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Archive for the ‘Seasonal Things’ Category

Getting Ready for Spring

Posted in Druid In This Place, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , on February 21, 2013| Leave a Comment »

With the last frost date less than two weeks away, it’s time for me to really start thinking about my garden. It’s sat, rather sadly neglected, since last June, so I have some work ahead of me to get the ground ready for transplants. (I use transplants since our growing season is rather short, and I like to get a head start on things like tomatoes that will suffer in the heat.)

I suspect, with as mild as our winter has been, that I could probably get my first plants in the ground as early as this weekend, but I still prefer to wait until that official frost date. Maybe it’s a bit superstitious, but I don’t want to freeze my tomatoes.

My garden is about 10×12, raised bed and mostly organic. I compost all my kitchen scraps and yard waste in two bins on the side of the house, but I’m not sure either is ready to go into the garden just yet. I’ll have to check them and see. They’re both pretty full at least, so once things warm up I’ll have lots of compost to spread around the plants.

The whole garden needs to be cleared of weeds and grass and turned over to be ready for this year’s plants. Since we don’t own a rototiller/cultivator, I have to till the earth by hand. It’s always kind of cleansing (as well as somewhat back-breaking) to grab a shovel and turn over all of the earth there.

I’m probably mostly going to put in green beans and tomatoes – for some reason I have a great deal of trouble with curcurbits (cucumbers, zucchini, squash) getting downy/powdery mildew and dying on me (or getting big but not producing any fruit). I’d like to try melons this summer as well, but beans and tomatoes are my staples. They grow well for me, and last year I ended up at one point with over 15 lbs of tomatoes – out of which I made a delicious vinaigrey, peppery salsa. This year I’d like enough to make some marinara sauce to freeze in quarts. I’d also like enough green beans to make another few batches of “dilly beans” – spicy dill pickle green beans that I eat by the jar if I’m not careful.

I’ll also grow hot peppers, but I put those in pots. Hot peppers of various kinds tend to like to have periods of dry, and tomatoes need at least an inch of water a week, so if I water the tomatoes enough to be fruitful, the peppers don’t do much. They do well in pots for me though – I’d like to grow a nice assortment, from jalapenos and hot banana peppers to some larger Anaheim peppers that I can stuff with sausage and roast. Yum!

At some point I need to figure out what’s causing  my problem with curcurbits (I suspect it’s a fungus problem with the soil), but with as much time as I spend at work, I don’t really have time to troubleshoot a lot of garden problems. I wish I had more time to devote to it, since I get a lot of satisfaction out of growing things, but work has to take priority over hobbies, even useful ones like growing food.

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The Quiet After Yule

Posted in Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , on January 2, 2013| 4 Comments »

I’m always sad to see the Yule season end. I like the anticipation and the coziness of the season, and while it’s fun to ring in the new year with celebrations and champagne, I always find myself a little let down by the sudden wintry reality that follows. Not just back to work again after a break (which is always too short), or the putting away of warm and cheerful decorations, but the seemingly cold feeling of waiting for spring that follows the celebration of the sun’s return.

There’s quite a lot of waiting in the winter, and it feels strongest to me right around the beginning of January. Our weather is such that we dont have long to wait for spring, but it’s frequently rainy and chilly here right now, even if we do get warm days in between. Though the sun is returning, the light doesn’t seem to change quickly enough. It’s still dark when I leave for work, and almost dark when I get home.

I’m looking forward to driving during the sunrise again, in a month or so, and to the days warming up into spring.

This year, though, I am trying to pace myself and savor this time of year. This time of year is so quiet, and I want to take advantage of that. We know the sun is returning, and the patient waiting offers an extension of the time of reflection that usually follows Samhain. I can make plans for my garden, perusing seed catalogues and diagramming garden beds, but I can also take the time to meditate on the cold (or even IN the cold, for short periods of time).

It’s also a good time to enjoy the quiet in my house after the bustle that defines November and December. The early evenings offer more reading time and time to spend preparing my house for the busier times of year, as well as time for deep reflection and increased devotions.

Instead of always looking ahead, this year I want to try to really dig into this period of stillness before Imbolc and the return of spring in March. I will light candles, burn incense, cook warm and hearty foods, and keep the fire of my hearth bright and welcoming.

Then when spring does come, I’ll be rested and ready for growing things and being outside again.

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Secret Druid Tips: New Year, New Calendar

Posted in Seasonal Things, Secret Agent Druid, tagged , , , , , , , on December 28, 2012| Leave a Comment »

If you’re like me, one of your favorite parts of New Years is picking out (and writing in the important dates on) a new calendar. This is an easy place to bring Druidry into your home or office decor in a way that’s really unobtrusive to others, but blatantly obvious to you. Pick a calendar that reminds you of nature or the Kindreds, and use it as a focus to remain mindful and aware of those forces around you.

