Samhain/Halloween

Samhain (pronounced “Sow-en”) or Halloween is the most magical night of the year! Celebrated on October 31st, beginning at sundown, it is the greatest of the four Pagan Sabbats that divide the ancient calendar into winter, spring, summer and fall. Samhain means “end of summer.” The summer reign of the Goddess is now over; the Winter King is on his way.

In ancient days, Samhain was the Celtic New Year, a time of gathering in for pastoral folk. Crops were harvested and stored. Animals were driven in from summer pasturage and slaughtered for food, or housed in barns and pens. People came home to ride out the harsh winter with families. Their very survival depended on the harvest and on a tightly knit community.

On this mysterious night when the old year turned to the new, the veils between the natural and supernatural world were thought to have thinned. The ghosts of ancestors, heroes, heroines, villains, and a host of fairy and otherworldly creatures, returned to Earth. Leprechauns might appear. Trees might talk.

The wise Celt honored returning spirits by setting out treats on the doorstep for them. Empty chairs were set at dining tables in case an unexpected ancestor popped in for a meal. Jack ‘o Lanterns were carved and carried to frighten off unfriendly ghosts. Costumes were worn as disguises to throw vengeful spooks off the track.

Samhain was also a night of serious reflection. Speculation about and resolutions for the future were made.

In this image, instead of the traditional black-costumed witch, I have painted Cerridwen, the wise Welsh triple goddess. (Maiden, Mother, Crone.) Cerridwen is celebrated as the “keeper of the cauldron.” Her story is powerful, and even a little frightening.

Cerridwen had two children: a beautiful daughter, and a very ugly son. To compensate for her son’s hideous appearance, the loving mother brewed a potent elixir of knowledge in her cauldron, intending to give it to Afagdu, so he might have wisdom since beauty had been denied him. However, as often happens, the magical gift went astray.

A young boy, Gwion, whose job was to constantly stir the magic brew for Cerridwen, accidentally splashed three burning drops of the mixture on his hand. He sucked on his burned fingers to relieve the pain. Instantly, he knew all the secrets of the past and of the future, as the gift intended for Afagdu became his instead.

The enraged goddess pursued Gwion to punish him. Using his newfound magical powers, the boy turned himself into many different creatures as he fled, trying to escape the Goddess. Finally, he cleverly turned himself into a single grain of corn. But Cerridwen turned herself into a hen, and ate the kernel!

From this seed, she became pregnant, and in due course, bore another son. This boy was so beautiful that she couldn’t bear to allow the jealous Afagdu to kill him, as she had promised. Instead, she sewed the infant into a bag, and cast him into the sea.

But even the wrath of Cerridwen and the malice of Afagdu could not deny the destiny of this magical child. A Welsh lord named Gwyddno Garanhir rescued him, named him Taliesin, and raised him to become the greatest bard and poet the Celtic world has ever known. He joined the court of King arthur at Camelot, where he became chief harpist and adviser to the legendary king.

Despite this fierce history, his mother, Cerridwen is revered as the goddess of inspiration, rebirth, regeneration, and divination.

On this night of introspection and new directions, she looks deep into her cauldron of water to see what the future may bring. She is focused, fearless, and filled with a discerning spirit. So may we all be.

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

Her GODDESS CARD line grew from a birthday card she created for her daughter, Amanda, in 2001. Amanda was disheartened at being a curvaceous beauty in the Land of Thin. (Los Angeles.) That seminal card declaring, “You’re a GODDESS, not a nymph!” evolved into a long line of love notes and affirmations for ALL women. At over 125 cards, the line is steadily growing.

Anne is inspired by the archetypal Legendary Goddesses, who have so much to teach today’s women. Her greatest inspiration however, comes from the Goddesses of Today, who write her with wonderful suggestions and thoughts that expand her consciousness and card line.

She has launched  an E-Goddess Card website, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

“April is the cruelest month…” This famous opening line of T.S.Eliot’s revolutionary poem, The Wasteland, published in 1922, fits the ancient myth of the birth and life of Aphrodite to a T.

“Foam-risen” Aphrodite, (the Greek name for foam is “aphros”), was the product of a highly dysfunctional family. Her mother, Gaia, the generative Greek Earth Mother, tired of the constant attentions and cruelty of her husband, Uranus, who was both God of the Sky, and her first-born son. She asked one of their sons, Cronus, to castrate his father, so he would be unable to father any more children with her. (Uranus feared that their children would overthrow him one day. Because of this fear, he tried to prevent their being born. He did this by burying their babies deep within their mother, causing her untold anguish.)

