It was a warm sunny day in the cool shadow of the woods. Three little brown bear cubs were romping about. One particular cub a brave little soul went exploring. It tackled a tree branch with leaves sprouting from the top. The weight of the branch could not support that of the cub so it dangled over the hearth. With a swoosh sound the branch recoiled and the cub scampered off to topple its brother and sister with a friendly pounce. Large friendly trees with gray trunks sheltered the cubs from the hot sun. Soft light danced its way down through the treetops. A pretty yellow butterfly captured the attention of the youngest cub, a male, and it went chasing after it over stones and shrubs. Clumsily it fell to its belly on the green earth. The two sister cubs seemed to smile and laugh at the action of their brother. Everything was green and golden. The younger female cub happened upon on stream and saw her reflection. Frightened she cried out and the two siblings came to the rescue. The eldest sister pounced on the younger causing her to fall it the stream. The bother cub splashed head first into the water to join in on the water play. All three cubs nipped at each other and wrestled. The better part of the day was spent play fighting in this manner. The eldest cub ventured out further, she showed more curiosity, examined the plants, trees and foliage. The cubs rested snuggled by each other's side as the sun began to fade. The cry of their mother could be heard in the distance calling them home. All three cubs raced towards the pleasing sound of their mother's cry from their day of delightful play.

***

This was a dream I had back in 2003. I believe I had this dream to remind me of the importance of  'play' in ones life for a healthy balance. I think its important that people remember what its like to have a little fun and mix it up. All work and business can make one sick physically, mentally and spiritually. Now only if I can take my onw advise and listen to this dream I may be better off today!

Bia' Aletheia

 

According to legend, Leto was loved by Zeus and persecuted by the jealous Hera. Fleeing from the goddess's wrath, Leto fled to Patara where she gave birth to her twins (Apollo and Artemis). In one story Leto is harrassed by some Lycian shepherds at a spring as they try to drive her away from the water.  She punishes them by turning them into frogs.  In another story, the persecuted Leto is aided by wolves who guide her to the river Xanthos where she quenches her thirst and washes her children. In memory of this occasion she changes the name of the country from Termilis to Lycia, "lykos" being the Greek world for "wolf".  This legend of Leto and the wolves existed for a long time in western Anatolia - still under the Roman Empire coins were minted depicting the fleeing Leto with her children. Some believe that the cult of Leto existed in Lycia prior to the Greek period and that Leto's name may be related to "lada" which is Lycian for "woman" or "wife".  Leto cults also existed in Halicarnaussus, Cnidus, Phrygia, Caria and Cilicia.

For More Information on the Cults of Lycia and Important Deities follow this link:

http://www.lycianturkey.com/cults_of_lycia_deities.htm

A thought had just occured to me that I belong to this really cool free online pagan campus that offer classes and give certificates of completion when you have finished the course. They are also in need of some instructors and have a application process for that. I thought I would post a link here for anyone who may be interested in joining or checking out the site. So here is the link: http://www.thepagancampus.net/ I figured that many folks here might find this little campus has a lot to offer for the wide array of interesting folks here on Covenspace! I may be bias, but both this site and the campus are among my top 5 favorite sites!

If you are interested in taking free classes right now they have open enrollent for the second quarter and are offering a few beginners and intermediate courses. I believe registering for classes stop May 12th. Feel free to check it out and join if something sparks your interest. Also, if there is nothing that suits your interest this coming semester, just join anyways, its free and check back each semester to see what's new that is being offered. Its an other great way to get word out to the pagan community and meet like minded folks!

BB ~ Bia Aletheia

Many folks have different traditions and therefore believe in an afterlife or reincarnation. For the Hellenic Pagan it is a place called 'Elysium Fields, much like that of the "Summerlands' in the Celtic/Wiccan tradiition and/or heaven for the Catholic/Christian tradition. Elysium Fields is a place in Hades where those who have followoed 'their oaths and lived a good spiritual life go. One must have been virtueous and done good deeds and are fond in favor of the Gods! It is a place where the Gods and Heroes go to live their life out their lives. I wanted to share what I have learned of this place with you here on Covenspace and give you referrence material as well so that you may read for your self more on this wondeful place. The read is legnthy but is also references classic literature and geographical places where 'Elysium Fileds' are found. Happy read:)!

