Cuivanya: The Feast of Divine Life

 Dear Reader,

Cuivanya is the Feast of Divine Life within the Filianic and Déanic religion. It falls on the same day as Mabon, generally the same date as the Autumnal equinox. This is the second harvest festival of the year. Where Chelanya is known as the Golden Festival or the Feast of Regeneration, the focus of this harvest festival is different. Chelanya falls near the first of August which is when (in the northern hemisphere) is when the grain is being taken in for harvest. Chelanya celebrates the regeneration of life from the resurrection of the Daughter at Eastre. Grain is the primary symbol of this holy day. It is a spiritual memory of the primordial era when all things were in harmony and bounty was plentiful.

Cuivanya is the Feast of Divine Life and can be celebrated recognizing the entire life cycle story of the Daughter, it is more common to focus upon the Dark Mother as the Ground of All Being and the source of all fruitfulness. In the cosmology of Filianism and Déanism, the Bright Mother (Marya) eminates from the Dark Mother (Deam Mysterium) even as the Daughter (Anna) eminates from the Bright Mother. While they are three, they are in mystical union as one. The Dark Mother does not get as much attention as the Bright Mother or the Daughter. This is because she is the most mysterious of the three and quite literally beyond our comprehension.

Chelanya could be considered a festival of the Dark Mother as well in her action as the First Cause of existence and the Final Completion of its Dissolution. The cycle of the Ages is described as the breathing of the Dark Mother. She exhales existance into being and inhales all things back to their singular point of origin. (I would like to note that this theological argument aligns with several theories regarding the 'big bang' and how our universe came into being, but I digress.) The Dark Mother is the Queen of Mysteries.  She is the one who stands beyond and above the Bright Mother, known as the light which blinds and the darkness that illuminates. The Dark Mother is the root of all being, thus she is known as the Ground of All Being in direct reference to a Filianic scriptural reading.

Let her trust not the ground her feet are set upon and doubt the Ground upon which that ground stands. Let her rather doubt the sea, the sky, the fingers of her hand and the breath of her mouth; for all these things may be illusion, as in some sense they are. - Gospel of Our Mother God, pg. 108, paragraph 2. 

That "Ground" is the Dark Mother who holds all of existence in her hand. The passage above cautions the faithful to doubt all but Déa and place wholly their trust into her. The Feast of Divine Life is a celebration of the Dark Mother and the Bright Mother as the source of Life. The Feast of Regeneration was a celebration of the Daughter and the Bright Mother as the source of renewal of Life. In many ways, this is a reversal of the Eastre mysteries. One enters the Eastre mysteries at Lucaid with the Daughter moving into mortal life as she takes on her fate. Then she dies at Kala and hangs upon the world pillar at Hiatus. After this, she is resurrected and renewed at Eastre. The final festival of the Mysteries of Life comes at Tamala, where we celebrate the union of the soul and the collective body of the faithful including the living and dead. Tamala is a reminder of our mortality and the promise of union with Déa after our time within this world. But, I'll talk more about that at Tamala.