the Sun as the Goddess

PaulinCork

I generally feel more comfortable with the Sun as the Goddess and the Moon as the God. What do other Pagans feel about this?
Sun Goddesses: Grainne, Aine, Brigit, Sekhmet, Ameratsu,

Talliesin

Not something that works much for me, but Celtic and Sumerian pantheons both work this way.

Nevyn

yes thare some schools of tought on that but I would really disagree.

My basic arguement would be I am female and well the whole cycle of the moon and a womans 'moon tides' are for me very closely linked.
yes there are godess that have a very firely and bright aspect/element but that for me makes them linked with fire, (ie Brid for smithing comes under her remit)
but does not make them solar in aspect.

PaulinCork

Aine's festival is at Summer Solstice.

Perhaps its more useful to see both Sun and Moon as having female and male aspects.

From what I've read, a lot of 19th writers on myth switched genders on Moon and Sun stories because they saw the moon reflecting the sun's light as passive, and the sun as fiery and central

Apparently, bi and hetro women from many cultures considered that the moon's effect on their cycles as that of a lover, and could use the Moon to explain who a father was when neccessary!

The more I think about it , the more sense it makes to see both sun and moon as both "female" and "male"



Here's the link on Amazon to
"The Sun Goddess: Myth, Legend and History"
by Sheena McGrath
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0713726628/103-4377426-3702239?v=glance

Ruadan

While i do believe everything has male and female aspects, and have studied philosophies surrounding the idea of Yin and Yang, it always feels "right" somehow to view the moon as a female entity, both from a personal point of view and with a knowledge of how the body has affected the planet for the fiew billion years the 2 have been travelling together (i am however a humble chemist, not an astronomer, so the info i've garnered may be out of date,)

but i have seen it said that were it not for the fact that the primordoal seas on the earth were influenced to a huge degree by a moon that was then 20 times closer [its still spiraling outwards] then life cpould not have formed in the oceans,

regardless of all the other ingredients there, if the seas had not been so turbulent, dragged violently accross the planet by the moons pull then life wouldn't have first formed at those shallow volcanic fissures, or wherever they now think itr started.

The monthly cycles observed in nature are another obvious reason,

But one more is the [please don't anyone take this as an insult ] ever changing face of the moon, the beauty visible in each individual but recognisable. It appears serene but influences so much and has so much power.

They're the dodgy, multi-influenced reasons that i worship a moon Goddess.

Of course there are manyfold Gods and Goddesses, and that there are moon Gods i wouldn't doubt, but i've never felt influenced to worship any.

PaulinCork

Hi Ruadan,
Looked up your posts, and I'd love to here more about pre-Celtic Irish Goddesses and Gods. Is one of them Tailltu?

Ruadan

ah, you and me both man, you and me both!

Unfortunately most texts devote most or all attention to Ireland after the Celtic cultural invasion. Theres only a fiew Gods they make mention of as particular to areas or having charachteristics that mark them as older, more native to the island than the likes of say Lugh.

Am getting good sources from boards like this, the cauldron and an fianna, and will spend the summer researching like a mad yoke to learn more.

positron

As per Hindu beliefs (which is pretty pagan compared to other religions) both Sun and Moon are gods, especially Sun, where as Earth is a goddess, so is Himalaya and the oceans – goddesses are often classified as ‘mothers’ for their compassion and for what they provide (shelter, food, and support).

Rothen

hmmmm, dont really see them as God and Goddess' aspects, i do the earth tho, very feminine...

Ruadan

PaulinCork wrote:

Hi Ruadan,
Looked up your posts, and I'd love to here more about pre-Celtic Irish Goddesses and Gods. Is one of them Tailltu?

Just googled the name, and it appears in some legends as the foster mother of Lugh Lámhfáda, i think it is also connected with an older Goddess, but have no info to hand atm.


Edit;
[there was also a Tailltiu a fomhorian Goddess, the accounts seem confused between the 2 though]

Nevyn

[quote= http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/gafm/gafm05.htm]

Gods and Fighting Men
The Story of the Tuatha De Danaan and of the Fianna of Ireland,
by Lady Augusta Gregory

Part I Book II: The Coming of Lugh

This now is the story of the birth of Lugh. The time the Fomor used to be coming to Ireland, Balor of the Strong Blows, or, as some called him, of the Evil Eye, was living on the Island of the Tower of Glass. There was danger for ships that went near that island, for the Fomor would come out and take them. And some say the sons of Nemed in the old time, before the Firbolgs were in Ireland, passed near it in their ships, and what they saw was a tower of glass in the middle of the sea, and on the tower something that had the appearance of men, and they went against it with Druid spells to attack it. And the Fomor worked against them with Druid spells of their own; and the Sons of Nemed attacked the tower, and it vanished, and they thought it was destroyed. But a great wave rose over them then, and all their ships went down and all that were in them.



