Mastodawn

cohan Aug 16, 2023

#Māras /Mara's Day or Great Mother Day in the #Latvian tradtion- is now mostly celebrated Aug 15, conflated with the Virgin Mary; really it should be around Aug 6, for the cross-quarter day between Summer Solstice/Autumn Equinox. Māra is the #prechristian Great/Earth Mother celebrated several times a year. This one marks final flowering, harvest, final days of summer. Digital altar this year, +more in this #blog post from 2021 with an #altar #offering
https://cohanmagazine.blogspot.com/2021/08/blog-post.html #animist #pagan

Māras/Great Mother Day: Late Summer and an Earth Goddess

Mara or Māra, Great Mother, is the highest goddess in Latvian mythology. Her sphere of power and influence is wide and varied. Numerous othe...

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cohan Aug 16, 2023

images in the collage represent the fruitfulness and continued bounty of the season-- two types of heritage garden peas, plus all the life on the Earth she embodies/symbolises- a small frog, a flower fly, a buzzing bee, a wild aster, a weedy Sonchus/Sow Thistle (black shady background-- Māra's colour is black, like the Earth/soil), nearly ripe crab apples, two stones picked up from the road, again emphasising her connection to the Earth.
#DigitalAltar #NatureSpirits #NaturesBounty

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cohan

I don't think of this (or any) primordial Goddess as a literal character, but rather the embodiment of life essence, of the reality of this Earth--life, death, mineral and hydrological cycles, weather, seasons etc.
The symbolism is meant to reinforce *our* connection to -everything! We are not separate from nature, we are part of it.
Here's another version of the altar, less legible text..lol
#animist #GoddessCulture #OldEurope #AncientWays