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Ritual Redux: Samhain

November 8, 2012 by Lauren M

My Samhain Ritual was performed October 31, 2012, in the late afternoon. Normally I would wait until evening to do a ritual for the Mighty Dead, but I’m more comfortable doing full rituals when I’m alone in the house. Instead, I darkened a room almost completely, so even though the sun was out, I did the ritual by candle light. Between the darkened room and the smoke from the incense, the atmosphere seemed to fit the occasion.

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 Manannan mac Lir. Patrons of the rite included Donn, Lord of the Underworld and the Cailleach Beare, Grandmother Hag of Winter. I brought the following offerings: silver for the well, cedar incense for the fire, and a bottle of good hard cider for the Kindreds and Patrons (as I can not drink ale or whiskey).

This was my first High Day ritual, but not the first time I’d used the COoR. I’m glad I’d gone through it once before, because it gave me the experience to put together some rituals from the ritual archives (as well as a bit of my own material) into a full Samhain rite that I’m quite pleased with. The wording all came pretty easily to my tongue, though I’d read through it several times to help make sure it would flow. I am still not quite comfortable speaking in a loud voice in an empty house, but I made sure I was at least speaking with strength behind my words. The ritual centered on Donn and the Cailleach, an idea I got from one of the rituals in the archive that I really liked a lot. I have a lot of hesitation working with the Morrigan, and I wasn’t comfortable calling Her in my first ritual, even though many of the Celtic Hearth Samhain rituals honor the Dagdha and the Morrigan. My personal experience is one of strengthening my ties to the Mighty Dead this time of year, so being focused on Donn and the Cailleach seemed fitting.

I did find a major issue with my altar, and that was the location of the offering bowl in relation to the fire. Namely, I singed off some of my arm hair pouring offerings to the Kindreds. Not a particularly appealing incense. I’ve since reorganized it slightly.

I didn’t have a huge wealth of “feeling” from this ritual, however. It certainly had moments of poetry and beauty, but the depth of feeling and emotion wasn’t there in the way I am hoping it will eventually be. I know that part of having a Hearth Culture is to build up that current of energy between you and your patrons, and I am looking forward to feeling those ties strengthen. I would also like, eventually, to be able to do a COoR rite without needing a printed or written guide. While the words were ones I really liked, and some of them were even my own, it didn’t have the same feel as speaking “from the heart” does when it comes to prayer. Perhaps I will build in a time of spontaneous prayer into future rituals, since balance seems to be a good goal here, and I enjoy the act of writing out ritual material as well.

Omens Drawn:

  • Nion (Ash) – Weaver’s Beam, Connection, Wisdom
  • Ailm (Silver Fir) – Foresight, Inception, Perspective
  • Iodhadh (Yew) – Ancestors and death, memory

Use the wisdom and power of the Ancestors to gain perspective and see the “big picture” of the path ahead, a path that will lead you to transformation.

This is not the first time I’ve drawn Iodhadh recently, and I have to admit it’s a little puzzling to me. I understand that I’m undergoing a period of transformation and “Death” (of one path and beginning another), but I also feel like the messages are saying “listen to the Ancestors”, and I don’t know what they’re saying! Maybe I will do another separate reading specifically to ask them for their advice.

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays, Ogham | Tagged , , , , , | 2 Comments »

The Druid and the Genius Loci

November 7, 2012 by Lauren M

I’m pretty plugged in to being the Druid of this Place. I think it’s important to connect to the Earth – both as a global construct and something we should care for, and as a specific thing that we are entrusted with. My yard is my sacred space, and I can make an impact there even when my impact on the global world is so much smaller. I’m intimately connected with the land around me, and I work to make sure my connection to local spirits is strong and respectful.

For example, my yard is pesticide and herbicide free, and chemical free as often as we can manage it (with the exception of fire ants, which my husband and I are both terribly allergic to. I usually try the grits trick first*, but if that doesn’t work, they get poisoned).  As often as possible, we plant native or semi-native plants, to feed and attract native bugs and birds.

