Thoughts For the Season

I took this image more than a week ago and I think it's got some brilliant red colors to enjoy and mark the important, but often forgotten, point of the whole season of holidays: the return of the sun after the longest night of the year. Unfortunately, my monitor crapped out on me and I've had to temporarily replace it with an ancient Compaq monitor that only has 32 bit color. So, I'm not quite sure if this photo is very red or not. Either way I seem to remember liking this image, so I hope you do too!

I read on The Wild Hunt how some 300 people came to Stonehenge to celebrate the Solstice on the wrong day and I just couldn't believe it. Or, rather, I was incredibly dismayed by it. I know I'm a hardass about celebrating the solstices, equinoxes and cross quarters at the right time (I don't celebrate Samhain on Halloween, for example, but on the actual cross quarter which usually occurs a full week after Halloween) but come on folks! You call yourselves pagans? And you didn't even realize that our holydays are based on astronomical events and thus don't always occur on the same calendar date? You know so little about what it means to be pagan that it never once occurred to you to check the date? I wish I could meet those folks and slap them silly! I guess I wouldn't have to slap them silly since they are already! Okay, stepping off soapbox now.

I stayed up all night on Yule and kept the fireplaces and candles burning all night. I like the idea of making it a tradition; it's a beautiful way to not only recognize the solstice but show respect for the sun. I've read before how keeping candles/lights burning all during the Yule night will help draw the sun back or otherwise help the sun find its way back. I don't think the sun needs our help but I like the idea showing my support. There's also that little fact of it being seriously cold to encourage one to keep fires going!

Here's hoping you and yours stay warm and happy during this season and all the years to come!

What Came First? The Monuments or The Agriculture?

Or, was the Neolithic Revolution, during which agriculture and thus populations exploded, brought about by the need to feed large groups who gathered to build (and later worship and celebrate at) monumental structures? Or was advanced agriculture already taking place which then allowed for the feeding of large groups of builders and later worshipers and celebrants?

This is something that has long puzzled me. It's also been a subject of debate among archaeologists and historians for years. And while this fascinating archaeological dig in Turkey doesn't actually settle the problem it promises of great things to come. For, you see, only about 5% of the entire area has been excavated and it will be many years before everything is uncovered. But what has been uncovered is amazing.

But the location, age and sheer size of Gobekli Tepe have led some to posit a radically different explanation for the change. "The intense cultivation of wild wheat may have first occurred to supply sufficient food to the hunter-gatherers who quarried 7-ton blocks of limestone with flint flakes,"

What is most interesting about the site is that, so far, it looks to have been constructed right smack at the point when the semi-nomads settled into communities. In other words, this site was built by a new breed of men who, unlike everyone before them, began to live in structured communities. This is one of the most important time periods in the history of the human race. Settled communities, brought on by the need to sew, watch over and harvest crops, lead to everything that we think of as civilization: planned cities, organized work forces, writing, mathematics, etc. If not for this radical change the human race might not have even survived!

And, interestingly enough, the sudden change might not have been so sudden and may have taken place for a completely different reason.

For many experts, climate change was behind the transformation. Global temperatures had been warming gradually since the last Ice Age. Between 10,800 and 9,500 b.c., they suddenly plummeted again.

From a pagan perspective I can't help but wonder about the role of early religion within this debate. After all, the ancient monuments weren't just built with simple, pointless partying in mind. Some of them were probably temples dedicated to specific deities and many of them were built to mark solstices, equinoxes and other celestial events. So, what role did that play? Was there a religious revolution which then brought about the agricultural revolution? Did the ancient pagans decide to build big to show veneration for their gods which then brought about the need for more food? After all, if you got several hundred, or even thousands, of people quarrying and transporting huge stones that doesn't leave much time for hunting. If you've got 1000s of man hours devoted to massive earthworks there's not going to be time or energy for the tracking of game.

I guess what it really boils down to is that we may never be certain what brought about the Neolithic Revolution but that, in future decades, the site of Gobekli Tepe in Turkey may contain a lot of revelations. Personally, I think the answer probably lies somewhere in between the various theories. Some people wanted to build big and realized they'd need a lot of food to nourish their workforce while others in another region decided to build big simply because they had plenty of well-fed folks with nothing much to do while the plants grew. I'm not discounting the climate change as catalyst for change theory either. If things got colder it would stand to reason that people might come together to tough it out. After all, communities provide more people to cut and gather firewood. More people crammed into the same building means more body heat. But then, more people means more help with the harvest too. So, who knows?

Monumental Morass

It seems there's a lot of problems with various ancient monuments being either neglected, cut off from the public or being degraded by ugly and poorly planned fencing and temporary buildings and other problems. It was recently reported that many ancient sites in Greece are falling to bits because of neglect. There have also been complaints about various Grecian sites being cut off from tourists or being open only for short days or being closed altogether to visitors due to lack of staff.

