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Wednesday 22 May 2013

The Power of Freya



Freya is the Germanic goddess of love and beauty. In Old Norse, her name is Freyja and this means "the lady". She is also named Vanadis, as she was of the Vanir, a tribe of fertility gods. She is, according to mythology, the sister of Frey or Ing. She's the wife of Od. The day of the week Friday is named after Freya.

She is said to wear a magical gold necklace named Brisingamen and a cloak of feathers. She rides a golden chariot pulled by two blue coloured big cats. She sometimes rides upon a large boar named Hildisvini the "battle swine".

It's later told that Freya is the queen of the Valkyries (shield maidens, swan maidens, raven girls and nymphs of the aurora borealis). She is the queen of the Disir, or the female ancestor spirits. Freya is a shape shifting goddess who turns into a raven. Known to  have cried gold tears in grief of her husband's death, She remained loyal to him even when his body became a sea monster.

Freya is daughter of the sea god Njord but Freya's mother is unknown! Once the star system of Orion was called "Freya's gown" by the ancient Germanic people. Freya owns land, including a realm of the dead called Folkvangr, or "people's field". It's a meadow for the war dead and their departed loved ones who go there. Freya is a goddess of passion, love, fertility as well as war and death.     

The eternal symbol of love is a Heart. It's a symbol of Freya. Associated with romance, sensuality, beauty and wealth, Freya is very similar to the Greek Aphrodite. After much intense research, I've concluded that this has to be one and the same goddess.

In mythology, as written in the poetic and prose Eddas, Freya has many lovers. She is also a loving wife and mother. Her two daughters are called Jewel and Treasure. I've Anglicised this because in mythology, their names were in Old Norse that are "Gersemi" and "Hnoss".  


Freya is the goddess of the planet Venus. She's the goddess of fire, gold, amber, heat and light. To understand Freya's magic and light, one must know some details about Venus, the planet as well. Venus is the second planet from the sun and shows the brightest object in the sky after the moon. It's both the star of the morning and star of the evening. Dawn and dusk star. Venus is similar in size, shape and gravity to our home planet Earth, except that it's too severe to live on with constant volcanic activity, sulphuric acid, flames, molten lava and erupting volcanoes. The Venus sky is made of hot clouds. All of this is a metaphor of heated passionate love and sex. The clouds, like the cloak of feathers, and the very brighteness of the star seen in the morning and evening, as the shimmering beauty of golden Freya.

Ancient people didn't have the technical knowledge of the planet's make-up although they had a very good understanding of space. If you think about it. Venus the planet has always been associated with the prime goddess of love, be it Freya, Aphrodite and Venus. Myths are a bunch of oral traditions written down, then chopped and edited. One might ask if Freya is the planet Venus Herself! The sun and moon influences life on this planet. Do other bright stars? Is there more to it? Does astrology have a secret hidden meaning in astronomy? I don't just mean the zodiac either. 

Boars are Freya's animals because she rode one mighty boar, and these beasts were sacrificed to the Vanir. Cats are often associated with magic. Freya as the goddess has been demonised in centuries past, as a sorceress with cat familiars. The necklace made by dwarves, the treasures and gold Freya wears and creates, is light and fire itself. The fire and light of the star of Venus. The planet as an object only looks like a bright star to us through the telescope but astrally, spiritually or on a different level of consiousness and perhaps on another dimension, that planet is Her? When you invoke Freya, you tap into the source of the planet Venus.  
 
Links on the Goddess Freya:

Freyja info on Wikipedia
Goddess Guide page on Freya
Freyja of Valkyrie Tower
Freya, Goddess of Love
The above artwork is "Mist" by J. Bowser

Tuesday 14 May 2013

Enjoy the rain



Chit chat about the weather is a very typical English thing to do. It's how people break into conversation!

British weather is cold and damp. Most people complain when it's rainy.

If it wasn't for rain, there wouldn't be any trees, grass or flowers. No greenery. No fun. No water. No food or crops. No butterflies or singing birds. There wouldn't be any other animals and no people. The earth would be quite barren like the moon. The earth wouldn't have clouds or rivers. No fresh water. There wouldn't be rainbows. There wouldn't be any wind or perfume breezes. There wouldn't be a sea, not like it is anyway. There wouldn't be crystals or snow or ice. There wouldn't be seasons. There wouldn't be any dreams or memories. If there wasn't any rain, there would only be nothing.

 Instead it would be a molten planet with grey dust and cracks. The earth would corrode quicker if there was no rain.

Be grateful to rain.

