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By The Light Of The Blood Red Moon

 
  

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Quantum
23:42 / 28.02.07
Because of the lunar eclipse, the Moon will be colored a deep coppery-red.

Thanks to Justrix & XK for highlighting the lunar eclipse on Saturday (3rd March) which I otherwise would have missed and kicked myself. One of the few times most Temple regulars can see the same thing at the same time* without time differences and stuff complicating matters, we should totally do something for the eclipse. I'd personally like to send out some blessings to you lot, and perhaps do something to encourage communication both here and in the real meaty world (damn retrogade Mercury).

I'll be outside somewhere, probably the beach, looking at the moon. Anybody in a far off land want to suggest something we can do at the same time? Preferably very simple and with minimal props, but a challenge might be fun too. Whaddaya reckon?


*when it's not the bar of teh Plough
 
 
Quantum
23:52 / 28.02.07
Oh, I should have said;
The eclipse begins at 22:43:49 universal time (UT = EST – 5 hours, or about 17:44 EST, or 5:44 p.m. EST) and ends at 23:58:01 UT (about 6:58 p.m. EST), with the maximum amount of eclipse being at 23:20:56 UT (about 6:21 p.m. EST). Thus, it is expected to last just over one hour, 14 minutes.

Universal time is GMT basically.
 
 
electric monk
00:44 / 01.03.07
I reckon I'm in, and am down with the blessin' and communicatin' intent.
 
 
crimson
01:10 / 01.03.07
Hey there. Im happy to do something Im living in a far-off land, Japan. I can be by the beach and do something ocean/moon connected, what do you think??
 
 
Quantum
01:34 / 01.03.07
I'm not sure you can see the eclipse from there but you're welcome to time it for the same hour- it will be about eight in the morning in Japan I think.
 
 
Quantum
01:47 / 01.03.07
Ooh, I just discovered it will be a high tide at midnight where I am, so I'm thinking of something invoking the moon, the sea and cyclical change for the better- as the tide recedes it takes the psychic gak with it maybe. I'm going to need something to throw in the sea...
 
 
crimson
04:04 / 01.03.07
okay, I can be there for that time it may be the sun which will be a deep coppery red, not the moon but hey, what kind of thing do you suggest to throw in the sea? Id rather it were something biodegradable and non pollutant...perfumes would be good but they are out for those reasons. Maybe some essential oils fit the bill, I hear google calling!
 
 
crimson
04:13 / 01.03.07
Im thinking some salts mixed with camomile flowers, maybe some leaves from my beloved plant bertha Im thinking mainly herbs and minerals, perhaps some crystals and rose petals too. I think the sea would want some minerals returned to her and the moon would like some pretty flowers charged with love
 
 
crimson
04:14 / 01.03.07
why I put so many smiley faces there I do not know!
 
 
Papess
09:44 / 01.03.07
Ooh, I just discovered it will be a high tide at midnight where I am, so I'm thinking of something invoking the moon, the sea and cyclical change for the better- as the tide recedes it takes the psychic gak with it maybe.

Great idea, Quantum. I need some cyclical change for the better. I mught stick with something safe for me, like a Green Tara Puja.
 
 
Papess
11:56 / 01.03.07
I have been incredibly drawn to Athena, lately. It seems to be an appropriate Lunar Eclipse, being in Virgo, to honour Her. Are there any notable Greek occasions around the time of the eclipse? Or any other culture, for that matter.
 
 
Papess
12:29 / 01.03.07
My apologies for triple posting and the off topic-ness, but:

why I put so many smiley faces there I do not know!

Gee, I don't know either, crimson, but they are so distracting. Most people here are bothered by emoticons, from what I gather. You may want to cut back.

I found a Sadhanna for Lunar Eclipses, if anyone is interested.

Quantum, were you thinking we could do the same thing simultaneously, or anything but at the same time?

I apologize if I am incoherent. I feel as if Saturn held me down last night while Neptune slapped me silly.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:06 / 01.03.07
Stuff from the internet >>>> below

The first clue here was the eclipsed moon resting on the horns of the constellation Taurus the Bull. The first thing I thought of was the Cow of Hathor with the disk between her black horns. Checking the mythology books, I discovered that she was called "Mistress of the Land of Punt,"a very foreign goddess indeed.

