Category: Articles

The Witches Magick for Feb. 17th – The Memory Rite

 

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MEMORY RITE

This rite is good for anyone, even those who assume they have had perfect childhoods. You don’t always realize the past is dragging you down until it’s too late and you would be amazed by what you can find out about yourself.

You will need:

Yellow candles

Kamea of sol

A box of any shape or size

A solar incense

And music of a childlike nature to enhance the atmosphere

Preparation:

The box should have a lid. Paint the inside glossy black, or line it with an irregular reflective surface such as aluminum foil. The outside should be decorated with any drawing, pictures or whatever one may want to help evoke a childlike state of mind and help trigger childhood memories.

Start with an opening of any sort you feel comfortable with. Light candles and incense as desired.

State the intent “It is my will to greet my past and accept it for what it is”.

Recite the invocation:

I call the past to meet the present,

That the future may be bright.

I bring myself forth from the dark,

And hold me to the light.

Let not the past control my present,

Let not my future be dark as night.

I meet and greet my with open arms,

And move back into the light.

At this point, one person sits in the center of the group with their box, keeping it closed. She focuses on the box while the rest of the participants circle around, teasing, insulting, degrading her. At this point, the teasing should not be too personal. When she reaches gnosis, she opens the box and gazes inside, seeing whatever she sees. Now the taunting should reach a more personal and vicious attitude. This continues until they close their box again.

The box then is dealt with in whatever manner she sees fit. It can be destroyed, left open in a spot of sunlight, or kept for future uses as it may be a good idea to do this more then once.

When the first person is finished, another takes her place until the entire group has a turn.

Banish with laughter and embraces

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WOTC EXTRA – THE EIGHT-FOLD PATH & THE FIVE ESSENTIALS

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THE EIGHT-FOLD PATH & THE FIVE ESSENTIALS

1. Meditation or Concentration. This in practice means forming a mental image of what is desired and forcing yourself to see that it is fulfilled and that you will go on willing ’till you force it to be fulfilled. This is called, for short, Intention.

2. Trance, projection of spirit called Astral.

3. Rites, chants, spells runes, charms, etc.

4. Incense, drugs, wine, etc., whatever is used to release the spirit. Note: be very careful about this. Incense is usually harmless, but sometimes it has dangerous ingredients, Hemp, etc. If you find any bad after effects, reduce the amount used or the duration of time inhaled.

Drugs are very dangerous if taken to excess, but it must be remembered that there are many drugs which are absolutely harmless, though people talk of them with heated breath.

Be careful while taking fly-agaric but hemp is especially dangerous because it unlocks the inner eye, swiftly and easily, so one is tempted to use it more and more. If it is used at all, it must be with the strictest precautions and see that the person who uses it had no control over the supply. Khat has nearly the same effect and is less dangerous but it is difficult to obtain fresh.

5. The Dance and kindred practices.

6. Blood Control (The Cords). Breath control and kindred practices.

7. Scourging.

8. The Great Rite.

These are the Eight Ways of Magick.

You may combine many of them into one experiment, the more the better. The more important is intention. You must KNOW that you can and will succeed, this is essential to every operation. THE FIVE ESSENTIALS

9. You must be properly prepared according to the rules of the Art, otherwise you will never succeed.

10. The circle must be properly cast and purified.

11. All participants must be properly purified, several times if necessary, and this purification should be repeated several times during the rite.

12. You must have properly consecrated tools.

13. All doors, etc., must be properly secured so there is no thought of “someone may come in.”

These five essentials and eight paths or ways cannot all be combined in one rite. Meditation and dancing do not combine well. But forming the mental image and dancing may be combined also with the chants.

Spells combined with numbers 6 and 7 are good, also with 4 and 8, if you are advanced, it is a splendid combination. Meditation following #7 is good or #6 can be used to advantage. But #6 is dangerous to use without a companion. Nos. 3 and 4 (a little) 5, 6, and 7 are excellent. No. 7 followed, if possible by #8, nos. 9, 10, 11, 12, or 13 are essential to all experiments.

