The Moon of the Cliff (in Scorpio) and Sky Father (5,6)

 Oops, I missed last night. Stormy the cat was INSISTENT that I put my tablet away for some laptime.  So I am doubling up.

Prayer #1 is for last night's new moon.  I like to merge ideas from a variety of sources for my lunar rites (when I do them....that's another post...). I look to 1) the moon names from various indigenous tribes.  I am on their land. I am living with their spirits, ancestral and otherwise.  When I go to someone's house, I like to follow their rules and customs, and frankly I see this as no different. (If you want a lecture on what the term "appropriation" ACTUALLY means, the tl;dr is...this isn't it, but I'm happy to go on at length in the comments if anyone wants to go there...)

So first, this is the Beaver Moon, attributed in one source to the Algonquin. Technically they lived north of here (side project...figuring out those that are more locally specific).  The Almanacs that have adopted these talk about the full moon, but I'ma take the custom from MANY groups that the month starts at the new moon.  Anyhoo, the moon was so named because one source says this is the time that traps for beaver (and likely other fur animals) were baited.  Very  much a preparation for winter activity, when you think about it.

(another note for side project:  This site: https://www.wwu.edu/astro101/indianmoons.shtml does not concur, but I haven't looked so deep...yet).

I also look to Kondratiev's Celtic Rituals/The Apple Branch. He connects the 13-ish moons of the year with the Song of Amergin.  The first line (this being the first new moon/month after Samhain) is "I am the noise of the sea" (in his translation) and he connects this with the cliffs at the shoreline, where the dead left to go to the House of Donn. He calls it "The Moon of the Cliff" and it is a time of preparation to go into the dark half of the year. 

Our own grove's tradition of Samonios (from the Coligny calendar) has us focusing on ancestors and Samonios translates to End of Summer Month.

Lastly, I dig astrology.  The New Moon is Scorpio, from some online page of lunar astrology that no longer exists but I hand copied all the things... this new moon represents deep instinctive energies, going within, looking at the previous years' goals and discarding what is not useful. 

Really, lots of synchronicity here.  So....this prayer happened:

Hail to the New Year; Hail to the New Month

May we honor those that will not join us at the turning

May we remember their names for always

May we honor the stillness and the silence

May we prepare for the cold

May we look deep within and rest

For the return of the light will come

And we must be ready for the dawn

So, now today's prayer...

Druidry honors the Earth Mother, and only tangentially things about a Sky Father. In some ways, this is perhaps a desire to distinguish it from the gender binary of Wicca's Lord and Lady, although it might SOMETIMES sneak in through either inspiration or gatekeeper.  At our own hearth and in his own work, my spouse does often speak to Sky Father ... being both a Tyrsman and having distant indigenous heritage makes that comfortable for him.

I tend to go back and forth.  My UPG of this "archetype" is still clouded in Christianity, a distant fatherly figure in the sky that is only sort of barely there.  But...sometimes I still do find it useful to think about, especially when the sky is as beautiful as it is today.

The brightest of blues offset by the whitest of clouds

Fades through all the shades to the deepest of blacks

And pinpoints of white.

Sky Father, ever changing, yet ever constant

Distant yet always near

Ordering the seasons and stars of the Great Wheel

Seldom honored yet steadfast in your blessings

I honor you this day and all days

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