As the mother of Horus, it was explained that her name translated as "within her the sun-god (Horus) resided." 1 In a later book of mythology by Larousse2 Hathor was duped into drinking a fermented red liquid, which she mistook for blood. This would be similar to the blood red moon eclipse of January 20, 2000.

As a sky goddess, where Horus (the Sun god resides) we can assume that the ancients were aware that the Moon reflected the sun in many different stages, but the most fearful was that of a "red" moon. The reddness once indicated the partial annihilation of mankind.

Hathor was often associated with the Greek goddess, Aphrodite. Aphrodite, then, who was also a "reflecting" mirror of the sun. She is similar to Hathor in other ways since she was the goddess of love, and women's toiletries.

Toiletries, such as mirrors, perfumes and oils have been used by women since the beginning of time. The Greeks recorded that Aphrodite anointed herself with (fragrant) oils and used a mirror. A Roman mirror illustrates this event. Aphrodite, then, may not be a sky goddess after all, but an earthly or geographic mirror which reflected the moon.3 The celestial moon does not have oil, but Aphrodite may have been a mirror-like lake in a land where oil is a prominent feature of geology. And this in turn would agree with another description of her birth.4as the foam (or mul) of the sea. In this instance, Immanuel Velikovsky was correct in writing that Aphrodite was a "moon" goddess5, but very wrong in assuming that she was the planet Venus.6.

A Comet Near the Moon
The next clue came from Chaco Canyon, where the Anasazi once lived. One of the petroglyphs found there is that of a hand, an upside-down "U" and a blazing star form. Modern astronomy knows that the planet Venus, with a good telescope, looks like the crescent moon. A blazing star could have been the planet Venus, but more likely it was an errant comet.

The "moon" goddess may have been reflecting, not the sun, but a great burning meteorite as it passed by the constellation Orion once called Ares.7 Ares is the Greek name for the Roman war god Mars. Chaco Canyon tells us that the event occurred during the time of a crescent moon.

The comet or blazing star would explain the fatherless Horus as a different "sun" god, just as Quetzalcoatl of the Aztecs and various other mythic gods who acted different from our familiar sun. The Egyptian cow with the disk between the horns may imply that many of these foreign women we believe to be the Sun Goddesses might only be reflectors of the sun when the moon turns a bright blood red, or disappears completely during an eclipse.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:08 / 01.03.07
More stuff >>>>