Cronus was glad to oblige. He launched a murderous attack upon Uranus, and cast his severed genitals into the sea, where they dissolved into foam. From this potent and sexually charged brew, the fully-grown Goddess of Love was formed. She was never a child, raised to respect the rules and regulations of her elders. Instead, she emerged in full glory, her hair dripping with pearls, and greeted by ecstatic doves. Riding on a seashell, she was blown ashore to the island of Cyprus by the West Wind ~ the embodiment of love, beauty, and untrammeled sexuality. Her arrival caused a sensation in Olympus! Every god desired her. Every goddess was jealous. The world was turned upside down…

Zeus, King of the Gods, quickly realized he had a disaster on his hands. To avoid fighting amongst the gods for her favors, and to nail her down, he married her off to Hephaestus, the crippled master craftsman of Olympus. Hephaestus couldn’t believe his luck! Besotted with love, he created exquisite jewelry for his lovely bride, including the cestus, a magic girdle or belt, which made the wearer irresistible to men. This was another terrible mistake. Aphrodite was already irresistible, and had no intention of being faithful to a dull husband.

She carried on with dozens of lovers, including her half-brother, Ares, the impetuous God of War. She bore many children to her paramours, including Eros (Cupid), the son of Ares, who helped her to promote love and sensual delight. In vain, Hephaestus tried to control her. When he trapped Ares and Aphrodite in a golden net, and exposed their illicit affair to Zeus and the gods for judgment, he failed. Zeus, recognizing the futility of trying to discipline the goddess, refused to condemn her. She went on her merry way.

Aphrodite was impulsive and thoughtless as well as sexually self-indulgent. Wanting to defeat Hera and Athena in a three-way contest to be crowned Most Beautiful of all the goddesses, she shamelessly bribed the judge, Prince Paris of Troy. Hera and Athena also tried to bribe Paris. They offered him power and wisdom. Aphrodite, knowing what moves the hearts of men, promised him the most beautiful woman in the world for his wife. Paris awarded her the Golden Apple. Unfortunately for him, and for the ancient world, the woman, Helen of Sparta, was already married, to Agamemnon, King of Sparta.

Aphrodite’s scheme worked. Paris and Helen fell in love, and eloped. The tragic meddling of the goddess in affairs of the heart soon morphed into affairs of state, leading to the devastating 10-year long Trojan War, in which thousands of Greek heroes and citizens perished. Enraged, Zeus commanded Aphrodite to return to her appointed role as goddess of love, sensual delight, and fertility, where she could do less harm.

Aphrodite continued to take lovers. She even fell in love with a mortal ~ Adonis, the Hunter. This time, however, she was destined to suffer as well. Fearing that a wild animal might kill Adonis, she ordered him to give up hunting. Adonis refused, and was gored to death by a wild boar. The devastated goddess transformed her dying lover’s drops of blood into anemones. These lovely, short-lived blossoms remind us that she knew sorrow as well as passion.

A cult sprang up around the worship of Aphrodite. The month of April was consecrated to Venus, her Roman equivalent. Her festival, the Aphrodisia, (from which we derive the word aphrodisiac) was celebrated all over Greece on the first day of Aprilis, or April ~ especially at her temples in Athens and Corinth. Intercourse with her priestesses, called hierodules, or “sacred servants,” was considered a sacred act ~ a way of worshiping the goddess to ensure fertility and good fortune in love.

This custom originated in rituals practiced by worshippers of Aphrodite’s Near Eastern predecessors, such as the Sumerian goddess, Inanna, and the Akkadian goddess, Ishtar. These Eastern goddesses, forbears of both Greek Aphrodite and Roman Venus, also employed temple prostitutes. The practice was well documented in Babylon, Syria, Palestine, Phoenicia, and Carthage. Not surprisingly, Aphrodite is the patroness of courtesans, and of all who love or seek to be loved. She is also the protectress of sailors.

She has modern counterparts in contemporary “Sex Goddesses,” such as Madonna or Britney Spears. These adored celebrities seem to break all the rules in their search for happiness ~ though their behavior does not appear to reflect the goddess’s sense of sacred mission and delight.

Aphrodite’s power over love may seem narrow and frivolous, especially when compared to the impressive powers of Zeus, King of the Gods; Ares, God of War; or Athena, Goddess of Wisdom. The capacity to wage war, to lead nations, to sway mobs, to amass fortunes, or to display intellectual brilliance, are often more highly prized than the simple ability to move the human heart.

Yet the lesson of Aphrodite is that love reigns supreme. Zeus himself could not suppress her search for love. And the history of the Trojan War demonstrates the power of an ill-conceived passion to destroy nations. The goddess drives us into each other’s arms, breaks our hearts, and brings us back for more. She plants the seeds of attraction that lead to the birth of babies. She ensures the continuity of the human race.

