Pagan Eye: A Goddess at the BM China Exhibition

This beautiful golden image is the Daoist goddess Magu, who is a protector of women. The picture is on display at the British Museum's exhibition China's Hidden Century. I'm lucky to be on the invite list for previews of BM exhibitions after I was one of the community consultants for last summer's Feminine Power.

This latest large exhibition is on 19th China and covers all aspects of life on the continent when much of it was hidden from the outside world. The displays offer glimpses of the art, fashion, newspapers, furniture and other aspects of the society as it changed dramatically due to technological advances, political and cultural upheaval, and wars. Chinese religious and spiritual beliefs are also covered, and I found those aspects particularly fascinating to learn more about.

China's Hidden Century is in the Sainsbury Exhibitions Gallery at the British Museum, Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DG. It runs until 8 October. Tickets are £18/free for members and under 16s. https://www.britishmuseum.org/

My Pagan Eye posts show photos that I find interesting - seasonal images, pagan sites, events, or just pretty pictures. If you want to send me a photo for a Pagan Eye post, please email it to badwitch1234@gmail.com Let me know what the photo shows and whether you want your name mentioned or not. For copyright reasons, the photo must be one you've taken yourself.

(Note: I earn commission from some links. This helps support my blog at no extra cost to readers)

Other previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/07/pagan-eye-sheela-na-gig-at-feminine.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/04/exhibition-feminine-power-divine-to.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/07/pagan-eye-hekate-at-feminine-power.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2023/05/exhibition-gods-goddesses-in-luxury.html

Goddesses: Guanyin - The Bodhisattva of Compassion

I think many of us could do with a little compassion in our lives at present, so here's a photo of a statue of Guanyin, bodhisattva of compassion in Chinese Buddhism. I took the photo when I went for a last look at the Feminine Power exhibition at the British Museum last weekend. The words below it read:

"Bodhisattvas are enlightened beings who guide others towards nirvana, the ultimate liberation from the self and worldly suffering. Guanyin means Perceiver of Sounds as the bodhisattva is believed to hear the cries of the suffering and appear before them to administer aid. Known in Japan as Kannon and in Korea as Gwan-eum, Guanyin has the power to take on many forms - male and female, young and old, bodhisattva or layperson."

The statue shows Guanyin meditating while making the gesture for patience with her hands. I know patience is something I could personally do with more of some time. The description at the museum also makes the comment that, as Guanyin transcends gender, the bodhisattva can aptly be thought of as "they" rather than "he" or "she".

Feminine Power - The Divine to the Demonic closes on September 25th and I recommend going to see it in the next few days if you can. However, the catalogue that accompanies it is full of information about goddesses and other divine women, and is well worth reading if you go or not. In the near future I also intend to blog with some of the material from the Goddess workshop Laura Daligan and I ran at the British Museum this summer.

Previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/07/pagan-eye-hekate-at-feminine-power.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/08/mama-wata-at-feminine-power-what-do-you.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2022/09/pagan-eye-goddess-aphrodite-at-feminine.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2021/07/pagan-eye-kuan-yin-statue-at-garden-pool.html

Chinese Mid-Autumn Moon Festival

There's a full moon on Monday, September 12. That is also the date of the Chinese Moon Festival - sometimes called the Lantern Festival or Mid-Autumn Festival. It always takes place at the full moon on the 15th day of the eighth Chinese lunar month.

The Moon Festival dates back more than 3,000 years, to a time when the Chinese believed that the moon was the home of a beautiful goddess. The moon was also associated with femininity and with fairies.

According to Chinese Feasts and Festivals: A Cookbook,by S C Moey: "Rigorous and long-standing observation found the moon to be at its most exquisite in mid-autumn," so the Emperor inaugurated a feast followed by a night of lunar contemplation.

These days the Chinese have a public holiday for the festival and this year it lasts for three days, from September 10 to September 12. It is still a time for feasting, celebrating and honouring the moon.

The traditional food for mid-autumn festival is the mooncake and, for this reason, the festival is sometimes referred to as the Mooncake Festival.

Mooncakes are often filled with lotus seed paste or bean paste. Some traditionally contain salted egg yolks, which are round like the moon, but are apparently something of an acquired taste. If you want to have a go at making mooncakes, here are links to a couple of recipes - with and without salted egg yolks:

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9240/aduki-mooncake.aspx

http://www.dimsum.co.uk/food/mid-autumn-festival---moon-cake-recipe.html

Links and previous related posts:

http://chinesefood.about.com/od/mooncake/a/moonfestival.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mid-Autumn_Festival

http://www.chinatravel.com/focus/mid-autumn-festival/

http://allrecipes.co.uk/recipe/9240/aduki-mooncake.aspx

http://www.dimsum.co.uk/food/mid-autumn-festival---moon-cake-recipe.html

http://www.oneinchpunch.net/2008/09/11/recipe-how-to-make-moon-cakes/

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/09/harvest-moon-fun-and-games.html

http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/09/full-moon-to-sing-under.html

Chinese Feasts and Festivals: A Cookbook

Zi-Gu - Chinese Goddess of Toilets

With both Valentine's Day and Chinese New Year nearly upon us, I thought it would be a great idea to pick an oriental love goddess as The Bad Witch's Goddess of the Week.

