The Goddess and the Green Man, Samhain, the Pleiades and the Four Quarter Days

 Hola darlings!  Today is Hallowe'en.  Because of the pandemic, there is no trick or treat this year in my city, and no nighttime neighborhood children will be out in their costumes going door to door as my subdivision normally hosts.  In a way I'm relieved, because it's  windy out there today, and I can imagine it will be very cold again tonight.  When I got up this morning there was a heavy frost on most everything and the water in the bird bath was frozen.  Brrrrrrr! 

Yesterday morning I received Katherine Neville's Newsletter  October 30, 2020 "Time Out" Newsletter, which she titled "Three Days Out of Time."  It was brief but fascinating; she explained how Hallowe'en arose out of an ancient Celtic celebration called Samhain.  I was shocked to discover that the word is pronounced "sow-win."  Why on earth is it spelled like it is?!?

As I mentioned long ago, in my 2009 Hallowe'en Newsletter: tomorrow--beginning at Sunset on October 31--we enter a period of Time that resembles pushing the "pause" button on a video or musical recording:

"In the ancient Celtic calendar, so it is said, All Hallows Eve (which begins at sunset on October 31) marks the end of the old year, and the new year doesn’t begin until dawn on November 3. The intervening days (All Souls and All Saints days in the Christian calendar) are days outside of Time, days when we can celebrate what happened in the past and discover what is about to happen in the future."

Neville, one of my favorite authors, wrote the incredible novel "The Eight," a book that I can easily say changed my life in ways I never would have dreamed possible.  I could not recall ever having read or heard that particular description of what Samhain is about.  And, as she usually does in her always too short newsletters, Neville wrote just enough to intrigue me; I went digging around on the internet a bit to get more information.

I found the idea of taking a "pause" or "time out" to think about the past and contemplate the future is just what I need right now, a necessary and welcome break.  I could not help but ponder the past four years, during which I dedicated my efforts, my skills and my money to take Wisconsin back, one office at a time. from what I believe to be destructive political forces and restore our state to the great state it was before 2010.  I also worked to advance the same cause in elections around the United States.  On November 3, 2020, three days away - Federal and State election day for us, those "three days out of time" will wane, and early voting tallies after the polls close may reveal what direction the United States will take for the next four years - our future.  I could not have imagined that what many consider one of the most consequential elections would take place in my lifetime.  But here we are.

I discovered an interesting website called the Goddess and the Green Man out of the UK, and an article on the origins and traditions of Samhain.  I couldn't help but think of Mr. Don during our Goddesschess get-together in August 2007 at my place, along with Georgia (a/k/a Isis) and her daughter, Michelle.  He did a lot of yard work around the house, helping me get the back and front yards in tip-top shape for Georgia and Michelle.  I had him tackle chopping down and getting rid of an out of control wild grapevine that had possessed the wood picket fence along the north line in the backyard.  Here's a photo of Don as the Green Man, dressed in some of the remains of the wild grapevine (you can see he still had a great deal to do as the bulk of the grapevine, still up on the fence, was laughing at him behind his back!)

As the legend of Samhain goes, the Goddess is born again in the spring as the Virgin, but at Samhain she is old and worn out, the hag (witch).  Her mate, the Green Man, has died from the cold and the increasing darkness but the harvest is safe and secure in storage.  In his honor, the Green Man's remains are seeded in the earth during the Three Days Out of Time, in which the past is recalled and the future is pondered, awaiting to be discovered.  A new year starts at the end of the third day (daybreak on November 4).  The Green Man will be reborn in the Spring on the Equinox from his seeds.  My own Green Man passed away in his sleep on October 12, 2012.  I hope he has been reborn, the world needs more people like Don.  