While her willful quest for pleasure may lead to grief, she never gives up on love, or ceases to pursue it. She is fruitful, bears many children, and cherishes them. She rewards those who honor love: punishes those who deny it. She is a good friend, a bad enemy, and an ardent lover.

Above all, she is beautiful, fearless in her determination to live her life with passion and joy. Because of this, she has inspired generations of artists, poets, and writers to create immortal works of art in her honor.

Check out a few of their images on this You Tube video.

Enjoy the many faces of Aphrodite. They’re as varied as the human race! Beauty comes in many guises. Love is prompted by our unique perception of Beauty in the Other.

Love makes the world turn.

(URL OF YOU TUBE VIDEO ON APHRODITE)

http://video.google.ca/videosearch?q=aphrodite+the+greek+goddess&www_google_domain=www.google.ca&hl=en&emb=0&aq=2&oq=Aphrodite+the+#

POT GARDENS

I spent the weekend replanting seventeen pots on my patio.

It was time. My glorious crop of spring crocuses, grape hyacinth, daffodils and tulips had finished. Only the memory of their pastel beauty and a tangle of withered blossoms and dead, brown leaves remained.

But before you plant new flowers in a pot, you must first clear out the old. Unless you do this, there will be no room for new growth. Every gardener knows that!

Clearing is hard work.

My bulbs were firmly entrenched. Their roots went deep. Worse, they were tangled with the roots of the palm I plant at the center of every pot. This palm is the heart and soul of each container, and continues for many seasons. I had to fight every rooted bulb to dislodge and remove it, without destroying the palm, though it inevitably suffered damage as I gently separated its roots from those of the tenacious, clinging bulbs.

When all was done, I dug in the hardened dirt to make it soft. I refreshed it with new soil, and mixed it together, rubbing it between my fingertips as though I was blending butter and salt to make pastry. When the soil was light and tender, the pot was ready to receive new planting. The palm looked chastened, and a bit fragile, but I knew it had the strength and stamina to send out new roots, and to regain its vitality. I let the pots rest overnight to absorb the shock of having been cleansed and fertilized.

Next day, I planted summer flowers. White impatiens, red geraniums, yellow marigolds, and blue, trailing lobelia. Soon, the pots were brimming with color and new life again. I swept the terrace, dumped the garbage bags filled with exhausted soil, and stored a few healthy bulbs for Fall’s replanting. A good watering, and my garden was good to go. I was filthy and tired, but deeply happy. Cares seem to melt away when you kneel in your garden!

When I’m gardening, I feel I am doing exactly what I should be doing. After all, God himself planted the first garden. And the very first job he gave to the very first man was to tend that garden and keep it beautiful. Gardening is God’s or the Goddess’s work.

Many have observed that gardening is a metaphor for life. It was one of Shakespeare’s favorite themes. “Our bodies are our gardens…our wills are our gardeners,” he famously said.

But human hearts and souls are gardens too. Every once in a while, we must clean out our inner pot. Get rid of worn-out bulbs and dead plants ~ old habits, griefs, attachments, disappointments, betrayals, outgrown dreams and obsessions ~ that no longer make life beautiful or give us joy.

It is desperately hard work. The old will not yield to the new without a struggle. There will be tearing and wrenching as you dig out and discard ideas and thoughts that have outlived their time. There may be a period of seeming barrenness, when life seems fragile, and stripped of the growth that once filled it. This is an illusion. A temporary condition. The old served no purpose since it was dead.

New growth and beauty will emerge when we make room for it! Try it, and watch your garden grow.

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

Her GODDESS CARD line grew from a birthday card she created for her daughter, Amanda, in 2001. Amanda was disheartened at being a curvaceous beauty in the Land of Thin. (Los Angeles.) That seminal card declaring, “You’re a GODDESS, not a nymph!” evolved into a long line of love notes and affirmations for ALL women. At over 125 cards, the line is steadily growing.

Anne is inspired by the archetypal Legendary Goddesses, who have so much to teach today’s women. Her greatest inspiration however, comes from the Goddesses of Today, who write her with wonderful suggestions and thoughts that expand her consciousness and card line.

She has launched  an E-Goddess Card website, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

A famous Jewish proverb says, “God could not be everywhere, so he created mothers.

Six thousand years ago, people believed it was the Goddess who created everything!  The goddess, known as the Great Mother, was thought to have given birth to the whole universe. She did so, not from a position of remote, male authority, but from the very blood and substance of her body, right here on Earth.

