|
I am a ruthless boar”
In this month Amergin sings, "I am a ruthless boar." The Boar is the last of the Four Sacred Animals to be mentioned by the poet. We have seen the boar several times dealing with the "hinge" of the year, the passage across the boundary between Light and Dark. The Boar is the creature that represents the unending continuity of divine energy and is seen as chased from one realm of energy-manifestation to the other, it’s expression changing, becoming either a dark, creature of destruction or a solar teacher. Just as the Stag, who is the Boar's counterpart, changes from the antlered apparition
to the earth-bound power at the heart of the greenwood, so also the Boar, at Samhain moving into darkness, is now the harbinger of death, taking the active energy of growth into darkness. The green energy of full light, who rose to triumph half a year earlier now is killed by the Boar as the hunt replays itself. Death is victorious, the forces of growth are stilled, soon the leaves will fall from the trees, and the lengthening nights will establish the rule of the Dark.
 But the Boar's descent into the Underworld is not purely a journey of destruction: because it is basically, in spite of any other roles it may play, a creature of fertility, it plants, within Death itself, the seeds of renewal. It is as though the single, driving force of growth manifest during light of the year had been smashed, but its many fragments retain life within themselves and, buried like seeds in winter soil, they will be nurtured by the darkness of the dark until the next bright season.
The weakening of the sun and the cooling of the air should alert us to the waning of our own expanding energies and the need to face the ending of this phase of our existence, The last of the energy must be used wisely, in a way that ensures the survival of what we have already made and that facilitates the resumption of activity at a later time. Already, from far away, we hear the boom of the sea on the cliffs of Samhain, calling us down again into the depths.
As the moon waxes, we see the wild hunt of Death charging toward us, lighting up the Land with bright autumnal colors in its throes, and we gather up those shreds of beauty to treasure in our souls. On the Full Moon the hunt has reached us, we come face-to-face with the Boar, and we hold up the gift we have prepared, the shape we have chosen to best summarize what we have achieved through this year's activity. With the moon's waning we look serenely inwards, as another year ends, and a new cycle is about to begin.
I AM A BOAR
I am a boar on this high place
In the first fresh frost
On autumn’s face;
The hunters call to sound the chase
But I am bold
I will run this race.
For many moons we roamed this land, Where others fell
I learned to stand;
The old and great join in the dance
Courage and cunning are my inheritance.
On the earth, in the air, Through the fire, by the water,
I
am VALOR, the eleventh month’s daughter.
© Chris Carol 1979. © 1948, 1966 by International Authors N.Y.
This
is the Tree for the Eleventh Moon ~ The Sacred Trees named in the Ogham.
The Ogham letter is Gort - the Tree is Ivy
The Animal is the Wild Boar
It's energy is Tenacity
Raw survival instinct enabling triumph over circumstances
From The Song of Amergin “I am a ruthless boar:
ruthless and red”
Entwining Ivy
represents the embracing and confining female principles of life.
Through
conception and birth, the male life force is given form by the female body, but
in giving life substance so too does women bring death into being.
Ivy is the
Thirteenth Moon's tree. It is sacred to Osiris and Dionysus.
Dedicated to resurrection jointly with vine because they grow spirally.
An
Ivy Bush – according to the Oxford English Dictionary stands for “ a place
of concealment or retirement.”
Saturn’s
Sacred Bird the Golden Crest Wren always built her nest in an Ivy Bush.
There
is a well known revelry, celebrated in medieval English carols, between the
Holly-boys and the Ivy-girls which symbolizes the battle of the sexes.
Another custom was to bind the last harvest sheaf in Ivy and call it the
Ivy Girl.
The
symbolism of the boar is used because the cycle falls during boar hunting season
and the boar is the beast of death symbolizing the “Fall” or the beginning
of death, of the Old Year. But the
Ivy’s serpentine spiraling signifies resurrection. Again, a reminder of the
birth/death cycle of life.
Sacred
to numerous deities, Ivy is used to produce Ivy-ale, an extremely potent drink
of the Middle Ages. Ivy leaves were chewed for their toxic effect in the
Bacchanal revels celebrated at this season in Thrace and Thessaly; the
intoxicated Bassarids, waved branches of Silver Fir
- sacred to the birth goddess – wreathed in a spiral of yellow-berried
Ivy. The dark-green, shiny leaves
of Ivy, being a five pointed star, made them especially sacred to the Great
Goddess, connecting with the “mysterious” group of five British goddesses,
the “deae matronae.”
Ivy
attracts the last bees of the year, enhancing its religious importance, there
having been numerous Bee-goddess cults.
In
this month, the Mute Swan, (Geis), whose colors of plumage, black legs, and red
bill make it especially sacred to the White Goddess, prepares to follow her
companion the Whistling Swan (bird from Autumnal Equinox – Eadha – Aspen)
who is about to fly off with her young. The
smoke of weed-fires, the haze on the hills, and the skies before the coming
rains, are all Blue (Gorm).
Magical
properties - gender, feminine, planet - Saturn, element - water, deities -
Bacchus, Dionysus, Osiris - powers
- protection, healing, ritual uses - the thyrsus used in worshipping Bacchus was
often wound round with ivy. Carried
by women for good luck, worn by brides for same reason.
Guards against negativity and disaster.
Also used in fidelity and love charms.
There
is fierce and determined power in Gort. It
gives the boar-like tenacity to apply the will to do difficult and intricate
work. The Ivy is a sign of development and transformation of the
self. It indicates you may soon be
involved in a change in your business or educational life and there are perhaps
gains to be had in connection with it. However,
the path may be fraught with pitfalls. There
may be those who are envious of your accomplishments.
Seek the best guidance in what you do.
The main challenge is not to get caught up in the tools of the
transformation process. Remember
that the tools are not the ends, but only the means to give rise to something
emerging from the depths of your psyche. Keep
your focus on your true goals.
Lesson
of the Ivy
Ivy reminds us
of the movement of the heavens and the way this is reflected on the earth.
It has the ability to bind all things together. It can wander freely,
linking tree to tree, or form dense thickets that block out the light and
restrict passage. Ivy brings shelter or overwhelming darkness and reminds
us that where there is life, there is also death. Ivy represents the
wandering of the soul in its search for enlightenment and it carries a warning
to be sure of the direction of your desires so that you avoid being ensnared by
them. True progress is made, however, when all the lessons of
the preceding trees have been linked together with Ivy, in such a way that the
light can still enter and no limb need break.
Stone
~ Serpentine
Striking green stone with
light and dark hues and white or black speckles, relatively soft, associated
with Scorpio, serpentine increases wisdom and self-restraint. It is said to
protect against venom and has many of the same properties as green jade (see
above).
Mor Righ Anu
Morrigan's Harvest
When the Morrigan moves through the fields
Only she the white is seen at the sky.
Single dark fogs fly across the heaven
and clothe the great Queen like a splendid robe.
When the Morrigan moves through the fields
She is bare, only her black hair covers her
Followed by a flock of crows
She strides through the world
The crows shriek hurries on ahead of her,
heralding of her harvest
When the Morrigan moves through the fields
She is Destroyess and Mistress of the world
One glance into her mirroring eyes
Leeds you across without pain
Every burning sorrow she takes away
in her cool black boat.
Roibin
Morrigan's Shrine
|
