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 readingfestivals
Samhain
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).
Beltane is coming
Everyone’s getting ready for Beltane. In the face of climate change, the Anthropocene, mass extinction, and all the scary stuff, it feels important to celebrate Nature and all its diversity. That does not imply to me in any way that we should focus only on heterosexual fecundity. Nature is diverse, and that includes humans. All acts of love and pleasure are Her rituals.
