Moonstone New Age

30th September-27th October

 Gort (Ivy, Hedera helix)

Ivy represents the embracing and confining feminine principals of life.  It's a reminder that the male is given life through the woman but with an inevitable result that death is also bound to occur.  The white leaf ivy is sacred to the White Goddess - Arianrrhod of the silver wheel. 

Ivy is said to have magical powers and makes an intoxicating (but dangerous!) drink.  It represents the spiralling cycles of the moon, it governs fertility, life and death.  It shows the difference between the masculine expansive principal and the feminine restrictive principles, together with the pull of the ever changing cycles of sun and moon.  A mid-winter custom in Britain was to dress a girl in ivy and a boy in holly, the symbols for the god and goddess.  They sang songs and competed with each other before walking hand in hand through the streets.  In parts of England the last wheat sheaf to be harvested was called the Ivy Girl, which was then bound with ivy and given to the farmer to finish the harvest, hence its association with bad luck.  Because it has the ability to cover anything it is also a symbol of the shrewish wife.

Arianrrhod has links with the Sidhe or fairy people. They were often shown riding on the backs of butterflies, which symbolised transformation. Ivy teaches us about
binding and restriction, freeing and uniting, search for enlightenment, transformation.

GAELIC
The first half of October period is known as CANTLOS - The Song Time in the Coligny calendar. The second half is known as SAMONIOS - The Seed-fall.

OCTOBER - an Damhair. The stag rut it is also the moon of the badger.

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