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Epona
Apr 4, 2011 18:09:10 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Apr 4, 2011 18:09:10 GMT -1
Heron, do you think it is an important part of Her worship to mark Her absense as much as to celebrate her presence? When you say that you offer sparingly during the winter is it a conscious abstinance?
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Epona
Apr 4, 2011 18:11:43 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Apr 4, 2011 18:11:43 GMT -1
I'm only just beginning to really get to know Her, and She seems to have backed away a lot since I recognised that our relationship doesn't need to be exclusive. I don't think I understand Her well enough yet to really decide when is the best time
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Epona
Apr 4, 2011 20:31:19 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 4, 2011 20:31:19 GMT -1
Heron, do you think it is an important part of Her worship to mark Her absense as much as to celebrate her presence? When you say that you offer sparingly during the winter is it a conscious abstinance? Not an abstinence so much as a recognition of the state of nature in the Winter and that her absence from the land means that no roses are growing. As I pointed out in my piece on story telling and the gods, they can be brought to presence even in their 'absence'. I don't feel her to be absent on a personal level, but offering, say, dried rose petals or rose water would be in rememberance of what she is at other times, but to be acting as if it were Summer in the Winter seems to me not appropriate. So it's a careful balance to get to what feels right.
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Epona
Apr 15, 2011 14:00:34 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Apr 15, 2011 14:00:34 GMT -1
I've been thinking again ;D I wonder why it is that in the surviving stories - ie the mabinogion - Rhiannon is one of the most important goddess figures encountered. But there is very little in the way of physical evidence for Her being so central. If Rhiannon is Epona (which I know not everybody agrees with) which is my own feeling, there isn't much to say that Epona was one of the Big deities. As the Romans called Her Epona Regina I did a quick search to see if there is much evidence for worship of Regina and found 6 mentions of Regina: Regina in Lemington Regina Caelestis in carvornan (Caelestir was also called Brigantia in another inscription) Diana Regina from Newstead altar Juno Regina from Carlisle Salus Regina (queen of health) in Caerleon Not sure how reliable or complete this info is though? The was one mention of the 3 Eponas - if this is right (?) it was obviously suggest some sort of triple aspect? Could this mean Epona is but 1 aspect of the goddess Rhiannon, and evidence for her might be found under other names such as Regina? I'm also wondering who the Juno caesar refers to is in his commentary on the British tribes? I also came across this: cassiopaea.org/forum/index.php?topic=9436.0;wap2which I find interesting but have no idea if any of the info is at all reliable or believable. What do you more knowledgable peeps think?
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Epona
Apr 17, 2011 11:54:01 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Apr 17, 2011 11:54:01 GMT -1
HMMM, really thought i remembered reading that Caesar had mentioned Juno, but seems I remembered wrong?
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Epona
Apr 18, 2011 8:56:28 GMT -1
Post by potia on Apr 18, 2011 8:56:28 GMT -1
I don't consider myself one of the more knowledgable peeps here but I've learnt a few things from them that are The information on that forum thread seems to be drawing together a number of ideas from different times in history as well as different places and suggesting that because they have similarities they are from the same route. I've not heard of Epona being linked to the greek goddess Hippa before. The suggestion that the Epidii of Kyntire and the Iceni are the same tribe just because both had links to horses seems a bit of a stretch to me. Most of the rest of it to me seems more like wishful thinking than good scholarship. Seeing conncections where there might not really be any. I could be wrong but that's the way it reads to me. Must admit that I like one or two of those ideas myself such as the Cailleach maybe being known as Danu in the past (or Don in the Brythonic) but am aware that there's nothing really to back that up. It does fit with my own UPG though.
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Epona
Apr 18, 2011 18:19:25 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 18, 2011 18:19:25 GMT -1
I don't consider myself one of the more knowledgable peeps here but I've learnt a few things from them that are The information on that forum thread seems to be drawing together a number of ideas from different times in history as well as different places and suggesting that because they have similarities they are from the same route. I've not heard of Epona being linked to the greek goddess Hippa before. The suggestion that the Epidii of Kyntire and the Iceni are the same tribe just because both had links to horses seems a bit of a stretch to me. Most of the rest of it to me seems more like wishful thinking than good scholarship. Seeing conncections where there might not really be any. I could be wrong but that's the way it reads to me. Must admit that I like one or two of those ideas myself such as the Cailleach maybe being known as Danu in the past (or Don in the Brythonic) but am aware that there's nothing really to back that up. It does fit with my own UPG though. Potia's assessment seems pretty sound to me on the basis of a quick look at that link.
