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Post by Phalon on Mar 11, 2005 0:55:34 GMT -6
Chocolate eggs, I hope.
Here's the Mything P post...a bit of different information than you found, but during my vast explorations performing the two minute drills, I've come to learn there are at least 234 versions for each deity.
phalon1 Registered Member Posts: 1121 (4/18/03 9:05 pm) Fertile Answers
A bit of a departure from the gods of Greek mythology discussed here…. in honour of the holiday weekend.
Easter gets its name from the Anglo Saxon Goddess of Dawn, Eoster. Her holiday is celebrated near the Spring Equinox, and because spring, in ancient times, was usually the start of the new year, and the dawn of a rebirth in vegetation, she is also a spring goddess.
Eoster had the ability to change into a hare, for a hare is the most fertile of animals, and fertility symbols were sacred to her.
In spring, the wild birds of the forest lay their colorful eggs and people would “hunt” for them, bringing them back in nest-like baskets as an offering to the goddess, Eoster.
And so, I leave you with a little Eoster song to celebrate the dawn of the holiday …
This is the dawning of the eggs of a-hare-ius, eggs of a-hare-ius. A-HARE-ius. A-Hare-I-us….
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prmystic
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Post by prmystic on Mar 11, 2005 23:21:05 GMT -6
From the Witches Spell A Day almanac 2005
The spring equinox, called Ostara by many is a day of perfect balance between night and day, darkness and light, slumber and awakening.
Many craft traditions, covens and solitaries have devised their own rituals for awakening Mother Earht at this time. Many of these can be traced back to England. One common practice is to walk through a natural area, tap the earth 3 times with a staff or wand, and make a joyyful noise to welcome the Goddess's return. This ritual is performed three times in keeping with the sacred number of many of the Pagan sects from western European countries. Now is not only a good time to awaken Mother Earth, but also to awaken ourselves. We should ask: Are we only going through the motions now? or are we reawaking our spiritual selves, and seeing anew all the magical possibilities of spring? To awaken your own body, mind, and soul to spring's rebirth, give back to Mother Earth some of the things we've taken from Her. Plant a tree, herb garden or flowers. Feed Her animals and birds. As you do any of these things consecrate your offering bvy saying:
Mother Earth Goddess we walk upon May my gifts be of value Even after I'm gone
Today, while I'm here, May my offering be, An act of love for You from me.
Blessings,
mystic
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Post by Phalon on Mar 11, 2005 23:29:27 GMT -6
A beautiful gesture.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Mar 11, 2005 23:32:01 GMT -6
Nice Mystic....
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prmystic
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Post by prmystic on Mar 12, 2005 11:16:12 GMT -6
Thanks! Actually I do this at Imbolc, the 2nd of February before there's more than the slightest signs of the Spring just beginning to rise through the ground beneath us.
However, luckily enough it is beautiful to do at any time, and is not so much of waking up the ground but of waking up the ground to you, and your appreciation of it.
It's a good thing to do on land that you are intending to plant as your garden for the year. It's great to celebrate the garden to come!
I use a staff that has a ribbon attached to the top and there's a bell on that ribbon. It makes a great cheerful sound.
And when you get into turning over the earth, adding a little compost, think of it as gifting that bit of Earth that you have blessed and welcomed. It's such a happy feeling.
Happy gardening!
mystic
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Post by marysgurl1 on Mar 14, 2005 7:54:40 GMT -6
We finally rented PRACTICAL MAGIC this weekend. First time either of us have ever seen it. What a delightful movie & most definitely my fav Sandra Bullock ever. Is this a somewhat accurate & acceptable telling of the wicca teachings & philosophies?
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prmystic
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Post by prmystic on Mar 14, 2005 10:21:44 GMT -6
I do feed my neices chocolate cake or brownies for breakfast when they come over. mystic
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Mar 18, 2005 1:01:14 GMT -6
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Post by Joxcenia on Mar 18, 2005 1:22:15 GMT -6
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on May 3, 2005 14:48:08 GMT -6
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on May 30, 2005 15:06:04 GMT -6
Can't remember if I posted this before....too lazy to look....
Buttprints in the Sand One night I had a wondrous dream, One set of footprints there was seen, The footprints of the Goddess they were, But mine were not along the shore. But then some stranger prints appeared, and I asked Her, "What have we here? These prints are large and round and neat, But much too big to be from feet." "My child," She said in somber tones, "For miles I carried you alone. I challenged you to walk in faith, But you refused and made me wait." "You would not learn, you would not grow, The walk of faith, you would not know, So I got tired, I got fed up, And there I dropped you on your butt. "Because in life, there comes a time, When one must fight, and one must climb, When one must rise and take a stand, Or leave their butt prints in the sand."
