Tuesday, April 28, 2015

A to Z Challenge -- X -- FLOWERS, PEACHES, AND IMMORTALITY


XERANTHEMUM ANNUUM -- A plant used to make besoms/brooms around Bulgaria and the Balkan regions of Eastern Europe.

 Also called the Immortelle or the Everlasting. In the language of flowers, it means Cheerfulness Under Adversity or Unfading Remembrance.

In Turkey, it was used as an analgesic burn remedy.


XI WANG-MU -- (Also called Hsi Wang Mu)  This is a goddess from the Chinese Taoist pantheon.  She lives in the Kulun mountains and guards the Tree, which grew the Táo Zi, the Peaches of Immortality.  (The ones Monkey stole.  The ones that only grew every 3,000 years.  Yep, those peaches.)

She is called the "Queen Mother of the West".  Her powers were almost infinite.  Her ferocious beginnings as a humanoid goddess with tiger features and tail began thirty-three centuries ago with the first recorded record of her. She was a wild goddess that brought plagues and death to the people before organized Taoism morphed her to the most powerful goddess in their pantheon, who had her own throne and controlled life and the afterlife.





XOCHIQUETZAL --  (pronouced Sho-chi-ket-sal) She is the the Aztec goddess of beauty, prostitutes, household crafts, artists (sculptors, painters, etc.), lovers.  She is also the goddess of feminine sexual power.  She was associated with flowers, but he marigold is sacred to her.

She created humans and was the intermediate between them and the gods.

Her festival was celebrated every eight years at the  end of autumn.


I was really grasping at straws with this one, but I managed to find some awesome things.



Disclaimer: None of these pictures belong to me.  I found them on Google.

10 comments:

  1. Xi Wang-mu was my X the first time I did A to Z :) And I am writing about Monkey today. The peach stealing scene is one of my favorites! :)

    @TarkabarkaHolgy from
    Multicolored Diary - Epics from A to Z
    MopDog - 26 Ways to Die in Medieval Hungary

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It was my first time coming across her. I thought she was awesome so I had to do her. Nothing in Wicca begins in x so . . . Yeah.

      Delete
  2. Definitely some great finds for X. Xi Wang-mu sounds pretty awesome, to put it lightly. I'm guessing one does not mess with her. Ever. I'm now wondering what happened to Monkey.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. oh he lives to see another day and has more adventures. journey to the west is one of the main works that feature him.

      Delete
  3. I think you had some great X finds. All new things to me.

    ~Patricia Lynne aka Patricia Josephine~
    Member of C. Lee's Muffin Commando Squad
    Story Dam
    Patricia Lynne, Indie Author

    ReplyDelete
  4. You learn something new everyday! Those are some awesome goddesses, and the flowers are beautiful.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. There was much more about both of them, but I really liked xi wang-mu the most. She was just freaking awesome with her cloud of life giving mist as she walked.

      Delete
  5. Interesting how XI WANG-MU when from chaos and a bit of a baddie, to the most powerful goddess and a protector.
    Tasha
    Tasha's Thinkings | Wittegen Press | FB3X (AC)

    ReplyDelete
  6. XI WANG-MU sounds fascinating! It sounds like the moment they started praying to her, she became tame. Smart goddess.

    ReplyDelete

PLEASE LEAVE A MESSAGE IN THE LITTLE BOX!