Because of the lack of stuff-that-kills-things, my yard is FULL of spiders, toads, lizards (especially lizards), and the occasional earth snake, brown snake, and even sometimes a snapping turtle, as well as having lots of squirrels and birds in the winter. I love opening the door and seeing the baby lizards sunning on the sidewalk.

I also love to garden. I grow vegetables and herbs, and I have a garden specifically designed for bees, butterflies, and hummingbirds. While it’s much harder with my new job to plant a profound and interesting and finicky garden, I can almost always get tomatoes and green beans to grow without much prodding. I love the act and art of growing things (though like any gardener, I occasionally kill plants), because it connects me so strongly with the forces of Earth and Life and Death. This year for Lammas I was able to cut down the corn stalks (long dead, but left for that purpose) and it was a really powerful reminder of the cycle of sacrifice and rebirth.

This is one of the points where my Wicca training and Druidry conflict a bit, because in BTW, the God is a God of Nature and the sacrifice of Life and Death and Rebirth. While some variants of Wicca (specifically the non-initiatory traditions) often spend a lot of time with the Earth Mother, I’ve learned to identify the energy of growing things, and their life cycle, as an aspect of male divinity.

Still, the Earth itself is easily something I can identify with as female, even if that particular piece of the agricultural cycle is something I associate with a specific God.

Of course, the Nature Spirits and Land Spirits are of mixed genders, so there’s no problem there. I like leaving offerings for them in my yard. I have an old stump piece from one of the trees we lost after Ike, and it sits up like a table in the back near the fence, so that’s where I leave my offerings. Usually I leave bits of food and drink, as often as possible things that I’ve made myself. If I’m going to live here, I think it’s important to have a good relationship with the other spirits who live here, and make offerings to them in return for their blessings on my house and gardens.

I am, after all, the Druid in this Place, as opposed to That place, or Some Other place. This is where I make my home, so this is the piece of Earth I need to truly connect with. Of course it’s important to take care of the whole earth, to be aware of my footprint on it and make sure I’m doing all I can to honor the life I have here. It’s just also important to me that I specifically plug in to my little corner here in the swamp.

*The Grits Trick: Take grits and sprinkle them liberally around an ant mound. This frequently causes some of the ants to get sick and die (as they eat the grits and then die of bowel impaction), which will cause the mound to move elsewhere. This really only works on relatively small, unestablished ant mounds.

Posted in Druid In This Place | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments »

High Holy Day: Samhain

November 6, 2012 by Lauren M

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.

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays, Seasonal Things | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 5 Comments »

Secret Agent Druid

November 6, 2012 by Lauren M

So I’m an in-the-broom-closet pagan, and I don’t think that’s going to change. My family is loving and kind, but extremely Christian, I don’t want to end up as an abassador for neo-pagandom, and I don’t feel like discussing my religion at work.

However, if I’m going to be a Druid, I wouldn’t really be in the broom closet.

Instead, I shall be a Secret Agent Druid.

I shall practice rogue acts of secretive and subversive Druidry.

Like leaving offerings in a local park, or meditating next to the bayou (and hoping I don’t find an alligator). Or picking up some trash. Or doing the Two Powers meditation when I’m feeling low on energy at work. My work also has a “Green Team”, which I will join as soon as I figure out how. Secret Agent Druid in the Office!

I’ve already stepped up my offerings to the land spirits in my yard – they got some of the homemade venison chili I made last night. I don’t know if land spirits like chili, but it was gone this morning, so I figure they didn’t reject it! I also have an altar in my house, but it looks like a collection of pretty candles and bowls, with an incense burner, so it’s not really that suspicious unless you know what you’re looking for.

I suppose I could call it “Random Acts of Druidry”, but Secret Agent Druid sounds cooler, so I’m going to stick with that.

