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Aušrinė (journal)
Aušrinė ("dawning", not to be confused with ''Aušra'', "dawn") is a feminine deity of the morning star (Venus) in Lithuanian mythology. She is the antipode to " Vakarinė", the evening star. Her cult possibly stems from that of the Indo-European dawn goddess Hausōs and is related to the Latvian Auseklis, Greek Eos, Roman Aurora, and Vedic Ushas. Aušrinė is the goddess of beauty, love, and youth, linked with health, re-birth, and new beginnings. After the Christianization of Lithuania, the cult merged with Christian images and the symbolism of the Virgin Mary. Historical attestation Aušrinė was first mentioned by 16th-century Polish historian Jan Łasicki as ''Ausca''. He described a "goddess of the rays of the sun that descend and rise above the horizon". Folkloric role According to folklore, each morning, Aušrinė and her servant Tarnaitis (possibly Mercury) prepare the way for Saulė (the Sun). In the evening, Vakarinė prepares the bed for Saulė. The relati ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun. It is often called Earth's "twin" or "sister" planet for having almost the same size and mass, and the closest orbit to Earth's. While both are rocky planets, Venus has an atmosphere much thicker and denser than Earth and any other rocky body in the Solar System. Its atmosphere is composed of mostly carbon dioxide (), with a global sulfuric acid cloud cover and no liquid water. At the mean surface level the atmosphere reaches a temperature of and a pressure 92 times greater than Earth's at sea level, turning the lowest layer of the atmosphere into a supercritical fluid. Venus is the third brightest object in Earth's sky, after the Moon and the Sun, and, like Mercury, appears always relatively close to the Sun, either as a "morning star" or an "evening star", resulting from orbiting closer ( inferior) to the Sun than Earth. The orbits of Venus and Earth make the two planets approach each other in synodic periods of 1.6 years ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jan Łasicki
Jan Łasicki (; 1534–1602) was a Polish historian and theologian. He was well-educated and traveled extensively in Western Europe from 1556 to 1581. Around 1557 he converted to Calvinism, becoming a follower of the Unity of the brethren in 1567. His major work is eight-volume ''Historia de origine et rebus gestis fratrum Bohemicorum''. The Only one volume survives which deals with customs and organizations of the brethren and was first published in 1660. His other works include ''Historia de ingressu Polonorum in Valachiam cum Bogdano'' (1584) about the Polish invasion of Wallachia. The work was translated into Polish by Władysław Syrokomla in 1855. His 18-page ''Concerning the gods of Samagitians, and other Sarmatians and false Christians'' (''De diis Samagitarum caeterorumque Sarmatarum et falsorum Christianorum'', written and published in 1615) provides a list of Lithuanian gods and is an important resource in the study of the Lithuanian mythology Lithuanian mythol ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jonas Vaiškūnas
Jonas Vaiškūnas (born 6 March 1961) is a Lithuanian ethnoastronomer, religious leader, publisher and politician. He is the head of the department of ethnography at the Museum of Molėtai and priest in the Baltic neopagan organisation Romuva. Biography Jonas Vaiškūnas was born on 6 March 1961 in the village in Švenčionys District Municipality. He graduated from the physics department of Vilnius University in 1984. In the 1980s, he worked in the physics department at the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. From 1990 to 1998, he worked as a researcher and museologist at the Lithuanian Museum of Ethnocosmology in Molėtai. He is the head of the Museum of Molėtai's Ethnographical Hut and Sky Observation Post, which he created in the 1990s. Since 2002, he is the director of the Archaeoastronomical Centre of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. Vaiškūna has published more than 40 scientific papers and more than 400 articles of popular science. In 2010, he co-founded the online n ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Origin Myth
An origin myth is a type of myth that explains the beginnings of a natural or social aspect of the world. Creation myths are a type of origin myth narrating the formation of the universe. However, numerous cultures have stories that take place after the initial origin. These stories aim to explain the origins of natural phenomena or human institutions within an already existing world. In Greco-Roman scholarship, the terms founding myth or etiological myth (from 'cause') are occasionally used to describe a myth that clarifies an origin, particularly how an object or custom came into existence. In modern political discourse the terms "founding myth", "foundational myth", etc. are often used as critical references to official or widely accepted narratives about the origins or early history of a nation, a society, a culture, etc. Nature of origin myths Origin myths are narratives that explain how a particular reality came into existence.Eliade 1963, p. 21 They often serve to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mare
A mare is an adult female horse or other equidae, equine. In most cases, a mare is a female horse over the age of three, and a filly is a female horse three and younger. In Thoroughbred horse racing, a mare is defined as a female horse more than four years old. The word can also be used for other female equine animals, particularly mules and zebras, but a female donkey is usually called a "jenny". A ''broodmare'' is a mare used for breeding. Reproductive cycle Mares carry their young (called foals) for approximately 11 months from conception to birth, the average range being 320–370 days.Ensminger, M. E. ''Horses and Horsemanship: Animal Agriculture Series.'' Sixth Edition. Interstate Publishers, 1990. p. 156 Usually just one young is born; twins are rare. When a domestication, domesticated mare foals, she nurses the foal for at least four to six months before it is weaning, weaned, though wild horse, mares in the wild may allow a foal to nurse for up to a year. The estr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Maiden
