By Fire Well and Tree

  Day 1:  Offerings to the Fro Ing and Frea, and the corn dolly from my garden.   You can't see it, but the green and yellow candles ARE lit, just super small flames (wick problems).I got Yarrow as an omen. The crystal grid is basically a calendar, with the stone for Haelig (Mabon) on the top (and for the first quarter moon on the inner circle).  The new corn dolly is under the black tulle, kind of. Yay, it's here! As of Saturday (9/23) at 2:50 in the morning Even though my favorite 'slice' of the pie that makes up the Wheel of the Year is now over, officially, I don't dislike autumn.  There's all sorts of secular things I love about this time of year: football, pumpkin spice lattes (don't hate), finishing up the harvest of my garden and cleaning it up for the winter, watching the leaves change color... I swear it's like Mother Earth is putting on her own chunky cardigan. Also I love chunky cardigans. I also love that it's still warm enough to be out...

Time to get ready for the next moonth!  (Oops, this was supposed to out early... I need to figure out auto-posts more!) As always, these should be seen as only ideas for focusing in meditation, ritual, or just random deep thoughts throughout the month. Photo by Pixabay: https://www.pexels.com/photo/rain-drops-459451/ The Farmer's Almanac has named this Worm Moon.  The Full Moon is usually in the calendar month of March and around here that means late winter/early spring rains, bringing the worms to the surface.  The Coligny Calendar calls this "Anagantios," which in our grove we call 'stay at home month.'  Our priests come around on the sixth night of the moon to do house blessings.  From the Anglo-Saxons, we have Hreþmonaþ, the month of the Goddess Hreþe or Rheda.  This is the only reference to this goddess we know of, from Bede's Reckoning of Time.  This is when there were sacrifices to her, although who "her" is, is a mystery.   Accor...

  Special guest appearance by Taco towards the back  I am not 100 percent sure how I came to be so...YULE!!!  When I first became pagan, I felt like I was all about the Samhain, the spooky. And heck, yeah, I still love it.  But somehow Yule took hold and now I plan Yule Lad visit to my grove's kids, and Solstice eve vigils, and a Yule Along for the 12 days, and then Twelfth Night sumble.... Anyway, here we are again. The last two years there's been Yule-A-Long and Yule Lads, but that's it.  In 2020, we tried to have a Zoom Twelfth Night. I get that Zoom has been a godsend for many, and we certainly used similar technology (Blackboard Collaborate), but as much as they can help people with some anxieties, they do the exact opposite for mine. So in 2021 I didn't even bother, and was mostly too full of Seasonal Affective Disorder to even care. We didn't even decorate those two years.   BUT, this year is all... well, different. Not normal, but close. (I des...

(I just keep doubling up. Probably because I've set aside for these things for the evening, and there's hockey that happens...) Going around the monthly devotional cycle, Sunday night was "Tending the Cauldron." There are so many cauldrons and related things in Celtic mythology, but THIS one is Dagda Mor's Cauldron of Plenty, the  coire ansic , which was never empty. I have this in the east and it's also the shrine associated with water.     So there's lots of sea and ocean imagery. Dagda has to share his shrine for now with La Sirene, which is another post... In addition to the metaphysical work, in the mundane world I try to do some sort of service work. Right now, I'm convinced that we have enough money that no one should be hungry and unhoused, so I try to do something related to that. (Again, in my perfect world...) I call out this night to the Lord of Riches The Master of the Cauldron of Plenty Dagda Mor, Good God All-Father, Fertile One, Lord of...

 Here in suburbia, it is "my Lughnasadh," and I've begun a 12-day devotional in honor of the Many-Skilled One.  If anyone has ever spoken to me at great length about such things, you may have heard me called the Fire Festivals "portable."  What I mean is that the solstice and equinoxes have fixed astronomical points, related to the Earth's orbit around the sun. The fire festivals (Samhain, Imbolc, Beltainne, and Lughnasadh) have been assigned points mid-way between them, but my own UPG is that this is a modern convenience, and the folklore surrounding them may indicate that events in the tribal pastoral/horticultural rhythms were indicators of the time for being festive.  If you take, Imbolc, for example, one of the things surrounding Imbolc was the ewe's milk coming in, so a key indicator of by how much your heard may be increasing. Well, what if that doesn't happen on February 2?  What if it happens on February 5 or January 27?   What if we haven...