Posted in Secret Agent Druid | Tagged , , , , , | 5 Comments »

DP – Week 1-ish

November 5, 2012 by Lauren M

It’s technically been 3 weeks since I started my first steps on the Dedicant Path, but since this is my first week with the Wheel of the Year program (and my first week blogging about it), here are the first week questions that are posed to the newly starting Dedicant.

Why have you chosen to take the first steps on the Dedicant Path?

Because I want to learn if Druidry is for me. I’ve recently left a British Traditional Wicca Coven where I was a student and apprentice for initiation. The reasons for leaving are complicated, but we parted ways on a mutually positive note. I don’t know if I will ever be able to seek the initiation that I so very much (still) want, but I know that path isn’t meant to be mine for now. Instead, I am going to do some real seeking, which requires doing work, to see if this path of Druidry will be where I am meant to be.

Is this a step on your path, or will it become the Path itself?

I don’t know yet. I’m not sure if the Druid path is the one that I will walk forever or just one that I will walk for awhile and then move on. I’m still feeling like the label “Witch” fits better than the label “Druid” (which I assume will change as I do more Druid things). I do know that I want to take this step, and that I think I will grow in my spirituality, regardless of my eventual outcome.

What do you expect to learn?

I expect to learn a little bit about a lot of things, and hopefully a lot about Druidry and a lot about myself and what I value and get out of a spiritual practice.

What would you like to get out of this journey?

Knowledge of Druidry, a deepened connection with the Kindreds (which I’ve always worshiped, but not under that name), and a better connection with myself as a spiritual being.

Do you know where this path will take you?

I don’t, and that’s exciting and fun. I don’t know what the end result will be. Maybe I’ll be called to the clergy. Maybe I’ll go on and become an initiate of ADF. Maybe I’ll do the dedicant path and decide to go back to practicing solitary witchcraft. I don’t know, but I bet I’m in for a really interesting journey.

If you have just joined ADF, why have you chosen to work on this immediately?

I’ve lurked on the ADF page for about 6 months, reading a lot and trying things. If I’m honest, I joined ADF specifically to start the DP. I want to know if this will be the right path for me, and I figure the best way to know that is to do it for awhile.

Does it look hard or easy?

Deceptively both hard and easy. I think things that look hard often end up making sense after awhile, and things that look easy can surprise you. I’m trying to keep an open mind about this whole experience, and not worry about the things that will come later on.

Which requirements look difficult to you now, and which appear to be easy?

Writing about things is easy for me, as is reading and doing book reports. Keeping up a meditation practice may or may not be easy, as I’m already a semi-regular meditator, but I am used to having down times where I don’t meditate as much, and I’ll need to practice at least weekly for 5 months to get credit. Also, consistently writing down my thoughts about it isn’t my strongest point, which I’m hoping will be easier with this blog. I also am hoping that the blog, in combination with the WotY program, will help keep me from doing too much, too quickly and burning out (or losing interest when it becomes work). A little accountability is a good thing.

Do you have doubts, questions, or concerns that you need to ask about?

Having done my first rituals and wondered if the connection would be there, I am placing my trust in the idea that practice begets belief, and that rituals can become habits that are spiritually nourishing. I’m looking for a spirituality that will nourish and sustain me and the Earth on which I live. I’m also a little worried that it will be hard for me to put aside my Witch training and fully embrace Druidry. I’m trying very hard to evaluate it on its own merits, and not for how it compares to what I already know.

Posted in Dedicant Path | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment »

Meditation Journal – Week 1

November 5, 2012 by Lauren M

This is going to have its own tag in the blog, since I think this part of the journey will be difficult for me. (Not DOING the meditation, but making sure I write about it every week.) Hopefully if I give it a separate category, it’ll help me remember, as well as making it easier for me to look back through and see where I’ve been.

For my first week, I continued to do the 10-15 minute meditations that I’m used to doing. This is a sitting meditation that involves counting breaths (in 4, hold 2, out 4, hold 2) up to 9, repeatedly. I don’t have any idea how many repetitions of nine breaths I do, but for some reason nine is a nice number to count up to. (Sometimes I count up to nine and then back to one and then up to nine again, but I didn’t do that this week). Sometimes I do this meditation in a rocking chair, other times sitting on the floor in front of my altar/shrine (where I burn incense).

