0 Comments | April 5, 2009 at 3:14 pm by mahud
From life to death. To death from life. From life to death.
Cernunnos manifest and re-create through the mystery of death.
In darkness and in light give freedom to my footsteps
and guide me into your secret place.
There, grant me rest in your abundant peace.
Cernunnos’ Path: The Incense Path (Incense Ritual)
Tarot Question Addressed to Cernunnos
Q: How is my […]
0 Comments | April 2, 2009 at 2:04 pm by mahud
The (cosmic) ocean vessel or container that transports the divinity or hero across a threshold of death and rebirth, I would say, is closely related (and likely the prototype) to the waning and waxing moon, occasionally depicted as a lunar boat, passing across the waters of destruction and creation into a new mode of supra-cosmic […]
1 Comment | March 14, 2009 at 11:05 am by mahud
A widely dispersed African myth tells that long ago Heaven and Earth were connected by a rope or ladder (or some other link) forming a primordial state of paradisical oneness between divinity and humankind. In the Nuer version of this myth human beings dwelt in the sacred presence of Kwoth. As long as they were […]
2 Comments | March 6, 2009 at 12:35 am by mahud
An African (Ashanti) myth records that God separated himself from Mankind after an old woman carelessly injured him [wound motif] with her pestle. In a futile attempt to reunite heaven and earth, the old woman gathered together all her children, and stacking large numbers of mortars, one on top of another, constructed a tall tower.
Only […]
0 Comments | February 4, 2009 at 10:43 am by mahud
Response to recent Email
Thanks for the heads up on this book [The Serpent Grail]. No I haven’t read or heard about this book before. I just found it at google books and read a segment relating to the horned god on the Gundestrup Cauldron, as well as a few online reviews. I’ll have to see […]
2 Comments | January 30, 2009 at 9:13 am by mahud
The Cyclic Serpent
The tail devouring serpent, known as the Ouroboros, is unarguably a cyclic symbol. In Norse mythology it is the sea-dwelling Midgard Serpent (Jormungand) that surrounds the world (Voluspa 50; Gylfaginning 34, 48; Skaldskaparmal 4; Hymiskvida 22; Husdrapa 4), making it a symbol of the cosmos, or like the Greek god Oceanos, the ocean […]
1 Comment | January 22, 2009 at 11:41 am by mahud
A Mythology is like a series of sign posts, that direct us through this cosmic mystery, which is also the mystery of our own existence. Mythology is a product of the sub-conscious, which in turn, is the product of the underlying cause of all things, and so creation myths and end of the world myths, […]
4 Comments | January 4, 2009 at 2:22 pm by mahud
My Pagan-Mythic Path is greatly influenced by the mystery of the lunar cycle, focusing mainly upon the waning and waxing crescents, that I term the ‘lunar double-door.’ It is within the lunar double-door that the opposites of manifest cosmic reality become one (more on that aspect of my mythos later).
My mythos is greatly influenced […]
1 Comment | January 3, 2009 at 12:15 pm by mahud
After encountering this reference to Vita Merlini, as told by Geoffrey of Monmouth, I decided to check it out. I was especially intrigued by the references that Merlin donned antler horns and that the myth also contained references to the Major Arcana, at least according to R. J. Stewart, quoted below:
In the twelfth-century Vita Merlini […]
1 Comment | January 1, 2009 at 1:47 pm by mahud
Happy New Year!
As you can see I’ve given the blog an overall, changed the title (formally known as ‘Between Old and New Moons’) to “Cernunnos’ Path” and have created a logo to represent my religious path through Pagan-Mythic symbolism.
The idea for the logo was largely the by-product of ritual I created and performed by […]
0 Comments | December 9, 2008 at 9:05 pm by mahud
And the crocodile, who’s the hand-devouring, time-sensitive crocodile; who’s that?