So, I went to the extremely useful godchecker.com to find one. Looking for love in the Chinese pantheon - well, searching those phrases using the site's Find a God function - I came across Zi-Gu, Goddess of Toilets, snuggled between the buffed-up Lurve Gods.

Obviously, I had to read on.

Apparently Zi-Gu was the beautiful wife of an actor who lived during the Tang Dynasty and was the victim of a terrible crime of passion. A high-ranking official called Li-Jing fell madly in love with her. Crazed with fervour, he murdered her husband before forcing her to become his mistress. But Li-Jing was already married, to a wife as bloodthirsty as himself. While Zi-Gu was on the lavatory one day, minding her own business, Li-Jing's wife burst in and slaughtered her.

But that wasn't the end of poor Zi-Gu as her ghost haunted the toilet chamber, wailing and moaning and terrifying anyone who tried to use the facilities.

Eventually Empress Wu flushed out Zi-Gu's ghost by blessing her. This act deified Zi-Gu, who took on the role of the Goddess of Toilets. She appears in the form of a beautiful woman, her lower body wrapped in clouds rather than sitting on the throne.

Perhaps because the lavatory is often used as a place of contemplation, Zi-Gu is also the Goddess of Spirit Writing. Mediums sometimes call upon her for messages from the astral plane. I am told it works best if you use toilet paper to write on.

The Crime Scene Loo Roll pictured is available from Amazon for £2.99.

Links
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php?deity=ZI-GU
Crime Scene Loo Roll
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/02/sex-and-sacrifice.html

Ru-Shou: God of the Week

In China, dragons are the bearers of the seasons. In the spring the popular green dragon Gou-Mang brings joy and happiness from the east. In the autumn his twin brother the brown dragon Ru-Shou comes from the west.

And as this the Autumn Equinox, I have chosen Ru-Shou as The Bad Witch's God of the Week.

However, unlike his brother, Ru-Shou is not usually welcomed by the people of China. In fact, he is avoided because his arrival is believed to bring messages of bad luck from the Sky God Tai Yi and even herald disasters. According to some legends, Ru-Shou is also the God of Punishment so anyone who has done something they shouldn't have has particular reason to keep out of this dragon's way.

Yet others would say this poor dragon has an undeserved reputation. According to The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets Ru Shou's name means "plenteous harvest" and he is a guardian spirit of the west. Although he heralds the autumn, the autumn can bring good things as well as bad.

So today at sunset - the time Ru Shou is said to arrive - spare a thought for this much-maligned dragon. If he has a message for you then listen. If he does warn of bad luck, then you can perhaps learn how to avoid it or at least be better prepared. On the other hand, his message may be about an abundant harvest that you have earned.

One should always be willing to reap what one sows.

The Chinese Dragon in the picture above is available from online store Pagan Magic and costs £9.99.

Links
The Songs of the South: An Ancient Chinese Anthology of Poems by Qu Yuan and Other Poets (Penguin Classics)
http://www.theserenedragon.net/Tales/china-rushou.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/01/gou-mang-bad-witchs-god-of-week.html
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php?deity=RU-SHOU
http://pagan-magic.co.uk/shop/product_info.php/chinese-dragon-p-4039?ad=badwitch

Guan-Yin - Goddess of the Week

Thanks to a suggestion by The Greenwich Phantom, this week's Goddess of the Week is Guan-Yin, Chinese Goddess of Compassion and Caring and one of the Four Supreme Bodhisatvas of Chinese Buddhism.

According to the website http://www.godchecker.com/ Guan-Yin's remit is victim support. It says:

"She supports the distressed and hungry, rescues the unfortunate from peril, and gives comfort and aid wherever it is needed. Guan-Yin's work would put many a charity to shame — and she doesn't ask for donations. She had finally attained enlightenment after much non-struggling with non-things. She was just about to enter Heaven to join the other Buddhas when she heard the cries of the poor unsaved souls back on Earth. Her heart touched by pity, she vowed never to rest until every single soul was brought to Buddhahood."

The picture shows a Guan Yin Goddess of Mercy necklace that I saw on Amazon, priced at £25.40.

Links
http://www.thegreenwichphantom.co.uk/
http://www.godchecker.com/
Guan Yin Goddess of Mercy Necklace

Gou-Mang: The Bad Witch's God of the Week

We are in the middle of the Chinese New Year festivities and spring is just around the corner, so I have chosen the Chinese deity Gou-Mang as The Bad Witch's God of the Week.

Sent by the Chinese sky god Tai Yi, the green dragon Gou-Mang comes from the east, bringing spring and happiness.

The popular Gou-Mang is the twin brother of the feared brown dragon Ru-Shou, who comes from the west in the autumn and is a harbinger of bad luck.

According to the Handbook of Chinese Mythology by Lihui Yang, Deming An and Jessica Anderson Turner, Gou-Mang, is also associated with woodcraft and invented a net for catching birds called the luo, which was widely used in China. In some legends, Gou-Mang is said to have the body of a bird, the face of a man and rides two dragons rather than being a dragon himself.