During my first High Day ritual, I also did my first attempt at the Two Powers meditation. I’m used to grounding via a “roots” meditation, but the second part, where you reach for Sky power, is totally new to me. I definitely found the grounding part easier, which is to be expected.

My ability to connect this week wasn’t as good as it has been in the past. Normally, during the work week, I meditate every day after work. I take a shower and then do a meditation to help me relax after my (long and traffic-filled) commute. This week I was on vacation, so my routine was disrupted, and I didn’t find it as easy to get my mind to relax.

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays, Meditation Journal | Leave a Comment »

Studying by the seat of my pants?

November 5, 2012 by Lauren M

Having gone through the online versions of the Dedicant Manual, I figured, given that I was on vacation, I’d just get started on this whole Dedicant Path thing, wherever I felt like it would work. Of course, given that I’ve been a member of ADF for two weeks, one of those weeks including a High Day, and one of those weeks where I was on vacation, it was a lot of flying by the seat of my pants. Very exciting, though possibly a little too high energy to be sustainable now that I’m back at work.

Of course, as soon as I get some things completed, I end up stumbling across people with Homework! Homework for the DP! This is exciting too, since that means there’s a study program somewhere. After a bit of digging around and some help from twitter, I’m now reading through the Wheel of the Year study program by Rev. Michael J. Dangler.

As expected, I did things ALL out of order. Oops.

Still, I think I can make it work. I’ll be putting up homework assignments for weeks 1-4 all in one clump over the next few days. I’ve already put together and done my first High Day rite (Samhain) where I honored Donn and the Cailleach, so I’ll have both the High Day essay and the Ritual Redux essay to put together. If I can get those done, I’ll do my first oath, and I’ll just say I did the first month out of order.

Also, I’m ahead on my book reading, since a week off meant a good excuse to plow through Puhvel’s Comparative Mythology. Which was, as mentioned, not an easy read. I’m doing an easier book next – Margot Adler’s Drawing Down the Moon, which I’ve started in the past (and already own) but have never actually finished. Oops. Anyway, it’s nice to be reading something a little more approachable.

I’m already a meditator with a regular practice, so I’m ahead on that front as well. I’ll be posting (hopefully) weekly journal entries to that effect. For my first Druid Meditations I am starting to work with the Two Powers Meditation, which I like a lot. More on that later.

I also need to get myself set up with a mentor. I think in conversations – I’m a writer and blogger after all – and it’s always good for me to put my thoughts into words to someone else as a way to clarify what I actually think. That’s a big part of why this blog exists. Since it’s publishing to the entire internet, I need to use my words well and wisely, and that thought process really helps me clarify what I think and feel and believe. I’ll be emailing the DP Preceptor to start that process.

It feels like I’m going to have to pace myself on this, especially while everything is new and shiny. I hope the Wheel of the Year book will help me both stay on track and not burn myself out too quickly. Having a week off at the very beginning was nice, since I could take a pretty leisurely look at my first ritual and have lots of time to read a difficult book, but I’m also feeling a little bit like this breakneck pace is unsustainable. While I’m sure my current seat-of-pants style of learning Druidry would work out, having something a little more concrete will help (as will the Socratic style that the Wheel of the Year book is written in. I’m a big fan, at least when it’s not kicking my ass.)

I’ll have my first week’s questions up later today, along with my first week’s Meditation Journal.

Posted in Dedicant Path | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Book Review: Puhvel’s Comparative Mythology

November 4, 2012 by Lauren M

This book review is part of the requirements for the reading list for the Dedicant Path. It intends to fulfill the requirement for the Indo-European Studies title.

