Colours of the Divine

 

White is for the Maiden, the Mother is throned in red,
White as pure as virgin snow; red as the sacred blood we shed.
The Crone is cloaked in deepest black, the keeper of the night,
Guiding souls by darkest moon, with wisdom as her light.

Yellow is for the Sun King, the Horned One is verdant green,
Yellow bright as summer's sun, green where forest growth is seen.
The King of Death wears deepest blue, the guardian of decay,
Cradling life within the void, as dusk consumes the day.

Black is for the Mother, white is for the Crone,
Black as rich and fertile soil, white as pale as bone.
Red is for the Maiden, a red as deep as fire,
Dancing 'neath the crescent moon, inciting life's desire.

Blue is for the Horned One, King of Death in yellow bright,
Blue as twilight’s quiet calm, yellow as a guiding light.
The Sun King stands in verdant green, life sprouting once again
Dancing where the earth is lush, in springtime’s joyous reign.

Red is for the Crone, black is for the Maid,
Red as the blood of sacrifice, black as night's cascade.
White is for the Mother, pure as the starlit tide,
Nurturing all with full moons glow, where magic does abide.

Green is for the King of Death, the Sun King dons the blue,
Green as moss on ancient bones, blue as skies anew.
The Horned One shines in yellow’s glow, a beacon in the field,
Life and death in balance held, nature’s cycles sealed.

The Wheel of the Year – A Mystery Play

 

The Wheel of the Year – A Mystery Play

Characters:
The Goddess (she begins wearing a long white dress with a long white veil hidden under a long red veil)
The God (he begins wearing a pure white outfit)
The Narrator

Props:
Elemental Altars:
Candle x4, Cords (long!) x4,
Pieces of The Mantle x4 – each with Velcro to make a full cloak and covered in dead foliage and fruit
Incense and burner, The Goddesses’ crown
Fire Brazier, The Goddesses’ scepter
Water, The Goddesses’ necklace
Salt, The Goddesses’ belt

Prayer to the Muses

Sisters of the spoken word

Ladies of all artistry
Nymphs of Mind who ride ones thoughts
Who give and offer, tease and taunt
Born of storm and memory

I call thee Ladies, to inspire
The graceful, glorious, gifted Nine
I Name thee Muses and call ye forth
To imbue my Craft with creative force
To give shape to what I can’t define

Medusa, My Love

My Lady of the oceans' steep
High cliffs;
Those built up with
The bones of all who've
Looked upon and seen
Thy face alight and shining bright
With terror,
Beautiful and fair;
And whose eyes that hold
Reflections now of me.
I stare as though, I've turned to stone
Enthralled;
In thrall to thee
I give myself, breath and soul
To thee in offering.
And offer forth my life, my flesh
My joy and suffering,
To gaze from now
To the end of time
Upon thy mystery.

Hellenic Prayer Beads and Prayers for Each of the Gods Represented

This is my set of prayer beads; each bead represents a deity in the Hellenic pantheon (and Inanna, who is Sumerian).

This is which deity each bead represents, starting with the bead symbolizing Hestia (Hestia,is always the first and the last)

Inanna of the Thousand Offices

The name Inanna is one of the oldest known recorded names for a divinity worshiped by human kind and the figure of Inanna is one of the oldest and most influential goddesses in human history.  She is the holy virgin and the sacred whore and may have initially been named Nin-anna, which is translated as ‘lady of the sky’; she is among the earliest divinities to be associated with the planet Venus, in both the Morning Star and Evening Star aspects.

Inanna is the Sumerian "Lady of the Thousand Offices", a goddess of love and sexuality, of war and bloodshed, of magic and ritual, and of the qualities that define culture.  In fact many of her primary sites of worship were centered in the earliest sites of cities and civilization – Uruk chief among them, and her temples there were sites of commerce, craft and worship

Athene

Athene, favourite child of Zeus is the goddess of wisdom and wits and cunning, of war and warriors and of invention and homecrafts.  Athene was the weaver of the gods as well and took great pride in her skills and abilities even punishing mortals who had the hubris to compare their work to her own.  Athene also is credited with many inventions that ease the work necessary for survival, including the bridle, trumpet, flute, pottery, the rake, the plow, the yoke, the ship, and the chariot.