If you like the monthly, wall calendar kind (or the page-a-week organizer/desktop kind), take a moment and write in the Holy Days while you write in all your cousins’ birthdays. Full and new moons are other good things to add. If you like the page-a-day kind, the imagery will be daily, and you can use the moment where you tear off each page as a cue for a 9 breath meditation and reflection.

And remember, if possible, to get a calendar that’s made of recycled paper, and make sure you put the torn pages in the recycling bin!

Edit: I was asked how and where I got my dates for these calendars, and why sometimes they have different times or dates listed. Usually a difference in date is caused by timezones. I use the US Military Observatory’s data, which you can get here, for moon phases. Keep in mind that these times are UTC (Universal time), so you’ll have to subtract hours for your timezone – I’m in US Central, so that’s UTC-6.

For High Days, I use the typical calendar dates for planning my calendar each year (Samhain on Oct 31, Yule on Dec 21, Imbolc on Feb 1). I know there are more specific astronomical dates (the Solstice doesn’t always happen on the 21st), but since I can rarely celebrate ON the actual day, I figure as long as I get close it doesn’t matter.

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Ritual Redux: Yule/Winter Solstice

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays, Ogham, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , , on December 25, 2012| 2 Comments »

My winter solstice ritual was performed on Thursday December 20, in the mid-morning. It was a bright, beautifully sunny day, and so it seemed an appropriate time to welcome back the Sun. Ideally I’d perform this ritual at dawn, but at dawn I was taking a sick cat to the vet, so the best laid plans didn’t quite work out.

This was a solitary rite, following the full ADF COoR. For this ritual, I honored the Earth Mother in an unnamed aspect; the Gatekeeper was Cernunnos. Sulis was the primary patron(ess) of this rite. I brought the following offerings: silver for the well, cedar incense for the fire, candles and cinnamon incense for Sulis, and a bottle of good hard cider for the Kindreds (as I can not drink ale or whiskey). The ritual, being for Sulis, is loosely based in the Gaulish hearth culture.

I was very pleased with this ritual. I felt like I had more depth and understanding of the COOR, and though I mixed up some of the offerings, I feel like it was a successful rite. (I forgot to give the silver to the well when I created the cosmos, but I rectified that after I lit the fire!) I’m finding a more comfortable voice to speak my rituals in, and I felt that adding inflection and feeling to my voice added inflection and feeling to the ritual itself. My work with increasing connection helped as well, as I definitely felt the portal open when I asked Cernunnos to open the gates. I don’t know that I felt a strong presence from any particular Kindred, but I did feel like I was doing this ritual with the presence of other beings. I also was more familiar with this ritual, so I didn’t feel as much like I was “just” reading it. Some of that probably is helped by my having put my ritual text in a nice binder, so I have something to hold that isn’t just print outs.

Things I will not do in the future – I am a little unsure if I’ll do an offering that includes alcohol at 10am. Since I used the hard cider both for the offerings and as my drink for the blessings, it was a little odd to be drinking that early in the day. I think I’d have been happier with just plain good cider, and leave the hard stuff for afternoon rituals. I also started out the ritual feeling rather rushed for some reason (probably because I was doing the ritual on a day when I was also preparing for holiday travel). I noticed it around the point of the Two Powers meditation and was able to slow myself down and really feel the energy of the rite.

Omens Drawn

  • Uath (Hawthorn) – Fear, Despair, Cleansing, Challenges
  • Onn (Gorse) – Easy Travel, Wheel, Movement, Fertility
  • Ceirt (Apple) – The Otherworld, Shelter, Choice, Vision

You are going through a period of discovery, and fear comes with all new things. This period will be cleansing for you, can be easy if you don’t fight the process, and will lead to a time of great fertility. Through this process you will gain new vision and wisdom, and see things how they really are.

I’ll admit that drawing Hawthorn is a little unsettling, but I think it’s fitting to the challenges that any new path will bring. It’s also a little odd to draw both “easy travel” and “challenges”, but if I take a very literal approach, it could just mean my holiday trips will go easily.

Overall, I think this omen is positive, indicating struggles now but a good outcome later. My instinct is to relate this somewhat to my search for a hearth culture. I’m thinking too much about it, and not letting the process of change happen. I’m actively resisting some parts of that process, which is leading to a good bit of fear. Also there are some Gods whose presence I am uncomfortable with, and one of those seems to be nudging me lately, which is definitely a bit fearful! Part of me wonders if I shouldn’t have thrown out my planning and done a different ritual, but I didn’t think of that until after I was done. Maybe I’ll do a second one and see how this other hearth culture feels.

