HYMN TO THE GODDESS ANNA

By Torsten Schwanke

Come from heaven to me, O holy divine Anna,

That I may sing thy praises as the Muse dictates!
Thee will I praise as the world's divine Mother,
Adored by the nations and loved by mankind.

Huwass-Anna they called you, the Luvite goddess,

Who were the centre of the blessed cult,
Whom they celebrated in Hupisna, within Eregli's walls,
When the assembled people praised thee the mother of the people.
The Hittite poets sang of the sacred feasts,
Consecrated to Anna, the birth of the goddess
And the goddess' departure into heaven.
Every Hittite poet toiled in praise,
With Luvite words the Luvite goddess
To worship whom they loved spiritually and sensually.
Few today still know of the divine Anna,
Her function in the cult today is little known.
Ah, how forgetful is the humanity of the holy Mother,
But that is why I am sent, to sing of the Goddess,
That I may proclaim the grace and mercy of Anna,
Beauty and love and war, mother of the poor among the people.

Although the Hittite state and its state church

Did not celebrate Anna, only the male God
Celebrated king and high priest, the father of the gods,
Who spoke in the thunder that came in the storm,
But the little children and the old women of the people
And the poor and the poets of woman's praise
Sang in private adoration the divine Anna,
Loved her more dearly than the thundering god,
Consecrated themselves to her breasts and her clean heart,
They hoped she would comfort them in their grief.
Anna always helps! said the women and children and poets,
But church and state did not honour the heavenly one.

At the festivities of the holy cult of the goddess

The temple staff was consecrated in the temple,
Priests, with holy girls, sang the hymns,
Priestesses also ministered with teaching and word,
Holy harlots refreshed the men in sacred groves,
Those who united with the whore were united with the goddess.
The worshippers brought as offerings to the goddess
Holy bread and salt, offered the blood of grapes.
The worshippers gave silver coins to the poor,
Warm drinks and bread, butter and cheese.
Priestesses together with holy singers worshipped
Anna with psalm-singing to the sound of the psaltery.
Wise men instructed the congregation with sayings of wisdom,
Wise women in worship consecrated the art of healing herbs.
Namely, Anna was not only worshipped as the goddess of love,
She was also the goddess of learning and study,
Anna, the goddess of ecstatic mysticism and thinking wisdom.
And the priest of God gave his blessing.

People celebrated the annual festival of Anna for several days

And the festival of Sahhan, because they loved the goddess,
And, as the tablet fragments testify of the sacred writings,
A wedding feast, too, since in the bridal bed
Up in heaven, Saint Anna, the goddess of love,
Conceived her husband and merged with him.

At the feasts the holy red wine was drunk

And the heavenly bread was offered to the deity.
What the Hittites did not know, but what in the cult of the goddess
Anna is clearly attested, that is the cultic kiss,
Where brothers kissed sisters with kisses of peace,
Once not only, the kiss was often kissed there,
So in Ishtanuwa, the city, the holy kisses
Of the Luvian people were kissed in the temple.

There was also a purification ritual in the cult of Anna,

Performed by the priestess Pappi in the temple,
To heal the sick in body and soul,
When the goddess' wrath brought sickness to men,
Then to propitiate the heavenly goddess with anointing,
And they offer the oil, figs, sultanas, and cream,
That the celestial Anna may again make friendship
With the man who is ill, asking for divine consolation.
Women brought cakes as an offering to the goddess Anna
With the goddess' image, cakes in the shape of a breast.

Next to the goddess Anna, Anna means the mother,

Other women were also worshipped up in heaven,
Anna was not jealous when poets sang praises
To Aruna, the sea, or Sar-Mamma, the river,
And in Kulivishna, the city, the poets sang praises
Even to the goddess of lust, Ishtar, loved by harlots.

II

Anna is the goddess of ancient Anatolia,

When the Assyrian power ruled colonially
In Asia Minor, the goddess Anna
Was worshipped by the people of ancient Anatolia.

