Art by Morbid Fairy

This week's stew is lighter fare, as many of our chefs are preparing for the Spring Equinox this week. I'd like to take a moment to thank Vickie Lesperance for her work on The Stew. She's moving on to other responsibilities in her life, and we  wish her the very best of success in the future!

As you can see, our usual cauldron isn't pictured today. This, of course, is my little protest against St. Patrick's Day. However, if you choose to drink a green beer in honor of his death, I promise not to hold it against you ;)

While we may have less in the way of author contributions, I can promise you'll walk away fulfilled. Don't forget to catch up on the news of the week, cheer that Mercury is officially out of retrograde today, and that Spring is on the way. Kathi's got some serious food for thought, Kestril and Karen have brought you the song of the week and the Pagan Lore, The Captain's drawn you a new cartoon,  Sosanna's going to handle St. Patrick for me, and I've written a little fare well to Winter. So, now that your appetite is whetted, it's on to The Stew!




Happy Birthday this week to Cindy Maluna, Diane Carlson, Tinneke Bebout, Dusten Wilson, Dina Ann Stagg, Graela Trebeih, Danielle Blackwood, Graham Davidson(!!!!), Paul Andrade, Heather Mauldin, Tammy Schulz and Rosemary Thyme. May this be your best birthday ever, and may your next year of life bring you good health, peace, happiness joy and all the most wonderful things in abundance!

In the News

Witchcraft, infidelity and the Kenyan politician

Thindwa launches Malawi campaign against witchcraft violence

Penis-snatching witchcraft startles African visitors

Maslenitsa: Russians start celebrating Pagan spring festival

Federal judge: Public library cannot censor Pagan websites

Pagan Lore with Karen Szabo

Good Morning, Sunday Stew readers!  Can you feel it?  Mercury Retrograde is ending, and Spring begins this very week, which gives us two great reasons for celebration!  Here we go with this week's Pagan Lore......


Sunday, March 17
On this date in the year 1893, Eileen J. Garrett (a gifted medium, psychic, and founder of the Parapsychology Foundation) was born in Ireland. At a young age, she began experiencing visions of the dead. She was granted United States citizenship in 1947 and she founded her own publishing house ("Creative Age Press") and magazine ("Tomorrow", a journal of paranormal phenomena). She established the Parapsychology Foundation in 1951, and wrote numerous books under the pen name of Jean Lyttle. She died in France on September 15, 1970.

Monday, March 18
In ancient times, the Pagan fertility-Goddess known as Sheela-na-gig was honored annually on this date in Ireland. With the advent of Christianity, the identity of the Goddess was altered from heathen Deity with oversized genitalia to the consort or mother of Saint Patrick.
On this day in the year 1877, psychic and "absent-healer" Edgar Cayce (also known as the Sleeping Prophet) was born in Hopkinsville, Kentucky. He was renowned for his psychic visions and miraculous ability to accurately diagnose illnesses and prescribe remedies while in a self-induced trance. He prophesied the Second coming of Christ in the year 1998, followed by cataclysmic changes of the planet.
Edgar Cayce died on January 3, 1945.

Tuesday, March 19
The Akitu, an annual Babylonian New Year festival celebrating the marriage of Heaven and Earth, begins on this date and lasts for ten consecutive days.
In ancient times, Greek theatrical performances known as the Uban Dionysia began annually on this date in honor of the god Dionysus. They continued for five consecutive days. Also, a festival called the Lesser Panathenaea was held at this time, which was dedicated to the Goddess Athena.
Sitala, a Goddess who reigns over smallpox and death, is honored on this day in India as part of the
Hindu New Year ritual.

Wednesday, March 20
Today is the Rosicrucian New Year.  Also on this day, an annual Spring Harvest Festival was celebrated in ancient Egypt, along the banks of the River Nile, in honor of the Mother-Goddess and the enchantress, Isis.  This day is sacred to the Goddess Fortuna, the Morrigan, the Norns, the Three Fates, and the
Three Mothers (Lakshmi, Parvati, and Sarasvati).

Thursday, March 21
On this date (approximately), the Sun enters the astrological sign of Aries. Persons born under the sign of the Ram are said to be courageous, intelligent, impulsive, and aggressive. Aries is a fire sign and is ruled by the planet Mars.

