|
|
|
|
Why Crossroads? The Crossroads is a Canberra journal, its name chosen to represent Canberra's significance as a meeting place in indigenous culture and to reflect the development of Paganism in our area. Crossroads are not only meeting places, but also places of divergence and new direction. But crossroads are also magickally significant in contemporary Paganism. Hopefully our The Crossroads will encourage both the diversity and the unity of Pagans in Canberra, serve as a meeting place, a place to share ideas, knowledge, discussion and magick. As Rhiannon Ryall says in her book West Country Wicca,1 there is a whole body of lore associated with crossroads. In the Grego-Roman world, crossroads were sacred to the elder Diana under the name of Hecate Trevia (Hecate of the Three Ways), and mother of the Lares compitales, 'spirits of the crossroads'.2 It was here at the crossroads that travellers would make offerings to the Goddess's three-faced image. Festival called Compitalia were celebrated at her roadside shrines. Four-way crossroads were sometimes dedicated to Hermes. His phallic symbol, the herm, sat by the roadside, later replaced by Christians with roadside crosses. The Christian sign of the cross was copied deom Herme's cult and traced his sacred number four on the worshipper's head and breast. Hermetic crosses were also found at Irish crossroads and in the 10th century re-interpreted as Christian symbols, despite the fact they displayed the twin serpents of the Pagan cadeceus.3 Barbara Walker says the cross, herm and caduceus merged in northern symbolim as the gallows tree of Odin/Wotan, 'God of the hanged', which led to the Christian custom of erecting a gallows at crossroads, as well as a crucifix. The dying-god image, "rendered the crossroad numinous. Pre-Christian Europeans held waymeets, or moots, at crossroads to invoke their deities' attention to the proceedings; hence a moot point used to be one decided at a meet. The Goddess as Mother Earth, dispenser of 'natural law' and creatress of birth-and-death cycles was always present when the dying god died."4 Ceremonies and workings at the crossroads appears in the folk customs of a very diverse range of cultures. The practise of building bonfires at crossroads can be found in Norway where, on St John's Eve, in the Norrland region, the bonfires consist of nine different types of wood (surely an old representation of the Goddess), and where participants cast a type of mushroom into the fire to counteract the power of Trolls and other evil spirits, "for at that mystic season the mountains open and from their cavernous depths the uncanny crew pour forth to dance and disport themselves for a time."5 Locals believe that if an animal, such as a cow is seen close by the proceedings, it is the representation of the Evil Ones. Rituals of healing are another common practice associated with crossroads. Rhiannon Ryall describes a practice in South Devon in England where people visit the crossroads in the dead of night to bury a new-laid egg in order to get rid of sickness.6 A Bohemian remedy for fever is to take an empty pot to a crossroads, throw it down and run away. The first person to kick the pot will catch the fever, taking it away from the sufferer.7 One important aspect of many of the folk customs, which has survived into contemporary spell-casting and workings, is to do the deed, walk or run away, and don't look back. If you do, the working will be weakened at best. Gradually the crossroad ceremonies and the deities worshipped there became demonised. As late as the 1920s, English farmers believed that witches still held their sabbats at the crossroads, and "the Goddess of the Waymeet became the queen of the witches... Necromantic superstitions were encouraged by the custom of burying criminals and suicides in unhallowed ground at crossroads... Thus Hermes and Hecate, who led the souls of the dead in antiquity, became dread spirits of witchcraft in the same places that they once benevolently ruled."8 Europeam cultures are not the only origins of crossroad customs. Practices are common throughout Asia. For example, the people of Bali have periodic expulsions of demons and devils, usually at the dark moon of the ninth month. "On the day appointed, the people of the village or district assemble at the principle temple... at the crossroads, offerings are set out for the devils. After prayers have been recited by the priests, the blast of a horn summons the devils to partake of the meal which has been prepared for them."9 After the ceremony the people spread through the streets banishing the demons, banging pots and pans, and driving them from the district. Then everyone stays indoors for 24 hours to make the demons think they are no longer on Bali, but on a deserted island. Crossroads ritual, ceremony and legend can also be found in the African-origin religions of Santeria, Candomble and Vodou. In India, shrines and altars to the Hindu gods and goddesses are frequently situated at crossroads. While contemporary Paganism in Australia is largely based on European traditions, crossroads still figure quite significantly in the religious and folk customs of non-Western practice. This is something we share with other pantheistic religions. NOTES 1. Rhiannon Ryal, West Country Wicca: A Journal of the old Religion, Phoenix Publishing Inc., 1989, p.40 2. Barbara Walker, The Woman's Encyclopedia of Myths & Secrets, harper Collins, 1983, p.190 3. Ibid., p.190 4. Ibid., p.191 5. Sir James G. Frazer, The Golden Bough, Wordsworth, 1983, p.625 6. Ryal, op.cit., p.47 7. Frazer, op.cit., p.545 8. Walker, op.cit., p.191 9. Frazer, op.cit., p.561 |
