Gemini Spring Celebration

I've been reading a book by Luisah Teish titled "Jump Up: Good Times Throughout the Seasons with Celebrations from Around the World." Jump Up, she writes, is a term used as an expression of great joy. Most often it refers to an event that includes joyous music, laughter, food, and dance.

Luisah Teish is a priestess of Oshun (the West African Goddess of Love, Art, and Sensuality), and a designer of ritual. She teaches about women's rites of passage and about ritual in general at the University of Creation Spirituality (founded by Matthew Fox). She performs mythplays and does folk storytelling around the world.

What I share with you, especially my Gemini friends, is her vision of the pairing of the twins, Sun and Moon, in a celebration of Spring. The following material quotes from her book, Jump Up.

Please join me, joyously embracing and mingling in the Dance!

Spring, the Daughter of Promise

"Children will not be wanting at the hand of mother;

young children will not be wanting at the foot of the banana tree."

~ The Holy Odu Ogbe Meji

There in the garden stood a creature made from the desire of Moon, composed in the likeness of Sun. There in the garden stood a creature made from the desire of Sun, made in the image of Moon. They stood looking at each other, uncertain of who they were and how they came into Being.

Sensing their dilemma, the Serpent opened its mouth and spat forth a rain of knowledge followed by a shower of love. The two creatures gazed at each other, their hearts pounding in their chests. Slowly the Sun and Moon within them began to stir until they could only embrace and mingle their substances in a dance of delight.

As they danced, the banana tree rumbled and produced long yellow fruit. As they danced, the Earth shook and produced millet. They danced and all existence multiplied itself. The Divine Twins felt the fertility of the Earth pulse through them and spread from them to the land an back again. And they laughed because it was Spring.

~ Luisah Teish, original tale, 1988