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ENCYCLOPEDIA Glossary What's New Most Popular List of Articles |
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New Worlds Spring/Summer 2013 Issue
Get the FREE app for your tablet and mobile device. Now available in the iTunes Store and the Google Play Store Also available as a PDF File. Click for more information about New Worlds or to receive issues via mail. |
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Term: handfasting
| DEFINITIONS |
Handfasting: The pre-Christian, Roman wedding ceremony also practiced in Celtic lands. As the name implies, it included tying the hands together and is the source of the expression “tying the knot” as a description of a wedding. In the sixteenth century, one English cleric noted its use as separate from the Christian marriage. Today the term is used by Wiccans and Witches for a wedding ceremony. In some traditions, a handfasting endures for a limited time, often a year and a day. Hence, a probationary marriage during which a couple would cohabit as husband and wife. After the probationary period the couple could decide if they wished to continue in a permanent marriage or part.
According to Handfasting and Wedding Rituals by Raven Kaldera & Tannin Schwartzstein (Llewellyn Publications), a handfasting was generally no more complex than the couple joining hands (thus making “fast” their hands) and declaring themselves united, sealing it with a kiss. They add that the handfasting gesture made a figure-eight with the hands, right to right and left to left, symbolizing that all parts of themselves were joined.
| ARTICLES |
Summary: An oracle deck (not a Tarot) with photorealistic (and surrealistic) art that crosses the boundaries between our physical world and the spiritual world of the fairy. It’s ideal for learning about the classical myths of fairies and various ...
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"The soul comes from without into the human body, as into a temporary abode, and it goes out of it anew…it passes into other habitations, for the soul is immortal." - Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803-82)
Have you lived before?
The answer to that question is yes. As a human soul you have lived before; many of us have even experienced many lifetimes... read this article
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