Saulė
Saulė (Latvian Saule) is the Baltic sun and a goddess, not a metaphor: in the Lithuanian and Latvian dainos she is a mother with daughters (Saulės dukros, Saules meitas) who bathes, weeps, warms the orphan and rides across the sky.
Baltic religion has no native planetary, zodiac, tarot or sabbat system: the Sun primary, the Leo/Aries/Taurus affinities, the tarot cards and Litha/Ostara are modern Western and Neopagan overlays. The tradition's own account is primary - the sun as a mother with daughters, married and betrayed in the dainos - and her own festival is the summer solstice (Joninės, Jāņi), not the Wiccan wheel.
Correspondences
- Planetary Correspondence
- Sun
Offerings
- Offerings
- BreadHoneyBeerA share of the harvestAmber
Sacred timing
Symbols and forms
- Alternate Names
- Saule (Latvian)Saules māte (Mother Sun)
- Gender Expression
- Feminine
- Titles
- The SunMother of the Sun's DaughtersThe Warm One
- Symbols
- Sun discAmberHorseSun cross
Practice
- Invocation Approach
- ToneWarm familial gratitudeAddressSaulėMother SunThe Warm OneRelationshipThe mother who sees everything done in the dayWarningNothing done in daylight is hidden from herResonanceFarmers at sunrise
- Modern Practice
Saulė is greeted at sunrise and thanked at harvest: bread, honey, beer and amber, with the sun faced and named as mother. The practice is daily and domestic - the first light on the threshold, the last of the harvest set aside - and it is the warmest and least formal of the Baltic cults.
Nature and meaning
- Domain
- SunLightWarmthFertilityHealingThe day
- Mythology Summary
Saulė (Latvian Saule) is the Baltic sun and a goddess, not a metaphor: in the Lithuanian and Latvian dainos she is a mother with daughters (Saulės dukros, Saules meitas) who bathes, weeps, warms the orphan and rides across the sky. She is married to Mėnuo (Mēness, the moon) in the celestial-wedding cycle, and when he betrays her with the morning star Perkūnas cuts him - the waning moon is the wound. The material is overwhelmingly the daina corpus plus the 16th-17th century reports; no Baltic sun temple survives, and her cult image later merged with the Virgin Mary in Lithuanian folk Catholicism.
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