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Epona
Apr 18, 2011 18:31:49 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Apr 18, 2011 18:31:49 GMT -1
Rigantona : A DedicationRigantona, I strew rose petals about your altar For your coming from the Otherworld.
Spring is all about us , The hawthorn tree has leaves Emerging from the Otherworld.
I feel your presence in the blossoming boughs, In the flowers of the fields, In the green leaves and the many-coloured petals.
These petals from another year I have kept for you Until roses bloom again And you ride Through the gates of the Otherworld Across the land in splendour.
Rigantona, I strew rose petals about your altar For your coming from the Otherworld.
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Epona
Apr 19, 2011 8:52:17 GMT -1
Post by Blackbird on Apr 19, 2011 8:52:17 GMT -1
Beautiful. That captures so well the things that are important to me at this time of year. Nellie, Regina simply means 'Queen', so there's not necessarily a link between the different Reginas. What we do know (though the evidence comes only from a fragment) is that Epona was the only non-Roman goddess to be made a part of the Saturnalia celebrations, with her own feast-day. We also know (from written accounts) that she was very popular among the cavalry and the low ranking soldiery. (Probably Gaulish/British auxillieries) The main problem is that no god leaves much of a trace until the Romans come along... we do have altars naming Epona from Auchendavy and Carvoran (so says Guy De La Bedoyere in Gods and Thunderbolts, and he has a nice picture of an Epona icon, said to be from Wiltshire)
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Epona
Apr 19, 2011 9:23:05 GMT -1
Post by nellie on Apr 19, 2011 9:23:05 GMT -1
I'm reading Gods with Thunderbolts at the moment, I'll go take another look for the pic.
Heron that is lovely, really. Was a great inspiration when I got up this morning.
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Epona
Nov 10, 2015 14:42:35 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Nov 10, 2015 14:42:35 GMT -1
For a Vigil at the Dark Moon following Samhain
By Orion’s light At the Dark of the Moon Now the hawthorn tree is bare
A shadow passes through the veil Of the Otherworld on a Grey Mare
Rigantona, roses wither on your altar But we keep your vigil here.
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Epona
Nov 12, 2015 11:35:35 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Nov 12, 2015 11:35:35 GMT -1
Thanks for sharing this continuation of your seasonal devotions to Rigantona, this time at the Dark Moon after Samhain. Interesting that this opens by 'Orion's Light'. My first glimpse of Orion this year was during the lunar eclipse. This also inspired a poem for Epona, which I read at Potia's rite for her in Glasgow shortly afterward.
Do you have a sense of Rigantona becoming a deity of the Otherworld for six months before she returns? How does her movement between the worlds affect your interactions?
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Epona
Nov 13, 2015 10:01:04 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Nov 13, 2015 10:01:04 GMT -1
....... Do you have a sense of Rigantona becoming a deity of the Otherworld for six months before she returns? How does her movement between the worlds affect your interactions? Lorna, there was I think a discussion about the 'absence' of Rigantona during the winter months some time back on this forum, but I think its worth exploring in a bit more detail, perhaps employing a bit of 'theology', so here goes: It's certainly part of my experience that she 'withdraws' during the winter, though not that she cannot be perceived at all. One way of putting this would be that she is present as an absence, that there is a space for her that is negatively charged. But there is also a sense that she can be perceived through the veil in the Otherworld. There is, of course, a seasonal element in this relating to the natural cycle through the year perceived mythologically and represented on the eightfold year cycle in wiccan practice as well as enacted in the psychodramas of the gods in ancient mythology. These are schema, or human ways of making sense of and giving a dramatic shape to the ways in which the gods interact with us and are perceived in nature. The problem with these today is that often people experience only the schema and lose sight of the gods in the representation of them. So while the 'absence' of Rigantona in the winter certainly fits the schema of the life of the land withdrawing in winter, and matches extant ancient mythos like the story of Persephone, I would nowadays only want to emphasise it as illustrative rather than definitive. Of course, as pagans, we experience the gods as we experience the cycle of nature where we live, but at the same time as polytheists we experience them as individuals with an identity rather than simply as expressions of a natural cycle. So how does this get represented in the stories that have come down to us? In the stories from the Mabinogi where Rigantona appears as Rhiannon she comes riding out of the Otherworld on a white horse on what I take to be a morning of May (this made explicit in other parallel stories such as that of Thomas of Erceldoune). Once she is in the world she is seen to withdraw from it in a number of different but parallel ways, such as when she has to do penance at the horse block in the second half of the story in the First Branch and more explicitly when she follows Pryderi into the Otherworld