August 28th, 2015

I think I'm going to like my Architecture History class. Parts of it are definitely going to be a challenge, but my professor is very knowledgeable, and he keeps throwing out pieces of mythological information. Take this picture, for instance:

Many of you have probably seen this design before in sculpture or molding. What you may not know (I certainly did not) is that this pattern can be called "egg and dart"; the egg component symbolizes life, and the dagger symbolizes death. The pattern hails from ancient Greece, and specifically belongs to the fertility goddess Artemis of Ephesus. This is not the goddess as the Huntress, but rather as a deity of abundance. Her temple at Ephesus is one of the seven wonders of the world.

To the right is an image of Artemis. My professor actually pulled a reproduction of this statue out of his pocket while he was lecturing. The bulbs on her chest have been interpreted as breasts, eggs, ox testicles, and probably more. The scholarly analysis is that they are gourds, which are a particular symbol of this aspect of Artemis. 

That's what I've got. I just thought you all might appreciate this little tidbit. I also did another video today, if anyone's interested in checking it out.

July 21st, 2014

The last couple of days have been pure insanity, so allow me to catch you up on some of the Pagan things I've been doing.
On Thursday, my family went to a local Botanic Gardens for the afternoon. Besides lots of pretty flowers, I saw some things relevant to this particular blog:

This, if you can't read the sign, is Artemis Silver Sage. Sage is a wonderful herb of purification, and if you were doing a working with the Goddess Artemis or any of her sacred animals, it might be worth the research to find some at a garden center. Besides its purifying qualities, this particular Sage has the added benefit of having leaves that are positively downy with fuzziness.

There was this depiction of Pan on a dry fountain in the English garden.

Outside the English garden, someone had crafted a statue titled "The Guardian" with these massive Quartz crystals set in the center; the whole matrix was longer than my forearm. Whether or not the artist actually has the crystals empowered to act as a Guardian of the garden, I couldn't say. Nevertheless, one could absolutely use crystals around the home for protection as desired.

The three trunks in the center of this picture belong to an Alder tree. I immediately thought of my blog when I saw it, because for some unfathomable reason, my "Celtic Tree Month: Alder" post is still my most popular, with over 5,200 views at this time. Here's a photo of one such tree I can actually claim to have taken!

There was also a big grove of birch trees which I felt had to be included. Birch is sacred to many deities, and is particularly noted in Wicca as being a tree of the Goddess.

On Friday, I went downtown with a friend to see a showing of A Midsummer Night's Dream (it was brilliantly done), and Saturday was spent at the zoo. Yesterday was occupied primarily by church and work, and now, finally, I have a moment to sit an catch up.

As many of my followers are probably aware, I am off to college next month and have been scrambling to get things ready. On Saturday, I found a marvelous little couch at a garage sale for $20 that will be perfect for my dorm - I'm considering it a Goddess-given miracle. Additionally, I was able to get a bunch of books from the library yesterday, so expect posts in the near future regarding the metaphysical subjects I'm now perusing.