Greetings Beloved Kin,

The Rabbit is the totem of Star/LAMAT, the symbol of the Scion. Rabbits represent the power of Instant Manifestation, and Love that multiplies when we focus on the object of our affection.

I’ve never heard of International Rabbit Day before, so I’ll take it as a Sign to remember Love always multiplies to infinity.

 

This is the Chinese Lunar Year of the Rabbit, so there’s another another Sign to magnify the symbol.

Star/LAMAT and the Rabbit hold Position 8, the symbol of Life and Blessings to Infinity. (It’s a token of good luck to carry an 8 in your wallet.)

 

 

 

Ixchel is the Divine Feminine moon goddess that embodies the three archetypes of womanhood – Maiden, Mother, and Grandmother. The Maiden, Ixchel, holds her totem rabbit as a symbol of her fertility for creation.

At the Fall Equinox in the Northeren Hemisphere, Spring begins in the down-below.

A Divine Creator manifested all things in the Balance. Love is the Intention that multiplies forever.

 

St. Melangell (pronounced “Mel-eng-eth”) is the patron saint of hares and rabbits. They are sometimes called St. Melangell’s lambs.

According to Welsh legend, Melangell was the daughter of King Cyfwich Addwyn, who is mentioned in the Tales of Culhwch and Olwen as a member of King Arthur’s court. King Cyfwich Addwyn was said to be related to St. Helen of Caernarvon, the famous Elen Luyddog (Helen of the Hosts) who married the Roman general, Magnus Maximus (Macsen Wledig) the 4th century emperor in Britain, Gaul and Spain. Elen’s story is told in The Dream of Macsen Wledig, one of the tales associated with the Welsh epic, Mabinogion.

In most accounts Melangell is described as the daughter of an Irish king who fled from her father’s court to avoid marriage. Around 590 A.D., she arrived at the valley of the river Tanat, at the foot of the Berwyn mountains in Powys, Wales.

In 604 A.D. the prince of Powys, Brochwel Ysgithrog, went hunting close to where Melangell lived and prayed. His hounds pursued their prey into a thicket, where he found a young woman with a hare lying under the fold of her garments. She boldly faced the hunting dogs and they retreated. The prince gave up the chase and sat down to listen to Melangell’s story. She told him she was a hermitess who lived nearby and had dedicated herself to God. The prince and his huntsmen were the first men she had seen in 15 years.

So moved was the prince that he offered her the valley where she lived as a perpetual asylum and refuge for animals, and anyone who was fleeing harm. Melangell lived there the rest of her life, eventually attracting a small community of women for whom she served as abbess. A church was eventually built in the spot where she lived and it remained a place of sanctuary throughout the Middle Ages. The killing of hares and rabbits has long been forbidden in the region, because people believe they are sacred animals under the protection of St. Melangell. People in the parish still honor this custom.

The association of religious female figures and hares is legendary and predates Melangell by several centuries. When the Romans invaded the British Isles, Julius Caesar saw that Celtic people did not regard it lawful to kill and eat the hare. In Ireland the hare was associated with women who could shapeshift into their form, so eating them was taboo. There is a legend that the God and warrior, Oisin, hunted a hare, wounding it in the leg. He followed the wounded animal into a thicket, where he found a door leading down into the ground. He went in and came to a large hall where he found a beautiful young woman sitting on a throne bleeding from a leg wound.

Boudicca, the British warrior queen, was said to have prayed to a hare goddess before going into battle with the Romans and released a hare from beneath her gown to divine the outcome of the battle from the hare’s movements. She also took a hare with her into battle to ensure victory and it was said to have screamed like a woman from beneath her cloak.

Boudicca probably prayed to Eostre, the Celtic version of the Anglo-Saxon goddess, Ostara. Ostara gave her name to the celebration of Easter. She was associated with the seasonal change from winter to spring. Ostara was a shapeshifter who took the form of a hare at each full moon. All hares were sacred to her and acted as messengers.

Eostre/Ostara is mentioned by Saint Bede in his treatise, The Reckoning of Time, written around 725 A.D. Bede states that during the time period equivalent to April, Anglo-Saxons held feasts in Eostre’s honor. The tradition had died out by his time, replaced by the Christian Paschal month, a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection.

In his 1892 study on the hare in custom and mythology, folklorist Charles J. Billson cited numerous incidents of folk customs in northern Europe involving hares around the Easter season. Billson said, “whether there was a goddess named Eostre, or not, and whatever connection the hare may have had with the ritual of Saxon and British worship, there are good grounds for believing the sacredness of this animal reaches back into an age still more remote, where it is probably a very important part of the great Spring Festival of the prehistoric inhabitants of this island.”

The story of St. Melangell is a blend of local history, custom, folklore and pre-Christian goddesses and practices. Was Melangell created to legitimatize these beliefs, or is she another in a long line of spiritually powerful women with a hare as her symbol and companion?

love, in lak’ech, i am another you

Debra, 9 Eagle/MEN

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