Anna was the main goddess in the region of Kanesh,

Goddess of the goddesses she was, mother of the gods.
She was the swear goddess in the contracts of Assyrian merchants,
When they traded in the market of old Aanatolia,
Then she appeared beside the god of the Assyrians, god Assur.
Goddess of Kanesh they called her and goddess of the city.
And the king of Kanesh visited Anna in the temple.
On the day of her feast, he consecrated his office to the goddess,
For he was the king of Kanesh by divine grace,
He was consecrated to the Goddess, she was the Lady of the Lord.
Two thousand years before Christ the goddess Anna
Was overthrown from her throne by Baal.
Goddess Anna by Baal, Baal the accursed bull,
That thundering, raining god of the Assyrian lords.
Ancient Anatolia, you remained faithful to the divine.
But from Syria to Mesopotamia's rivers
Ruled the weather god, Baal, the cursed of the Lord.

But the goddess Anna is also mentioned in the texts

Of the Hittites at the time when her empire was vast,
Mostly in connection with the ancient Luvian cult.
The goddess Anna, the mother of the people, was worshipped.
Goddess Anna, identical with Anna of Kanesh,
Was called Huvass-Anna in Hupisna by the people.

III

Anna, also called Annu by her amorous worshippers,

Goddess of the Celts she was in the Irish country,
Who was worshipped by the Irish as the divine mother,
Until with Saint Patrick came God the Father, Jesus and the Spirit.

Anna was praised in the book of Cormac's Whispers

As the mother of the Irish gods, she was hailed
As mater deorum hibernensium, Anna,
Mother of God, worshipped in the Book of Names
As a fertility goddess, responsible for the flourishing
In the green nature, And in the land-taking book
She was identical with Morrigan, with the goddess of fate,
Daughter of Ernmas and Aed. According to the Triads of the Empire
And of the island of Britain, Saint Annae is
The wife of Beli Mawr, mother of the son of Afallach.

Ireland, the green island, was called by the priests of the Muse
The land of Anna. Poets named the couple
Of beautiful swollen sacred hills: Breasts of Anna,
Paps of Ana. In praise of this sacred woman
Near the sacred hills, the breasts of Anna,
Sacred fires are lit on midsummer's night.

Anna was also worshipped as the goddess Danu and Danann,

nd among the Cymric people she was called Black Annis.
And the Scottish people praised the goddess as Gentle Annie,
But the Celtic people called her Annea, the Lady.

In the sagas and fairy tales and folk beliefs of Ireland

Aine Cli is called the fairy, Annu the goddess.
Aine was a daughter of the god Manannan, was daughter
Of his foster son, perhaps daughter of Caulan the blacksmith.
She bit off the Irish king's ears, who raped this virgin fairy.
But she loved Fion mac Cumhaill, who loved her not.
Earl of Desmond, you have kidnapped our goddess
And begat her a son, and this boy of the goddess
Every seventh year ghostly appears again.
Still to this day the faith of the Irish people endures,
Who calls upon the Aine, invokes the divine fairy,
On Midsummer's Eve, asks Anna for fertility
And for health of body, psyche and thinking spirit.

IV

Anna Perenna, eternally recurring Anna,

Is a goddess of Rome, worshipped by the Etruscans,
The Etruscans worshipped Anna as the earth mother goddess,
Similar to Gaea and also similar to Tellus of Rome.

Anna Perenna was honoured on the fifteenth day of March

With a feast honoured, Via Flaminia was
The sacred street, where the fast of Anna took place,
Where they got mighty drunk. Man, how many cups you drink
With juniper water on the festive night with Anna,
That's how many years you'll live here in the world.
And the men danced, the girls danced erotically,
Danced the striptease dance, all the songs of the people
Were erotic songs on the feast of St. Anna,
Greek anthology imitated, lustful, obscene.

This divine Anna was once a human Anna,

Who brought the Roman plebs cakes instead of bread,
Home-baked cakes in the shape of her glorious breasts,
And fed the poor, saved them from starvation.
This human Anna was deified as a goddess,
Every poet wrote apotheoses to the woman.
And they sang obscene songs in her honour,
Sang of fellatio to her and the mentula to her,
Sang of the cunnilingus and of the cunnus of the goddess,
Sang how Diogenes crowned himself in public,
How the Cynics copulated in the open market,
Pried her as Venus porné, showed her pornography.

