The Circle of Goddesses

On December 22 at 12:30 AM Eastern Standard Time we celebrate Yule, Yuletide and the Winter Solstice, the shortest day of the year, with the correspondingly longest night. Yule is a solar festival, celebrated with fire and decorating trees, giving gifts, burning a Yule log, harvesting mistletoe and hanging evergreen boughs. After feasting, the tree is lighted and the Yule log is burned. A portion of the Yule log is saved to be used in next years lighting of the Yule log. This piece of the yule log is kept throughout the year to protect the home.

The seasons colors are red and green. Holly is used as decoration for this festival, originally named for the dark underground Crone-goddess Holle, or Hel, from whose womb the sun arose. The red berry symbolized the Goddess’ holy blood, shaper of all life, according to the oldest beliefs. The evergreen leaves of the holly represent ongoing life, retaining vitality through the winter, with an implied promise of immortality.

The Winter Solstice has long been associated with the birth of a ‘Divine child or King’ long before the rise of Christianity. Since the Sun represents the male deity, this time is honored as the return of the sun god, where he is reborn of the Goddess. Yule is centered around the idea of rebirth, assisting the newly born sun to grow in strength when it emerged from the dark womb of night. It is a time for reflection and celebration as we think about where we have been and anticipate the new Sun and its promise for increasing light, as the days start to slowly become longer and warmer.

The theme for Yule, is re-birth, with emphasis on the divine birth-giver rather than the one born, as in the Christian revision. The birth-giver is Hel, or the Dark Goddess, also known as Mother Night, Hecate, Myrrha, Cerridwen, Cybele-Nana, Black Demeter and many other names. Savior cults, such as of those of Jesus, Mithras and Attis, use this traditional birth season for their heroes and dying-resurrecting ‘god men’. In ancient cultures, they celebrated the birth of a divine child at this time, nine months after the god’s death and re-conception (resurrection) at the Spring Equinox.

Warrior to Goddess: How to Transform the Feminine
By Suzanna Kennedy

There are many types of women in our society, but the one that cries out for the healing the loudest is the Wounded Female Warrior. You long to transform yourself into the Goddess, even though you might not use those words to describe your longing.

Who is the Wounded Warrior?
The Wounded Warrior is powerful, independent, self- reliant and successful — because you have to be. Yet, you resent all of the responsibility and obligation that goes with your role. You are the only one around who can get things done, and get things done fast enough and perfectly enough.

You are bitter (at least inwardly) toward men, who you believe get all the breaks, but do little of the real work. You see men as the weaker sex, responding emotionally and acting illogically – when they act at all. You muse that men are only good for one thing – moving furniture. Well, two things — maybe.

Long ago, you let go of the fantasy of a knight in shining armor or Prince Charming. You are bitter, angry and sometimes even cutting in your dealings with these inferior male beings. You consciously or passive-aggressively seek revenge against the male transgressors in this patriarchal society.

You respect other Warriors, yet have no tolerance for “weaker” females who don’t carry the Warrior’s sword. You are or were a good wife and good a mother, protecting and providing for you family. Yet you express even these roles through the stance of a warrior.

You are tired of fighting. You displayed your battle wounds proudly in the past, but now that you grow bored with conquest. Your armor is heavy and you long to remove it for good. You long for the Goddess within you; yet believe you couldn’t survive without your Warrior’s sword. Let me introduce you to — the power of the Goddess.

Who is the Goddess?
The Goddess is quite simply — the embodiment of the Divine in a female body. She is discerning and acts with integrity. She has a core of inner peace that is unshakable. The Goddess radiates an energy that is so powerfully beautiful, loving and soft, that others are drawn to her like a magnet.

She may have been a Wounded Warrior at one time, but she has healed her wounds. She has released the anger, pain, fear, guilt and judgment. She has let go of feelings of betrayal and abandonment. She has replaced those lower-vibrational emotions with compassion and joy. She has transformed her limiting beliefs, attitudes, and thought patterns into a loving allowance for all to be as they are. She has no need to change anybody, for she sees the Divine in all beings. She understands that any attack is simply a demonstration of fear. She remembers fear, and yet knows how to neutralize it with her unlimited flow of love.

