A child is born.........................

A Child is born..................

I love how in this painting the cow is looking directly at us, the viewers, inviting us to share in this event. An unearthly, heavenly light shines from the child and is reflected in his mother's adoring face. The animals come to worship this child of love born on Christmas Eve.

From Mary Magdalene Within 

" I was surprised to find out that the creche scene with the animals has been with us only since the 1200's, when St. Francis of Assisi  felt the spiritual urge to create one. What did they do before that to express the idea that  our animal instincts are necessary to support the birth of "the new" inside of us? The Light within needs the manger within. It's that way in dream guidance, where it's very important to notice what the animals are doing. If they're acting strangely or are against us, something is awry in our own ability to support our own true self in continuing growth.  This true self  is pictured as the return of the Light in the manger.

   I've seen nativity scenes without alot of animals, with many people instead, and they look really wrong. We respond to them with our head instead of our heart."

Christmas Manger Scene with dogs 

The animals carry something of the earthly heart in the Nativity scene. Certainly they know who they're devoted to. I've seen Christmas manger scenes with dogs and they are a wonderful image of devotion and loyalty.  It's a moment for celebration when you've dreamed of a dog being with you.

 We need the animals and we need our own animal instincts more than ever right now as we work towards creation of a new world. It's our animal instincts which say "go this way for safety" and "go this way to be more comfortable" and "rest right now because you're depleted" and "this is just the right spot to be in". Our animal instincts save us from being in our heads too much. They help us define, with strong feeling, what we want to give birth to and to nurture into life. 

This year touches many of us with unbearable grief and in some strange way opens a portal to allow love to bloom inside in some "instinctual" part of us. We need our animal instincts to reach this portal. This year it's all about the children and the animals who come to help us learn to love. Children represent the emotional body, that which we try to heal.

This week will stand out in our memories as a time we prayed for 20 innocent young children who died last Friday in the Sandy Hook School Shootings. People across the world, especially those who have lost a child, pray with us. There is something about children that touches each of us. Perhaps this comes from our own childhood experiences or as far back as the moment we entered this reality when we lost our memory, our sense of who we are as consciousness and light, to come here and experience physical reality.

The 20 children who crossed over will make themselves known to those left behind, as their spirits move from fear and confusion on the day they died, to consciousness and light at this special time of the year.

The horror and pain is reverberating around the world. And the angels weep................

Most of us knew that this year would be hard, but I for one had no inkling that it would be this hard, I seem to weep endlessly. My heart is raw from all the sadness and misery. And then I remember..... Away in a manger, a child is born. And now I understand why so many noble animals offer their lives to bring comfort to us.

That child is our hearts. And it hurts to be born. May we all find comfort with each other and not be afraid to offer our hands and our hearts to each other. Please offer your love at no cost to everyone you meet today. We can all make a difference.

Love to all and may we all understand what is really important in this life and may it be born in this world.

Nativity by children helped by LoveLightRomania, who had no sanitation, education or hope.

 Published on Dec 15, 2012

This Nativity film represents the potential in children who live a feral life. In September 2010, a project was launched by Love Light Romania, to give one of these communities hope for the future. The children from Jacodu Children's Project were forgotten, not entitled to basic rights and had no hope.

They themselves prove, that with support, they can have a better life. The amazing progress they have made in that short time, shows the success, with dedication and commitment, we can help them make of their lives. The participants of this film are very proud to share, through The Nativity Story, how with support they are enjoying a new life.

Projects understanding the feral way of life in poor family communities in Romania and asking why? .....instead of judgement, alongside education, will help the children to survive in a more productive community. Where they have life opportunities their parents have not had and cycles of poverty will be broken.

The feral children in Romania today, if not discriminated against, but accepted and encouraged, can rise from the ashes of poverty and leave a legacy of prosperity.

To find out more about the Jacodu Children's Project and how you can help please contact jo@lovelightromania.com.

