Summer Solstice

Summer solstice is a weird one for me. I care very much about the winter solstice; it’s a rough time of year, and solstice means it’s getting (quite literally) brighter. But although I have a hard time with the heat of summer, summer solstice in my climate doesn’t mean much of anything, other than it gets dark earlier so I have a slightly better chance of getting to bed on time. Add to that the fact that it doesn’t have a prominent position in Irish lore, and I mostly celebrate the summer solstice to be in solidarity with other Pagans.

Which isn’t a bad thing, really. While I have come to the realization lately that I’m different enough from any particular Pagan group to want to belong to it, I do think that acknowledging the larger community is a part of healthy religious practice, and related to (although not the same as) honoring the ancestors, and I don’t want to pretend that I can adopt a personal Pagan practice and ignore everyone else who’s doing the same thing. So I don’t have a problem with celebrating Solstice because everyone else is doing it, even if it doesn’t mean much to me. It just means that it’s kind of a struggle to get it done, sometimes.

Solstice fell on a weekend this year, but it was a weekend that also happened to be the only one for three weeks in either direction that I didn’t have plans to hang out with other people, and I am the world’s staunchest introvert. Plus I work a public service job. My friend texted me a happy Solstice message on the day, and I still didn’t manage to get the rite done until the following - Wednesday? Thursday? It was several days later, anyway. I used the same Simple Rite from ADF that I’ve been using for a while, and the Crane Breviary prayer to Tyrannis, and it worked just fine. (I’ve never done a rite honoring a sky god before, not since I left Christianity, but the omen I drew was The Hierophant, so I think I did it right.) That’s all it was, fine, but like I said - I didn’t need it to be more than that.

I’m still craving a more regular daily practice, but I haven’t come up with anything that actually works yet. My meditation schedule has been shot for a while now (if I were still planning to complete the Dedicant Path paperwork I’d have to reset the clock on my eight months of mental training, but I don’t think I am), but even so, that wasn’t quite what I wanted. I tried Erynn Rowan Laurie’s Circle of Stones again; that didn’t do it, either. I’m afraid I might actually have to write my own prayers for that to work for me.

Hail the Queen of the May

I did my Bealtinne rite on Saturday morning, April 30th, since I was expecting guests at noon and knew I’d be too busy through the rest of the weekend to dedicate the proper energy to it. I used the Simple Rite I practiced with for a month after the disaster that was my Ostara ritual - which I did mean to write up, and I’m sorry, I’ll get to that eventually - with prayers and invocations taken from the single Irish Beltainne rite on the ADF website. (I really thought there’d be more.) I looked at using the Crane Breviary rite again, but it was a little too proto-Celtic for my tastes.

And this was the first time in a long time I’d done a really Irish-Celtic rite, and that was amazing. I’d forgotten a little, I suppose, that I got into doing ADF and the Dedicant Path in order to deepen the practice I’d already had, not to turn my practice Proto-Indo-European. Generic rites are well and good, but speaking to the gods and spirits I already knew was wonderful.

I tend to visualize the space beyond the open Gate as a stone circle - I know they’re pre-Celtic, but I also know they were considered magical places by the Celtic peoples, and I’d be surprised if they were never used as ritual sites. This time, at the center of the circle stood a tree in flower. I genuinely don’t know if they had dogwood in ancient Ireland, but that was the tree at the back of my grandmother’s porch that always said spring to me when it flowered.

The rite invokes Aine and Aengus Og as Queen and Consort of the Sidhe, something I’ve never tried before but which seems obvious now that I’ve done it. Bealtinne is the transition from winter into summer, after all, and transitions in particular belong to the Sidhe. The rite I was adapting also included the Bealtinne Fires, but I just couldn’t find a way to do that in a solitary rite without feeling silly, so I skipped it. I did decorate my Tree as a maypole, though - great fun, and a fitting offering to the Sidhe.

