[February 2003]
Dear Harry,
Continuing my browsing of your fascinating site, I came across your page with the Celtic religion letters, and would like to add my two cents.
I agree with Ms. Nicholson [below] that Joanne's commentary [below] (though I believe is largely quoting D.J. Conway) is not substantially accurate. I am a long time follower of Wicca, and readily acknowledge that it is a modern religion.
What neither Joanne nor Ms. Nicholson comment on is that Wiccan practices today (particularly among Dianic Wiccans) include a focus on menstruation. A woman's menstrual cycle is considered to echo the cycle of the moon, tying women's energy closely to the Maiden/Mother/Crone cycle of the Goddess. A wide of variety of practices have sprung up around this connection, to celebrate and honor it.
For example, some Wiccan women practice a voluntary seclusion at the time of menses, seeing it as a time for inward contemplation and self focus, to focus on renewal for the coming month. Others mark the occasion with special rituals, often including releasing regrets of the past month or workings for what one wishes to see born in one's life in the next cycle.
A girl's first menses is celebrated in many traditions, often with the presentation of a bracelet or necklace with beads that can be moved to track her cycle. Some of these pieces of jewelry are quite remarkable, with crimson crystals to mark the days of menses, and often a blue or green bead to mark the likely time of ovulation. Depending on the tradition, ritual tools may be gifted at first menses, such as chalices and cauldrons, which represent the woman's genitals and womb.
Menopause is similarly honored, seen as marking a woman's ascent to Crone-hood, the age of wisdom from experience. The Crone aspect of the Goddess is seen as the keeper of knowledge, the guardian of secrets and the bringer of the death without which there could be no rebirth. Depending on the woman, Cronings may range from symbolic funerals for one's fertility to ecstatic celebrations of the freedom that experience brings from social and mental bonds.
In addition, there are many beliefs regarding menses that Wiccans consider on a regular basis - a woman on her Moondays is often thought to be better at magicks of divination and closure, while at the time of ovulation women have a greater power for the energies of creation and summoning. Wiccan women who garden will often take their cycle into account when planning planting and harvesting, or may consider it inappropriate to harvest certain plants thought to have magickal properties at the opposing point in their cycle.
Indeed, one of the challenges faced by Wicca today is how to develop traditions and practices of coming of age for men, since the cycle of a man's life is so less clearly defined and tied to the Goddess and God.
Anna Ault
Dear Harry,
I have gone through most of your Web site, and of course the more amusing sections are the silly old fears associated with men and blood and menstruation. As a contrast to the Jews, who thought that that blood and menstruating women were somehow "unclean" (as if one could catch a deadly illness from it) [but they also felt that semen was unclean], perhaps a page dedicated to ancient Celtic traditions, including the wiccans, would balance the subject out.
I thought that this Celtic/Druidic concept deserved a better play on your Web site because it is menstruation/women friendly, which is something we seem to have lost on this earth for the past 2,000 years with the advent of the "modern" Church and "modern" Judaism. Time to get a little of that "old-time religion" and I mean really old-time.
Most of the information below is taken from Chapter 8, Introduction to the Celts, from D.J. Conway's book on Celtic Magic.
Take care and good luck on your permanent museum project.
Joanne
Celtic women were not weak, demure women who were left out of the church and worship. To the contrary, they were as feared as the men and often in early society fought fearlessly beside them.
Celts in pagan worship believed in the female as well as male aspect of divinity, until the early Church burned their religious texts (in fact, St. Patrick burned at least 180 ogham-lettered [an Old Irish alphabet from the 5th to 10th centuries A.D.] sacred books and drove out and murdered the old wiccan and druidic worshipers.
They were not sorcerers, nor did they engage in devil worship, as the Church later wrongfully accused them of. They worshiped a male deity, similar to Pan, who was not the judgmental, wrathful God of the Old Testament, but instead a joyous, flute-playing, helpful fellow who cared for all of mankind and who could be easily called upon for knowledge and wisdom to be successful in life.
The female deity, on the other hand, was extremely powerful and connected with worship during moon phases where power from the other side could easily be collected and used on earth.
The Celts were extremely religious, extremely spiritual and could easily meditate into the other world and ask talking people, mythical characters, plants, trees and rocks for answers to issues on earth. It is believed that their powerful religion helped keep out the French, Romans and Huns, unlike the rest of Europe which fared far less better in battle.
In any case, Wiccans and Druids existed well before the modern Church, and their religion was strong and complicated (they had stages of religious development lasting up to 20 years to advance to high priest or priestess, which involved feats of healing and psychic abilities which had to be proven in order to advance).
Well prior to the Church, the Druids and Wiccans had established large groups of men and women (monks and nuns) who dedicated their life to their religion in set-apart communities.
What does this mean to menstruating women? Well, for one, Celtic women were treated with very high regard in the community since Priestess was a most powerful position. Women could own property and fight in battle. Virginity was not prized because it did not result in children, which were regarded highly for their spirituality and the ability to allow spirits to enter into the world and gain soul development.
Family was also highly prized and anything to increase the amount of children was greatly encouraged. Menstruation was quite prized and it was women, not men, who controlled marriage and divorce. In fact, red was a highly regarded color due to its association with menstruation. Still today, we use holly and mistletoe during Christmas; the original significance of this symbolism was the drops of blood of menstruation (holly) and drops of semen (ivy), all of which was greatly prized by the Celts and Druids.
Also, it was believed that red-headed women had specialized religious gifts and thus were quickly advanced through the ranks to High Priestess, it being noted that they gained special abilities of healing, astral travel and psychic abilities quicker. Again, the red hair was associated with menstruation and therefore family.
This is an interesting contrast to the Church and the Jewish religion wherein menstruation is to be abhorred and not welcomed as a gift to the earth. That mother god (also highly worshiped in other cultures as Mother Nature, Isis and Athena, etc., etc.) is just as important as a father god deity, which is the only deity that the modern Jewish religion has retained, although earlier sects, including the Essenes, recognized and worshiped a Mother God as well as Father God. (Note that there are far more reported religious visions of Mother Mary or Mother God or Pele, the Hawaiian goddess, than there are of a Father God, and Father God is never directly seen by anyone in the Bible).
Also, although the old Jewish God was one of fear, wrath, jealousy and judgment, the Wiccans and Druids believed in a helpful, nurturing, caring Mother and Father God, which is more akin to a woman's emotions and abilities.
An e-mailer (January 2002, below) has objected to many points made in the above mail: