Summer Solstice (Dedicant Path Essays)

The Summer Solstice, also called Litha or Midsummer, is the longest day and shortest night of the year. It is the peak of daylight and warmth, before the wheel rolls toward autumn. In some Neopagan traditions, this is when the Oak King and Holly King do battle and the Oak King falls, giving place to the King of the Waning Year. (Some traditions also do this at the equinoxes). Bonfires, Feasting, and sacred plays – including Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream - are also traditional. The Neolithic people of Europe aligned their stone circles to the rising and setting sun on the solstices, which points to the importance of this date for many millennia.

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Midsummer is a time when there’s a little more free time in an agricultural society. The planting is done and the harvest hasn’t yet started. It would be a time to go to war in the ancient world, and in the modern world it’s also a good time for projects.

The Celts have no major holiday between Beltaine and Lammas that’s recorded, and there isn’t any indication any of the Roman holidays had major significance in Gaul around the solstice either, so my celebrations tend to focus more on family, friends, and nature. Midsummer is a perfect beach or bbq holiday!

Beltaine (Dedicant Path Essay)

Beltaine is celebrated in early May. It corresponds with Welsh Calan Mai and is rendered in Gaulish as Belotenes. Some Beltaine traditions may also be derived from the Roman Floralia. It is the cross-quarter day when the warm season has truly begun, and the modern rituals are about flowers and the greening of the land and the fertility of earth. In pre-Christian Europe, this would have been when the cattle were put out for the summer grazing. Purification was a theme at Beltaine, with the cattle being driven between two fires to purify them, and the people walked around or jumped over the fires to purify themselves. The community’s hopes rested on a successful summer and harvest, so starting the growing season right was critical. Beltaine was also a time when the Aos Sidhe were particularly active, and offerings were made to them. Many fairy stories about fairy wives or mortals that wander into the hollow hills are set around Beltaine. In modern culture, Beltaine has a bit of a hedonistic reputation. The Wiccan God and Goddess come together at Beltaine, conceiving the young God who will be born at Yule. To quote the geek bard Jonathan Coulton, “First of May, first of May, outdoor f***ing starts today!”

Growing up in New England, there were May Day customs that we practiced yearly. My mother taught us to weave baskets from leaves, birchbark, or strips of colored paper and we filled these with the first wildflowers (violets and strawberry blossoms and tiny bluettes) and would leave the baskets on our friends’ doorsteps before running to hide. May pole dances are probably a modern elaboration of the May pole as a world-tree symbol.

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In my practice, Beltaine is a time to work with the nature spirits. It’s when I clear the gardens of last year’s dead plants and prepare the ground for planting (it’s still not safe from frost for another couple weeks, but I try to celebrate the holiday by getting my hands in the dirt). Some of the hardier plants go in, my herbs are started inside in a sunny window. It’s a time when I offer to the outsiders as well, to keep our truce in place for the upcoming year.

Vernal Equinox (Dedicant Path Essay)

The spring equinox is called Ostara in most Neopagan traditions, after a Germanic goddess of dawn, Ostara. Her counterpart in Anglo-Saxon according to Bede was Eostre, from whom we derive the word Easter. Ostara traditions in Neopaganism share more than the name, they also share a lot of symbolism with secular Easter traditions. Rabbits, lambs and eggs are the seasonal motifs, as well as the first wild flowers and all the signs of spring. The equinox is the day of equal light and dark, after which the summer will be starting and the days will get progressively longer until Midsummer.

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Signs of the season are everywhere, around the equinox is when the snow is finally retreating for the last time, the leaves begin to bud on the trees, and the maple sap rises. Here in Northern New England a network of tubing and buckets springs up wherever you look as everyone taps their maples. Some of my best spring memories are of standing around the boiler rendering sap, it’s still cold outside, the ground is frozen solid, but the heat of the flames and the sweetness of the syrup keep you from feeling the cold. A favorite treat is hot maple syrup poured on homemade ice cream (in less polluted days we used to pour it right on the snow).

There’s little evidence that the continental Celts celebrated the equinox (although their astrology was advanced enough to be sure they recognized it). Because I haven’t found any particularly Gaulish traditions, I take my cue from Bede and honor a Gaulish dawn goddess: Sulis, the sun goddess to whom the temple at Bath was dedicated.

Matronalia 2016

Today is the Roman holiday Matronalia. A day dedicated to mother goddesses and motherhood. A fitting day for an observance in honor of the Matrones. Goddesses or deep past ancestresses, I do not know, but I'll remember them with candles and offerings tonight. I'll remember my maternal line too.

The timing of Matronalia is probably not a coincidence. The most auspicious time for a Roman wedding was Juno's month, so most Romans got married in June. (A tradition that's still in effect, though, most probably don't know why. Who hasn't heard someone talk about "a June wedding" as though it was more significant than just nice weather?) Counting forward from June, Matronalia occurs at that time of year when the new Roman bride, married in June, might be just about to deliver her "honeymoon baby".

