Tag Archives: fertility

St. John The Baptist @ Slavic Midsummer

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Girls in Belarus set wreaths and candles afloat as part of Kupala Night celebrations.

Girls in Belarus set wreaths and candles afloat as part of Kupala Night celebrations.

Ivan Kupala was the old Russian name for John the Baptist, whose Christian feast coincides with the ancient celebration of Midsummer. Up to the present day, the Russian Midsummer Night (or Ivan’s Day) is known as one of the most expressive Russian folk and pagan holidays.

Many rites of this holiday are connected with water, fertility and purification. The girls, for example, would float their flower garlands and candles on the water of rivers and tell their fortunes from their movement. Boys and girls alike would jump over the flames of bonfires. Nude bathing is likewise practiced.  A prominent Ivan Kupala night scene involving nude swimming is featured in Andrei Tarkovsky’s film Andrei Rublev.

There is an ancient Kupala belief, that the eve of Ivan Kupala is the only time of the year when ferns bloom. Prosperity, luck, discernment and power would befall on whoever finds a fern flower. Therefore, on that night village folks would roam through the forests in search of magical herbs and especially the elusive fern flower. In Gogol’s story The Eve of Ivan Kupala, a young man finds the fabulous fern-flower but is cursed by it. Gogol’s tale may have been the stimulus for Modest Mussorgsky to compose his tone poem Night on Bald Mountain.

Traditionally, unmarried women, signified by their garlands on their hair, would be the first to enter the forests. They are followed by young men. Therefore, consequent to the quest in finding herbs and the fern flower may be the blooming of relationships between pairs of men and women within the forest.

In Serbia, Saint John (Sveti Jovan or also called Superman) is known by the name Igritelj (dancer) because it is thought the sun is dancing on this day. Girls will watch the sunrise through a wreath, to become as  red (i.e. beautiful, as “red” and “beautiful” share the same root in Slavic languages) as the sun. At dusk, Ivanjske vatre (St. John Fires) are lit, and dancing and singing and drinking take place.

Pearl, the birthstone of June

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Pearls 02

In Greek mythology, pearls were tears of joy that Aphrodite, the Goddess of Love, shed when she was born from sea froth. Persian mythology gives us the same belief that pearls are hardened tears. Ancient Chinese mythology gives a grimmer origin to pearls: they believed they came from inside the brains of dragons.

To Muslims the pearl is one of the rewards to be found in the afterlife. It symbolizes absolute perfection in Islamic tradition. In some early Arabian legends pearls are hardened moon drops, and the oysters that give birth to the pearls were lured to the sea by the moon itself.

It is said that to give a pearl to a child born in June will ensure they have a long life.

Wearing pearls is sometimes said to cure madness, and also help to treat jaundice, and snake and insect bites. Pearls are also thought to cure depression in women – maybe because receiving pearls is sure to make most women happy. But be careful — not only are pearls said to have aphrodisiac properties, but placing a pearl under one’s pillow and sleeping on it may cause couples to conceive.
Pearls should only be purchased for someone else because wearing pearls you purchased yourself is considered unwise and unlucky. But even if they are a gift, a bride should never wear pearls as a woman will shed a tear for every pearl that she wears on her wedding day. 

Furthermore, be warned, gentlemen: a pearl given to a woman by her lover or husband will loose its luster if the man is unfaithful!

Happy New Year!

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The entrance to the neolithic tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, which is older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

The entrance to the neolithic tomb of Newgrange in Ireland, which is older than Stonehenge and the Great Pyramid of Giza in Egypt.

The triple spirals found in much Celtic art and at many Celtic monuments, such as the Newgrange tomb, are thought to represent fertility (the nine months of human pregnancy), the past-present-future, the realms of land-sea-sky, or the goddess Brigid  (celebrated at the beginning of spring).

Fetrility and the passage of time are deeply embedded in the celebration of the New Year, especially when the vernal equinox was observed as New Year’s Day. (January 1 became the New Year’s Day gradually. Regions of Denmark were the first to make the change in the 1100s and the British Empire was the last, in 1752.) We still number the months as if New Year’s Day fell during March: SEPTember is the seventh month, OCTober is eighth, NOVember is ninth, and DECember is the tenth. New Year’s also marked the beginning of “lent,” the Anglo-Saxon word for “Springtime.”

To promote fertility on the springtime New Year, the pomegranate can be put to many uses. It seeds can be eaten to increase fertility and its skin, dried, can be burned as an incense to attract wealth. A branch of pomegranate can also be used as a “dowsing rod” to locate buried or hidden treasures. Daffodil, one of the flowers most associated with March, can also be used to increase fertility. To attain immortality and overcome the passage of time, eat apples or carry charms made of apple wood. Linden leaves and sage can also be used to lengthen life or achieve immortality.