Mars the god of war was in love with the wise Minerva,
The virginal and chaste always rejected the god of war.
So Mars went to Anna, the pornographic goddess,
She was to be a bawd. Anna disguised herself
As the chaste Minerva and spread the legs for Ares,
Who believed he was the virgin Minerva.
This divine Anna was the patron saint
Of that Anna, who was sister to Dido, so says
Naso, who himself was a devotee of the divine Anna,
Therefore he was exiled by Augustus.

Anna-Purna I will sing, fullness of food,

Anna-Purna, she is the one who gives us food,
Anna-Purna, the mother of bread, the divine mother,
Full of food, she is the goddess of fullness, of bread,
She is an apparition of the divine mother Parvati,
And her attribute, that is a cauldron of rice,
And she puts her hands into the cauldron of food,
Divine hands, gentle, tender and immaculately beautiful.
Anna-Purna is a mountain in the Himalayas of Nepal,
And an Upanishad rightly bears her name.

Anna-Purna is a goddess of the Indian heaven,

She is the manifestation of Parvati,
Shiva's wife. So we see Shiva in images as a beggar for love,
Anna-Purna gladly gives alms to the god.
Shiva is a beggar for love, receiving offerings,
We are beggars before God, begging for mercy and grace,
We are beggars, and alms are given by the divine Mother.
When you go to work, earn your wages daily,
That you, as a father, may feed your wife and children,
If there is money in the account, if you save for the children,
In the end, all is charity from the Goddess of Plenty.
Disasters in the realm of our beloved nature
Or a house fire or anything else, see,
Nothing works anymore. So be humble, human,
Know that the Goddess gives us all, the Divine Mother
Gives us all we need to live the world.

There is also a prayer that is a holy hymn:

Divine Mother, we stand here like beggars before you.
Please, give us food in abundance, our daily bread, give us Wisdom and knowledge too, wisdom as
food for the spirit!
Wisdom and knowledge to us too, wisdom as food for the spirit!

Anna-Purna is also a mountain in the Himalayas of Nepal,

It's a sacred mountain, dedicated to the Goddess,
It is dedicated to the divine mother of the abundance of food.
And in the ashram one calls, in the sanctuary one calls,
The kitchen is called the kitchen of Anna-Purna, the goddess,
Where one cooks the rice, where one prepares vegetables and milk,
All this is consecrated to the divine mother,
Also the washing up on it, also the shopping is consecrated
To this divine mother, the meat of sacred animals
And the blessed chalice with the intoxicating drink,
All in honour of the goddess Anna-Purna, the mother,
Who is the housewife there in the monk's cell.

Anna-Purna provides us with food, the divine Mother,

Who is famous in Benares and famous in Calcutta,
Anna-Purna, the Hindu goddess of daily bread,
Anna-Purna becomes bread pious in the daily meal.
All she feeds, from Brahmin to Pariah, all,
Nourishes the children with milk from her own breast.
She is invoked that none may suffer hunger,
And he who gives rice and roast chicken to the children,
Who becomes the hand of the divine Mother, giving mercy.
But waste bread, throw the bread in the rubbish,
This throwaway society of rich cultures in the West,
That awakens anger in the breast of our Goddess.

Shiva said to Parvati that the world is a mirage,

Maya is the world, food is maya. Then was
Angry the mother of bread and disappeared from the earth,
Then time stopped, then space became emptiness,
Then the earth disappeared from galactic space,
There was no more bread to be found, then came the famine.
The children of men died for lack of love and food.
Come, O Mother of Bread, come back to earth!

Mother Parvati was filled with merciful compassion,

Heartfelt compassion when she saw the suffering,
When she saw the hunger of the poor children of men,
She came back to the world, she who appeared in Kashi,
She, who in Kashi set up the kitchen of mankind.
When Shiva learned of this, behold, full of remorse the god
No longer looked at the bread as an empty mirage of Maya,
Soap bubble and foam, God now worshipped the bread.
Since the return of Anna-Purna, Parvati is worshipped
As the mother of the world, mother of the holy bread.

