post a very windy night ... Sun is rising directly over the Equinox marker and at midpoint between the Solstice windows:
and here some images sent to me by Brian Britten: from 5000 year old Loughcrew megalithic cairn T in Ireland, where the rising sun on the mornings around the equinox illuminates the passage and chamber. We are planning to use a similiar 8petalled image in a triangle as th art relief for MoonCourt's Equniox marker.
Loughcrew Equinox
For a video of it and more clearer visuals of the event: http://www.knowth.com/loughcrew-equinox-video.htm
and some great Equinox reflections from the Northern Hemisphere by Sally McKenna
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