3 Maries of the Sea

I saw 3 ships come sailing...

On [five months after] Christmas day in the morning.

something  (else) to listen to while reading...

On May 24-25, Gypsies (and quite a few gaugo too) throng to Camargne, south of Arles, France at the mouth of the river Rhone, to the church of Saintes Maries de la Mer.  It is a pilgrimage to honour Sara, their patron saint.

"Sara la Kali" they call her, Kali meaning gitane (gypsy) and black, but also, given the gypsies' origin in north India, Sara could be an aspect of the Hindu deity Kali.

There are two legends about Sara.  In one, she is an Egyptian maidservant of Mary Salome and Mary Jacobe, mothers of saints James and John and relatives of Mary Magdalene.  Traveling together, they encountered a storm at sea.  It is Sara who guides them by the stars to the distant shore.

In the other legend, the gypsy queen Sara was camping on shore when the boats approached.  The sea was rough, the boats threatened to founder, so Sara threw her dress on the waves and, using it it as a raft, she floated towards and rescued the 3 Maries.

The Gitane have a tendency to adapt to the religions of whatever lands they travel in.  In the old days, once a year they took a statue of Ishtari (aka Astarte) to the sea and immersed it for benediction.  Nowadays that ritual perseveres in the rites and processions for Sara.

Violins and guitars fill the evening air with music, and together with the swirling dancers, give the night a wild beauty.  As the sky darkens, each pilgrim takes a white candle in hand and enters the church of Saintes Marie de la Mer.  Lighting from a central candle, they add their own flame to the white fiery forest growing in the chapel crypt, illuminating the statue of Sara - Saint Sara to the gypsies (although the Catholic Church never canonized her).

There is an all-night vigil, and early the next morning the newly clothed statue of Sara la Kali is carried in procession to the beach, surrounded by an honour guard of men carrying tridents.      photos     &   virtual tour   (I like to play these videos at the same time as the first  song on this blog, interesting audio overlays) Sara is ritually submerged in the sea in the same manner as Ishtar, Astarte, Aphrodite, Durga, Kali - all the Great Goddesses of fecundity that precede her. 

The rest of the day is spent in happy diversions, various games of skill and horsemanship.

Tarot of the week: 6 of wands: a horse and rider in procession; on this day, they are headed to the sea, the laurel wreath representing Sara.  The card means Victory; dare we hope that downtrodden races such as the gitane will rise victorious? Or just another celebration of "dogs having their day"?

The two cards flanking the Magician in the Beltane reading also remind me of this fete in Provence:  2 of wands looking out to sea for the Mary boats (btw, the name Mary, Marie, etc. literally means sea; the word in French and Italian is mar and mare).  The other card, Page of Cups, is sometimes called the Princess of Palace of the Sea, may be the poet of Stevie Nicks' heart? She is a gypsy troubadour, after all.

~ * ~

Let us remember, friends of Diana, that May 24 is the birth of Artemis (naturally, here are more lynx to  a song , and another ).  China celebrates the mugwort festival on this day, which happens to be one of Her sacred plants, an artemisia.   A Roman festival of Diana as goddess of the Wildwood commences now and today is also a Day of the Horae.  

In my younger days, I would at this time every year go swimming by day and dancing around a bonfire  to drums and flutes under the moon and stars at night.  Forse ancora questo anno?  Oh, the wild gypsy nights are calling....

Mercury the Magician

I am the Mercury - light of the morning...

...like some windmill, weave light where it's stormy...

-Jimmie Spheeris, from Isle of View  

 full lyrics      listen (will play the entire song only once)

Mercuralia at the Ides of May celebrates the Greco-Roman Hermes-Mercury and his mother Maia, goddess nymph for whom this month is named.  Serendipitously, the central card in this year's Beltane tarot spread is the one most associated with Hermes-Mercury - The Magician.

The Magician stands like a herm stone in a garden of lily white and rose red, holding aloft the Firebrand, conduit between Heaven and Earth. On the table are symbols of the 4 elements air, fire, water and earth, and serve as keys to their mysteries.  The Magician stands in the centre of these 4 realms, poised to unlock their secrets.

This is card #1 in the tarot, thus linked to the Aces of the four suits, and the Magician hirself is the Ace of aces, the 1st born, the Magical Child.

