The Great Mother Goddess, the Divine Feminine, Mother Nature, and Gaia the Earth Mother, have been worshipped for eons in many ancient cultures and modern cultures. One of the most prominent Mother deities throughout history is the Goddess Aset (Isis), the Queen of the Gods, the Mother of Horus, and the patroness of magic and […]
The Great Mother Goddess — Iseum Sanctuary
Category: myths and stories
The dance of Shiva
Within the snow
See
The raven-winged worlds of wonder
Become the beginnings and the endings,
The souls who are the one
Soul –
The re-awakening beginning
And the ultimate ending, broken asunder.
The soul of the snow goes
Drifting by on the many rivulets,
You
Who
Are no one and everyone,
The soft-spoken spirit
Of the call of the night heron,
Floating over the waters
Of the black lake
Of eternity,
Where the boatman
Dips his pole
Toward the far shoal,
Awake
Now, with all the children of the stars,
Sons and daughters
Of heaven,
Who are dancing –
Dancing
The dance of Shiva,
The one Soul.
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2023
Shani
Returning
To the land of drifting snow –
So
Many angels.
Black ravens circle
Above
The treetop,
Glinting green.
Dawn
Stars discern
A faint pathway
To river banks unseen.
Only divinity remains,
Only angels and singing bells,
In the gentle rains
Of spring.
Rocks washed, in the rolling
Dance
Of the unstoppable swells
Of the sea;
Tree shadows fade against the sky.
There is no one,
No one at all.
The tangles of time are all undone.
Only the lingering glance
Of eons sliding by,
Only the halo
Of the sacred night,
Only the peace of Eternity,
Only the startling snow,
Only the song of the swan
Has slipped away
Into the gray
Clouds of the pillars of the night,
Where the moon might
Sing,
The white-crowned sparrow
Hop,
And the magpie don
Her white robes, worn
In celebration
When the cosmic journey leads on and on
Through calming mists
Over miles of snow forests.
The one who waited to kill
The soul
No longer glimmers,
But is gone,
Into the night-waves of shadow.
Faded,
The bitter song – of illusion – was never sung –
The notes were never played,
But fell instead into the yawning gap of the abyss,
So the autumn leaves never cascaded
On to the burned embers of time, unborn
With the final hiss
Of the raindrop.
Now, at last, only
The brave, undaunted raven rises
Whose eyes
Glisten wise
In the snow-radiant dark.
Only the real one,
Who soars aloft, ever higher
Over the juniper tree.
Shani,
The first one,
The only one,
The God of myth
Who sparkles fire
As the bright
Truth
Of being,
Riding on the swift ark
Of the moon-crowned night.
© Copyright Sharon St Joan, 2023
Horus – Great God of the Sky — Iseum Sanctuary
Horus is one of the most Ancient Egyptian Gods, worshiped from the Pre-dynastic period (c. 6000-3150 BCE) until the last of the Ancient Egyptian dynasties (600 BCE). Horus was the “Great God, Lord of the Sky,” as well as god of war and hunting. He was usually depicted as a falcon-headed man or a falcon. […]
Horus – Great God of the Sky — Iseum Sanctuary
Anubis – Lord of the Underworld — Iseum Sanctuary
Anubis is one of the most well-known gods in the Ancient Egyptian pantheon. He is typically depicted as a man with the head of a jackal, or as a full jackal. He was often seen accompanying the deceased on their journey through the underworld, ensuring their safe passage and helping to guide them to their […]
Anubis – Lord of the Underworld — Iseum Sanctuary
The Triads — Iseum Sanctuary
The Ancient Egyptians had important groupings of the deities and among these, the group of three deities, Triads, were particularly significant. Two of the most famous triads of Ancient Egypt are the Theban Triad and the Abydos Triad. The Theban Triad consists of Amun, Mut, and Khonsu. Amun was the chief god of Thebes and […]
The Triads — Iseum Sanctuary
Until the hour
Until the Hour
Through dim
Years of distain,
On the barren,
Moon-dark steppes, the hero’s
Blade has lain,
Half-broken,
In the shadows,
Where regiments of rattling
Drones
Skulk by,
Their bones
Whining
In the wind, the lights of their eyes
Gone,
Lugging through the mire,
Their banners grim
All hung with skulls and bells and pelts on wire,
They, the rusted kings,
Who create and re-create
Their soulless empire
Of uncounted deaths
And only lies.
Yet, all the while, the snow lily
Grew
Among the rocks
In the rain
Of silver tomorrows
Her petals, ghost-patterned
In the grace-filled land
Where all beginnings
Once arose
In the foothills of the eternal ones.
