Some years ago, I started the festival of Borrowed. It’s on February 28th or 29th, and is a reminder that the Earth is precious and ecosystems are fragile. It seems even more relevant in the face of the climate emergency.
Continue readingEmbodied Spirituality
Posts about Embodied Spirituality and embodiment
Vintage nature notes 2015
Small beauties from Oxford in 2015.
Continue readingVintage nature notes 2013
In 2013, I wrote a series of short posts about nature, reflecting on the small beauties that I noticed each day. The idea of posting about small beauties came from Jacqueline Honeybee Durban.
Continue readingNature notes 2
Wassailing
It’s the time of year for Wassailing in the apple-growing regions of England (Herefordshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, etc), and places where the weather is warm enough that fruit trees can blossom. (In Ontario, Canada, we wait until February to do the Wassailing.)
Continue readingRomjul and intercalation
The business of calculating years and dates is complicated, since calendars need to reconcile solar and lunar cycles. Different calendrical systems use different methods of reconciling the two cycles, inserting a day (February 29th in the Gregorian calendar), a week, or even a month in some calendars. This practice is called intercalation. It has also been suggested that the time between Yule and New Year is an intercalation.
Continue readingBridge of Light
A rainbow of candles, each one representing an aspect of consciousness, kindled in the liminal time between the end of the one year and the beginning of the next. A space for the celebration of queer spirituality, queer lives, and queer joy. That is the celebration known as Bridge of Light.
Continue readingMōdraniht
This year, for the second year running, we will celebrate Mōdraniht, the Night of the Mothers.
This is a quieter and simpler practice than Yule, which is all about feasting and the drama of the light’s returning and liminality.
Continue readingReflections on Yule
Yule is a turning point in the year. In a way, this is true of every festival in the Pagan wheel of the year, but it is said that the word Yule means a turning point.
There are many facets of Yule. There is the anarchic element of mumming, Saturnalia, the bean king, boy bishops, the lord of misrule, the inversion of the usual order of things. This aspect seems to be inspired by the concept of turning, and of liminality: being on the threshold, being neither one thing nor the other.
Continue readingAnarchic Yule
Yule is a distinct festival, often overshadowed by its younger sibling, Christmas. If you’re a Pagan or have Pagan leanings, the chances are that everything you love about Christmas is actually because it’s a Yule thing. If you love the tree, the holly, the greenery being brought into the house, the feasting, and the reciprocity of thoughtful gift giving (as opposed to obligatory gift giving dictated by social norms), then you love Yule. Yule is not “Christmas with the serial numbers filed off”, and Christmas isn’t “Yule with added Baby Jesus”, Yule is far more exciting and wild and numinous than that.
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Dowsing for Divinity 