The Nativity of the Divine Light

Christmas Eve, sometimes called Holy Night, celebrates the ageless story of the birth of Christ. As the divine light of Christ incarnates in a tiny babe in a lowly manger, to us this story represents the nativity of the divine light within the Gnostic soul, the coming of the royal light into the lowly frame and darkness of this world. When the outer world grows cold and dark it is even more necessary to keep the spark of divine light kindled and bright.

Though the light shines in the darkness, the darkness can not itself give birth to the light. The earth would be naught but cold damp clay without the life coming from the light of the Sun. Even so, the spirit which gives life comes from somewhere else, a mystical dimension beyond time and space. The alchemists assure us that “nature unaided always fails.” Without divine assistance in the Hermetic art the alchemist can not achieve the goal of the Great Work, the Philosopher’s Stone. In the same way, our human natures can not transform our ego personalities without the assistance of that spark of our Divine Self and the birth of that consciousness within us.

It is reported that during delivery, as a baby’s head just breaks through from the birth canal, that for a brief moment an otherworldly light fills the room, like the light of a golden dawn. That light is soon obscured in this world but serves to remind us of the glorious aeon from which we have come and the darkness into which each new life comes. Our task is not to bewail the existential facts of the matter but to aid those who come into this world to keep the memory of that light alive and kindled within them. 
http://gnosis.org/ecclesia/homily_Christmas.htm

In the Biblical story, the Christ child is born in a cave or stable used to shelter animals and is laid in a manger— a humble birth for the proclaimed King of kings. We also share that humble existence in this world. We also experience the sacrifice of the glorious light of the aeons and see our light power as a tiny spark of its original flame. The holy birth of Christmas represents the birth of the Christ-Sun within us, an awakening of our consciousness to who we are and the light from whence we came, an awakening from the sleep of forgetfulness.

The manger where the holy babe is laid is a place for keeping grain and fodder. Grain is a symbol of the seed of life that endures through the winter, a symbol also for the birth of the solar God in the Eleusinian mysteries. As the shaft of wheat was presented the Mystae would exclaim, “Brimo has given birth to Brimos!” That shaft of wheat might be represented as well in the host of the Eucharist, “the Heavenly Bread, the Life of the whole world, which is in all places and endureth all things.” The city where the holy child is born is called Bethlehem which means “House of Bread.”

The life represented in the bread and grain was a very important part of the Christmas celebrations of times past. The last sheaf of grain from the harvest represented the life spirit of the entire field. In earlier times the folk custom was to carefully save the last sheaf, both the grain and the straw. The grain was ground and made into Christmas cake, sweet porridge or pudding. The straw was woven into the figure of a tree, a man, a bird or a goat.

The straw goat, which some families still include in their Christmas celebrations, represents the seed of life that endures through the winter and signifies the holy light that still shines through the cold and dark of winter to appear to us on this Holy Night of Christmas Eve. There is a small rent in the veil before the Treasury of the Light. A magical light shines down into the heart of dark winter wherever there are gathered those who have prepared a vessel for it on earth. That vessel is the pure heart, a heart of compassion and forgiveness, a heart made ready after the pattern of our Holy Mother of Compassion and Mercy. Such a heart gives birth to the light of Christ. It shall always remain a virgin birth; for her love remains forever itself, pure, undefiled, unsullied and unadulterated, regardless of its myriad forms of expression on earth. Her love eternally sanctifies itself and all it touches. It is the mystic rose of her love in our hearts that is the immaculate vessel that gives birth to the Christ child within us. As expressed most beautifully in a poem by Gertrude Farwell.

“Soft candle stars the gloom
About a single rose:
Flower and bough of pine perfume
The twilight hour; in flame that throws
A nimbus round the evergreen.
Whilst fragrance breathes the Living Name
Of Love Incarnate yet unseen,
Rising from petal, pine and thorn.
Mary the pure is kneeling fair,
Of Gabriel’s “Ave!” now aware,
Wondering if aright she’s heard
“Blessed art thou”—unsought acclaim,
Immaculate vessel that the Word
Made flesh may shine on Christmas morn.”

