My Pagan Wheel of the Year

W H E E L O F T H E Y E A R ^_`abcdefghi

SKIP TO: SAMHUINE YULE IMBOLG OSTARA BEALTANE MIDSUMMEr LUGHNASADH MABON

INTRODUCTION: THE WHEEL OF THE YEAR In love, the Horned God, changing form and face, ever seeks the Goddess. In this world, that search and seeking appear in the Wheel of the Year.
She is the Great Mother who gives birth to Him as the Divine Sun Child at the Winter Solstice. In spring, He is sower and seed who grows with the growing light, green as the new shoots. She is the Initiatrix who teaches Him the mysteries. He is the young bull; she is the nymph, the seductress. At Midsummer, when the light is longest, They meet in union, and the strength of their passion sustains the world. But the God's face darkens as the sun grows weaker, until at last, when the grain is cut for the harvest, He sacrifices Himself to Self so that all may be nourished. She is then the Reaper, the grave of earth to which all must return. Throughout the long nights and darkening days, He sleeps in Her womb; in dreams, He is the Lord of Death who rules the Land of Youth (Tir Nan Ogh) beyond the gates of night and day. But His dark tomb becomes the womb of rebirth, for at Midwinter, She again gives birth to Him. The cycle ends and begins again, and the wheel of the year turns, on and on.

BEALTANE FESTIVAL OF FLOWERS, FERTILITY, & FIRE Pronounced "b'yol-tinnuh" (Irish Gaelic) or "b'yal ten-ya" (Scots Gaelic) Also known as May Day, Cyntefyn, Floralia, and Walpurgisnacht

        We have celebrated many a Samhuine in the years past, watching the old year die and the new one glimmer in the cold darkness... defying the oncoming winter, raging against the dying light, drinking and feasting and laughing and dancing and screaming into the bleakness. Masking our faces and our sorrows, we have pitched the past into the burning balefire, heaping it ever higher, until the flames singe the skin and glare in the eyes...drunk the bitter green absinthe, staggered in the barren field sobbing...had talks long past-due, made accusations and had them resolved...and in the end, it all came down to embers, to the darkness before dawn, and to us. Finally, wegive in to weariness, falling down -- on the couches and beds and floors of my parents' home, or in tents and backseats -- and letting the dark of sleep overtake us....
        But Bealtane... for some reason, we have never celebrated it nearly as extremely as we have wanted...perhaps everyone is busy in the summer, or perhaps it is because we always seem to be moving, making changes at that time... perhaps it is because Bealtane is the Sabbat for which we have the greatest hope, and the least expectation. For who could we find that would join us in the primal rhythms of the drum-circle? Who would we trust enough to dance naked in the woods with, to be drunk with, to make love like madfolk until the may sun arises? We know so few people, and none of them so well... and then the mundane concerns: the price of the drums, finding a sitter for Seth, getting time off work... how irritating, when your most important holidays do not enjoy the recognition that gets people a day off for a joke like Memorial Day....
        My Bealtane fantasy: After a blissfully joyous day of gathering flowers in the canyons and by the river, my many long-missing friends and I gather in the prepared clearing, as the sun descends in the west, creating a blaze of orange and crimson in the sky. We sit, talk a bit, and then begin to take out the drums; the rhythm starts slowly, like an inevitable tide. My gaze is drawn to the maypole in the center of the circle...Shannon is holding Seth close to her, Ben and Adam are drumming at my side, Brenda moves into the circle and begins to dance, deosil, around the pole. Then others begin to join her...my gaze unfocuses as the rhythm takes hold of me, I lose myself in it, the drums surge! The wine is passed around, there is a buzzing in my ears as those around me, strangers and friends, talk and laugh and dance...I take a drink as it is passed and then hand my drum to someone else, stand and place my leather mask on my face. I dance, abandon myself to the joy and the Lakashim, the World Pulse, leaping through the fires and stirring the dancers deeper into their frenzy.
        Then, at the height of it, I retire from the circle as the drumming pauses and the dancers take breaths and drinks...I walk up the mountain to where an altar and shadowed figures wait for me, and I can hear the drumming
start quietly below in the circle. A crimson candle on the altar is flickering despite its shelter; I walk over and extinguish it, then kneel before the altar. The flickering light of the torches is growing less and less effective in the growing dimness of twilight. Shannon, now wearing a silver mask, walks forward, lights a match, and ceremoniously relights the candle. I stand, smiling, and Ben and Adam come forward to take the candle
down the mountain with me to the firepit in the circle below. When we arrive at the firepit, I throw the candle in, and it bursts into bright flames. The dancers begin again.
        I talk and laugh until well after sundown, touching base with friends not seen in too long, drinking from the silver cups of friendship, dancing with Seth, and eating the cakes and breads, drinking the sweet liquors.
As the night grows old, Shannon (with a grin) hands out slips of paper with quests, demands, dares and riddles on them. The guests begin to participate, and things get strange rapidly...after performing my feat, I wander out to the field where, earlier that day, we all laid out the stone-maze...I start at the serpent's head, and follow it inward, spiraling toward the lines in the center which delineate the Horned God, finally ending at his waist, the kundalini source. I look up at the stars, shining in the clear night sky, and gaze at the Pleiades, wondering which of them
is Maia, mother of Hermes.
        The night deepens, and then two figures detach from the shadows of the trees. They are my lovers, and they approach me with an almost feral grace...their gazes smolder like the embers beneath the blazing fire across the glade. Taking my hand, they bind my wrists and lead me like one to be sacrificed, through the trees, to a large tent laid out with blankets and scented with incense, rose and amber...we make love, gently and violently, until dawn is near. I muster the strength to arise from my deathlike carnal langour and ready myself for the coming of
the May Sun. When dawn comes, I am standing atop a mountain with my closest friends at my side, and a quiet joy in my heart. "I came upon a wedding that old families had contrived Bethlehem the bridegroom, Babylon the bride Great Babylon was naked, yes she stood there trembling for me And Bethlehem inflamed us both, like the shy one at some orgy And when we fell together, all our flesh was like a veil I had to pull aside, to watch the serpent eat its tail..." — Leonard Cohen, "Last Year's Man"