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on May 30, 2005 15:07:10 GMT -6
Almost time.....
July 31st Lughnasadh / Lammas
Lughnasadh means the funeral games of Lugh (pronounced Loo), referring to Lugh, the Irish sun god. However, the funeral is not his own, but the funeral games he hosts in honor of his foster-mother Tailte. For that reason, the traditional Tailtean craft fairs and Tailtean marriages (which last for a year and a day) are celebrated at this time.
This day originally coincided with the first reapings of the harvest. It was known as the time when the plants of spring wither and drop their fruits or seeds for our use as well as to ensure future crops.
As autumn begins, the Sun God enters his old age, but is not yet dead. The God symbolically loses some of his strength as the Sun rises farther in the South each day and the nights grow longer.
The Christian religion adopted this theme and called it 'Lammas ', meaning 'loaf-mass ', a time when newly baked loaves of bread are placed on the altar. An alternative date around August 5 (Old Lammas), when the sun reaches 15 degrees Leo, is sometimes employed by Covens.
Traditional Foods: Apples, Grains, Breads and Berries.
Herbs and Flowers: All Grains, Grapes, Heather, Blackberries, Sloe, Crab Apples, Pears.
Incense: Aloes, Rose, Sandalwood.
Sacred Gemstone: Carnelian.
Special Activities: As summer passes, many Pagans celebrate this time to remember its warmth and bounty in a celebrated feast shared with family or Coven members. Save and plant the seeds from the fruits consumed during the feast or ritual. If they sprout, grow the plant or tree with love and as a symbol of your connection with the Lord and Lady. Walk through the fields and orchards or spend time along springs, creeks, rivers, ponds and lakes reflecting on the bounty and love of the Lord and Lady.
Blessed Be!
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Post by Grrlpower on Jun 6, 2005 21:48:03 GMT -6
oh the things you learn if you just take the time to read!
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 4, 2005 20:03:36 GMT -6
Moon names time again... July Month of the Ripe Corn Moon - Guyequoni First foods or the new planting and the roasting ears of corn are ready. Towns begin the cycle festivals because field plants begin to produce. Dances and celebrations of thanks to the Earth Mother . In the old times this was the traditional time of the "Green Corn Dance" or festival. A common reference of this moon is also the "first roasting of ears" or the "sweet corn-moon". This is the customary time for commencement of the Stick Ball games are commonly held starting with this moon. Full moon this month....July, 21
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 4, 2005 20:05:08 GMT -6
I feel a joke about sticks and balls coming....Phalon?
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 28, 2005 10:41:32 GMT -6
The next Holiday....coming soon.
Lammas August 1st Other Names:Lughnasadh As the first of the three harvest festivals, much of the symbolism for Lammas revolves around grains and bread. Sacrifices were common, though mostly symbolic, in order to ensure the continued success of the harvest. Traditions: Bread baking, making corn dollies Correspondences: corn, sandalwood, heather
Sometimes I like to bake a "Bird Seed" loaf and place it in the tree in front of the house. Just a little treat for the feathered neighbors...lol
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Jul 28, 2005 10:48:43 GMT -6
Ok Phalon...I'm skipping the A's and moving into the B's. My favorite......lol
Belladonna:
Scientific and medicinal info: Belladonna is extremely poisonous and should not be used internally under any circumstances. It causes hallucinations and eventually death. Its a bushy plant that loves the shade, and is native all over Europe though it is also cultivated in North America. All parts of the plant are poisonous (leaves, roots, berries) and should not even be touched. It's considered a narcotic and a sedative, and the active compound is Atropine.
Also Known As:: Atropa belladonna
Common names: Banewort, deadly nightshade, Devil's herb, divale, dwale, great morel, witch berries Magickal Properties Using belladonna in rituals Belladonna is one of the ingredients in the infamous flying ointment of yore. If it was ever used, it wasn't on account of its gravity-defying qualities. The hallucinations were likely part of an astral travel ritual, which is what most scholars today feel was the real purpose of flying ointment. I don't recommend trying belladonna in any ointments. In modern days, belladonna is not often used in rituals at all because of it's toxic nature. When it is, the purpose is usually astral travel but NOT ingested. Using it in a charm bag may be suitable, and if you were to burn it as incense, it should not be in an enclosed space. The latin name (Atropa) comes from the name of the Greek Fate who cut the thread of life, due to its deadly potency. It is also related to the Roman war Goddess Bellona. Warriors used belladonna in rituals before battle to invoke her battle frenzy. She was sometimes identified as the wife of Mars, but also sometimes as his sister. The herb is also sacred to Hecate.