-- Rev. Steven Marshall

Wide Awake - Katy Perry

I am the light of the world.

I love when I give myself over to the  universe and it sends secret messages of healing for your heart and mind. A very good soul sent me this message:

The Top 10 things about time and space, that most people seem to forget

10. You chose to be here and you knew what you were doing.
9. There are no "tests" and you're not being judged.
8. Everyone's doing their best, with what they know.
7. You already have whatever you're looking for.
6. You are of the Divine, pure God, and so is everyone else.
5. Religion needs spirituality; spirituality does not need religion.
4. You're naturally inclined to succeed - at everything you do.
3. You happen to life, life does not happen to you.
2. Order, healing, and love belie every moment of chaos, pain, and fear.
1. Following your heart is the best way to help others.

The truth shall set you free
The Universe

I especially like No. 9 - There are no "tests" and you're not being judged. I am my harshest critic and carry a sharp knife to stab my heart with. I have struggled for years to feel worthy of being loved. My doggie companions loved me truly and losing that love almost left me lost in a dark tunnel forever. But I am waking up and learning new and amazing things are inside of me, and inside of you too.

Love is all around us, all the time. And it is divine.

Meaning of The Hermit:

A robed man or monk carrying a lantern, sometimes in hand, sometimes hanging off a staff. A barren landscape.

After a long and busy lifetime, building, creating, loving, hating, fighting, compromising, failing, succeeding, the Fool feels a profound need to retreat. In a small, rustic home deep in the woods, he hides, reading, cleaning, organizing, resting or just thinking. But every night at dusk he heads out, traveling across the bare, autumnal landscape. He carries only a staff and a lantern.

It is during these restless walks from dusk till dawn, peering at and examining whatever takes his fancy, that he sees things he's missed during his lifetime. His lantern illuminates animals and insects that only come out at night, flowers and plants that only bloom by moon or star light.

As these secret corners of the world are illuminated and explored by him, he feels that he is also illuminating hidden areas of his mind. In a way, he has become the Fool again. As in the beginning, he goes wherever inspiration leads him. Back then, however, his staff rested on his shoulder, carrying unseen his pack. The Fool was like the pack: wrapped up, unknown. The Hermit's staff leans out before him now, not behind. And it carries a lantern, not a pack. The Hermit is like the lantern, illuminated from within by all he is, capable of penetrating the darkness.

Yesterday, I watched Katy Perry’s new video ‘Wide Awake’ for the first time. Wow! I spotted The Hermit straight away. It was pretty obvious that the song was about the breakdown of her marriage and the lessons she learned from that.

She’s embodying both Death (butterflies of transformation) and The Hermit and taking her inner child along on the labyrinth path to heart healing.

Watch the video and you’ll know what I mean.

Four stages of initiation into self-love are clearly present in this video:

1. Change – Divine forces strike (The Tower) and the building (illusion) begins to crumble
2. Trial by Fear – Facing the Minotaur-like monsters that dwell in the labyrinth (The Devil) = Facing one’s deepest fear. In this case it is the fear that the self is somehow not enough and that she needs another to complete her
3. Integrating the Lesson – Shining the Hermit’s lantern to find the way out and looking to the past (Katy as a child) to understand how she ended up there in the first place
4. Awakening (Judgment/Pluto) – Smashing the illusion (the Knight in Shining Armor) and releasing the butterflies of rebirth  (Death/Scorpio)

The fifth stage – Service – is evident in how Katy Perry inspires others to push through their fears through her art.

Find more wonderful healing Love Tarot messages at this fantastic site tarot-heart-healing

And read more Messages of the Process of Initiation

All forms of initiation are about transcending self-imposed fears. There are many levels to transcend and many awakenings to be had. In fact, as long as you breathe, you are either being initiated or find yourself in transit between one initiation and the next.

In order to transcend our fears, we have to reach with our hearts to the centre of the Universe where the heart of the Creator dwells. And it doesn't matter if you call it the Higher Self, Source, the Universe or God... or simply grace.