This last day, we ask for blessings for the season to c ome. In the  north , we will be honoring the deities or spirits that symbolize the rest and reflection of the winter, and the blessings of renewal it can bring.   I honored Skadhi and Ullr with whiskey (we were out of vodka), bison jerky, and dried berries, sharing our preparation of food for the coming winter with them. For the  southern  hemisphere, we will be asking for the blessings of the coming season of planting, growth, and eventual harvest.     The black netting will be removed from the winter altar and placed over the summer altar (after candles are extinguised).  The white candles are lit and a moment of quiet meditation in preparation for the wheel turning.  The old corn dolly is disposed of in a sacred manner, usually by fire either tonight or at a later time. The new corn dolly will be wrapped in incubation, as the spirit of my land rests a...

There are usually many predictions of what the weather will be like for the coming season, be it hurricanes or blizzards.  Thanking the spirit/god one sees as protecting either humanity in general or your own residence is appropriate. I usually thank Thor for seeing me through the  Summer (and Winter) and asking for his blessings and protection for the coming Winter (or Summer), with ale and porridge for an offering.   But first, the actual equinox arrived around here bright and early...er, actually DARK and early at 3:50 a.m. I had set my alarm for 3:45 a.m. When it went off, I changed my mind about this, but then had to get up to answer "nature's call."  By then it was 3:47, and I figured I may as well do it anyway.  I lit the candles, and meditated (as much as possible at that hour) on the season to come, and then broke the stick when the alarm sounded at 3:50.  Then I went back to bed :)   (   http://thebookofsassafras.blogspot.co...

Good day! And welcome to Day 12 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long! Even though “Twelfth Night” is attested to at the end of Yule, our modern calendars only allow for New Year’s Eve to happen in December. But that does not mean some sort of gathering can’t happen!   We might need to juggle mundane obligations to have a fitting ending to the celebration but find some time to transition out of this sacred time.   Light the last candle, have an evening gathering in the South, or a daytime gathering in the North and celebrate!

Good day! And welcome to Day 11 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long!   As we prepared the practical nature of hearth and harvest yesterday, today we let go of the Otherworld energies we welcomed as the Winter Wanderer and Spirit of the Greenwood, as they shapeshift into the Boar and Stag, both with other-wordly associations of prosperity and abundance we hope to have for the new year. Light the previous candles and then light the eleventh, placing the appropriate symbol and offering. Southern Hemisphere :   The Cosmic Boar Hunt is a theme that, according to Alexei Kondratiev in “The Apple Branch,” symbolizes the cycle of the sun and the earth’s fertility.   The boar’s head would be used for swearing oaths, but most of us don’t have access to one of those.   So, a statue of a boar would be fine, and special honoring for Frey and Freya (or, as always, other deities and spirits) perhaps, given their associations with the animal.   Offering...

Good Day! And welcome to Day 10 of the Three Crane Grove Solstice-a-Long! As our 12-days are nearing a close, we must begin preparations for heading back into regular time, and for the tasks to come. Light the previous candles and then light the tenth, placing the appropriate symbol and offering. Northern Hemisphere : Preparing for the Harvest. On a practical level, this means just what it says, even if your harvest is only a couple of tomatoes from your garden.   Placement of a harvest tool, or similar symbols of the harvest on the altar, and offerings to harvest deities and spirits. Southern Hemisphere:     Preparing the hearth for the remainder of the winter is the theme.     Placement of a distaff if you have one, or other household related things on the altar, and honoring Frigga or other hearth and home deities.

Good day! And welcome to Day 9 of the Three Crane Grove Solstice-a-Long. Today we honor the spirits of the plant realm, both in the winter and the summer. Light the previous candles and then light the ninth, placing the appropriate symbol and offering. Southern Hemisphere :   Celebration of the evergreen.   Honoring and meditating (or even journeying) on the world tree, placing a sprig of real evergreen on the altar. Northern Hemisphere : Celebration of the healing herbs.   Folklore about collecting herbs at this time, but we can expand to honor whatever plants are in full growth at this time.   Healing deities, too (Airmid and Miach, Eir)

Good Day! And welcome to Day 8 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long! Today we honor the precipitation, in whatever form we see it, for the vital role it plays. Light the previous candles and then light the eighth, placing the appropriate symbol and offering. Northern Hemisphere : Celebrate and honor the spirit of rain and summer storms.   When they aren’t too severe, we need them for our food! Place a symbol and maybe some ale for Thor (or other rain or storm deity). If the weather cooperates, collect rainwater and place it a bowl on the altar. Southern Hemisphere :   Celebrate and honor the spirit of ice and snow.   They are difficult, but even they have their place in the scheme of things.   Symbols of snow and ice and honoring Skadhi and Ullr.   If the weather cooperates, a bowl of snow can be placed on the altar.