Also you must be free from all interruptions or from the mental fear of interruption.

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Let’s Talk Witch – Spells and spell casting.

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Let’s Talk Witch – Spells and spell casting.

When talking about spells and spell casting you can get into some sticky situations. No other subject can cause so many divisions in the pagan community.

It seems that there are as many different ways and ethical practices as there are gods and goddesses in the universe. If you take into consideration that spells and the way you cast them is what makes them effective it begins to make perfect sense why.

In effective spell casting there are three very important ingredients that you must have, resolve, focus, and comfort.

Without resolve there can be no change, it is your commitment to an action that is the basis of a spell. You have to really want it! Without a genuine intention to effect a change you are casting magic to the wind, cluttering up an otherwise flowing universe. Spells without resolve can be detrimental undirected or worse misdirected energy is free to change unknown situations.

Make sure you really want the change you are trying to make. When you get it, it’s yours. This is where a little divination would come in handy to make sure you will be truly happy with the outcome of your spell.

Focus, direction, or meditation, how good can aim? The focus of your spell casting is as important as the resolve to make a change. If you can’t see the broad side of a barn you will not have the ability to effect a change on it. You have to be able to taste it! If you physically build a dog house, you have to have some idea what it will look like when you are done. A spell is like a dog house, if you don’t know what it’s supposed to look like when your done, you could very well end up with a failed attempt or worse. You have to belive it’s possible. If you can’t belive that something is possible it’s not. Anything is possible if you truly belive it can happen. If you belive you can make a change and you know how the change will take place and you can picture the end result of your spell, you are there.

Comfort is easy, if you can’t ethically accept the responsibility for your spell or there is something that bothers you about what you are trying to do or how you are going about it, don’t. You are the power in your spell, you are the creator and the control.

Poor comfort will mess up your focus and your resolve. Without comfort you will have a very poor spell at best.

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Celebrating Spirituality 365 Days A Year – Quirinalia and The Feast of Fools

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February 17th

Quirinalia and The Feast of Fools

Quirinalia was a first fruits festival that honored Quirinus, the name given by the Romans to the deified Romulus. As a divinity, Quirinus ranked as one of Rome’s most important patrons, along with Mars, Jupiter and Juno.

Early Rome was divided into 30 curiae, each of which had its own day in February for the performing of the Fornacalia, or first-fruits offering to Ceres of toasted emmer-wheat. As the city expanded, the curiae were displaced by the new divisions known as “tibus.” As a result, many people did not know which curiae they belonged to. Because of the confusion they were allowed to make the sacrifice on the Quirinalia, which came to be called “The Feast of Fools.”

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Monday Is Ruled By The Moon

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Monday Is Ruled By The Moon

Archangel: Gabriel

Candle colour: Silver

Incenses: Jasmine or myrrh

Crystals: Moonstone or opal

Use Mondays for spells for fertility, protection especially while traveling, for home and family and to increase psychic and healing powers.

Where possible, work close to any water and, as a bonus, by moonlight.

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The Witches Correspondence for Monday, February 17th

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The Witches Correspondence for Monday, February 17th

Magickal Intentions: Psychic Sensitivity, Women’s Mysteries, Tides, Waters, Emotional Issues, Agriculture, Animals, Female Fertility, Messages, Theft, Reconcilliations, Voyages, Dreams and Merchandise
Incense: African Violet, Honeysuckle, Myrtle, Willow, Wormwood
Planet: Moon
Sign: Cancer
Angel: Gabriel
Colors: Silver, White and Gray
Herbs/Plants: Night Flowers, Willow Root, Orris Root, Birch, Motherwort, Vervain, White Rose and White Iris
Stones: Carnelian, Moonstone, Aquamarine, Pearl, Clear Quartz, Flourite, Geodes
Oil: (Moon) Jasmine, Lemon, Sandalwood

Monday belongs to the Moon. Monday’s energy best aligns itself with efforts that deal with women, home and hearth, the family, the garden, travel, and medicine. It also boosts rituals involving psychic development and prophetic dreaming.

