Artemis is a Greek maiden goddess of nature and the moon. A fairly solitary goddess, she is sometimes seen in the company of her twin brother Apollo or her collection of maiden huntresses. She is also sometimes known as the leader of the Wild Hunt, a Celtic legend.
Oh Marie Laveau! Anybody whose ever been the least bit interested in New Orleans voodoo has heard the many legends of Marie Laveau. She led huge dances is Congo Square that scandalized all of white New Orleans. She led enormous rituals at the shores of Lake Pontchartrain every St John’s Eve (the night before midsummer, or the summer solstice). At one of these rituals, she was taken by the lake, never to be seen again except for the type of glimpses usually reserved for ghost stories.
Trying to trace the historical Marie Laveau is a tricky business. She was actually two people: Marie Laveau (1794 – 1881) and her daughter, Marie Laveau II (1827 – 1895?), who sometimes went by the name of her father, Paris.
Brigid is a handy lady to get to know. A Celtic maiden goddess, she has three aspects all by herself: poetry, smithcraft and healing. As the sacred flame of knowledge, Brigid can be represented by anything that give off heat and light.
Kore is Demeter’s daughter by her brother Zeus, and I promise not to make any more Star Wars jokes. He transformed himself into a bull, after that worked so well for Poseidon and tricked her the same way. “Kore” translates to “the maiden” and she was Demeter’s favorite child.
The story behind the Eleusian mysteries begins when Kore catches the notice of the Olympian underworld god Hades, another brother of Demeter. Here is a bunch of people that need family counseling! There are two versions of what happens next: one in which Kore falls in love with him and follows him willingly to the Underworld, and another in which Kore is kidnapped by Hades and brought to the Underworld by force. The second version is probably more familiar to most people and it is the version most obviously informed by the Judeo-Christian patriarchal attitudes of western civilization. Either way, Kore disappears.
Continue reading
Lucina's Cauldron 