Yesterday, the authoritative newspaper Sunday Vima disclosed that the Cycladic isle of Delos - the site of Apollo's mythological sanctuary and one of Greece's most important ancient venues - resembled an "archaeological rubbish dump". Recently, it emerged that many sites, including Delphi, Mycenae and the spectacular Bronze Age settlement of Akrotiri on the popular island of Santorini, were only partially open or permanently closed.

Due to overwhelming criticism, mostly from tourists and tour guides, the Grecian government has made a push to add more staff to various sites and has publicly admitted the disgraceful state of many prominent ancient sites.

Now there's some more controversy brewing about the state of Stonehenge. Specifically, what was supposed to be a temporary visitors center has instead been left for years and is quite unsightly. There is also much to do about proposed roadways and promises the British government hasn't--so far--kept. It's reached the point where, once again, an elder Druid is camping near Stonehenge in protest.

Pendragon, 54, is hoping his protests will encourage the Government to remove the fences around the monument, build a tunnel over the A303 and grass over the A344...A public inquiry was set up in 2004 to look at ways of improving the traffic flow in and around the Stonehenge area. Among the many options that were discussed were a new dual carriageway and a 2.1km bored tunnel.

Seems Pendragon protested similarly in the 90s with success as the site was eventually opened to the public, whereas before it hadn't been.

All of these problems surrounding these ancient temples and sites saddens me and not just as a pagan but as a lover of all things ancient. Ancient sites are the remnants of the roots of our modern society. They hold so much mystery and have so much to teach us. As a pagan I naturally appreciate these places as many of them were worship centers for the ancient pagan and thus have a clear connection to modern pagans. Back in the day the gods were worshiped with multiple daily offerings at these temples, they are holy places, they are sacred. And I applaud Mr. Pendragon for his efforts to improve the state of things over in England.

I guess these problems are just a symptom of our Christianity-drenched society; the old pagan places just aren't very important. I'm cynical enough to imagine that many Abrahamic folks would prefer these ancient sites were bulldozed. I'm still baffled, however, by the British and Grecian governments' letting these important places go to hell; they are, after all, huge draws for tourists. Tourism is vitally important to both countries, and it amazes me that they'd shoot themselves in the foot this way.

P.S. Pompeii is now in a state of emergency due to its sad state.

Healing Blue Stones of Stonehenge

News from England: the blue stones of Stonehenge, which were placed 150 years before the larger, more recognizable stones, were transported 250 miles from Wales most likely because reputedly healing spring waters flowed in the area of their origin. This is fascinating. This theory lends credence to what I've always thought: Stonehenge wasn't (just) a memorial to the dead, it was an active and dynamic site for the living. According to the LA Times article:

Tim Darvill, a professor at the University of Bournemouth, and Geoff Wainwright, president of the Society of Antiquaries of London, have spent the last six years researching Stonehenge and the rocky outcrop Carn Menyn, thought to be the site in the Preseli Hills from which the bluestones were taken.

Darvill and Wainwright, the co-directors of the dig, found the Welsh site to be a center for ceremony and burials, where the springs that flowed below the rocks were regarded by ancients as having medicinal powers.

They hope that by finding evidence to tie the stones from the Preseli Hills to those at Stonehenge, they will have an answer to the age-old question of the site's purpose.

The two men hope to establish a more precise timeline, to within 10 years, for the construction of Stonehenge by using radiocarbon dating to compare samples from the excavation with those taken from the site in Wales.

I find this fascinating! There's even evidence, according to the article, that brain surgery took place there! I can't wait until the results of the radio carbon dating come in. I've always thought of Stonehenge as a center of worship, a ritual circle where the various holydays were celebrated, deities invoked and nature honored. But now it seems it could also have been a center for healing where green witches and shamans of the herbal and midwifery persuasion would perhaps gather and practice their art.

Bona Dea

Around this time of May sacred rites in honor of Bona Dea, the Good Goddess, were celebrated in Rome. The Bona Dea is a goddess of fertility and healing who was especially loved by women and slaves. As the daughter of Faunus she is sometimes called Fauna. She is also sometimes called Fatua, or Fate. Her temple on the Aventine hill included a medicinal herb garden and something of a doctors office as well. Like Diana, or the Greek Artemis, her rites were for women only and even images of male animals were removed from the area of the sacred rites. Not much is known about her rituals. We do know that during her May rites a sow was sacrificed to her and Ceres and that wine, since it was officially off-limits to women, was called milk and drunk by the celebrants. History also tells us that decorations of vines and flowers were used with the exception of the myrtle since one story held that Faunus had beaten his daughter with myrtle branches, perhaps in the course of a purification ritual. Juvenal, the hilarious Roman satirist, claimed that the rites of the Bona Dea were orgiastic and wild but this is not to be taken as literal truth as he often exaggerated to make his point. She is ususally portrayed on a throne with a cornucopia in hand and often appeared on coins. Snakes, as symbols of healing, are sacred to her and consecrated snakes were kept in her temple in Rome.

