Tag: Paganism

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yuletide blessings

I am, admittedly, not the most devout and practicing Pagan, aside from Samhain, which has always been my favorite holy day. But today marks the Winter Solstice, the start of the twelve days of Yule.

I’ve always loved a good fire, and in ancient tradition, the Yule fire burned for twelve days. This can be looked at as a sort of sympathetic magic, meant to encourage the sun to move forward and lengthen the days because, on the Winter Solstice, the Celts (and others) believed that the sun stood still.

From the Summer Solstice, the days grow shorter until we reach the Winter Solstice. This is the dark time of the year, but from this day forward, the days grow longer and the nights shorter until we complete the cycle at the Summer Solstice.

The Yule log isn’t the only sympathetic magic we engage in at this time of year. Those lights we hang on our trees, porches, eaves…that all started the same way. Drive out the dark, entice the sun to return. And that feast? Back in our pre-Christian, pre-electricity days, we had to squirrel away food from the harvest to get us through the winter, but by Yule, we know the spring is coming, and with it, the earth will once again bear fruit. So we eat heartily as a way of trusting that we will plant again and harvest again.

I don’t want this to turn into a diatribe about stolen traditions…or even stripping those traditions of their original meaning/purpose. I want to celebrate, because gods know this year could use a little celebration.

I don’t have a fireplace, but if I did, there would be a fire burning in it. Instead, I will light candles and wish for spring.

Whether you celebrate Yule, Christmas, Hannukah, or some other holiday this time of year, I hope it brings you joy, the comfort of home, the love of family, and blessings for the coming days, Readers.

Photo by Nathan Lindahl on Unsplash

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thoughts of spring

Happy Beltane, my friends. Traditionally a holiday associated with fertility and sexuality, Beltane is a celebration of life. It marks the start of the growing season, at least here in the northern hemisphere, when we turn our attention to planting gardens and the birthing period for many animals, both of the domestic variety and the wild.

One of the things that drew me to Paganism many moons ago was this attention to natural cycles, the celebrating of the cycle of life. While I’m not a very active Pagan these days, this is still very resonant for me.

Spring really starts for me when I can get my hands into dirt, planting seeds, transplanting plants. It calls to the nurturer in me. This week I got a cherry tomato and a jalapeno pepper planted, plus did some thinning of my carrots and planted some more potatoes. It’s a small little garden, but it suits me.

I’d love to have a huge ornamental flower garden too, but as I am allergic to most flowers, I’ll have to just admire them from afar.

Today is a traditional Saturday however, which means coffee and writing, followed by housework. I hope to have good news about that poetry collection I was talking about last week soon. Until then, Readers, I hope your life is incalescent (today’s word of the day on my Facebook post…it means increasing in ardor or heat).

Photo by Sergey Shmidt on Unsplash

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cognitive dissonance

As someone who was at one time an Evangelical Christian, my relationship with Easter is, at best, problematic. At one time in my life, I considered this to be the most sacred of holy days. Today, it represents all that I came to despise about Christianity.

Unlike Christmas, which I can sink into as a family holiday, a secular celebration of the ones I love, I can not reconcile a secular Easter. Sure, here in the US, Easter is at least as much about candy and bunnies and such as it is about the resurrection of Christ, and there are a fair number of Pagan roots behind some of it, but somehow I have never been able to divorce the Christian understanding of the death and resurrection of their Savior from the fertility rites of spring.

There’s a lot of bad theology, along with some basic premises of Christianity, at play in my feelings. The brand of Christianity I walked away from was a bit fringe and very devoted to the idea that human beings, at their very core, are dirty, filthy, something to be denied the right to present themselves to the supposedly loving god who created them without painting themselves in the blood of another.

The cognitive dissonance that comes with marrying this idea to the idea of a loving god was what I think eventually broke through the programming and freed me up to really study the theology and religion as well as freeing my heart to actually find love.

I’m not going to go into details here. If you’re really interested you could visit my other blog and dig through old posts where I was processing out what I believe and what I really don’t believe. I haven’t posted over there in a long time though. Happy Spelunking!

