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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in Monarch butterflies

Posted by on in Paths Blogs
Save the Butterflies

Butterflies mean different things in different traditions, but in modern heathen practice they are sacred to Sigyn. There is significant established group gnosis on this (see my paper in a previous issue of Witches & Pagans Magazine.) Today I want to talk about some recent personal gnosis, and also about saving the butterflies. 

It's my custom to serve afternoon tea, which usually means the ladies who live here have a visit and talk about normal house things. I also usually have my first sip for the goddesses of Asatru. If it's quiet, especially if there's a minute before everyone else shows up after I announce tea time, I often ask the goddesses if they have any messages or directions or advice for me, or how I'm doing (meaning how I'm doing with their work and things they care about.) Most of the time they don't have anything they want to say, but recently Sigyn asked me to remind my readers that what she wants above all is not symbols or sacrifices to her but actual physical butterflies living in the world.

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Posted by on in Paths Blogs

Earth Day is coming soon. Earth Day used to be Arbor Day, when people planted trees. Some modern Asatruars call it Yggdrasil Day, meaning day of the World-Tree. Although every day should be Earth Day for pagans and heathens, for those who are looking for a way to commemorate it, I have a suggestion: save the Monarch Butterfly. 

Butterflies symbolize many things across many cultures. Modern heathens and pagans have come to associate the butterfly with the goddess Sigyn. The process started with personal gnosis, became group gnosis, and eventually found some foundation in the lore, as I explore in my upcoming paper "Sigyn: Butterfly Goddess," scheduled to be published soon in Witches & Pagans Magazine.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs
Tree of Souls

Well, they're starting their annual journey to the Valley of Souls.

Black-and-orange, black-and-orange, black-and-orange.

Even as a kid, they struck me as foreshadowing, as little flecks of Samhain fluttering, by some act of temporal disturbance, into summer.

Danaus plexippus: known variously as the milkweed, tiger, or (for unclear reasons) the monarch butterfly.

When did butterflies first come to symbolize souls? Who can say? (They're not uncommon in Minoan glyptic art.) The reasons for the connection are certainly clear enough. Probably you could rattle off three or four, if you wanted to.

And—among other reasons—like souls, butterflies are migratory.

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  • Anthony Gresham
    Anthony Gresham says #
    We used to have a patch of Michel mass daisies; a kind of tall lavender aster, when I was a teenager. The Monarch butterflies wou
PaganNewsBeagle Earthy Thursday Feb 12

Today's Earthy Thursday post supports solutions and inspirations for living. New cultural ideas including "forest bathing" from Japan; eco-art in the woods; saving Monarchs and getting paid for it; salt-water friendly potatoes and a multi-generational organic dairy.

Are you just "done in" with the Thanksgiving-until-Valentine's Day slog of commercial holidays? Maybe one of these ideas -- cultural concepts from outside North American culture -- will inspire you instead.

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PaganNewsBeagle Earthy Thursday Oct 9

It's earthy Thursday here at the Pagan News Beagle -- let's dig deep and get dirty! Today's stories include amazing mushrooms; neolithic burial -- now available!; hope for the Monarch butterfly?; living breakwaters and other new ideas in conservation and remediation; a guide to Earth's major chakras.

This slideshow includes photos of twenty five of the most amazing mushrooms I've ever seen. Wow!

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