and is held there in captivity in the Third Branch. These are typological absences which can be described in terms of the structural analyses of myth as parallel events chronologically distinct but synchronised in the representation of different aspects of deity. That's just a description of how myth works when contained in stories that are not, in themselves, myths, though they remain a part of the 'mythos'. Such a description is a useful way into reading the remnant tales in which the gods or their shadows still appear, and reinforce our own direct perceptions of them as well as interacting with these to reinforce them. The suggestion here, then, is not just that such analyses help us to describe mythological stories, but also that this works because it describes the way we perceive them within ourselves which interacts with the way they are inscribed in the stories. So I can see a pattern of withdrawal both of Rigantona and other deities in the stories and in the natural cycle. Together with this my apprehension of the actual presence of Rigantona (though at this level of familiarity she is Rhiannon) or the degree of her presence or distance at different times of year completes the total apprehension of her in story, in nature, and in psychic space to bring her close even when she is apparently 'absent'. And I try to represent this in my relationship with her both symbolically by specific acts and actually in my expectations of how I can interact with her. I hope this makes sense, both in terms of Rigantona's 'absence' and in terms of the ways we interact with the gods generally - we do need to get that a bit clearer than it is for most people. I'd be happy to discuss or elucidate further for anyone. A particular further issue here might be the presence in the Roman calendar of Eponalia in December. Is this an arbitrary Roman placing or does it have another significance?
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Epona
Nov 21, 2015 17:51:43 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Nov 21, 2015 17:51:43 GMT -1
With Eponalia coming up I’d like to suggest we think about why the date of this festival is 18th December in the Roman festival calendar. Ovid, in his Fasti, gives a lot of information about the origin and significance of the festivals up until the end of June. But he died before writing the second part covering July to December. In a recent post on here I discussed the sense in which Rigantona might be regarded as an ‘absent presence’ in the winter months. If we can say the same for Epona, in what sense can we celebrate her festival close to the Winter Solstice? Let’s think first of Consus who had two festivals, one of which was December 15th. Here’s what the Latin scholar Jackson Knight has to say about him:
"He is equated by Livy with an equestrian Neptunus. Consus, whose name is from 'condere', which means 'to hide' ... was one of the many gods of safety and stability worshipped in Italy. His sacred place was a 'mundus' a hole in the earth giving communication to the world below, kept shut, except at the Consualia, the festival of Consus. He had a consort called ''Ops' , wealth. The horse ritual therefore secured the dependence of the city on the earth ... and at the same time it prevented evil influences from outside evoking excessive activity from the chthonic powers symbolized by Consus in his equine shape.”
The festival of Ops is December 19th and her names means ‘plenty’. She was associated with grain, its planting and its potential under the soil. So the festival of Epona occurred between that of the Consus who was a sea god in horse form, and Ops who represented stored riches. Now consider what Patrick Ford says about Rhiannon and Manawydan in the Mabinogi. He suggests that the tales in the Third Branch “preserves the detritus of a myth wherein the Sea God mated with the Horse Goddess”. Were the Romans thinking of something like this when they placed Eponalia where it is in their calendar?
In the past we have linked celebrating her festival with Winter Solstice and the ensuing Yuletide. There are ways in which this can be made to make sense in terms of Earth Mother symbolism and the re-birth of the Sun.
I throw all this out for discussion Should we seek significance in the date of Eponalia or just regard it as the date appointed for her celebration and see no more significance in the actual date?
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Epona
Nov 24, 2015 16:24:26 GMT -1
Post by potia on Nov 24, 2015 16:24:26 GMT -1
I think it's worth looking at varying ideas if nothing else than to keep our minds and hearts open to the various possibilities.
I think some people though also get a bit locked into the idea of specific dates for honouring particular deities. I'm not saying it isn't important to continue to use those dates, more that I think we should remain open to holding festivals at other times too.
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Epona
Nov 29, 2015 12:48:59 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Nov 29, 2015 12:48:59 GMT -1
@ Heron. Your words make sense. In my experience the deities I connect with are bound up with the seasons but their absence / presence in thisworld and to me aren't completely determined by the seasons and the weather. Similarly, I feel Gwyn's presence within the landscape most strongly in winter and in the mist but I can *must* find ways of connecting with him in summer whether this in thought or by journeying to liminal places where he can be found more easily or travelling in spirit to his world.