Good day! And welcome to Day 6 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long! There’s little doubt that the solstices are associated with spirits of great power, whether at their birth or their strength. We take this time to honor both of those. Northern hemisphere :   Honor of the divine hero or champion, defeater of dangerous wild powers of nature (Giants, Titans, for example), or brings about the much-needed skills and items to the folk. Southern hemisphere :   Child of light in many cultures (Angus mac Og, Mabon ap Modron), bringer of hope and light in the darkness. Light the previous candles and then light the sixth, placing the appropriate symbol and offering.

Good day! And welcome to Day 5 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long! This day both Northern and Southern hemispheres honor the animal Spirits of the Land. Light the fifth candle (after re-lighting the prior candles), and place images of those spirits and offerings for them on the altar.

Good day! And welcome to Day 4 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long! Somewhere in the depths of my pagan experiences, I recall a workshop or reading or something somewhere that juxtaposed the Oak King and Holly King as fighting at the solstices, and then somehow linked them to Jesus (celebrated 12/25) and St. John the Baptist, whose day is 6/23, as if that was some echo of the Oak King/Holly King mythos.   Now, I’m not sure I buy that, specifically, however I do know that in New Orleans, St. John’s Eve is celebrated with a head-washing ceremony in honor of Marie Laveau.    The idea of purification by water is evident in MANY cultures. So, today…take a bath. Or wash your hands, or do whatever but in the spirit of purification. We all walk through everyone’s psychic gunk during our days. I liken it to walking past someone who is smoking, or wearing a lot of perfume, or whatever, and that scent seems to cling to you.   Wash that away, so that you are n...

Good day! And welcome to Day 3 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long Here’s one of the days where the Northern and Southern hemispheres will diverge a bit. On Day 3 we welcome a personification or deity of the season. Southern Hemisphere :   Welcoming the Winter Wanderer.   The most obvious example of this is Odhinn, but there may be others that fit this from the other pantheons. After re-lighting the candles from Day 1 and 2, place a figure of this spirit on the altar. If you’re greeting Odhinn, those woodland-style Santas work really well.   Whomever it is, an offering of mead or ale to welcome them in from their journey, and maybe some apple or grain for their steed (Sleipnir) if they have one. Northern Hemisphere :   Welcoming the Spirit of the Greenwood.   The spirit of the growing season can be personified by the Green Man (not strictly pagan, I know), but there could be others in other pantheons.   Lighting his candle and the...

Good day! And welcome to Day 2 of the Three Cranes Grove Solstice-a-Long!    As part of the daily devotion, light last night’s candle, place a symbol of the sun on your altar and light your second candle in honor of the Sun, however you see her.   An offering of incense to welcome her. Southern Hemisphere : Special honor to the Solar Deity(ies) Northern Hemisphere : It’s your turn to vigil during the day as described in Day 1, and you’ll end at sunset, and can then do the honoring of the Sun as described above.   Maybe something like “As the longest day draws on, I raise this horn in honor of ____, in gratitude for the year that has passed, and with hope for the year to come.”  I've tweaked the schedule of toasts to make sense for daytime hours. Please add or take away hours as your local daylight accomodates.  Again if you can't do all day, just hitting Sunrise, Noon, and Sunset is just as good.  (I've also "Celtified" it, too!  :)...

In the spirit of the Solstice-a-Longs, I present a three-night (or day) devotional for the coming Equinox. As with the Solstices, I am presenting information for both the Northern and Southern hemisphere.   Once again, I am inspired by rites that were included in the Troth’s Book of Blots . The two rites are designed for larger groups; I have edited them for the candle-lighting theme that I used with the Solstice-a-longs.   As there is no tradition for multi-day celebrations for the equinoxes as there is with Yule (at least that I can find), that simplifies things greatly. The first step is, obviously, to find what day the equinox is in your hemisphere. Keep in mind time zones may move the date, if the actual time of solstice falls near midnight.   This year, in my time zone, the Equinox is Wednesday, March 20, 2019 at 5:58 pm EDT.   Thus, the devotional begins on Tuesday, March 19, and ends on Thursday, March 22.   A good site is http://www.timeanddat...

***These are copies of postings to our ADF folks, of a home devotional system one can do on the Twelve Days of Yule.  There are ideas for both the Northern and Southern hemispheres. I'll try to keep up with this throughout, but as it is a busy season for everyone, I may have to double up!*** 12/31 : Good Day! And Welcome to Day 12!   Twelfth night!   New Year’s Eve!  Traditional parties work well here, but a more spiritual aspect can be observed either quickly at home or as part  of the party!   Activities include divination (so placement of runes  or other divination tools  on the altar).  There’s also a suggestion I quite like  from the Matthews’ book  to gather  juniper  (if it wasn’t gathered on Day 9)  and letting it dry by the fire (or wherever that is in a modern home) for use to bless the home tomorrow.  In addition,  we burn the yule log, wreath, or whatever, at midnight as  we ring...