In Greek mythology, Elysium was a section of the Underworld  (also referred to as the Elysian Fileds). "Elysium is an obscure and mysterious name that evolved from a designation of a place or person struck by lightning, enelysion, enelysios ( Walter Burkert 1985 p. 198) Alternately, scholars have also suggested that Greek Elysion may instead derive from the Egyptian term ialu (older iaru), meaning "reeds," with specific reference to the "Reed fields" (Egyptian: sekhet iaru / ialu), a paradisiacal land of plenty where the dead hoped to spend eternity.

The Elysium fields, or sometimes Elysian plains, were the final resting place of the souls of the heroic and the virtuous. Two of Homeric passages in particular established for Greeks the nature of the Afterlife: the dreamed apparition of the dead Patroclus in the Iliad and the more daring boundary-breaking visit in Odyssey. Greek traditions concerning funerary ritual were reticent, but the Homeric examples encouraged other heroic visits, in the myth cycles accreted upon Theseus and upon Heracles (Campbell 1948; Ruck and Staples 1994).

The Elysium Fields lay on the western margin of the earth, by the encircling stream of Oceanus (Odyssey), and there the mortal relatives of the king of the gods were transported, without tasting death, to enjoy an immortality of bliss (Odyssey iv: 563). Lesser spirits were less fortunate: an eerie passage describes the twittering bat-like ghosts of Penelope's slain suitors, led by Hermes:

"down the dank

moldering paths and past the Ocean's streams they went

and past the White Rock and the Sun's Western Gates and past

the Land of Dreams, and soon they reached the fields of asphodel

where the dead, the burnt-out wraiths of mortals make their home"

(-(Odyssey xxiv: 5ff, Robert Fagles' translation).

Hesiod refers to the Isles of the Blessed (makarôn nêsoi) in the Western Ocean (Works and Days). Pindar makes it a single Isle. Walter Burkert notes the connection with the motif of far-off Dilmun: "Thus Achilles is transported to the White Isle and becomes the Ruler of the Black Sea, and Diomedes becomes the divine lord of an Adriatic island." (Burkert 1985, p. 198). Pindar makes it a single island:

And those that have three times kept to their oaths,

Keeping their souls clean and pure,

Never letting their hearts be defiled by the taint

Of evil and injustice,

And barbaric veniality,

They are led by Zeus to the end:

To the palace of Kronos,

Where soothing breezes off the Ocean

Breathe over the Isle of the Blessed:

All around flowers are blazing with a

Dazzling light:

Some springing from the shining trees,

Others nourished by the water from the sea:

With circlets and garlands of flowers they

Crown their hands,

Ruled by the steadfast councils of

Rhadamanthys:

Rhadamanthys,

The great Judge,

Whom the Father,

The husband of Rhea,

Whose throne is higher than all:

The great Father keeps him by his side,

His loyal advisor.

Peleus and Kadmos both are there,

And Akhilleus, brought there by his mother,

After she had conquered the heart of Zeus with her Prayers

In Elysium where fields of the pale liliaceous asphodel, and poplars grew, there stood the gates that led to the house of Ais (in Attic dialect "Hades").

Elysium in Literature

Among the poets to interpret Elysium is Virgil, who describes an encounter there between Aeneas and his father Anchises. Virgil's Elysium knows perpetual spring and shady groves, with its own sun and lit by its own stars solemque suum, sua sidera norunt (Aeneid book vi:541).

Elysium was a pagan expression that passed into the usage of the Christian patristic writers, simply a synonym for paradise.