To understand what your current or upcoming initiation is, you simply need to look at your deepest fear. Usually you need to dig quite deep to get to the root course of the fear. This is where the transformation potential lies.

Once rightly understood, your deepest fear becomes your fiercest ally.

  More here Process of Initiation Tarot Spread

Up the Down Staircase

"The ancients were people, yet also animals. In form some looked human while some walked on all fours like animals. Some could fly like birds; others could swim like fishes. All had the gift of speech, as well as greater powers and cunning than either animals or people." - Oakanogan Legend, Creation of the Animal people

The Call to Shamanic Spirituality
"I feel the tug of the homing signal.
I feel you calling in the song of the stream.
I feel you calling in the shadow cast before me as I walk
 and by the Sun behind me warming my back.
I feel you calling in the wind that caresses my face.
I feel you calling in the sound of my feet
walking on Sacred Mother Earth.
 I feel you calling in the hummingbird-shaped cloud
 hovering in the sky overhead.
What are you calling me to, asked I?
Life, answered you."

- Black Elk

The word "shaman" translates to mean one "who sees in the dark."  In more traditional forms of shamanism the shaman does not choose his path. It is either hereditary or the spirits choose the shaman through marking him in some way. This marking was usually an animal attack or an illness which brought the shaman to deaths door. The thought is that by tasting death and returning back, the shaman would return with knowledge and powers from the spirit world. It was a blessing for the spirits to bring a person to their very doors to give them this power.

Once on the path, the shaman must work with these powers they are given in this world and the spirit world. Their sacred duty is to venture back and forth as a messenger to both sides. For this men go to them for advice, for this the spirits give them wisdom and come to their aid. The understanding of life and death and the importance of both predator and prey is integral to being a shaman.

I have been on a very painful journey to heal myself of my fear of death.  I have been severely wounded and have been unable to voice anything. Still trying to make sense of all that has happened and why.

I hope to start writing on here some more, but it's something I have to work through and that will open the door again. I am just so afraid of letting myself feel that pain again. But I am surviving each day. I am finding the mystery and grandness of it all again. But I just can't seem to let the dark inside of me go just yet.

Sometimes the dark is a great hiding place.

From Ellie's Crystal Links
We spend much of our time healing our wounds. We come to metaphysics for answers we cannot find in the world - for our souls know the truth is not in the physical.

Wounds are thought to be burned away by the sacred flame that ignite the spirit and the return of the Phoenix. One often speaks of buring off karmic ribbons and healing wounds with the Violet Flame.
 
Those healed become the healers...

http://curiousityshop.blogspot.com/2008/09/female-quest-of-remedios-varos.html

Born Again
(Nacer de Nuevo)
1960

 [Page 92] "The moment of discovery in Varo's rendition of the quest occurs in Born Again. It is the discovery of the grail, which eluded all but three of King Arthur's knights. The naked female breaks through a wall into a sacred space that contains the grail, miraculously full and containing the reflected image of the crescent moon. . . . It is an ecstatic moment, . . . entirely feminine because of the ancient association of the woman with the vessel and the moon, and because of the vaginal imagery presented in the tearing wall. . . . [T]he protagonist has become her own fate."

I ran across this blog post today, and as usual my internal compass was drawn to it. I would like to share and hopefully when time permits explain why I personally believe that the grail seems to be a secret that eludes men and gravitates to women. And why this is so......

The Holy Grail

Posted by mikevoyce at 08:55, 09 Mar 2012 Dan Brown’s The Da Vinci Code is an attractive and pacey story which redefines the Holy Grail. I rather dismissed it as a weak echo of Michael Baigent, Richard Leigh and Henry Lincoln’s The Holy Blood and the Holy Grail until I recently reconsidered its emphasis of the marriage of masculine and feminine, and the idea of bloodline, as having considerably more truth than has been acknowledged. I suggest that in this he is partly right, though he is still wrong to discount the mystical fact of the Grail as a cup; and after more than 2,000 years you can no longer speak of a bloodline, but rather a gene pool. In fact, he is wrong to emphasize even the physicality of the human body, it is the spirit of the seeker that makes the Grail tangible, as Malory’s Le Morte D’Arthur made clear more than 500 years ago.