Rituals: Fireleaping, Purification in Balefire Smoke, Drumcircle, Greet the Dawn, Gather First Blossoms, Make Bell & Daisy Anklets, Greenwood Marriages, Finding Staves

EXCERPTS: "EIGHT SABBATS" (J&S Farrar)
Fires were lit on hilltops to celebrate the return of life and fertility...a feature of the festival was/is jumping over the fire...Bealtaine for ordinary people was a festival of unashamed human sexuality and fertility. Dancing around the maypole, hunting for nuts in the woods, "greenwood marriages", and staying up all night to watch the May sun arise...Robin Hood, Maid Marian, and Little John played a big part in May Day folklore..."washing the face in May morning dew"...the Romans payed homage to their Lares, or household gods...all homes, to be honest, possess objects which are in effect Lares (Etruscan for "Lord"); ours includes a foot-high Venus de Milo...High Priest wears a chaplet of oak-leaves, in his role as Oak King...
The coven spread themselves around the circle area and start a soft, rhythmic clapping. The High Priest picks up the green scarf, gathers it lengthwise like a rope, and starts to move toward the High Priestess, making as though to throw the scarf over her shoulders and pull her to him; but she backs away from him, tantalizingly. She beckons and teases but always steps back before he can capture her. She weaves in and out of the coven, and the other women step in the High Priest's way to help her elude him. After a while, say 2 or 3 laps, the Priestess allows herself to be captured...he pulls her to him, they kiss and separate, and the High Priest hands the scarf to another man...the last man hands the scarf back to the High Priest. Once again he pursues the High Priestess, but this time the pace is much slower, almost stately; her beckoning is more solemn, as though she is tempting him into danger, and the others do not intervene. When he catches and kisses her, the scarf falls from his hands, and the Priestess steps back. The High Priest kneels before her, his head lowered and his eyes closed; she calls two other women to her, they pick up the scarf and drape it over him like a shroud. Then she calls two men to extinguish the red altar-candles — the Bale Fires. "The Oak King is dead; he has embraced the Great Mother and died of his love, so has it been, year after year after year, since time began..." Rekindle the Bale Fires. "Now is the time outside of time, here is the place which is no place. Do not leave us, Oak King. Stay, that the earth may be fruitful."

I am a Stag of seven tines I am a wide flood on the plain I am a hawk on the cliff I am fair among flowers I am a god who sets the head afire with smoke.

        Bealtane is a traditional "mischief night"..."the year is swinging on it's hinges, the doors to the Otherworld are open, anything can happen"...the High Priestess...imposing bizarre little tasks or ordeals...it is the High Priest's final privilege to impose a task or ordeal upon her...

