The Goddess Brigid’s Shrine - approaching completion
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White Mountain Druid Sanctuary (WMDS) is a Druid inspired Pagan site in Trout Lake, Washington. This blog describes the planning and creation of the Stone Circle, Shrines and physical surroundings that are being built there.
The Goddess Brigid’s Shrine - approaching completion
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The summer is a busy time for White Mountain Druid Sanctuary. Covid 19 has cancelled most of the Trout Lake Abbey events (which includes the Mt. Adams Zen Temple), but Kirk Thomas has still been working hard on adding to the grounds. Much of the work only requires one person, so he has been doing a lot himself. Let’s look at the Shrines to the Dagda and the Morrigan. They have mostly been complete for years, but there have been some finishing touches added. About a year ago, signs were added so people could read about who these deities are.
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Salamis, Cyprus - successor to Enkomi
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Enkomi - a Bronze Age City
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Tombs of the Kings - Paphos
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Paphos (Nea Paphos) - the Hellenistic and Roman capital of Cyprus
The king of Palaipaphos was also the High Priest of the Sanctuary of Aphrodite there. But he decided to move the city from its inland location to a harbor on the sea. This new city was named Nea Paphos (or just Paphos), and while Palaipaphos declined rapidly, the great Sanctuary continued to thrive.
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In the days of the emperor Arcadius, long after the rest of the region had been thoroughly Christianized, the city of Gaza remained proudly, defiantly, faithful to the Old Ways, its eight temples daily thronged with worshipers.
At the heart and center of pagan Gaza stood the Marneion, the marble-clad temple of Zeus Marnas, famed for its size and beauty. Though latterly identified with the Greek Zeus, the god of this temple (Aramaic Mâr-nâ, “our Lord”) was none other than the old Canaanite Thunderer, Ba'al Hadad himself, god of that place for more than 3000 years.
So few Christians were there among the Gazans that, when the city's newly-appointed bishop, Porphyrius, arrived to take charge, he could find only a handful in a city of several hundred thousand inhabitants.
In those days, when a new bishop rode into his city for the first time, it was customary to give him a triumphal welcome, the road before him strewn with branches and palm fronds, the air perfumed with incense. On March 21, 395, however, the people of Gaza gave Porphyrius a satirical entry instead. They strewed the road before him with thorns, fouled the air with burning cowpies, and met him with jeers instead of the expected hymns.
Porphyrius burned hot with anger, but the emperor would brook no interference with the city or its ways. Gaza was a wealthy city, and paid its taxes faithfully, fattening the imperial treasury with its annual revenues.
Porphyrius soon ingratiated himself with the empress, predicting that she would soon bear a son. When she did so, after the child's baptism, he was finally given the permission he had long sought to destroy the temples of Gaza.
Imperial troops entered the city on May 12 in the year 400. The plunder and rapine continued unabated for twelve days and nights. When they were finished, pagan Gaza was no more.