These books have been so immensely popular there is little need for me to add any critique, yet there is more to be said.

You may know a great deal of my time has been spent in recording past-life regression experiences of Edward Stafford, 3rd duke of Buckingham, and on more conventional research into his life; all this story is recounted in my novel, Edward, but I have now decided to open up the story, making plain important issues which would otherwise only be understood by the cognoscenti. I’ve added 2 pages to the website; ‘Secrets’ does not (yet) concern the Grail, but ‘Genealogy’ does.

I was always amazed the writers of ‘The Holy Blood’ came so close but somehow managed to miss the royal house of Plantagenet, which ruled England from Henry II, in 1154, to the death of Richard III, in 1485. Plantagenet was not a proper name; it came from Henry II’s father, Geoffrey of Anjou, count of Brittany, who wore broom in his battle helmet to show he swept all before him. Over 331 years it is easy to see, from the public record, there is a Plantagenet gene; it has 3 characteristics: irresistible charismatic success (hence the name), a very bad and quick temper, and gigantism. Far from all Plantagenets displayed these, Edward IV lacked the temper, while his brother, Richard III, only seems to have had the temper. If ever there was fact behind the popular modern fantasy of Superman it was the house of Plantagenet.

Whether the Plantagenets had anything to do with the ‘bloodline’ of Christ I do not know. What is again a matter of public record, though invariably overlooked, is that they became inextricably mixed with the guardianship of the Holy Grail through the ‘de Bohun Inheritance.’

The de Bohun earls of Huntingdon were the hereditary High Constables of England, said to be the Conscience of England and the guardians of the Holy Grail, in succession to Sir Percival, in Sir Thomas Malory’s ‘Le Morte.’ When the male line died out the last earl left two daughters, Eleanor and Mary, one Plantagenet prince (Edward Stafford’s ancestor) married Eleanor, while another (Henry IV) married Mary. The claim to the High Constableship came together again in the person of Edward, who was awarded the title, as heir to both Edward III and Henry VI, by a special court. The king, Henry VIII, was furious.
Past-life visions of Edward touch on the Grail (as recorded in my book) and I would be very reluctant to deny he held it. It is for this reason I do not consider publishing my findings about Edward as an academic work, the reputation of university historians would not stand recognition of the Holy Grail. Nevertheless, my research allows me to say a few things.

The Grail is a ‘pan-reality’ manifestation (for those who believe Reality is not a fixed, objective state but arises as an interpretation of our spirit). Its physical manifestation may well have been precipitated by the emotion, both of Christ and of his followers, brought about by his execution on the Cross.

Being pan-reality it has the capacity to ‘change’ reality in ways for which those interacting with it cannot be prepared; hence the injunction that it is dangerous to any who are not pure of heart. It has a very particular spiritual signature which may be best described as “balance in love.” I suggest this is the meaning of, “Whom does the Grail serve? … It serves the land.” The reason for this is service to any individual would relate to that individual’s ‘self’ or ego, which cannot exist outside a very limited and artificial reality.

There are rumors of attempts to call the Grail into manifestation, which have been disastrous. That this has happened at Stafford Castle does not mean the Grail is physically there (or anywhere) since its location is a state, not a place.

It follows that guardianship of the Grail is not about causing it to manifest, or controlling it when it does, but about noting it and seeking to move reality into harmony with it. Grail guardians will therefore more seek to act on the World, which is possible but difficult, than act on the Grail, which is impossible.

After that, and if you still want to, what is the first principle of calling the Grail? As old as the hills and as simple, balancing Ying and Yang, acceptance and assertion, female and male. That is the point of Dan Brown’s book, a point made in Edward, in “Marbles and Hawks,” it is remarkably difficult to achieve.