Hecate: First Star on the Left and Straight on Till Morning
This is not meant to be a authoritative interpretation on the nature and relationship that exists between Peter Pan, Captain James Hook and the Crocodile. Rather, I’d like to look at the symbolic themes from a […]
2 Comments | December 8, 2008 at 10:49 pm by mahud
In my recent post Would You Like to Know the Truth? Part 2 (Will war and suffering ever end?), Tom challenged the idea that Jesus and the repentant thief, who hung next to him upon the cross, entered paradise upon the point of death. Now, I personally do not accept this Biblical account as historical, […]
0 Comments | December 3, 2008 at 6:13 pm by mahud
Three months ago, during a visit to the town of Banff, I picked up a necklace with a dragon tooth pendant to wear as a replacement for the ‘lunar’ dolphin necklace I discovered at a Medieval Fair earlier in the summer:
I was really happy when I discovered this crescent-shaped dolphin necklace. As the cycle of […]
5 Comments | August 1, 2008 at 7:24 pm by mahud
Thank You Grian for responding to my post So who is this Cernunnos dude? (A to Z).
This post was originally a comment in response to Griane’s comment, but as is often the case it evolved into something worthy of posting status. Griane (Lee Hutchings of Panthea: All Things Are Goddess) has also posted her […]
4 Comments | July 30, 2008 at 5:31 pm by mahud
The current incarnation of my altar
My Altar has been steadily evolving since I first set it up back in October last year. The mythical symbolism remains the same. The necklace (symbolic of lunar-cosmic space-time) I’ve replaced with a wonderful wooden snake I won at a medieval fair last weekend. As soon as I saw it […]
0 Comments | October 18, 2007 at 1:30 pm by mahud
Dionysus, accompanied by his army of bacchic revellers, was accredited as the universal distributor of his own worship and the knowledge of the vine. Like Noah, he was the inventor of wine, and like Soma, he himself was the ambrosial drink poured out, everywhere releasing mankind from suffering. Below, in one of many magnificent […]
6 Comments | October 3, 2007 at 12:55 pm by mahud
I’ve finally set up an altar, and have chosen an image of Cernunnos as a representation of my Panentheistic understanding of divinity. The arrangement is pretty simple to look at, although It is based on a wide range of mythic images, as I understand them.
Altar (click image to enlarge)
The necklace represents the cosmic order […]
5 Comments | September 30, 2007 at 5:11 pm by mahud
I classify Cernunnos (Celtic) as a threshold God. Other mythological characters of this type I include Noah (Hebrew), Dionysus (Greek), Shiva (Hindu), and many more, but for this brief article I want to focus on Cernunnos and the iconography surrounding this God, particularly the God’s headdress as shown on the Gundestrup cauldron (Denmark: 2nd to […]
1 Comment | September 23, 2007 at 2:25 pm by mahud
Garden of Eden and the Mythological Axis Mundi
As a Christian, I believed that there were two trees in the garden of Eden. As I began to study mythology, I came to the conclusion that the garden of Eden was a kind of axis-mundi, probably situated on a mountain, with it’s four rivers symbolic of the […]
6 Comments | September 5, 2007 at 11:23 pm by mahud
This post originally started out as a comment to a recent post at Druid Journal, Hearing the Song of the World, where Jeff shares the story of Komo the Shepherd boy.
It’s surprising that the tale of Komo is not traditional. I also thought of the myth of Adam, naming all the animals in the garden, […]
5 Comments | June 17, 2007 at 2:23 pm by mahud
leontocephaline: Of Time and Eternity
Also associated with the Mithraic cult was the statue of a lion-headed figure (leontocephaline), whose body was entwined by a spiraling serpent.
This statue, I believe, represents both the lunar-temporal reality, corresponding with the revolving (serpentine) planetary path leading to cosmic release, and the solar-eternal reality, corresponding with the eighth gate mentioned […]
0 Comments | June 14, 2007 at 4:50 pm by mahud
Originally part of the Lunar Beasts series, but I felt that it doesn’t quite fit the subject matter, which primarily focuses on the Lunar Beast, a symbol that is related to other mythical ideas of the ever-revolving cosmos of death and life, such as this one, although without any actual lunar-moon symbols.
