By Fire Well and Tree

And not a moment too soon!  Technically, there is an hour and ten minutes before the sun and earth and relevant celestial bodies are in the right spot for the Vernal Equinox to occur.  And the sun just finally came out for a bit...but not for long. The temperature does not exactly scream spring, but it is also not freezing for a change.  I am also on spring break from my day job, and have spent the last two days preparing for a home Spring Equinox rite. I prefer to refer to almost all of the solar days by their astronomical names, with the exception of Yule. I have no idea why this is. Druidry, as ADF practices it, is a religion of action.  The central concept is one of hospitality with the spirits (called by us the Three Kindreds).  We give offerings (or sacrifices....a topic for another post is the difference between the two) at nearly all rites, and ask for blessings in return. In my own practice, this happens at my daily devotionals, our weekly hearth ...

I am actually sharing this from my friend Ian Corrigan, who's blog Into the Mound you can link to at the right there.  I highly encourage you to check this out.  In the meantime... Attention Pagans - repeating this bullshit makes us look stupid. This stuff comes from half-wit anti-Catholic literature of the 19th century - it is worthless in light of modern scholarship. Let's do this in detail: 1: Ishtar is not pronounced 'eester' - silly. 2: Ishtar was a goddess of fertility and sex, also war and sovereignty. While the Spring equinox season was important, it was not her par ticular feast. 3: There are no depictions of her with eggs or rabbits. 4: Constantine did not Christianize the Roman empire, he only made Christianity legal.I can't say whether Ishtar was still in business during Constantine's time. Most specifically, "Ishtar" has nothing to do with 'Easter' Easter was said by the early medieval scholar, Bede (and only by him) to be derived ...

Wounded I hung on a wind-swept gallows For nine long nights, Pierced by a spear, pledged to Odin, Offered, myself to myself I scarcely believed the words left my lips.  I was meditating.  I was at a coven gathering, where we were experimenting with different kinds of recorded music and meditation or trance.  At the time, I wasn't very good at that, but through this exercise I discovered that simple music (a single Asian flute) works best, and I found myself on Yggdrasil.  I decided, in my meditative mind, to head towards Alfheim, having been told in a seidhr that I should sit with Freyr for a while.  On my way, there was a man hanging, upside down.  As I approached, he begged me for some water.  There was a bucket with a silver ladle nearby, and I reached down to get some water, I stopped. Me:  You aren't supposed to have this. Himself:  Please.... It was then that I quoted the above back to him and then continued. ...

One of the key things about any spiritual or magical undertaking seems to be this one.  Know thyself.  Who am I?  By way of introductions for those who don't know me, here we go. First and foremost, I am a Child of the Earth.  I mean this literally.  There is a chant I learned early on in my pagan days that goes: Earth my body Water my blood Air my breath and Fire my spirit I think that sums it up fairly well.  There are a whole bunch of other meditations and conceptualizations connecting the human body to various aspects of nature, mirroring the creation of the cosmos in some mythologies out of the body of the primal being. I am a wife, daughter, sister, aunt, godmother, daughter-in-law, great-aunt (oy), and friend.  I'm not always so successful at all of those all the time, what with the being human and all.  But I place great store by my place in the social web.  I try to be loyal and supportive; but I am also not a doormat. ...