It is not surprising that the end of the Da Vinci Code is somewhat anticlimactic, nor is it surprising that the belief generated in many millions by that book, and by the Holy Blood and the Holy Grail, appears to have had little effect on the World. The problem is we look through the wrong end of the telescope; we try to bring the Grail to us rather than us to the Grail. So it has been in history, if that well intended and earnest king, Richard III, tried to use it (as I believe he did) it should be no surprise that his world shrank rather than expanded. Yet it is not to be thought the guardians do not make a difference, by moving themselves they do move the World.  http://www.dailygrail.com/stream/2012/3/The-Holy-Grail the comments left at the article are also very interesting.

Here is a video that I think helps explain why women see the answer to "bring us to the Grail, rather than the grail to us" as the author explains. Women are connected in some way to the earth through our hearts and minds. Perhaps men are also connected but have not learned to recognize their power.

This award winning video shows the vastly increasing power of women -

Coral Castle - Crystalinks

Coral Castle - Crystalinks

Follow the White Rabbit

"Wake up, Neo.  The Matrix has you.  Follow the white rabbit."  

Script and photos from the Matrix
are the creative property of
Warner Brothers

All of us can remember that awesome scene where Neo sits in front of his computer and those words magically appear on the screen. "Follow the white rabbit". Neo "wakes up" and tries to delete the message. "Follow the white rabbit". Neo tries the escape key. Knock, Knock. Neo is startled by a knock on the door. Choix and DuJour are two hours late. Choix invites Neo to "unplug" and get some R & R. Neo declines and then he sees a "white rabbit" tattooed on DuJour's shoulder.

Neo wants to just close the door and go back "to sleep". But something  calls to him to accept this call to mission. What to do?

Follow the white rabbit.  The inner mind and heart know instinctively what is being said here.  The brain gets a little foggy on it, though.  The difference between the 'brain' and the 'mind' in a person is obvious.  The former is assigned the task of filtration (sorting sensory stimulus and collating knowledge) as well as concentration on life's goals.  The latter gets to sift through infinite options, interface with Spirit, and decide which "possibilities" to feed into the brain for printing and saving to the hard disk.


The mind sits offsite, well outside our 3D reality "box," gazing off at the horizon--while the brain works hard to tie our shoes, pay the bills, and keep this wobbly "life project" on track.  The former is a "test pilot" on a Multidimensional Ship.  The latter is his faithful "ground crew," that keeps the Ship in its sights, and transmits data back and forth across hyperspace.


Who is in charge, in this dance of opposites?  One is attached to dry land, and one flings itself through space and time.  Who gets to call the shots?  Who gets to define the language for that divine interchange that will inevitably take place? 
The Reconnection's respond: "They "both do."  They would then turn around and add:  "And Neither of them does."


As we read through their transmission The Illusion of Control our polarized minds run smack dab into a wall that blocks our imagination.  Age-old theological questions about "free will vs. the sovereignty of God" are suddenly merged and alchemically sealed together, forever.  Both "self" and "other" are the same.  And yet they appear to be different.  And that appearance, that perception is the very purpose of our journey here, in the World of Form.  It boggles the mind, and it jangles the emotions.


And here, my friends, is exactly where we find ourselves.  Boggled and jangled, waiting fearfully by The Gate, wondering whether or not to go through it.  And then........along comes this white rabbit............


What to do?  What to dooooooooo?

 
 Are we brave enough to take that leap of faith?

The symbols and metaphors of our inner consciousness--our own personal "primer" to be sure, are waiting to guide us.  Are we willing to believe them?  When we feel that "twinge" of excitement go through us, upon hearing a name, or pondering an option for learning, are we willing to give credibility to the invitation which asks:  "Do you want to come with us to a club?"  Or, like many of us do, will we habitually respond:  "Sorry.  I have to go to work in the morning."

And who is waiting for us there, at the club?  A beautiful being named "Trinity?"  The love of our life, the path to our transformation?  Or, as often is the case, will we find a bunch of drunks, banging their heads to loud music, which still seems to be ringing in our heads in the morning, when the alarm clock goes off? 


