Summer Solstice

Summer Solstice, Litha,  Alban Hefin

June 21st

  Summer Solstice and I don’t get along.   It’s not that I have had a bad ritual experience with this solstice because I have not.   I do not feel that I have the proper schematics for this holiday. Summer Solstice is the longest day of the year.  It is the day with longest period of sunlight from sunrise to sunset.   After this day, periods of sunlight will be getting shorter, and nights will be getting longer.  It doesn’t mean that its getting any cooler, in fact, it is going to get hotter which seems to be a contradiction of the promise of longer nights.   
  Unfortunately,  there is not much lore to go on from Celtic sources regarding this high day and much of what has come through has come from Norse influences (ADF Publishing 62), and Christian influences where the high day is celebrated on  St. John’s Day eve which would be June 23rd.    Fairs, festivals, and bonfires mark the day and night. The Welsh consider the night of the summer solstice one of the three great spirit nights, and on the Isle of Man, it is tradition to pay Manannán Mac Lir the rent due in the form of bundles of reeds, grasses and herbs. Kondratiev mentions torch lit processions through the crops to bring the sun’s light to the growing plants (Kondratiev, 190) and Kirk Thomas in the June 2012 issue of Oak Leaves mentions dancing under the pole reminiscent of Maypole dancing in Northern Wales (Thomas 19).
The energy of Summer Solstice is chaotic and frantic.   It is the death of the Oak King, so often passion played or the jealous fury of Diancecht.   It is the tipping point of life and death, but offering the promise of future harvest.

   
  ADF Publishing. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.

Kondratiev, Alexi. The Apple Branch. New York: Citadel Press, 2003.

Thomas, Kirk. "A Welsh Wheel fo the Year: Part 3." Oak Leaves Summer 2012: 19-22.

Home Shrine

     My home shrine is conveniently located on the corner of the desk in my bedroom.   The computer takes about half the space and my shrine the rest.   Above my altar, is a sign which cannot be seen which says, “Sit a Spell”.  My shrine is an eclectic mixture of store bought pieces and inherited items.   My tree is an artificial tree with a star on top.    Pieces of yarn and knitting which were made as offerings to the ancestors sit in the branches.   The little red cupid was found in a box of tea.  The cauldron was given to me by a friend.   The white well was made by son, as was the purple offering bowl down at the bottom.   The oil lamp and the coaster it sits on have been dedicated to the Shining Ones.   My fire is represented by a white candle in a selenite candle holder in a blue, green, and silver bowl; thus, I have a dual representation on my desk, of both the microcosm and macrocosm.   Candles to represent, land, sea,  and sky line the wall,  along with clusters of amethyst,  some citrine,  a quartz point,  and a piece of tektite.   The hand-knitted bear is my representation of my work with the Nature Spirits and my animal guide.   It has a working space for omen taking, writing, and larger offerings.
     I am very comfortable with the spot that it is in, because I do most of my writing on the computer.   Eventually I would like to get a couple of shelves to put up family portraits and pictures of the ancestors.  I am also contemplating moving the “Sit a Spell” sign to over my bed and moving the metal triskele wind chime over the shrine, but have not done so yet.

Bunny vs. Human (Round Two)

     A rabbit was back in my garden this evening when I went out to water.   I have a feeling it was contemplating eating one of my green onions, and then to hide its mischievous nature sat on it when I came out the door.   The stalk was broken,  of course.   I said good evening to my hopping friend, and pointed it to my son who was oblivious to the brown fur ball sitting in my onions.   He decided to be helpful and chase it out.   As for the green stalk, I quietly harvested and washed it.   The little one had his first taste of home grown green onion and winced.    I took a taste and immediately thought of my twice baked potato recipe.   We both said prayers of thanks for the first fruits of garden- his to the garden angels and mine to Don and Beli and the nature spirits.   I left what was left of the onion as an offering.   It was gone a few hours later.   I am not sure who won this round whether or not it was me or the rabbit.    Perhaps, we both got a taste of the goodies yet to come.  

