Nowruz: Iranian New Year

Nowruz is an ancient celebration which began in greater Iran some 15,000 years ago. It marks the beginning of astronomical spring is about celebrating and reaffirming ties with nature and with friends and family. It is a public holiday in several countries and has been recognised by UNESCO as part of Humanity’s Intangible Cultural History.

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Mǎrţişor, the Romanian Symbol of Spring

On March 1st, Romanians celebrate the coming of spring by giving and receiving small trinkets tied with red and white string. These trinkets are called mǎrţişor and they mark the beginning of the agricultural new year. Before we learn more about the history and symbolism of the mǎrţişor, it might be useful to learn how to pronounce this word.

In Romanian, the letter ǎ is pronounced like ‘urgh’ as in ‘urgh, do I have to wake up’. The letter ţ is pronounced like the ‘zz’ in pizza. The letter ş is pronounced like ‘sh’ as in shadow. Finally, the accent on this word is placed on the last syllable, so mǎrţişor is pronounced m-urgh-zz-ee-shore. The word derives from martie which is the name for the month of march. Now that we’ve established the etymology and pronunciation of this word, we can move on to its history.

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How the animals in the Chinese Zodiac were chosen

A long time ago, Jade Emperor decided to create a calendar in order to keep track of time. He decided to create a cyclical calendar of 12 years, and that each year would be named after an animal. To determine which 12 animals would be featured, he organised a race and invited every animal to participate. The first twelve across the line would be included in the calendar. This is the story of how the 12 animals were chosen.

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Hiding in Plain Sight: Cooking

The Hiding in Plain Sight series is about ways that you can inconspicuously incorporate your faith into your everyday life. This is ideal for people who can’t or don’t want to announce to those around them that they practice witchcraft. While the previous two posts focussed on discretely wearing charms and using colour magick, this post will focus on how to incorporate plant magick into your regular diet.

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2017 – a year of new beginnings

In Numerology, 2017 is a universal ‘1’ year. A universal year number gives us a measure of how the whole world is travelling – you and me included. This is the beginning of a new cycle, a time to plant the seeds for new things to come. It is a time for fresh intentions and to prepare for the major changes to come in the next 9 year cycle.

2016 was a universal ‘9’ year – a time of endings – and we saw that in the number of huge creative souls that departed, many before their time, to make the space for the new to arise in 2017.

2017 is now a time to say hello, and welcome in the start of a new adventure as the cycle starts afresh. May the seeds you plant in this fresh new year, flourish and manifest into their full potential as you nurture them with your will and intent.

May the Goddess grant you vision, wisdom, determination and opportunity that you may, in turn, manifest joy, abundance and understanding in this year of new beginnings.

Happy New Year from the PAN Committee.