The Wounded Warrior and the Goddess — two powerful female archetypes. One tired and wounded; one radiant and healed. How did the Warrior get wounded? And how can she transform herself into the Goddess? To answer these questions, you must first understand how energy moves in humans.

Read the whole article at :snoedel.punt.nl/index.php

This in no way, shape or form takes away from the validity of Jesus life and message as he came to embody a sacred archetype.  He epitomized the resurrecting shepherd king and his teachings are an important aspect of my life yet it is his followers who worry me.

A man from Tarsus, the son of Jewish converts, became a Roman citizen and changed his name from the Hebrew Saul to the Roman Paul. This Jewish citizen of the Roman empire (from Turkey) set himself up to terrorize the rebellious group of Jews in and around Jerusalem. It is said that Paul persecuted Christians, and while this makes for a lovely story contained within the book of Acts, it is not possible. There were no Christians at the time. The first few chapters of Acts should be read gingerly as they are propaganda designed to make us think the early church was always Christian; but it belonged to an era where the word Christian was simply a nickname for a sect of Judaism.

If we think about it logically, without overly emotional fundamentalism and from the historical perspective  :-D  the followers of Jesus remained Jews after his death, as did those of Jesus brother James the Just. They did not become members of Pauls new Christian religion. Christianity was a cult developed by Saul of Tarsus to attract pagan converts throughout the broader Roman Empire people who were already inclined toward nature based dying and resurrecting Gods. These pagans are the Gentiles that are referred to in the New Testament. The word Gentiles has become respectable in Christian thinking because it is taken as being a Jewish description of Christians, but it meant no such thing at the time. It was a word the followers of Jesus and James used to describe those who did not believe in the God of the Jews.

Paul was not intimate friends with Jesus original followers, students or family. Paul and James the Just quickly fell out with each other. The story Paul spread was based on Roman tastes in theology and barely related to the actions of Jesus and his followers. I have often pondered what Jesus actually thinks about all this, converting, evangelizing, smiting and killing in his name I am sure he is impressed (not). In Cyprus, Egypt, Turkey and Rome it was Pauls followers who scribed the Gospels. In Israel the people that Jesus had once led became followers of James, who opposed the Pauls new religion. The NT tells the story of Jesus from the perspective of Paul, and it tries to establish the idea that the followers of the crucified Jesus were Christians in their churches. They were not = they were Jews.

The Mediterranean and the Middle East are full of ancient stories of dying ~ resurrecting gods, who dies annually in order to “renew” or bring “salvation” to the people with his blood.  He returns later in the year, this being called the Myth of the Return.  He is born to us each year at the Winter Solstice in the form of the Divine Child, when the sun is “re-born” each year and the light returns to the darkened winter world and the days become longer.  Then in the Spring, He dies so his blood can save us.

Pauls new religion of the Risen Christ was easy for pagans to accept it was far from original and built upon well established traditions. This new cult of Christianity was squarely rooted in the Canaanite peasant theology of dying and resurrecting nature gods. The nature cult created in the name of Jesus came less from the beliefs of his real followers than it did from Pauls own upbringing in Tarsus. Every autumn, the young Saul would have watched the great funeral pyre on which the local god was ritually burnt. God was now dead, but he would arise again in the spring (Easter). The idea of blood was horrific to all Jews, and blood was something to be avoided at all costs, yet Pauls concept of Jesus rested on the power of his spilt blood, and of course on the sacrificial impulse which had driven the worship of Mithras. Even today we ritually drink the blood of Christ.  This concept of drinking ritual blood of a sacrificial human victim was as far removed from Jewish thinking but was well accepted practice among the pagans.

• He is God made flesh; the savior and ‘Son of God’
• His father is God and his mother is a mortal virgin.
• He is born in a cave or humble cow shed on the 25th of December before three shepherds.
• He offers his followers the chance to be born again through the rites of baptism.
• He miraculously turns water into wine at a marriage ceremony.
• He rides triumphantly into town on a donkey while people wave palm leaves to honor him.
• He dies at Easter time as a sacrifice for the sins of the world.
• After his death he descends to Hell, then on the third day he rises from the dead and ascends to heaven in glory.
• His followers await his return as the judge during the Last Days.
• His death and resurrection are celebrated by a ritual meal of bread and wine which symbolize his body and blood.