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Celebrating Yule

Posted in Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 20, 2012| 2 Comments »

I’ll be doing my Yule ritual today – an ADF style ritual honoring Sulis, modified slightly from the ritual found in the Crane Breviary. I’ve been enjoying looking through the rituals there, and this one seemed to fit the kind of ritual I want to have. I need to look more into the Order of the Crane – it seems like a good balance of inner and outer workings, and like it might provide more of a community than the DP is currently. While I appreciate everything that the DP has to offer, I’ve not felt that it’s brought me much into connection with other Druids, and that’s something I’d really like to have. Plus I just think the Crane symbolism is really rather spiffy.

Husband unit and I will be opening our gifts this evening as well, since we’ll be celebrating multiple times. It always seems like we end up with our own celebration on or just before the actual Solstice, and then various family celebrations happen around their holiday of Christmas. Still, multiple chances to give (and get) presents is OK with me!

I’m not really ready for the holiday season to be “over” though, and I intend to keep the greenery out in the house for awhile, even if I take down the tree. Though the light will begin to be stronger again, it’s still going to be winter for awhile, and I really enjoy the look and smell of evergreens. Most of mine this year are in baskets with florist’s foam, so they’re staying healthy and fragrant.

If you’re one of the people in the path of the winter storm, I hope you have a beautiful, snowy Yule and that the blizzard conditions don’t cause you or your loved ones any harm. Here in the swamp, we’re going to have a slightly cooler, very windy day, but no real effects from the storm front. It would be nice to have snow for the Solstice, but that is extremely rare around here (as is snow any other time during the winter). Still, the cooler day will be nice for having a fire in the fireplace, and maybe it’ll feel a little more like winter today.

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Winter in the Swamp

Posted in Druid In This Place, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , on December 11, 2012| Leave a Comment »

We’re having our first actual bout of Winter here in the swamp this week. The front came through late Sunday night/early Monday morning, and it got down close to or just below freezing last night. I’m expecting a freeze warning tonight again. Actual frosts are very rare here, and snow is even more rare, so even the native plants can take damage from a particularly long cold snap.

The sun is bright today, which is part of why it’s cold. The air is drier than usual, so there’s not a cloud cover to keep the warmth up next to the Earth. Later this week, when the usual coastal moisture comes back, it’s going to warm back up.

Dealing with frost down here in Zone 9a is a tricky thing. We have drop cloths and old sheets in a bin in the garage that get dragged out and spread over all the delicate things that live here. I keep a small citrus tree in my yard that’s particularly susceptible to frost, and things like a dieffenbachia (dumbcane), a pencil cactus, and a plumeria have to get moved into the sun porch and sheltered well against cold. This can be challenging, especially because the plumeria is nearly as big as I am.

I also have a large hibiscus – by large I mean it’s taller than the garage doors – that I don’t think I’ll be able to really cover well this year. It didn’t die back last year, so it’s gotten enormous. I really hope it doesn’t end up frostbitten!

We have lots of areas in the yard for small critters to shelter, like our woodpile and in the shrubs next to the house, but I always worry a little about the toads and lizards. We frequently find them trying to stowaway into the house, which is a dangerous place, as I have cats!  This is a good place to live, if you’re a cold blooded animal, but these periodic cold nights have to be tough.

People who live here tend to get grief about not knowing what to do when it’s cold, and to some extent that’s true. Not even the native things that live here are really designed to deal with the cold. I grew up in a northeastern state, where the squirrels are fat and furry and have enormous tails. Squirrels around here are skinny, with skinny tails that you can almost see through. They’re not accustomed to the cold because they really don’t need to be.

Which is why I’m wearing my warm things without shame.

It’s chilly, but it won’t last long.

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Secret Druid Tip: Front Door

Posted in Seasonal Things, Secret Agent Druid, tagged , , , , , , on December 7, 2012| 1 Comment »

Buy (or even better, make) a wreath for each season. Celebrate changing the wreath as you prepare for and celebrate the High Days and the changes that occur in nature. Wreaths of greenery are available right now and are a good way to bring evergreens into your home. For Imbolc you might have a wreath of red, orange, and white bows, and then for Ostara a wreath with early spring flowers and colored eggs.

This works in a dormitory or a shared apartment as well – you can get little hangers that go over the door and hang the wreath inside! (I used to do this in the dorms at school. It always made my door stand out and look festive!) I actually use one of those hangers for my front door, since it has a large glass panel. You could also put a nail in the wall above your altar and make a tiny wreath as a rotating wall decoration.