Because of the way we pick the date of Easter, I often forget about it until I sign into Facebook and see a bunch of posts about it. Some years this has sent me spiraling through a bunch of not great emotional debris and internal dialog. This year seems to be less a spiral and more like a blip of “oh, hey, yeah…that was a thing” feeling. Maybe it’s the amount of introspection this year has involved.

Or maybe I’m outgrowing the trauma. And yes, I liken that theology to trauma.

Anyway, all of that to say, if you celebrate the return of spring or the return of your god, or just that it’s Sunday, I hope your celebration is fulfilling and filled with life and kindness.

Photo by Anthony DELANOIX on Unsplash

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where hope grows

I grew up in Upstate New York, where the very first signs that spring was on the horizon were the daffodils that poked intrepid little heads up through the snows that wouldn’t yet melt for a few weeks (or more). For the longest time, daffodils were my favorite flowers because of that, and they still hold a special place in my heart.

When you’re still in the depths of the cold hard embrace of an Upstate New York winter, after the fun of snow has become the drudgery of slush that has frozen over and cold toes that don’t seem to ever get warm, that first little hope of spring is a most welcome thing

It seems we are facing much the same feeling with this pandemic right now. We are all so done with sitting at our windows, looking out on a world that is filled with hidden dangers, and we just want to be able to go to the movies, and out for coffee with friends.

Vaccines offer us that first hint of hope that our year-long winter of disease is coming to a close, but just like those first daffodils herald a spring that may still be a long ways off, so too does the promise of immunity come with a caveat. Many a blizzard has buried those first daffodils, reprimanding them for sticking their heads up too soon. Returning to our normal lives too soon will bring with it another blizzard of Covid-19 to swat us down and set back our recovery.

Hope grows where vaccines are planted, but immunity takes some time to blossom. So, as we turn the wheel of the year toward Imbolc, let us hope, but remain vigilant.

Happy February, Readers! May it be filled with love and kindness.

Photo by Charles Tyler on Unsplash

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kill it with fire

I don’t know about you, but this entire year has been ten years long and filled with awfulness, from people proving that we’ve become a selfish, greedy nation that doesn’t care about the less fortunate to the government abdicating its duty to take care of its people to the actual pandemic that has killed nearly 350,000 of us, and I am ready to put it behind me.

That isn’t to say that some good stuff hasn’t happened this year. It has and with luck it will produce some good news for me to share soon. However, being a Pagan who does on occasion still pull out the big box o’ritual, and who really, really wants to make sure that the bad of 2020 stays IN 2020 and doesn’t follow us onward, I plan to kill it with fire before midnight on December 31st. How, you ask?

Well, I’ve put together two rituals for folks who might also like to kill it with fire or maybe bind it, stick it and stone it to death. I’ve written them in a way that almost anyone can participate and adapt it to their beliefs/practices.

While I tend to do my new year ritual at Samhain, this year calls for some special handling, I think. I’ve even saved some firewood for this. I’m gonna get the fire pit going and I’m going to see this thing through to the end.

Here’s to a better year to come, Readers. May it bring with it kindness, compassion and a little cleansing fire.

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the sun will rise

I am, admittedly, a lazy sort of Pagan. I keep an altar and I light candles and burn incense on the holidays and sometimes at other times, but I don’t go all out like I used to when I was newly arrived in pagandom. My daily meditation practice is pretty lax in the best of times, and lets face it, these are not the best of times.

I am generally more into Samhain and Beltane than I am the solstices, but this year at Samhain everything felt suppressed under the weight of world around me, and Yule has dawned with a feeling of hope.

I know that the fight with this virus isn’t over and in fact we are facing some of the worst days to come. The fact that we now have two vaccines being deployed gives me hope that we might win this fight.

I also know that getting a new president and vice president isn’t going to fix the mess we’re in politically or financially (and do not get me started on this $600 congress thinks is a boon), but the upcoming inauguration also gives me hope that we can close this chapter on the American story and get to work rebuilding our nation and our relations with the world.