Anna-Purna I would like to paint, the golden ladle

In her blessed hand, in front of her a cauldron of porridge,
Shiva, the god of ascetics, kneels before the divine mother,
Who holds in his right hand the bowl of the beggar.

A famous temple, dedicated to Anna-Purna,

Karnataka, the place, cherishes this shrine to her.
And on the festival day of Anna-Purna-Puja the worshippers
Worship the Mother, offering her bread and wine,
Offer her cakes in the shape of her nourishing breasts,
Offer her the intoxicating potion drunk at the shrine.
West Bengal and other countries of East India celebrate
Anna-Purna's festival, worship the celestial Lady.
This feast of Anna or the reverence of the goddess
Celebrated by women alone, old and young at the same time,
This festival is celebrated at the waxing of the moon,
When the crescent shines, on which the goddess appears,
During the Chaita month, according to the calendar of Bengal,
Anna-Purna is deeply worshipped by the Bengali people.
Anna-Purna-Jayanti is the celebration of the Goddess.
In North India in the month of Margashirsh always
During the celebration, poets sing hymns to the Goddess,
Every consecrated poet there is a priest of the Muses.
During the month of Navaratri South India celebrates
Anna-Purna in festival, offering her intoxicating potion and rice.
In the blessed Indian land of Kashi the goddess
Is known as Bhavani, Shakti of Bhava, the Lord,
Shakti of Shiva is Anna-Purna Bhavani, the Goddess,
Who as the mother of the world is worshipped by all Kashi.

Anna-Purna is a sacred spiritual name, goddess of the abundance

Of bread, who is worshipped in the household.
Young girls, they enter into holy matrimony,
Are given statues of this deified woman.
Aspirants can be given the name of the divine Anna-
Purna, become familiar with a mantra of the Lord.

Anna-Purna is a name of Goddess Parvati,

Shiva's Shakti, the woman who is associated with the Lord,
God's Goddess. Anna-Purna as a spiritual name
Is given to the woman with a mantra of the Lord,
When she prays the sacred mantra Om Namah Shivaja,
Or she may also silently pray the woman's mantra,
Om Shri Durgayai Namah, always murmuring the mantra
On the rosary or the beads of the cord.
Anna, on the one hand, is pure physical nourishment,
Anna-Maya, however, is like the foam in the dream.

But Anna, that is also the divine spiritual food,

Is the bread of God, that is the divinity as bread.
Sweetheart, if you get the name Anna-Purna
From the women‘s poet, you can also say: I am
She who wants to give everything to others in abundance,
I want to be a helper, I am the servant of the world,
But I have the abundance of the divine Mother,
I have what I need, I serve others gladly.
I am the holy Anna-Purna, the daughter of the Goddess,
Who gets from the Godhead what she needs on earth,
Who receives from the divine Mother, from the Mother of Bread,
My God as my bread, Who gives me eternity.

VI
Anna, primordial mother of Christian women,
Mystical mother of the Immaculate Virgin Mary,
Grandmother of Jesus, the Lord, give me the blessing of song!

The Bible does not mention the life of Anna,

And yet there are many legends of her,
Of the original mother. In the writings of the New Testament
Anna is not mentioned, Luke and Matthew are mute,
Mark and John are mute and do not mention Anna,
But James, the Lord's bodily cousin, he speaks
In the proto-gospel beautifully of Mary
And of Anna and of Joachim, her husband.

Proto-gospel comes from the Greek protos:

First, beginning, origin. This is the source and scripture
For the birth of Mary and St. Anna,
This is the tradition that tells us of truth.

Other sources spring from a longing for

A grandmother, a figure of the wisest primordial mother,
The wise old woman, who in many a spiritual myth makes her
As the eternal woman, goddess of the creation of the world.

Even the name Anna refers to older roots,

Elder goddesses too, as the Persians worshipped
Anahita, the Indians the great mother Ananta,
As in Syria they praised Anath, in Canaan too,
The Sumerian Inanna and the Hittite Hanna,
Celtic goddesses too, Anu and Dana, they all
Primordial mothers, loving grandmothers of united humanity,
Creators of the world or the female godhead.