Other properties Planet: Mars, Saturn Element: Water Deity: Bellona, Hecate
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Post by Phalon on Aug 16, 2005 0:38:38 GMT -6
Deadly Nightshade...I've been seeing this plant all over the trails when roller-skiing, Scrappy, and have been thinking about your last post in this thread.
Nightshade is very common - it's all over the place. Three different kinds here that I'm aware of. Climbing Nightshade, (or bittersweet nightshade), with its tiny deep purple flowers with yellow beaks, and red berries; poisonous, but not fatal. Horsenettle: a prickly nightshade with white flowers and tiny thorns.
And Deadly Nightshade, (Eastern black nightshade, or poison berry), with white flowers and black berries. Eating the berries while green, (containing the same poison found in green tomatoes), can cause paralysis or death.
This is the plant I thought you were writing about. It is not. I should know better - we run into this all the time at work: people using common names instead of botanical names, and that is what I was doing with the nightshade.
The plant I had always known as Deadly Nightshade is Solanum ptycanthum. The Deadly Nightshade you were describing is Atropa belladonna.
Most important when using plants or herbs of any kind is to go by the botanical name as opposed to the common name. Some plants have up to 50 common names, and often they overlap: some plants having the same common name as many others. Just a word of caution I thought I'd throw in here.
On a kind of interesting side note: The Solanum family; or the Nightshade family includes eggplant, tomatoes and potatoes. And it is because of this relationship to Deadly Nightshade, (a native of Europe), that tomatoes and some varieties of potatoes, (natives of the Americas), were regarded with such suspicion when first introduced into Europe - especially in England, where the "Virgina Potato" was called "tuberous nightshade", and the tomato had such names as "love apple", "stinking golden apple", and "wolf's peach".
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Aug 16, 2005 6:39:30 GMT -6
Wow...thanks Madam P for the info.
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 16, 2005 13:57:13 GMT -6
Green tomatoes contain poison? I eat green fried tomatoes quite often... I've never gotten sick from them... or is it if you eat them raw they are poisonous? I know Polk is poisonous, but can be eaten if cooked right. Mom cooks Polk all the time, but she drains off the first pan of water because it contains the poisons that were cooked out of the Polk. I've also heard you aren't suppose to eat potatoes that still have some green on them because they're poisonous... didn't know if it was true or myth though.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 16, 2005 17:05:20 GMT -6
All members of the Solanum genus are nightshades, (including tomatoes and potatoes, but not Pokeweed), and contain the poison, solanine.
Mom always cooked her fried tomotoes after they turned just a little pink. I'm not sure if it was because she'd heard green tomotoes were poisonous or not. I never ate them; not really caring for the taste. I've also heard that green potatoes were poisonous...again, I'm not sure if it is true, or just a myth.
They both contain solanine, but perhaps it is in a lesser concentrate than in deadly nightshade. It is a fact that some animals, particularly rabbits, are immune to the poison, and eat deadly nightshade. There have been cases of humans eating rabbits who have died due to this.
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 16, 2005 20:55:32 GMT -6
No pink on the ones we cook and eat... they're as green as can be. I suppose if it killed anyone, it wouldn't have been passed on down to us.
I've never heard of anyone dieing after eating rabbit around here... but then who would even think of that as the cause.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 17, 2005 0:29:41 GMT -6
One more thing on this potato/tomato thing. This; ironic, since we were just discussing it; I read in a book this evening: "During Pizzarro's conquest of Peru the Spanish army starved rather than eat potatoes. The flowers look like those of deadly nightshade."
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 17, 2005 0:43:13 GMT -6
I googled 'green potatoes' & 'green tomatoes' and 'poisonous' and there were a lot of pages on keeping potatoes in the dark because sunlight is what made them green and poisonous. Didn't search that deep, but didn't find anything on green tomatoes being poisonous.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 17, 2005 5:05:17 GMT -6
Now look what you made me do, Joxie...had to conduct the two-minute drill just to find the answer, and I am so out of practice. This is what I found using "Solanine in Tomatoes" for the drill; checking five web-sites. Too lazy though, (or it's too early in the morning), to put the compiled information into my own words. Dang, I'm getting bad.
"Solanine is a substance found in nightshade plants, including tomatoes, white potatoes, all peppers (except black pepper), and eggplant. In theory, if it is not destroyed in the intestine, solanine could be toxic."
"...in northern Europe, tomato plants remained purely decorative, and they were rarely seen in Britain at all in the sixteenth century. There was indeed a belief that the plant was poisonous, due in part to its resemblance to belladonna and deadly nightshade. As a member of the nightshade family, the tomato plant's roots and leaves contain the neurotoxin solanine, and thus are indeed poisonous. This may explain the northern Europeans' reluctance to use its fruit, as well as the lack of enthusiasm on the part of the English to experiment with it."