Bunny vs. Humans (Round One)

Last night, I went out and checked on my garden.   I found a medium sized rabbit sitting in the midst of my lawn, nibbling on grass and weeds.   I tried to have a long talk with it.   I admired its beauty and I admired its bravery.  I even encouraged it to nibble on the grass and weeds, but leave my garden alone.   We could be friends,  I thought -just don't touch the garden.   It just sat and watched, it's nose occasionally twitching.   Earlier in the week, after my cucumber seedlings went missing, my son and I had teasingly made remarks about bunny stew:

"Please, my garden you should eschew

Or you shall be made into bunny stew".

This morning, however,  I felt sickened.   I found a rabbit and a small mouse carcass around the house.    I doubt it was the rabbit from last night.   It was probably a few days old, but for the most part it had been stripped bare.   The mouse had been a rather fresh kill.   I felt guilty.   Had I unwittingly invoked something which was killing the cute fuzzy suburban creatures?  Kill them before they eat my garden-suburban warfare?   Or was this just nature's way?   It's most likely the latter, but being the softy that I am, I feel guilty.   I realize that the rabbit fed something else, and that there is probably an overpopulation of rabbits in the area.  I saw the flies and the ants eating away at the carcass.  They, too, needing food.   I understand it on a  rational scientific level, but sometimes, watching it and feeling it in action are two very different things.   This is what I am trying to wrap my head around.  Perhaps, its just the recognition of it, too.  It's not something we think about on a normal basis.   Later today, I will try to gather some rabbit fur, and leave an offering for the spirit of the rabbit.  May the rabbit spirit find its peace.

Blessings!
Stonegiver

Old Oak

 My neighbor's oak trees :) 

Nine Virtues: Piety

As defined by the Handbook: Correct observance of ritual and social traditions,  the maintenance of the agreements, both (personal and societal), we humans have with the Gods and Spirits, Keeping the Old Ways through ceremony and duty.  

piety -n,  pl -ties 1. reverence for God or devout fulfillment of religous obligations.  2) the quality or state of being pious.  3) dutiful respect or regard for parents,  homelande, etc: filial piety 4) a pious act, remark, belief or the like. (Webster's Universal College Dictionary -1997 Gramercy Books Random House New York New York

Religion is  a semi-solitary activity.  We each struggle with our own available resources.  Piety is our day to day interactions with the spiritual realm, and our intent and actions  in recognizing them and making them holy.     It's the time sitting at our shrines making offerings, its about attending the eight sabbats and keeping them sacred,  and its about keeping our spiritual lives organized and tidy.   I was recently chastised about not walking the walk in my faith.  Its not always about attending a weekly church service, especially in the case of paganism.  It is the talks to the deities, ancestors, and nature spirits and making those connections, and keeping those connections open.   It is the meditations and following through of our oaths: 

I , Cat take the name Stonegiver in honor of the patrons who bless my paths.    I promise to forge pathways with the spirits, Shining Ones, and ancestors.   I take an oath to finish the Dedicant’s path, and follow the guidance of the powers towards  whatever paths they may lead.   I take an oath to make room in home and hearth for all powers gathered here.    I promise to stay steadfast in my devotions and to keep the light of the Gods in my heart. 

It is doing the legwork to understand our religion and the beings that inhabit those realms.  

   

   

Nine Virtues: Wisdom

Wisdom: good judgment, the ability to perceive people and situations correctly, deliberate about and decide on the correct response (ADF Publishing 15).

 

Wisdom is the state of being wise.   It is gained by a combination of knowledge, experience, and intuition, and using this combination to make decisions and act in situations.   All actions feed into the totality of experience that affects wisdom, but not all actions are wise ones.   Unfortunately, there is not a nice equation that reflects proportions of knowledge, experience, and intuition that result in wise actions.  Wisdom is not easily obtained, and generally one recognizes true wisdom after the fact.  I know that I don’t normally go around spouting sage advice, but when I have been considered wise, it is because I looked into the totality of the situation.