I used oil with lavender blossoms steeped in it for the offerings to the Gods, and that was where modern technology and apartment living went all wrong. I’ve been using incense charcoal and candles together for the Fire - using incense offerings most of the time, but oil every once in a while. I’d made the first offering and scraped off the charcoal to keep it burning for the rest of the rite, and the smoke that created set off my fire alarm. And of course my building has hardwired fire alarms, so I had to stop, turn on the fans and open the windows wide, and run down the hall to turn off the alarm before it set the whole building going. I swear I could feel Aengus Og laughing over my shoulder the whole time. So at least he didn’t mind his offering being delayed? It shook my focus a little bit, of course, but once I got the alarm turned off I was able to drop back into the rite without any trouble at all.

The omens I drew were all wands, perfect for a holiday of growth and energy - the Ten of Wands, for hard work almost done; the Two of Wands Reversed, for difficulty starting something; and the Queen of Wands, who could be no one but Aine, beautiful, powerful, sexual, passionate, energetic, and bountiful. One piece of work finishing, another one starting (even if the start might be a little rough), and the blessings of the Queen of May herself. It was a profoundly satisfying rite, heartening and fulfilling, and I’m excited for the summer months to come.

Beltainne

Beltainne is a weird holiday for me. I love that it’s a holiday about sex and debauchery! But I am asexual - I don’t experience sexual attraction - and so that part of it doesn’t connect with me personally at all. I’m glad other people have it, but it’s not for me. (I accidentally had a long weekend over Beltainne this year, and I was half-planning to go to a festival until I remembered - oh, right, I do not want to go to a Beltainne festival at all.) And on top of that, I seem to be weirdly unstable around the seasonal changes at Beltainne and Samhain - every year this is the time my mental health takes a downturn. It’s better when I’m prepared for it, but it’s always a little rough.

But that doesn’t mean it isn’t a wonderful holiday. It’s the beginning of summer, which in my climate really means the beginning of the season when you don’t need to wear a coat everywhere. It’s the beginning of outdoors, when it’s too nice out to sit inside, when it seems easy to go out and meet people, old friends and new, to learn new things and take on new challenges. It’s a season of incredible growth, spontaneous and sometimes too fast for noticing. I swear yesterday there were no leaves on the tree outside my window, but today! Everything is green and growing and exciting.

Beltainne for me, then, is bringing that energy into my life - hopefully without it overflowing and leaving me strung out and exhausted inside a week. With all that extra energy going around, it’s easier to pull myself up and out and re-dedicate myself to the goals and projects I started with the return of the sun at the Solstice but which have gotten a little tattered and dingy through the end of winter. And it’s a time for celebration. New energy is always something to celebrate - and this year I’m having friends over for the weekend, and there will be wine and games and - well, probably not dancing. We’re not really dancing people. But there will be joy, which is the point, after all.

I think I may have had a breakthrough (Ostara in review)

I’ve been feeling a little bit like I don’t have enough of an emotional reaction to these rituals. I know that emotional dulling is a side-effect of the antidepressants that keep me functional, but I was still hoping that ritual would be able to reach through that. Well, I had an emotional reaction to my Ostara ritual, and it was well, that was a total disaster.

It probably wasn’t quite that bad. I was trying something new for the fire - I’ve always wanted a proper fire bowl for my rituals, but I’m stuck doing them inside in a no-smoking apartment, so my options were limited. I saw someone mention epsom salt and rubbing alcohol as a good indoor fire option, so I tried that (without any prior rehearsing). By halfway through the fire was almost out, and I had to light some candles just to make sure I wouldn’t lose it completely before I was done. (And it left a lingering alcohol-smell I wasn’t fond of, either.)

The offerings went all over the place, too. I wanted to do an Anglo-Saxon rite, and I found a script from Sassafrass Grove on the ADF site that I was able to modify to a solitary ritual, but there were *lots* of sacrifices in there, and silly me, I decided to go ahead with all of them, even though I was doing it all on my own and on a small table to boot. The shrine was a mess by the time I was done. I had moved the shrine to a new location - partly because I’d been planning this for a while and partly because I didn’t want that much open flame right next to the curtains - and I didn’t have a representation of the World Tree. I’d read somewhere that the druid’s body may serve as the Tree, so I thought, sure, I can do that, but my focus was shot all to hell and it was not a success. And the omens…well, one of them was the Nine of Swords, which I think says it all.