According to […]
0 Comments | June 13, 2007 at 4:02 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
Death and Life of Adonis through the tusks of the Lunar Boar
In the myth concerning Adonis’ ever-revolving decent and ascent in the realms of death and life, both his birth […]
0 Comments | June 6, 2007 at 12:17 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
In part six, I introduced the mythical representation of a sacred tree in the form of a pole sumounted by a lunar crescent, containing the orb of the sun.
The […]
0 Comments | June 5, 2007 at 8:45 am by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
The serpent and the cosmic centre
The serpent and the tree, is a well known mythological symbol. In Greek myth there’s Ladon, the sleepless serpent who guarded the golden apple Tree […]
1 Comment | May 25, 2007 at 8:41 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
From Bull to Serpent
The horns of the bull and the horns of the Moon are equated. The Moon is that celestial sphere that dies and is resurrected. It carries its […]
2 Comments | May 21, 2007 at 5:31 pm by mahud
The secular philosopher Wang Chung (27 BC - 97 AD) quotes a myth concerning a mountain called Tu Shuo, situated in the eastern ocean, from a lost version of the Shan Hai Jing, ‘classic of mountains and oceans’ (4th-3rd century B.C).
Overshadowing the island mountain grew a huge peach tree, its branches extending for three […]
0 Comments | May 15, 2007 at 12:11 pm by mahud
In a previous entry I gave my interpretation of the slaying of Medusa interpreted as Cosmogonic myth, associating Medusa with the temporal realm (in its primordial chaotic state), and the separation of both the temporal and eternal orders of reality, symbolized respectively by the birth of Pegasus (linked with the streams of Oceanos), and the […]
0 Comments | May 6, 2007 at 10:59 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
In both the Zoroastrian Creation myth and the Taruoctony (Bull Slaying scene) of the Mithras Cult, the Cosmic Man and Bull are depicted as separate entities, the bull being […]
0 Comments | February 11, 2007 at 9:38 pm by mahud
The wound motif of the ‘dying god’ assumes many forms, ranging from the violently horrific portrayals of castration and dismemberment, as suffered by Osiris, to more subtle symbolic forms of death, such as induced sleep and the curse of blindness, both inflicted upon the Cyclops Polyphemus. Occasionally the ‘dying god’ will enter the realm of […]
2 Comments | February 10, 2007 at 4:05 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
Cosmic Release in the Mysteries of Mithras
Those initiated into the mysteries of Mithras achieved cosmic release by way of the revolving planets, which appear in Mithraic Iconography, each planet (Saturn, […]
2 Comments | February 6, 2007 at 3:46 pm by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
The God Dionysus
Dionysus , accompanied by his army of bacchic revellers, was accredited as the universal distributor of his own worship and the knowledge of the vine (The ambrosial plant). […]
0 Comments | February 5, 2007 at 1:29 am by mahud
Lunar Beasts (part 1)
Lunar Beasts (part 2)
Lunar Beasts (part 3)
Lunar Beasts (part 4)
Lunar Beasts (part 5)
Lunar Beasts (part 6)
Lunar Beasts (part 7)
Lunar Beasts (part 8 )
Previously, I have referred to the bull and lion as the animal representatives of the temporal-lunar and eternal-solar aspects of divinity, and how both further symbolize their respective modes of […]
0 Comments | January 27, 2007 at 12:51 am by mahud
The slaying of the lion is another motif closely related to the theme of the solar giant.
The indestructible nature of the giant can only be overcome by a hero who has attained an identical form of indestructibility. In the conflict with Balor of the evil eye, Lugh’s solar identity is disclosed by his single […]
0 Comments | January 26, 2007 at 12:44 am by mahud
…As the Philistine (Goliath) moved closer to attack him, David ran quickly towards the battle line to meet him. Reaching into his bag and taking out a stone, he slung it and struck the Philistine on the forehead. The stone sank into his forehead, and he fell face down on the ground… …David ran and […]
0 Comments | January 24, 2007 at 12:54 am by mahud
This iconic representation of a cylindrical stamp seal from Bahrain (Dilmun), depicts the image of a bull standing upon a high-prowed boat, feeding upon a plant, with a rotated lunar crescent adjacent with the bull’s head.