To start with, this is a dense book. It’s not light reading, and though Puhvel clearly has a sense of humor, the tag on the Recommended Reading list as “Post Graduate” reading level is accurate. There were several times through the course of the book where I felt rather like a student who had decided to skip the prerequisites for an upper level class. I’m not put off by academic writing, and I’m glad to have gotten through it, but it was definitely a bit thick in spots.

Puhvel sets out at the beginning to discuss a brief history of what he calls “metamythology” – the study of how we study myths. This foundation of the study of mythology put his book into context, as well as showing how the archaeological and anthropological Indo-European studies have impacted how we look at what are now known as the I-E myths. Instead of simply cataloging myths in their various cultures, the search is for the proto-myths to go with the proto-language. Puhvel argues that “the datum itself is more important than any theory that may be applied to it” (p. 19) and that we should be wary of overemphasizing the generalist, universalist, and overly historical aspects of myths, instead taking them independently for what they are. Myth needs no specific nature, function, or purpose, instead it should be examined as it functions in individual and societal situations, and compared as such.

Taking this as his method, Puhvel then discusses in the various creation myths in the Ancient Near East, introducing the idea of mythic diffusion – the spread, interaction, and conglomeration of myths both vertically in time and laterally across cultures (p. 22). He establishes a three-generational pattern of “overthrow, usurpation, succession, challenge, and consolidation” (p. 24) that are common across many of the ancient Near Eastern myths.

After this, Puhvel concludes the Directions section of his book with an examination of what, exactly, the terms Indo-European and Indo-Iranian actually mean, discussing some of the history and cultural relationships that form the language groups these myths belonged to. Of particular interest was his discussion on how certain cultures ended up being better at preserving myths than others, specifically those who were not exposed to strong outside cultures and who had a strong priestly class – the brahmins in India, high priesthood in Iran, the pontifical and flaminical colleges in Rome, and the druids of ancient Gaul and Britain (p. 38). These cultures in particular come up again and again throughout the book as having major myths that compare to one another.

In the second section of Comparative Mythology, Puhvel sets out to explain, briefly, the myth cycles of Vedic India, Epic India, Ancient Iran, Epic Iran, Ancient Greece, Ancient Rome, Celtic Myth, Germanic Myth, and Baltic and Slavic Myth. In each of these chapters, beginning with the Vedic foundation, he sets up the basic social structure (almost always tripartite – priests, warriors/kings, producers/farmers/craftsmen) and the gods that go along with each of those social strata.

He examines these myths in a mostly chronological fashion, which puts Vedic India at the forefront, as the oldest recorded culture in the Indo-European group. This ended up being more than a little confusing for someone with limited prior experience in Vedic mythology. Though I’ve read the Ramayana, the Bhagavad Gita, and parts of the Mahabarata, it was apparently long enough ago that I really struggled with the comparisons between myths, since the general basis was always assumed to be Vedic, and I had trouble keeping my Verunas and Vrtras straight. However, as I continued reading (with notes), I ended up better understanding those myths as I got to the sections delineating the myth cycles I was more familiar with (Greece, Rome, Celtic, Norse), both due to repetition and to having a framework I could understand references in.

In the final section, Themes, Puhvel takes a more expanded view of five recurring themes across major sections of the Indo-European cultures: God and Warrior, King and Virgin, Horse and Ruler, Fire in Water, and Twin and Brother. Each of these myths ends up being foundational to the cultures involved, specifically how their three-part social setup is reflected in the myths around respective gods. For example, God and Warrior is a theme directly related to the conflict seen in society because “order, security, and peace […] tend to depend for their preservation on the readiness of something that is inherently destructive” (p. 241). This essential cultural conflict is reflected in the great heroes, who end up as “pawns in divine infighting” (p. 247), burdened by their fate to commit crimes against the cultures in which they live. This warrior saga is portrayed in the Scandinavian (Starcatherus), Indic (Sisupala) and Greek (Herakles) myths, with each having traits of the greater proto-myth while still maintaining ties to the unique cultures in which they originated.

