The Return of the Light

Midwinter Festival of Light 

 

                                                                                                   

The Wheel of the Year has turned once again and we find ourselves at the Midwinter Festival of Light, one which has been celebrated in many mythologies and under many names for eons.

At this time in the Northern Hemisphere, the light of the sun is reborn and the days begin to grow longer, waxing toward spring. Very frequently midwinter is celebrated as the birthday of the Sun God; always, it marks a time of renewal. It is a time of light in the midst of darkness, warmth of spirit and heart to counter the cold of the weather and a harsh world.

In actuality, the story of the birth of the Sun God, the Divine Child of Light, has its origins in the stars of the winter sky. The hours of darkness have gradually increased since the Autumnal Equinox as the longest and darkest night of year, the Midwinter Solstice, approaches. The actual moment of Solstice marks the time when the Sun moves from the sign of Sagittarius into that of Capricorn. At midnight on Midwinter Night, the constellation of Virgo, holding her sheaf of wheat, rises in the eastern sky. And so the Virgin gives birth to the Child of Light in the very depths of the darkness. His light, the newborn sun, will rise at dawn.

The newborn Light will bring growth and abundance—and therefore, life. So it’s not surprising to find that, in the Christian tradition, the Child is born from the House of Bread—Bethlehem’s literal meaning—who is the Virgin holding the sheaf of grain. He is laid in a manger—the small glowing starry cloud of Praesaepe, or Manger/Crib, which is in the constellation of Cancer, the astrological sign of the Mother, the nurturer. He is surrounded by ox and ass — respectively, the constellation of Taurus and the star group Aselli, the Asses, in the constellation of Cancer, with one ass positioned on each side of his Manger.

Three wise men—called kings or magi—come seeking him. The stars that form the belt of Orion, which rises in the southeast on Midwinter Night, were often called the Three Kings. The Kings/Magi, who were said to be astrologers, have come because they “followed his star” that rose in the East. Was it Sirius, brightest of the stars and associated by the Egyptians with Isis, whose light they followed? Or perhaps a special planetary conjunction that lit up the night sky in the months just before midwinter? 

Angels sing to herald this birth—bending low to the earth from their homes in the high heavens. Angel means “messenger,” and stars were looked upon as messengers of the divine. The angels’ song poured forth the message of the new birth—and its accompanying flow of spiritual energies—that ushered in a new era of light, love, growth, and abundance to come. The angels sang of this new birth to shepherds in their fields. The constellation of Bootes, near Virgo, is known as the shepherd or herdsman, while the constellation of Auriga is known as the shepherd’s crook.

And so the sky tells the story of the birth of the Holy Child of Light. At Midwinter, this Light is born again, and will shine forth—bringing light, warmth, joy, and abundance to all the world.

This time of the year is a time of sharing, love, and good cheer. May you all experience these holiday delights of the spirit, which far surpass any material gifts.

 

 © Margie McArthur, 2005-2006; 2021, All rights reserved.

St. Bernadette and the Waters of Aquarius

 

Today is the 163th anniversary of the first appearance of the Lady of Lourdes to Bernadette Soubirous, a 14 year old girl from the south of France.

A shining and beautiful lady appeared to Bernadette in a large, rocky, cave-like grotto beside the River Gave de Pau in 1858 on February 11th, a day that would have been close to the pagan feast of the Goddess Brigid (and the Catholic feast of Candlemas) by the old calendrical reckoning which was still used in areas of Europe. The feast of Brigid, which was also known as Imbolc ("in the belly") and Oimelc ("ewe's milk"), heralded the approach of Spring and its tide of new life. 

From Bernadette’s earliest descriptions of the Lady we learn that she was very young. Bernadette referred to her as “petito damizela,” which means a petite young lady, and said that she looked to be about 12 years old. The grotto was on the side of a massive ancient rock formation known as Massabielle, which means “ancient rock.” The word grotto is used because the cave was not very deep.

It should be noted that both caves and rivers are traditionally associated with the Goddess.

Garbed in a white gown with a blue sash and with golden roses on her bare feet, the Lady appeared to Bernadette a total of eighteen times, praying the rosary with her each time, and during one of the apparitions the Lady instructed her drink from the spring. Bernadette did not see a spring, so began to dig in grotto’s dry ground. After a few minutes the ground was muddy, and soon water came bubbling forth. The spring that Bernadette found today provides hundreds of gallons of healing water per day. At the end of the cycle of apparitions, after repeated requests for her name, the Lady said, “I am the Immaculate Conception.”

The Virgin Mary’s appearance in Lourdes was at a place that had previously been sacred to the Roman Underworld Goddess Proserpina, and quite likely to a native Underworld goddess before that. Proserpina is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Persephone, the maiden goddess and daughter of the Great Mother who was taken by the Lord of the Underworld to be its queen and his bride; she is the Dark Goddess of the Underworld. In Latin the word Proserpina means something akin to “to emerge, to creep forth,” as germinating plants emerge to the sunny surface of the earth, and as hibernating snakes creep forth from their holes as the weather begins to warm.

Interestingly, there’s a Brigid’s Day rhyme from Scotland that says:

Early on Bride's morn
The serpent shall come from the hole,
I will not molest the serpent,
Nor will the serpent molest me.

Was this serpent a reference to the Underworld Goddess who emerged and brought in the warmth of Spring? I am reminded that Proserpina’s Greek counterpart, Persephone, emerged from her Underworld realm in the Spring.

In addition, one cannot help but notice the similarity of the Lady of Lourdes to other apparitions recorded in folklore of the “White Ladies” — young, beautiful, female spirits dressed in white, who often appeared near the caves and caverns of the Pyrenees, especially those near a water source such as a river or spring, and often the spring was known to be a healing spring.  The White Ladies usually sought interaction with passers-by, and it is interesting that the Lady of Lourdes requested the asthmatic, under-nourished Bernadette to drink and wash in the waters of the spring. Her request resulted in the discovery of this spring, perhaps long hidden in the rocky earth of Massabielle, which is now world famous as a healing spring.

An astrological chart drawn for the day of the apparition shows that the Sun was in Aquarius—the Water Bearer—and the Moon was waning in sign of Capricorn, just a few degrees short of a new moon.

The goddess Brigid – who brings in the time of warmth and new life; the youthfulness of the Lady of Lourdes; the waning old moon as it is leaving Capricorn and moving into Aquarius; the serpent emerging from its underworld home into the light of Spring, the grotto by the river (both symbols of the Great Mother) and the watery realm of the Air sign of Aquarius... All of these together seem to me to point to the emergence of something Very New coming into being. 

How fitting then, that the Lady of Lourdes appeared during the sign of Aquarius, by a river, and that by her intercession a spring of healing waters—long lost and buried under rubble—was unearthed. Healing waters, similar to the Waters of Life that Aquarius, the Water Bearer, pours down onto the thirsty-for-healing world. 

The message here seems to be that the Divine Feminine power, which gives and takes and brings renewal by birthing and nourishing new life in a new season, has emerged from her past obscurity this last 163 years...

To me this apparition was one of many signs that heralded the end of one World Age and the start of a new one.

(Most of the above is excerpted from my book, “Lady of the Sea: The Goddess Who Births the New Age” Chapter 10)

 

                                                                        St Bernadette