I am just getting to know the Bona Dea. She is a Great Goddess and I would so love to know more about her ancient rites. I can't find much about her online and am feeling rather stymied. Her close ties to Diana and Ceres means her interests include animals, agriculture as well as virginity and I'm determined to learn more about her. I will seek to learn more of her through deep meditation and further study.

A World of Stonehenges

I thought I'd share this interesting Craig Childs opinion piece regarding new finds at Stonehenge and seeming different versions of the ancient site all over the world, old and modern.

The new discovery, two miles from Stonehenge itself, is an elaborate residential compound now being excavated. It is a site where the builders of Stonehenge may have lived and where pilgrims may have stayed while attending feasts and ceremonies. Fascinating tidbits have been unearthed: a timber version of Stonehenge, evidence of different kinds of occupations in the 4,600-year-old village and a processional "road" leading to the nearby Avon River. These finds add to the picture of an enigmatic Neolithic religion, in which stone-paved roads are aligned with celestial features and great circles frame the rising and setting sun at key times of the year.

These recent discoveries fill out the picture of Stonehenge. I always assumed, as did everyone I guess, that there must be remains of settlements somewhere close by Stonehenge. For all that building to go on there would have to have been people living in permanent homes, similar to the worker settlement near the Giza pyramids in Egypt. That said, the bigger story is the Stonehenge-like structures the world over. There is a Stonehenge-like structure even here in the states.

The Big Horn Medicine Wheel in Wyoming, dating back several hundred years, is a complex celestial calendar, its 28 spokes of aligned stones pointing to risings and settings of the sun and various stars. This medicine wheel, in turn, is similar to the Nonakado Stone Circle of Japan, from the 1st millennium BC, where standing stones mark important, calendrical events on the horizon.

Other Neolithic Stonehenge-like structures can be found in Turkey, the Sahara desert in Egypt and New Mexico from the Chaco culture. All these structures, as well as many modern buildings such as governmental buildings in D.C., were built according to the stars or otherwise incorporated sacred geometry. I find this fascinating to say the least. I don't know a thing about architecture in the practical sense. I just find it amazing that ancient, and many modern, buildings were built to align with the cardinal directions or showcase celestial events like solstices, equinoxes or the rising of certain important stars. And while I don't really care about modern government buildings I would definitely want my fantasy Roman home and temples built according to these sacred alignments.

Us and Them and the Colloseum

Just came across this blog post by Jonathan Jones at the Guardian Unlimited; this was posted in Wren's Nest on witchvox. Jones writes:

The first people to denounce the Roman empire were the ancient Romans themselves - and their language of self-criticism lies behind every modern denigration of what they did. It is a mark of our ignorance that we fail to recognize this, and if you do see it, the very idea of Rome becomes more human.

Because we are no longer familiar with Roman authors, we unknowingly leap on fragments of their rhetoric as fact - so Tacitus becomes a source of caricatured images, rather being seen as the sublime product of Roman civilisation that he is.

Rome was the first society to acknowledge that it failed to live up to its own values. Greeks never seem to have worried that much about the decline of their city states, but in Tacitus you find a culture in mourning for its self-betrayal. Rome is our true mirror.

The above blog post started out with a brief mention of how we moderns consider ancient Romans to have been nothing but a decadent, warlike and scandalous people. He discusses how many people generalize ancient Rome because all they know about it they learned from movies (even Gladiator commits serious historical errors) or the Bible. And I think he's right. The ancient Romans had their problems of course and they often owned up to them. They aren't that different from us. They had jobs and families and gossip and bureaucracy and everything else that comes along with "being civilized". And they had their detractors from within and without the Empire. And I find it laugh-out-loud funny when modern Americans, especially the right, criticizes The Roman Empire for its wars; it's an outrageous example of hypocrisy of the highest order. But I would go a step further. I would also say that those who mouth off about the evils of ancient Rome are the same people who think that zillions of early Christians were killed in the Colloseum and that it was therefore some kind of litmus test for the sanctity and legitimacy of Christianity. We've all heard or read that kind of rhetoric: the early Christians were hounded and murdered en masse by the evil Romans and were/are therefore of the highest holy order. And there simply isn't evidence for that. Were some of the early Christians killed by the Romans? Yes, that's almost certain. But that's as far as it goes. The ancient Romans, for the most part, disliked the Christians but didn't go to any great lengths to eradicate them until the time of Diocletian. There's no historical or archaeology evidence to support the idea that countless Christians were specifically targeted and killed in the Flavian Amphitheatre, the original name for the Colloseum. And it wasn't even considered sacred or otherwise special until Pope Pius V and Fioravante Martinelli popularized the idea in the 16th and 17th centuries. In early Christian times the place of death wasn't even all that important; it was the place of internment that was venerated. More than that, up until the 17th century the Collosseum was used for numerous and varied purposes, including a quarry, a fortress, workshops, housing and only later as a Christian shrine. At one time members of a particular Christian order lived in one section of the structure but for no particular religious reason. And just to be anal, Christians were very likely killed in other places, not just the Colloseum, but also the Circus Flaminius, the Gaianum, the Circus of Hadrian, the Ampitheatreum Castrense and the Stadium of Domitian. What's the point of this rant? Just the same point that Jones expresses: take the time to read more than just one ancient Roman's book before you shoot your mouth off about them. You just might learn something, namely, the mirror with ancient Rome on one side and modern western society on the other.

