CLARY SAGE

Botanical Name: Salvia sclarea

Family. Lamiaccae

The Plant.- Clary sage is native to Europe. The plant grows to about 3 feet (90 cm) high and has whorls of pink, white, or blue flowers, depending on the variety.

Grannus

God of healing. Romano-Celtic (Continental Europe). The name appears across a wide area generally associated with medicinal springs and hot mineral waters, including sites at Aix-la-Chapelle, Grand (Vosges), Trier, Brittany, and as far distant as the Danube basin. Grannus became syncretized with the Roman god APOLLO as Apollo Grannus, and baths were sometimes called Aquae Granni.

Anaitis

Fertility goddess. Persian [Iran]. Her influence extended through eastern Europe. In pre-Christian Armenia, the center of her cult was at Acilisena where noble families regularly surrendered their daughters to service as cultic prostitutes.

 

The Tarot – An Introduction

Lesson 11

Tarot is an ancient esoteric system of symbols using 78 different symbolic cards to represent the vast majority of experiences any single person can encounter throughout their journey through life.

The oldest Tarot cards to survive to the present day were produced in the Fifteenth Century in Europe. Tarot cards resemble ordinary playing cards with certain additions. In addition, the Tarot incorporates the Trumps.

Celebrating Candlemass

February 2 is one of the great cross-quarter days which make up the wheel of the year. It falls midway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox and in many traditions is considered the beginning of spring.

Awakening the Ground

In Western Europe, this was the time for preparing the fields for the first planting. Even in Seattle, you can begin turning over and enriching the soil in anticipation of the first sowing in March. Pamela Berger has written a book, The Goodess Obscured: Transformation of the Grain Protectress from Goddess to Saint, about the rituals celebrated at this time of year, when the ground is first awakened and the seed placed in the belly of the earth. This is a significant moment in a community which depends on the earth for sustenance. The fields were purified and offerings were made to the goddess.

Otherworldly straightness

Bob Trubshaw

We are all familiar with the phrase ‘dead straight’. Paul Devereux [1] has argued persuasively that at least some ‘leys’ are ‘corpse ways’ and identified a number of clear examples of ‘dead straight’ burial paths in various parts of northern Europe, with related examples from north and south America, the far east and elsewhere. These examples are, almost exclusively, medieval in date.

MIXED PANTHEONS, ETC.

Pan is not Bacchus, or the great horned god of Europe.

Despite the eclectic mind of today’s Wiccan, that is of associating all male gods with each other and all female gods with each other, is a disservice to both the god/dess and to the tradition.

The Cosmic Mill

Alby Stone

 
One image of the cosmic axis that is of great interest and cosmological significance is that of the World Mill, an image that occurs particularly in Scandinavian and Finnish myth. This image is based ultimately upon the structure of a hand-mill, consisting of a flat, stationary stone with another on top, turned by a handle fixed at the centre. This arrangement was a technological improvement upon grinding grain in a bowl or against a concave stone with a pestle or with a smaller, hand-held stone, a simple method that was still used during the early European Bronze Age. Its successor, the rotary quern, remained in use up to the Middle Ages in Europe, although it was eventually superseded by the water-mill and later the windmill, developments that led to the production of flour on a larger scale and dictated that milling became increasingly specialised work.

Green Man

by Alan G. Hefner

A legendary pagan deity who roams the woodlands of the British Isles and Europe. He usually is depicted as a horned man peering out of a mask of foliage, usually the sacred oak. He is known by other names such as “Green Jack, “Jack-in-the-Green” and “Green George.” He represents spirits of trees, plants and foliage. It is believed he has rain making powers to foster livestock with lush meadows. He was frequently depicted in medieval art, including church decorations.