A Wisdom Archive on Fertility gods

ODINISM: A form of Norse Paganism that recognizes only the Aesir, the Sky Gods, including Odin, Frigga, Thor, Loki, Balder and others. Odinism does not acknowledge the Vanir, the Gods concerned with earth, agriculture, fertility and the cycle of death and rebirth.

 
(See also: ODINISM, Pagan Organisations, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary, Wicca,  )

BELTANE OR BEALTAINE-   This Sabbat is celebrated on May 1st.  It is rife with fertility rituals and symbolimsm, and is a celebration of the sacred marriage of the Goddess and God. the festival celebrated on April 30th or May 1st. It also celebrates the maturity of the God to manhood and the union of the God and Goddess, and her fertility. Also the traditional Sabbath where the rule of the "Wheel of the Year" is returned to the Goddess. Also called May Day, the old English May Pole tradition was of a phallic symbol, marking the return of vitality, passion and consumated hopes. One of the Ancient Celtic "Fire Festivals." on this night, the cattle were driven between two bonfires to protect them from disease. Couples wishing for fertility would " jump the fires" on Beltane night. This Festival also marks the transition point of the threefold Goddess energies from those of Maiden to Mother Pronounced b'' YALt''n. Also see NOSWYL MAI.

 
(See also: BELTANE, BEALTAINE, Witchcraft, Wicca, Paganism, Pagan Dictionary )

Siddim (Hebrew, Jewish). The Canaanites, we are told, worshipped these evil powers as deities, the name meaning the "pourers forth"; a valley was named after them.
 
There seems to be a connection between these, as types of Fertile Nature, and the many-bosomed Isis and Diana of Ephesus. In Psalm cvi., 37, the word is translated "devils ", and we are told that the Canaanites shed the blood of their sons and daughters to them. Their title seems to come from the same root ShD, from which the god name
El Shaddai is derived.
 
The Arabic Shedim means "Nature Spirits ", Elementals; they are the afrits of modern Egypt and djins of Persia,.India, etc.

 
(See also: Siddim, Theosophy, Spirituality, Body mind and Soul, Spiritual Dictionary,  )

Until 3,000 years ago, all religions were pantheistic and polytheistic as Hinduism, Taoism and Shinto still are. They tolerated the religions of other tribes and cultures, recognising in their worship the same divine energies as their own, albeit with different names.
 
Why then did patriarchal, monotheistic religions arise in the Middle East 3,000 years ago, and spread in their Christian forms throughout Europe and then on to the European colonised overseas territories during the last 1,500 years? Why did these monotheistic religions fight so fiercely to eradicate nature worship in the lands they controlled? Why did Christianity promote a dualistic antagonism between the spirit and the flesh, with only the former conceived as being in the "image of God"?

 
(See also: Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Peace on Earth: Cosmic Balance and World Peace

Studying the myths of various cultures leads to a better understanding of their social and religious underpinnings. By turning the myths inwards, inviting them into our lives and learning their language of imagery and symbolism, we learn more about ourselves.
 
In almost every culture, the metaphor of descent serves as a powerful, sacred and mythic image for women. One of the earliest such accounts is the story of Inanna, the Sumerian goddess and Queen of the Upper World. She was worshipped in Sumer from the third millennium BCE (before the common era) to the first millennium BCE.

 
(See also: Spiritual Mythology, God and Religion, Peace on Earth, Peace of Mind, Love and Happiness, Life and Beyond, Body Mind and Soul )

Read more here: » Spiritual Mythology: Mythology Reveals Power of Descent  

Ymir (Icelandic, Scandinavian) In the Norse creation tale, the primeval frostgiant from whose substance the worlds are formed by the aesir (gods) at the beginning of time. According to the Voluspa (sibyl''s prophecy) in the Edda, Ymir was "slain" -- transformed -- by the creative deities Odin Allfather (spirit), Vile (will), and Vi or Ve (awe, sanctity) into the substances that form the worlds in space.
 
One version relates that sparks from Muspellsheim (realm of fire) fell among the droplets of water vapor in Niflheim (realm of mists or nebulae) creating vapor in Ginnungagap (the yawning void). From this arose the likeness of a man, Ymir, who was nourished by the four streams of milk flowing from the udder of the cow Audhumla -- symbol of fertility. Ymer represents the frozen immobility of non-existence when the universe is not.
 
The Vala (sibyl) relates in Voluspa that the frostgiant''s two feet mated with each other and that from them arose all the matter-giants from which all physical creation was formed. She describes poetically how the blood of Ymir became the oceans of water, his bones became mountains, his skull the heavenly vault, but "from his brain were surely all dark skies created." Midgard (central court), the earth, is surrounded and protected by his eyebrows and each quarter of space is governed by one of the four ruling powers, named for the four cardinal points, North, South, East, and West.

 
(See also: Ymir, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )

Tiamat (Chaldean) Chaldean serpent, slain by Bel, the chief deity. The tale is repeated in the later Babylonian account, with the exception that Marduk or Merodach (producer of the world) replaces Bel. The mythologic serpent, described as the imbodiment of evil both physical and moral, was enormous (300 miles long), it moved in undulations 6 miles in height. When Marduk finally slew Tiamat he split the monster into two halves, using one as a covering of the heavens, so that the upper waters would not come down. Tiamat is cognate with the Babylonian tiamtu, tamtu, "the ocean," rendered Thalatth by Berosus in his Chaldean cosmogony. There is here likewise the reference to the waters of wisdom, the divine wisdom and the lower wisdom of manifestation.
 
Blavatsky explains that the serpent Tiamat is the great mother, "the living principle of chaos" (TG 334). "The struggle of Bel and then of Merodach, the Sun-god, with Tiamat, the Sea and its Dragon, a ''war'' which ended in the defeat of the latter, has a purely cosmic and geological meaning, as well as an historical one. It is a page torn out of the History of the Secret and Sacred Sciences, their evolution, growth and death -- for the profane masses. It relates (a) to the systematic and gradual drying up of immense territories by the fierce Sun at a certain pre-historic period; one of the terrible droughts which ended by a gradual transformation of once fertile lands abundantly watered into the sandy deserts which they are now; and (b) to the as systematic persecution of the Prophets of the Right Path by those of the Left" (SD 2:503).
 
See also TAMTI

 
(See also: Tiamat, Mysticism, Mysticism Dictionary, Body mind and Soul )