Virginity is a social construct that denotes the state of a person who has never engaged in sexual intercourse. As it is not an objective term with an operational definition, social definitions of what constitutes virginity, or the lack thereof, vary. Heterosexuals may or may not consider loss of virginity to occur only through penile–vaginal penetration, while people of other sexual orientations often include oral sex, anal sex, or manual sex in their definitions of virginity loss. The term "virgin" encompasses a range of definitions, as found in traditional, modern, and ethical concepts. Religious rituals for regaining virginity exist in many cultures. Some men and women who practice celibacy after losing their virginity consider themselves born-again virgins. There are cultural and religious traditions that place special value and significance on this state, predominantly towards unmarried females, associated with notions of personal purity, honour, and worth. Like chas ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Algirdas Julien Greimas
Algirdas Julien Greimas (; born ; 9 March 1917 – 27 February 1992) was a Lithuanian literary scientist who wrote most of his body of work in French while living in France. Greimas is known among other things for the Semiotic square, Greimas Square (). He is, along with Roland Barthes, considered the most prominent of the French semiotics, semioticians. With his training in structural linguistics, he added to the theory of Sign (semiotics), signification, plastic semiotics, and laid the foundations for the Parisian school of semiotics. Among Greimas's major contributions to semiotics are the concepts of Isotopy (semiotics), isotopy, the actantial model, the narrative program, and the semiotics of the natural world. He also researched Lithuanian mythology and Proto-Indo-European religion, and was influential in semiotic literary criticism. Biography Greimas's father, Julius Greimas, 1882–1942, a teacher and later school inspector, was from Liudvinavas in the Suvalkija region o ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Perkūnas
Perkūnas (, , Old Prussian: ''Perkūns'', ''Perkunos'', Sudovian language, Yotvingian: ''Parkuns'', Latgalian language, Latgalian: ''Pārkiuņs'') was the common Baltic languages, Baltic List of thunder gods, god of thunder, and the second most important deity in the Baltic Pantheon (gods), pantheon after Dievas. In both Lithuanian mythology, Lithuanian and Latvian mythology, he is documented as the god of sky, thunder, lightning, storms, rain, fire, war, law, order, fertility, mountains, and oak trees. Etymology The name continues PIE ''*'', cognate to ''*'', a word for "oak", "fir" or "wooded mountain". The Proto-Baltic language, Proto-Baltic name *''Perkūnas'' can be reconstructed with certainty. Slavic Perun is a related god, but not an etymologically precise match. Finnish people, Finnish Perkele, a name of Ukko, is considered a loan from Baltic. Another connection is that of ''terpikeraunos'', an epithet of Zeus meaning "''who enjoys lightning''". Perkūnas in wri ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Žemyna
Žemyna (also Žemynėlė or Žemelė) (from – ''earth'') is the goddess of the earth in Lithuanian religion. She is usually regarded as mother goddess and one of the chief Lithuanian gods similar to Latvian Zemes māte. Žemyna personifies the fertile earth and nourishes all life on earth, human, plant, and animal. All that is born of earth will return to earth, thus her cult is also related to death. As the cult diminished after baptism of Lithuania, Žemyna's image and functions became influenced by the cult of Virgin Mary. Name Žemyna stems from the name of Proto-Indo-European Earth-goddess ''* Dʰéǵʰōm''. It relates to Thracian ''Zemele'' ('mother earth') and Greek '' Semelē'' (). Role Žemyna was first mentioned by Jan Łasicki (1582). It was later also described by Mikalojus Daukša (1595), Daniel Klein (1653), Matthäus Prätorius, Jacob Brodowski (1740), and in numerous folk legends, beliefs, and prayers. Prätorius described a ritual, called ''žemyn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmospheric pressure is a few thousandths of Earth's, atmospheric temperature ranges from and cosmic radiation is high. Mars retains some water, in the ground as well as thinly in the atmosphere, forming cirrus clouds, frost, larger polar regions of permafrost and ice caps (with seasonal snow), but no liquid surface water. Its surface gravity is roughly a third of Earth's or double that of the Moon. It is half as wide as Earth or twice the Moon, with a diameter of , and has a surface area the size of all the dry land of Earth. Fine dust is prevalent across the surface and the atmosphere, being picked up and spread at the low Martian gravity even by the weak wind of the tenuous atmosphere. The terrain of Mars roughly follows a north-south ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 times more massive. Even though Saturn is almost as big as Jupiter, Saturn has less than a third its mass. Saturn orbits the Sun at a distance of , with an orbital period of 29.45 years. Saturn's interior is thought to be composed of a rocky core, surrounded by a deep layer of metallic hydrogen, an intermediate layer of liquid hydrogen and liquid helium, and an outer layer of gas. Saturn has a pale yellow hue, due to ammonia crystals in its upper atmosphere. An electrical current in the metallic hydrogen layer is thought to give rise to Saturn's planetary magnetic field, which is weaker than Earth's, but has a magnetic moment 580 times that of Earth because of Saturn's greater size. Saturn's magnetic field strength is about a twen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined and slightly less than one-thousandth the mass of the Sun. Its diameter is 11 times that of Earth and a tenth that of the Sun. Jupiter orbits the Sun at a distance of , with an orbital period of . It is the List of brightest natural objects in the sky, third-brightest natural object in the Earth's night sky, after the Moon and Venus, and has been observed since prehistoric times. Its name derives from that of Jupiter (god), Jupiter, the chief deity of ancient Roman religion. Jupiter was the first of the Sun's planets to form, and its inward migration during the primordial phase of the Solar System affected much of the formation history of the other planets. Jupiter's atmosphere consists of 76% hydrogen and 24% helium by mass, with a denser ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