Matronalia turned into "Mothering Sunday", the fourth Sunday in Lent, which is still celebrated in honor of the Virgin Mary and mothers in many parts of Europe.

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A modern woman might laugh at this association. Married in June, due by March? More like due by March 2020. But I'm going to light a candle to the Matrones tonight. To Danu, to Nantosuelta, to Rosmerta. To goddesses of plenty and abundance. To mothers. Maybe I will join their ranks one day. But tonight I give to them so that they may give to me.

And who knows the deep desire of your heart better than a mother?

Imbolc Ritual 2016 (Dedicant Path Essay)

I'm late writing about my Imbolc ritual, but partly because I needed time to take things in. I did an unusually complex ritual, with multiple offerings to each being involved, and a major working, which is unusual for me, because I don't do a lot of direct spellwork as part of my regular practice.

I did a full COOR rite, honoring Danu as the Earthmother/the Kennebec River, Nemetona as Gatekeeper, the ancestors, nature spirits, and deities generally. My great grandmother A., my grandfather D. and my childhood friend J. were special guests of honor. In my Samhain ritual I had pledged to leave candles in honor of those three on my altar until Imbolc as an offering, because their shrine went up later than I had promised when we moved in and I was seeking to make amends for that. So at Imbolc I lit their candles that had stayed in the place of honor since Samhain and let them burn to nothing.

The primary deity honored was Brighid, and I offered to her resin incense on the fire, and a shot of Celtic Honey (Irish Whiskey flavored with honey) into the well. The prayer to her was not original, but I did compose for her a short poem in a new style I have been practicing, and that was also a devotional offering.

Wildwood Tarot: 10 of Bows, 5 of Arrows, the Shaman

For an omen I used the Wildwood Tarot. I drew the Ten of Bows (Responsibility) for the ancestors, which I interpreted to mean that they were pleased I had kept my vow regarding the shrine and its candles. For the ancestors I drew the Five of Arrows (Frustration), I found this apt, I am frustrated with my relationship with the spirits in our new home. I rather imagine they are also frustrated with me. We aren't connecting and a change needs to be made. I don't know what it is though.  For the deities I drew the Shaman. The only major arcana card I drew in this omen, and a big one. The Shaman is the Wildwood's magician, but with a more strongly religious bent, he stands for deep work, commitment, and new journeys. I interpret this as an acceptance of my offerings and a push for more.

It's a responsibility I hope I can fulfill.

Sitting with Divination

I've been reading tarot for myself for a long time. Ever since I bought my first deck, the Llewellyn Tarot, on a whim in 2008 or so. Before I was even identifying as a Pagan, although looking back, I already was one. I'd already had my first very shocking experience of Pagan deity. If pressed, I might have admitted I was Pagan-curious. But reading Tarot for myself is a lot like looking in a mirror. The cards become markers in the personal language of my own soul. I know what each means to me, and I can read them clearly. It's a skill, I think, fitting the spread to the constellation of experience you're considering and then drawing out the meaning.

But it's a totally different experience than using tarot to communicate with another being. Totally different skill set.

Temperance, from the Llewellyn Tarot

Every time I read an omen at the end of my rituals I am baffled. Every single time it feels like the most unexpected, indecipherable nonsense imaginable. I shuffle the deck in the deep state of connectedness that has really taken hold by that point in a good ritual. But when I start pulling cards it's like being hit in the face with cold water. What the heck could these random bits of image and symbol possibly mean to me?

It's one reason I rarely write about rituals very soon after I complete them. Because just about every time, I need time and distance to even approach interpreting that omen. Sometimes I need a few days' distance to even tell you if I think the message was positive or negative!

I leave the three cards out on my shrine after I put the rest of the deck away and return the shrine to its pre-ritual state. I look at them every time I pass by. I let the images sort of soak into my subconsciousness, and then, three days... even a week later, when I sit down to write about the ritual, it's usually so easy to see what those cards mean.

Three of Cups, from the Llewellyn Tarot

Sometimes that means I have work to do. My most recent reading tells me that the nature spirits think I'm seriously missing the mark with my offerings since we moved in November. Every omen I've taken since we moved in has been dissatisfied. Once I pulled the Tower. Sometimes when the meaning of the omen hits five or six days later it means I go back to the altar and do more. More offerings, more prayers. Sometimes it's more divination because the answer I got just leads to more questions. Sometimes... like now...  I don't know how to make it right.

But at least I'm learning to read it. Communication is key to building relationships. Sometimes it feels like I'm learning to communicate all over again, like a baby speaking gobbledygook to her parents. I feel like I just said "mama" for the first time.

But at least I'm moving forward.

To Brighid at Imbolc 2016

Brightest is  Brigid, the burning ember,

She of the everburning we remember.

Holy healer, and hearths brightness,

Oldest of poets, and growing lightness.

Deep in the dark of death's dreaming,

Life and light she leads to springing.

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