In her limitless fertility and abundance, she birthed, not just a host of children of every kind, but the Heavens themselves. She created everything that walked or crawled upon the Earth, flew across the skies, swam in the oceans, lakes and rivers, or languished in the lonely fires of the Underworld. She created them out of Kaos, inspired by love, and loved all of creation.

Like the God of the Old Testament, she looked at her work, and found it good.

Not all of her children were beautiful, successful, or even kind. She birthed monsters along with her divine offspring. Yet, like all human mothers who follow in her footsteps, she loves her children, and provides, as best she can, for their care and feeding. She forgives them for their faults and failures, and is always ready to welcome them home into her loving arms, or into the Earth from which they sprang, and to which they must all return.

The Great Goddess or Mother has many names. Tiamat, Isis, Inanna, and Gaia, to name just a few. Her characteristics, name and personality reflected and adapted to the culture in which her worship grew. Because of this, she was readily accessible and recognizable to the people she served. Her worship grew up in pre-historic and ancient times in the rich, agricultural lands along the Nile, the Indus, and the Tigris-Euphrates Rivers. Gradually, it spread along the Mediterranean Sea into Greece and Europe. There, it flourished. Agricultural societies depend upon the fertility of the land, and of the mothers who bear children to help care for it.

Goddess worship prospered in these places until it was overthrown, first by a wave of nomadic, monotheistic Semite sheep and goat herders, starting in the 4^th millennium BC, and later by the triumphant Christian faith that grew out of the earlier Hebrew tradition.

But, as a friend of mine said, “The goddess is like dandelions. You can root them out. Weed them. Spray them. And still, they come creeping back!”

You cannot kill the goddess, or the Great Mother! She is part of our deepest cultural memories ~ and of our real-life experiences with our own Great Mother, the mother you call your own.

In this image, we see Gaia, the great Greco-Roman goddess who we know as Mother Earth. She is shown, surrounded by just a few of her countless children. They range from small human beings to a sampling of all creatures of the Earth, Sky, and Water.

Gaia is even more influential today than she was thousands of years ago! The Gaia Movement, founded by James Lovelock in 1972, started the huge environmental revolution unfolding right now. This movement sees the entire planet as a single, living organism, where everything must be in balance if life, as we know it, is to continue to be sustainable.  As in a happy family, each member must contribute to the good of the whole, and refrain from polluting or damaging the family home.

To keep us aware of this delicate balance, who is a better archetype than Gaia, the great Earth Mother goddess?

On Mother’s Day, most of us will remember our mothers with greeting cards, flowers, and perhaps a dinner out. How could it be otherwise? She is our first experience of love and security on Earth. As William Makepeace Thackeray said, “Mother is the name for God in the lips and hearts of little children.”

For me, a child who grew up all over the world, home was always where my mother was. She was my comforter, my teacher, my playmate, and my very first love. Even though I am now a mother, and a grandmother as well, I still miss her wise counsel and warm arms.

This is a universal experience.

Soldiers, dying on the battlefield, have been known to cry out for their mothers with their final breath. The last thoughts of Christ, hanging on the cross, were for Mary, his mother. He consigned her to the care of his beloved disciple, John, so that she would not suffer the poverty of other widows in first century Palestine.

It can’t have been easy being Gaia. Imagine giving birth to galaxies, as well as to rafts of children! She also dealt with a husband who was jealous and suspicious of his own children, who was often violent toward them and towards her. Yet she endured, as all Great Mothers do. And she kept her turbulent family together.

Her legacy has never been forgotten.

Gaia bless all mothers! May Earth Day (April 22^nd) and Mother’s Day (May 9^th) be days of thanksgiving for our earthly mothers, and for Mother Earth, who nourishes us all.

Anne Baird

April 20, 2010

It’s not easy being a mother.  If it were easy, fathers would do it.  ~From the television show The Golden Girls

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

Her GODDESS CARD line grew from a birthday card she created for her daughter, Amanda, in 2001. Amanda was disheartened at being a curvaceous beauty in the Land of Thin. (Los Angeles.) That seminal card declaring, “You’re a GODDESS, not a nymph!” evolved into a long line of love notes and affirmations for ALL women. At over 125 cards, the line is steadily growing.

Anne is inspired by the archetypal Legendary Goddesses, who have so much to teach today’s women. Her greatest inspiration however, comes from the Goddesses of Today, who write her with wonderful suggestions and thoughts that expand her consciousness and card line.

She has launched  an E-Goddess Card website, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

The circle has always had magical properties. It is said to be the purest and most profound symbol in existence. It has no beginning, and no end. In this sense, it represents infinity, eternity, wholeness of spirit, and femininity.