The world turns, and we with it. The longest night will pass and the sun will rise. I hope that it burns away the vitriol and hatred that has held the hearts of so many hostage and that with the lengthening of the days, the thawing of the earth, and the warmth of the sun, we begin to grow into better versions of ourselves.

Blessings to you, Readers. May you feel the sun on your face and know you are loved.

Cover Photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash

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the sanctity of samhain

This time of year, as the air begins to cool enough for mornings to need socks and the darkness seems to deepen so that the nights are black and still, a sense of peace starts to settle over me. As I shuffle tarot cards for folks who seek guidance and wisdom or light candles on my Beloved Dead altar, it seems fitting to ask them to visit with me.

I’ve never really been one who wants to share Samhain in a large group. It’s always felt like a solitary holy day, and I find the best way to honor it is alone. For me, Samhain is a time of reflection, a day to look at who I have been in the year since last Samhain, to not only celebrate the positive but to address the things I want to change.

Like planting a tulip bulb so spring will bring a beautiful flower, it is a time to plant the bulbs of intention for my future. I have employed a number of methods to do this in the past, but I think this year may involve actual bulbs in actual dirt.

Much of my Samhain rituals are private, intimate. I hold my time on Samhain as sacred. It is a time to commune with my gods and my ancestors. In these next ten days I draw into myself, disengage from the outside world (as much as is possible in this time of chaos) and prepare myself.

I am also holding space for a family member who will be crossing the veil very soon. May her transition be peaceful and her soul find rest.

On that somber note, Readers, I need to get headed to the day job. The commute gets tough right around the corner of hallway and living room, especially if there is a kitty pile up.

Cover Photo by Elena Mozhvilo on Unsplash

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the veil is thin

There are two times of the year when the veil that separates this plane from the next grows thin, making communication with the dead easier, among other things.  At Samhain we often invite our dead to sup with us, preparing their favorite foods and drink and setting them out on our tables.  Our rituals tend toward the somber at Samhain.

But at Beltane, opposite Samhain on the Wheel of the Year, our rituals are filled with rejoicing, celebrating the awakening of the earth, the growth all around us, and yes, the fertility that will see us through another long winter.

It is a good time to remind us that life will find a way.  Even as the society we built cracks under the strain of this pandemic and all that accompanies it, the earth puts forth sprouts and leaves and flowers.  In the animal kingdom, babies are born, ensuring that their species will continue.  All around us are the signs that if we just hold on through this “winter” life will begin anew.

And maybe, just maybe, we can learn from Mother Earth’s example, and create something new.

We don’t usually stress communicating with the dead at Beltane, but with so many of us channeling life skills that helped our ancestors survive, maybe it’s time we did.  Reach out to great-grandma to get her secrets to a successful sourdough starter (I can not get mine to do what it’s supposed to).  Call out to your great-great grandpa for advice on planting corn or tomatoes or what have you. Invite them to supper or pour out a cup.

Then go stick your hands in some dirt, grow something. You might be surprised at the joy it can give you.

Happy Beltane, Readers, may it bring you blessings and joy.

Cover Photo by Arno Smit 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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happy spring?

It’s another rainy, rainy day here in San Francisco.  Just walking from BART to the office has my legs soaked from the knees down.

Don’t get me wrong, I love the rain, and gods know we needed it, but after a solid month of the stuff, I find myself craving the sun.  My cats are also completely over the rain.  This morning, instead of getting up with me, they sat on the bed staring at the pet door.

The streets are turning into rivers and the ground everywhere is just saturated.  I am sure all of the plants are thrilled that we have escaped drought status, but I think I am quite over the rain at this point.

Enough of that, however.  Today is Ostara on the Pagan calendar, the spring equinox.  Today is the tipping point that dumps us out of winter and onward toward summer.  From here out the days start to get longer, at least until midsummer.

It is a time to plant intentions, to begin new things.  Get those seeds in some dirt and let’s grow something profound!

Of course, it’s also Wednesday, so here I am in the office like a good worker drone.  Lots to do, coffee to consume, etc, etc…

How about you, Readers?  What are you looking to grow this season?