Rig Veda, HYMN XLVIII. Dawn         T. Ralph T.H. Griffith 1896

DAWN on us with prosperity, O Easter, Daughter of the Sky,
Dawn with great glory, Goddess, Lady of the Light, dawn thou with riches, Bounteous One.


They, bringing steeds and kine, boon-givers of all wealth, have oft sped forth to lighten us.
O Easter, waken up for me the sounds of joy: send us the riches of the great.

Easter hath dawned, and now shall dawn, the Goddess, driver forth of cars
Which, as she cometh nigh, have fixed their thought on her, like glory-seekers on the flood.

Like a good matron Easter comes carefully tending everything:
Rousing all life she stirs all creatures that have feet, and makes the birds of air fly up.


She sends the busy forth, each man to his pursuit: delay she knows not as she springs.
O rich in opulence, after thy dawning birds that have flown forth no longer rest.

This Dawn hath yoked her steeds afar, beyond the rising of the Sun:
Borne on a hundred chariots she, auspicious Dawn, advances on her way to Men.

To meet her glance all living creatures bend them down: Excellent One, she makes the light.
Easter, the Daughter of the Sky, the opulent, shines foes and enmities away.

Shine on us with thy radiant light, O Easter, Daughter of the Sky,
Bringing to us great store of high felicity, and beaming on our solemn rites.

For in thee is each living creature's breath and life, when, Excellent! thou dawnest forth.
Borne on thy lofty car, O Lady of the Light, hear, thou of wondrous wealth, our call.


O Easter, win thyself the strength which among men is wonderful.
Bring thou thereby the pious unto holy rites, those who as priests sing praise to thee.

Bring from the firmament, O Easter, all the Gods, that they may drink our Soma juice,
And, being what thou art, vouchsafe us kine and steeds, strength meet for praise and hero might.


May Easter whose auspicious rays are seen resplendent round about,
Grant us great riches, fair in form, of all good things, wealth which light labour may attain.


Mighty One, whom the men of old time invoked for their protection and their help,
O Easter, graciously answer our songs of praise with bounty and with brilliant
light.

Easter, as thou with light to day hast opened the twin doors of heaven,
So grant thou us a dwelling wide and free from foes. O Goddess, give us food with kine.

Bring us to wealth abundant, sent in every shape, to plentiful refreshing food,
To all-subduing splendour, Easter, Mighty One, to strength, thou rich in spoil and wealth.


ᛋ


HYMN XLIX. Dawn.

E'EN from above the sky's bright realm come, Easter, by auspicious ways:
Let red steeds bear thee to the house of him who pours the Soma, juice.

The chariot which thou mountest, fair of shape, O Easter light to move,-
Therewith, O Daughter of the Sky, aid men of noble fame today.

Bright Easter, when thy times return, all animals and men stir,
And round about flock winged birds from all the bounds of heaven.

Thou dawning with thy beams of light illumest all the radiant realm.
Thee, as thou art, wise men, fain for wealth, have called with sacred songs.

Great advice from STJ, if you're looking for advice for this Easter above are some fantastic resources. We will post a rough guideline too, which is largely sourced from STJ himself and our colleagues. I encourage all who should be practicing to do so this year, let us know in chat about your experiences. I will be performing a small prayer Tuesday evening, and a ritual to the Dawn Goddess at dawn on Wednesday.

-Owen, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

In these times of crisis surrounding the coronavirus, with hospitals all over the world overloaded, it's a good idea to remember that nature provides us with plenty of things that can help us stay healthy.

A great example would be evergreen tea. A single cup of pine tea contains five times the amount of vitamin C found in an orange, and vitamin C is known to boost the immune system (although the claim is disputed). All you need to get a cup of evergreen tea is something to boil water in, a knife and knowledge of local poisonous evergreen species (in Europe that will mainly be yew, but there may be others). Just go out and find a non poisonous tree and cut off some small branches. Boil some water, take it off the heat and put the branches in. In case of pine and cedar it can help to cut the needles into pieces, but for spruce and fir this gets very tedious and I usually don't do it. Remember not to keep boiling the water as this will destroy the vitamin C. Fir, pine, spruce and cedar all taste different, and it's worth giving all of them a try.

Another good one is willow bark. Willow bark contains a substance similar to the functional component of aspirin. Simply separate the inner and outer bark, and boil the inner bark for a while. The result will be a painkilling tea. Just don't go overboard with this one because you can overdose on it.

For a milder painkiller, pretty much any part of birch will do. Bark, leaves and twigs can all be used to make tea.

Staying on the topic of birch, birch sap which can be tapped during spring is loaded with nutrients and antioxidants, despite being very low in calories.

If you get a cut and don't have anything else around, the slime found in cattail sheathes is a natural antiseptic. You also get some edible parts from the plants as well, and they tend to be very abundant in the Northern hemisphere.

Finally garlic has been shown to help white blood cells fight off pathogens. Garlic can pretty easily be grown at home.

There are many more things like this which can help you stay healthy, even when there is no coronavirus around. It's worth learning about them and including them in your life. A great channel to begin learning about foraging is https://www.youtube.com/user/OutsideFun1
A large chunk of the information in this post came from there.

-Seagull, the Sun Riders
@solarcult

As many of you needed some help, please check out the above STJ posts and the below post for information on Easter.

I will be performing ritual tomorrow. This yearly ritual is for the Dawn Goddess and must be performed at dawn.