Circles rule the world! Mathematically speaking, a circle is defined as a shape in which all points are equidistant from the center. The study of its unique qualities led to the development of calculus and geometry. It was recognized before the beginning of recorded history, and is the basis for the wheel. Together with the invention of circular gears during the Industrial Revolution, it made machinery and much of modern civilization possible. Today’s technological marvels, computer hard drives, DVDs and CDs, are all circular.

In the spiritual realm, the circle has long been a sacred symbol. A few examples illustrate this.

Almost ten thousand years ago, around the 7th century BC, Babylonian astronomers learned how to divide the ecliptic ~ the circular path of the Sun across the sky over the course of a year ~ into twelve equal zones of longitude. These divisions were marked by the heavenly constellations through which the Sun traveled. This created the first known celestial coordinate system.  Building on this, astrologers later devised the Zodiac Circle or calendar. Images of people, animals, and other symbols, represent the astrological and astronomic signs dividing the year into twelve equal portions.

The Wheel of the Year is a Wiccan and Neopagan symbol for the yearly cycle of seasons. It consists of eight festivals, called Sabbats, spaced at roughly even intervals throughout the year. The passing of time is seen as cyclical, represented by the turning of the wheel. The human experience of birth, life, decline and death, is reflected in the passing seasons. Wiccans also see this cycle as reflecting the life, death and rebirth of the Horned God and the fertility of the Goddess.

The Buddhist Wheel of Life embodies the Four Truths of Buddhist teaching: the existence of suffering, its origins and cause, and the ending or prevention of suffering, leading to freedom from suffering, or Nirvana.

Christianity brought with it a continued reverence for the symbol. Christian saints and the Holy Family are shown with circular haloes, representing their divinity. Labyrinths and six-petaled roses, with their circular patterns, offer a prayerful path to the heart of God at the center. The Celtic Cross a characteristic symbol of Celtic Christianity, combines the cross with a ring surrounding the intersection.

What place in this rich history of circles, does the carousel hold? It is certainly a more frivolous example of the beauty of the circular pattern, the mystery of the wheel. With its modern association with fairs and amusement parks, it is easy to lose sight of the history and deeper meaning of the carousel.

It has a long, if secular, history. Back in the12th century, it was developed as a training device for knights to practice their jousting skills for tournaments. Powered by men or draught animals, a wheel with spokes on which wooden horses were mounted, revolved around the center pole. Knights, mounted and carrying lances, competed to spear a brass ring on the center pole as they spun past.  This honed their skills while safeguarding their valuable horses from injury.

Jousting and tournaments gradually lost favor. Injuries to men and horses needed for real wars, became too costly. However, the carousel did not disappear. Instead, it evolved into a pleasure machine that allowed men, women and children from all walks of life to participate in the fantasy of riding, without risk of injury.

By the 17^th century, German, Italian and Russian woodcarvers were creating ever more beautiful and intricately carved horses for carousels. Often, they were suspended by chains from an overhead spoked wheel, turned by real horses who were tethered to the wheel, and walked around it.

In the 1850’s, the carousel crossed the Atlantic from Europe to America.

Four sons of the Dentzels, a German family of wagon-makers, who had turned their woodworking skills into a carousel-making enterprise, immigrated to the United States. In the hold of the ship, they carried a full and complete carousel, with which they hoped to make their fortune in the New World.

Their venture was a huge success. They set up shop in Pennsylvania, and became one of the greatest carousel-carving families in America. Other fine European craftsmen arrived to add their skills to the Dentzels, and carousels and merry-go-rounds took off. At one time, there were over 7,000 carousels across the country.

The Golden Age of Carousels was the early 20^th century. Liberated by success, woodcarvers created ever more fanciful and exotic menageries of animals for their carousels. Zebras, pigs, lions, ostriches, elephants, unicorns and dragons circled the platforms with the bounding horses. The technological advances of the Industrial Revolution replaced human and animal locomotion with steam powered engines, and eventually electricity. Advances in engineering made it possible to have carousel animals go up and down, as well as round and round. Electricity allowed the carousel canopies to be festooned with lights. And fairground organs, like the mighty Wurlitzer, added music to enhance the magical experience.

This Golden Age came to an end with the Great Depression of the 30’s, followed by World War II. Grim times were not made for frivolous delights.  Skilled craftsmen and precious resources were turned to more practical uses.  The time consuming and priceless creation of original woodcarvings was no longer sustainable.

Today’s carousel animals are usually made of fiberglass. And while the Dentzel family still has a carousel company in Port Townsend, Washington, the carousels they now sell are usually small, and filled with fiberglass creatures created from molds of the original wood carvings. They are nothing like the glorious creations of the early family. But they keep the tradition alive.