With rainfall there is life, music, air, fresh water, fields, forests, fruits, flowers, wildlife, oxygen, clouds, rainbows, blue skies, fertile oceans, landscapes, mountains, mist and laughter.

The rain isn't just a "downpour". Too much can create havoc but... it's not always bad. Rain can also provide entertainment. Kids love splashing in the puddles after a rainfall. They enjoy collected rain in jars. Petals float along water streams in gutters. Gardens turn more lush. Rain makes cobwebs look like diamante necklaces. Some put handmade paper boats on rain pools.

Here are some Magical Rain links:

1. Rain spells 
2. Myths of thunder, lightning, wind and rain
3. Gods and goddesses of Rain      


The prettiest fashion for when it rains:
Umbrellas
Wellingtons

Friday 10 May 2013

Divine love





When people think of loving the gods, they associate the "love of God" with religious devotion, commitment to the gods and goddesses. There are many different types of loving the gods, as there are many different types of love. To love gods, goddesses, or a particular divinity, has different forms and various feelings. Yet there is one aspect of loving a god, which is probably rare, and this is to be in love with a god. Mythology is rich in tales of gods taking on mortal lovers. Few, hardly any though, have taken mortals as married partners.

A mortal woman, Psyche fell in love with the god Eros. She had to follow dangerous trials and entered darkness, to do as she had to, so that she would become fully united with her god. I'll examine this story a bit further soon on this subject. There is the tale of the holy avatar Krishna who in love with a princess named Radha. They were then spiritually and physically joined. This idea of divine love is how one can explore the deepest aspect of ones soul with the universe. There is a complex tapestry of emotions, given symbols and flowers, with the meanings obvious and in secret.

The Greek myths are filled with gods and goddesses taking mortal lovers. The tale of Eros and Psyche is harsh and gritty in comparison to the Radha-Krishna romance of Hinduism. Some believe it's a fairytale but there is more to it.

Psyche was a beautiful woman and admired by everyone. People commented that her beauty surpassed the goddess Aphrodite. This made the goddess angry. She ordered her son, Eros, to strike the girl with an arrow and make her fall in love with a beast. When Eros encountered Psyche, who was fast asleep in her room, he fell in love with her the moment he saw her. Unable to inform his mother, he returned home without fulfilling his duty. But Psyche was a very lonely young woman. Men wouldn't marry her. One day her father visited the Oracle of Delphi and met the god Apollo, who instructed him to give Psyche to a winged serpent as a bride. He was so worried that he had to take Psyche across to the caves and leave her there, for the monster to arrive and marry her. Zephyr, a god of wind, rescued Psyche from this fate. He lifted her up in the air, and carried her to a shimmering gold palace to be with her husband. Psyche found herself guided by a strange man's voice, who appeared loud throughout the palace. Psyche was given delicious food and sweet scented baths although she never saw who it was speaking to her. Then at night, this male voice whispered into her ear and joined her in bed. She became happy there with her new husband but she couldn't see him. The voice belonged to the god Eros.

Psyche was soon missing her father and two sisters. She asked her husband if they could visit her. Eros agreed but warned her not to be influenced by their words. One day Zephyr brought the two sisters of Psyche to the palace. After the reunion of joy, they had a feast and the sisters turned jealous of Psyche living in luxury. On their way out of the palace, ready to go home, the sisters felt bitter and told Psyche that she was married to a winged serpent.          

Psyche felt paranoid after listening to the words of her sisters. She forgot her husbands warning from earlier. Believing that her husband was a winged serpent, she decided to kill him while he slept. Carrying a lit candle and a knife, she entered his chamber. The candle light revealed a very handsome man sleeping and Psyche was utterly relieved that this was really her husband. Then in her excitement, a drop of wax from the candle fell and landed on Eros' back. He woke and stared at Psyche. He informed her who he was and told her he would leave her because she hadn't trusted him enough. He disappeared into the sky. Psyche was distressed at having lost her husband, the god Eros. She felt determined now to prove that she trusted him.

She visited the temple of Aphrodite and pleaded for the goddess to talk to her son, Eros. Aphrodite was displeased. She told Psyche that if she wanted to be with Eros again, she had to carry out a task. It was to separate different individual seeds from a big pile within a day. Psyche couldn't cope with this, until a group of ants helped her separate the seeds.  Aphrodite was angry and set another task for Psyche, that was dangerous. She was ordered to climb a steep, slippery cliff and collect some water.from a river. Psyche was not able to climb the steep cliff, but an eagle helped her get some water. Aphrodite was angry and set a third task for Psyche. She ordered her to enter the underworld carrying a box, meet Persephone the Queen of the Dead, and drain some of Psyche's beauty into the box. Psyche underwent this perilous task, and when she returned after successfully completing it, Aphrodite decided to keep her as a slave.