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The Witches Almanac for Monday, February 17th

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The Witches Almanac for Monday, February 17th

Monday (Moon): Peace, sleep, healing, compassion, friends, psychic awareness, purification and fertility.

Presidents’ Day (Observed)

Waning Moon

The Waning Moon is a time for study, meditation, and little magickal work (except magick designed to banish harmful energies).

Moon Phase: Third Quarter

Moon Sign: Virgo

Virgo: Favors accomplishment of details and commands from higher up. Focuses on health, hygiene, and daily schedules.

Moon enters Libra 1:23 pm

Libra: Favors cooperation, social activities, beautification of surroundings, balance and partnership.

Incense: Rosemary

Color: White

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May The Goddess Continue To Bless All These Great Men Who Have Led Our Country!

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Happy President’s Day Everyone!

I hope you are having a wonderful day off from work. I wanted to let you know that we have a sales rep (those never take a day off, lol), coming out shortly. She has already called for direction and will be here shortly. I am going to try to get some info done before she get here. But when she arrives I will have to stop and when she leaves continue.

Just wanted to let you know real quick what was going on. Again I wish you a very Happy & Blessed Presidents’ Day!

Luv & Hugs,

Lady A

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A Bright, Bright Sun Shiny Sunday To Everyone!

Have a Great Day Images
I hope everyone is have a super duper day! I think most of you have figured out by now, we take the weekends off sometimes. I think it really figures on what mood we are in, whether we want to work or not, lol!

If you haven’t noticed the graphic has changed and so has the front page. Also I am getting ready to dump a whole lot of information over here from our old Yuku group. I noticed the other day when I was over there our boards are starting to disappear. In other words, Yuku is tired of us using them as a storage unit. Well I can’t really blame them but then again I can, it’s our info. But we have lots of great herbal info that I don’t want to lose. I don’t know where it came from and I have never seen anything else like it on the net. So it is a must that it get moves. I figured today would be a perfect day. No daily posts that ya’ll are trying to read. Ya’ll are just browsing around and hopefully I won’t interfere with you too much. If I do I apologize now. It just took us forever to acquire the info that we have and I am not fixing to lose it.

So have a little patience, I am going to try to move this as fast as possible. I hope you have a super fantastic Sunday. Rest, relax and well, don’t think about tomorrow being Monday. Hmm, tomorrow’s Presidents’ Day I hope you have the day off and extra long vacation, all right!

Anyway, off to work I go, see you tomorrow.

Luv & Hugs,

Lady A

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‘THINK on THESE THINGS’ for February 14th

‘THINK on THESE THINGS’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler

Why is it that the things we love can cause us so much pain, and perhaps without realizing it? Why is it that we find so much to worry about in all the “what ifs” that cross our minds with such persistence? What makes fatigue follow us through the hours and drain away precious strength that we need to help us in our daily routine?

All the things that plague is daily have one common cause – fear. To some, fear is a constant companion. We may call it by many other names such as necessity, time, busyness, demands, but all of these can be forms of fear.

Fear produces the most mental, physical, and spiritual fatigue that has ever overtaken humans. It rushes us so that we have accidents. It drains us of strength to resist illness. It tells us we cannot produce enough to meet the demands upon us. And it builds within our minds such dire images so that we cannot face the simplest.

Fear has one antidote. It is not to stop worrying and take it easy, but it is faith. Adverse conditions cannot break us in the face of faith. Faith allows us to look fear in the eyes with such confidence that it loses its power over us.

English divine, Frederick William Robertson, wrote, “To believe is strong. Doubt cramps energy. Belief is power.”

__________________________________________

Available online! ‘Cherokee Feast of Days’
By Joyce Sequichie Hifler.

Visit her web site to purchase the wonderful books by Joyce as gifts for yourself or for loved ones……and also for those who don’t have access to the Internet: http://www.hifler.com
Click Here to Buy her books at Amazon.com

Elder’s Meditation of the Day
By White Bison, Inc., an American Indian-owned nonprofit organization. Order their many products from their web site: http://www.whitebison.org

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Elder’s Meditation of the Day – February 14

Elder’s Meditation of the Day – February 14

“Sometimes, life is very simple, but it is we two-leggeds, we who are thought to be smart that make it complicated.”