And the tower was there as it was before, and Balor living in it. And it is the reason he was called "of the Evil Eye," there was a power of death in one of his eyes, so that no person could look at it and live. It is the way it got that power, he was passing one time by a house where his father's Druids were making spells of death, and the window being open he looked in, and the smoke of the poisonous spells was rising up, and it went into his eye. And from that time he had to keep it closed unless he wanted to be the death of some enemy, and then the men that were with him would lift the eyelid with a ring of ivory.

Now a Druid foretold one time that it was by his own grandson he would get his death. And he had at that time but one child, a daughter whose name was Ethlinn; and when he heard what the Druid said, he shut her up in the tower on the island. And he put twelve women with her to take charge of her and to guard her, and he bade them never to let her see a man or hear the name of a man.

So Ethlinn was brought up in the tower, and she grew to be very beautiful; and sometimes she would see men passing in the currachs, and sometimes she would see a man in her dreams. But when she would speak of that to the women, they would give her no answer.

So there was no fear on Balor, and be went on with war and robbery as he was used, seizing every ship that passed by, and sometimes going over to Ireland to do destruction there.

Now it chanced at that time there were three brothers of the Tuatha de Danaan living together in a place that was called Druim na Teine, the Ridge of the Fire, Goibniu and Samthainn and Cian. Cian was a lord of land, and Goibniu was the smith that had such a great name. Now Clan had a wonderful cow, the Glas Gaibhnenn, and her milk never failed. And every one that heard of her coveted her, and many had tried to steal her away, so that she had to be watched night and day.

And one time Cian was wanting some swords made, and he went to Goibniu's forge, and he brought the Glas Gaibhnenn with him, holding her by a halter. When he came to the forge his two brothers were there together, for Samthainn had brought some steel to have weapons made for himself; and Cian bade Samthainn to hold the halter while he went into the forge to speak with Goibniu.

Now Balor bad set his mind for a long time on the Glas Gaibhnenn, but he had never been able to get near her up to this time. And he was watching not far off, and when he saw Samthainn holding the cow, he put on the appearance of a little boy, having red hair, and came up to him and told him he heard his two brothers that were in the forge saying to one another that they would use all his steel for their own swords, and make his of iron. "By my word," said Samthainn, "they will not deceive me so easily. Let you hold the cow, little lad," he said, "and I will go in to them." With that he rushed into the forge, and great anger on him. And no sooner did Balor get the halter in his hand than he set out, dragging the Glas along with him, to the strand, and across the sea to his own island.

When Cian saw his brother coming in he rushed out, and there he saw Balor and the Glas out in the sea. And he had nothing to do then but to reproach his brother, and to wander about as if his wits had left him, not knowing what way to get his cow back from Balor. At last he went to a Druid to ask an advice from him; and it is what the Druid told him, that so long as Balor lived, the cow would never be brought back, for no one would go within reach of his Evil Eye.

Cian went then to a woman-Druid, Birog of the Mountain, for her help. And she dressed him in a woman's clothes, and brought him across the sea in a blast of wind, to the tower where Ethlinn was. Then she called to the women in the tower, and asked them for shelter for a high queen she was after saving from some hardship, and the women in the tower did not like to refuse a woman of the Tuatha de Danaan, and they let her and her comrade in. Then Birog by her enchantments put them all into a deep sleep, and Cian went to speak with Ethlinn. And when she saw him she said that was the face she had seen in her dreams. So she gave him her love; but after a while he was brought away again on a blast of wind.

And when her time came, Ethlinn gave birth to a son. And when Balor knew that, he bade his people put the child in a cloth and fasten it with a pin, and throw him into a current of the sea. And as they were carrying the child across an arm of the sea, the pin dropped out, and the child slipped from the cloth into the water, and they thought he was drowned. But he was brought away by Birog of the Mountain, and she brought him to his father Cian; and he gave him to be fostered by Taillte, daughter of the King of the Great Plain. It is thus Lugh was born and reared.[/quote]

Lugh's mother was Formain and his father of the Tuatha de Danaan.
Indeed he was reared under the nose of his grandfather, and it was Balor himself that named him Lewy lamahfada.

So Taillte/Tailltiu as a a fomhorian Goddess is not odd.

Ruadan

Its also a reflection of reality on the myth that there was a sun God called Cian, and Lughs father was called Cian, when the Irish concept of Lugh (Logus, Lleu etc) would have ben based on this God.