This erupted in anger from other gods at such cruelty towards a young woman. Hermes visited the god Eros to inform him of all this. Eros was overcome by the news that Psyche did this for him. He returned to her and loved her. Psyche was made immortal and remained with Eros happily.

In the story there is a familiar children's fairytale "Beauty and the Beast", where a woman spends time with a monster. She grows to love him and because of this, the beast reveals his true identity as a handsome prince.


The image is "Guardian Angel" by Rowena Morrill

Friday 3 May 2013

The fairy's emerald



The EMERALD is a brilliant green coloured gemstone, belonging to the beryl family. Beryls are coloured hexagonal crystals. The green coloured beryls are the emeralds. This gemstone has, historically, always been the favourite stone when it comes to jewellery items. For instance, Cleopatra loved emeralds so much that she had her portraits carved into them.    

Emeralds have an integral part to play in the realms of science, medicine, spiritual and psychic ability, wealth, enhancements of beauty, fertility and magic. The emerald represents the soul of the earth, or the heart of the world. The heart chakra is called "Anahata" and it's green. One of the gemstones for Anahata is the emerald. Other green stones for Anahata are jade, peridot, malachite and moss agate. The heart is where vital energy beats. Central to the body, the heart contains ones ability to love, remember, communicate, channel, heal and strengthen. Green is the centre/heart colour of the spectrum. Green is the colour symbol of the Earth too.

The goddess of love, Venus, is associated with the colour green. Therefore, emeralds have been her sacred stones. According to Greek myth, Aphrodite had bright glowing emerald eyes. Both Venus and Aphrodite are sacred to Friday, as this day of the week was named after Freya, another major goddess of love. All three love goddesses' sacred colour is green. Friday is, when viewed as a colour, is green. Emerald is the special gem of May, and star stone of the astrological sign Taurus. May and Taurus coincide at an event of Beltane/Walpurga. Walpurga was a real woman, who was canonised as Saint Walpurga. She was English and her actual name was Wealdburgh, and this means "Forest dweller". Burgh is Old English for what today is "borough". Back in ancient times burgh was used to describe a type of dwelling, whether a castle or a village. Today she's knowned as Walpurga.This Spring season event is also linked with fire festivals, flowers, fertility and the colour green. Some prefer to identify this period with motifs of the Green Man. From feminine green of the love goddesses to masculine green of gods.

Green interwined as foliage and spiritual energy. The sacred geometric green chakra of the heart belongs to all. Green is also the colour for warriors. The Green Knight that manifests in Arthurian legends. Robin Hood the "wolf's head" outlaw and berserker associated with the colour green. Knights of the round table on a quest to search for the emerald chalice. On other quests, in modern times, to find the legendary emerald chalice and emerald of Excalibur, all linked to King Arthur, have met up with paranormal agencies.

The warrior god Odin and nature god Freyr are also said to be one of the divine nature gods or "green men". Ancient warriors daubed their faces and bodies in green, sometimes blue and black paint when preparing for battle. In today's military, soldiers are usually in green camouflage combat gear. It's supposed to make them invisible against the background.
                
Green is the colour of emeralds. Ireland is "The Emerald Isles". However, regardless of this, emerald itself has many secrets and potent powers. One of the most bewitching is that emeralds have the ability to act as channels to the spirit world. Emeralds are able to heal, and restore memory, and induce dreams and inspiration. Emeralds can be a conductive energy tool that attracts ghosts and fairies. Emeralds has its use in technology. Synthetic emeralds are made in laboratories and wouldn't be the same as natural emeralds when it comes to magic and green medicine.

Emeralds can be eaten once grounded into green glittery sugar. Emerald dust can be used in cosmetics. It's been refined in the past to be used as a potion for curing and creating strong feelings in others, induced and emeralds can be an aid in love spells. As May is a time for the green gem of magic and power, and the season of flowers and acknowledging fairies, life's mysteries and bright bugs, the emerald is rich in offering health and physical stamina. Wear it, or find a picture of it. Use it well, respect nature and consider that this gemstone is able to acknowledge you.  

Sources, further reading and links:
Book - "The Green Stone: A True Story of Paranormal Adventure" by Graham Phillips.
Book - "Emerald Cup - Ark of Gold" by Howard Beuchner.
The Green Man
Medical Astrology - emeralds