When I first encountered images of the original German carousel carvings, I was entranced. I had always loved carousels. But the carvings were so unique and beautiful, that I wanted to create a line of e-note cards, honoring these exquisite works of art. Something in them spoke to me, and made me want to revive their memory.

I have made a beginning. Already, we have Frog, Leopard, Turkey, and Reindeer carousel images. A little goddess, who in some way embodies the qualities and background of the animal she rides, is mounted on each. I plan to create a full line of twelve. They will be a kind of carousel zodiac! Wherever possible, they will be accompanied by original Wurlitzer or calliope music that suits them.

However, I cannot forget the sacred aspect of the circle. Every carousel image reminds me that our existence is a perfect circle, punctuated by ups and downs. And that, in this life at least, we only go around once. It is short, but sweet, and filled with magic.

That is why we must live our ride with passion and joy. Too soon, it will be time to get off. And, unlike the carousel ride, we don’t get to buy another ticket for another go around!

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

Her GODDESS CARD line grew from a birthday card she created for her daughter, Amanda, in 2001. Amanda was disheartened at being a curvaceous beauty in the Land of Thin. (Los Angeles.) That seminal card declaring, “You’re a GODDESS, not a nymph!” evolved into a long line of love notes and affirmations for ALL women. At over 125 cards, the line is steadily growing.

Anne is inspired by the archetypal Legendary Goddesses, who have so much to teach today’s women. Her greatest inspiration however, comes from the Goddesses of Today, who write her with wonderful suggestions and thoughts that expand her consciousness and card line.

She has launched  an E-Goddess Card website, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

On Thursday, November 26^th, Americans will celebrate Thanksgiving. Families will gather, and feasts, including turkey and pumpkin pie, will be eaten. Some may go to church. Some may even think back to the first U.S. Thanksgiving, celebrated in New Plymouth, Massachusetts in November of 1621. The fifty-three survivors of the one hundred two passengers who had set sail from Plymouth, England, aboard the Mayflower, in search of religious freedom, adventure, and profit, in the New World, offered thanks that they were still alive.

Of the eighteen women who embarked on that grueling two-month journey, fourteen died during their first brutal winter ashore. Only four remained to prepare that first Thanksgiving dinner for the forty-nine surviving men and children.

Added to their catering challenge were ninety Native American guests, led by Chief Massasoit. The natives generously contributed five deer to the feast of waterfowls, wild turkeys, and fish, provided by the thankful colonists.

That three-day celebration was an affirmation of Life! The Pilgrims were grateful both for survival, and for their first successful harvest.  The harvest of 1621 gave them hope and the promise of future survival. That reminds us of countless earlier pre-Christian Harvest celebrations.

The Pilgrim Fathers were obviously not the first to suffer deprivation, disease, and starvation. Our Pagan ancestors knew well what it cost to survive a bitter winter. That is why, in Greek mythology, the goddess Demeter, Goddess of the Harvest, was one of the most beloved of the Olympians.

The Greeks loved her, not just because she showered them with abundance from on high, but also because they credited her with teaching them how to grow, preserve and prepare grain. Demeter’s promotion of the cultivation of the Earth to provide agricultural sustenance meant that her followers could progress from being nomadic hunter-gatherers, to becoming settled villagers and townspeople, whose harvests could sustain life through the cruelest winter. Even when game was scarce. Furthermore, she walked among them. She loved, and shared in their life.

It was for that, above all else, that they worshipped her.

The great story of her love for her abducted daughter, Persephone, and her relentless search for her, also endeared her to the people. They identified with her feelings of loss and despair. And while they suffered terribly when, in deep depression, she withdrew her care for the world, they understood her grief. Their petitions to Zeus, King of the Gods, for Persephone’s return, helped bring about the restoration of Demeter’s lost child for spring, summer and fall.  (She would still have to return to the Underworld to spend winter with her abductor and husband, Hades.)

Still, it was enough to guarantee a fine harvest. And that was all the excuse they needed for a great Harvest Festival!

Such festivals occur and have occurred at harvest time in every part of the world, throughout history – though dates vary according to the time of their harvest. Many customs and traditions have sprung up that reflected the culture of their people.

Our Celtic ancestors created corn dollies by plaiting wheat stalks to create a straw figure that was kept until spring. This was done in order to keep the spirit of the corn alive for next year’s crop. In spring, the dolly would be ploughed back into the soil to ensure an abundant harvest.