OK So I am biased here since 'Red Moon Rising' is one of my own eclipse lore "web sights" but it is well worth reading by both women and men. One of the common, indeed quite universal, myths inspired by solar eclipses is that the sun and the moon are making love when they come to conjunction* during the eclipse. In the esoteric tradition of alchemy solar eclipses were seen as the sacred marriage of the Sun King with the Moon Queen. In fact much earlier religious traditions saw things the same way and there is good reason to believe that the esoteric spiritual/religious tradition known as alchemy was, at least in part, a disguised version of ancient Egyptian religious beliefs and practices. On a less positive note the Inuit reversed things somewhat and perceived solar eclipses as the incestuous rape of a female sun by her brother the moon. Forgive me for saying so but this lends a whole new perspective to Saint Francis of Assisi's famous words. My research into solar eclipse inspired mythology indicates that it is highly probable that the Greek myth of the rape of Leda by the god Zeuss in the form of a swan was originally inspired by the fact that during some total solar eclipses the sun's corona distinctly resembles a gigantic white bird while the sun and the moon are engaging in symbolic cosmic intercourse as it were. According to what should be reliable sources the original myth had the sun god Zeuss ravishing the moon god Nemesis. . . It was while I was researching this concept arising from solar eclipses that I had the intuitive insight that led to my researching and writing 'Red Moon Rising.' It was really a quite simple and straightforward intuitive flash. I knew that in most traditions, including the Bible. . . the deep red color of the eclipsed moon was perceived as being blood, usually from a male perspective of injury, warfare, and death etc. It just hit me one day that if the moon was generally perceived as being female, due in no small measure to the perceived if not actual link to the menstrual cycle, and the moon is also perceived as turning to "blood" during lunar eclipses that there likely would have been some ancient religious beliefs aka "myths" about the moon menstruating during lunar eclipses. I had never heard of any such lunar menstruation myths of course and knew that any that had existed would most likely have been rigorously suppressed by the Christian church and other strongly patriarchal religious traditions, including Judaism where menstruation is perceived as being "unclean" as it were. Because I was deeply involved in researching various aspects of solar eclipse mythology, and also because I felt that there was only a minimal possibility of successfully doing any deeper research into that initial intuitive flash, I let the matter rest for several weeks and even a few months but it kept nagging at me and I knew that it could be a very positive perception for women, so I finally decided to at least make a modest attempt at researching my intuitive flash about lunar eclipses being perceived as a cosmic menstruation of a moon goddess. I typed the term - moon and menstruation - into a Concordia University library computer and was gratified to see at least a handful of results. When I got the books listed I immediately searched in the index for the term - eclipse(s) - and, to my pleased surprise, was rewarded by finding at least a few examples of myths about the moon menstuating during lunar exclipses. I put aside my research into solar eclipses for a while since it was already well advanced and began the fascinating research that led to 'Red Moon Rising'. So here is my slightly belated International Women's Day gift to the ladies. I hope that most find it to be both inspiring and uplifting.

The refracted light is red. If it were possible to look back at the Earth during a lunar eclipse then the rim of the Earth would appear a glowing red.
WHERE TO SEE IT
Graphic, BBC
South America and eastern North America get best view
Dust and cloud in Earth's atmosphere affects Moon colour
Telescope is useful but total eclipse is viewable with naked eye

This colour effect is the stuff of myth and legend. An account in 331 BC said: "...all her light was sullied and suffused with the hue of blood."

Some ancients called it "the time of the blood of the Great Mother's wisdom", linking the Moon's colour with menstruation. This was a natural thing to do given the link between the length of the month and human fertility.
 
 
Unconditional Love
13:14 / 01.03.07
I shall be devoting myself to hathor this weekend as i was planning too, this event adds something more to my first devotions to her, i am lucky.
 
 
Papess
13:27 / 01.03.07
That is fantastic, Wolfangel. The Hathor connection is fabulous.
 
 
grant
13:31 / 01.03.07
March 4th is Lantern Festival, also known as "Little New Year". It's the end of the Lunar New Year season, marked by the full moon that comes after the new moon that starts the year.

Traditionally marked with riddles and sticky little sweet dumplings.

And lanterns, of course.
 
 
grant
13:32 / 01.03.07
Red ones.

If it matters.
 
 
Quantum
13:51 / 01.03.07
Quantum, were you thinking we could do the same thing simultaneously, or anything but at the same time?

I was thinking of doing something little we could all echo. I'm taken with the idea of a ritual that takes place all over the world at the same time, In My Mind the participants will be like nodes of a network or junctures in a web or beads on Indra's Net.
So for example a particular phrase we'd tie in to whatever else we're doing, or all using green tara incense or whatever. I'm going to think about it then make some suggestions, I'll get back to you...
 
 
Ticker
14:46 / 01.03.07
Well I'm down with it but I'm also doing some of my own stuff for it. Not sure if I should be mixing singular and collective?

If it helps at all to know I'll be doing dedication work with my Goddess in Her lunar form, milk and blood and generally happy fuzzy loveness.
I'm also making ritual tokens for my performances and dancin'. DANCIN'!
 
 
charrellz
14:48 / 01.03.07
I'm quite landlocked, so any ocean related bits are out for me, but I'm quite interested in participating.
 
 
Papess
15:07 / 01.03.07
I am in too. Down with participation, but also going to do my own Goddess thing.

There certainly is a Goddess theme running through this.
 
 
Princess
15:31 / 01.03.07
Great egg fried pants. I'm at home with my parents all that week, which means no magic. There's an agreement in place about who does what where, and magic of any kind is not allowed on my part.

Which is a pity, as I'd like to be in on this. pants.
 
 
Quantum
15:40 / 01.03.07
okay. I'm thinking of using a silver coin to represent the moon, imbuing it at the dark of the moon with negative connotations as the tide rises. Then at midnight, chucking it into the sea to expel them and hopefully echoing other people doing something similar elsewhere to make it global.
For the landlocked, I'm thinking burial in the earth, and the moon/sea/earth goddesses might be appropriate to invoke- although my goddess work isn't too hot so any help with invocation appreciated.

Thoughts?
 
 
Princess
16:55 / 01.03.07
Well, though I won't be available to do it on the night, anyone who wanted to mail me there coins could do that and then, when I returned about a week later, I could put them in the sea for them?

I'm not sure if mailing a coin will feel as magic as burying or throwing it though.
 
 
Internaut
17:35 / 01.03.07
nice idea, Quantum. i'll do something similar along with my original set up.
 
 
Quantum
17:44 / 01.03.07
Swashbuckler, that's a shame but we could do a corresponding new moon working on the 18th (Sunday) to build up connections and improve communication as she waxes. Then we'd have a mini-ritual spread over time as well as space, woo!

I'm trying to work out a decent vocal component so any suggestions welcome- I'm hoping to evoke cycles, tides and goddesses, troubles waning with the moon and washed by the sea, and barriers to connection and communication diminishing.
 
 
Papess
17:48 / 01.03.07
Yes, that is a nice idea, and I will be joining in.

Princess, it seems like the coin idea could be done in the most discreet fashion, if you really wanted to take part.

The only body of water near me is the St.Lawrence seaway. I suppose that counts.
 
 
Papess
17:50 / 01.03.07
...corresponding new moon working on the 18th (Sunday)

There is a solar eclipse on the new moon.
 
 
Papess
17:54 / 01.03.07
Bah, sorry to triple post again!

I just caught an association between water currents and currency that may inspire some waxing poetic.

That fact we are using change for change...interesting.
 
 
Ticker
18:02 / 01.03.07
Quants I attempted some googlemancy (tides/moon/british/goddess) for you and came up with Penarddun. She appears to have some tide/ocean connections as well as lunar and is the mum of some fairly spiffy Folks.

Perhaps this might be a good time to say hello?
 
 
Papess
18:09 / 01.03.07
I am so celtically challenged, it is not funny.
 
 
Princess
18:30 / 01.03.07
Oh I'm sure I could sneak a full scale human entrail divination under their noses if I wanted, but it's not about that. I used to do magic all about the house and read my Qwicca books under the covers at night. But my Mom has real issues with it and claims it gives her nightmares, offsets her depression and that she can "feel it in her spirituality". So I thought it probably best avoid magic on the off chance. Theres also the respect thing in that it *is* her house and I really should respect that.

That, and I'm trying to convince my brother away from the whole revolting mess that occultism tends to make of my family (and the majority of occultists I've met). I'm trying my best to show him that all rational people disdain witchraft for the fruit-loopery it entails. Full moon rituals might not be the best way to go about that.

A second lunar ritual might be good. I'd be up for that. I might just write and paint for the main event. I'd end up with pretty much the same results but without causing the in-house friction.
 
 
Ticker
18:36 / 01.03.07
ah Princess I was with ya until:

That, and I'm trying to convince my brother away from the whole revolting mess that occultism tends to make of my family (and the majority of occultists I've met). I'm trying my best to show him that all rational people disdain witchraft for the fruit-loopery it entails. Full moon rituals might not be the best way to go about that.

You have my sympathy over the mum's house thingy, but this seems a bit problematic. This part specifically:

I'm trying my best to show him that all rational people disdain witchraft for the fruit-loopery it entails.
 
 
Less searchable M0rd4nt
18:55 / 01.03.07
Thanks for this Quants, I had no idea. I'm going to have to mull it all over and do some research, see how a blood-red moon fits into in my cosmology. (Male moon God, female Sun. It's a thing.)
 
  

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