No one knows the answer to this until they go and look.  And, to complicate matters, our finite minds do not always see and understand the tiny "steps" that are given to us in a moment of inspiration.  What did Ellie Arroway's dad keep telling her in the movie "Contact?"

"Small moves, Ellie.  Small moves."

Thanks to  Daniel Jacob at Follow the White Rabbit 

So how do we break out of this Matrix we have created for ourselves? By creating a new way of thinking. And it's not nearly as hard as it sounds. Here is some wonderful food for "thought".

YOU are the HOLY GRAIL........... yes YOU!
 


A great sage said, "Man's greatest need is to be needed". There was a void in the universe before you arrived. The whole of creation desires you to be. This imparts a great sense of satisfaction, the realization that you are vital to existence. Where you are at this very moment is perfection realized. Beyond your past actions, beyond your belief of who you are, beyond others perception of who you are - lies a perfect being waiting to be recognized. WAKE UP from the dream! Only when you claim your divinity can you truly experience the divine. Be the perfect cup, the Holy Grail, to receive the divine fount. You cannot seek perfection, rather you must REMEMBER your perfection. All of creation is a reflection of God's perfection in you. Recognize the divinity in others, even when they are cruel. You will find great peace when you embrace the truth that God experiences his creation through us. When you forgive, when you love, when you embrace yourself, you move as a powerful hand of GOD. We ARE the body of God and no one must be forgotten or left behind. As a member of the "Body of God" you have an opportunity each and every day to be the answer to anothers prayers. Reach out and love yourself as divine, just as you are, that it may overflow to others.

There is a WAR on for your mind, learn how to win that war and follow the White Rabbit at this most informative blog
2012/03/03/the-war-on-the-astral-planes/

France proclaims 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc 

President Sarkozy will travel to Domremy, the village said to have been her birthplace, where he will unveil a plaque in the home where she is thought to have been born. 

Mr Sarkozy will also visit Vaucouleurs, also in the Vosges mountains of eastern France, where Joan of Arc began her campaign to push the English out of France and put Charles VII on the throne.

Mr Sarkozy and far-right leader Marine Le Pen are battling over the mantle of the French patron saint Joan of Arc, a surprise player in the upcoming presidential election. 

The two leaders are to stage rival celebrations of the 600th anniversary of the birth of the 15th-century Catholic martyr who has been appropriated by the far-right partly for her booting out of medieval English "immigrants".

The teenage peasant led the French army against the English after experiencing religious visions and was later burned at the stake, but her broad appeal to French of all political colours has ensured her immortality. 600 year anniversary of Joan of Arc

Joan of Arc Revealed

By Jeff Nisbet

On May 30, 1431, a young girl was burned alive for heresy and witchcraft in Rouen, France. 

According to one account of the day, when she had succumbed to the flames the fire “was raked back, and her naked body shown to all the people, and all the secrets that could or should belong to a woman, to take away any doubts from people’s minds. When they had stared long enough at her dead body bound to the stake, the executioner got a big fire going again round her poor carcass, which was soon burned, both flesh and bone reduced to ashes.”
Although history tells us the victim was Joan of Arc, a simple shepherdess known then as Joan the Maid, the account of her execution shows even her gender was in doubt at the time—a doubt put to rest perhaps just a tad too neatly in the historical record.

Joan deserves a closer look.

Born on January 6, 1412, Joan is one of history's best-documented figures—hardly surprising considering that the records of her several trials still survive.
At age 13, a "voice" told Joan she had been chosen by the “King of Heaven” to bring “reparation to the kingdom of France, and help and protection to King Charles.”

