I have had a bit of a rough time in the past year. Although I am much healthier now, this was not so last Winter and Spring. I have always maintained excellent health, spiritually and physically. Yet we all fall prey to the beast called ’stress’ at some time or other. This particular ‘beast’ caught up with me, and I seemed to get sick all the time, and was quite slow to heal. Once I realized the cause of my distress, I took a good look at my Life and noticed I had gotten too busy to truly take good care of myself. My daughter and I decided I needed to be especially aware of pampering myself on a daily basis. So each day I must set aside some time to do something special to enhance my wellbeing, and teach my daughter to do so as well, so it would just become a natural part of our day.

As I am into all things natural, I began by sorting though my natural skincare products. I have quite the collection, and was pleased with my options. My daughter suggested a nice foot massage, and I found this totally delicious and healthy sounding B. Kamins Maple Sugar Body Scrub by Skin Dimensions Online. Skin Dimensions Online offers the exclusive Skin Dimensions SB product line. Their exclusive line includes moisturizers, green tea anti-oxidants, acne care and anti-aging products, and the increasingly polular and best-selling retinols, including the new 1 % starter introductory line. I will definately be adding SkinDimensionsOnline.com to my natural beauty selection of resources.

Well then, allowing the Goddess within to hold sway over the moments of each day, I will be on the lookout for many ways in which to pamper myself and my daughter as well. We shall enjoy browsing through the natural skincare essentials to pamper ourselves and enjoy the pleasure of just being and living in each wonderful, loving and natural moment.

Fantasy and Goddess Art

Once upon a time Women were honored as the Great Goddess’ earthly incarnation. In the Matriarchal Clans women raised the children, gathered most of the food, invented the first tools, domesticated fire and animals, and used plants for healing. Goddess Worship reigned for over 25,000 years.

The balance of power shifted towards the male around 3000BC as the peace-loving goddess-culture endured the invasion of the tribes of war-like, male-dominated nomads. These men subdued the goddess people, subjecting them to the power of the masculine.

Shall we explore the realm of the Mother Goddesses and Earth Goddesses a bit further? This is a subject of great interest, bringing enlightenment to the power of the feminine, and the role these divine beings play in our lives. I will point you in the direction of some great sources of information relating to the Mother Goddesses and Earth Goddesses.

Goddess
The Earth Mother
Mother Goddess as Kali
The Great Goddess in her Totality as One
A Chapel of Our Mother God

A bit of Goddess Wisdom may be found at ‘Goddess’… Out of the Earth

Interesting… What is a Goddess? by Genie Webster

The Ancients believed that a Witch received power from the Moon, which may be why many Pagan calendars stress the lunar cycles so much even today. For the Goddess Gardener, however, the Moon is also a symbol of the Lady herself. In literally hundreds of ancient settings, the Moon was characterized as Female, and Her names were many. They include Chia (Columbian), Hina (Polynesian), Luna (Roman), and Selene (Greek), to name just a few.

Beyond the potent symbolic value here, our ancestors felt that timing the planting, tending, or harvesting of one’s plants could be more effective if we followed Moonsigns and Moon Cycles. For example, when the Moon was dark, it was time to plant underground vegetables. When the Moon was waning it was time to plant peas or other items that vine counterclockwise. According to most really talented gardeners that I know from the old school, this type of reverence toward nature’s hints really works.

If you’d like to apply this concept in your own Goddess Gardens, here’s a list that will help you.

GARDENING BY MOONSIGNS

* Moon in Aries: Plant garlic and onions, but nothing that requires really fertile soil.
* Moon in Taurus: Plant potatoes, root crops, leafy vegetables, and bulb-bearing items.
* Moon in Gemini: Weed and cultivate or harvest root crops.
*Moon in Cancer: Graft, sow, transplant, and force budding.
*Moon in Leo: Focus on deterring bugs using natural treatments and companion planting. Harvest items.
*Moon in Virgo: It’s best not to do anything new in the garden at this time other than planting morning glory, honeysuckle, tulips, and endive.
*Moon in Libra: Plant above-ground flowers and vegetables.
*Moon in Scorpio: Plant vining greenery, berries, and grains.
*Moon in Sagittarius: Plant onions. Transplant and preserve your harvest.
* Moon in Capricorn: Plant root crops and tubers. Fertilize the soil.
* Moon in Aquarius: Cultivate, weed, and turn the soil.
* Moon in Pisces: Work with plants that require strong root growth, such as aspargus. Plant flowers.

GARDENING BY MOON CYCLES

FIRST QUARTER:

Plant annuals and vegetables that yield their fruit above ground (such as celery and lettuce). Green vegetables and herbs (such as cabbage and basil) seem to like this phase.

SECOND QUARTER:

Plant any “roundish” flora and vegetables (such as tomato and melon) and any flowering vines.

THIRD QUARTER:

Plant root crops and bulbs or anything that yields below ground (such as garlic). This Quarter is also good for fruit-bearing plants (such as strawberry and cherry).

