March & Easter: What they ‘don’t’ tell you about this festival!

March is named after the Roman god of emergent energies and war ‘Mars.’ This month was imperative to the ancient peoples as it was once deemed the first month of the new season. 

January and February were originally believed to be rather static months with perhaps less importance being allotted to them.

Blodeuwedd and Llew

Llew Llaw Gyffes, (heroic deity of Welsh mythology and the Welsh equivalent of the Irish god Lugh and the Gaulish Lugus) was cursed, by his mother, Arianrhod, a Celtic sky goddess. 

She was ashamed of Llew and prevented him from being able to claim his regal inheritance unless she allowed it. He would not receive what was rightfully his unless she allowed it. He would also never be permitted to have a human wife, meaning he could not become Ruler. However, Arianrhod was tricked by the magicians, Math and Gwydion, into giving Llew his title and arms. They created Blodeuwedd out of oak, broom, primrose and meadowsweet and other flowers etc for him, so he could be rid of his curse completely.

Llew fell deeply in love with Blodeuwedd at first sight, and on their marriage was able to achieve his royal authority. 

Some research indicates that the power of Celtic women was exhibited not only in myth and legend but in legal codes relating to marriage, divorce, property ownership, and the right to govern. In the Celtic age, one was often born into your mother’s inheritance and not your father’s. 

Blodeuwedd was a goddess associated with springtime, flowers, nature, and the earth. 

The Equiria

On the 14th day of the month a celebration called the Equiria was held. This festival was sacred to Mars and great horse races were run in the Campus-Martius. The March Equiria was in fact the second festival of this name, the first having been held on February 27th. The legendary Romulus, (brother of Remus, son of Mars), first instituted these two events.

 
During the Equiria all manner of articles relating to the cavalry units were lustrated and spiritually purified. The Horse was one of the animals held sacred to Mars, the others being the Wolf, Vulture, Magpie and the Dog.

The Horse is associated with this deity not only because of its connection with combat, but also from its earlier origins as a beast of burden in agricultural circles.

 

Today, it would be quite interesting to note how many punters preparing to make or break on the Grand National, ever pondered on the ancient spiritual link to their sport herein.

On the 19th day of the month, the ‘Sacred Shield,’ (Ancile or Ancyle) received great attention and devotion. The Ancile fell from the heavens during the reign of King Numa. He informed the Romans that the very safety/fate of their Empire depended on the shield. Numa had eleven copies of the shield made to thwart any attempts of insurrection by enemies or criminals. Special warrior priests called 'Salii' were instituted in the ‘Temple of Vesta’ to guard the Ancile. These priests of Mars all came from noble families and their feasts were considerably lavish affairs. They adorned themselves in bright red tunics fastened with a purple belt and carried a rod and a shield.

The Salii were twelve in number (one for each shield,) which incidentally seems to be a figure later adopted by eager bible compilers for the Apostles.

This would suggest that ‘12’ is a sacred number of protections, long since passed down from one antediluvian culture to the next. There is a vast plethora of Pagan wisdom such as this small psychic truth, just awaiting re-discovery by today's liberated freethinker.

Early Christianity, like every other monotheistic religion, has suppressed then hijacked traditions, festivals and rites from much older native Pagan faiths. This is not conjecture, it is historically proven fact!

Scarlet/Red is the colour of the ‘Warrior God’, and as such belongs to the realm of death and destruction.

 
Mars never was a deity to "turn the other cheek!" Such simpering platitudes ‘supposedly’ held by later all-conquering monotheistic faith systems have proved to be for centuries the philosophy of the hypocrite and coward.

Is it wise to “turn the other cheek” to a murderer, rapist or crass thief that wishes to destroy, without hesitation, our loved ones? Surely if such a preposterous philosophy were ever to have been ‘seriously’ taken on board by the masses then humanity would have ceased to exist centuries ago!

Common sense dictates to every living creature that self-preservation (via self-defence) is the HIGHEST LAW – to fly against such natural wisdom belongs to the realm of the sanctimonious idiot!
Red is also the colour of life-blood, which gives us vitality and new energy. It is the colour of the rose of Venus and the purity marked by the rising sun. With life there is also death and vice versa, we cannot have one without the other.

Our ancient predecessors knew these simple truths well. The classical splendour of the colourful leaping, dancing Salii displayed this psychic, earth - orientated wisdom magnificently.
Contemporary Pagan adherents continue to spiritually synchronise with the same timeless, universal growing energies that perpetually surround us. These natural green forces impinge on our very being in the promising month of new growth - the sacred time-period that links us to the great god of essential creative/destructive life force, Mars!

Now is the time to sow the fresh March seeds (on all levels of existence) for summer's first bounty to come.

Easter – a ‘new’ line on a much older story

So what of Easter, Good Friday etc and the history behind the institution of Easter as a chief festival within the Church?

Christians celebrating the Easter/resurrection feast at this time of year are merely recreating the ancient Pagan festivities associated with beloved earlier gods of 'natural' regeneration such as Attis, Adonis, etc.

 
These greatly beloved deities were lamented and glorified by millions of adherents throughout many countries, long before the Christ myth was first thought up by the expanding ecclesiastical machine intent on theocratic world domination, via evangelical/missionary means.

The Christians fathers hijacked Easter from the Pagans and built their new myth around it in order to firstly conjoin with Pagan festivities and then, when they had usurped power from the Pagan priests, prohibit and outcast them. Direct mythological comparisons remain with deities such as Dionysius being nailed to a post and blooded; so his vital fluid would soak the ground to bring forth new life for all.

The Judeo-Christian Passover became merged with heathen fertility veneration to generate a new festival celebrating the resurrection of Christ. This of course was also a hammer to convert the native Pagan populace away from their indigenous spring fertility festivities. This was observed at a different time from the Passover. 

Known as the Quartodeciman controversy, the dispute over when this celebration concerning Christ should be observed reverberated across the Empire through the second, third and fourth centuries. Eventually it was established by the Council of Nicea in A.D. 325 and reinforced at the Synod of Antioch in A.D. 341.

With its iron-fist theological stranglehold on the masses the Synod called for the excommunication of anyone who dared to resist the new-fangled, man-made Easter observance. Those who opposed it were forced to move outside the reach of the Empire. 

Emperor Constantine was a driving force behind this action. This man, amongst numerous other atrocities, murdered his son and wife; the bishops in their pious wisdom happily accepted Constantine as an authority on 'godly' Christian matters and he reputedly said:

"It seemed to everyone a most unworthy thing that we should follow the custom of the Jews in the celebration of this most holy solemnity, who polluted wretches! Having stained their hands with a nefarious crime, are justly blinded in their minds. It is fit, therefore, that, rejecting the practice of this people, we should perpetuate to all future ages the celebration of this rite, in a more legitimate order, which we have kept from the first day of our Lord's passion even to the present times. Let us have nothing in common with the most hostile rabble of the Jews. We have received another method from the Saviour"

Thus, the Christian celebration of Easter (which is incidentally named after a Saxon goddess of spring, Ostara or Eostre) obviously stems from incredibly intolerant origins. It is nothing but a clandestine gala of theocratical lies, deceit, subversion and suppression of other smaller faiths.

 
Easter, in this historical sense at least, stands as a burning example of Christian fundamentalist absolutism in action.

 
The real implication of this old festival may however be discovered in lonely places such as the bleak mountainside, forest glen and stream; far away from the mind-numbing influence of self-righteous clergy and their so-called holy writ.

Our genuine Pagan spiritual inheritance links us to the planet we call home and the vast universe.