In addition, there is the Roman mother goddess called Janna

Or Juno, who made it easy for the Christian women
In the Roman Empire, the Christian mother Anna,
Grandmother of Jesus, the Lord, to be deeply venerated in cult.

"An" is one of the few primal syllables of earliest humanity

And denotes the ancestor, the venerable ancient ancestor,
Our ancestress, the ancient mother and ancestress of all
Of the earthly world, Anna, the Mother of the World.

Thus the name of the holy grandmother of Jesus

Was not chosen by chance, it was familiar to the people,
But had long been known as the divine ancestress, Grandmother Anna.
In the Syriac version of the account of James
Saint Anna is called Dina, by the way,
Or Diana and Di-Ana, the divine woman.

There are also parallels to the Roman Anna Perenna,

And also to Africa's Nanna Buruku, the two
Are the grandmothers of eternal times,
The time period of Eternity is the new eon,
And aeons upon aeons, that is the time period
Of Anna, the heavenly woman, primeval goddess above all time.

But back to the legend of the Jewish Anna.

She was married to Joachim in holy matrimony,
For a long time the couple remained without children.
Joachim, rich and pious, often gave alms,
Gave the tithe of his fortune to Jerusalem's temple
And a tithe to the poor and the children of the people.

But a stern priest rejected his offering, this

Sadducee in office said, You have no child,
Therefore thou art not blessed of the Eternal Father,
Who creates children. Blessings are boys from the Lord.

Joachim then withdrew into the wilderness of Judea,

For forty days he fasted and prayed.
Then an angel appeared to him - at the same time as to St. Anna,
Who was in Jerusalem. And this angel declared,
Your beloved Anna will conceive a child,
A daughter conceived holy and pure by God.

Joachim joyfully returned to Jerusalem's golden gate,

The narrow gate of Sion, to the Temple door,
In the Golden Gate he lovingly embraced Anna.
In the embrace the Virgin Mary was all pure
Conceived by St. Anne, in a purest conception,
Immaculate, spotless, chaste, ever-virgin.

This was the foreshadowing of Mary's virgin birth of

Jesus Christ the Son, her hymen remained intact.

This conception of Mary, a feast of the Catholic Church,

Who was conceived without the stain of original sin,
That is celebrated on the eighth of December, Conception of Mary,
Day of special graces of our immortalized Lady.

This celebration has existed since the ninth century after Christ.
And nine months later Anna gave birth to her child,
This birth of Mary is on the eighth of September
Sacredly celebrated by the people who are faithful to their mother.

But here the minds of thinking men are divided.

When Anna and Joachim embraced,
Was there an exchange of bodily fluids? Did the man's
Seed flow into the womb of his receptive wife?
Or is the Golden Gate really the entrance to the Temple of Sion?
Temple of Zion or the female womb,
Is it the Golden Gate to the temple of the divine body of
Anna, virgin, at the same time mother of Mary by God?
It has long been assumed that Anna conceived without
The semen, was pure as her little daughter.
This points to the status of the great holy goddess,
Who creates from herself, who gives birth from herself.

In the case of Anna and Mary, the daughter,

This is even clearer than in the case of Our Lady and the Lord,
For in parthenogenetic procreation, a daughter is born
According to the faithful law of divine biology.

This birth of Mary from the virgin Anna

Was first recognised by the Church, so was declared
The sinlessness of Our Lady. But later the Fathers
Said that two virgins were one too many in the world.

Yes, some might get the idea,

That Mary, as a woman, was a saviour!

So the virgin birth out of St. Anna

Was rejected again, and they spoke of a normal birth.

However, Mary was already in the first moment

Redeemed from sin by the grace of Christ.
That is why one speaks of the immaculate conception,
The conception which was immaculately pure.

This Pope Pius the Ninth established as a dogma,

Which is to be believed, which is certainly true,
That Mary is the Immaculate Conception, sinless,
Pure from conception in the womb, spotless, holy and chaste.
So, according to this dogma of the Pope, Mary is
Sinless, the only human being who is free from original sin.
Thus the Lord God preserved his faithful Mary
From the stain of sin, that she is united with God.