I also found this very interesting article at EarthSky on astronomy and learned more about Samhain (never too late to learn something new).  Halloween, the modern descendant of Samhain, is one of the four cross-quarter days.  I don't recall ever reading or hearing about cross-quarter days, but after reading the article they makes perfect sense!  Basically, there are eight main dates on the ancient calendar - the Summer and Winter Solstices and the Spring and Autumnal Equinoxes.  About mid-way between each solstice and equinox is one quarter-day (Autumnal Equinox - Hallowe'en (quarter-day October 31) - Winter Solstice -  Ground Hog Day (quarter-day February 2) - Spring Equinox - May Day (quarter-day May 1) - Summer Solstice - Lammas (quarter-day August 1; cycle repeats), marking eight main days of celebration or Holy Days/Days of Memory on the ancient calendar.

These eight days marked on the calendar, as noted in the article "Samhain/Halloween" at the Goddess and the Greenman website are called "The Wheel of the Year."  I was reminded of a ship's wheel which generally feature eight spokes, and how many ancient cultures compared the Heavens to the seas on Earth.  Water, of course, is the ancient "void" and with the water there was only darkness and a shapeless chaos, out of which light (life) sprang forth.  The analogy from the ancient Egyptian tradition is in the Biblical account of creation at Genesis 1:1-5.  The ancient Egyptian god Nun (or Nu) and his female double Naunet is/are the origin from which all things were created.  Nun represented the void/the dark waters that surrounded an amorphous something, out of which sprang his "son" who was known as the Creator god Atum or Atum-Re - the original sun god from which light sprang forth.  So again, there are the elements of creation:  a watery void (sometimes depicted as a canopy of water over a "sky" hovering above an amorphous gaseous nothing, and darkness, and from out of these elements first light and then life springs forth.  Nu and Naunet were part of the most ancient gods and goddesses of Egypt, the Ogdoad or eight (yes, there's that eight again): Naunet and Nu, Amaunet and Amun; Hauhet and Heh; and Kauket and Kek. It is no surprise that Moses, to whom the writing of the Biblical account in Genesis is attributed, would analogize the creation of the Earth and the life on it to the Egyptian account with which he was no doubt quite familiar, having been raised by Pharaoh's daughter as a member of the royal court.  

 The constellation "The Seven Sisters" (Pleiades) also has an ancient connection to Samhain. (Read more about it at souledout.org "Halloween and the Pleiades.")  The tiny "dipper" shaped constellation is one of my favorites from my sky-exploring years in my pre-teen and early teen years.  If we do not have clouds tonight, I will go out and look for them in the sky.  Right now you can spot it where Mars rises after the sun sets.  It's hard to miss Mars in the eastern sky, it is one of the brightest "stars" out right now.  It was spectacular last night, but I wasn't looking in particular then for the Pleiades!  

We're also experiencing a full Moon tonight, folks.  You know what a lot of people (anecdotally, police and medical personnel) say about how strange or cray cray things happen when it's a full Moon.  I can't help but wonder if Katherine Neville was well aware of all these things when she wrote her brief paragraph about "the Three Days Out of Time," and said just enough to make some of us curious enough to go digging about for more information.  Hmmm...

A Closer Look At St. George

Hola Darlings!

This house thing is driving me nuts.  I have no idea what I'm going to do, but I will be doing something...

Meanwhile, back at the Goddesschess Ranch.  After posting that fascinating article last night on Orthodox Christian Palestinians and their reverence for St. George, I turned to Barbara Walker's "The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths and Secrets" and checked to see if there was an entry for St. George.  There was.  But I was too weary to type it all in last night.

So, here it is, but first, I would like you to read yesterday's post on the Christian Palestinians and St. George, because you will find many points of similar references in Walker's take on the subject of St. George. I have liberally sprinkled in my own "Notes"  and commentary and also added highlights,

George, Saint

Fictitious patron saint of England.  St. George's Day was known to the Romans as the Feast of Pales, a fertility festival [Note: Pales, a blatant phallic symbol.  Interestingly, the word "pale" is still used in English today.  It is a rounded stake or pole made of wood.]  Medieval custom honored St. George on Easter Monday, the Moon-day following the Sun-day of the Christian hero.  Folklore named the pagan savior Green George, a spirit of spring.(1)  His image was common in old church carvings, a human head surrounded by leaves or looking out of a tree trunk.  Some called him the witches' god, a confused idea of something between a tree and a man," or "the devil in the shape of a trunk of a tree ...with some form of a human face."(2) [Note: Also known as the "Green Man."  The Arabic word for green translated into English:  green / a-kh-dh-ar /.  Cf. Village of Khadar that features prominently in the article on St. George and the Palestinian Christians.]