And another was the Page of Swords Reversed, which I think of as “all talk and no action.” Which was appropriate for this rite, because that’s exactly what I was doing. I went through the motions of the ritual, but I wasn’t feeling it, and I wasn’t putting any of my own energy into it. More than once I caught myself reading from the script with no memory of having spoken the words. Partly this was an issue of timing - I had plans on Sunday, the equinox proper, so I did the rite on Wednesday evening, the following full moon. But this meant doing a rite after work and before dinner, and I was already tired, cranky, and unwilling before I started. I was even more miserable when I was done.

I sat down to write up my notes afterward, still in a sour mood, and realized that I wasn’t the only one I’d disappointed with this rite. If ritual and sacrifice are about building a relationship with the gods and spirits, I’d just done the equivalent of showing up to a date and spending the whole evening looking at my phone. It wasn’t enough to admit I’d done it wrong, I had to fix things.

So I did it again. Thursday morning before work (I work the evening shift on Thursday) I downloaded the text and narration of the Simple Rite from the ADF website - they offer a basic rite that is designed to be done by a novice with a more experienced practitioner narrating guidance as you go along, and provide an audio file for the novice who doesn’t have a more experienced practitioner to help. I didn’t try to get fancy, sticking with the text of the rite as written and the basic offerings, ale, oil, and incense, that the script recommends. It still wasn't perfect - the narration gave out about two-thirds of the way through, and I had to refill the fire bowl twice, and the second time I lit the bottle of rubbing alcohol on fire. So much for the fire bowl. I prefer the scent of candles, anyway - burning wax smells like ritual to me.

And then on Friday I did it again. And on Saturday. And Sunday. In my frustration on Wednesday night, I said that I’d do it every day for a month if I had to, and if I’ve learned anything from the lore it’s that oaths sworn in a fit of pique are still binding. I’m hoping that after a week or so I can dispense with the narration (which does indeed only go as far as the first two-thirds of the ritual, but that works enough to get me into the right mindset that I can usually wrap it up pretty well on my own), and that after a month I’ll know the Core Order of Ritual well enough to be able to elaborate again for Beltane. Already I feel my relationships with the Kindreds are stronger; more practice, more sacrifice, can only help. And I’m finding a daily rite helps the day feel complete. Who knows, I might keep doing this daily after the month is over, too.

I feel like I've had a bit of a breakthrough, like I've been going through the motions and only now have seen what the point of it all is. A recurring lesson of this year has been understanding that there's nothing that really "doesn't count." I've always been a person very driven by external success - good grades, good performance reviews, good reputation. I've never gamed the system, really, but I'm very good at finding the loopholes in it, at finding ways to bend the rules that don't really hurt me. But when the rules are only between me and the gods, there's no amount of bending them that doesn't count, no loopholes that don't hurt. It's been difficult, but it can only help in the long run.

Ostara

Some holidays have a more complex cultural context and ritual motive, but the spring High Days have always seemed pretty self-evident to me, and Ostara most of all. No more snow! No more ice! No more blizzards! Hooray!

Granted, in the midwestern United States, Ostara usually isn’t all that spring-like, but it’s a start. This year, global climate change has given us a damn pleasant Spring Equinox. I’m uncomfortable being wholly pleased about that for a variety of reasons, but I can’t deny that temperatures over sixty make my life a much nicer place to be.

When I was observing a pretty strict Irish religion, I neglected the Spring Equinox (and its partner in autumn) because there’s not really much evidence the Irish did any damn thing about it. Ostara has a new connotation for me now, though - it was the first High Day ADF ritual I ever attended, with the local grove whose rituals I can’t usually make it to thanks to my work schedule. I wish I could make it more often, but I will be forever grateful for their invitation and the very welcoming and illuminating experience I had there.

