Mary Day Celebrations

Mary Day Celebration Candle

Every year some women friends and I celebrate the Goddess with in us on the 15th of August. It is the Catholic holiday set to commemorate the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of Jesus as she is whisked into the Heavens. I pick this day not because I am particularly religious but because it reminds me of my childhood. When I was a child, living in Bavaria, in southern Germany, Maria Himmelfahrt  was a really big deal. As I have written in other posts on similar topic, on that day of celebration, the whole town comes out, children in traditional costume and crowns of flowers on their heads.  The statue of Mary is carried through town from the Abbey to the main church. It is a beautiful spectacle and I always see it first and foremost within that childlike vision.

I especially always loved the way kids adorned their favorite cows with wreathes of herbs and flowers accenting their beautiful long eyelashes and luminescent big pink noses, gentle nature.

Cow & Friend

In the last 10 years it's been a way  to connect with women friends that are dear, share stories - some of them about being women, some of them childhood memories, others are myths we know or half know and want to explore.

Our Lisa is the story teller and fascinates us with her memory of women stories, both learned and intuitive.

We read our coffee cups and have  wine, let our daughters join us in the lighting of the candles and writing of secret messages on little scraps of delicate paper that we then send up in smoke to the sky, hoping that our daughters too will find some fascination in the mysteries and bounty associated with the Mother.

Bathing Beauties

Another link to my multicultural heritage that I am intermittently fascinated with...It seems to appear out of nowhere. The adoration of a Russian Mother icon or a sudden lust for royal Russian drama stories from the past. Endless days of looking through Culinaria Russia. And then I am entranced, looking for the thread that connects me.

Kupala

I named it 'the blood calling' when I was sixteen and looking for my birth father.

The illustration I found on the Pinterest page of Andrea Ferrante   "In Slavonic neo-paganism, Kupała is the goddess of herbs, sorcery, sex, and midsummer. She is also the Water Mother, associated with trees, herbs, and flowers"  

More about this particular myth/story from Gods & Godesses and here a bit about how they celebrate in the Ukraine.

Mary Day 2011

Mary Day Celebration

Every year some women friends and I celebrate the Goddess with in us on the 15th of August. It is the Catholic holiday set to commemorate the Assumption of Mary, the Mother of Jesus as she is whisked into the Heavens. I pick this day not because I am particularly religious but because it reminds me of my childhood. When I was a child, living in Bavaria, in southern Germany, Maria Himmelfahrt  was a really big deal. As I have written in other blogs, on that day of celebration, the whole town comes out, children in traditional costume and  with crowns of flowers on their heads, favorite cows adorned with wreathes of herbs and flowers and of course, the statue of Mary carried through town from the Abbey to the main church. It is a beautiful spectacle and I always see it first and foremost within that childlike vision.

In the last 10 years it's been a way  to connect with women friends that are dear, share stories - some of them about being women, some of them childhood memories, others are myths we know or half know and want to explore.

Our Lisa is the story teller and fascinates us with her memory of women stories, both learned and intuitive.

We read our coffee cups and have  wine, let our daughters join us in the lighting of the candles and writing of secret messages on little scraps of delicate paper that we then send up in smoke to the sky, hoping that our daughters too will find some fascination in the mysteries and bounty associated with the Mother.