–Larry P. Aitkin, CHIPPEWA

Sometimes it may take years for us to find out what we are really after-it is to be happy. The Elders say, lead a simple life. This doesn’t necessarily mean poor, it means simple. There are some things that makes life complicated such as needing control, needing power or being resentful or angry. These things make complications happen. We need to walk in balance in every area of our lives.

Great Spirit, let me lead a simple life.

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February 14 – Daily Feast

February 14 – Daily Feast

Our wounds need time to heal. And when it seems the healing has done its work, protection from further hurt is necessary, because our scars are on the surface. Physical wounds are bad enough, but when they come from mental cruelty and unfair treatment, pain returns again and again to reopen what no one should have to bear. It seems almost a sacrilege to ask someone so deeply hurt to forgive those who caused it. Yet unforgiveness causes damage almost as devastating as physical wounds, or more so. There is great stress on bearing grudges and the abused do not need any new pain or new problems. Forgiveness does not set the abusive free, but the abused.

~ I was living peaceably and satisfied when people began to speak bad of me. ~

GERONIMO

‘A Cherokee Feast of Days’, by Joyce Sequichie Hifler

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The Daily Motivator for Feb. 14th – Highest expectations

Highest expectations

If you’ve been disappointed, it’s tempting to lower your expectations so you  won’t be disappointed again. But that’s not how it works.

In reality, when you expect less you’ll be disappointed more. The lower you  aim, the less fulfilling your life will be.

You deserve a life that’s full and rich, so set your expectations high. And  see each disappointment as an opportunity to set those expectations even  higher.

In one way, disappointment is a good thing because it means you are making an  attempt. The key to fulfillment is to keep making those attempts, to keep  raising your expectations, and to work your way forward.

A strong sense of purpose is what will keep you going. By continuing to  expect the best of yourself you can move quickly away from each  disappointment.

When you fail to reach your expectations, raise those expectations even  higher. Make it meaningful enough and you’ll make it happen.

— Ralph Marston

Daily Motivator

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Daily OM for February 14th – A Gift of the Heart

A Gift of the Heart
Letting People Know You Love Them

by Madisyn Taylor

If you love someone, let them know.

It’s easy to take our feelings for granted and to assume that the people we care about know how we feel about them. But while those we love are often quite cognizant of our feelings, saying “I love you“ is a gift we should give to our loved ones whenever we can. Letting people know you love them is an important part of nurturing any kind of loving relationship. Few people tire of being told they are loved, and saying “I love you“ can make a world of difference in someone’s life, take a relationship to a new level, or reaffirm and strengthen a steady bond. Everyone needs to hear the words “I love you.“ Three simple words – I – Love – You. When you declare your love for someone you admit to them that you care for them in the most significant way.

It can be difficult to express your love using words, particularly if you grew up around people that never expressed their affection verbally. But you should never be afraid to say “I love you“ or worry that doing so will thrust you into a position of excessive vulnerability. It is important to share your feelings with those that matter to you. Part of the fulfillment that comes with loving someone is telling them that you love them. Besides, love exists to be expressed, not withheld.

If you love someone, let them know. Don’t be afraid of the strength of your emotions or worry that your loved one won’t feel the same way. Besides, the words “I love you“ are often best said to another without expectation of a return investment. As each one of us is filled with an abundance of love, there is never any worry that you’ll run out of love if your expression of love isn’t said back to you. Saying “I love you“ is a gift of the heart sent directly via words to the heart of a recipient. Even though it may not always look that way, love from the heart is an offering that is always unconditional and given without strings attached. That is the true essence of the gift of “I love you.”

The Daily OM

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Secret Fantasy Sex Magick

Secret Fantasy Sex Magick

Gather together your lover, a red candle, two pieces of paper with pens to write, three  drops of honeysuckle oil, and a half cup of olive oil. Your should do this spell with your love as a way for both of you to become closer in your  relationship.
After dark, begin with your lover by lighting the candle and dedicating it to the fire of your love:

Glowing flame burning bright

Be the fire of love tonight.