Since I’m celebrating Ostara properly this year as a member of ADF, and not just attempting to shoehorn it in to an Irish ritual calendar, I’m planning an Anglo-Saxon rite. Alaric Albertsson, in his book Travels Through Middle-earth, points out that even if we don’t know much about her, Eostre must have been a tremendously important goddess to the Anglo-Saxons. After all, in most of the other European languages, Easter is called something along the lines of Pasch, from the Hebrew. I met Eostre for the first time at that grove rite last year, and I am looking forward to meeting her again, and letting her know that I am still here. I was in a bad place last Ostara, in a great deal of pain, which has greatly lessened now, and I get the feeling she’d be glad to know that.

Imbolc

I've been struggling with these rituals since I started the Dedicant's Path, requiring me to do every damn high day ritual or face starting the whole thing over again. The doing them is fine - the doing them is soothing and fulfilling, even when not entirely transporting. But the getting around to doing them...well, that's much harder.

I keep thinking that this isn't the right time, that if I just had more time to prepare, more time to spend on the work, it would be so much better. This is a flaw in my psychology I'm very aware of; I always feel like now is not the right time. And I always feel so much better when it's done anyway.

This is the first Imbolc I've celebrated in several years; that small victory is not enough, but it is something. While my first favorite pagan holiday was Samhain, once I settled into my practice a little more, Imbolc took pride of p
lace. It's perfectly timed: a month after the secular bustle of late December holidays have settled down, but well before actual spring, it gives you something to look forward to in the dead of winter. It's a promise, that it will get better.

(I never understood Imbolc as First Spring until I was in Ireland in the winter of 2004/2005. It really is spring in the beginning of February in Ireland. Everything is green. Tiny flowers are blooming. Lambs are, there is no other word for it, gamboling in the fields. We don't have the same climate here in Chicago, but the slow brightening of the sky is - well, it's not nothing.)

But more importantly, Imbolc is the feast of my patron goddess, Brigit, Lady of the Flames, keeper of the hearth and the forge and the poetic fire. She is one of the greatest teachers I have ever had, and a source of unwavering support through the darkest times in my life. I have been feeling her presence in my life very strongly of late; I've been creating in new ways, feeling the fire of inspiration like I haven't felt in years. So it felt right and good to honor her, this unnaturally warm February evening.

I burned a painting I'd done in sacrifice to Brigit. It was one of the most powerful sacrifices I've made, because I didn't want to do it. The painting came out much better than I'd hoped and I liked it, but I knew it was hers by right. I had meant to have some other Work in my ritual, something else to honor her, but I didn't have everything ready and I knew that if I didn't do the ritual tonight, I'd let it slip away and miss it entirely. And after all, the painting seemed enough. (And I could not have asked for a better blessing in return - as my omen from the gods, I drew the Ten of Cups.)

I felt a connection in this ritual that I had been struggling for when I started this practice, back in Samhain. It doesn't feel like I've done enough; I haven't done nearly what I usually do for Imbolc. But it is something, and it is more than the nothing I've done so far this year. I think I will stretch out the holiday with a good spring clean this upcoming weekend, and a loaf or two of fresh bread as well. Poetic fire is all well and good, but it's the hearthfire that keeps us alive.

Yule

Well, Yule was a long time ago, but it's been busy (surely one day Yule will again fall on a day I have off, and I can actually take some time to do the thing properly?) and I didn't get it written up soon enough.

Once again I used the ritual text from the Crane Breviary and found it entirely adequate but underwhelming. (It also leaves out some of my favorite bits of the one group ADF ritual I attended, such as the offering to the Outsiders, which means I forget about them until after it's too late.) I'm afraid this means I'm going to have to write my own for Imbolg. Which means I'm going to have to plan ahead a little better for that one.

Yes, once again I was woefully underprepared - worse this time than Samhain. I also realized partway through the ritual that the text made much more sense for the day *after* the solstice, whereas I was doing ritual at night just a couple of hours before astronomical solstice. Preparation, preparation.