Friday, March 22
On the first day of Spring (which normally occurs on or near this date) the Spring, or Vernal, Equinox is celebrated by Wiccans and Witches throughout the world. Spring Equinox (which is also known as Festival of the Trees, Alban Eilir, Ostara, and the Rite of Eostre) is a fertility rite celebrating the birth of Spring and the reawakening of life from the Earth. On this sacred day, Witches light new fires at sunrise, rejoice, ring bells, and decorate hard-boiled eggs--an ancient Pagan custom associated with the Goddess of Fertility. The aspects of the Goddess invoked at this Sabbat are Eostre (the Saxon goddess of fertility) and Ostara (the German goddess of fertility); in some Wiccan traditions, the Green Goddess and the Lord of the Greenwood are worshipped on this day. Like most of the old Pagan festivals, Spring Equinox was Christianized by the Church into the religious holiday of Easter, which celebrates the resurrection of Jesus Christ.
On this date in ancient Rome, uprooted pine trees were curried through the streets of the city by the devotees of the cult of Attis and taken to his sacred temple as part of an annual ritual called the "Procession of the Tree-Bearers" to mourn the god's demise.

Saturday, March 23
This is the day called "Dance of the Salii" . On this date in ancient Rome, the Gods Mars and Saturn were invoked each year by dancing priests brandishing spears and clashing holy shields. The evil spirits of Winter were thus expelled from the city, and the growth of crops and gardens was stimulated through sympathetic magick. In the Polish countryside, an old Pagan festival of Spring called the Marzenna is celebrated annually on this date with singing, dancing, and the "sacrifices" of straw effigies.

I want to just take a minute to wish all the Sunday Stew readers a most blessed and happy Ostara!  See you next week with more Pagan Lore,
Karen

Sparkle and Shine with Sosanna

St. Patrick's Day


So yeah, what’s this all about any way?  Why do people all over the US celebrate a day about a Saint with parades, green beer and buttons that say “Kiss Me I’m Irish!”?

Saint Patrick is one of the patron saints of Ireland.  Like many others today, St Patrick found religion while he was in prison.  Hearing what he believed was the voice of God, St Patrick received his calling to spend the rest of his days praying with the Christians of the area, and converting the remaining Pagans to Christianity.

Like so many missionaries before and after, St Patrick incorporated the traditions and holidays of the native people to slowly erase their heritage and replace it with the more acceptable Christian belief system.  A very common symbol today is the Celtic Cross, which several writings say is the symbol of the Sun, which was very powerful to the native people, on top of a Christian cross.

Since the late 18th century St. Patrick’s Day has been celebrated in the US.  We have everything from parades to parties.  People wear green and often wear a shamrock images.  The shamrock, usually shown with three leaves was used by St. Patrick to explain the Christian trinity to the people of Ireland.

So why all the boozing it up on a day to honor a Saint?  Many believe that this is related to a wake.  Historically a wake is where people gather to honor the departed and usually drinking was involved.  Some stories say that the entire families at Irish wakes would get drunk and tell wonderful stories and celebrate the life of the departed.  So it stands to reason that if we wanted to celebrate the life of a Saint, we make a cocktail, such as The Irish Wake, and party it up!

A common myth about St. Patrick is that he drove all the snakes from Ireland, and that is why today there are no snakes there.  Today of course we know better than that.  Ireland had no snakes since the Ice Age.  The area just doesn't have the climate for it.  We've also come to understand that the snake also represented the pagans of Ireland, specifically the Celts.  So here we have a day that we celebrate by getting smashed and honoring a guy who came in and wiped out a native peoples entire heritage.  (SMH)
In my research for this post I found something pretty interesting.  In order for a person to be made a Saint, they must be canonized by a Pope.  St. Patrick was never canonized, so really, he’s not an official saint, even though he is listed in the “list of saints”.

So while you’re headed out in your green today, remember to wear your four leaf clover instead of your shamrock, bring a few eggs into the picture and try tell some people about Ostara.  Celebrated around the same time we can see that this is a great way to bring back some pagan culture to a less than tasteful holiday.
To honor the day I've created a new figurine that I lovely call, “The Snakes Take Back Ireland”.



Just as St. Patrick was said to drive out the snakes/pagans, today the Pagans are coming back in covens, circles and private homes around the world.  Pagans are generally an accepting people that honor the energy and magic in all life.  There are exceptions of course, we are all different.  But each of us brings something meaningful and bright into this world.  We offer ourselves open and yes, even sometimes sky clad to be completely vulnerable to others.  We snakes are doctors, lawyers and business analysts who each single voice, joined together becomes a chorus for the ages. We are the hope for the future, we are the ties that bind and we, each one indeed, sparkle and shine.

