This was initially put up Might 7, 2012
Blessing the Supply of Life harks again to the time when shrines had been constructed close to springs, the very literal sources of life for crops, animals, and people.
The prayer “As we bless the Supply of Life, so we’re blessed,” based mostly on a Hebrew metaphor which refers to a water supply and set to music in a Jewish feminist context by Religion Rogow, has grow to be one of many bedrocks of my Goddess observe.
In Minoan Crete, seeds had been blessed on the altars of the Goddess and the primary fruits of each crop had been returned to Her. The traditional Minoans piled their altars excessive with barley, fruits, nuts, and beans, and poured libations of milk and honey, water and wine, over the choices they positioned on altars. Proof of those actions is discovered within the massive variety of pouring vessels saved close to altars.
Recreating these rituals on the Goddess Pilgrimage to Crete, and singing collectively, “As we bless the Supply of Life, so we’re blessed,” many times, we start to know that the gestures of our ancestors had been based mostly in gratitude for Life itself. They understood that the fruits of the earth, the grain, the wine, and the oil, the cherries, the peas, the olives, and every little thing else that we eat, are presents of bounteous Mom Earth.
Our ancestors’ rituals are sometimes categorized (and dismissed) as “primitive magic” designed to make sure rains will come, seeds will sprout, and harvests will probably be ample. Anthropologists and historians of faith are proper that this was one of many functions of agricultural rituals. What they could fail to know is the profound honor, respect, and gratitude for the Supply of Life that underlay the rituals.
On the primary Friday after Easter, the Greek Orthodox church celebrates the feast of the Zodoxos Pigi, the Life-giving Spring, the Supply of Life. Her icon depicts the Panagia, She Who Is All Holy, Mary, seated in a fountain holding the Christ youngster. Water overflows from the fountain and into the baptismal fount.
This advanced picture each evokes and denies the last word holiness of the waters that break when each youngster is born. The Mom is honored, however the Son is elevated. The Zodoxos Pigi shouldn’t be honored for herself, however as a result of she gave beginning to a Son who brings salvation. In Greek Orthodox baptism rituals, the fingers of the monks, the earthy representatives of the Son, are kissed, whereas the mom of the kid stands in silence, neither permitted to talk, nor to method the holy altar behind the icon display screen.
Nonetheless, the icon of the Zodoxos Pigi reminds us that “at first” springs themselves had been understood to be holy, for they had been the literal Supply of Life, for crops, animals, and human beings. As a result of gratitude for Life itself couldn’t be eradicated from the human coronary heart, many Christian church buildings, like this one in Petra, Lesbos, the place water rises up via the rock, had been constructed over springs.
