This probably has something to do with film-makers' habit of depicting pagans as orgiastic sacrificers of small fluffy animals and virgins etc. "I mean obviously paganism celebrates the life cycle and so in honouring the seasonal year, you're aware of, y'know, fertility and things like that," says Crowley, "But people who don't know any better assume that we're all having a wonderful sexy time".
I'm going to call her Freya, a name I've always loved but the only real candidate once I realised that it's the name of the Viking goddess of, among other things, fertility.
The mango finds a more exalted, and frequent, place in Hindu mythology that the apple does in Christianity, appearing as a knowledge-giving object of desire for Ganesh and his brother and a symbol of fertility, among other things.
"All over the world there are people who use their whole bodies in different ways, that represent nature or fertility and many other things," said Ms. Garcia, who is Cuban-American.
The app combines a calendar and data-seeking questions around things like fertility cycles, emotional and health conditions, even the type and quality of intercourse the woman has had.
Infused with a sense of beauty and wonder is a remarkable little wooden sculpture of a figure playing a conical drum, the sound of which is sacred to Sango, who is the god of thunder, prosperity, fertility and numerous other things.
There is, for one thing, the matter of fertility.
I hope that the economic downturn will not dent Irish fertility, because the one thing that any nation needs is a young and energetic population, not just to support the pensioners, but to provide the intellectual resources we need to solve the problems that face us.
We feel that a woman's fertility is a normal thing -- you have to take meds when you're sick, not when you're healthy, and all medication has side effects.
Where all these things are present, fertility rates tend to go up.
The government has since tightened regulations at the country's fertility clinics, requiring, among other things, that two people witness every step in the procedure.
