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I was wondering if anyone could help me. Recently I was reading about various beer gods (i'm a keen homebrewer) when I read about Habonde. According to the article in question she is the goddess of abundance, also known as Abundantia. 

What started as a passing interest has moved on and now I regularly pray to her. 

What is frustrating me is that I can find next to no information regarding Habonde. The same basic information is given, different names, the goddess of abundance. There is some reference to a feast of Habonde, which only seems to exist on a couple of websites with no references, There's reference to her in french folklore according to The Romance of the Rose. But anything more than the most basic unsubstantiated summary I'm unable to find. 

I did try Theoi. Although it didn't have any listings, it did amuse me that an advert claimed that I could find the Goddess of Abundance on eBay. 

Apologies if I'm making any silly, ridiculous, inappropriate or just plain annoying requests or assumptions. If you could point me in the direction of anything it would be appreciated. 

Many thanks

Arthur E. Waite, as it turns out, was using the tarot as a mapping tool to express the nature of divinity when he created his famous deck. Here, Llewellyn's Complete Book of the Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot author Sasha Graham describes why these twoandmdash;tarot and divinityandmdash;make the perfect pair.

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A Brief Introduction:The following introduction is offered here to help to dispel many of the myths surrounding Neo-paganism, Witchcraft and the Heathen and Reconstructionist religions. The ways of many Neo-Pagan traditions, religions and groups, as well as some of the Heathen and Reconstructionist religions, are described in even more detail on various other pages on this Web site and elsewhere on the net.This 'overview' is a very generalized rendit

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This is the second part of a short series of articles, the first can be found here.

There comes a point when, although the music loved by our parents still influences us, we begin to notice our own tastes. This happened to me when I first began to watch the TV show Top of the Pops. It’s probably almost unbelievable to some people reading this that at one point the only time you could see music being performed (well, mimed to…) on television was a 40 minute show once a week on a Thursday evening. That was pretty much it. I watched it every week up until the late 70s, maybe until 1980, just hoping there would be one rock band on the show. I was usually disappointed, but what if I missed it?? We didn’t have iPlayer, not even a video tape recorder at the time. Miss the show and that was it, tough luck buster.

So I watched it when I was very young, and below are a couple of the classic performances that were real groundbreakers for me. It started to be obvious that my tastes were towards music that was a little harder, as will become apparent.

Roll over Beethoven – 

I think if I’m really honest this was the moment I woke up to my own musical tastes. I heard the opening guitar, and the 12 bar that I’d loved so much with Elvis and rock n roll, but there was the added oomph of a distorted 4 x 12 Marshall stack. I didn’t know it was a cover of Chuck Berry at that point. At that time Chuck Berry was the bloke on the TV singing My Dingaling, not a rocker or amazing guitar player. My love of Chuck came along a bit later.

 

Blockbuster – 

When I was very young The Sweet were my favourite band. This was the first song of theirs I heard and I loved them all the way from that moment to Love is like Oxygen. Let’s be honest here. I wanted to be their lead singer Brian Connolly. He was my hero. I had posters of him, the band, and other glam rockers plastered all over my bedroom wall. Along with Sweet, T Rex and Slade were next in line. I never really got Gary Glitter or Roxy Music, but Sweet, Slade and T Rex. Awesome.

 

Killer Queen – 

This was the first Queen song I ever heard and it was another ‘moment’. We were on a family holiday on a boat on the fens when it was in the charts and it was literally played everywhere. I loved Queen’s early music. To me they lost it a little during the more poppy phase, but then they seemed to remember their roots once more. Freddie. You were amazing.

Paper Plane – 

Status Quo were the first band I fell in love with when I could actually ask my parents to buy me an album and I became a consumer of music. This was the first song I heard of theirs, and you can definitely see a theme over these early years of a deep love of 12 bar rock and roll. The Quo were a proper blues band and if you listen to Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon you’ll hear just how good they were. Once again I lost interest when they seemed to lose their edge and direction, but the early years of the Quo, man, they were so good.

Rosalie – 

Thin Lizzy took over from the Quo as my favourite band and it was their music that opened me up to proper song-led heavy rock. Another trend I’ve noticed is how many of the bands and singers I’ve loved growing up are no longer with us. I was at a rock club when I learned about Phil Lynott’s death. To me that was the moment when British rock music seemed to move over and make way for the American rock that would follow. Up to that point American rock was REO Speedwagon, Styx, Toto. Big stadium AOR. But then came the hair-metal explosion, followed by Grunge, and then the likes of Metallica, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth. After the New Wave of British Heavy Metal of the late 70s/early 80s, I’m not sure British rock music has ever caught up, and I noticed that change begin just after Phil passed away.

So what next? Oh there’s more to come!

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Books provide us with fresh thoughts, fresh inspiration, and fresh experiencesandmdash;and this is especially true when viewed through the eyes of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke, pioneer of book publishing and the New Age. Melanie Marquis, author of Carl Llewellyn Weschcke: Pioneer and Publisher of Body, Mind, and Spirit, explores Carl's zest for life, and his hope that the books he published would help us become more than we currently are.

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12 hours ago, Jon said:

... and a hatpin is always usefull.

Indispensible.  Though something larger and sharper is even better...

life is a long never ending lesson, if you don't do it, you aint going to learn. you are told alcohol is bad as a yoof and as a teenager you still go out and drink and do silly things, but, you learn some important lessons, possibly acquiring a traffic cone on the way. you are told all sorts of things, but the only way to find out is to go and find out for yourself.

groups have a number of functions besides the dangers of grand high poobahs and such like, they can be meeting places, they can be places where different viewpoints and conflict give rise to thought, they can be somewhere thought occurs, the advice that is best is don't stop thinking, question your thoughts and perceptions and anything anyone tells you, and a hatpin is always usefull.

groups also have the function of being somewhere for people to go to socialise, to chat to get out and about, the youth of this decade are different from that of the last and the one before etc, they can also teach old dogs new tricks and show them new perceptions, as well as a number of other things, advice, have a chat with them and see who they are and where you think a good fit would be, there are many groups, just warn em about the culty stuff the grand high poobahs and such, tell em to think for themselves and they will find their own way.

personally im a bit on the misanthropic side, but that's just me, exploration is the joy of life, sometimes you discover treasures, sometimes you discover someones cat has done its wotsits in your cornflakes, the only way to discover which is to go out and explore.

 

Edited September 8 by Jon
spelling, spellus repairus

Thank you for your replies, that was all really useful! So far I've been reading a lot, gathering a reading list, and chatting with people. I've let my mind wander around all of the various subjects and I've worked out a few bits that I'd like to try. I've decided to do a few bits of Mabon/the upcoming equinox that appeal to me. Not sure why as yet, but it feels right. I've also found a couple of groups I'll be joining before the end of the month to see what they're up to and have a chat with like minded people.

So far I feel quite relaxed, but also really excited and very good! But then, I know that not everyone will do things in the same way...