Now it’s time for each of you to write down your fantasies about each other. Let your  imagination run wild. The idea is to bring the ideal and real together into not only one glorious and magnificent night, but a lifetime of  them.

Add the honeysuckle oil to the olive oil. As you do so, say:

Sweet flower of divine love

Empower this oil with your passion.

As you and your lover rub the oil all over each other’s bodies, describe your most wild  fantasies as you wrote them out on the pieces of paper. It’s up to you and your lover as to whether you want to act on them. Allow the candle to safely  burn down.

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Checkers Sex Magick

Checkers Sex Magick

This sex magick spell provides a playful way to set your love life on fire.

You will need a checkers game, two pens and two sheets of paper, and your favorite scented  oil.

At 9:06 p.m., being the game of checkers, only with a few added touches. First write down a love/sex  wish that you have on the sheet of paper, and have your lover do the same on the other sheet of paper. Fold the sheets of paper, and give yours to your  lover, and take his or her sheet of folded paper. Don’t open the papers yet. No peeking! Each of you need to be wearing six items of clothing. Socks and  shoes are two items each. Aptly clothed, play checkers. When one of you jumps and takes the other one’s game piece, that person also gets to take off one  of your items of clothing. Before taking off the item of clothing, repeat together:
“More kisses, so much more delight sweetheart make love with me tonight!”

Continue until you are both sky clad and wanting each other. Now anoint each other with the scented  oil. The person who wins gets their love/sex wish fulfilled first. Then the person who loses get their love/sex wish fulfilled, so it’s a win-win kind of  night!

Moon Love Potion

 Moon Love Potion

This love potion will attract the gifts of the fairies as well as fill you with moonlight, starlight and divine delight.

You will need three handfuls of dried barley grain, hot water, a teapot, roasted barley tea, and a cup. Barley tea is great for getting your body in shape. It’s refreshing and cooling, and encourages harmony.

After dark, go outdoors and sprinkle two handfuls of the dried barley grain on the ground, one handful outside your front door and one handful outside your back door. Barley attracts fairy favors and gifts. As you sprinkle the barley in small clockwise circles, chant:

“Love, love, love, moon circles for the blessed fae.”

Go back indoors and heat the water. Pour boiling water into the teapot filled with a handful of roasted barley. Let the tea steep for about ten minutes. Pour a cup of tea, and slowly sip it. Before each sip, repeat:

“Love, love, love potion fill me with moonlight love, love, love potion fill me with starlight love, love, love potion fill me with divine delight So be it! Blessed be!”

Return any leftover tea to the earth. As you do say:

“Love, love, love blessed fae, Blessed be!”

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The Myth of Cupid and Psyche (The Divine Love Story)

The Myth of Cupid and Psyche

The Divine Love Story or Myth of Cupid and Psyche

By , About.com

The great Greek goddess of love and beauty, Aphrodite, was born from the foam near the island of Cyprus, for which reason she is referred to as “the Cyprian.” Aphrodite was a jealous goddess, but she was also passionate. Not only did she love the men and gods in her life, but her sons and grandchildren, as well. Sometimes her possessive instincts led her too far. When her son Cupid found a human to love — one whose beauty rivaled hers — Aphrodite did all in her power to thwart the marriage.

How Cupid and Psyche Met

Psyche was worshiped for her beauty in her homeland. This drove Aphrodite mad, so she sent a plague and let it be known the only way the land could get back to normal was to sacrifice Psyche. The king, who was Psyche’s father, tied Psyche up and left her to her death at the hands of some presumed fearsome monster. You may note that this isn’t the first time in Greek mythology that this happened. The great Greek hero Perseus found his bride, Andromeda, tied up as prey for a sea monster. Andromeda was sacrificed to appease Poseidon who had ravaged the country of Ethiopia, which was ruled by her father, after Queen Cassiopeia had boasted about her own beauty. In the case of Psyche, it was Aphrodite’s son Cupid who released and married the princess.

