Solstice continued- closing the season and starting anew

The moon disappeared and came back just like the long days will return. Isaac’s widow Phaedra made the analogy that the light returns even if we do not see it. The days now grow imperceptibly longer, aggregating over these next weeks to real time.

  Memory and recall. Bringing it back and moving it forward. It was an intense year and it was interesting that  as we came to our Winter Solstice  we hadn’t really yet resolved Samhain. And while Samhain is always a bit strange,  this Samhain, was particularly so, planned with very specific sacrifice and without a specific answer. There was no clear omen because of the way things worked out, the comings and goings and passing of time.  Our omens were sensed from the earth and felt deep within but putting them down concretely- our record of recollection, is still as elusive as our Samhain closing.

Scryed from the earth- there was a deep rumbling in the North representing a disturbance or challenge yet to come and with the reminder not to shrink from it. Our boundaries were tested and we were told to stay true. The bird singing in the West spoke of the afterlife, sounding so joyful and pure.  And we offered prayers to our dead friends, to our honored dead, asking for them to remain our allies.

But everything was vague or elusive and remained thus-  not because we didn’t know but because things were not the way we usually think or think about them. It was more like how we feel or sense, deep in the earth or in the ethers. Whether the milk weed flying to the directions, the soaring embers from the dried flowers, the spirits of the great grandfathers in a single leaf, or the warmth of the fire in the cold- it came to us and left and maybe took something in its passing. It was about the connections.

And coming out of that, even though it was a cool ritual and all that, we felt strange and unfinished. But there was a definite feeling. We knew it hadn’t been closed but it was so full that we settled.

So in dealing with issues just before Solstice and reaching out to others in the organization, other kin or kindred people as opposed to the Kindred Spirits, we were able to put a lid on all that and let it go, with good faith, like the moon or the sun.

Always not yet ready we begin. We are here to honor the gods, gods who give meaning to life.

  

Washing our hands in the warm clear water, to purify and focus,we circle the fire in a triangle of 3, echoing the fire itself. Our family together honoring this cycle of the year.

       

Let this fire be a good fire.

We had all sorts of spirits as libations for the Kindred- bringing out the good stuff to ignite and inspire.

 

The last of the pumpkins from Samhain to the outsiders.

Letting go of, moving on from with gratitude, and moving toward with good vision, direction and more gratitude.

We are thankful to be here now, together and warm by this fire, with clear intent from our heart.

It is amazing how a small fire can burn so brightly and how its heat can surround us. 

Cookies, and herbs, and oils, and liquor and prayers as sacrifice.

 

the brightness of the flame, allowing us to feed it, to sacrifice and give unto that we which need to let go of with gratitude. the brightness of the first star, in the East, with the promise of wishes and dreams come true. And there is always a bird calling, even in the early dark of midwinter solstice. 

First the boy pulled runes:

from the Ancestors: Othala or Odul meaning sacred enclosure – think about what we treasure and protect and hold dear

from the Spirits of Nature and Place: Laguz or lake or a well or drawing up energy- what do we draw from and channel through us to bring back out

from the Gods and Goddesses: Raido or communication- wha we put out into the world and the return back

for the Holiday: Gibor or giving-the reciprocity of the gift

then I pull Ogham:

Rowan- meaning enchantment

Willow- which relates a lot to water and the moon and flexible change, intuition

Apple- which often has to do with choice and things of beauty and love, otherworldy apples

Birch- new beginnings.

All rapid growers, all joyful and appropriate to the season.

 

Drinking the cold waters in large wine glasses, as a gift from the Earth Mother, shared as family as the first star shone in the darkening sky.

We close with the fire burning to embers, offering the last of all our gifts with gratitude. Together we enter the warm house for dinner.

solstice, eclipse, family and light

lighting fires and tying up ends and baking. The once in several lifetime lunar eclipse the morning of the solstice. Bryan had a fire going all that night and we cleared our spirit, the family sleeping together so we could wake up together to see this portent of a new focus together.

We had been having the typical mercury retrograde communication weirdness with the phone going in and out for days, strange email exchanges, coughing and illness, strange work phenomena – all coupled with the hubbub of the holidays. Changes of the season afoot.

Bryan made a small Yule eve fire outside in the close to the house fire circle to welcome the eclipse. The moon, which had for nights disrupted our sleep bathing the partially snow covered land in bright light, was to be consumed by our shadow.  We woke just as it was beginning to disappear, with the boy seeing it and going back to sleep and Bryan outside and me meditating with the eclipse through the window. The first words that came to me with the eclipse were “gratitude” and “wholeness” and then also “service”, “support”, and “community”. The phone oddly rang and it was grove friend Bill from CA calling to welcome the eclipse with us. I went outside barefoot in the snow to give Bryan the phone and the phrase and action of “stretch” came.