Overall, I’m glad to have read Comparative Mythology, though I don’t know that I will pick it up again in a hurry for light reading. It is a very strong reference for the ways these myths tie together, but that is a double edged sword in the search for a hard polytheistic religion. It would be easy, having read this, to assume that Dyaus, Zeus, and Jupiter are the same god, all descended from *Dyews, when a hard polytheist looks to place those different gods within their respective cultures as individuals with specific worship preferences. Also, Puhvel occasionally stretches his connections a bit far, at least to my relatively inexperienced mind, which may simply mean I need to re-read the book to really understand all the references (and read several other books on mythology first).

Still, the book is extremely successful at laying out the ties between these far-flung but related cultural groups, and Puhvel is extensive (occasionally excessive) at showing the linguistic ties that underlie the similarities in the stories. Puhvel sets out to show the connections between these seemingly diverse mythological cycles, and he does so admirably.

Posted in Dedicant Path Essays | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

It might be Samhain on the calendar, but my garden disagrees

November 3, 2012 by Lauren M

ADF follows the standard Neo-Pagan wheel of the year – 8 festivals tied to the solstices, equinoxes, and cross-quarter days that are seen throughout most of the Neo-Pagan religious groups. These are ostensibly based on the agricultural cycle and are a combination of (mostly) Celtic and Norse traditional celebrations.

I love the wheel of the year. It flows, and it’s a holiday every 6 weeks (more or less), and there’s a lot of beauty in it.

Unfortunately I’m also a gardener in southeast Texas.

The agricultural cycle here is not even remotely like that of the Norse and Celts who (presumably) originated these festivals, or even much like those of the Brits and Northern Americans who first celebrated their Neo-Pagan counterparts.

I grow things pretty much year round here, with a few exceptions. In general, the months of June, July, and August are a time of “wait and see”. Which is to say “Wait and see what’s going to shrivel up and die from the sheer heat and lack of rain.” Okra does pretty well if it’s well established (but it too will shrivel up and die if you plant it too late), and hot peppers do pretty well too, but again with the “well established” clause. Tomatoes quit producing fruit by June because it’s just so damn hot – our lows are usually around 80-84 degrees by then – and the plants just throw in the towel by the beginning of July unless you can get them some shade.

Then in late August and September, you plant the garden again (usually with things that fruit relatively quickly) and whabam, you’re harvesting cucumbers, corn, and tomatoes in November.

After Samhain.

When the wheel turns to the “dark” half of the year and everything is dead, awaiting the rebirth of the sun.

In October, you plant broccoli and cauliflower and onions and leeks and root veggies, and those are harvested mostly through the winter until you plant your spring garden the first weekend in March. Then come the first of May, you’re getting your first taste of vine ripened tomatoes… just as we’re celebrating the festival of “thank the Gods it’s not cold anymore, let’s have sex.”

In short? It just doesn’t line up. I’m harvesting for the fertility festivals and planting for the harvest festivals and… it’s just a mess!

This makes for some interesting mental gymnastics, and puts the impetus of the wheel on things OTHER than the actual cycle of agriculture in my backyard. I can certainly celebrate the fertility of mind and creativity and ideas, but it’s hard to distance that from what I know is really going on in this little piece of swamp I live on.

I don’t have an answer for fixing it though. I love turning the wheel. And I’m generally drawn to the Celtic hearth culture, way more than I am the Greeks or Romans. Maybe I ought to look into the Vedic cultures, if I want my celebrations to line up with my garden outside.

Either that, or I just have a party more often than every 6 weeks.

The Feast of the First Tomato Salad is worth celebrating, even if it’s not an official holiday.

Posted in Druid In This Place | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments »

Practice Begets Belief

November 2, 2012 by Lauren M

This was linked to me awhile ago, but I found myself re-listening to it this afternoon.

Interview with Rev. Michael J Dangler – Practice Begets Belief

As I start this Druidic journey, it’s nice to have the encouragement that it doesn’t have to work the first time (and that it feels clumsy and awkward), but that over time a ritual practice can turn into something truly meaningful.

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