The basic framework for ritual I've used for a while:


Mark out boundaries of ritual space.

Delineate the space spiritually and mentally. I’ve done it vocally before, as well have seen it done well by marking the space by consecrating outwards in each cardinal direction. Many different methods to this.

Light the flame, consecrate the altar and call upon the God(s) that are relevant to the ritual.

Praise/ ‘Toast & Boast’ (Speak highly of the God’s deeds in mythology, I recommend kennings). You can read appropriate devotional poetry, or sing an appropriate song.

Make your prayers, some groups I’ve performed ritual with do rounds of toasts to Gods/Ancestors/Family+Friends (specifics), this works well in a group.

Give offerings, something significant to you, if you’re a rich man and you just offer some cheap booze from the shop that’s really tasteless in my view. Try to offer things that you created, put effort into, they have more metaphysical value than something store-bought. However store-buying is understandable, and better than nothing, especially for traditional alcoholic libations.

Put out the flame & close the sacred space, first spiritually then if you’ve marked the space physically return it to how it was, do not litter.

—

I recommend offering flowers for this event if you have some, along with other offerings, whatever you can provide that is meaningful.

If you have further questions feel free to ask in our group chat.

Many thanks to all who support our channel, our goal is to support this faith, so I hope as many of you as possible take action this year and practice.

-Owen, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NtSsTxYRXMU

Firstly, I hope you all are having a great day, first one of a new season and it's going well so far! Fantastic documentary by STJ. Well-researched insight into the history of pagan dream practices and esoterics. Finally got around to watching this one and would recommend you all check it out if you haven't already.

-Owen, The Sun Riders.
@solarcult

Earth Mother Goddess

Spring is underway, Easter heralds the return of the Sun, and wildlife begins springing forth once again. As the Sun regains her strength, the Earth thaws and is once again becoming fruitful.

If you have the means, this is the time to start your gardens (if you are in northerly climates like me). So let’s take a moment to fix our gaze down, away from the sky, and toward our Mother beneath our feet.

The Earth Mother is a relatively well preserved Goddess across IE myths. She is the consort of the Sky Father, in some pantheons the mother of the Storm God, and/or the mother of the Divine Twins. In Germania, Tacitus tells us her name is Nerthus, and that she represents a Terra Mater (Mother Earth) worshipped by many tribes. In addition, he says of the Angles: “the noteworthy characteristic of the English, to foreign eyes, was that they were goddess-worshippers; they looked on the earth as their mother.”

Let us take some time to call upon Her for fertile gardens this year. The Æcerbot is a preserved poem which does just that. The ritual is an 11th century (possibly earlier) recording by a Christian monk, and no doubt contains some Christian contamination. Nevertheless, it displays a continuation of the reverence by the English people of the Earth Mother described to us by Tacitus almost 1,000 years prior, and should serve as a useful backbone for constructing our own rituals to this generous Goddess.

The ritual itself is very lengthy, too lengthy to get into completely here. However it is worth researching on your own, as a starting point for creating our own rituals, as it is much closer to the pagan mindset of our ancestors.

From the ritual, in modern English:

Erce, Erce, Erce, Earth Mother,
May the all-ruler grant you, the eternal lord,
fields growing and flourishing,
propagating and strengthening,
tall shafts, bright crops,
and broad barley crops,
and white wheat crops,
and all earth's crops....

Whole may you be Earth, mother of men!
May you be growing in God's embrace,
with food filled for the needs of men.

From: http://www2.hawaii.edu/~kjolly/field.htm

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

Lithuanian Earth Goddess

In Lithuania, one of the most important goddesses to the Romuva religion is Žemyna, also sometimes referred to as Žemynėla.

Her name is undoubtedly connected to the Lithuanian word “žemė”, meaning earth, from the Proto-Indo-European word *dʰéǵʰōm. Contrast this with the English word “earth”, rooted in the West Germanic *erþu, (perhaps the source of the Germanic Earth Mother “Nerthus”, attested by Tacitus), itself rooted in the the PIE word *h₁er.

In Lithuanian folklore and mythology, Žemyna is the daughter of the the Sun goddess Saulė and the moon god Menulis. Her holiday is known as Žolinės, however in modern times this holiday has been absorbed by the Catholic Church as the cult of the Virgin Mary.

-Hariwulfaz, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

https://telegra.ph/The-organisation-of-the-Celtic-sacerdotal-caste-and-the-Druidic-revolution-04-08

The organisation of the Celtic sacerdotal caste and the Druidic revolution

Every year, they met in the same place, the center of the country, for a session that had two objectives: examine religious matters and render judgments in legal disputes. We can see that in numerous domains, bards, vates and druids were competing with each other. Yet soon the latter would bring a new type of belief that would be irreplaceable...

Kudos to pagangmommy for her help with the English phrasing!

Matamoro, The Sun Riders
@solarcult

The Moralism of the Druids

“The bards composed and sung odes; the Uatis attended to the sacrifices and studied nature; while the Druids studied nature and moral philosophy. So confident are the people in the justice of the Druids that they refer all private and public disputes to them; and these men on many occasions have made peace between armies actually drawn up for battle.” - Strabo

“Druids make their pronouncements by means of riddles and dark sayings, teaching that the gods must be worshipped, and no evil done, and manly behaviour maintained.” - Diogenes Laertius

- O’Gravy, The Sun Riders
@solarcult