But I did have offerings for everyone - oil and wine for the gods and the ancestors, nuts and pinecones for the Good Neighbors, a mirror for the sun, grain for the Earth Mother. And the ritual itself went fairly smoothly, although it lacked that particular ineffable quality that I associate with really good ritual. I called Manannan as Gatekeeper again, and that relationship seems to be going fairly well, so I suspect I should do something else to strengthen it between holidays.

I did run into a small snag with logistics - my printer stopped working, so I had to read the text of the ritual off my tablet. I didn't like it. Of course, I don't particularly like reading text off paper either, so maybe the answer is just that I need to memorize the liturgy before I become really satisfied with my rituals. More preparation.

For omens I drew the Queen of Cups, the Page of Swords reversed, and the Two of Cups reversed - emotional security, undelivered promises, and a misunderstanding. (To dramatically oversimplify.) I can't help but think about the job I didn't take at the beginning of December, the move I'm not going to make after all. I'm sure I made the right decision, but it is a loss of opportunity. If nothing else, it means I'm going to have to work harder to make sure I take advantage of the opportunities I do have, the ones I didn't lose by not moving.

I also can't help but compare the amount of time I spent on Christmas, a family and social holiday, versus Yule, a religious and personally meaningful holiday. Granted, there were far fewer people expecting things from me for Yule - but those people were the gods and spirits. I'm going to have to think about priorities too, it seems. And work on my preparation.

Io Saturnalia!

I am a little surprised to discover that Yule appears to be my favorite holiday. For the longest time it was Samhain - because it's witchy, I guess, and because liminality appeals to me. But for several years now I've been finding the liminality of Samhain and Beltane to be more of a drain on my energy than anything else. Then it was Imbolc, being as it was the holiday of my patroness, but we are not going to talk about how long it's been since I've properly celebrated Imbolc. But Yule - well, I always know when the Solstice is coming. The others depend on my awareness of the calendar, but I can feel Yule in my bones.

I grew up in a Christian household, and we celebrated Christmas. Still do, for the most part - I'm going back to Iowa to see my family in just a couple of days. I have an artificial Christmas tree up in my living room because my lease forbids real trees, but it doesn't say anything about wreaths, so I have a pine wreath on the door which I'll cannibalize for my altar decorations this evening. I have already spent too much money on presents, and I'm planning to go out today and spend more. Christmas is still a big part of this season for me, and I'm sure that's part of the reason I haven't traditionally thought of Yule as an important holiday for me: I was trying to get out from under the Christian influence.

It's a terrible cliché of pagan writing, but nevertheless it is true that Christmas is in December because of Yule. There is a reason everyone has a party on the winter solstice, and even all our modern conveniences can't change the fact that the sun has been gone, and she is coming back.

The sun is coming back.

Wow.

Samhain 2015

Samhain 2015 altar

I performed my first ADF-style Samhain ritual on the morning of November 1st. I usually prefer to do it on Halloween night, but I'd been at work all day (in a corset, no less) and I wanted to be fresh for the first ritual I'd done in six months.

I set up my altar on a table facing the window that usually isn't used for anything, using my houseplant (a legacy from my grandmother's funeral) as the Tree, a single red taper for the Flame, and my small copper cauldron as the Well. I also set aside another bowl for offerings. I sat, which I usually don't do, in one of my dining chairs; it worked much better than I expected. For the text of the ritual, I used the ritual in the Crane Breviary & Guide Book sample provided on the ADF website. It wasn't ideal for my purposes - I have some intellectual doubts about Cernunnos which interfere with my spiritual connections, and some of the terminology isn't natural for me - but one of the reasons I joined ADF in the first place was to have resources like this to work from instead of making up my own religion from scratch every time I tried to do anything. So in the interests of getting a ritual accomplished without tearing my own hair out (or becoming so frustrated with the customization process that I didn't get it done at all), I went ahead with what was there, with two small adjustments: I called Manannan as Gatekeeper, and I added my First Oath in the Working segment.