 For the most part, I am in agreement with Wisdom as a virtue, but I dislike the definition, wisdom doesn’t always mean the ability to perceive people and situations correctly, sometimes wisdom can come from looking at a situation completely different perspective, but it does not always mean that it was correct.  Copernicus was a great astronomer, who reasoned out a heliocentric model of the universe at a time when a geocentric model was definitive.   He was, however, partially incorrect, and it would take Kepler a couple of hundred years later to determine.   This does not mean Copernicus was any less wise, it meant that he was dealing with incomplete information which can affect us all.    Therefore, I might redefine wisdom as the ability to perceive people and situations correctly at that given moment; deliberate about and decide on the correct response. 

Works Cited

Publishing, ADF. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.

Spidey senses

Spiders exist.   I know, it’s a blanket fact.   I feel that a good portion of souls out there would rather have a dead spider than a live spider especially in the house.   I don’t blame them, finding a spider in the house is a personal affront to my ability to keep a clean house.  I am not a squisher, though.  It is not fair to the spider.   I am the kind gentle person that would take the spider outside, and let it roam free, if it decides upon its own cruel fate and rebuilds its web in another’s house, its fair game for the spider to be squashed.    More likely though,  it will decided I offered a hospitable home with numerous places for it to find food and shelter, and move its little 8 legged body back in.    Life happens.    

            One afternoon, while taking a shower, I had a visitor of the 8 legged varieties.   It was a pretty yellow spider and rather harmless to me.    It lowered itself down on a piece of spider silk with not a care in the world, that I was large and that there were steady streams of a liquid being shot at my body.   Perhaps, it wanted a drink.   I haven’t tried having a steady conversation with spiders-I get mixed up with the discussion of wrap bugs up and drink, and it is kind of hard to get past that conversation.    Instead, I watched it.   I marvelled at it actually.   It came down without a care in the world.   Perhaps, it wasn’t paying attention, I am not sure.   Then, it felt the droplets of water coming from the shower!  I watched the consternation coming from its little body.   It shrunk itself up trying to decide what it was going to do.   It hesitated and thought about dropping down further.    I tried to mentally urge it to go back up.  I am sure my telepathic link with the spider was tenuous, at best, but I tried.    It eventually went back up into the rafters not even leaving its draft line or a trace that a moment before it had almost showered itself out of existence.   It did what it needed to do, even if it meant heading back towards the rafters.  

One of the definitions of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.    I have a piece of knitting that I have been working on for a few weeks.   It’s a relatively simple design (it is patch for an afghan).     I have been working on it while watching TV with the young one.   My goal is to have it finished in time for this weekend.   I have been trying to meditate while working on it, as to the meaning of the particular pattern, and I get stuck.    The pattern is for the rune Ehwaz which should mean transportation and gradual development and steady progress.   Yeah, right!    Steady progress until lo and behold I didn’t count right, and it means pulling out and starting again.   Yet, I learned a lesson from that spider about being aware of what we are doing and then doing it.   I don’t know if its spidey senses told it anything about large amounts of water hurling down or that large wet humanoid like creature near vast amounts of water might mean squish.   When it did recognize the danger, it decided on a course of action, even if it meant tearing up and out.   Sometimes, development and progress may mean going back, re-doing, and figuring things out.    It can also be awareness that perhaps the time isn’t right to do something.   Yet, one must stay ever present and ever vigilant.     