The moon faded and became darkened and the fire outside glowed and our woodstove burned throughout the night.

Morning rose and we were filled with the magic of the night.

We prepped for us and our Kindred and gathered our offerings of sage and cookies and fine spirits. We had much to let go of and to be grateful for.

Winter is Summer’s End

notes from Samhain, our weekend of trans-dimensional gathering

We had spent the weeks before in planning, thinking about pumpkins, processionals, purification, and death. We had lost 3 close friends this year, all friends of the grove and their passing has affected us deeply. We chose to focus this ritual on particularly honoring them, their journey and our connections.

We had dumb suppers out for many nights, each was completely eaten, either bit by bit or all at once.

Uncle Magoo arrived pre-dawn the day before our ritual (his birthday). And we began.

We anticipated lots of folks, though some people last minute did not arrive and everyone (except Katrina and Zara Jane) came last minute. This always throws off timing or perhaps redefines our sense of when things begin.

So timing is everything and we are always beginning.

We of course start early, the ritual of setting up, the daily rituals of walking, looking at the birds, pacing the land.

We made a fire and hauled wood and drank coffee, quietly walking through the sparkling frost.

We scry ice circles shining in the sun and melting in the fire.

Our ritual fire burned from sun up to sun down, from frost to dark.

Offerings and wood were frozen from the night. We brought out the rest of our sacrifice and began.

My notes are jumbled as we were tranced throughout the day and night.

No one remembers some things but we all felt everything.

I had just finished the Calieach (Kale-Leek) soup and the ones who were there had finished eating Halloween loot, when Susan and then Heather arrived. Heather brought out oils and incense for all to choose from and we flocked around the table finding our oil and redirecting our energies.

Then we gathered inside for our pre-rit.

Actually I said to Bryan that we should start and he said “ it begins now” and it did. We went on a journey, the ritual of the pre-ritual, and this time in particular we began without our knowing.

Bryan talked about the procession as the time between being dead and reborn, which is like the time after you go to sleep and before you dream.

Perhaps that is where we begin.

the Season of letting go

notes from the equinox 2010

The leaves are each day falling more and more furiously even as the ones on the trees become more and more brilliant. The weather is damp and cold and in some places there has been frost.

Not spent enough time in the garden anyway this year and now the dried stalks of dead flowers need harvesting, cabbages and broccoli still thrive along with the rest of the horseradish. Still more wood to stack, the chimney to clean and our septic needs work. Tying up loose ends before Samhain.

The day of our ritual I had gone first to honor the cycles of learning and giving in balance with my teacher of many years. On a brilliant day of first fall we danced the 7 Direction Movement Meditation and meditated on goldenrod, waving delicately almost imperceptibly in the breeze. We talked about the heart and ate my harvested grapes and peaches which came to fruition so abundantly and so late in the season. Then I went to see another teacher, a dear friend, my healing goddess. She was dying, though I was unprepared for the reality of her body, so frail and transparent and battered by her disease. She was a young woman whose illness took her rapidly. I spent the afternoon at times sitting quietly with her, at times talking to the others from her life who passed through to say goodbye. I came home from this for our equinox ritual, to try to celebrate balance.

This was to be our last Our Whole Grove ritual as a whole grove, Elizabeth, who has since now moved to PA., was to attend and Susan and Amber as well, and also Heather who was at Lughnasa. But Elizabeth (who was leaving the next day) couldn’t come and Susan also became unable to attend. Again it was just to be Bryan, Heather, myself & Hudson.

Bryan had gathered bunches of the same goldenrod that earlier I had breathed with, that is a tonic for our hearts and keeps us strong throughout the winter and filled the bilé in the nematon like a giant headdress.

We had set out offerings: milk from the farm for the earth mother, some of our bounteous harvest, pork bone and the last of our portion of our whole cyser, crafted a year before. The fire was roaring in the center of the five circle fire pit before I even came home.

 

Autumn glowed her colors, and the light began to fade. We layered up and processed to the fire.

  

There are always birds, a hawk flying, some one cawing their acknowledgement.

Walking around the circle pouring milk and giving thanks for our mother and for her bounty, for feeding us and for caring for us. Our tree our finally flowing stream and well and our good and warm fire. Our fire was magic, like it was talking to us in spurts and blazes.

   

We had gathered

We sat and talked until almost dark

The balance comes soon; what happened to summer

been negligent about this blog, been of course too busy with life, jobs, garden(much neglected), family (somewhat neglected), and more work. but also life has been in much flux. I guess that is what the omens have been saying all along.

