click image above to see candle set

~ CERES ~

The Great Goddess.

She ruled Rome through her matronae during the four Centuries that proceeded 200 B.C., a period whose written records were destroyed by later patriarchal historians, so little is still known about her. She was the lawgiver, or Ceres Legifera. Her sisters in the Goddess' trinity were Juno, Queen of Heaven and Proserpine, Goddess of the Underworld. Ceres was the earth-ruling aspect. She was the source of all food and farmers kept her rites faithfully, for fear of crop failure.

Even Christian farmers held an annual festival in her honor, the Cerealia. As late as the 19th Century, in the Shire of Murray on the British Isles, it was recorded that farmers, in the middle of June, circle round their corn crops with burning torches, in memory of Cerealia.

Seems fitting that she still holds a light aloft!