The Mystery About Cupid

Unfortunately for the young couple, Cupid and Psyche, Aphrodite was not the only one trying to foul things up. Psyche had two sisters who were as jealous as Aphrodite.

Cupid was a wonderful lover and husband to Psyche, but there was one odd thing about their relationship: He made sure Psyche never saw what he looked like. Psyche didn’t mind. She had a fulfilling night life in the dark with her husband, and during the day, she had all the luxuries she could ever want.

When the sisters learned about the luscious, extravagant lifestyle of their lucky, beautiful sister, they urged Psyche to pry into the area of his life that Psyche’s husband kept hidden from her.

Cupid was a god, and gorgeous as he had to have been with Aphrodite for a mother, but for reasons known best to him, he didn’t want his mortal wife to see his form. Psyche’s sister didn’t know he was a god, although they may have suspected it. However, they did know that Psyche’s life was much happier than theirs. Knowing their sister well, they preyed on her insecurities and persuaded Psyche that her husband was a hideous monster.

Psyche assured her sisters they were wrong, but since she’d never seen him, even she started having doubts. Psyche decided to satisfy the girls’ curiosity, so that night she took a candle to her sleeping husband in order to look at him.

Cupid Deserts Psyche

Cupid’s angelic form was exquisite, so Psyche stood there gawking at her husband with her candle melting. While Psyche dawdled, ogling, a bit of wax dripped on her husband. Her rudely awakened, irate, disobeyed, injured husband-angel-god flew away.

“See, I told you she was a no good human,” said mother Aphrodite to her convalescing son Cupid. “Now you’ll have to be content among the gods.”

Cupid might have gone along with the de facto divorce, but Psyche couldn’t. Impelled by love of her gorgeous husband, she implored her mother-in-law to give her another chance. Aphrodite agreed, but ungraciously, saying, “I cannot conceive that any serving-wench as hideous as yourself could find any means to attract lovers save by making herself their drudge; wherefore now I myself will make trial of your worth.”

The Epic Trials of Psyche

But Aphrodite had no intention of playing fair. She devised 4 tasks (not 3 as is conventional in mythic hero quests; this is a feminine story), each task more exacting than the last. Psyche passed the first 3 challenges with flying colors:

  1. sort a huge mount of barley, millet, poppy seeds, lentils, and beans.   Ants (pismires) help her sort the grains within the time allotted.
  2. gather a hank of the wool of the shining golden sheep.   A reed tells her how to accomplish this task without being killed by the vicious animals.
  3. fill a crystal vessel with the water of the spring that feeds the Styx and Cocytus.   An eagle helps her out.

But the last task was too much for Psyche:

4. Aphrodite asked Psyche to bring her back a box of Persephone’s beauty cream.

Going to the Underworld was a challenge for the bravest of the Greek mythical heroes. Demigod Hercules could go to the Underworld without much bother, but even Theseus had trouble and had to be rescued by Hercules. Psyche barely batted an eye when Aphrodite told her she would have to go to the most dangerous region known to mortals. That part was easy, especially after the tower told her how to find the entryway to the Underworld, how get around Charon and Cerberus, and how to behave before the Underworld queen.

The part of the fourth task that was too much for Psyche was the temptation to make herself more beautiful. If the perfect beauty of the perfect goddess Aphrodite needed this Underworld beauty cream, Psyche reasoned, how much more would it help an imperfect mortal woman? Thus, Psyche retrieved the box successfully, but then she opened it and fell into a deathlike sleep, as Aphrodite had secretly predicted.

  “And by and by shee opened the boxe where she could perceive no beauty nor any thing else, save onely an infernall and deadly sleepe, which immediatly invaded all her members as soone as the boxe was uncovered, in such sort that she fell downe upon the ground, and lay there as a sleeping corps.”   William Adlington Translation (1566)

Reunion and Happy Ending to the Myth of Cupid and Psyche

At this point, divine intervention was called for if the story were to have an ending that made anyone really happy. With Zeus’ connivance, Cupid brought his wife to Olympus where, at Zeus’s command, she was given nectar and ambrosia so she would become immortal.

