Tag: holiday

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consider juneteenth

A new federal holiday was signed into law this week, a holiday that calls us to remember our history. Ironically, it comes at the same time that some states are declaring it illegal to teach that history.

Look, I am as white as they come, and I’m talking to my fellow white people when I say that we MUST do better. Consider the significance of the fact that June 19th 1865 was two and a half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and two months after Lee surrendered to end the Civil War.

Consider the fact that we, as a people, kidnapped, enslaved, tortured, raped and killed black people for no reason other than the fact that they were black. Consider the audacity of that. Consider that we had to send troops into Texas to enforce the ending of slavery.

Sure, it was a long time ago and none of us was there, but that does not mean that we aren’t culpable for the sins of our forebears, particularly not when so much of the attitude that got us into slavery in the first place is still evident in so many of us today.

Racism is baked deep into our soil, into our bodies. It built the education system, the government. It permeates every aspect of our society and it does not go away by denying it exists. It can only be fought by identifying it, calling it out and trampling it beneath our feet.

To my BIPOC friends and family, I’m here to support you in whatever way I can. I know that the naming of Juneteenth as a federal holiday does nothing in the grander scheme of things and there is so very much work to do. It is a pebble in the stream.

Let’s throw a couple boulders in next.

Happy Saturday, Readers. May the day be educational for you.

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merry christmas to all…

Today is the first day of over a week off of the day job. This means I get to write every day until the words stop flowing. This pleases me.

Tomorrow will be time spent with my immediate family, who are the only people I have spent any time with at all during this pandemic. There won’t be any hugs and a lot less touching than any Christmas before this one, but there will be good food and good company, possibly fun games and maybe some wine.

I haven’t celebrated a religious Christmas in many years, but the secular one has always been meaningful to me as an opportunity to show family how much I love them through food and gifts. I tend to cook from scratch for the special days, depending on what we’re doing for a main course.

My holy day has come and gone, and was mostly observed with candles, an offering of wine and some solemn contemplation of the year that has raked us over the coals. I, for one, am looking forward to the end of this year, this decade.

I hope Santa brings you something you desire. I hope that you give others the love that lives inside you. I hope you get some sleep, something yummy to eat and the feeling of knowing you are loved.

Merry Christmas, Readers!

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the autumn of innocence

I was born in September. I don’t know if that has any bearing on my love for autumn, but I like to believe it does. In my Upstate New York childhood, autumn meant new school clothes and supplies (I still love new notebooks and pens and markers and folders and, and, and…), the smell of dry leaves and cider, and the excitement of Halloween. The highlight of October was the annual trip to Kelly’s Farm to pick out our pumpkins and get fresh brewed cider and old fashioned donuts.

While the innocence of that time has gone, and the world is a different place today than it was then, there is a certain wonder to the autumn months still. I sometimes miss the New York autumns, especially here in California where we basically get two seasons, Summer and Not-Summer. Sure we have leaves on the ground and the mornings and nights are cooler, and sometimes even cold, but the true fall colors don’t happen here, unless you travel up into the mountains.

We’re into the time of year here that means long pants and long sleeves in the morning, tank tops and shorts by noon and the air conditioner in the late afternoon. I go to bed with the fan blowing and not even the sheet pulled over me and wake up under blankets chilled.

Last night I refreshed my altar for my ancestors as sort of an invitation. The veil between worlds is thinning as we approach Samhain and I welcome them to visit.

Samhain, and Halloween for that matter, will be different this year, I imagine. For me it is usually a quiet holiday, being the my front door doesn’t face the street, but just the sheer number of newly dead this year…loved ones to be remembered and honored…changes the tenor of the day. This was true for me the Samhain after 9/11, and this is so much more, so many more dead, and many of them left this world bereft of human touch, without the ones they loved by their side.

On that somber note, I wish each of you a lovely week and the kindness and compassion that changes lives. I’m off for more coffee and to log into work. May this autumn be one of a better harvest.

Cover Photo by Dennis Buchner on Unsplash

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Beltane blessings

Today is the first day of May.  May Day.  Beltane.  It is a holy day of promise for the future, a day of planting seeds for the harvest to come.

This is a day that celebrates spring, when the youngest flowers bloom and the air is filled with the light fragrance that whispers of the summer that is just around the corner.

And yes, it is a day closely associated with fertility.  In some Pagan traditions it is celebrated with bawdy tales of trysts in the woods between willing partners, or with drinking and feasting and ritualized representation of the sex act.

All of that is to remind us that this is the time when Mother Earth is her most fertile, when she is waiting for us to run our plow into her and deposit our seed into her soil, so that she may nurture and grow it to provide for our sustenance in the long months of winter.

So, blessings you, Readers, if you celebrate…and if you don’t.  Happy Wednesday either way!  May your planting find fertile ground so that the harvest is plentiful!

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Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

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samhain and the dead

As I am writing this, I am looking at tomorrow’s holiday with a new perspective of sorts.  I’ve always loved Halloween, from my earliest memory.  It was a fun holiday, a chance to become something besides your self, and of course, there was all the candy!

As a new Pagan many years ago it took on new meaning.  I celebrated Samhain as I imagine a lot of new Pagans do.  I did a little research, I borrowed traditions from paths that seemed to get it right, and I threw myself into celebrating this holiday of the dead.

But what I didn’t really have, or understand, was any real connections to my “beloved dead” or my “ancestors”…I never really had a strong sense of family connections beyond my immediate family and they’re immediate family (mother, father, siblings…aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents).  I had never known my mother’s father and at the time I chose my Pagan path, the only people in my life who had died were my father’s mother and a childhood friend.

Still, I had a strong draw toward honoring the dead.  My love of old cemeteries also goes back to my childhood and my interest in the spirit world was part of what drew me to Paganism to begin with.

Over the last few years, my religious path has changed some…nothing drastic, but if your faith doesn’t grow with you as you grow then your faith can die.  I found myself digging into my family tree, into the history of me as it were, and discovered a feeling of connection with several ancestors that I had never known.

Two years ago, I attended a class in bone reading as divination.  It had a strong emphasis on calling on the beloved dead to assist.  It was after that class that I set up a small altar with pictures of those ancestors, and in the two years since I have added images of those who have passed more recently, not necessarily family of my blood, but family of my heart.

This Samhain, after I go to work in my Raven costume, I will spend an evening in quiet contemplation and while I can’t really have a bonfire like I’d like, I will light as many candles as I deem safe and invite those beloved dead to visit.  I may even throw some bones and see if they speak to me.

Whether you celebrate Halloween, Samhain or Dia de los Muertos, may your day be filled with blessings and sweet things.