Aphrodite

Aphrodite, goddess of love and beauty, is possibly the most well known and most worshiped of all the Greek deities.  There are two stories of her birth, the first calls her the child of Zeus and Dione, the second a foam-born child of the surging sea and the severed genitals of Ouranos – the heavens.  Aphrodite’s cult began around 12-800 BCE, the child-of-Dione tradition is present in Homer (c. 800) and perhaps is the original story of her birth as understood by the Greeks.  But as exposure to the older cultures of the near-east increased Aphrodite seems to have been greatly influenced by the powerful goddesses who ruled there and began to acquire some of their titles and events of their own myths.

Artemis

Artemis, the daughter of Zeus and the titaness Leto was worshiped from very early times as the (sometimes winged) goddess of nature, birth, the hunt and all things wild – including young girls.  Later, in classical times was added her association with the moon.  Artemis is the twin sister of Apollon and is one of the few deities of Greek religion who are described by their filial relationships.  Artemis was born two days before her brother on the isle of Ortygia and developed her midwifery skills early in her life helping Leto to deliver Apollon on the isle of Delos.

Persephone

The maiden of life and the queen of death Persephone is not a true Olympian but as the daughter two Elder Olympians and the wife of a third she is a very powerful and prominent goddess in the ancient Greek religion.  Persephone is the daughter of Zeus (though there are some hints that in earlier, Mykenean times it may have been Poseidon who fathered this goddess) and Demeter – the goddess of the earth’s fertility and distributor of the crops grown from it, though in the Orphic telling of her birth she is the daughter of Rhea who takes the name ‘Demeter’ after giving birth. 

Demeter

One of the six original Olympians, Demeter is the child of the King and Queen of the Titans - Kronos and Rhea, and of all the Greek gods of the earth it is she who is paramount.  Demeter rules over the fertility and lifespan of the fruits and vegetables of the earth and especially of the grain, she is however also a patroness of human and animal reproduction as well – the life force of all living things.  Demeter is also the goddess of the harvest and it was she who taught mankind how to sow and tend crops so that they could settle land and end their wandering nomadic lifestyle.  She is also a goddess who takes great care in the preservation of the ‘natural law’ and tradition (whatever the society may see it as being); this is partly due to her popularity among rural populations (who most directly benefited from her attention) which are often more conservative and cling to older ways long after their urban counterparts.  Demeter is a pre-Olympian deity; her worship extends far, far back into the times of Mycenaean Greece and their nomadic forbearers; votive offerings of clay pigs (an offering unique to Demeter have been found dating to Neolithic times).  Her name probably in Greek means ‘distribution mother’ and is likely derived from the name of the Pre Indo-European mother-earth goddess *dheghom *mater (the astrix indicates that this is a reconstructed word and not one found in literature or modern languages).

Hera

The daughter of Khronos and Rhea, wife of Zeus- Hera is the Lady of Heaven, the Mistress of Olympos and the Queen of all the Gods; she is a Great Goddess in the sense of being a universal mother.  And as any child can tell you- a mother is not always kind.  But Hera is a goddess who always has a purpose to her actions, even if those actions are viewed by others as petty or cruel. 

About the Goddess Hestia

Hestia is the eldest of the six original Olympians, the six children of Khronos and Rhea and her cult is probably one of the oldest of all the Greek gods, going far back into the time of the wandering Indo-Europeans.  Hestia is also the youngest of the Olympians, she was the last released from Khronos’ grasp, the final of the civilizing Olympians to be freed from the chaotic powers of Titan-ruled earth. 

The fire, the central hearth seems to be a defining characteristic of a people- ‘we’ use this fire, the ‘others’ can not share in ‘our’ flames.    Perhaps that is one reason why Hestia is a virgin goddess- if she took lovers, one might be a god of another people, another culture the way Zeus found conquests among all the people the original Hellenes encountered.   In ancient Greek thought, as in many other cultures, females were subordinate to males, and in many cases this was no less true of gods and goddesses.  If Hestia took a husband, her ‘possessions’, her power would, in some way become his.  Hestia’s fire is the fire of the community, the kingdom, the city-state- the symbol of unity and the physical reminder of who a people are.  That symbol could not be risked passing into the hands of one outside the community.