Happy to put out an offering around the Spring Equinox. Calling all who are emerging from the depths of winter to join in ritual space invoking the light of the Sun to brighten our path ahead.
May you be grounded in a deeper wisdom of the balancing forces as they enter our world on this sacred day, and may this balance extend to you and all of Earth's inheritance.
Equinoxes are about the constant balance of life’s seeming dualities, and as such, we embark on the serpentine journey from death into life in the Spring and life into death in Autumn. The exchange of light and dark, yin and yang, masculine and feminine energies follows the rhythms of the Earth as we become a pathfinder of the wisdom of our life.
In the Wheel of the year, we are at a time when dark moves to balance the light. As Spring reaches its midpoint, night and day stand in perfect balance, with light on the increase. Around us and within us, life force quickens, the soil begins to warm, the sap is rising, trees start to awaken, and seeds begin to germinate where we celebrate Rebirth Renewal and Abundance. The young Sun God now celebrates a hierogamy (sacred marriage) with the young Maiden Goddess, who conceives. In nine months, she will again become the Great Mother. It is a time of great fertility, new growth, and newborn animals.
It’s the season to acknowledge the Ostara, the Germanic goddess who’s powers preside over fertility, renewal, and rebirth. The Goddess Ostara is traditionally seen as having the shoulders and head of a hare. For our Celtic ancestors, the hare is sacred to the Goddess and represents the moon. Also, in some mythologies, Ostara is associated with serpent or dragon energy.
Also very present is the Goddess Persephone. Before she earns her name, Persephone is Kore, the youthful aspect of the Triad Goddess, the naive Spring Maiden. In Greek myth, Kore, the daughter of Demeter, is seized by Hades, and taken into the underworld. Demeter, in her grief, causes the world to die – no plants bear fruit, no bees pollinate, no flowers bloom. At last, an agreement is made in which Persephone can be returned to her mother but because the youthful Goddess has eaten 6 pomegranate seeds, she must return to the underworld for part of the year to be the wife of Hades. It is Hecate, with her two torches, who assists Kore to return from the darkness into the world of light, and Kore matures into Persephone, the dual and integral Goddess of both life and of death.
There is further lore still residing in Ancient Sumeria with the Goddess Inanna, who like Persephone is said to preside over the Equinox seasons. Only her story a bit more complicated and in a bargain for her to return from the dead, it is her husband, Dumuzi, who must travel for part of the year into the Underworld realm to become the husband of Ereshkigal her sister as well as Inanna.
“We see In both these myths there is great wisdom about not only the cycles of the natural world but our own participation in these cycles, physically, emotionally, psychically. Without the sleep of winter there can be no exuberance of spring, without incubation there can be no birth. If we attempt to remain in perpetual youth, we cannot mature into the empowerment of adulthood. If we refuse to allow ourselves to grieve, we cannot heal and move into new ways of being.” ~ Lauren Raine
After having passed through the gates of winter’s death lodge/dismemberment and the composting of Imbolc, the Goddesses bring light and life to the Earth
What are you birthing, what gifts are emerging, what opportunities are waking and stirring?
To find out please join me on March 17th for a ritual day of tending as we, along with the ancients, honor the return of Inanna, Ostara and Persephone, and the bright fields of Persephoné’s Mother, Demeter, Mother Earth, the Mother of us all.
We will engage in rituals and guided journeys with the Goddesses and their aspects. Through your visionary experiences, you will begin to further develop your personal relationship with the healing powers of these deities and clarify your purpose.
When: March 17th, 2018
Time: 10am-5pm
Where: Heart Path Studio, 160 Tracy Street, Suite 2C, Athens, GA 30606
Cost: $125
Or send an email to shannon@redearthhealing to secure alternate payment methods.