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Archive for March, 2015

Mourning for Mesopotamia

Posted in Prayer, Ritual, tagged , , , , , , , , on March 18, 2015| Leave a Comment »

I am, by and large, an Indo-European pagan. I work with Gods from a number of cultures (Manannan, Hela, Ing Frea, Thunor, Heimdall/Hama, Hecate), but I’ve rarely (even before ADF) ventured outside this language/culture group. However, there’s a day of mourning called for today that I think I’ll be participating in.

From The Wild Hunt:

In another part of the world, ancient statues, relics and other historic sites are being pillaged and destroyed by ISIL. The destruction of these treasured artifacts has upset many Pagans, Polytheists and Heathens. One California Pagan, Jack Prewett has called for a Global Day of Mourning on April 18. Prewett calls the destruction a “tragedy for humankind” and says,“Let us mourn the loss of our history, our heritage. Cry for those that will come after us and know that once we had our history in our hands and let it slip through our fingers.” Why did Prewett choose April 18?  That is the U.N.’s World Heritage Day.
ADF Priest Michael J Dangler has also called for devotions – in this case, the making of art objects – in honor of the desecrated sites.
And Galina Krasskova has put forth a post about devotions in honor of the many Gods of the many Peoples who inhabit the lands that are currently under siege.
So if you have a little time today, remember this tragedy, and remember the Gods and Goddesses of those lands. I intend to make offerings in their names tonight, and hope that maybe my small voice can be joined with the voices of others. After all, I can’t fight this on the ground, and I certainly can’t fight it in person, but I can pray, and make offerings, and give honor to the Gods of those peoples, in hopes that They can help evict those who are committing atrocities across their lands.
If you’re feeling particularly ambitious about it (and by no means should you feel confined to make offerings and devotions only today, on World Heritage Day), a library or museum would be an especially powerful place to do so. It is history and art that are being destroyed, and it is from our centers of history and art that we can reach out and (hopefully) do a little nudging of the cosmic forces in the direction of preservation and the end of this reign of destruction.

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2015 Spring Garden

Posted in Druid In This Place, General Things, Nature Spirits, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , on March 9, 2015| Leave a Comment »

Last year I didn’t get a garden in – the first year since we’ve lived in our house that I waited too long and missed the planting window.

This year I was determined to not let that happen again, and so this past weekend, in celebration of the coming spring (and of my birthday, which was on the 2nd) ((and of the last freeze date, which is March 1 here)) we put in the garden.

My main garden bed is 10×12, so I’m limited to that plus what I can grow in containers. This year the in-ground bed contains:

  • Tomatoes (6) (Celebrity hybrid, my best producer in years past)
  • Eggplant (2) (White Beauty hybrid)
  • Okra (6 hills) (Clemson Spineless)
  • Beans (3 rows) (Bush Blue Lake)
  • Dill (Fernleaf)
  • Parsley (Flat leaf)
  • Cilantro
  • Basil (Genovese)

I also totally re-did my container garden, with a heavy weight toward hot and sweet peppers, which do very well here in pots (they don’t like as much water as tomatoes and eggplant and beans, so if I plant them in the main bed, they tend to not produce much). In containers I have:

  • Rosemary
  • Peppermint
  • Sweet Yellow Banana Peppers (6)
  • Jalapenos (6)
  • Sugar snap peas (with a trellis)
  • Picklebush cucumbers (with a trellis)
  • Zucchini (compact variety, hoping that works in a pot)

I can’t plant curcurbits in the ground because of downy and powdery mildew here, so I am trying them in pots. If it works, hooray, and if not, I’m only out the cost of the seed packets and a big tomato cage.

It was a perfect weekend for planting. 55 degrees and cloudy, with a light breeze – cool enough to need a light jacket, but hopefully also to help keep tiny seedlings from getting too stressed. My parents were in town to help with the garden, so it was a community effort, and quite fun. I got dirt under my fingernails and in my hair, and it was glorious.

At the end of the day, we grilled our dinner, and I made a burned offering of various herbs and resins to the fire, as a blessing for my newly replanted garden. I always try to make offerings to the fire when I can, and I’m planning a formal ritual for the gardens where I will take the blessings in return for the offerings I make, and pour them out over the plants (probably in the form of a watering can 🙂 ). The spirits of my garden tend to respond very well to poured offerings of various kinds as well (they’ve received everything from wine to cider to goats milk mixed with kahlua).

If all of this does well, I will be drowning in produce come May, which is exactly how I want it to be. I’ll make salsa and pickles and eat fresh warm tomatoes with fresh basil and olive oil and salt.

 

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Liturgy 1: Question 5 – Earth Mother

Posted in Clergy Training Program, Initiate's Path, tagged , , , , , , on March 5, 2015| Leave a Comment »

5.    Discuss the Earth Mother and her significance in ADF liturgy. (minimum 100 words)

The Earth Mother is probably the most obviously Neopagan part of the ADF liturgy, but She is an extremely significant part of Druidic culture and worship. While there are people who see Her as a thought-form, a goddess, an ecological organism, a local body of water, and an archetype (or some combination of the above) (Newburg), She typically takes the first and last offerings in ADF’s liturgy and is given the respect of the eternal All Mother from whom we all emerge and to whom we all return. This is not to say that there is no historical present for an Earth Mother figure (and, in fact, Tacitus calls Nerthus the Earth Mother to the Germans, and Gaia can serve in the role of Earth Mother to the Greeks), but that her role and primacy in ADF ritual is more reminiscent of modern than ancient worship. This element of our rituals helps ground the ecological and naturalistic currents in ADF’s population, and the presence of the Earth Mother places ADF squarely among the other Neopagan traditions with Earth/Environmentalism as the center of their worship, though ADF also worships more historically based god/esses (Newburg) and often participates in more historically flavored (if not actually derived) practices.

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