EXCERPTS: "THE SPIRAL DANCE" (Starhawk)
         A Maypole, crowned with flowers and hung with multicolored ribbons, is set up in an outdoor clearing. Fruits, flowers, round breads, cookies and doughnuts are hung from bushes and tree branches. A fire is built in the south, well within the boundaries of the circle...the marriage of God and Goddess is celebrated with maypoles and bonfires...
         "This is the time when sweet desire weds wild delight. The Maiden of Spring and the Lord of the Waxing Year meet in the greening fields, and rejoice together under the warm sun. The shaft of life is twined in a spiral web and all nature is renewed. We meet in the time of flowering, to dance the dance of life."

EXCERPTS: "THE SABBATS" (Edain McCoy)
         ...an old Phoenician vegetation-god Baal, who was demonized by the new religion... in Norway the balefires are called Balder's Fires in honor of their sun god, old brooms were thrown on the fire... Germanic and Dianic covens celebrate Bealtaine as a Night of the Dead, they ask to join them and shake the chill of the Underworld off at the fire, in much the same way Celts do at Samhuine...in Slavic countries, young men travel from house to house just before sundown to collect items to fuel the balefire...in Scotland the balefires were required to be lit from another fire called the tein-eigin, or "need-fire:, created with the friction of a wheel, to honor Taranis, god of the wheel. It is traditional to take home a piece of the Bealtaine fire to bring summer blessings into your home; but one must take the piece without asking--it must not be given--because faeries are known to come to the celebration asking for pieces of the fire, which if given freely would give the faeries some power over the giver (also, the fae could not start their own fires, and had to obtain them from human sources). Wear daisies or daisy-chains to protect from the fae, or ring bells (which are rung at sunrise). Primrose will call faeries to you.
         The Romans celebrated Floralia to honor Flora, Goddess of Flowers; and also Bacchanalia, to honor Bacchus, the God of Wine and Frolic. The Germanic tradition calls this holiday Walpurgisnacht, taking its name from a christianized Teutonic Earth-Mother Goddess named Walburga who was thought to marry the God on this night and become impregnated with her son/lover of Yule. Shiela-na-Gig in Ireland, Festival of Pan in Greece.
         The Great Rite...is often enacted on this Sabbat. The hunting of summer animals is now permitted, the hunting of winter animals (such as deer) forbidden. The fields are reclaimed now from the faeries known as the pu'ka, who claimed them at Samhuine...You can purify anything over the Bealtaine balefire smoke... The Language of Flowers was heavily used by the Cult of Flora in Rome, and was revived in the Victorian era... Bealtaine is a joyous, lusty, carefree Sabbat; parties of all kinds, for pagans and non-pagans, should be part of the observance.

EXCERPTS: "MAYDAY" (Gwydion Cinhil Kirontin)
May Day ushers in the fifth month of the modern calendar year...May is named in honor of the goddess Maia, originally a Greek mountain-nymph, but later identified as the most beautiful of the Seven Sisters (the Pleiades). By Zeus, she is also the mother of Hermes (who was also called Thoth and Ogma), the god of magic. Maia's parents were Atlas and Pleione, a sea nymph. Other names include: Cetsamhain, Walpurgisnacht, and Roodmas -- this last name from an attempt of the Christian church to shift the common folks allegiance from the Maypole, a pagan phallic symbol of life, to the cross).

EXCERPT FROM "THE MAGICIAN'S COMPANION" (Bill Whitcomb)
The April 30th holiday is also celebrated by worker's groups, communists, and anarchists...

GWYDION'S WRITINGS ON BELTANE

MIDSUMMER THE FESTIVAL OF OAKS AND ROSES THE SUMMER SOLSTICE Also known as Vestalia, Feill Sheathain, Alban Heflin, Feast of Epona

LUGHNASADH THE FESTIVAL OF FIRST GRAINS Also known as Vulcanalia, Ceresalia, Lammas Night, and August Eve

MABON THE FESTIVAL OF THE VINE THE AUTUMNAL EQUINOX Also known as Succoth, the Festival of Dionysus, and Alban Elfed

Hundreds of years ago, many cultures regarded the Equinoxes as a re-enactment of the sacred marriage between God and Goddess. These days, in an era when the materialistic metaphors of science have trumped all other metaphors, it's easy for many of us to smirk at our ancestors' quaint notions. Not me, though. Just as surely as I believe the universe began in a Big Bang, I expect God and Goddess to reconsecrate their love affair this week. At this fulcrum of the year, all oppositions are dramatically highlighted: masculine vs. feminine, responsibility vs. freedom, self-interest vs. love, McDonalds vs. Burger King. You may feel torn, as if your arms were torn to different horses galloping in opposite directions. On the other hand, you may find ripe opportunities to create harmony and balance where before there were schisms and paradoxes. And here's the kicker: how you fare will not be dictated by the impersonal machinations of the stars. It'll depend mostly on your willingness to flourish in the midst of ambiguity. Have you embraced your contradictions today?

