Author: Corbid Ravenous

Today’s Ogham Reading…

Willow

Intuition

Allow your intuition to help your understanding. There are things you don’t know that contribute to the situation; it is important to pay attention to the knowledge in you subconscious, as well as yuour conscious, mind.

Willow, the Ogham’s fourth tree, is closely connected to water, the unconscious, the moon, and thus the feminine. It is symbolic of intuition, the ability to make connections and gain understanding without knowing exactly how or why one knows.

Ash

Linkages

The situation is a part of a wider whole, and your life is a part of a larger pattern. Remember that your actions are a part of a larger pattern, and affect all the others within it- make your decisions with this in mind.

Ash is a tree of great traditional magical significance. Yggdrasil, the World Tree, is an ash, and the ash is the fifth Ogham tree. Ash symbolizes the connection- and movement- between very different places and aspects of reality.

myth of the day

detritus

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Brigid/Brigantia…

Brigid

by Lisa Spindler

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Name Cognates: Breo Saighead, Brid, Brighid [Eriu], Brigindo, Brigandu [Gaul], Brigan, Brigantia, Brigantis [Briton], Bride [Alba].

Breo Saighead, or the “Fiery Arrow or Power,” is a Celtic three-fold goddess, the daughter of The Dagda, and the wife of Bres. Known by many names, Brighid’s three aspects are (1) Fire of Inspiration as patroness of poetry, (2) Fire of the Hearth, as patroness of healing and fertility, and (3) Fire of the Forge, as patroness of smithcraft and martial arts. She is mother to the craftsmen. Sons of Tuireann: Creidhne, Luchtaine and Giobhniu.

Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword, was forged by the Lady of the Lake, a figure sometimes associated with Brighid because of her fire and forgery aspect. Like the Arthurian Avalon, or “Isle of Apples,” Brigid possessed an apple orchard in the Otherworld to which bees traveled to obtain it’s magickal nectar.

Brigid, which means “one who exaults herself,” is Goddess of the Sacred Flame of Kildare (derived from “Cill Dara,” which means “church of the oak”) and often is considered to be the White Maiden aspect of the Triple Goddess. She was Christianized as the “foster-mother” of Jesus Christ, and called St. Brigit, the daughter of the Druid Dougal the Brown. She sometimes also is associated with the Romano-Celtic goddess Aquae-Sulis in Bathe.

Brighid’s festival is Imbolc, celebrated on or around February 1 when she ushers Spring to the land after The Cailleach’s Winter reign. This mid-Winter feast commences as the ewes begin to lactate and is the start of the new agricultural cycle. During this time Brigid personifies a bride, virgin or maiden aspect and is the protectoress of women in childbirth. Imbolc also is known as Oimelc, Brigid, Candlemas, or even in America as Groundhog Day.

As the foundation for the American Groundhog Day, Brigid’s snake comes out of its mound in which it hibernates and its behavior is said to determine the length of the remaining Winter.

Gailleach, or White Lady, drank from the ancient Well of Youth at dawn. In that instant, she was transformed into her Maiden aspect, the young goddess called Brigid. Wells were considered to be sacred because they arose from oimbelc (literally “in the belly”), or womb of Mother Earth.

Because of her Fire of Inspiration and her connection to the apple and oak trees, Brighid often is considered the patroness of the Druids.

“Brigid.” Encyclopedia Mythica.

http://www.pantheon.org/articles/b/brigid.html

[Accessed November 02nd, 2003.]

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Samhain Musings

Spent my Halloween night as a wage slave,but dressed as Death. How fitting. Now it is Novemeber 1st, the Celtic New Year. A time for reflection,divination and discourse with the unseen worlds. Leave milk and bread out for the faerie folk, read tarot cards and have lovely,lovely dreams. The world will come back at us with a vengeance soon enough. Enjoy what respite can be found. Here in the time between the worlds…

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Myth of the Day:Odysseus

by James Hunter

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Odysseus (called Ulysses in Latin) was the son of Laertes and was the ruler of the island kingdom of Ithaca. He was one of the most prominent Greek leaders in the Trojan War, and was the hero of Homer’s Odyssey. He was known for his cleverness and cunning, and for his eloquence as a speaker.

Odysseus was one of the original suitors of Helen of Troy. When Menelaus succeeded in winning Helen’s hand in marriage, it was Odysseus who advised him to get the other suitors to swear to defend his marriage rights. However, when Menelaus called on the suitors to help him bring Helen back from Troy, Odysseus was reluctant to make good on his oath. He pretended to have gone mad, plowing his fields and sowing salt instead of grain. Palamedes placed Odysseus’ infant son in front of the plow, and Odysseus revealed his sanity when he turned aside to avoid injuring the child.

However reluctant he may have been to join the expedition, Odysseus fought heroically in the Trojan War, refusing to leave the field when the Greek troops were being routed by the Trojans, and leading a daring nocturnal raid in company with Diomedes. He was also the originator of the Trojan horse, the strategem by which the Greeks were finally able to take the city of Troy itself. After the death of Achilles, he and Ajax competed for Achilles’ magnificent armor; when Odysseus’ eloquence caused the Greeks to award the prize to him, Ajax went mad and killed himself.

Odysseus’ return from Troy, chronicled in the Odyssey, took ten years and was beset by perils and misfortune. He freed his men from the pleasure-giving drugs of the Lotus-Eaters, rescued them from the cannibalism of the Cyclopes and the enchantments of Circe. He braved the terrors of the underworld with them, and while in the land of the dead Hades allowed Thiresias, Odysseus’ mother, Ajax and others to give him adivice on his next journey. They gave him important advice about the cattle of the sun (which Apollo herds), Scylla and Charybdis and the Sirens. From there on the travels were harder for Odysseus, but they would have been much worse of it wasn’t for the help of the dead.

With this newly acquired knowledge, he steered them past the perils of the Sirens and of Scylla and Charybdis. He could not save them from their final folly, however, when they violated divine commandments by slaughtering and eating the cattle of the sun-god. As a result of this rash act, Odysseus’ ship was destroyed by a thunderbolt, and only Odysseus himself survived. He came ashore on the island of the nymph Calypso, who made him her lover and refused to let him leave for seven years. When Zeus finally intervened, Odysseus sailed away on a small boat, only to be shipwrecked by another storm. He swam ashore on the island of the Phaeacians, where he was magnificently entertained and then, at long last, escorted home to Ithaca.

There were problems in Ithaca as well, however. During Odysseus’ twenty-year absence, his wife, Penelope, had remained faithful to him, but she was under enormous pressure to remarry. A whole host of suitors were occupying her palace, drinking and eating and behaving insolently to Penelope and her son, Telemachus. Odysseus arrived at the palace, disguised as a ragged beggar, and observed their behavior and his wife’s fidelity. With the help of Telemachus and Laertes, he slaughtered the suitors and cleansed the palace. He then had to fight one final battle, against the outraged relatives of the men he had slain; Athena intervened to settle this battle, however, and peace was restored.

Related information

Pronunciation

{oh-dis’-ee-uhs}

Images

Odysseus

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