Wendy Rule's album Zero features several songs inspired by the tarot. Written for the Magician, and for her son, "Child the First" brings to mind an image of Maia crooning to her precocious offspring Hermes-Mercury.  Mother's Day only a few days ago, I was happy to spend it with my own (full grown) Magical Child, Philip, and I dedicate the song to him:

I

Child the First

Listen (a snippet)

Now you're here and now you're strong

With mind of sword and power of wand

Each sense a coin to spend along 

the path that you've been set upon

And now you're here with eyes as true

as sun is gold or ocean blue

And all is bright and all is new,

Magician child, in front of you.

     You drip with my blood (it's an offering),

     You slip thru my water, a softening

     of all that's before me and all that's before you,

     Child the First.

And you are    Ability

and you are    Dexterity

You're pure possibility

      and Magic   

      and Alchemy

And you will be changed,

But changing, change Destiny

And you can do anything, anything,

Everything!

Child the First

I

Speaking of Alchemy - 

The royal couple, as Sol and Luna, stand beside a hill representing the "Philosophers' Stone," out of which flow water and fire.  

Mercurius stands uniting the two worlds - represented by two lions with a single stream flowing from its one mouth 

-from Avalon's Red and White Springs by Nicholas R. Mann and Philippa Glasson
I

The red and white springs of Avalon are akin to the roses and lillies in the Magician's garden.  Mercury presides over the alchemical marriage of opposites, and is also born of it as the divine androgyne.

According to the Pythagorean Tarot

The Magician is the creator of a new cosmos [but] to create a new cosmos (order), the old cosmos must be turned upside down. Thus the Magician Hermes is the Lord of Contradiction. First, he is himself a contradictory figure: trickster yet savior, king of misrule yet obedient to justice, deceiving orator yet honest prophet, illusionist yet revealer of truth, fraudulent conjurer yet genuine mage, thief yet honest trader, diabolical yet angelic, material yet spiritual. [He is even identified with both Jesus Christ and Lucifer as the Morning Star (Mercury)]  Second, he governs contradiction, and shows the way that finds unity in opposition. In particular, he governs the transformation of a bad situation into a good outcome. Remember that on the day of his birth Hermes stole Apollo's cattle, tricked him and lied about it ["who,  me? I was only born yesterday"], yet these crimes eventuated in Apollo receiving the lyre [made from a tortoise shell by the infant Hermes] and becoming the patron of the arts, and in Hermes becoming the patron of divination and shepherds. Hermes teaches us that the worst evils can be transformed to good. He provokes us into new insights. 

Arianna Huffington, author of Gods of Greece, would agree.  Hermes is her favourite Greek God and she even brings him into her political discussions on the Huffington Post, which she co-founded and is editor in chief:

Winged messenger in perpetual motion, as an old man, or a fixed stone, Hermes embodies both action and serendipity, and that which never changes. He is the guide of our voyage and the guardian-spirit of our adventure.

Whenever things seem fixed, rigid, "stuck," Hermes introduces fluidity, motion, new beginnings. He is the primordial divine child -- the child who, if we're lucky, we never outgrow. Hermes' world is a magical world full of signs and significance. He was the god who first gave me, as a child, a sense of the miraculous all around me. His spirit is fluid, trusting, open. Introducing the element of the unexpected into our lives is one of the means he uses to spur us out of our complacency, to break through the inertia and confinement of habit and convention.

Hermes clearly represents a very important key to fearlessness: the freedom of not having to be in control all the time, of not always being the one who has to make things happen. His dual nature also helps us accept life's paradoxes - that the only constant is change. Which is why he is the god of connections, bridging realms and dissolving frontiers...full article here 
Some more Tarot Magicians:

Spiral                                    Renaissance                                   Mythic 

Alchemical

I

Androgynous Mercury the Magician is pictured as female in some decks:

Romani                               Gendron

Helston Furry - Robin Hood games

Robin Hood and Little John

They both are gone to Fair-O,

And we shall to the merry Greenwood

To see what they do there-O,

And for to chase - O,

To chase the buck and doe.

With Hal-and-Tow,

Jolly rumble, O.

-"Furry Song" and Morris Dance, Cornwall 

/

The 16th century "Robin Hood games" were popular features in British Mayfests.  One of the oldest surviving spring festival in the world just might be the Furry Dance in Helston, Cornwall on the 8th of May.  The "fur" in Furry doesn't seem to have much to do with animal skins at this warm time of year; perhaps they'd be more appropriately titled "leafy" or "flowery" for the ubiquitous garlands and foliate masks and floral crowns bedecking the people, towns and wells of Merry Old England in springtime.

