Symbols and Memories

And so the goddess sprinkled a sweet liqueur
Over her love's blood, something magical known
only to her, something sacred and mysterious.
And then the miracle occurred: the blood of Attis
stirred like a fountain in a storm of rain,
and from the pool, came forth a flower, crimson
as the young man's blood, as beautiful as he had been,
and as briefly blossoming. The goddess named it
anemone, after the wind, for spring's winds come
and shake its petals off - too soon, too early,
too brief, like joy, like youth, like love.

--Ovid, Metamorphoses

The myth behind the festival is that, faced with the loss of her lover, the goddess turned his blood into a springtime flower so that he would always spring forth and remind her of her love for him.

Symbols are an important part of the human psyche. I'm no different in this... and have felt that maybe I 'lost sight of' so many of the symbols that used to speak too deeper parts of myself. Symbols that always and immediately would speak to me of the Old Ones, the Lord and Lady - Goddess and God.

The obvious ones have always remained, the lunar phases for the Goddess, and the Sun to represent the God. There are the associated animals also, the hare, the stag. Whenever I think of the stag, I always remember the day that Maggie and Dean took me to Woolaton Park in Nottinghamshire - a bag of carrots in hand, intending to feed the semi tame deer that. Red deer are bigger than you might think - especially the bucks. The older bucks are more than a little impressive close on. So there I was with a carrot, a masssive older and dominant stag approaching for the carrot. Butter fingers that I am, I dropped it. The stag thought nothing of bending to pick it up pinioning me against the tree behind me, the tines of his antlers either side of my body. I could feel the power streaming off of him - so no... there is no greater symbol for me than that of the stag as god. And for me the first verse of the Song of Amergin is very evocative:

I am a stag: of seven tines,
I am a flood: across a plain,
I am a wind: on a deep lake,
I am a tear: the Sun lets fall,
I am a hawk: above the cliff,
I am a thorn: beneath the nail,
I am a wonder: among flowers,
I am a wizard: who but I
Sets the cool head aflame with smoke?

But what of the Goddess? For me it always used to be the moon, and the raven... sometimes both of those things together. The raven for me because of my afinity for, and association with the Morrighan. I had a close encounter with a raven once at the Tower of London too - not nearly as impressive or memorable as the one with the stag... but just as special in its own way. They have their wings clipped there - and walking in the garden area where the ravens were and one of them hopped over to me, took hold of the bottom of my long skirt, and started hopping backwards, pulling me with it. I still don't know what it wanted, but I went with it anyway - but there were so many people around that eventually one of the others scared it off from tugging me to follow it, I I will never know...

And now of course I can't stop thinking of Poe's Nevermore...., (though I have to say it's Jeff's remdition of it). Not quite the quotation one might associate with the goddess - but very good none-the-less.

As far as the symbols go, for now I'm waiting for those symbols inside of me me to reawaken, of to find a new form. There are lots of large hooded crows here, and I do find my eyes drawn to them.