Happy Autumn Equinox everyone! Time for cooler weather and warm jumpers and scuffing through the autumn leaves.
Continue readingfestivals
Celtic festival names
Some time back I posted a video about cultural appropriation and Lora O’Brien pointed out that the modern Wiccan and Pagan usage of Sabbat names is appropriated from Irish culture and language.
Gerald Gardner and other early Wiccans did not use the Irish names for these festivals — that happened later. Wicca is not a Celtic religion.
It does seem wrong to lift these festivals out of context. There are other old names for these festivals in England and Wales (the Scots Gaelic has similar names to the Irish Gaelic, but pronounced differently).
Continue readingPagan festivals
Pagan festivals (and traditional, Indigenous, Earth-based festivals around the world) are mostly about the cycles of the year. If you were a pastoralist, you had times when the sheep went up to the high pasture and times when they came down again. If you were a grower of crops, your cycle of festivals revolved around when you planted the crops and harvested them. There were times of plenty and times of hunger. Festivals marked the end of one phase and the beginning of another.
Continue readingSamhain
I have written quite a lot of posts about Samhain over the last few years.
I thought I would collect them all into one post.
Continue readingHappy Beltane
Happy Beltane everyone. Up the May!
Idylwild Morris performing Bonny Green Garters for your viewing pleasure!
My first “public” Morris dance
UPDATE: and here we are performing Hal-an-Tow, a traditional May Morning song from Padstow, Cornwall.
If you enjoyed this post, you might like my new book, Dark Mirror: the Inner Work of Witchcraft.
The festival of Borrowed
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.
The festival of Borrowed highlights the idea that we do not own the Earth and its finite resources, we only borrow them, and share them with all other life.
Wassailing
On Monday, we went to the Orange Peel Morris annual Wassailing at Spirit Tree Cidery, Ontario.
The Yule Tree
When do you put up your Yule tree and take it down again?
Notable and quotable 9
An absolute Beltane belter from Julian Vayne, and an enticing invitation to meditate differently from Nimue Brown.
Beltane is here
We will be celebrating properly at the weekend but this morning I have just been watching the Devil’s Dyke Morris Men dancing in the May at Wandlebury in Cambridgeshire, UK (on Instagram) and listening to massed Morris dancers in Toronto singing Hal-an-Tow (also on Instagram).