~ * ~

"Furry" is explained as deriving from Flora, the Roman goddess of blossoms; her Floralia celebration spans late April through early May.  More likely, it comes from the old Cornish word fer, which in turn comes from the Roman feria; both words mean holy day, festival, fair. 

~ * ~

Revelers rise very early on the 8th of May for dawn rituals of gathering green branches and early morning dancing, wearing lillies of the valley.   Then come the processions and plays, i.e. the "games," featuring Helston's patron saint Michael, whose feast day in Helston is today (late September in most places), and St. George, patron saint of England.  The modern Furry Dance has been reduced to a crowded touristy affair, but in the old days a key component was the "Robin Hood games".  The Furry Dance is said to be directly linked to earlier pagan rites celebrating Robin Hood and Herne the Hunter (aka Cernunnos).

~ * ~

Robin Hood is Lord of the Greenwood,

the wild and untamable, yet gentle, archetype of the divine archer, whose aim is always true.  As stag god of the forest, he is considered one and the same as, or alternately the son of, Herne the Hunter.  Certainly Robin Hood is a folk hero, representing freedom and defiance of authority, a champion of the poor and the dispossessed (maybe that's why I like him so much).

~ * ~

Marion, his consort, is Queen of the May, the White Lady of the woodland who could shapeshift into a deer, running away from the confinements of civilization to join her lover in Sherwood Forest.

The legend of Robin Hood is one of my most favourites, second only to the (much more obscure) legends of Elen.  A new theatrical version is coming to the cinema next week, and I can hardly wait.  

Surpassing all Robin Hood films to date is hands down the HTV series Robin of Sherwood , enhanced by Clannad's haunting soundtrack, Legend.  It took a long time, but they are finally available on DVD, and many clips are also featured on youtube:

- Nothing is Forgotten makes music video montages of Clannad's music set to episode clips from the series

- There are several downloaded clips from the series by Ravindraa, but the film quality is poor. The best downloaded clip I could find on youtube is here.  Even that one is a little fuzzy (might be my computer). Happily the DVD sets are available in the library :-)

~ * ~

Like other May Day festivities (May Day in England is celebrated on the 8th and 13th as well as the 1st) the Helston Furry Dance has associations with water.  Anyone caught working on this holiday was taken to the river and ordered to leap across it (and consequently get drenched) or pay a troll fee.  

Or one could just simply stand on a bridge and play Pooh Stix .

Beltane tarot reading: Death reversed - 2 Wands - Magician - Page of Cups - 10 Wands reversed

I'm not going to interpret them now, but the 2 Wands from the Sacred Circle deck (chalk hill figure of the Long Man of Wilmington) sort of reminds me of Little John

It's May! and She opens the Ways

For the May Day is the Great Day

Sung along the Old Straight Track

And those who ancient lines that Ley

Will heed this song that calls them back

-Jethro Tull  ~Cup of Wonder~

listen         annotated lyrics 
album Songs From the Wood 

~ 

My matron goddess archetype, Elen, is linked to Beltane and is mistress of travel and earth's ley lines.  Reader, please forgive my self indulgence here.  What follows are gleanings from sites about her and will be of most interest to those who share my names (actually Helen, but I go by h~elen, ~elen~, elen~a, etc) or are interested in her deep connection with the mysteries alluded to in the song "Cup of Wonder".

~

Elen is an elemental spirit who rules over the energies of nature.  She reveals herself in both her solar fire aspect as Helen of Troy and the watery and lunar Elen, traversing moonlit forests and sea, guardian of sailors. As a British Venus, Goddess of Gardens, she is Flower Bride of Beltane.  Welsh and Irish revered Elen as a star goddess.  Alex Langstone in his book St Bega and the Sacred Ring equates Elen to the Irish St Bega, and a star in the constellation Lyra, a beacon of light to those who seek the ancient wisdoms.  In "names for your baby" books the name Helen means "light".

~

~In modern...metaphor we might say Helen represented... the ‘Astral Light’, both as lifeforce and astral energies, as well as the leys and waters which transmitted them... More specifically she was also a symbol of the serpentine path of the more subtle ‘Earth energy’, as it weaved its way across the landscape vitalising the environment...~ source: Dionysian Underground 

~

~As the Green Lady, (as my colleague Chesca Potter and myself named her) she peeps out between the trees in forests and woods... At her Holy wells... she is guardian of the underground pathways that carry the sacred waters. As ‘Elen of the Ways’... she is the guardian of the ancient track ways, the Leys, the kundalini currents in nature, and as the Horned Goddess, she leads us to the first track ways, the migratory tracks of the reindeer~ source Mirror of Isis 