Next time, I want more poetry.

I may have done my First Oath before, in the spring when I first joined ADF and was ambitious enough to start the Dedicant's Path right away, before my depression took over and I had to start again. I honestly can't remember. I figured that if I couldn't remember, it wouldn't hurt anything to start over. Based on the advice in The Dedicant's Path Through the Wheel of the Year and [that one article on the website], I set it to rhythm and chanted it, which rang better in my ears and in my soul than just speaking the words. I'd like to incorporate a chant of my First Oath into a regular practice - but I'll need a regular practice for that to work.

offerings

So I offered sacrifices of oil and silver coins to Cernunnos, despite my reservations, and thought them well accepted; I offered sacrifices of whiskey and apples to the Ancestors, which went over very well. I wrote a letter to my grandmother, who passed in 2006, and who I was very close with when she was alive. I miss her advice and her practicality, and it was good to be able to tell her so, and to be heard. I drew the omens from my Rider-Waite-Smith Tarot deck. I'd love to use ogam for my omens, and I think eventually I will, but for the time being I know the Tarot well enough to read it without references. I'll learn the ogam in time. From the Ancestors, I drew the Six of Wands, victory and recognition. From the Fair Folk, the Knight of Pentacles, financial stability. And from the Gods, The Sun, joy. And above and beyond the omens themselves, I liked the nice way they fit into the patterns of the Tarot, from concrete to abstract, in a way I think fits the three categories of spirits well.

at the end of ritual

I'm still struggling with how I feel in ritual. I keep wanting it to be more than it is, to sweep me away and feel incredible and profound. It felt real, this time, but not profound. (It may just be that I'm not familiar enough yet with the ADF Order of Ritual to combine script and visualization effectively.) I could see the Gates opening in my mind's eye, and closing again at the end of the ritual, but I could not tell you how things were different when they were open. I felt the presence of the Ancestors, but not so much of the spirits or the gods (although I admit there was something from Manannan that I don't yet understand). But. The physical sensations were extremely powerful. The smell of oil and whiskey and apples and grain was profound and satisfying. My hands remembered how to make offerings, where to rest during ritual, how to hold the dip pen I always used to use in my ritual writings. I felt settled and peaceful when I was done, moreso than I have done in a long time, and I know the ritual that I did was the right thing to do.

Samhain

Samhain is one of the two major times of transition in the Irish calendar, the end of summer and the beginning of winter, and the end of the old year and the beginning of the old. (I think that's interesting, actually, that the year begins with early winter rather than ending in it: it really does highlight winter as a season of dormancy rather than strictly of death). It's a harvest time, but a late harvest: the last feast of plenty before the long, cold winter. In Irish lore and cycles, it's the time when the cattle herds were culled: those not expected to survive the winter formed the highlight the feast. 

 As a feast of the late harvest, the season of death and waiting, it's also a feast of the ancestors. At the end of the year, Donn gathers up the year's dead and brings them to the Isle of the Dead, somewhere in the west. The boundary between worlds is thin at the turning of the seasons, as one thing turns into another, so now is when we reach across that boundary to give thanks and praise, and to share one more meal with those who have gone before. 

 Samhain was the first Pagan holiday I ever celebrated, and I can still remember it vividly, the altar I set up in my childhood bedroom, the candles burning in the darkness, the cold October air stirring the flames into portents. It remains my favorite holiday, a season of death as transformation, a time to take joy in the abundance of the past year and reflect on its lessons. 

 I have a busy Samhain season this year: On Saturday I'll be at work at the library all day long, dressed as Janet Carter from the ballad of Tam Lin (another Samhain story). I have my ritual planned for Sunday, in which I'll also swear my First Oath as part of the Dedicant's Path. (Hopefully I'll have it written by then.) But Sunday is also the first of November, which is the beginning of National Novel Writing Month, which means I'll be spending at least several hours writing the first few thousand words of this year's novel. And then it's back to work on Monday - for a book discussion in the local brewpub. A better feast location I could not imagine.