April 2004

Appalachian Pagan Alliance
Newsletter April 2004

Editress: Ginger Strivelli


This Month we enjoyed another one of our Notorious APA ladies' 
nite out gatherings. We also were planning our annual 
May Day Celebration which will be held on may 8th this year.


FROM OUR BOOK OF SHADOWS;

(From the RigVeda-)  
Prayer to the Rising Sun God

Crossing space, you are the maker of light, seen by everyone, 
O Sun. 
You illumine the whole, wide realm of space. 
You rise up facing all the groups of Gods, facing mankind, 
facing everyone, so that they can see your sunlight. 
The Sun is the eye with which, O Purifying God, you look 
upon the busy people. 
You cross the heavens and the vast realm of space, 
O Sun, measuring days by nights, looking upon the generations. 
Seven bay mares carry you in the chariot, 
O Sun God with hair of flame, looking down from afar. 
The Sun has yoked the seven splendid daughters 
to the chariot; and goes with them, who yoke themselves. 
We have come up out of darkness, seeing the greater 
light around us, going to the Sun, the God among Gods, 
the greatest light. 
As you rise today, O Sun, you who are honored 
as a friend, climbing to the highest sky, 
make me free of heartache and yellow pallor. 

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- Ancient Sanskrit prayer to the Earth Goddess

O Goddess Earth, O all-enduring wide expanses!
Salutation to thee.
Now I am going to begin cultivation.
Be pleased, O virtuous One.

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Notable Quotes:


He who fights with monsters might take care lest he thereby 
become a monster. And if you gaze for long into an abyss, 
the abyss gazes also into you. 
Friedrich Nietzsche

Out of life's school of war: What does not destroy me, 
makes me stronger. 
Friedrich Nietzsche, The Twilight of the Idols (1899)

If you cry because the sun has gone out of your life, 
your tears will prevent you from seeing the stars. 
--Rabindranath Tagore 

Let us not pray to be sheltered from dangers but to be 
fearless when facing them. --Rabindranath Tagore 


(From the Hymn of Apollo)
"I am the eye with which the Universe
Beholds itself and knows itself divine;
All harmony, all medicine are mine,
All light of Art or Nature; to my song
Victory and praise in their own right belong." 
---P.B. Shelly

The Gods too are fond of a joke.         Aristotle (384 BC - 322 BC)


The Gods are immortal men and men are mortal Gods.--Aristotle

Who hearkens to the Gods, the Gods give a ear. 
--Homer 

"Gnothi se auton" ("Know Thyself") inscribed on Apollo's Oracle 
of Delphi temple in ancient Greece.


Sacred Sites Section;

Rome's Flora Festival;
By Ginger Strivelli

Flora's festival was called Floralia and was celebrated from 
April 27 until May 2 in Ancient Rome. Flora is the Roman 
Goddess of flowers. This festival was a fertility 
celebration. The whole city was decorated with bunnies, 
eggs, and baskets of flowers. (Sound familiar?)
The Floralia festival ended in a great circus like games. 
Goats, representing male fertility, and bunnies, 
representing female fertility, were released at the 
beginning of the games. During the Festival beans 
were thrown into the crowd, by the Priestesses as a 
blessing of fertility. 

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