I knew the leaves were poisonous.
"Originally from Peru, Europeans took a long time to like tomatoes. Even though the Aztecs taught the conquering Spaniards different ways to prepare them, people were convinced that they were poisonous. They weren't completely off the mark, though, for tomatoes contain solanine, a toxin which causes people to become ill. Eventually, Italians began experimenting with it and discovered that, when cooked, tomatoes were harmless and delicious. It also came to be known as an aphrodisiac."
And lastly, the reason why eating tomotoes does not cause people to become sick, (although I did find during the drill that there are some diseases that inhibit the breakdown of solanine in the body, and those people who have the diseases should avoid tomatoes and potatoes).
"The concentration of solanine in tomatoes was less than 0.05 mg..."
"In large quantities, solanine poisoning can cause death. One study suggests that doses of 2 to 5 mg per kilogram of body weight can cause toxic symptoms, and doses of 3 to 6 mg per kilogram of body weight can be fatal."
So I'm thinking you'd have to eat a helluva lot of fried tomatoes for them to become poisonous.
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Post by Joxcenia on Aug 17, 2005 14:28:58 GMT -6
I found a website that mentioned the green you sometimes see on potato chips, and that it was harmless in small doses... you'd have to eat 4 pounds of green potatoes in order for the poison to take effect.
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Post by Phalon on Aug 19, 2005 23:28:53 GMT -6
I'm not sure if this plant is used at all in Wiccan rituals, but it is my favorite this time of year. It has a bad reputation; undeservedly so, but was once used extensively for both medicinal and practical purposes. I can't think of another place to stick up for it, so I'll just stick it in here.
Goldenrod. What a bum rap it has gotten for over more than fifty years, being said to be the culprit of hay-fever. A myth, that is. Goldenrod's pollen is not airborne - it is pollinated by insects. It is strictly ragweed, that blooms at the same time and with its wind-blown pollen, that is the cause of all that sneezing, watery eyes and sinus pressure.
This bad reputation was not always so: Goldenrod has been used medicinally since the time of the Crusades. It was known as an herb to treat all wounds, and its botanical name, Solidago comes from the Latin word solidare, meaning to join or make whole, because of its ability to heal.
The Native Americans and early pioneers used it extensively to treat convulsions, hemorrhages, back and chest pain; for sore throats, cramps, as a poultice for boils, to treat fevers, ulcers and burns....(let me take a breath)...for warm compresses on sprains, to relieve the bites of poisonous snakes and bee stings. It was said that if a handful of flowers were steeped in water and a person washed their hands in it, he could immerse his hands in boiling water and not be burned.
The Meskawaki Indians said that a when a child does not learn to talk or laugh, the medicine man must secure a bone of an animal that died when the child was born, cook it together with goldenrod, and wash the baby with the liquid. This ensures the child will mature with his faculties intact.
The early Americans settlers made tea from it when Chinese tea was scarce.
Most species are native only to the Americas, and once it was imported to England, it was held in such high esteem there, that the price it brought on the market was so exorbitant that only the wealthy could afford it.
It was even said to "fasten teeth that are loose in the gums".
Used like a divining rod, it points to hidden springs and treasures of gold, and in the Language of Flowers, to receive a bouquet of goldenrod means someone is wishing you treasure and good fortune.
It makes one of the best natural yellow dyes available.
Goldenrod is still used today to reduce inflammation, as an expectorant, and to improve digestion and promote healing.
All this and it makes a wonderful cut flower, lasting for weeks in a vase. I've got a huge bouquet of it on my front porch, mixed with Queen Anne's Lace. Very pretty. And yes, I have it in my garden; planted there on purpose, and I actually bought a cultivated variety. I don't feel so bad about spending money for a plant I adore that most consider a weed; especially after touring a very formally laid out garden earlier this week that has appeared in many gardening magazines and seeing nearly an entire bed mixed with goldenrod. It truly is a beautiful plant.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Aug 20, 2005 0:12:47 GMT -6
Would you believe I don't have this one in my data base....whipping out the books tomorrow.
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Post by Scrappy Amazon on Sept 25, 2005 12:22:21 GMT -6
Ok...still looking for goldenrod......and fall post coming soon! My favorite!
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prmystic
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Post by prmystic on Sept 26, 2005 17:04:06 GMT -6
Helloooooo!
Just thought I'd check in. Hope everyone had a lovely Mabon!
I'm stranded in a strange city far from garden and family, but I did cook up a lovely small feast. I got acorn squash and stuffed it with olive oil, rosemary, pomegranate seeds and pieces of apple. Persephone would have been delighted.
Hope all is well with you.
Bright blessings.
mystic
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