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| Spirits of Nature The Newsletter of the University of Bristol Earth Religions Society |
| Ostara- The Vernal (spring) Equinox The first solar Sabbat of the year falls on the 20th/21st March. Since the last festival of Imbolc, spring has finally sprung; the first blossom is on the trees and newborn lambs play in the fields. This also coincides with the birth of another lamb, Aries, at the beginning of a new year in the astrological calendar. At this point the earth is becoming fertile again, in the past people would bless their seeds for planting at this festival. Mythologically, this festival marks the return of the goddess or the resurrection of her lover, brother or child. In Greece the goddess Demeter welcomes back her daughter Persephone from the underworld and returns the fertility, which she has withheld since autumn, to the land. In Egypt Isis and Ishtar retrieve their lovers from the realms of the dead. In Celtic myth the Calliach (crone) who fell asleep after the harvest, awakens as the maiden goddess Bride. The Christian festival of Easter falls within a month after the equinox and marks the resurrection of Jesus before he returns to his father. These myths portray immortality in two forms: the deathlessness of the parent or lover and the resurrection of the child or lover. These two aspects correspond with the moon and the sun. The moon goddess grows full each month then declines and rests, to return a refreshed maiden; while the sun god born at Yule, reigns supreme at midsummer, dies at Samhain and is reborn at Yule. We celebrate Ostara by painting eggs, which are eaten at a feast, and the empty shells tossed into a river to carry the message of spring out to the sea. A potent symbol of this time is the hare, a symbol of the goddess Bride. Ostara is a time of balance, of day and night, winter and spring, life and death. Next: Beltane, the Mayday festival: May 1st |
| Events Friday 19th April- Special viewing of Stonehenge, £15 non-members, includes coach travel and the rare chance to get inside the stone circle. Tuesday 23rd April-7pm at the Union- Meeting and speaker, contact us for details. Tuesday 30th April-7pm at the Union- Video: The Wicker Man. “Horror” film about a pagan island- A brilliant film, with incredibly inaccurate portrayal of pagan practices! Tuesday 7th May-7pm at the Union- Meeting and speaker, contact us for details. Tuesday 14th May-7pm at the Union- Video: The Craft. Another inaccurate portrayal of pagan practice, but we liked it anyway. Tuesday 21st May-7pm at the Union- At the beginning of the exam season, relax and focus with a guided meditation. Tuesday 28th May-7pm at the Union- Give your brain a rest from revision and get creative with our storytelling workshop. Thursday 6th June-7pm at the Union- another guided meditation to relax and invigorate those tired brain cells. Tuesday 11th June-7pm at the Union- Video: Excalibur, one of the better and more Pagan Arthurian films Tuesday 18th June-7pm- Barbecue to celebrate the end of term, contact us for details, bring a bottle and some food! |
| Pagan Pathways Here is a space where our members can talk about their own path and practices. There is no central dogma in Paganism and we are free to follow any path we choose, even to combine several. Northern Tradition/ Norse Paganism/ Odinism/ Asatru. Above are a few of the more common names my religion goes by, there are many others and this stems from the fact that all the names have weaknesses and that this religion remained alive in isolated pockets of different countries for about a thousand years. Our religion officially ‘died’ in 1034CE when the last Pagan king of Sweden died, although it took several centuries for Christianity to filter down to smaller rural communities. A more recent revival lead to the recognition of this path as Iceland’s second religion in 1972. We are polytheistic and believe in three groups of Gods: The Aesir who are the Gods of humanity, the Vanir who are the Gods of Nature and the Etins, who are the evil Gods of chaos and destruction. Our Gods do not require submissive begging and they would prefer to encourage us to be proud and confident as these qualities will be of more use to us during the struggle of life. We view life largely as a precursor to the afterlife, a series of tests and trials designed to prepare us for moving on to the next worlds. We have no fear of death but no wish of embracing it willingly, as at the simplest level, dying before your time would be selling yourself short, robbing yourself the Gods and all our folk. We have no set of moral laws but try to live by the nine noble virtues of; Courage, Honour, Fidelity, Discipline, Truth, Self-reliance, Industriousness, Hospitality and Perseverance. A typical Blot (ritual) begins with a hallowing or hammer ritual. We honour the Gods, the Norns, and the Ancestors. The Gealdor follows; this is a generalised runic spell in the form of a chant. The Sumbel involves asking the Gods to be with us as we share a horn of mead, each person makes a toast, swears an oath or announces the completion of an oath before drinking and passing on the horn. At the end the Gothi (priest) toasts mother earth and pours any remaining mead onto the ground as an offering. |