Good Evening,
First let me re-cap our Past Life Regression workshop held this past Saturday at Enchantments. It was awesome!! We had a full house and everyone went under and experienced past life after past life! It was super fun for me hearing the stories and experiences of everyone. I chose one woman who had several 'vivid' very clear past lives in the first group regression to do a one-on-one with me during break when everyone else had coffee and pie. I had her sit in front of the group and with her eyes closed, she listened to my voice as I talked her through a past life where she saw her son today, and he was also her son in the past life she experienced. Except she was his father in this past life!
That's one of the interesting things about experiencing past lives, we often 'recycle' with others in our lives through many lifetimes. The relationship with others is not always the same though, as it was with this woman's son. Many times a son in this lifetime could be your wife in a past life, a daughter could be your father, your spouse could have been your best friend. Oh yes, we also experience different genders, lifetime to lifetime! Yes, that's right. You have been both male and female throughout your many lifetimes. I'll let you sit with that thought for a moment or two!
It was a very successful Past Life Regression workshop and I will plan to schedule another sometime in the future, perhaps later in the year or early next year. Keep reading my witches blog for updates, and if you're really interested please send me your email address and I'll include you in my email links sent from this blog weekly. You'll get the latest link as well as any information of upcoming events!
Now onto our topic for this evening. Witches and Apples. Have you noticed that witches and apples seem to go together in many fairy tales? Of course the delicious apple, many times is poisoned, and the witch is the bad guy trying to give the poisoned apple to an innocent. Hmmmmmmmm. (Finger tips rapping staccato on desk top) Really! Well, I can't pretend to know what was going through the mind of an author of a classic children's fairytale while he was writing it, but I do know a few things about witches and apples and our ancient connection to one another.
Some may have heard about the ancient Isle of Avalon that features prominently in the Arthurian saga of King Arthur, the Knights of the Round Table, Morgan LeFay and The Lady of the Lake. The Isle of Avalon was reputed to be an island of witches or Priestesses of the Goddess, those who followed the old craft at a time when Christianity was starting to overtake Western Europe. Avalon is an ancient Welsh word that stands for afal or apple. The Isle of Apples.
Even in the Old Testament, in the Book of Genesis, the early Christians took the fruit of knowledge and made it an apple. Yes, yes, I know that considering the locale of the Garden of Eden would have been in the Middle East that scholars today believe the fruit of knowledge was most likely a pomegranate, but its important to understand that the early Christians made the fruit an apple. Actually apple was a term given to most fruits except for berries in ancient times. So apple was a generic term that stood for fruit. Fruit has long been associated with the essence of the Goddess, whereas Wheat and grains have long stood to represent the God.
The early Christians did not do much by happenstance, at least to my understanding. They chose an apple because it was a fruit, and fruit was closely associated with the Goddess and the serpent in the Garden, by the way, was no accident either. The serpent or snake had for centuries before Christianity represented women's knowledge and power, so all the better to make it the antagonist in the Garden of Eden story. The apple itself was 'forbidden' as the old religion was forbidden with the onset of Christianity. The serpent represented women's power at a time when women and their power was being denigrated and forcefully put down so that the religion of the one male god could reign with no competition.
The apple has long been considered a fruit of the Goddess, and modern witches today understand this. It is a fruit that has loving energies associated with it, as well as healing energies. Apple cider is credited with all sorts of healing, cleansing, disinfecting and astringent abilities. We see the fruit as a sign of the sacred divine feminine. You can see this also. Take an apple and halve it across the wide part, in other words cut it horizontally. You will see the seed pod dissected across itself and it forms a five pointed star, also a symbol of the Goddess, women and protection. The five pointed star is an ancient symbol that has been seen for thousands of years as a representation of the Great Mother.
I personally feel that as the witch was denigrated and turned evil over time by those who feared us and did not understand what it is that we do, so was the poor, delicious apple turned evil in fairy tales by being poisoned and being used to cause harm and even death.
Yet, the apple retains its magickal abilities in the fairy tales even as it causes 'death' to the princess, or a sleep of a hundred years, its powers are rendered null when a handsome prince kisses the princess thereby breaking the spell and releasing the princess from the poisoned apple's magickal grip.
The apple has long been associated with the witch, and the witch with the apple. I am here to state that neither of us is evil or harmful. We are simply creations of the Goddess and as such, can be quite delicious!
Peace and Happiness!
© 2010-2012 Faith M. McCann. Portions of this blog posting may include materials from my book “Enchantments School for the Magickal Arts First Year Magickal Studies.” For more information, see www.enchantmentsschool.com or go to the title of tonight's discussion and click, it will link you to my school's website. Please note that the copying and/or further distribution of this work without express written permission is prohibited.
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