FOURTH QUARTER:

Let the land rest. Weed your soil, and then turn and fertilize it.

Note that these two systems (gardening by moonsign and gardening by moon phases) can work together nicely. For example, if the moon happens to be in Aquarius at the same time it’s in the fourth quarter, this would double the effect of weeding and turning the soil. After the quarter passes, move forward with sowing knowing that the land is rejuvenated!

More Trivia on Planting by the Moon

Garden and Plant by the Moon Calendar

Handfasting couples
the great marriage
the uniting of spirit
of all things combined
I dance for the earth
I dance for the air
I dance for the fire
I dance for the water
I dance for the Goddess and the God
I dance for the universe that we share
I danced for you my friend and wished you were there.

…Let the winds lift your banners from far lands
With a message of strife and of hope:
Raise the Maypole aloft with its garlands
That gathers your cause in its scope….

…Stand fast, then, Oh Workers, your ground,
Together pull, strong and united:
Link your hands like a chain the world round,
If you will that your hopes be requited.

When the World’s Workers, sisters and brothers,
Shall build, in the new coming years,
A lair house of life–not for others,
For the earth and its fulness is theirs.

Walter Crane, The Workers’ Maypole, 1894

Well, it is a fact that May Day, which the children do enjoy with all vibes, is not an overly prominent holiday in America. Yet, it does have a long and notable history as one of the world’s principal festivals. The origin of the May Day as a day for celebration dates back to the days, even before the birth of Christ. And like many ancient festivals it too has a Pagan connection.

For the Druids of the British Isles, May 1 was the second most important holiday of the year. Because, it was when the festival of Beltane held. It was thought that the day divides the year into half. The other half was to be ended with the Samhain on November 1. Those days the May Day custom was the setting of new fire. It was one of those ancient New Year rites performed throughout the world. And the fire itself was thought to lend life to the burgeoning springtime sun. Cattle were driven through the fire to purify them. Men, with their sweethearts, passed through the smoke for seeing good luck.

Then the Romans came to occupy the British Isles. The beginning of May was a very popular feast time for the Romans. It was devoted primarily to the worship of Flora, the goddess of flowers. It was in her honor a five day celebration, called the Floralia, was held. The five day festival would start from April 28 and end on May 2. The Romans brought in the rituals of the Floralia festival in the British Isles. And gradually the rituals of the Floralia were added to those of the Beltane. And many of today’s customs on the May Day bear a stark similarity with those combined traditions.

May day observance was discouraged during the Puritans. Though, it was relived when the Puritans lost power in England, it didn’t have the same robust force. Gradually, it came to be regarded more as a day of joy and merriment for the kids, rather than a day of observing the ancient fertility rights.

The tradition of Maypole and greeneries:
By the Middle Ages every English village had its Maypole. The bringing in of the Maypole from the woods was a great occasion and was accompanied by much rejoicing and merrymaking. The Maypoles were of all sizes. And one village would vie with another to show who could produce the tallest Maypole. Maypoles were usually set up for the day in small towns, but in London and the larger towns they were erected permanently.

The Maypole tradition suffered a setback for about a couple of decades since the Puritan Long Parliament stopped it in 1644. However, with the return of the Stuarts, the Maypole reappeared and the festivities of May Day were again enjoyed. The changes brought about by the Reformation included attempts to do away with practices that were obviously of pagan origin. But the Maypole, or, May tree, was not issued in practice at the behest of the second Stuart.

Although they succeeded in doing this, Maypole with most of the other traditions, many still survived. And Maypole is one of them. In France it merely changed its name. In Perigord and elsewhere, the May Tree became the “Tree of Liberty” and was the symbol of the French Revolution. Despite the new nomenclature, the peasants treated the tree in the same traditional spirit. And they would dance around it the same way as their forefathers had always done.

Maypoles and trees:
Trees have been linked to a part of celebration, perhaps, to the days ancient New Year rites. The association of trees to this celebration has come riding on the back of the spring festival in ancient Europe. Trees have always been the symbol of the great vitality and fertility of nature and were often used at the spring festivals of antiquity. The anthropologist E. O. James finds a strong relationship between the ancient tree related traditions of the British and the Romans. According to James’ description, as a part of the May Day celebration, the youths in old Europe cut down a tree, lopped off the branches leaving a few at the top. They then wrapped it round with violets like the figure of the Attis, the ancient Roman god. At sunrise, they used to take it back to their villages by blowing horns and flutes. In a similar manner, the sacred pine tree representing the god Attis was carried in procession to the temple of Cybele on Rome’s Palatine Hill during the Spring Festival of March 22.

Roots of May Day celebration in America:
The Puritans frowned on May Day, so the day has never been celebrated with as much enthusiasm in the United States as in Great Britain. But the tradition of celebrating May Day by dancing and singing around a maypole, tied with colorful streamers or ribbons, survived as a part of the English tradition. The kids celebrating the day by moving back and forth around the pole with the the streamers, choosing of May queen, and hanging of May baskets on the doorknobs of folks — are all the leftovers of the old European traditions.