These attributes not only fit into the life of Jesus, but into the myths associated with Mithras, Adonis, Dumuzi, Hercules and Osiris. Adonis and Dumuzi ~ Middle Eastern fertility gods who died every year during the Spring planting season to fertilize the crops for the “salvation of all.”  Adonis’ death was mourned in a special cave shrine in Bethlehem where legends also said he was born.  Tammuz ~ was ritually resurrected each Spring after a three day descent into hell.  He was buried each year in a garden tomb.  A priestess, representing his wife, would go alone to the garden tomb and find it empty. Worship of Tammuz is mentioned in the Old Testament. Hercules was born of a heavenly sky-god (Zeus) and a mortal woman.  His official title was “Prince of Peace.”  Jesus was born of Yahweh, sky-god of the Hebrews, and a “mortal woman,” Mary. Osiris is connected to the annual cycle of fertility and renewal of the spring flooding of the Nile. His loyal nurturing mother is the goddess Isis. Hmmmm, interesting stuff.

Paul, and his writings, influenced all of the early church fathers, who more followed the teachings of Paul than those of Jesus.  Some of the teachings Paul has brought us include:

Women = Bad.  Jesus has to be celibate, even though all other Jewish Rabbis were required to be married. Most of the Gnostic texts that detail Jesus human side and relationship with the Magdalene were systematically destroyed by the church fathers. Why? What were they trying to hide?

Salvation. We are horrible humans and unworthy of life and must wash ourselves in divine blood just as Roman soldiers would ritualistically wash themselves in the blood of Oxen at Mithraic temples.

Hell:  Pauls teaching also helped invent hell. This was unknown to Jesus and the Hebrew religion.  The Christian church fathers misinterpreted the Jewish parables of Gehenna, a shadowy “void” place of soul transition and departing, and turned Gehenna into Hell.  

The Devil:  The Church fathers created the image of a horned Devil, giving him horns like Kernernos, the pagan God of harvest and forest, who wore horns as a mark of his kinship with the deer, and other animals with horns. The Church of the Middle Ages, facing stiff competition with the pagan religion, “demonized” these gods.  They gave Satan, (whose name comes from Shatan, the Hebrew angel of death, “adversary,” and “obstacle”) horns like the pagan gods, hoping to totally stamp out their worship.

In 62 CE, James was murdered and Paul died soon afterwards. According to the historian Josephus, the Jews rose up against Rome in 66 CE. Rising up against Rome was never a good idea, and Jerusalem was destroyed in 70 CE. Before this time, there was no Jewish orthodoxy, only disparate groups of Sadducees, Pharisees, Essenes, Zealots and Christians. It took another 200 years before Christians ceased to be just a strange variety of Judaism and the greatest story ever sold began to flourish. Almost three hundred years after Paul, the Roman Emperor Constantine adopted Christianity, merged it with his favorite pagan religion, Mithraism, and made it the official Roman Catholic Church.

The Christian bible is made up of old and new testaments. The first covers the history of the world from the creation through Malachi, the last of the prophets who spoke of the return of Elijah, the forerunner of the coming Messiah. The NT covers the period from just before the birth of Jesus to a period about 75 years later, when the Jewish war broke out. So the bible chronicles Gods interaction with His chosen people for all time right up to their near obliteration at the hands of the Romans. After that the Bible simply stops. WHY?  It did not stop being written: in the same way that the Dead Sea Scrolls were lost, so the ongoing story just did not get bound into the official versions and more discoveries of these hushed texts will be found.

The families who considered themselves to have a special relationship with God continued to document their journey. The bloodlines that produced the high priests survived and continued to record their progress towards creating the kingdom of God on earth. Many escaped to Europe, as members of the Diaspora, there to found many of the families that would become pre-eminent throughout the Middle Ages.  In France, these families came to control Anjou, Champagne, Normandy and Burgundy and from France comes stories of the Knights Templar, the Cathars, the troubadours, the works of Chretien de Troyes and the san grail, the blood royal the grail.

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Our friends over at n2itv.com, present this forecast for upcoming world events with the continued Saturn-Pluto opposition.
Even though the opposition is creating a lot of world-wide drama, the skies do predict a better financial leveling off here, especially in the United States toward the end of February!

To see the details, click HERE.