I have never made a New Year's Resolution before, so I figured it was about damn time. This year, I have forbidden myself from giving up when things get tough! While using Stumble Upon tonight, I ran into two amazing Pagan themed challenges for the new year.
The first is the 2012 Pagan Reading Challenge hosted by The Domestic Pagan blog. I love reading, but I love collecting Pagan themed book even more. This gives me the extra oomph needed to dust them off and actually crack a cover. I'll be posting periodic reviews of the book I've read, and you can check them out my Shelfari on the right side of my page.
I also found a much needed fitness challenge. I signed up for a gym membership in October and have definitely been slacking lately. But thanks to Get Off Your Broom: A New Year's Witchy Fitness Challenge I have some extra motivation to get my butt back into shape!
It feels good to be back!
Monday, January 2, 2012
Friday, November 13, 2009
Origins of Friday the 13th Superstition.
Since today is Friday the 13th, I decided to do a little investigating and found a couple interesting occurrences on this unlucky day that may have led to the modern day wide-spread fear. Interestingly, 2009 has a totally of three Friday the 13th: February, March, and November. The next time this will occur is in 2012, another year deemed unlucky for completely different reasons (if you're interested in finding out more about the 2012 prophecies, just Google '2012 END OF THE WORLD' and it will provide you with enough information for your head to explode).
One theory comes from Norse mythology:
Friday was named after the Norse goddess Frigga (aka Frigg, wife of Odin, queen of Asgard, goddess of women, birth and children, love, fertility etc..). When Christianity took over in the Norse and Germanic tribes, Frigga was labeled a witch and banished to a mountain top as punishment. Norse folklore states that every Friday Frigga, eleven witches and the devil gathered on her mountaintop to plot ill events for the people below. This gathering of 13 beings on a Friday was deemed very unlucky and has stuck with us to modern times.
Another interesting possibility was the mass arrest of the Knights Templar, ordered by King Phillip IV, that occurred in France on Friday, October 13th, 1307. Many of the Knights were arrested, tortured, and charged with heresy and blasphemy all because the King thought they had too much power and may one day rise against him. When the pope tried to step in and demand a fair trial for all those involved, King Phillip had many of the Knight burned at the stake as heretics. This event (among others) is attributed with leading to the disbandment of the Order of the Knights Templar on March 22nd 1312.
There are undoubtedly, several other events that led to this day being deemed unlucky, but these were just two that I found most interesting and plausible as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition as well as triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).
One theory comes from Norse mythology:
Friday was named after the Norse goddess Frigga (aka Frigg, wife of Odin, queen of Asgard, goddess of women, birth and children, love, fertility etc..). When Christianity took over in the Norse and Germanic tribes, Frigga was labeled a witch and banished to a mountain top as punishment. Norse folklore states that every Friday Frigga, eleven witches and the devil gathered on her mountaintop to plot ill events for the people below. This gathering of 13 beings on a Friday was deemed very unlucky and has stuck with us to modern times.
Another interesting possibility was the mass arrest of the Knights Templar, ordered by King Phillip IV, that occurred in France on Friday, October 13th, 1307. Many of the Knights were arrested, tortured, and charged with heresy and blasphemy all because the King thought they had too much power and may one day rise against him. When the pope tried to step in and demand a fair trial for all those involved, King Phillip had many of the Knight burned at the stake as heretics. This event (among others) is attributed with leading to the disbandment of the Order of the Knights Templar on March 22nd 1312.
There are undoubtedly, several other events that led to this day being deemed unlucky, but these were just two that I found most interesting and plausible as the origin of the Friday the 13th superstition as well as triskaidekaphobia (fear of the number 13).
)O( Blessed Be )O(
Alorelith Rose
Wednesday, September 30, 2009
A Little Pagan Poetry
Here's a little snippet I wrote late last night. Hope you enjoy.
Laying under my open window,
On a cool autumn's night.
Hand, lazily layed
In the moonlight splayed across my sheets.
Listening to the wind twist around my fingers
And dance across my wrist.
Lulling me into unconscious contentment.
Dreaming of the ones who came before me
And the ancient ones of many names.
Patiently waiting for the sun to warm the mother earth,
And the birds to sing me awake.
Not bad for being written at 2am I think. Let me know how you feel about it. I love constructive critisicim!
Blessed Be )O(
AlorelithRose
Wednesday, September 23, 2009
The Changing Leaves
It is now officially Autumn, which means Winter is not too far, especially here in Minnesota. As the days get shorter and the nights grow stronger we prepare ourselves for the coming snow. In my family this means breaking out the snow shovels and the cocoa mix and packing away our bikinis for next year. My favorite part of autumn is the visable changes in plant life. Everything is shutting down for the Winter, but it isn't dead yet. It's preparing and storing and slowing down, but its still very much alive. Our family has found ourselves with a squirrel pet. He hangs around in our yard, and occasionally we give him some peanuts while we watch him prepare for the coming winter by stripping the black walnut tree in our back yard.
As everything else is slowing down for the Winter months, Pagan Lily and I have decided to rebel against the norm and start up our new blog. Be sure to check out our profile pages and feel free to contact either of us for any reason.
For now I leave you with an amazing video I found out Youtube.com about how Christianity came from astrology and worship for the sun, which later got misinterperated into worship of the son.
The video is called 'Religion Comes From Ancient Astrology And Sun Worhsip' and is an atehist video, but I like how they put Christianity in a different perspective and actually even makes it sound a bit plausible. But then again, anything is plausible when you live in a country where the majority of people believe that a carpenter died to save the souls of billions of people he didn't know and would never meet and then rose again a few days later and is apparently coming back for goddess know what. The video comes in 3 parts and I have posted the links below. I hope you enjoy and invite you to come back and post your response to the video.
Blessed Be )O(
Alorelith Rose
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