Month: August 2015

About Clann Bhríde

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Clann Bhride's avatarClann Bhríde

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Clann Bhride, or the Children of Brighid, is a small group of people who have come together to build a religious structure and practice devoted to the Celtic goddess Brighid and Her Mysteries.

Clann Bhride relies on a solid foundation in history, surviving folklore, tradition, and myth. However, this foundation is only the beginning. The ancient Celts depended on history and lore, but placed even greater emphasis and reverence on Imbas, inspiration, and adaptation.

As members of a modern-day Western society, we seek inspiration and contemporary creation, and to use the various tools of scholarly interpretation of texts, creative work, and synthesis with other religious insights to build upon the foundation of history. Although we do not consider ourselves Celtic Reconstructionists, our goal is to create a spiritual path focused specifically on Brighid and Her Mysteries, grounded in history and informed by inspiration. Through Clann Bhride, we hope to share…

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Aeusos: The Dawn Fire

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Eos

Eos, goddess of the dawn, by Evelyn De Morgan

NOTE: anything to do with Proto-Indo-European religion is highly speculative, and the material in this article is no exception. This article does not represent any official opinion of Clann Bhríde as a group.

According to the Nine Elements of Clann Bhríde:

“Children of Brighid honor and reverence Her as a goddess of Gaelic origins, but also consider Her to be a much older and vaster deity known by different names and by different peoples… All goddesses associated with the sun, moon, and stars, fire, fresh water, fertility and abundance, healing, knowledge and the crafts necessary to society may be honored as part of this practice.”

In the religion of the ancient Indo-Europeans, sacrificial offerings were given to the deity of the fire, who took a portion of the offering and conveyed the rest to the other gods. The Indo-Aryans who composed the Rig Veda conceived of this deity as a god named Agni, and also worshiped a goddess of the dawn named Ushas.

Cesiwir Serith, in his book Deep Ancestors, uses comparative mythology and linguistics to reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European hearth goddess named Westya and a dawn goddess named Xausos. The author of the Proto-Indo-European Religion homepage, using strictly linguistic methods of reconstruction, argues that these were originally the exact same deity- a goddess named *Haéusos or “Aeusos.”

Aeusos was the goddess of the sun, the dawn, the hearth-fire and the stars, especially the planet Venus or the “morning star” as it is known. These characteristics make Aeusos the most ancient version of a Brigidine goddess known to us, and one who combines solar, dawn and hearth-fire symbolism in a way no other goddess does except Brighid herself. It is easy enough to see how a goddess originally named Aeusos could come to be known by a title instead – perhaps “the Exalted One.”

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