Namaste & Blessed Be
Sosanna
)O(

To see this enlarged, click here.

Sunshine's Meanderings with Kathleen Lane

We are all Downwind!

Kallan posted about the chemical poisoning and corruption in West Virginia and as I was reading it, I could feel my hackles rise. I lived in the NW for a number of years and was involved in the politics of the eastern part of Oregon.  The town where we lived was in the NE part of Oregon and I was the mayor as well as serving on the economic development council and as a Master Gardener I was a consultant for OSU.
From the Cascades east across Washington and Oregon and Idaho and even over into Montana, the area has been polluted since the 1940's by the Hanford Site. If you are interested in their vile history there are numerous sites and links with a plethora of information. But I could write pages and pages about their history and that is not where I want to go with this.

When Hanford was built back during the 40's, they were creating the material for nuclear bombs. That was their purpose and it continued into the Cold War Era. Typical of that time, little thought was given to the disposal of the hazardous wastes they were creating along with their "weapons of mass distruction". They pumped water from the rivers around the facility for cooling reactors and then pumped it back into the rivers. Again you can find the levels and amounts of radioactive waste that was dumped into the Snake and Columbia Rivers. Both of those rivers have twice yearly salmon runs and the pollutants found their way clear to the coast. The public was not notified of the polllution and the indigenous tribes of the area continued to use the salmon as a mainstay of their diet.

The plutonium separation process also resulted in the release of radioactive isotopes into the air, which were carried by the wind throughout southeastern Washington and into parts of Idaho, Montana, Oregon.  Downwinders were exposed to radionuclides, particularly iodine-131, with the heaviest releases during the period from 1945 to 1951. These poisons  filtered into the food chain via contaminated fields where dairy cows grazed; hazardous fallout was ingested by communities who consumed the radioactive food and drank the milk. In 1949, an intentional release known as the "Green Run" released 8,000 curies of iodine-131 over two days.  A U.S. government report released in 1992 estimated that 685,000 curies of radioactive iodine-131 had been released into the river and air from the Hanford site between 1944 and 1947.

Children, in particular, who were exposed to the "Green Run" pollution were at particular risk for Thyroid cancer and Lymphoma. The death rate in that area from those two diseases are appalling and when you go to a high school reunion of peope who were children in that period, there are very few of them left and a great many died before they ever reached high school age. Several of my friends in that area ended up raising their grandchildren because the parents died very young of thyroid cancer or lymphoma.

Finally in the 1980's, the government opened and released the documents concerning the work and pollution and the cover-ups that had gone on at Hanford and the State of Washington along with a group of Downwinders formed the Hanford Health Information Network and the first lawsuits were put together.  Hanford was put on the "Clean-up" list and teams were sent in to assess the situation.  What had started out as mainly nuclear waste stored in underground tanks had become a noxious brew of radioactive waste, chemical weapon waste, nerve-gas waste, etc. all dumped together. The tanks were built with venting systems to allow heat to escape but the corrosion from the various chemicals had corroded those so they no long worked. And now there are numerous tanks leaking constantly into the ground and all headed for the Columbia River and everything downstream. And the clean-up specialists have no clue how to deal with the mess. They don't know what sort of toxins and contaminants have evolved in the tanks.  And the pressures in the tanks can't be monitored so the NW sits on potential bombs with no way of fixing the situation. The possiblity of a clean-up has now been pushed to 2040 and that is optimistic.

And now comes the DOE's latest proposed solution.  This is a direct quote from a WA news station:

Feds look to ship Wash. radioactive waste to NM

I was active with the Downwinders out west and realized that we were not the only ones dealing with that sort of cover-up and poisoning, but it wasn't until I lived in Tennessee and saw first hand just how widespread this sort of thing is. Oakridge has been leaking for years and when you shoot a deer there, you take it to Fish and Game to make sure it isn't so "hot" you can't eat it. People who live along the Tennessee River system keep geiger counters to check out their boats to make sure they are safe. And that is just a part of the poisoning that is going on in this country. As people who should be committed to the health and life of our planet and Mother, it is our responsibility to fight back and enough voices can make a difference.

Josephine Wall

This Week in Astrology

Mar 17th: Mercury Direct!!!!! 4:03 PM

Mar 20th: Sun enters Aries 7:02 AM

Mar 20th Spring Equinox: 7:02 AM
     Vernal Equinox article from the Farmer's Almanac

Mar 21st: Venus enters Aries 11:15 PM

Moon VoC (void of course) Calendar March 2013