~

As St. Helena, she found the ‘true cross’ on one of her many ‘pilgrimages’, just as the goddess Elen always returned to her ‘sacred tree’ after her many ‘travels’ along the ‘ways’. Europe’s most central ley line the ‘St Michael and Mary’ line passes  out of  Palestine through Rhodes, on through Greece and Italy, on through both St Michael’s Mounts (Brittany & Cornwall) and across Cornwall, with its own St Helen tradition, and Ireland. Here she leads us to the lost Shamanism of the isles of Britain,  across Scandinavia, Russia, Iran, India, Mongolia, China, Siberia, across the Bering Straights into the Americas...

~

The Lady gets around!

~

The Brits call her "(H)elen of the Roads".  When the Romans arrived in Britain, they, under the guidance of the Roman Empress, St. Helena, built their own roads on top of the old straight tracks of the leys that they found there.  Roman roads in Britain are called Sarn (H)elen, and these were remarkably straight on - the "Old Straight Track" indeed.

~

~The Celts associated straight paths with magic and the Otherworld, the paths that fairies took from one mound to another, the straight path of a magical spell, and the spirit flight of the shaman. It is significant that Elen is first beheld in a dream, then goes on to build a network of magical roads across Britain. Some associate these with ley lines, the ancient trackways that are said to join together ancient sites, such as tumuli, burial mounds, hillforts, stone circles and so on. It is possible that Elen is the guardian of these, or perhaps she is the guardian of the paths of dreams and visions... Some say that the tracks we call ley lines are spirit paths... Certainly, many people have experienced strange things on the Sarn Elen...~ source Anne Franklin 

~

The Welsh Saint day of Elen of the Hosts is May 22nd, connecting her to Spring, around the time of Beltane. Saint Helena's (Romano-British) feast day is August 18.  A wise woman told me that the actual feast day of Elena is May 2 (Happy Birthday, Gigi! ;) and I too was born on the 2nd day of another month, but so many on my mom's side of the family were born or died on the 22nd day, incl. her (b.Aug 22, d. Dec 22) My mom's name was also Helen, my grandmothers' too.  I'm the latest in a long lineage of Helens.  This used to distress me (who wants to be a Jr.?) but now of course I'm honoured to share Her name:-)

~

~During ancient times, the Dragon power that flowed through the leys was thought to build up in the Spring, and wane in the Fall, which led to the festival or harvest days of the Celts. These rites, representing fertility, were observed at Beltane, or the beginning of Summer, and again at the ending of fall or Samhain, at which a ritual involved killing the Dragon...~  source Bella Online 

~

With the advent of Beltane, around the 1st of May, the spirit of the trackways opens the season of travel.  Whether your paths be physical, mental, spiritual or astral, may She light your way.

Elen is Guardian of All Who Journey 

Tarot of the Week: Queen of Wands 

Elen in her fiery solar aspect!

Vala tarot (dragon leys at her feet)       Rider tarot empress of solar fire

I know a woman who embodies the Queen of Wands (Leo fire sign) and Elen as well has similarities to her own matron deity, Diana; also she evokes Elen as she goes on her frequent hikes and journeys, backpacking through Europe.  Shaundell is someone I admire, feel a kinship with, and is an inspiring influence in my life. 

Some descriptions of the Queen of Wands:

...a lady with an independent and passionate nature... freedom-loving, lively, often creatively gifted... powerful force for good... prefers the countryside to the town and appreciates the diversity of nature (Jonathan Dee's interpretation of the Italian Tarots) 

...sunny disposition, accomplished, graceful and gracious, as fresh as a spring morning... patroness or adept of the fine arts and sciences... (Renaissance Tarot) 

...honourable... exuberant about everything she does... passionate about things she believes in... temperamental behaviour infuriates even those closest to her... quirky, free spirit... staunch loyal friend... waterfire, heart and soul (notes jotted down from mixed sources)

...generous spirit, burning passions and intense desires... Behaves spontaneously and has a temper.... inspires others... Love of happiness (Mary Greer)

Mary Greer's Tarot for Yourself features a poem about her- Sense and Sensuality: The Queen of Wands 

Animal Tarot by Paula Gibby

At Gigi's birthday party on Walpurgis night, Laurie showed us her fanciful new tarot deck where all the wands are volpe - foxes, vixens.  Here's the Queen of Wands:

Shadowscapes Tarot  

Beltane Blessings of good cheer to you - yes, I do mean You!