Nine Virtues: Vision

Vision: the ability to broaden one's perspectives to have a greater understanding of our place/role in the cosmos relating to the past, present and future. (ADF, 13)

It seemed somehow fitting that I pull an ogham regarding vision.   I pondered the meaning of what meaning nGẻadal would have in regards to vision.  NGẻadal   means harmony and health (xxx), and others describe it to mean working and tools (Ellison, 37).    Psychologists and psychiatrists might argue that not living up to one's values causes imbalance which results in anger and shame which them results in depression and lack of self esteem.  Vision is the ability to recognize one's own place in the world, and to recognize where we come from, where we are currently, and where we want to go.     It is also the foresight to be able to change those paths, and thus live in harmony and health.   Vision is the ability to set dreams and goals., and gives us the ability to see the tools that are needed for those goals. 

Vision is not always cut and dried.   The virtue of vision asks us to stretch our minds outside of the box, and to think about the effects of our actions and lifestyles in accordance with the other virtues.  In this way, vision goes hand in hand with other virtues.  In this way, vision is a tool.   Perseverance without a goal is meaningless.  Vision fuels creativity.   If one does not have an understanding of one's self, how can one have integrity, and sometimes wisdom is vision in disguise.   Seers use their vision to understand the omens, and bards and artists use their vision in creative pursuits, whether it is a piece of artwork, or a deliciously bold tale.    Vision, too, lets scholars be flexible, and see other points of view in the same way that broom and reed are flexible and resilient.  

Bibliography

Ellison, Rev. Robert Lee "Skip". Ogham: The Secret Language of the Druids. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2007.

Publishing, ADF. Our Own Druidry. Tuscon: ADF Publishing, 2009.

The Ostara Bunny

I am going to tell you a little story...as all good stories it starts once upon a time...Once upon a time, there was a tiny little bunny. He was brown,  soft, and furry. He had a little cotton tail and could twitch his nose, and had large floppy ears, and he could go hop! Hop! Hop!  There were many Goddesses in the world, but none were as beautiful as the Goddess of the Spring and Dawn. As the winter began to thaw, she would start slowly to awaken the world in shades of green and bright colors. 

Our little bunny loved to eat the little shoots that came out of the ground, and he was very happy that
Spring was finally here. So happy in fact, that he wanted to find a gift for the Goddess of the Spring. He searched high and low.... He looked in trees, he looked under seas, that little bunny even sneaked into my house, and found the little house mouse. (His name is Stuart!) But he still could not find a gift for the Goddess. He even reached under a chicken with his little paws, and pulled out an egg!! 

He looked at that egg and he looked. He stared so long that he became hooked, and decided that eggs were very pretty, but they needed colour. He painted that egg, a very pretty red. He gathered several more eggs, and painted them all sorts of colors-violet, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, and purple with pink polk-a-dots. He painted some with stripes, some with checks, and even some with little duckies on them. He gathered them all into a little basket, and very quietly walked up to the Goddess, as she was encouraging a nice luscious batch of lettuce to grow. He twitched his nose, gathered his courage, and pulled on her dress to gain her attention. He quietly handed her the basket of those pretty eggs, and looked up at her with his little bunny eyes, full of hope and love. The Goddess was thrilled. No one had offered her a gift of such pretty colored eggs before. She was so excited, in fact, that she wanted everyone to share in her gift. She asked the bunny to share those eggs with the rest of the world. Our little bunny was so very proud that he hopped to the ends of the very big earth and shared those eggs with everyone. This is why we color eggs at Eostre... to celebrate those very colorful gifts that our little brown bunny with the floppy ears had given.

My Work

Oir is the ogham for work.  These are things that need to be worked on.  Right now,  I plan to have two sections to this blog.  One for my ADF stuff, and one for the other that work that needs to be done.   In some cases,  these will go hand in hand, and in others they may venture further apart.   As I write this,  I ask for the blessings of my patrons- the Norns-that through this I may find the work that needs to be done, complete it to the best of my ability and be able to share it with others.   I call on Bran the Blessed whose head protected the British Isles to help me find my voice and to advocate to others.  I call on Odin as Gatekeeper to help me find the correct paths.  I thank the Patrons for their blessings and their continued support.