But back to Anna. The Christian devotion to Anna

Is quite old. Sixth century, you have
In Byzantium built the church of St. Anna.
In Europe the cult reached its
Climax when Pope Sixtus the Fourth
wrote Anna's memorial day into the calendar of Rome,
Until Pope Gregory the Thirteenth appointed her feast day,
The day in the middle of summer when Anna is venerated.

Since the year fifteen hundred, relics are found of

Anna in Düren and Vienna and in many other places.
But above all in Germany, in the Germany of Mary,
The cult of Anna spread in a holy storm.
After the epidemics of the plague the bourgeoisie again
Was strengthened, strengthened, because the family before God
Was esteemed, and foster father and mother and child
Were sacredly revered, but so was the grandmother.
For it fitted well into the newer world view of the times,
To hold grandmother Anna, mother and child.
To venerate sacredly the mother of the Virgin Mary,
Grandmother of Jesus, the Lord, matriarchal and great,
Primordial mother of the family and ancestress of the holy clan.
Anna's brotherhood served at the altar of Anna.

At that time they painted Anna herself, the Christian artists

Painted Anna with the Virgin Mary and Child.
A particularly famous painting of Anna was done
By Leonardo, whom the muse kissed.

However, after Joachim's death Anna had two

Other husbands, Kleophas, Salomas, from whom
Anna again conceived some Marys.
This is a miracle indeed, since she had actually
Aleady waited a long time for the birth of the Virgin Mary,
Twenty years, since she was considered barren,
A miracle, if only because of her old age,
Therefore the people also sing: Saint Anna, O thou
Were a blessed woman, who gave birth to three Marys!
Mother of the Trinity was called Mary.

These three Marys are the triune Goddess,

Virgin, sweetheart and old woman, that is Anna herself,
Anna, who out of herself gives birth to the triune goddess
As a virgin gives birth. Thus worshipped by the Celts
The triune goddess was like the earth mother Anbeth,
This became the sacred Great Goddess
Of the Isle of Ireland to the holy grandmother Anna,
Her way of paying homage remained the same, and also
Anna's rituals and places of worship have remained the same,
To the triune woman, divine Anna.

Thus the day of Anna in July, in the peak of summer,

As it is celebrated in its original form
Many elements to honour the harvest goddesses, mothers,
Who are invoked in summer, fertility goddess Nature.

And also the many places and villages bearing the name
Of Anna, such as Annaberg, Annental, Annenbronn also,
Suggest places of worship of ancient goddess-mothers,
Who, under the protection of St Anna
Continued to exist and were dignified
By the Catholic people in their popular religion.

How Anna was actually the grandmother of Jesus, the grandson,

We later do not know how she was to him.
She was a kind, serious, cheerful grandmother,
Playing chess with Jesus, she was the child's playmate,
He could cry on her grandmother's bosom,
She gave him sweets that Mary forbade him,
Honey cakes and cakes of dates and figs,
Delicious grape juice, salty almonds to go with it,
Did she read to him as he fell asleep stories
Or sang the psalm she loved best,
Her Psalm of the Good Shepherd, written by David,
A thousand years of fame worthy of the pious poet?
Who can know this? That is the magic of St. Anna
And the primeval goddess who blesses us as grandmother.

Some things, however, have been handed down to time.

She is the goddess of wisdom,
A mother to whom the education of her daughter is important.
Thus in Christian art there is the magnificent image,
Where Saint Anna lovingly instructs her daughter Mary,
Lovingly instructs how to read the Bible.
Anna and Mary! One holds in her hands
God's holy scripture, both together united
Concentrate and are absorbed in reading,
Reading from Genesis to Malachi the Word.

Other images show the adult Virgin,

Seventeen years old, Mary, with her child on her lap,
Anna standing next to them, standing next to Mary and Jesus,
And they look into the book. Jesus is learning letters and reason.
These women are scribes of the Holy Bible,
Teachers of the word as well as of the inner meaning.

And so I consecrate my hymn to Anna, my Love,

Not to the Father-God, but to the Grandmother-Godhead.