I find dragons the most fascinating of mythological creatures. Despite the fact that they never actually existed, they appear in folk tales and mythology all over the world, often with some spiritual significance.

I certainly hope to write more about dragon legends in the future on A Bad Witch's Blog.

Links
Handbook of Chinese Mythology (World Mythology)
http://www.theserenedragon.net/Tales/china-goumang.html
http://www.godchecker.com/pantheon/chinese-mythology.php?deity=GOU-MANG
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/01/year-of-ox.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/02/trousers-of-change.html

The Year of the Ox

Chinese New Year begins on 26 January and is the start of the Year of the Ox.

The outgoing year is the Year of the Rat, which back in February 2008 I said should be good for business. I suppose it was not a bad year for businesses in China, a country that seems to be on the up, but for much of the world 2008 was disastrous financially.

Let's hope the Year of the Ox is better. The Ox is an earth sign and those born under it tend to avoid risk in business. They put great store on financial stability and are likely to save rather than invest in risky endeavours. The stability of the Ox can also inspire confidence in others. It has tenacity and doesn't mind hard work. Those could all be useful characteristics for the year ahead.

The Chinese follow a lunar calendar. The first day of the Chinese year starts at sunset on the day of the second new moon after the winter solstice. It always falls between 21 January and 21 February.

Chinese New Year celebrations last for a fortnight. During that time, people often give children and friends red envelopes containing cash. These are called Hong Boa. The New Year celebrations end with a lantern festival. If you want to celebrate this, you might want to get some of the wonderful flying lanterns pictured above. You light a small candle beneath the lantern and then let it float into the sky like a miniature hot air balloon. At nightime each lantern glows brightly as it soars upwards. A pack costs about £4 through Amazon.

London's Chinatown traditionally holds a festival on the first Sunday after Chinese New Year's Day, which in 2009 falls on Sunday 1 February. The programme starts at noon in Trafalgar Square and goes on late into the evening. There will be lion dances through Chinatown, fireworks in Leicester Square and performances in Shaftsbury Avenue as well as stalls selling Chinese food and promoting Chinese events and activities.

Like western New Year's Eve celebrations, Chinese New Year is not a religious event and is enjoyed by everyone.

Links
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/02/chinese-new-year.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/02/trousers-of-change.html
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2008/03/springtime-camellias.html
Chinese New Year (A World of Festivals)
http://www.fengshuiweb.co.uk/advice/cny2009.htm
http://www.kented.org.uk/ngfl/festivals/chinese.htm
http://www.visitlondon.com/events/detail/1875235
http://chinatownchinese.co.uk/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=27
http://www.bbc.co.uk/london/chinese_new_year/
http://www.chiff.com/a/chinese-horoscopes.htm
http://pagan-magic.co.uk/shop/long-life-chineses-symbol-amulet-p-5606.html?ad=badwitch
Flying lantern
Five Spirits: The Alchemical Mystery at the Heart of Traditional Chinese Medicine

Springtime camellias

One day last week, on my way to the postbox, I stopped to admire a camellia bush that grows in a garden at the end of my road.

It is a huge shrub, about 10ft tall, covered in enormous pink blooms and with fallen blossoms carpeting the ground underneath it.

As I was standing there, thinking that the camellia must be one of the most colourful flowers of the spring, a very old Chinese woman stopped beside me.

"It is beautiful," she said. "I come here every spring to see it." Then she told me what it was called in Chinese, although I couldn't pronounce it, let alone write it down.

I wondered if it reminded her of her childhood home.

Camellias come from southern China, where they have been cultivated by man since about 1725BC, when the Chinese emperor found that an infusion of camellia sinensis leaves was his favourite drink. This became known as tea.

Buddhist priests prized tea for its use as a stimulant. They spread its popularity to Japan and also developed the Japanese tea ceremony.

The tea plant and ornamental camellias are closely related, but are not the same. It isn't advisable to boil up an old camellia leaves to see what they taste like.

In England, ornamental species such as camellia japonica became popular in the early 1800s because of their lovely flowers. They bloom in March and bring colour to even the greyest day.

The old Chinese woman and I spent several minutes admiring the Camellia. Then she said to me: "In the autumn, I come to see your garden too. You live up the road and you have lovely Chinese lanterns."

I felt proud. I hadn't realised other people liked my garden.

I also felt pleased that flowers could break down barriers between people. So often, city dwellers live in the same road and never speak to each other. A beautiful garden is something that people of all ages and backgrounds can enjoy and talk about.

For more information about camellias visit:
www.rhs.org.uk/WhatsOn/gardens/hydehall/archive/hydehallpom06mar.asp
www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plantprofile_camellia.shtml
www.rhs.org.uk/advice/camellias/camellia.asp
http://216.239.59.104/search?q=cache:U_oPwjv-ouQJ:www.cardewclub.com/acatalog/about-tea.html+camellia%2Bbuddhist&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=2&gl=uk
www.karisgarden.com/chapters/camille.htm
www.anime-myth.com/mermaid.html