Vestalia

Today is the Roman women's festival of the first fruits of the year. It is a day sacred to Vesta, goddess of the hearth and fire. Her temple housed the eternal flame which was tied to the fate of Rome itself. In the city of Rome the temple of Vesta was closed after its opening on the day of the Vesta Aperit on 7 June. All of Vesta's temples are round with entrances facing east to signify the connection between Vesta's fire and the Sun, both as creators of life. The days between the 7th and the 15th are sometimes collectively referred to as The Vestalia. Only women were allowed into the temple of Vesta; they would come barefoot and usually make simple offerings of food. Vesta's priestesses, the Vestales, were bound to keep the fire burning and never let it go out. And while they became emancipated from their fathers upon entering the service of Vesta, they were also sworn to chastity for 30 years, hence they were also called Vestal Virgins. The sacred fire of Vesta burned until 391 when Emperor Theodosius banned the public worship of pagan gods.

I'm making a concerted effort to get in touch with the element of fire in the universe and in myself after neglecting it or trying to hide from it for so long. Celebrating this day and honoring Vesta will be good for me as I can almost hear Vesta calling, but I can't perceive her voice clearly. I'll be asking that she teach me to better understand the fire within me and how to not only deal with it in a healthier way but perhaps harness it for positive change. This newfound urge to know the element of fire comes at a time when I know I have to make some serious lifestyle changes for the betterment of my physical, mental and emotional health. I pray that Vesta aids me in this new chapter of my life.

Ancient Temple Tricks

So I was watching another documentary, on The History Channel this time, called "Ancient Discoveries" and the episode was focusing on "Machines of the Gods". And let me tell you, it was mindblowingly fascinating. Turns out that in ancient times folks were drawn to temples not just for the sake of worship but also to see one heck of a show. All the "miracles" you've ever heard about happening in a church have their basis in ancient pagan temple tricks and illusions. Statues that cry tears of blood? Yep, that was invented in ancient times. By manipulating water pressure, air pressure and simple gravity many liquid-based amazing illusions were made real to ancient pagans. They were masters, especially a fella called Heron of Alexandria. There were statues of multiple-breasted goddesses (Cybele for example) that had milk piped into them so the breasts would actually lactate-a lot. There were countless statues and plaques that by clever use of some fancy plumbing produced life-like moans. There were technically simple but quite convincing thunder machines. There were speaking tubes inside statues and figures of deities that enabled priests to "speak" for the gods. There's also evidence that the ancients not only knew about magnetism but were experts at manipulating magnetic objects in order to make a heavy metal chariot fly as Helios, later Apollo, would drive the sun chariot across the sky. Fascinating, fascinating stuff. If you get the chance, see the show or visit the website.

Not only is it just amazing to think of the genius of these ancient illusionists but it further cements my feeling that we should not try too hard to resurrect ancient paganism because there were many aspects of it that were just as deceptive, dishonest and cruel as the dominant modern religions that so many neo-pagans feel the need to lambaste at any given opportunity. I try to make a point of stressing the differences between the old and the new and the afore-mentioned documentary really brings up some important concepts. Obviously, there aren't too many ancient-style pagan temples in my neck of woods, Middle of Nowhere, USA, but I can still wonder about the implications of these ancient forms of "sacred trickery" and I use that term loosely because I'm not sure what else to call it. These ancient devices, while technically brilliant and just plain interesting, were forms of religious fraud. If someone pulled these tricks these days they might land in prison-especially if they were accepting "donations." But in the ancient days they were apparently considered necessary in order to draw the people into the temples for worship and to provide offerings to keep the temples going. One has to understand that in the ancient world temples weren't just places where people went to pray and offer sacrifices and other offerings. They served many functions: town meeting hall, entertainment complex and, most important of all, treasuries. Temples were the beating heart of ancient societies so it stands to reason the controlling priests would want to keep the situation going. What better way to do that than by hiring the best intellectual minds to design devices to thrill, frighten and, therefore, bring in the crowds?