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Mardi Gras and beyond~!

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  Photo by Garon Joseph: https://www.pexels.com/photo/band-plays-wind-instrument-at-the-street-during-the-parade-3521559/ February is shaping up to be way better than January. I'm almost all packed to head to Convocation , a really good indoor festival, even if it is in The State Up North. We have our midwinter thaw, even getting up to the 60s today. I was greeted by birds singing and geese honking when I stepped out my door this morning. AND I have Winter Olympics on, although I have not been able to watch as much as I would like. I will end up missing the curling and hockey gold medal games due to my travels. Fat Tuesday morning found me doing a big ol' Internet search on the origins of Carnival, and Lent.  I have this informal armchair-anthropological theory that many of our religious taboos and customs surrounding food have to do with survival, and we dress them up with religion to convince people to not violate them. So, if oxen are more valuable alive than dead, eating c...
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Imbolc 2026

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I enter this season a bit bitter-sweet.  A lot of things that I 'typically' have done are just not on the table right now. Feeling detached from a couple of spiritual communities is hard. But I have other spiritual communities that I'm really glad to be a part of (scooby-dooby-doo) so it is all in balance, but that doesn't mean I don't miss what has passed.   I know some seem Imbolc as the beginning of Spring, and maybe in some ecosystems it is.  Here, though it really is still winter, even if we get the thaw.  This year, I am not sure we're going to get one, as we have perhaps a record-setting streak of super cold. There is a warm up coming, but that warm up is in the 20-30 degree range...not exactly spring like.   Still, the signs of the wheel turning are still apparent. The sun rises earlier and sets later. I did hear some geese coming back a week or so ago. So... Celebrate Spring we shall.    For omens, I drew Mugwort (Druid Plant Oracle)...
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Happy 2026! An announcement and some astrology

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 Well hello! I wanted to take a few minute before the year gets cooking...  FIRST... finally, at long last... this happened: If you are one of the two or three people who have participated in the various "a-longs," here they all are :)  As such, I'll be removing those from this blog eventually (as I've seen them reproduced by both human and probably AI types).  I chose the spiral bound because there is nothing I dislike more than trying to follow a ritual script in a book that won't stay open.   Exclusively available at  The Magical Druid  or you can just email me directly.   On to the new year :) The Yule omen was for Mint (Druid Plant Oracle) bringing clarity, concentration, and renewal.  My omen pulled during the first night of Yule for January was Laguz.   The coming weeks are about digging deep into that inner well of wisdom that you have, your intuition, to find new focus and new purpose as to your work for the year....
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Chores for Lugh

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 I can't believe it's been all year since I've posted. But... yes, I can. So today is Lughnasadh, the first harvest, and for a change my "home Lughnasadh" is sort of lining up with calendar Lughnasadh. The extra heat of the year (global warming? What's that?) woke up the cicadas early by about 3 weeks. but from one or two things to harvest every 4-5 days, now it's a daily activity, and I may need to take the basket out with me going forward. I was tempted to take the day and do Nothing except scratch mosquito bites. I did finish the last of High Magic's Aid (yes, the one by Uncle Gerald ) but I looked around our house and thought... I really need to get on some stuff here.  But can I do it with Intent (tm)?   My omen for August, drawn at Yule is Othala.  Othala is a rune of home, land, and boundaries.  Seeing to those things does seem to be called for if there is need, and by golly there is totally need. My Lughnasadh omen from the Druid Animal/Plant o...
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Yuletide 2024 (and kitten!)

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 As what has become usual, my yuletide observances have been derailed by illness.  This time, it's a third dance with Covid.   In year's past I've done an 'omen for the year' by choosing a rune on each of the twelve days of Yule, starting with Solstice Eve, and ending twelve nights later.  You can see examples of prior years  2023 ,  2021 ,  2020 , ... starting as early as  2017 .  At least as far as what I archived here.  I'd have to dig into  my old Livejournal account  to see about earlier... I'm not sure where I got the idea for a rune pull a day. I do somewhat dimly remember recognizing the twelve days and then twelve months of a year is convenient coincidence, and combining that with the use of divination during liminal times, made it a good idea.  Sometimes I post it, and then don't go back to it. Other times I do, and I notice my interpretation changes, as is correct. I always say readings are a snapshot, what...
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Fall Blog Challenge Day 5: Comic Book Character

Sep. 26 If you were to create a comic book character that embodies your pagan practice what would they be like? Hrm... I think first of the characters I like.  Wonder Woman, Black Widow, Scarlet Witch.  You can add Isis in there from the Saturday morning show, "The Secrets of Isis."  I think what i liked most about her was how she talked TO and, as I would now come to call it, allow Isis to possess her.  She was a priestess of Isis before I even knew that was a thing, or had the vocabulary to talk about it.  Wonder Woman was similar, at least in the TV show. The Greek Gods were real and Wonder Woman could talk to them. The others are a bit more practical, and are not afraid to dip a toe into the 'forbidden worlds' if necessary.   So my character would talk to gods and spirits, and would use whatever was available to her to accomplish her goal.     
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Fall Blogging challenge Days 1-4

 I am doing the "Fall Witchy Blogging Challenge" put up by friend Magpie over at  her blog, Parlor Games and Pentagrams .  I typically suck at these kinds of things, but I figured why the heck not? So hear I am, technically on Day 4 and just getting started, so I am going to be efficient and lump 1-4 together and really attempt to do better. No, seriously. Sep. 22 Fall Equinox how are you celebrating. Sep. 23 New Moon, embracing the coming dark half of the year. I am going to smoosh these together.   Normally I have multiple celebrations for all the high days.  My spouse and I usually lead the rite at the  shop .  In years past there is also the celebration with my  grove , and then I have my own home observation, which I have detailed here before. I know the Neopagan calendar calls it Mabon. This year people on the socials have been extra vocal about the name, which, if I were doing a reconstructed Welsh thing might matter to me. But I ackno...
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