Recent events:
Ismana Carney, Ph.D. facilitated a FIRE CIRCLE at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, California.
April Journal
Terra Lucida Journal: Mapping the Soul Journey. I hope that you all continue to enjoy the Winter 2008 edition and if you still have not had a chance to read some of the wonderful articles, viewpoints and poetry, please take some time to do so. Look forward to the Spring 2008 edition that will be published in June. Also, watch for a Call for Submissions for the Fall 2008 volume and the deadline for submission is July 28th 2008.
April Feature Story
April is the fourth month of the year and elegantly ushers in Spring, dancing it toward the full bloom and warmth of Summer. The Anglo-Saxons called April Eostur-monath, a time that is sacred to the Saxon goddess of spring, Ostara. It is from her name that we have derived the modern Christian term Easter and also the term estruus that denotes female fertility and the divine gift to the female life forms of having the capacity and the power to create and carry life within our own fragile bodies, bringing it forth into this glorious created universe in myriad species forms.
In ancient Rome this month was called aperire which means, 'to open,' thus mirroring the season when trees and flowers begin to blossom in countless petaled beauties. In ancient times and in every human culture the lunar and or solar months were named in honor of divinities and each four-week cycle was considered a sacred time within which festivals, rituals, prayers and ceremonies were carried out each day to honor the divinity who is the caretaker of that time in the great twelve month solar cycle. For those who continue to honor these great traditions, even today this principal of sacred relationship between Earth in her temporal cycle and Spirit in its eternal divine forms is honored and enacted.
For the ancient Greeks and Romans April was sacred to the goddess Venus also known as Aphrodite in Greece. She is a divinity of immense beauty and is responsible for a world of human experience and imperatives. She watches over both the chaos and order of love in its various forms and manifestations; beauty in all its aspects both dark and radiant; and while she honors and fiercely guards the purity and chastity of her devotees, she also oversees marriage, conception and giving birth. In relationship to Earth-in-her-Angel who contains and is all of the life that forms her body-being, Venus is a Nature Goddess of the Spring. And, as all the great ancient female divinities of the western world Astarte, Aphrodite, Ishtar, the Goddess of Beauty and Love is at the very same time the Goddess of War and Victory; she is Judge and Avenger and Equalizer. The Primordial Feminine and Time itself is represented by the Trinitarian goddess Venus-Ishtar-Astarte in the sacred dance of life; the circle of being; the emergences, and the leave-takings. So we honor Venus as the morning (and evening) star when she appears to us in her beautiful radiance every morning, elegantly stands aside with the arrival of the great Solaris, the sun deity and then returns in ever more intensity of brilliance when it his time to brighten the Western world.
April's birthstone is the diamond.The diamond is a gemstone of ultimate majesty and power both in its sentient form, and as one of the great symbols of what Jung called the Individuated Self, and that spiritual traditions of the East have called the Realized Self. The diamond in its dual aspects of soul symbol and gemstone of highest value has few weaknesses and much strength. It is the hardest substance found in nature yet it is not impervious. Like the 4-squared and sacred symbol of the Mandala, the Native American Medicine Wheel, or the Shiva Nataraj dancing the circle of life, the diamond has four directions demarcated along axial lines that denote the multidimensionality of refractive light that emanates from the heart of the gem. At the same time these lines are the most fragile areas in the interior landscape of a diamond's world. This means that as the diamond setter-creator is working on revealing the diamond in the heart of the stone, one misdirected or unthinking blow will render asunder a perfect symmetry. But a skilled diamond artisan the individuating Self will prevent any of these directions from being in a position to be struck while it is begin shaped, formed and placed in the form that will house it, whether it is a mounting for a piece of jewelry or whether metaphorically it is the diamond soul being housed within our bodies. As a gemstone or as the soul undergoing its own mysterious alchemy of spirit, the diamond's flaw is dimmed in the reflection of it array of positive qualities. It holds within its heart the rainbow color spectrum and refracts light with a power that can still the breath. It can live in fire as in a very real sense fire lives within the heart of the diamond and it withstand the burn of the harshest chemical encounters.
The diamond is a symbol of strength, courage and invincibility and also of enduring love. The Greek word 'adamas' is the root of the word 'diamond' and means unconquerable and in terms of love points to the endurance and constancy of the bond between those who love each other. Even the modern tradition of the diamond engagement ring as it roots in ancient Egypt where women and men wore their betrothal rings on the third finger of the left hand because it was believed that a vein of love, the vena amoris began its journey from the top of the third finger and makes its way directly to the heart.
April's birth flower is the daisy. Unlike the magnificent diamond and the Goddess of Love and War, April's flower is the sweet, self-effacing and most ordinary of flowers the daisy. It is a wild flower, not necessarily sought after except for the most childlike and most simple of posies often made by children and funloving folk at a picnic or walking in a meadow in Spring. But when we stop to really gaze upon things as divinities often do sometimes things that seem at first sight to be of humble origin and not to impressive in terms of stature, become something entirely other and we realize something else. It is that way with the sweet reliable daisy; white, yellow and in all the other colors the daisy is a symbol of innocence and the eternal child within. In ancient Rome the daisy was known as bellis perennis which translated means forever beautiful. But bellis is a Latin word that is derived from the word bellum, which means war and the reliable, strong and beautiful daisy was beloved not only because it carpeted the battlefields with beautiful waves of color that denied the horror of war but also it had healing properties precisely for fallen and wounded warriors. Made into a poultice it can staunch bleeding and reduce bruising and shock in fact in one of the daisy's cultural folk names is bruisewort. The tender little daisy is also connected with survival and invincibility because of its ability to adapt to almost any environment, climate and soil. You can walk all over a daisy patch and it will come right back at you; you can mow over it and weed it out; the daisy will always return smiling, ever cheerful and always ready for triage when it is needed.
Greetings!
And welcome to the Terra Lucida Newsletter! In it you will find news on recent and upcoming events, information about the Terra Lucida Journal publication, an Earth Affirmation™ for the month and a Simple Discipline™ to put your affirmation into practice.
April Earth Affirmation
Earth-in-your-Angel, I surrender to Earth-Sun's sacred dragon love, eternal embrace, a heavenly kiss that never ends and an overflow of infinite heartbreakingly beautiful life. Earth-in-your-Angel, goddess of transformation, you bring both radiant and shadowed life forms into being and cause them to pass away, only to be reborn into bright new beginnings.
Simple discipline. This month create your April altar to honor and respect the great Trinitarian Venus as herself and also in her other divine aspects. Learn about her as Aphrodite, as Ishtar, and as Astarte and connect with the aspect that most resonates with you, within you. Who will be your guide and teacher this month? who will walk with you each day and dream with you each night? In your morning or evening mediations recite your Earth Affirmation, use it as a mantra that may accompany you into the world of vision and inspired thought where you journey into your soul's own world where encounters with Spirit are waiting. Ask those divinities who are the guardians of this month to receive an invocation, or a prayer that you can express each day. On your altar honor the presence of the diamond. If you do not have diamonds (many of us don’t have those kinds of resources!) use a crystal in its place, but remain conscious of it being a symbol for the presence of the diamond in all its metaphorical meaning for you. Draw, map or write out your own mandalic journey toward your Diamond Self and place your crystal/Diamond in the center. Visit every day for new insights and renewals of intentions and strengths. Place daisy chains everywhere! Or have fresh daisies in a vase or bowl. Love those daisies, find the daisy chain within your own being, search for and embrace your own surviving self and within that self find the healing salve it produces to stop the bleeding, to stop the bruising, to cradle and allay the shock.