Hail Neptunus!
We honour the lord of the water source and entheogenic propensity.
May we now come to savour the sacred spring with its holy numinous presence and as portal to the sacred mysteries of the otherworld!
We are thankful for the gifts of water, fire and fire-in-water.
Salve Neptune!

 

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The Neptunalia are once again feriae about which we know little apart from the knowledge (via Festus) that celebrants built tabernaculi or leaf-huts on the day – presumably as shaded meditational enclosures to protect against the heat of the summer sun. Through his identification by Ennius with the Greek Poseidon, Neptune became associated with the sea, but his original province would appear to be the spring – especially the source of magical waters. Through his cognate-links with the Irish Nechtan who also is a guardian of a sacred well (Segais), with the Vedic water-god Apam Napat and possibly also with the Greek naptha, we see a likely suggestion of both the Jovian emanation of the lightning bolt from the rain cloud and also the more Dionysian paradox of ‘fire in water’. Neptunus, therefore, is to be seen as both the aqueous nourisher of life and the lord of intoxication. As a deity of water and springs, he is most likely an indigitation or manifestation of Janus, and Neptune’s own dual functions reflects the binary or double-faced nature of Janus.