La Morena is Hecate?

 Tire la Catherine - Canadian tradition of making pulled taffy on Saint Catherine’s day, 25 November...

La Morena - Spanish phrase for a dark haired girl, used in lots of odd contexts...

Ekaterina - Russian given name, possibly derived from Hecate...

______ - Spanish name for the queen of the dead

______ - a famous piece of music from Mozart’s Magic Flute, the song of the queen of the night

Are these items related to a pagan goddess?

How exactly does animism work?  What animists believe?

Ogun at Santiago de Compostella

 How many people know that Saint James is Ogun?  Yesterday I was looking at pictures of the Camino de Santiago, and I found a patch to put on your clothing with the symbol of Saint James.  It’s a red cross in the shape of a sword, and that was my last clue.  I’m sure now.  I have a description of Saint James as Ogun the warrior in the book, Govenors of the Dew.  It’s a novel, a classic from Haiti, where the people practice a kind of double faith.  Christian saints are overlaid with African deities.

I can not remember whether I wrote about this before.  Maybe I’m getting repetitive?

So, I am saying that medieval pilgrims were practicing double faith.  When they travelled to Santiago de Compostella, they were continuing their pagan traditions - traditions that were in place long before Christianity began.

Zalktis - I am not a hater

The Anti-Defamation League has a list of symbols used in hate speech.  Unfortunately, Zalktis is on this list.  I should not have been surprised.  But I was very upset and saddened.  I am also disappointed by those who make horror movies based on pagan themes.  I remind myself that animism has been around for thousands of years so it was a belief system held by both good people and bad... rather like Islam and Christianity.  Personally I refuse hate.

So, the Anti-Defamation League lists Zalktis as “wolf’s angel”, also known as “double haken” (double hook).  They do not seem to know it’s real name or meaning - Zalktis is the snake, typically the good snake who inspires awe but not fear.  My friend [P.R.W.] says that pagans did not worship snakes, any more than Christians worshiped bread and wine.  These things were special, holy, a link to God...

I have no information why it was called wolf’s angel.  Could it be that as pychopomp, the snake was more dangerous than the wolf?  I suspect that they spent a lot of time thinking about the greatest beast in the forest.  I need to explain the lion images in heraldry.  And what if there had been some belief that as a snake may take away life, it may also give life?  This is a very vague guess, but some of the old pictures of dragons focus on the dragon’s mouth - looks like the gate of Mara/ gate between life and death...

...

Ducks and Fruit Baskets

hoping to develop a whole theory, a grand unified theory about European pagans.

Today, I learned that several pagan symbols are listed as hateful white supremacist symbols.  I knew that I was researching something awfully close to the swastika.  But now I know that it’s worse than I thought.  Maybe I can come up with money for a donation to the anti-defamation league.  I’m glad they are keeping track of hate symbols.

My first thought was that the symbols are still sacred.  But I could just give up using the symbols - I don’t want to be anywhere near the haters.  Maybe that first thought was me crossing over from researcher to believer.  No, maybe not.

One time I said, “folk dancing is pagan.” on a public discussion group.  One person was really shocked.  I suspect that people who consider themselves pagan today have no idea - lots of things are left out of Wicca.  If they only knew how many ducks and fruit baskets there are in pagan art!

I’m not too good at expressing myself here.  But what I am saying is that, I think there is a set of ideas that tie together pretty much everything European.  All the things that did not previously make sense...  mythical beasts, fruit baskets, wind mills, sacred islands, snakes, and the Blessed Virgin Mary, circus and carnival, and the Baroque & Rococco styles...  Muletta, mermaids, what a jumble, what a mess!

Extant

extant

I was reading the book, The Lore and Language of Children.  I noticed a section about the winter solstice tradition of “Burying the Wren.”  - The wren, the wren, though he be small, his family is great...

I picked up the idea that the Otherside (afterlife) is a mirror world, everything is reversed.  I think I saw that recently on Magpie’s Facebook page: “ the place from where it is impossible to return in the same form.”

Suppose, they were expecting the wren to come back?  From the smallest bird dying, to the greatest bird being reborn?  The greatest bird might be the Firebird.  I will go take a closer look at the Firebird stories.  -And the Firebird in Russian Embroideries, wood carvings, paintings...

I was thinking about the word, extant.  I’m looking at thousands of photos of folk art on Pinterest.  I’m hoping to figure out what people believed by looking at their art.  This is my theme: Pagans Hidden in Plain Sight.  If we can assume that many of the old pieces of folk art were made with a pagan mindset - I notice, I said assume here.  Everything I’m doing seems to hang on that assumption.  Well, if that’s so, then we can see folkart as a source for recreating the pagan worldview.

