By Fire Well and Tree

  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...

 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....

 <insert photo of Twelfth Night altar> While my liturgical year ended and began two months ago, the rest of the world* turned the page two days ago.  And so, the Twelfth Night of my Yule celebration conveniently coincides with New Year's Eve. As the five or ten of you who read along regularly know, I like to have a party that evening to celebrate.  It can be a bit much for this introvert, but I do it because I genuinely love hosting and making food and serving beverages to those that I care about.  Yuletide, and really all our holidays, began as group and family activities, and while I have done these things solo, it doesn't really put the cap on the season the same way.   Our whole Yuletide season prefaces with the Krampus walk on the first Sunday in December. One grove member has a Wassail party soon thereafter to really kick things off, and then I bookend it on the other side, and then usually Yule and Winter Solstice rites in between.  During...

 A few years back a friend of mine started a "Prayer a Day" challenge, a-la the NaNoWriMo project. There is, of course, a Facebook group, if you're into that sort of thing:   https://www.facebook.com/groups/973579286163091/ Anyway, I think I shall try this year. But, rather than post every day on FB I think I will post them HERE and then the shame of seeing me forget and give up will only be know by the 2-3 people who read this :)  I will try to remember to share a post around weekly.  You can always check in without me posting though. They're supposed to be NEW prayers, but there's some I've written and not ever shared that I may add in here just because. But not today! New Beginnings A child of earth calls out I call to my ancestors, who started over and over I call to the spirits of the land, and their endless rebirth to new beginnings I call to the gods who watch the cycles of time spiral forward Stand with me, Kindreds I take these first steps on a famili...