In Egypt, the spring harvest festival was dedicated to Min, the god of vegetation and fertility. When Egyptian farmers harvested their corn, they wept, to fool the spirits they believed lived in the corn into thinking that they were grieving – so they wouldn’t take revenge on the pickers.

The African people hold festivals at harvest time. In some parts of Africa, good grain harvests are cause for celebration. But the tribes of West Africa celebrate the yam harvest with a Yam Festival, held in August at the end of the rainy season.  Yams, songs and dances are offered to the ancestors and the gods.

In Alaska each fall, after the end of salmon fishing and the berry harvest, people hold a series of festivals with feasting, dances and songs addressed to the spirits who help them, and to the souls of animals on whom their lives depend.

Across Britain, Canada and the USA, churches still celebrate harvest festivals after the wheat has been cut and fruits and vegetables picked. Churches are decorated in flowers and greenery. Fresh produce is displayed, with a loaf of bread in the middle, symbolizing the bountiful harvest. Food collections are taken up for the poor, so that they too may share in the bounty of Harvest.

And so it goes. People across the world, in every time and place, have given thanks for Earth’s bounty that sustains them. That statement is particularly true of farmers, and of those agrarian cultures that still live close to Nature, and to the bone.

For those of us who live now in great cities where food appears magically in supermarkets, and where abundance is so common that we take it for granted, it is hard to imagine the profound relief and gratitude that our forefathers felt for a harvest that might guarantee them another year of life.

But on Thanksgiving Day, it is good to remember that abundance is a blessing that should never be taken for granted. We should always approach it with grateful hearts.

In 1844, 223 years after the celebration in New Plymouth, Henry Alford wrote the lyrics to a hymn by Sir George J. Elvey, the organist at St. George’s Chapel in Windsor Castle for nearly 50 years. Come Ye Thankful People Come has become one of the most beloved of all Thanksgiving hymns.

Our Pilgrim Fathers, the ancient Greeks and Celts, Africans, Alaskans, and Egyptians, would all have recognized the sentiments it expresses:

Come ye thankful people come,

Raise the song of harvest home!

All is safely gathered in,

Ere the winter storms begin;

God our Maker, doth provide

For our wants to be supplied:

Come to God’s own temple, come,

Raise the song of harvest home.

Harvest blessings to all. Happy Thanksgiving!

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

Her GODDESS CARD line grew from a birthday card she created for her daughter, Amanda, in 2001. Amanda was disheartened at being a curvaceous beauty in the Land of Thin. (Los Angeles.) That seminal card declaring, “You’re a GODDESS, not a nymph!” evolved into a long line of love notes and affirmations for ALL women. At over 125 cards, the line is steadily growing.

Anne is inspired by the archetypal Legendary Goddesses, who have so much to teach today’s women. Her greatest inspiration however, comes from the Goddesses of Today, who write her with wonderful suggestions and thoughts that expand her consciousness and card line.

She has launched  an E-Goddess Card website, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

I have always loved Demeter, the Greek goddess of agriculture. Normally, I celebrate her at Harvest. This year, I have reasons for thinking of her earlier…

August is the height of late summer.  That is why, in the central image of this painting, we see Demeter, a gloriously fruitful goddess, bearing golden sheaves of wheat against a background of blazing summer skies, poppies, and flowing rivers. Everything symbolizes the fertility and abundance she showers on a hungry world. How beautiful she is!

In her left hand, however, she bears a torch. And vignettes that tell a less sunny story surround her. It is that story that has earned her second title, The Fierce Mother. That is the story I tell today.

Demeter, provider and mother figure for the whole world, had only one child, a daughter named Persephone. This lovely girl was her pride and joy. While busy with her great task of making the Earth fruitful, Demeter took satisfaction in knowing that her ceaseless labors of love allowed her precious child to be carefree. Persephone could, and did, spend her days dancing in the meadows with her friends, gathering flowers that her mother had nurtured and brought to the peak of perfection. She led an idyllic life!

Then one day, the unthinkable happened. Hades, the lonely King of the Underworld, kidnapped Persephone and took her to his dark kingdom. There, he raped her, and forced her to marry him. All with the collusion of Zeus, King of the Gods, Persephone’s father, and Demeter’s brother!

Demeter was devastated. Taking a torch in her hand, she searched tirelessly for her lost child in every nook and cranny of the Earth. But nobody could tell her where Persephone had gone. She sank into a grief so profound that she abandoned her care for the world. Crops failed. Animals died. Blasted by famine, drought and winter, people died as well. Their cries for help to Mother Demeter went unanswered.

When Demeter finally discovered that Hades had stolen Persephone, she was outraged and demanded that Zeus force Hades to return her.  Conditions on Earth had become so dire that Zeus had to take action.