Because I’m not interested in esoteric stuff (I had to look it up, esoteric means limited to a small group of people) - I want an understanding of what was widely believed in animist, pre-Christian societies.  Pre-Islamic also.  So, extant means remaining, found, surviving from long ago.  The ideas of a people remain in their art long after they are gone.

I found that the Willies occur frequently next to pictures of dragons.  And dragons seem to be female.  I started to wonder if dragons and Firebird might be the same thing.  I found pictures that seemed to link lions and unicorns to pagan ideas.  Heraldry seems to be loaded with pagan symbols.  Unicorns, I’m convinced are male...  There is a lot to discover in the folkart, but needed a key to open it all.  E.W. Barber’s book, The Dancing Goddesses, was my key.

Just a few seeds

I think I know why the polka has dots: they are seeds.  So far, I have NOT found anyone who agrees with me.  Am I crazy?

Yes, but I’m taking my medicine faithfully.

Today, I was waiting a long time.  I noticed that the birch trees were moving in the breeze.  The leaves flap just like quaking aspen.  It looked like the birches were dancing.  So, here is my list of reasons why the birch is a magic tree:  [Love your food] birch syrup, birch beer, edible cambium, possibly edible leaves - early spring only,  [Gift of fire] birch bark for fire starting, bark that moves when it burns, logs for warmth,  [Rebirth] birches regrow when they are cut down, first trees to appear after a forest fire/ old field succession,  [Sacred grove] birches may be planted in patterns, bent, and woven together.  Almost forgot to add: birch switches symbolize life, and they are used for fragrance in the sauna.

I’m frustrated to see another magazine publishing knitting patterns that refer to the Selbu Rose - the Auseklis, without any mention of its pagan meaning.  How can I be the only one to see it?  I should have written a letter to the Atlantic Monthly last year.  They did a Christmas article about the Auseklis, which they called a “snowflake” Wrong!  Their article traced the history back to the mid 1800’s and stopped without any mention of the Auseklis motif earlier history.  Maybe it’s too dangerous to mention that in very old folk art, the Auseklis is often beside the swastika.  I think I wrote about this already - I will not use the swastika, for obvious reasons.

Seeds — if you know to look for them, there are seeds everywhere in folk art.  Think of pomegranates in Turkish art, symbols of fullness and life.  Seeds are abundance, fertility, a happy future.

I wish I could write a little more clearly.  I would like to show everyone a simple, down-to-earth, not esoteric paganism based on only European art.  I met somebody who walked the Camino de Santiago, she told me that she saw animism in Galicia.  This suggests that I’m on the right track.  I can’t find much other help right now.  Seems that the people who know the answers do not speak English, so I will have to learn a new language to do my research...

Zalktis and the butter S cookies

Zalktis, the symbol of the good snake

I found an old German cookbook with a recipe for “butter S cookies”.  In a quick online search, I found S cookies from Germany, Italy, Greece, and somewhere in the Middle East.  People say that in ancient times, snake were not hated - I don’t know.  I’m saying that the cookies were snake cookies, and they fit into a pattern of pagan thought.

I have almost no information about this.

But I do suspect that during World War II, people in Germany still knew about Zalktis.  It’s an ugly truth that the Nazis used the Zalktis symbol for their most horrible military guys.  I’m having nothing to do with that repulsive business.

Anyway, what does butter have to do with snakes?  I found an Italian cookie company whose name seems to mean, “butter s”: Esselunga.  Is it because a snake will move like oil pouring...?  Another horrible thought- what if we cooked a snake, would it be oily?  I’d guess not (and maybe I don’t want to know.)

So, if the letter S represents a snake, could that be part of the reason why people may have once seen writing as magical?  Did they really believe that writing has power?  I met women who chose not to read & write, I think they were very devout Muslims...  Do the other letters of the alphabet have hidden origins?

Once I had a garter snake that I kept in a glass tank.  It was not exactly a pet snake, more like a guest.  I tried keeping a salamander in the same tank.  Unfortunately one guest ate the other guest.  So, I decided that it was difficult to feed the garter snake (who would not eat unless the food moved) and I let the snake go.  But before I let it go, I picked it (her?) up to have a good look.  So, the garter snake got musk all over my hand, and the smell was really really bad.  Ever since that time, I’ve been wondering if snake musk could be a source of hormones or other useful chemicals?