There gentle flocks
Of dragons,
Hatched of the sea,
Flew
In the pure skies
That overlie
The smoking rim
Of time, until
The hour when,
In the quiet, unremarked snows
That slip over oak and briar,
Along the high,
White-hooded hill,
Dragon dreams of standing stones
Walk abroad again
On the earth, and
The sword sings
In the ancient dawn
Of mists and myths.
***
Written around 2000.
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan.
To remember the days of dragons
If you were to remember
The birth of dragons
And the times you played among them,
Hearing their feet splashing in the puddles,
Remembering their eyes of fiery emeralds—
If you were to remember,
Then you could run, calling after them,
You could call them and
They would return,
Trailing magic in their silver wings.
Then it could happen that
On the afternoon of a strange Sunday
They could unwind
The obtuse windings
Of the world of men,
Bound up in iron snares,
Releasing fire spirits, air fairies, wise feather-footed owls,
And the innocents entombed for millennia
Into an age of joy,
Where winged bees sing to the flower,
Toadstools dream by the melodious shore,
And the peace of eternal power
Settles over the primeval forest
Green in the darkness of the stars.
***
Written July 15, 2012
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan
In Honor of Weneg, Mediator of the Gods and Pillar of the Sky — Iseum Sanctuary
Weneg, also known as Uneg, was an Ancient Egyptian God first referenced during the Old Kingdom period (c. 2600 BCE). He was revered as a god of fertility, agriculture, and the renewal of life. The name Weneg translates to “the one who endures” or “the one who is firm,” and he was believed to hold […]
In Honor of Weneg, Mediator of the Gods and Pillar of the Sky — Iseum Sanctuary
Stories of Noah and the Great Flood
Frank Joseph, in his fascinating book, Survivors of Atlantis, writes about many stories from tribal sources all over North America, that describe a version of the story of Noah and the Great Flood.
An Iroquois version talks about a land in the far east where an entire people lived. All of them drowned except for one lone survivor who escaped by leaving in a large boat along with many animals. After many days lost at sea, he sent out a dove, who returned from the west with a willow branch in his beak. Every year, the Iroquois featured the dove in a spring festival – which took place when the willow bloomed.
A similar ceremony was held by the Sioux, Chickasaw, Pima, Okanogan, and Mandan. George Catlan, known for his early paintings of Native Americans, wrote about the Mandan ceremony, in the early nineteenth century, noting that it gives an account of the Great Flood that destroyed nearly everyone. Only one man escaped in a big canoe. The Mandan remembered the willow twig which the bird carried in its beak – and that the great flood covered the earth for forty days.
Catlin wrote that he had found this story among 120 tribes that he had visited. He also noted that many totem poles were said to have been made “at the time of the great flood.”
Both the Hopi and the Algonquin traditions tell of their ancestors being warned that the Gods would sink the land beneath the sea. After this the “Father of the Tribes” built a “great reed raft” on which he sailed away with his family and many animals.
In addition to these Native American stories, recalled by Frank Joseph, there are hundreds of other stories, from cultures all over the world, with remarkably similar details. In the two very well-known versions – there is the Greek account of the sinking of Atlantis in a Great Flood, which appears to be the same story as the Biblical Great Flood, from which Noah escaped after building the ark along with a pair of every animal. Then from the ark he sent out birds, including a dove, to find land.
From India, in the Hindu version, Manu rescues a tiny fish and raises him. He grows up to be huge and turns out to be Matsya, the fish incarnation of the God Vishnu. Matsya, after having been released into the ocean, returns later to warn his friend Manu of an upcoming flood, and Manu builds an ark to save himself and the seven sages. Instead of saving the animals – he saves the seeds of the earth’s plants.
How shall we explain the fact that this nearly identical story is told all over the world as if it were a true ancient event?
Well, there’s only one simple possibility. That is to consider that it may be a true story.
Graham Hancock along with a whole host of other writers have published dozens of very intriguing books suggesting that this is an account of a true event (or perhaps a series of events). During the time following the last Ice Age, the seas rose – perhaps a hundred meters – with the melting of the ice – thereby creating great floods and destroying an ancient, advanced civilization. The rising of the seas at this time is an accepted scientific fact. A few people survived and were scattered across the earth.
It’s worth looking into. You might start with Graham Hancock’s books.
Please note the correction below, in the comment by Dr. Prasad.
***
© Copyright, Sharon St Joan, 2022