For the Druid on a budget, check craft stores right around or just after the major holidays. Small grapevine wreath blanks are inexpensive, and once the major holiday is past, you can often get nice flowers and wreath decor for heavily discounted prices. I store my wreaths in an old packing box standing up on end with pieces of cardboard between them. Stalk the ribbon clearances as well!

If you’re lucky, you might even get birds nesting in the wreath! I watched a pair of wrens raise a clutch just outside our front door last year, and it was really very special.

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To Tree or Not To Tree

Posted in Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , , , on November 29, 2012| Leave a Comment »

I do a lot of work to bring my Druidry into my life in a way that I can be happy with how it’s incorporated but also keep a very low profile. This runs me into trouble occasionally, but most prominently around the holidays.

My family is extremely Christian (they think being non-Christian is grounds for divorce, among other things), and so I have to smile and nod a lot, and let them continue to think what they want about me and what I believe. I need their support due to physical and mental health reasons, and I really value having a close relationship with them, so that arrangement doesn’t bother me most of the time. The good outweighs the discomfort, and it’s usually easy to dodge religious conversations or to talk generically about hope and blessings.

But around the holidays, it gets troublesome. I can sit through a Christmas Eve service without too much fuss (just like I sit through an Easter service every year as well), but it always feels a little hollow. I haven’t been struck down yet, but I am still not really comfortable in church, even if I love the Christmas carols.

I want to celebrate the Winter Solstice, to bring evergreens into my home as a reminder that the world will become green again. To decorate with the symbols of winter and nature. I can put up with Santa and the secular western Christmas holiday, but my family always gives me nativity sets and asks why I don’t have the advent wreath up.

I know that a lot of the symbols of this holiday are cross-cultural or have become secular. Many of the “traditional” Christian symbols, like Christmas trees, are borrowed from earlier Pagan ones and have become acceptable as part of the secular celebration of Christmas. Even if the actual Christmas Tree is a relatively young tradition, bringing evergreens into the house is quite old. Even the celebration of Christmas in December is a bid to appropriate an existing holiday and Christianize it.

Knowing all that, unfortunately, doesn’t help much with the practical applications. I’m expected to send Christmas cards. I use the excuse of not wanting to have to send out two different cards to send a very nature oriented, non-Christian-specific card, but it’s still seen as buying into their religious tradition. In return, I get a mailbox full of Jesus cards that I don’t want to put up on my mantle.

On some level, I appreciate being a closeted Pagan. It stretches my imagination, and I enjoy using symbols and items from Paganism to make the celebration of holidays my own in a way that other people will enjoy without knowing that they’re being Pagan.

I also truly love the decorations and celebrations this time of year. They give me the warm fuzzies, and I love participating in those traditions with my family. I love putting up holly and evergreens, pinecones and red ribbon, cranberries, oranges, and candles. I love having a tree decorated with white lights, red ribbon, birds, animals, and little nature scenes. My family has even bought into it, buying me new “Winter Woodland” ornaments for my tree every year (just as they buy snowmen for my aunt and Santas for my mom and snowflakes for my cousin). I even love a lot of Christmas music, though not the tinned, Christmas-Pop stuff they play in stores on eternal repeat. And cookies are pan-religious, right?

It’s easy to decorate for fall or spring, but for some reason decorating for Yule/Christmas is the one time that I feel conflicted, no matter how much I love and cherish having those decorations up in my house.

Even knowing that Yule/Winter Solstice and Christmas are pretty well intertwined, I still feel a bit like a bad Pagan. There are so many good, non-religious things to celebrate during the “Holidays” (which is one reason I love Thanksgiving so much), so I question why it bothers me so much. I can celebrate rebirth, family, warmth, hope, joy, blessings, and the new year without ascribing to any religion at all. I’m not sure why I still feel isolated by my beliefs in the midst of all the secular good vibes.

Even with a beautifully decorated tree in my living room and a hand-made wreath on my door, it puts a damper on my celebration to feel separated like I do. My Pagan beliefs are sustaining and meaningful, but I’m missing out on the community aspect of celebration. I think I’m just missing feeling unified with my family this time of year. Perhaps I should look into doing Grove work (though I’ll be out of town for the local Grove’s Yule celebration). I like being a solitary, but I also like working in a community, and this time of year I crave that community aspect more than others. (Odd for it also being a very introspective time of year in the Wheel.)

I don’t know that there’s an easy solution to all this. I’m obviously still going to decorate, and still going to celebrate on my own time. I’m still going to make cookies (in the shape of holly leaves and spirals), eat oranges to celebrate the sunshine, hang stockings, light candles, and give gifts.