Some confuse a Dantean idea of the Elysian Fields with Limbo - he described Limbo as the very upper level of hell, a place of peace that the unbaptized and the non-believers who lived virtuous lives go. It is a place of happiness, but it is closed off from God and thus remains as hell.

In the Renaissance, the heroic population of the Elysian Fields tended to outshine its formerly dreary pagan reputation; the Elysian Fields borrowed some of the bright allure of paradise. In Paris, the Champs-Élysées retain their name of the Elysian Fields, first applied in the late 16th century to a formerly rural outlier beyond the formal parterre gardens behind the royal French palace of the Tuileries.

After the Renaissance, as images of Valhalla entered the popular European imagination, an even cheerier Elysium evolved for some poets. Sometimes it is imagined as a place where heroes have continued their interests from their lives. Others suppose it is a location filled with feasting, sport, song; Joy is the "daughter of Elysium" in Friedrich Schiller's Ode to Joy.

When in William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night shipwrecked Viola is told "This is Illyria, lady.", "And what should I do in Illyria? My brother he is in Elysium." is her answer, and "Elysium" for her and her first Elizabethan hearers simply means Paradise.

In Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart's Opera Die Zauberflōte (the Magic Flute), Elysium is mentioned in Act II during Papagino's solo while he describes what it would be like if he had his dream girl: "Des Lebens als Weiser mich freun, Und wie im Elysium sein." (Enjoy life as a wiseman, And feel like I'm in Elysium.)

The New Orleans neighborhood of the Elysian Fields mentioned in Tennessee Williams' A Streetcar Named Desire is ironically the declassé purgatory where Blanche Dubois lives with Stanley and Stella Kowalski. The Elysian Fields of New Orleans are the second act setting in the second act of Elmer Rice's The Adding Machine.

In the fictional writings of J. R. R. Tolkien, the Undying Lands, the home of the gods, elves, and a select few others, and is based on stories of Elysium. A combination of Olympus and Elysium, the Undying lands can only be reached by crossing the western sea, much like one would have to cross the stream of Oceanus to reach the underworld in greek mythology. The latter could be more related to the Fortunate Isles myth.

Elysium in Neopaganism

Many Neopagans today, particularly Hellenic neopagans in the United States, have what most would consider a new-age view of Elysium. Elysium is seen as a multi-layered paradise, or Heaven, to many modern neopagans. Some believe that the outer layer of Elysium is composed of great and beautiful fields, often envisioned in imaginative descriptions as having green glowing blades of grass and bubbling springs of glowing water and wine, often made from the nectar of Ambrosia. Beyond the fields of Elysium, reserved only for the most righteous and virtuous, is the Golden City where spirits exist in a state of constant euphoria. Whether or not such beliefs are based in actual mythology often seems rather unimportant to many neopagans. Most claim that old myths are simply mortal accounts and interpretations of the divine, but the same could be argued about any current beliefs regarding Elysium.

"Geographic" Elysian Fields

•  In Nova Scotia, Canada, a rural community near Minudie, on the Bay of Chignecto.
•  In Harrison County, Texas, a rural community is Elysian Fields, Texas.
• New Orleans, Louisiana, filled with French place names, has a major street named Elysian Fields Ave.
• Elysian, Minnesota of Le Sueur County, Minnesota is a "quaintly progressive" town of 550 residents.  
• In Paris, France, the avenue that starts at the Place de la Concorde and ends in the Arc de Triomphe is the famous Avenue des Champs Élysées.  
• Alexander Cartwright invented modern baseball at the Elysian Fields in Hoboken, New Jersey.  
• In Mexico City, Campos Eliseos is a street in Polanco neighbourhood where several of the city's best hotels and restaurants are located.  
• Paradise (Persian and judeo-christian)  
• Reed fields (Egypt)  
• Tartarus (Greek Hades)  
• Jannah (Islamic name for paradise)
• Elysian Fields is also part of the 14th fairway on the Old Course in St. Andrews, Scotland. Elysian Fields has long been said to be the flatest fairway on an otherwise undulating seaside golf course.

