Yuletide -part 2

 onward

with love

Spring bursts forth- Part 1: Brewing

Suddenly everything is green.
A week of rain and a week of sun and then more rain or a bit of snow.

Springtime in the Catskill Mountains.

At Equinox the earth was still partially frozen but mostly brown,
though the sun was already strong and bright.

 That weekend we honored the season first with our first Grove Beer Brew workshop

followed the next day by Grove Ritual.

Weekend of Reverence.

Bubbling & bubbling.

 A few people signed up but in the end it was just us three, the original grovemates.

With the kid home from school and sleeping, it was like old times. 

And good in the end to go thru it once ourselves and see what it really is.

I didn't take notes, but I took lots of pictures.

I remember "mash" and "sparge" and the "break in the boil".

I love the science and also the sanitizer.

sanitize!

  

 vortex 

sparging the mash

 

 

 

 worlds and omens in the boil

 

 

outside to cool

waiting

ready

pouring

yeast added

ferment

We let our batch get too cold at first and everything slowed,

but we moved them to a warmer room and it began again.

To be bottled at Beltaine.

Welcome the season of Springing up!

this glorious May-part 2

It rained a lot before Beltaine. Which was good. 

And with the cooled-down spring we slowly lingered into the season.

The full schedule had already started with work and school and events rolling over each other.

It was Bryan's birthday.

We received our Arts Education Grant Award.

Volunteering our time and energy.

Jobs and driving in between.

Non-stop until the late dusk turns to night.

The May is always thus.

There were many blessings and synchronicities, perhaps as always. 

Our dear friend and original Grove member, who had moved away, had just moved back here.

The new ADF Arch Druid and Vice-Arch Druid were coming for the holiday- doing the long drive from there to here in the middle of the night, for a day.

Folks who had never been here connecting with other people they know who had also never been here.

Exactly enough here. Exactly right.

I was up late the night before cleaning and cooking and trying to wait up for our guests but finished and was finished and lay down, waking in the middle of the night sensing them but too asleep to fully come to the reality of not dreaming until the morning.
Coming downstairs to Druids and coffee and sunshine.

Hosting as deep conversation and connections reconnect with many pots of coffee.

Setting up the MayPole, Druids working together with intent, not just us .

The group planning as integral to sacrifice, the grove formation as part of the whole.

It has been a few weeks since our ritual, which was so power-full and so full in so many other ways.

It was hard to get it all at the time other than to just be, to feel, to hear.

Since then summer has come quick.

At that time leaves were dots of color and now they are some of the largest densest foliage ever.

Or so it seems.

What is real and what is perceived or dreamed or thought or thought we thought sometime is interchangeable.

Or so it seems.

It has been high-summer hot for almost a week. We are in need of some steady consistent good rain.

The trees loom much larger than last month, than last year.

Cherries ripen but we will have few peaches.

The flowers bloom in their consecutive color cycle- first the purples and pinks and now the yellows beginning.

I have just planted a small garden and sown some seeds.

At Beltaine it was magical.

People brought many flowers and good food and small cards listing ingredients.

We had a gluten-free table and an other-food room.

We had aged mead and the first mint water and of course coffee.

Conversations and introductions and discussions went long and pre-ritual rant was hours late 

and the teenage kid was annoyed, wanting to start on time, wanting regular.

A local burn ban means a small fire.

We set up at the Nematon, bring chairs out for older and younger ones, past fiddleheads and moss,

with sticks and liquids and sage and sweetgrass and flower petals for sacrifice.

 

Our Omens pulled and read by Rev. Carrion Mann

 

    Our Ogham pulled and read by the ArchDruid with the broken wrist.

My notes on the ritual are brief:

Stumbling and Recovering.

Bird Calls.

Human Calls.

Everybody talking and/or receiving at the same time.

Reaching out for resonance between what has been and what will be.

Maypole true and stable.

Tying up all the ribbons and not un-dancing them.

Otherwise I remember being. Feeling my feet on the ground.

I remember how home it felt to hear her offerings in Irish.

To hear the flute or drum like breath. 

To see others make sacrifice and pull omens, to understand.

Honored to share ritual with such wonderful folk and our dear Kindreds.

It is good to be both an insider and outsider.  It is about being whole.