Maybe I just need to work on accepting where I am, and just let myself love the holidays for what they are.

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Happy Thanksgiving!

Posted in Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , on November 22, 2012| 1 Comment »

I hope everyone in the US has a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday! Be well, and may your blessings today be many, and your relationships strengthened (with whomever you decide to celebrate, even if it’s just between you and your Gods)!

And if you’re not in the US, have a wonderful Thursday! I’ll eat a piece of pie in your honor!

Though I won’t have time or space to do a full ritual today, my hearth shrine will be very very busy with cooking and baking and burning candles. I love the energy of a bunch of people making a meal, and in my kitchen, there’s lots of room for people to cook together. I have lots of things to be thankful for, and my family (including my inlaws) are definitely on that list. Also I am hugely thankful for the medical care I’ve received over the last three years, that has brought me to the point where I am functioning like a well person again.

On a slightly more serious note, I hope you will choose not to shop on Thanksgiving, seeing as it’s the one holiday in our secular calendar that’s designed to be about being thankful for what you already have, and Friday will begin the Season of Buy All The Things. I’m saddened that retail workers will have to be at work for Thanksgiving – one of the few days they traditionally are allowed off at the same time as their families – and I hope this “experiment” by the big box stores of having huge “pre Black Friday” sales is a giant bust. Shopping can wait for one day. (Or if you must shop, do so online!)

I know that a holiday about being thankful isn’t a holiday that sells much stuff, but there have been Christmas/Holiday decorations and music playing since November 1 where I live. Let’s have a break from the commercialism for a day and rest and be thankful, even if it’s for very small things.

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High Holy Day: Samhain

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on November 6, 2012| 5 Comments »

This is the first of my High Holy Day essays for the DP, and addresses the November Holiday.

Samhain is one of the cross-quarter “fire” festivals in the Celtic hearth culture and is often celebrated as the beginning of the Neopagan new year. (In a society where the next day starts at sunset, the next year starts at “sundown” in the fall.)

This is the time of year when the veils between this world and the Otherworld are thinnest. I’ve heard it said that at Beltaine we go to the Otherworld, and at Samhain the Otherworld comes here to us. It’s a time of remembering the dead of the last year, as well as all of the Ancestors and Mighty Dead, and many celebrations  focus on the thinning of the veils and the presence of the dead among us. Dead feasts are common, where the evening’s supper is set with an extra plate for the dead, or where food is left on the table over night, and a fire left burning in the hearth, so the departed dead can enjoy the comforts of life for one last celebration.

For those in the Celtic hearth, the meeting of the Daghda and the Morrigan is sometimes brought to mind, the interaction between life and sex and death, and the role of the Gods in the fates of man and battles. Also at this time, Donn, the God of the Underworld and the Land of the Dead is honored, as is the Cailleach Bheur, the Grandmother Hag and Queen of Winter, who comes with the onset of the cold and may represent the Ancients. Tales sometimes mention the first frost as specifically hers, and though I live in a place where we rarely get any frost at all (most years it doesn’t ever freeze here), I find that on cool fall mornings, I can feel her energy and the energy of the waning world.

Of course, this is also the time of the final harvest. The last of the ‘harvest’ festivals in the Neopagan calendar, Samhain is the hunting harvest, when livestock were slaughtered in preparation for winter, since it’s now cold enough for the meat to be preserved or frozen without spoiling. All the food for winter is gathered in, and the year draws to a close. While it is a time of preparation, it’s also a time of plenty, and a good time to share our bounty with the Ancestors and our beloved dead, now when there is a store of food to share.

I’ve always loved fall as a liminal season. It feels like a time out of time, between summer and winter and between life and death. There is, of course, death in the fall, but also the promise of rebirth (both with pregnant animals and with crops that must freeze in the ground to germinate in the spring). I find that I’m drawn to store up for winter, even in the age of 24-hour Mega Mart stores and living in a place that doesn’t have much of a “fall” (or a “winter” really). It’s as though, deep in my bones, I know winter is coming and I should be prepared. I also love that it’s finally cool enough to cook warm, comforting, sustaining food.

I love the secular celebration of Halloween too, but I separate that from what is sacred about this time of year. There is a kernel of truth in gearing up for one last hurrah before winter, and playing dress up in costumes is just plain fun. And I can eat candy without feeling the least bit bad about it. Plus the spooks and witches and ghosts and jack-o-lanterns are just a time of fun, good friends, and good memories for me. I often make a really adorable batch of vampire-bitten cupcakes. But the secular Halloween has little to do with the liminal, sacred Samhain, and I enjoy that I get to celebrate both.

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