Exploring the F-word in religion at the intersection of scholarship, activism, and community.
Mothers and sons. The stories that make up the Four Branches of the Mabinogi, a Welsh medieval collection of Celtic legends, are in large part about mothers and sons. Mostly about their separation. Mabon is stolen from Modron. Rhiannon’s son Pryderi is twice captured. Branwen’s baby is murdered. In Arianrhod’s tale, the Fourth Branch, it is she, the mother, who rejects her son.
Divine Arianrhod, Beloved Goddess.
Your truth is an inspiration to all living beings.
As you weave the light and the dark so do you scatter.
Joy is in our hearts while you live among the heavens
Celestial Arianrhod, Your crown shines among the stars.
You are the Goddess of the silver wheel upon which all magic is bound together.
Fortunate are we that you are a child of the land and the sky
and mother of the sea and the sun.
Reincarnation is a spiritual belief that our souls are reborn many times to this physical Earth plane. These many lives give us the opportunity to experience a variety of circumstances and create karma, the law of cause and effect. Through these experiences one grows, until ultimately one’s soul reaches a level in which it transcends to another dimension. Once in these other dimensions our souls continue their evolution toward oneness with Source.
I have always believed in reincarnation myself and have explored the idea in various paintings. This painting, Many Lives, illustrates that belief. The far left figure is my present self and the other figures represent selves I might have been in past lives. But the concept of reincarnation is not as ancient as I thought it was.
It is difficult to known exact beliefs of peoples who lived before written history began but some scholars feel that ancient cultures who practiced shamanistic Earth-based religions had a concept of reincarnation. But other scholars believe that these tribes taught only of the preexistence of the soul before birth or its independent survival after death in an Otherworld. Continue reading “Reincarnation – A Belief Found Worldwide by Judith Shaw”
Arianrhod, Celtic Welsh Star Goddess of Reincarnation, is known as “Silver Wheel”, “Silver Circle”, “High Fruitful Mother”, “Star Goddess”, and Sky Goddess. She is considered by many to be a Moon Goddess. She is a primal figure of feminine power, a Celestial Mother Goddess who through her role as Goddess of Reincarnation, rules fertility and childbirth.
Arianrhod, the most powerful child of the great Mother Goddess, Don, was very beautiful, with extremely pale skin. She was a virgin goddess in the ancient meaning of the word virgin – a woman who is complete unto herself; a woman who needs no protection from a man. She enjoyed herself sexually, with a distinct preference for mermen.
Feminism and Religion 