St. George the Dragon-slayer apparently evolved from a mythic meld of Green George with an Arian bishop of Alexandria who opposed St. Athanasius, and put to death an orthodox Master of the Mint named Dracontius, "Dragon." (3) [Note: Ripe for further research.  I've no idea who St. Athanasius or the Master of the Mint Dracontius were!]

St. George's emblem was a vesica piscis, a prime fertility symbol because it represented the Goddess's yoni; but Christian authorities preferred to interpret it as a "shield." [Note: The vesica piscis is a well-known geometric form (basically, an oval formed by the intersection of two circles).  Roman Catholics are familiar with the form as the "fish" of Jesus -- a vesica piscis. Astrologists and magi are familiar, of course, with "Pisces, the Fish" as an astrological symbol.]  Still, George was so shamelessly involved in fertility rites that the church discredited him and began calling him the "imaginary saint."  An old English ballad said "Some say there was no George; some, that there no Dragon was; pray God, there was at least a maid." (4)

(Footnotes:)

(1)  Frazer, G.B., 145-146.
(2)  Knight, D.W.P., 221, 229.
(3)  Baring-Gould, C.M.M.A., 269.
(4)  Brewster, 209-10.

And, for your added viewing pleasure:



Christian symbol for Christ, in Greek ,"Ichthys."
Source.

A vesica piscis:

If you don't know what a yoni looks like, you need to find out for yourself, darlings... Well, okay, her[e] is a clue.  I'm really giving away the entire game here, because this ancient stone yoni resembles some ancient board games (or an ancient Egyptian offering table and, in later dynastic tombs, the sacred doors, ahem) with which you all should be familiar by now:

Do you get it yet?

Friday Night Miscellany - One Day Late

A few interesting items for your reading pleasure:

There’s a new translation of the epic Medieval poem "Sir Gawain and the Green Man" and it sounds worth a read. Trying to read the poem in the original Middle English – practically impossible, despite some intriguing words. For instance:

Thou wyl grant me godly the gomen that I ask / bi ryght"

translates to:

You’ll gracefully grant me this game which I ask for / by right."

The word "gomen" in the sentence means "game!" I would never have guessed that in a million years – I was thinking the word meant something like favor or boon!

Read the review of Simon Armitage’s translation in "A Stranger in Camelot."
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In the same Book Reviews section at The New York Times, I saw that Joe McGinniss has published a new book about a murder – or was it?

I remember McGinniss from reading his bestseller "Fatal Vision," about the Green Beret surgeon – Jeffrey McDonald, who was convicted of murdering his wife and children whom, he claimed, were murdered by hippies high on drugs, who’d invaded his home (on a military base) in the middle of the night. The case hinged on forensic evidence painstakingly gathered and analyzed, long before CSI type shows became popular on television and long before DNA analysis and other technical analytical tools existed that seem to make crime-solving so easy today (at least, on television). "Fatal Vision" was made into a highly acclaimed mini-series on television, with Gary Cole playing the role of Jeffrey McDonald and Karl Mulden playing his father-in-law, who at first firmly believed in McDonald’s version of events and supported his son-in-law, until the slowly accumulated forensic evidence led him, painfully, to conclude otherwise. The slow revelation of the evidence in the book was relentless – and chilling. Mulden played the role superbly.

Read the review by Bob Shacochis of McGinnis’ new book, "Never Enough."
The "First Chapter" is also available – a verbatim preview.
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Okay – so this clerk at a Dunkin’ Donuts store named Dustin Hoffman hits this would-be robber over the head with a coffee cup, and says he was more worried about what he would look like on the surveillance video and whether he could become famous on YouTube than concerned for his safety. Darlings, I couldn’t make this up!
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Another – can you believe this – with a Christmas twist. A Christmas card mailed on December 23, 1914 has finally been delivered by the United States Postal Service. Geez, these guys are really efficient, ya know?