SAMHUINE THE FESTIVAL OF THE DEAD Pronounced "sah-vun" (Scots Gaelic Samhuine) or "sow-en" (Irish Gaelic Samhaine) Also known as All Hallow's Eve, and Calan Gaeaf

"God is dead. Tonight, we come here to celebrate his life, to contemplate his passing, and to defy the forces that destroyed Him. The sun weakens, the winter closes in, the night is cold, and many of the things we have loved have been destroyed or lost. Now is the time to remember those dead and lost things, and then to release them, to fling them back out into the void forever! It's downhill from here, folks, and we can either sit and shiver and fade with the sun, or we can dance and eat and laugh and sing and LIVE! And I for one will live. Who am I? You know who I am, but I am the Man In Black.
"And I challenge you: Rage! Laugh! Eat! Drink! Dance! Forget!

"Tomorrow we may die, but tonight we are alive!"

DATE:
Samhuine can be celebrated at three different points. These are: October 31st/November 1st, the traditional date -- 15 degrees Scorpio, the astrological beginning of the eleventh month -- and the full moon of Scorpio, commonly the time of celebration for pagans.

OTHER NAMES:

Feile na Marbh (feast of the dead) Calan Gaeaf Dia de los Muertos Michaelmas Hallowe'en / All Hallows Eve Guy Fawkes Day

HISTORY:
"For the old pastoralists, whose herd-raising was backed by only primitive agriculture or none at all, keeping whole herds fed through the winter was simply not possible, so only the minimum breeding stock was kept alive, and the rest were slaughtered and salted -- the only way, then, of preserving meat (hence, no doubt, the traditional use of salt in magickal ritual as a 'disinfectant' against psychic or spiritual evil). Samhuine was the time when the killing and preserving was done, and it is not hard to imagine what a nervously critical time it was. Had the right breeding stock been selected, or enough? Would the coming winter be long and hard, and if so would the stored meat feed the tribe through it? Crops, too, had to be gathered in by October 31, and anything still unharvested was abandoned because of the Pu'ca -- a nocturnal, shapechanging faerie who delighted in tormenting humans. The Pu'ca were believed to contaminate all that was left in the fields after Samhuine.
Human sacrifice was likely a part of ancient celebrations, usually the ritual killings of criminals, sometimes that of kings, often death by fire.

FOLKLORE:
"It was believed that at Samhuine was the turn of the year -- the old dying, the new being born -- and that the night belonged to neither past nor present, to neither this world or the Otherworld. Thus, they believed that the "Veil between worlds" was very thin. The portals of entry for the sidhe-mounds were open, and on this night any human or faerie could pass those portals without even knowing it. Since the Celts believed that the dead went to the Faerie Underworld to await reincarnation (in the Black Cauldron of the Goddess on the Isle of Glass, also known as Avalon), it was also believed that the spirits of dead friends sought the warmth of the Samhuine fire and the company of friends and family. This was their last chance to do so, since at the end of the night the great Horned Lord Arawn (Gwynn ap Nudd, the Horned Serpent of Faerie) would ride through the land and collect the dead souls, taking them to the Cauldron.
"It was also believed that the faeries roamed on this night, and few dared travel alone, or at all. The faeries were believed to come to people's houses to test their generosity, begging for food. Those who refused were teased and pranked and sometimes even beaten.