Sources and references 

Gladiator(Film) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladiator_%28film%29 (Maximus goes to the Elysian Fields upon his death.)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elysium

Catholic Encyclopaedia 

Walter Burkert, Greek Religion 1985

Joseph Campbell, The Hero with a Thousand Faces 1948 

Carl A.P. Ruck and Danny Staples, The World of Classical Myth 1994: "The Liminal Hero"

ESP - THE STUFF DREAMS ARE MADE OF

Extrasensory perception (ESP) is the ability to obtain information beyond the limitations of our five known senses. ESP happens normally in everyday life, like when you simply have a feeling something important is going to happen for no reason and it does. Feelings of "de ja vue" are believed to be forgotten precognition dreams. ESP can be divided into many smaller categories, but the three most common are telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition.

Telepathy, the best known form of ESP, is the direct transmission of messages, emotions, or other subjective states from one person to another without the use of any sensory channel of communication. In other words simply sending a message from one mind to another. Telepathy is particularly strong between people who have an emotional bond and works best in times of stress. It can be as simple as knowing exactly what someone wants for dinner without discussing it earlier or as complex as knowing when someone close to you is in danger and needs your help. An interesting example of telepathy comes from a young woman who woke around 2:00a.m. with an urgent feeling that she had to go see a friend who she was very close with. When she finally went to see her friend later that day they started, and she found out that about the same time of morning her friend had been fighting off a rape attempt.

Clairvoyants can often foretell plane crashes, major fires, or even earthquakes. Clairvoyance is the least common of the three extrasensory perceptions mentioned in this article, mainly because it cannot happen on command. Sights of clairvoyance come suddenly and cannot be controlled, and they are not often recognized for what they are. Here is an example of clairvoyance that at first was thought nothing more then a strange and disturbing nightmare. Once a young man who was very close to his grandfather, but they lived thousands of miles apart and rarely saw each other. This man awoke one morning hearing his grandfather calling his name. He opened his eyes and thought he saw his grandfather sitting on the side of his bed crying. He asked what was wrong and his grandfather told him that he had come to say goodbye, and that he loved him. With that said the image disappeared. The young man was very disturbed by this, but eventually fell back to sleep. When he awoke he thought it was all a bad dream and went to work. After he got home that evening he received a phone call from his sister telling him that their grandfather had passed away around 1:30 that morning. Clairvoyance is also called second sight and is defined as the foretelling of future or past events, or of knowing of something that is happening a great distance away at the same time as the clairvoyant is 'seeing' it happen. Clairvoyance is said to occur most often in a state of trance, during which the medium (clairvoyant) describes what he or she sees or foresees. Such as a man living in the U.S. and watching a building burn down in England in his own mind.

Precognition and clairvoyance are closely related. Precognition is the foretelling of events before they happen, but this usually takes place in dreams, whereas clairvoyance often happens when the person is wide awake. A man named Michael was planning a trip up north to the English provinces. A few days before the journey he had a vivid dream in which he saw himself speeding in his car when suddenly there was a sharp turn in the road. He saw another car's headlights coming around the corner and they ended in a head on collision. Taking his dream seriously he drove more cautiously on his trip. When he recognized the road from his dream he slowed and therefore avoided hitting a car, head on, that came around the turn in the wrong lane.

An ESP experience can take the form of a hunch, an uncanny feeling, an intuitive impression, or it can be stronger and more defiant, such as a flash. an image, or auditory signal, a warning voice, or vision, depending on your own make up and inborn talent as a receiver. Everybody has an extra sense beyond the five known senses relied upon. It is very easy to find information on telepathy, clairvoyance, and precognition in your local library, and even to find tests to see which form of ESP you possess. Now is the perfect time to learn more about your extra sense!

This article was posted by M. Harris of Pacific Junction, USA & Written by M.A. ALLEY

http://www.metaphysicslab.com/new_age_philosophies/extra_sensory_perception.shtm