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 readingRitual
The Kalends of January
Happy New Year and Kalends of January. The Kalends of January are associated with three deities in Roman lore:
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 readingNew Year Customs
There are many different New Year’s traditions from around the world, which can be categorized as taking the omens for the following year; seeking to ensure that you will have luck for the year; sending the spirit of the old year away, and welcoming in the new.
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.
Continue readingAutumn Equinox
There are three harvest festivals in the Pagan Wheel of the Year. The first is Lammas (also known as Lughnasadh) which is the grain harvest (wheat and barley). The second is Autumn Equinox, which is the fruit harvest (particularly relevant in southern Ontario with the huge fruit-growing region of Niagara). It is also the time when day and night are of equal length, but the nights are going to get longer until the Winter Solstice. The third harvest is Halloween (known in Scots Gaelic as Samhain, in Irish as Samhuinn, and in Manx as Sauin), which is when farmers would traditionally slaughter any animals they could not feed during the winter, and salt down their meat for food supplies over the lean cold months.
Continue readingAutumn Equinox 2021
Happy Autumn Equinox everyone! Time for cooler weather and warm jumpers and scuffing through the autumn leaves.
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Dowsing for Divinity 