Monday, March 10, 2008

Cerridwen: Death & Rebirth

The following is excerpted exactly from The Goddess Oracle by Amy Sophia Marashinsky and the illustrations are by Hrana Janto. For more information on their work, please visit the following websites:

Amy Sophia Marashinsky:
http://www.amysophia.com/
You can download the meditations included in the ritual suggestions at
http://deepspiritualnourishment.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=2

Hrana Janto:
http://www.hranajanto.com/

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I give you life

I give you death

it is all one

You travel the spiral path

the eternal path

that is existence

ever becoming

ever growing

ever changing

Nothing dies that is not reborn

nothing is born that does not die

When you come to me

I welcome you home

then I take you into my womb

my cauldron of transformation

where you are stirred and sifted

blended and boiled

melted and mashed

reconstituted then recycled

You always come back to me

you always go forth renewed

Death and Rebirth are but points of transition

along the Eternal Path.

Mythology

To the Welsh, Cerridwen (pronounced ker’rid-when) is a triple goddess – Maid, Mother and Crone – whose totem animal is the great white sow. She is associated with the moon, inspiration, poetry, prophecy, shape-shifting, and life and death. Cerrdwen had two boys. One was beautiful and one was ugly. Because she wanted the ugly one to have something of his own, she made him a magical brew. The brew took a year and a day to complete and would make him inspired and brilliant. She set Gwion, her assistant, to watch the brew and bade him not to drink it. Accidentally some drops of the brew splashed onto his hand and he put his hand in his mouth. Instantly, he knew everything, including the fact that Cerridwen would seek his death. He ran away and she ran after him. After many shape-shiftings, he was swallowed by Cerridwen who gave birth to him nine months later.

Meaning of the Card

Cerridwen’s appearance in your life heralds a time of death and rebirth. Something is dying and needs to be let go of, so something new can be born. We know the earth’s dance of death and rebirth as the seasons. Matter cannot be created or destroyed, but undergoes transformation. So do we. To live fully and in wholeness we need to accept life in all that it is, which includes death and rebirth. Let go of what does not serve you and your wholeness.

Perhaps you have reached the end of a cycle, a relationship, a job, and you fear letting it go. Or feel that you are dying, when only a piece of you needs to give way to the new. Perhaps the idea that there is death and only death is too painful for you to accept. Living in a patriarchal culture has deprived most of us of the Goddess’s way of death and rebirth. Wholeness is nurtured when we become conscious that every step on the path of life is also a step toward death and rebirth. Wholeness is achieved when we can say yes and do our dance with death and rebirth. Cerridwen says you will always get back what you give to me. It will be changed, it will be transformed but you will get it back.

Ritual Suggestion: Cerridwen’s Cauldron
You can download this meditation at the following site for $1.75
http://deepspiritualnourishment.com/catalog/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=2&products_id=37&zenid=c636244961ac59cbabec57082d290766

Find a time and a place when and where you will not be disturbed. Sit or lie comfortably with your spine straight. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath and release it again to a count of ten. Take another deep breath and release it again to a count of ten. Take a third deep breath, and as you release it, see, feel or sense a tunnel. It can be a tunnel you know or one you imagine. Stand outside of the tunnel and run your fingers along the entryway. Smell it. Enter the tunnel. It is warm and comfortable, well lit and pleasant, and you go down, down, down, deeper and deeper and deeper. Down, down, down, feeling relaxed, comfortable, until you reach the end of the tunnel. There is a light at the end of the tunnel, the light of the Otherworld.

You step out into the Otherworld and are met by Cerridwen. She takes your hand and leads you to her cauldron. It is enormous and black. Cerridwen stirs the cauldron. She asks you to put in the cauldron whatever needs to be transformed or let go of, whatever needs to die. You put it in the cauldron and watch. Cerridwen stirs the cauldron.

Cerridwen finishes stirring, puts down her staff, and reaches into the cauldron. She takes out what you put in and places it in front of you. It has been transformed into exactly what it needs to be. You thank Cerridwen and she asks syou for a gift. You give it to her freely. Ready to return, you walk back to the tunnel, taking with you what has been transformed in Cerridwen’s cauldron.

Now you are going up, up, up, feeling refreshed, energized. Up, up, up until you are back at the entrance of the tunnel. You walk out of the tunnel and take a deep breath. As you release it slowly, you come back into your body. Take another dep breath, and if ready, open your eyes. Welcome Back!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very interesting x

Unknown said...

Thank you ...this was perfect

ElleLee said...

Perfectly said. Thank you!