Between the repeating image of the boat stands another plant or tree, enclosed within the crook-shaped prows surmounting the […]
0 Comments | January 17, 2007 at 12:21 am by mahud
In Ge Hong’s (ca 280 - 340/360 AD) Baopuzi (master embracing simplicity) Neipian (Inner Chapters), the Pace of Yu (Yubu) is described in detail as a sequence of three movements comprising of nine steps (3X3), and is a ritual dance performed by daoist masters.
“the Pace of Yu (Yubu) is described in detail as a […]
2 Comments | November 16, 2006 at 3:31 am by mahud
In the myth of Okuninushi, the theme of the eighty brothers who are motivated by jealously and conspire to kill Okuninushi has it’s parallels in a number of corresponding myths.
The Murder of Okuninushi
According to the Japanese ‘Izumo Cycle’, the hero Okuninushi had 80 brothers who were jealous of his marriage to the princess Ya-gami-himi, and […]
0 Comments | November 16, 2006 at 2:57 am by mahud
Plato’s Cosmic Man
According to Plato, in his dialogue Timaeus, the Creator God wanted all things to be like himself and modelled the universe on the eternal.
Using the four elements, earth, water, fire, and air, he created order from chaos using, as his blue print, a perfect and intelligent living being. Creation, according to Plato, […]
0 Comments | November 15, 2006 at 8:10 am by mahud
Demeter and her daughter Persephone — known as ‘the two goddesses’ — were the prominent deities associated with the famous Eleusinian Mystery cult, celebrated for over a millennium until the end of the 4th century A.D.
“For those who were initiated into the mysteries of Demeter, an identification was made between the resurrection of the new […]
0 Comments | November 15, 2006 at 7:50 am by mahud
The Phrygian myth concerning the goddess Cybele and Attis…
The myth is cosmological, explaining the creation of the present universe. Like other myths it reveals that in the beginning something separated the created order from it’s source, which should of resulted in it’s total destruction, yet miraculously and paradoxically did not.
The Divine Source within the Cosmos
…begins […]
0 Comments | November 15, 2006 at 12:51 am by mahud
The hero-victim alone can withstand the wrath-bliss of Eternity, sharing, as he does, the exact same indestructible nature.
And He drove the man out. And he caused to dwell the cherubs at the east of the Garden of Eden, and a flaming sword whirling around, to guard the way to the Tree of Life. Genesis 3:24 […]
0 Comments | November 15, 2006 at 12:32 am by mahud
The Place of the Double-Axe
The Place of the Double-Axe, or Labyrinth, was a mythical maze built by Daedalus on the island of Crete to house the Minotaur, the monstrous progeny of Queen Pasiphae and the bull (tauros) of King Minos.
“The place of the double-axe was the threshold period when the moon appeared to be […]
0 Comments | November 15, 2006 at 12:25 am by mahud
The Foot/Heel Wound
In Greek myth, the hero Philoctetes was bitten on the foot by a snake, or as another account records, he accidentally wounded himself, when one of his poisoned arrows (which once belonged to Herakles) accidentally slipped from his quiver. The injury remained incurable until a son of Asklepios put Philoctetes into a deep […]
0 Comments | November 12, 2006 at 11:26 pm by mahud
In Greek myth, Aristaeus attempted to rape Eurydice, the wife of Orpheus, when she blindly stepped on a snake, and died.
Orpheus, whose ability on the lyre had the power to enchant the entire realm of creation, descended into the realm of death, and with sweet music, brought the torments of Hades to a standstill.
He […]
Cernunnos' Path © 2004-2010 | valid XHTML| valid CSS | Current Moon Phase | Moon Calendar