Osiris – Feminism and Religion

The Green Man By Barbara Ardinger

The Green Man’s message about rebirth is why he is so popular today. He’s come to symbolize the green movement. He’s a friend of the earth who is whispering to us to wake up and grow up, to march and dance with him in celebration of our relationship with nature. What green thing can we do today?

Spring has, as they say, has sprung, and we who live in the Northern Hemisphere are witnessing the annual greening of the earth. Grasses and grains are growing, trees are leafing, flowers are budding. I like to imagine the goddesses who rule the springtime—Anna Perenna (classical Roman, probably Etruscan), Butterfly Maiden (Hopi), Freya (Norse), Hu-Tu (Chinese), the Rusalky (Russian), and others—calling their worshippers and gatheringthem on the village green to dance and celebrate the revival of the earth. Continue reading “The Green Man By Barbara Ardinger”

The Child of the Bog (continued) By Barbara Ardinger

The story so far. In the ancient land beside the river, the God-King lies in what appears to be death. No one can awaken him. In the house of a court Magician, the peasant girl Ubastet is dusting and conversing with a magical stork when two minor miracles occur. The Magician consults the Hierophant, but they cannot explain the miracles. Now the Queen has come into the room. She is determined to figure out what’s going on. (Where do they fly to? Romania, another land of great enchantment.)

Before the sun set that day, the Queen of the golden land called a convention of priests and wizards and magicians and astrologers and seers and prophets and physicians. When they had all assembled in the throne room, she set the matter before them. Day after day, the learned ones debated, night after night, they performed their high magics and gorgeous rituals. In their secret places, the animals gathered together as well and performed their own rituals. But the mirror, whose thousand pieces had been gathered up and cleansed and set back into the frame in a sublime mosaic, the mirror refused to speak again. The golden beetle remained cold and silent.

child of the bog, barbara ardinger — Isis

Continue reading “The Child of the Bog (continued) By Barbara Ardinger”

The Child of the Bog By Barbara Ardinger

Isis, She of Ten Thousand Names, was worshipped in ancient days for longer than any other deity. What is sometimes called her cult (remember, if it’s ours it’s a true religion; if it’s theirs, it’s only a cult) can be traced back six thousand years. Her worship spread throughout the lands around the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire, going as far north as London. The last temple of Isis was razed by fanatical Christians in the 6^th century. But Isis did not die! As we can see in any representation of the Madonna and Child, the iconography of Isis—a mother nursing her son—was adopted by the early Christian church. Worship of Isis was reborn in the 20^th century with the establishment in 1976 of the Fellowship of Isis to renew worship of the Great Goddess in modern times. Another temple of Isis, established in 1996, is located at the Isis Oasis in Geyserville, California. It is a legally recognized religion in California.

The name Isis is the Hellenized version of her Egyptian name, approximately Auset. If you want to know more, read The Golden Ass by the Roman author Apuleius (translated by Robert Graves) and Plutarch’s Of Isis and Osiris.

The story below is partly based on the myths of Isis and Osiris and partly on European fairy tales (which almost never have fairies in them) and comes from my imagination, although the motifs are, of course, common ones. Talking animals and miraculous births are common in fairy tales, and the animal gods of Egypt are well known, and storks and other birds are held to be sacred by many cultures.

Continue reading “The Child of the Bog By Barbara Ardinger”