This is the first year I've started experiencing Rigantona's presence as a goddess (although as I've said I've known her through horses for a long long while) and will be the first time I celebrate Eponalia, which I'm hoping to do in a place called 'stable meadow' where I often leave an offering for my white mare spirit guide.
So we've got Consus (sea god in horse-form with chthonic qualities), Consus (goddess of gain and plenty associated with seeds in the soil) and Epona (horse goddess).
Then Manawydan (sea god in horse form?) and Rhiannon (horse goddess)and several days later Modroniht (mother's night) / Matronalia (the mothers were associated with plenty and grain). Also, isn't Epona sometimes associated with the mothers?
It all seems linked - sea god in horse form, mare goddess who may be related to goddesses of plenty and grain in some way.
However it seems a bit strange for grain to be being sown when the soil is frozen and certainly for horses to be mating at this time of year. When I worked at the dressage stud all the breeding was spring / summer so foals can be born in spring when it's young. I'm less sure about dates for sowing grain. May have been different in Rome though.
I'm wondering instead, whether this festival has to do more with gaining the favour of Epona for fertility for the next year or possibly more to do with her role as a psychopomp?
In 'Phantom Armies of the Night' Charles Lecoouteux speaks about winter feasts where offerings would have been made to procure the blessings of the mothers for fertility and 'good women who roam the night' sometimes leading restless spirits.
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Epona
Nov 30, 2015 15:30:59 GMT -1
Post by Heron on Nov 30, 2015 15:30:59 GMT -1
Potia, yes it's definitely more important to acknowledge the gods when and how we can than to adhere to specific dates or forms of worship. In spite of that I will for the moment pursue (perhaps obsessively?) the issue of the date of Eponalia below Lorna, it's also true that if we get inflexibly tied into the seasonal cycle, as important as it is, we can end up with a rather schematic view of the identity of deities. This tended to be a problem for me back in my wicca days when the enactment of seasonal psycho-dramas seemed to suggest that an aspect of deity - say, the Crone - could only be experienced in Winter. While the schema which matched the gods, or aspects of them, to the season did allow for a very powerful enactment of their rites, it also often appeared to me arbitrary and to deny them a living presence throughout the year. The three-fold goddess as Maiden-Mother-Crone seemed to fit with the representations of the Matres in threes, though in these depictions each appears alike rather than as a sequence - and I find it difficult to regard the gods as being bound by time in that way. It is, anyway, certainly true that Matrona was represented in this way and also that there are depictions of the threefold Matres that have also been identified with Epona. So I think we need some fluidity in our conceptualisations rather than too rigid a schema - the gods, after all, can be what they like when they like in spite of our failure to adequately categorise them! Your comments on Epona as psychopomp best match my thinking about the placing of Eponalia just before the Winter Solstice. Psychopomp to the Sun? That quote about women roaming the night and leading restless spirits also touches a significant key which resonates with my evolving sense of the period between Samhain and now. I've - incidentally - also been looking at timings for the sunrise and sunset around Solstice. Although we think of the days as getting longer from the Solstice, they hardly move for several days. In fact the sunrise continues to get later each morning right up until the end of December. The almost imperceptible increase in day length occurs because the sunset is also later and by a slightly greater amount from Eponalia (18th Dec) onwards! but only beginning to give overall extra day length from the 22nd onwards and initially by less than a minute until the 25th. I tried to make some sort of sense of this a few years back using the Latin inscription from Transalpine Gaul which looks back at Eponalia from 'New Year Calends' , though the 15 days mentioned doesn't quite fit (because of the change in calendar?). So I'm revising the lines I wrote for that and placing them in a new (forthcoming) context for this year.
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Epona
Dec 3, 2015 19:54:25 GMT -1
Post by lorna on Dec 3, 2015 19:54:25 GMT -1
@ Heron - really interesting observances about the times of sunrise and sunset I haven't noticed! The notion of Epona as psychopomp to the sun is something I had never considered before either. In relation to Matronalia and Matrona and Maponos, playing some role in leading the sun / Son to rebirth?
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Epona
Dec 6, 2015 19:57:52 GMT -1
Post by Lee on Dec 6, 2015 19:57:52 GMT -1
the offerings to Consus into pits sound a LOT like the pit burials often talked about as offerings to the underworld ungods (the Andedion of Will Parker's book are linked to these pit burials too). Honouring the horse gooddess of the land and sovereignty whilst also making offerings to the andedion at this time seem to be sensible. we also have the Wild Hunt coming out at this time and that too has links with the andedion, fertility and the land. All preparation for the coming longer days and warmer months when the agricultural cycle begins again.
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