  “Incontinently after Jupiter commanded Mercury to bring up Psyches, the spouse of Cupid, into the Pallace of heaven. And then he tooke a pot of immortality, and said, Hold Psyches, and drinke, to the end thou maist be immortall, and that Cupid may be thine everlasting husband.“

On Olympus, in the presence of the other gods, Aphrodite reluctantly reconciled with her pregnant daughter-in-law, who was about to give birth to a grandchild Aphrodite would (obviously) dote on, Pleasure.

Another Story of Cupid and Psyche

C.S. Lewis took Apuleius’ version of this myth and turned it on its ear in Till We Have Faces. The tender love story is gone. Instead of having the story seen through the eyes of Psyche, it’s seen through her sister Orval’s perspective. Instead of the refined Aphrodite of the Roman story, the mother goddess in C.S. Lewis’ version is a far more weighty, chthonic Earth-Mother-Goddess power.

More on C.S. Lewis and the re-telling of the Cupid and Psyche myth: A Great Gulf Fixed: The Problem of Obsessive Love in C.S. Lewis’ Till We Have Faces

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About the Origins and History of Valentine’s Day

About the Origins and History of Valentine’s Day

By , About.com

The origins of Valentine’s Day may be a bit disappointing. Valentine’s Day is probably named for a saint. Its transformation into a love-fest seems to have been catalyzed by a single Englishman in the 14th century — well beyond the termination date for bawdy Roman fertility festivals, like the Lupercalia.

Chaucer first linked the February holiday of Valentine’s Day, a martyred saint’s day, with romance, and even then, not really romance, but birds mating. Then, after some centuries of an increasingly popular association between Valentine’s Day and romance came the development of cheap-to-mail paper Valentine’s Day cards and the birth of an American holiday in the mid-19th century.

It may not be fair to say that Valentine’s Day has its origin in antiquity, but there were romantic spring holidays (Gamelion and Lupercalia) and a St. Valentine or 2.

Valentine’s Day Saint #1:

There may have been a real Valentine, a 3d-century priest who defied Emperor Claudius II’s ban against wartime marriages. According to legend, Valentine performed secret marriages until he was discovered, put to death, and buried on the Flaminian Way. [See Oruch for why this doesn’t work historically.]

Valentine’s Day Saint #2:

There’s another legend in which a Valentine, persecuted for helping Christians, restored the eyesight of his jailer’s blind daughter, and then maintained a secret correspondence with her to which he signed his name “your Valentine.”

Another Derivation of Valentine:

Even more speculative is the notion that Valentine’s name was originally “Galantine,” signifying “gallant,” a word with more obvious associations with courtship. The shift in consonant to “v” is explained as the way medieval French peasants pronounced the letter “g.”

Valentine was a popular name among the Romans, with emperors named Valens and Valentinian.

Christianization of Lupercalia:

Another theory is that Pope Gelasius I replaced the pagan festival of Lupercalia with the Christian Feast of the Purification, which was celebrated on February 14, 40 days after Epiphany. This is based on Bede who wrote about pagan customs in February, and not specifically Lupercalia. Oruch says it wasn’t until the 16th century that the pagan ceremony of Lupercalia was said to be behind Candlemas (February 2).

February’s Special Holidays:

Imbolc, Oimelc, Brigit’s Day, The Feast of the Purification of the Virgin Mary, Ground Hog’s Day, and Candlemas are all holidays that occur in the first half of February. Some believe the Christian holidays are simply renamed pagan ones.

References for Origins of Valentine’s Day:

  • “The Fashioning of a Modern Holiday: St. Valentine’s Day, 1840-1870,” by Leigh Eric Schmidt; Winterthur Portfolio Vol. 28, No. 4 (Winter, 1993), pp. 209-245.
  • “St. Valentine, Chaucer, and Spring in February,” by Jack B. Oruch Speculum, Vol. 56, No. 3. (Jul., 1981), pp. 534-565.

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