Our dear grove member Elizabeth has been on her own whirlwind life adventure- house hunting, buying, selling at a mad dash pace- which is great for her and her family though sad for us and our grove. This equinox will be the last with her as a NYS resident. How the years have flown. I cannot say enough about our gratitude for the worship together, for her gentle words, shared food, kind spirit and focus. We would not be a grove if we had not met her. We trust she will return and we will field trip to her, but we know it won’t be as often together honoring our Kindred and marking time.

Perhaps this oncoming season is always a time of tears and joy. Of mixed blessings and wistfulness.

Our kitchen table full of harvest finally but we are closing windows and at 8pm it has long been dark. Summer seems like a dream.

This past Lughnasa we met a recently relocated ADF member, who happened to be the only other person for ritual. Many try to come, but all our lives are so full and so distant. We do our best to gather to honor the Gods, Gods who give meaning to life.

Heather doesn’t drive and her mom drove her out here to the boonies. We all live in the same county but with back woods roads and up the mountain, it is always a hike to get here. We had made food and had cleaned the house, as always for the Kindred and always just a bit more especially when people who have not been here before are expected. Our house is eclectic and artsy with uneven floors and things everywhere. We did not know this new person’s needs, and we set up to be good hosts. Bryan often talks about the hosting, hosting of other worldly guests. Hosting as sacrifice.

Our summer of too much work and growing up started with the equinox, our anniversary, RVGA’s barn dance, and a much needed staycation which was overcrowded with plans. But Bryan got to visit Isaac and we did have one day of nothing. And then the time from Solstice to Lughnasa was the summer. Camp and work and the farm tour and parties and plans and friends and visits =whirlwind.

Lack of rain, almost a drought, the stream became a quiet trickle and the hauling of 5 gallon buckets of water became a daily exercise. Looking towards the thunderstorms that usually come with Lughnasa, but there was no rain.

And Elizabeth was out of town and Susan too and everyone else was busy. So a small gathering under grey but not rainy skies. A good way to meet and make magic.

Talk and talk and talk- this holiday of boasts and bests and stories. We always tell the Lugh stories, the battles, the lore. And it’s the same with folk, we gather and share our histories, making things alive with the telling and retelling.

Lugh and Balor and Sacred Cows and Tlaitu and the first tomatoes and harvests. We wait all year for tomatoes. Hula hoops and contests and water and wine.

It seems so long ago that flowers were abundantly in bloom and we ate all our meals outside and thought about swimming, days endlessly stretching before us.

But Lugh reminds us of endings, of wrapping things up and we know autumn is coming. Sigh.

So before everything Bryan and I were sitting and talking about ritual and our grove and suddenly an eagle flew low and overhead, circling several times before flying high, riding the thermal drafts. An omen, a starter, a directional movement letting us know that it was time to begin. We then made a small fire in the close by the house fire pit before anyone showed up because we thought it might rain, as it always does on Lughnasa. Hudson taught us to get sticks that make a loud snapping sound for our tinder and he taught us a native song to gather wood by. He lit our fire and became our fire maker, our new fire maestro- perhaps young to replace Elizabeth, but also able and wise. It sprinkled as our fire caught blaze and we were set. He tended it well, until we were ready for ritual and with his handmade coal carrier he took a live log and led us to the 5 circle fire pit to light our ritual fire.

Heather came bringing well water from Ireland and wormwood which we burned as purification.

Broken eggshells ringed the circle, hot dogs for the outsiders, peppercorns for the Earth Mother, the last of our homemade cyser and bundles of grasses and flowers for our kindred. Our sacrifice of all kinds of things,the fragrant or spicy smoke quietly offering gratitude. The wail of the hawk, the silence of the grey skies, the simple fire, boy cuddled next to me these are my memories of our ritual. There was an absence without Elizabeth and a new blessed presence with Heather. Her mother arrived as we blessed our waters, mint water and we concluded with peaceful thanks. our omens were full of portent, thinking about our whole grove, the oil spill, our jobs and focus, our direction.

from the Ancestors: Kenaz a torch or a wound or a sore, pine- a resinous element, a shaper or a lighter, a transformer

from the Spirits of Nature & Place: Thuruz, thorn or boundaries, protection & defense

from the Gods & Goddesses:Othala or Odul, sacred enclosure, again rather protective

for the season: Hagal, hail or disruption, change

and we found a forgotten rune- having lain hidden by the fire until now- Uruz, the primordial ox- a growing living dynamic of strength

So thinking of all that, we gently walked back to the house, carrying our empty bowls, and wished Heather safe home, and had a simple family dinner.