He ordered Hades to restore Persephone to her mother. But Hades claimed the unhappy girl had just broken her fast by eating seven seeds of a pomegranate – a symbol of marriage in the ancient world. As his wife, she was obliged to remain with him forever.

Zeus made a canny compromise. Persephone would spend 8 months of every year with her mother on Earth. She would return to the Underworld with her husband for only 4 months – after harvest!

Demeter had to be content with this partial victory. Her delight at her reunion with Persephone was great. Soon, Earth bloomed again. A bumper harvest made thanksgiving celebrations more joyful than ever. When Persephone returned to Hades, winter came back with a vengeance. But the Greeks lived in hope. They knew that when she returned, Demeter’s blessing would be restored. They celebrated that…

I honor the great Goddess of Abundance and Fertility. But I am inspired by her example as Fierce Mother.

What mother has not had the experience of having to go look for their child? Of fighting to retrieve them from some danger? It may begin early with a terrifying, momentary loss of a youngster in a grocery store. As they grow older, and life becomes complex, the losses may become more challenging.

I know mothers who have fought fiercely to extricate a lost child from the grip of an addiction. Others have sought to rescue a beloved child from depression, a painful marriage or loss of a partner, financial losses, or eating disorders. At the moment, I, and my family, are facing a life-threatening illness in a cherished son.

At such times, the model of Demeter, Goddess of Agriculture and Abundance, and Fierce Mother, is good to remember.

Demeter refused to abandon the quest to restore her daughter to Life. Her persistence succeeded. Persephone WAS returned to Earth, though she was not the same carefree child she was before her descent into Underworld.

Both mother and daughter were transformed by their experience of loss. Persephone grew up. Demeter discovered untapped resources of strength as well as abundant provision.

But that is a story for another day…

For now, have a blessed August.

Anne Baird, Designer/Owner of GODDESS CARDS, is a self-taught artist who has been painting and writing since childhood. Her chosen media for her unique line of greeting cards is watercolor, with touches of gouache, ink and colored pencil.

She is launching an E-Goddess Card website soon, where the Goddess on the Go can send Goddess “e-cards”, enriched with music and stories, at the click of a mouse. (A virtual mouse.)

Abundance is the perfect theme for July! Gardens are flourishing. And those of us who are lucky enough to have one, are deeply engaged in their tending and keeping.

In her garden, a woman can be a goddess! Whether she has a few miniature pots of herbs on her kitchen windowsill, a patio pot garden, or a BIG garden, blessed with trees, bushes and lawns to be mowed, she is the Goddess of Abundance. That’s why I chose a garden image to illustrate Dr. Wayne W. Dyer’s “Face of Abundance” from his inspirational book, The Seven Faces of Intention.

This book was important to me. I kept it by my bedside for a long time, and was even lucky enough to attend one of his incredible lectures in my hometown of Vancouver, B.C., last year. The Seven Faces of Intention is now the latest set of cards in my Goddess Card collection. It was created with Dr. Dyer’s permission and encouragement.

Notice that, in the image, the woman isn’t loafing around waiting for a cornucopia of goodies to fall upon her.  She believes in the loving provision of an abundant Universe. She has a vision of the garden she wants. But she also works for it.

Out come her packets of seeds, her bags of dirt, her seedlings, tools and garden gloves.

Out comes her watering can or hose. It’s dirty work, but she loves it. Because the end result of her soul-ful labor is Beauty and Abundance.

She may well pray as she plants her seeds and seedlings, and cares for them. Gardening, for me, is prayer. It’s faith that, so long as you do your part, the soil will flourish and bear fruit.

Do you yearn for abundance? First, believe that it’s possible. Believe that the Universe is abundant beyond imagination. That Spirit wants to provide what you need. Tap into that, and work with it. After all, the first job God ever gave Man (and Woman) was to care for the Garden!

Of course, gardening isn’t the only source of abundance, though it’s one of the loveliest I know. Do you prefer to create abundance in other ways? Fine. Not everyone was born to the shovel. But whatever your garden is, cultivate it. Do the dreaming. Do the work.

Dr. Dyer urges us to have “an abundance mentality.” He is the poster boy of the abundant dreamer. He wasn’t always rich and famous. He grew up under very difficult circumstances, and soon learned how to fend for himself. During times of economic slump, he worked several jobs at once. He never stopped believing that he, in cooperation with Spirit, would create limitless abundance for himself, his family, and those he sought to reach. And he did.

Today, we too face challenging times. If we are to weather the storms that are currently shaking the world, we must adopt an abundance mentality, and an abundance work ethic to back it up.

With a mindset like that, how can we fail?