A belated Eostre greeting!

I wish all of you a most happy and most prosperous Eostre season. Due to technical difficulties, I did not have an opportunity to post in this blog until today. I will be making up for lost time by posting several times this week.

Eostre is a special time of year. It is not only the time of the Equinox and the official beginning of Spring. It is also a time where the Daughter takes on her fate, dies, and is resurrected. I also celebrate this as the time when Freyr is revived with the sprouting of the grain. The hard weather that we have had recently has made it difficult to keep these things in mind. Looking out to a yard full of snow, it is quite easy to become disheartened and despair that Winter is not going to end.

The little song birds, however, have been sporting about. I have seen them busily chirping and twittering about the bird feeder hanging up on the tree in my front yard. My Beloved husband has seen a sparrow at work on building a nest in the eves of the roof. Each day, the sun rises and shines a bit longer then the day before. I see evidence that despite the snowy weather, Spring has truly arrived. And for this, I am deeply thankful.

Today is the eve of April 1st and a date that was once considered the first of the year in antiquity. I mark this day as a minor observance of the Daughter as Renewer of the World. I lay flowers upon the altar, when I have them, and burn a sweet smelling candle in offering to her. The offerings of flowers and (ideally) incense are made as expressions of gratitude for what the Daughter has done via her ordeal. Indeed, I would be so bold as to say that I celebrate Eostre from the date of Eostre (Culverine 1/March 21) until the first of April as an extended celebration.

I invite you, dear Reader, to join me in my prayers of gratitude to Dea.

Love and Courtship

The delightful Carmilla De Rosa and I were having a conversation recently. She asked me my thoughts upon the matter of the role of courtship and marriage within Filianism. I have spent almost a week meditating upon this question. I have consulted my copy of the Gospel of Our Mother God. I have prayed and sought answers by way of oracle tools that I am proficient in the use of. I also threw myself into researching the thoughts of others both from the Aristasian perspective and from the Daughters of Shining Harmony perspective. (Both are quite similar but I have found subtle variations between the two.)

The one thing that continually presented itself was a very simple statement:

Love is Holy.

Let us consider the role of love between Dea and humanity. It is generally understood to be a maternal love that is unconditional. It is more then this, however, for there are ecstatic mystics who have experienced Dea's love as that of one who is their amorous partner. While we are most familiar with the maternal frame of reference with respect to love of Dea (and the divine), the experience of love is more then that narrow definition. Indeed if we examine all of the ways that love manifests in the world, we find that what changes is the focus but the emotion remains the same.

If this is true, if the emotion of love remains the same despite if the focus is that of the parent, child, or lover, then we must accept that all forms of love are valid. Additionally, we must accept that all forms of love are holy for love is a gift of Dea and a manifestation of her blessings. Indeed, it is far more then that, but let us limit ourselves to this comprehension of the concept for the purpose of this discussion. Dea is the most persistent of lovers for she is always expressing that love at all times.

It is in imitation of Dea that we engage in courtship rituals then. For we are expressing our love and desire for union (in spirit, body, or some other form) in our actions as people who are courting another. It is an expression of love and desire for union that the Daughter becomes manifest, takes on her fate, dies, and resurrects. The Daughter, as a face of Dea, is her hand reaching out to us to draw us close. This could be argued as an act of courtship, if we define courtship as an expression of love and desire for union with another.

Love and courtship are a reflection of Dea. Love is a reflection of her love for all existence. Courtship is a reflection of her reaching for us. Marriage, by logical extension, would be a reflection of our coming into communion with her.

Now, some would wonder what of the controversial matters of homosexual relationships and non-monogamous relationships. If we consider that in Dea's eyes, we are all equal and that we are all loved, there is no grounds to deny the validity of these relationships. They are but different petals upon the same rose known as love and should be delighted in as part of that fragrant, blessed flower, not shunned because they are not identical to another petal.

Upcoming Books

Hello, kind souls!

First, I wanted to thank you all for taking the time to read my little blog. I am in the midst of working on two major projects right now. One is a beginners handbook on divination (also known as fortune telling). In this handbook, I give an over view of techniques that are commonly used in my region of the world. I also describe and instruct how to put these techniques into practice. I anticipate having this book ready to send off to the printers in about two months.

The other is a compilation of rituals for general worship of a pagan nature. These rituals form the basis of many common practices through out modern paganism. In this workbook, I will detail devotional activities for one to do alone and with others. A discussion of family friendly pagan activities will be briefly discussed. This, however, is too broad of a subject to go into depth in the upcoming workbook.

Working titles are not established yet for these projects. If you have a suggestion, please leave it in the comments below. I will also be looking for beta readers to review these manuscripts when they are complete. If you are interested, please contact me at the following email address. I will have need of six beta readers for each project. If you wish to be one of my beta readers please note, you will be receiving a pre-release digital copy of the manuscript. If you decide that you desire to purchase one of the print versions, you will have a special discount offered.


Again, if you are interested in serving as a beta reader, contact me here:

cydira@aim.com

I thank you all for your time and readership.

Purification and Spring.

Now is the time of Spring cleaning and purification for many who follow Dea. For some, herbs such as Wolfsbane (pictured to the right) are components in washes that they use through out their homes. Herbs of purification are added to water that is used to mop and clean in one's home to lend some of their magical essence into the cleaning. Some herbs, like Wolfsbane, are used to deter malevolent entities from causing problems. Other herbs, such as Sage and Rosemary, are burned and used as incense to evoke positive energy into a space.

For many Christian folks, this is the time of year where preparations are made for Easter. In the Catholic tradition, today is Shrove Tuesday. It is the last day of the season before Lent and often marked with an indulgence into luxuries that are to be given up during the 40 days of Lent. Within the Filianic traditions, something similar is observed.

The Filianic calendar is a solar based calendar. The thirteenth month and fifth season of the Filianic calendar is known as Moura. It is reckoned to begin on February 20th and is considered to be a time of purification and preparation. During this twenty eight day month, the people of the Filianic traditions will clean their homes and make inward preparations (at times including fasting or abstaining from luxury activities) to purify themselves. This act of purification is not mortification of the flesh or abstinence for the sake of appearances of piety.

The acts of purification of the month and season of Moura serves to focus oneself upon the Daughter and the aspects of the mythos that describe her descent into the Underworld, her death, and her resurrection. The month and season of Moura concludes on the eve of the Equinox. The Equinox observed as the time of the death and rising of the Daughter. It is considered a day apart from the calendar and something that stands outside of time.

This is not only the time of year where I make ready for the renewal of all things with the arising of the Daughter but also when I make preparations for the return of renewed life in the world by way of plants springing up green from the previously barren seeming ground. In this, I see the revivification of Freyr. Freyr, who is slain in the time of the autumnal harvest for the sake of the fertility of the land returns to life again. The long, cold winter, is the time where he journeys to Hela's hall and then back. When he awakens from the sleep of death, it is my understanding that Gerda embraces him and the world becomes flush with life's vigor.

Part of my efforts to clean and purify, to summarize, are for the sake of the Daughter and as meditation upon the sacred drama that unfolds around her. Part of my efforts to clean and purify are to prepare for the coming spring and the vigorous presence of the God of the Grain.