One of the suspiciously precise details we know about Joan is her exact time of birth—one hour after sunset on January 6, a day variously known as the Feast of the Epiphany, the Day of the Three Kings, and the Twelfth Day of Christmas. Surprisingly, neither Joan’s mother nor any other witnesses at the “nullification” trial mentions that Joan’s birthday was an official holy day. Joan of Arc Revealed




Happy Three King's Day

Today is January 6^th or Three Kings Day or Day of the Ephiphany

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epiphany

Epiphany (Greek: επιφάνεια, "the appearance; miraculous phenomenon") is a Christian feast intended to celebrate the 'shining forth' or revelation of God to mankind in human form, in the person of Jesus. The observance had its origins in the eastern Christian churches, and included the birth of Jesus; the visit of the three Magi, or Wise Men (traditionally named Caspar, Melchior and Balthasar) who arrived in Bethlehem; and all of Jesus' childhood events, up to his baptism in the Jordan by John the Baptist. The feast was initially based on, and viewed as a fulfillment of, the Jewish Feast of Lights. This was fixed on January 6.

 

 "Twelfth Night" is a reference to the twelfth night after Christmas Day, called the Eve of the Feast of Epiphany. It was originally a Catholic holiday but, prior to Shakespeare's play, had become a day of revelry. Servants often dressed up as their masters, men as women and so forth. Twelfth Night

Jean Seberg as Joan of Arc in the 1957 film Saint Joan. Photograph: Popperfoto/Getty Images

Joan of Arc at 600: the best of role models

As we celebrate the 600th anniversary of Joan of Arc's birth, let's remember what she stood for, because she is one of us

At the opening of his 1916 silent film Joan the Woman, Hollywood grandee Cecil B DeMille introduced the French hero Joan of Arc as "the girl patriot who fought with men, was loved by men and killed by men, yet retained the heart of a woman". A warrior at 16, a saint at 19, Joan – or Jeanne, to us French – is the world's first pop icon. Groovier than the Virgin Mary, sexier than the Mona Lisa, she has been a star ever since she told the English to go to hell in the late 1420s, and fans throughout the world are today celebrating the 600th anniversary of her birth.

How many historical figures can lay claim to having inspired more than a dozen biopics since the beginning of cinema? The latest one, Jeanne Captive, has just been released in France. And that's just films. Her frail figure in armour, carved in marble and stone, graces the streets of New Orleans, Washington, Paris, Montreal, among a hundred other cities. Ingres painted her; Verdi, Liszt, Tchaikovsky and Honeger wrote operas dedicated to her. In theatre, the farmer's daughter inspired Von Schiller, George Bernard Shaw, Bertold Brecht, Paul Claudel and Jean Anouilh. A 1990s famous Japanese rock band called itself Janne Dar Arc, and several video games have enrolled the pretty but chaste fighter as their leading protagonist. For good measure, let us not forget to mention Leonard Cohen among his greatest fans: in "Joan of Arc", he huskily sings "I love your solitude, I love your pride, my cold and lonesome heroine".

Jeanne is indeed a fascinating figure, all the more so if you are French. Aged 12, I went through a mystical period when I feared I may, too, have to be burned at the stake for my country's sake. I had just cut my long hair very short and looked a little like Ingrid Bergman as Jeanne in Roberto Rossellini's film, or Jean Seberg in Oto Preminger's own version. I got slightly mixed up between the hundred years war and the French Resistance during the second world war, confusing the perfidious English with Nazi Germans along the way, but how could you blame me when even Winston Churchill had nicknamed Charles de Gaulle "Jeanne d'Arc"?

My confusion didn't last long as, a year later, the extremist-right National Front emerged on the French political scene, highjacking the lovely and audacious girl as their effigy. She suddenly became a political enemy; from hero, she became foe. For my generation, traumatised by the rise of Jean-Marie Le Pen's party, she suddenly represented chauvinism in its nastiest form. From a freedom fighter, she became a hater of foreigners. She could have no place in our hearts.
We were fools. The left should have fought hard to reclaim Jeanne. She is not, as the extreme right historiography would have us believe, a royalist Catholic die-hard. She is a people's girl, betrayed by the king and burned by the church. In other words, she's a feisty little punk who paid for her audacity with her life. Let's say it loud and clear today, Jeanne is one of us! 2012/jan/06/joan-of-arc-600-anniversary