Over the years of being a neopagan wiccan I found new information regarding the historical foundations and mythological concepts or ideas of the Wiccan. I believe and I have facts to support this belief that the indigenous folk of England prior to the patriarchal Celts and Saxons had a different mythological paradigm... the old English and Old Saxon language still contains what were the Gods of the late Neolithic western Europe matrilineal ploughed and planted land cult.
The Neolithic western Europe matrilineal ploughed and planted land cult paradigm was the Sky Goddess/mother, Earth God/father and the Sun Goddess and Moon God. Now I am not saying that a "true Wiccan cult" should revert back to this paradigm ...but my training and experience in Jungian psychology taught me that when there is an opposition the Art of creating psychological Wholeness is to reconcile the opposites into a synthesis.
I joined Church of All Worlds as they at least believed in "dreaming on the Myth". Oberon still believes in the Earth Mother Goddess myth but I do not at least not in his way. However to his and CAW credit I was allowed as a priest of CAW to express my reconciliation of the opposites Myth. So I allowed the Mystery to speak through me and create the Myth of the Sacred Marriage of the Younger Deities of the Aquarian Age.
As a challenge ritual before my community (which was required in order to become an ordained CAW priest) I performed a hand fasting and a peace pledge between two great warring tribes. One a patriarchal tribe symbolically define by the Divine paradigm of Earth Goddess and Sky God and Moon Goddess and Sun God with the matrilineal tribe symbolically define by the Divine paradigm of Sky Goddess and Earth God and Moon God and Sun Goddess.
The hand fasting was a group hand fasting between the Younger Deities of the Sun and Moon in 1999. This hand fasting was for a year and a day and so July 3rd 2000 I perform my required ordination ritual to become official ordained in CAW. I married the Younger Deities of the Age of Aquarius; the Moon God and Sun Goddess with the Moon Goddess and Sun God. They form a group marriage as in the ancient ways of the Mothers and their group marriage is a witness and a pledge to uphold the sexual equality and freedom of those ways.
I even invited Eris to the marriage (no Trojan war here) as the Crone of the age now past (Pisces). Every year since then the Younger Gods have alternated sharing the years. There is a two year cycle; one year it is the Moon Goddess and Sun God presiding over the Sabbats and the next year the Sun Goddess and Moon God. Each ritual pours a bit of whiskey, an oblation to Eris also.
The Deities exchange powers on the Autumnal Equinox. Thus an Aquarian Wiccan cult started at the beginning of the Age of Aquarius with the year 2000 at Sweetwood Temenos.
I was given a vision by the Goddess Astraea during the 1980-81 Jupiter-Saturn conjunction, which was special in that the planets conjunct through retrograde motion 3 times. Astraea is a powerful Goddess and she was associated with the beginning of the Myth of the Ages and the Golden Age.
Since the Golden age would be the logical starting place for the Myth of the Ages to begin, I looked up the Golden age and found one myth where Cronus ruled with Justice (the Goddess of Justice, which the Greeks called Themis).
I was inspired to guess that Cronus was the planet Saturn (the "star" that ruled earth and hence the earth God) and Themis was the planet Jupiter(the "star" that ruled the sky and hence the Sky Goddess)in the matrilineal days of the Golden Age.
I got another hint from a book I read called Hamlet's Mill by Giorgio De Santillana and Hertha Von Dechend...very scholarly book on this subject.
They suggested that the Golden age started with the age of Gemini approximately 6,000 years BC.
Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions (a sacred Marriage - Hierograms) occur every 20 years (which is a good approximation of a human generation) and I found out that 108 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions (20 years X 108) equal 2,160 years and is an astrological age or great month(a very close approximation). I found this to be a very interesting way of determining an age, through a long count much like the Mayans instead of sidereal observation which is much more subjective.
Then I bought a powerful astrology computer program that could research astrological information back 12,000 years. I started to look for Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions around the 6,000 BC that occurred in Libra, the sign of the scales (justice).
I found such a conjunction and it was a triple conjunction and more interesting was that it was followed 20 years later by another triple conjunction...an omen indeed for those ancient folk. Further the simple triple conjunction of Jupiter-Saturn is fairly rare and happens about 240 years apart or more and the double triple conjunction (another triple Jupiter-Saturn conjunction succeeding the previous one 20 years earlier) is a very rare; happening only three times in the last 8,572 years.
So the date I found was 6580 BC and I started to count cycles of 108 Jupiter-Saturn conjunctions.. I made 6580 BC number 108 as the ancients did not use 0 and 6560 BC as number 1 in my long count. Thus every 108th conjunction was the end of an old age and the beginning of a new age. This matches up well with astrological guesses for the different ages but most importantly a new age began on May 28th 2000 AD; the Age of Aquarius. Thus Age of Gemini started 6,580 BC, Age of Taurus started 4,435 BC, Age of Aries started 2,290 BC, Age of Pisces started 145 BC and the Age of Aquarius started 2000 AD.
We are now a little bit more than half way between the 108th conjunction and number 1 conjunction in this long astrological count and scheme. So the Mayan calendar changes Ages half way between 108th and 1st Jupiter-Saturn conjunction in this long count cycle and guess what? In 10 years from now on the winter solstice 2020 the Jupiter-Saturn conjunction occurs in the sign of Aquarius.
I hope I did not lose you in this astrology and all. I did not want to just assert that the Age of Aquarius happened in the year 2000. Part of the Art of Magic is the knowing of Kairos (the right, opportune, auspicious or the supreme) moment for it to happen. So we started the creation at Sweetwood Temenos of an Aquarian Wiccan/neopagan tradition.
Any way much of my magical training and experience in a Wiccan tradition is carried over to this new path that I have been devoted to as a priest for the last 12 years. In keeping with the Aquarian spirit (zeitgeist) CAW fitted in well with my evolution and development as a neopagan/wiccan priest and as did my training and experience in Jungian and systems psychology. I have an understanding of the archetypical foundations for the Deities and religious belief...which is a very Aquarian understanding.
I believe the Jungian concept of the Self (the archetype of human psychological wholeness) is the same as the image of Divinity in our souls that we are to individuate and actualize. In this manner the Aquarian Wiccan/neopagan cult at Sweetwood Temenos is a cult to the human soul to foster through ritual and lifestyle, the human soul individuating and actualizing its Self; a form of psyche-therapia.
Thus Water shared, is life shared, is love shared! Thou Art Goddess!Thou Art God and Never Thirst!
Iacchus