RITUALS:
        Remembrance (black candles, names in the BoD)
        Burning the past
        Great Rite / Sacrifice of the God -- meditation, music, and incense w/Shannon & Brenda; binding & joining; eating mushrooms and the sacrifice upon the altar... Incenses -- sage, dragonsblood, mugwort, wormwood...
Music -- Dead Can Dance, Mazzy Star... Ritual Tea -- mugwort, catnip, valerian, wormwood

CELEBRATION:
        Incenses -- sage, dragonsblood, sandalwood
        Man in Black -- someone's role for the night, dress in black, wear faceless mask, arrange things
        Fool -- someone's role for the night, keep people jolly, hold Fool's Wand
        Feasting -- colcannon, barbecue
        Drinking -- Absinthe Cocktails, Chocolate Vienna Tequila drink, Apple Cider (Hot Sex?)
        Costumes -- Make hooded masks this year?
        Dancing & Drums, NO GRAVITY, no sobriety or seriousness
        Divination -- tarot, runes
        Promiscuity -- risque movies, strip poker, pornos, general lewdness??? who knows...

CYCLE POINT: The Young God has died and become the Winter King, Lord of Dreams. The Crone has buried him and the funeral has passed, and now is the wake, the time for joy and remembrance.

"CURIOUSITY" by Alister Reed "Do Not Go Gently" by Dylan Thomas

Samhuine is a traditional "mischief night"..."the year is swinging on it's hinges, the doors to the Otherworld are open, anything can happen" ... the High Priest imposing bizarre little tasks or ordeals... it is the High Priestess's final privilege to impose a task or ordeal upon him...

The word "Samhuine" is Scots Gaelic for "November", and is pronounced "sah-vun". It is also used to refer to the celebration of Samhuine Eve, or the first evening of November, and thus to refer to the celebration in general. The better-known word "Samhain" (or "Samhaine") is Irish Gaelic, also meaning "November" — NOT the name of the celtic/satanic "god of death", as you may have already guessed. "Samhaine" is pronounced "sow-en", with the "sow" rhyming with "how". The Irish Gaelic word mostly refers to just the month, and not the celebration night.

There are three dates on which Samhuine can be traditionally celebrated. The first (and most likely oldest) is the cultural
celebration on the first evening of November. Since the Celts reckoned a day to be over when the sun set, everything after
sunset was part of the next day, and therefore, the first evening of the month of "Samhuine" was what we call October 31st. As a cultural date, I generally see this as a time to acknowledge social customs and partake in popular rituals, as well as to have fun with friends and family.

The second date on which Samhuine can be traditionally celebrated is the night of the full moon of Scorpio — that is, the full moon that occurs when the sun is within the 30 degree-span of the ecliptic that marks off Scorpio, which is roughly October 23 to November 21. This Lunar Samhuine is commonly the one celebrated by New Age Wiccans and other neo-pagan types,
due to their close affiliation with the moon and its ways and cycles; they see it simultaneously as an Esbat (a simple full-moon
celebration) and a Sabbat (one of eight major annual celebrations of the pageant of God and Goddess).

The third date is the night of 15 degrees Scorpio, meaning the night wherein the sun is in the middle of the Scorpio portion of the ecliptic. This is commonly the celebration observed by western mysticks, such as Hermetics, and often the positions and
aspects of the moon, Mars, Pluto, and some o fthe other planets are noted and meditated upon. Incidentally, Beltane (May 1,
also known as Cetsamhuine, or "opposite November") is similarly observed at 15 degrees Taurus, which is Scorpio's opposite.

The date on which we are celebrating, November 7th, is close to both the Lunar Samhuine (full moon on the 5th, I think, and the Full Moon Time is three days before and after) and the Hermetic Samhuine (on the 4th).

For the old pastoralists, whose herd-raising was backed by only primitive agriculture or none at all, keeping whole herds fed through the winter was simply not possible, so only the minimum breeding stock was kept alive, and the rest were slaughtered and salted -- the only way, then, of preserving meat (thus the traditional use of salt in magickal ritual as a 'disinfectant' against psychic or spiritual evil). Samhuine was the time when the killing and preserving was done, and it is not hard to imagine what a nervously critical time it was. Had the right breeding stock been selected, or enough? Would the coming winter be long and hard, and if so would the stored meat feed the tribe through it? Crops, too, had to be gathered in by October 31, and anything still unharvested was abandoned because of the Pu'ca -- a nocturnal, shapechanging faerie who delighted in tormenting humans. The Pu'ca were believed to contaminate all that was left in the fields after Samhuine, and it was thought to be a dangerous time to travel. Human sacrifice was likely a part of some ancient celebrations, usually the ritual killings of criminals but sometimes that of kings... often death by fire.

Samhuine is also the time when folklore says that the "veil between worlds" is thinnest. The gates and mounds that lead into the land of Faerie (a land the Celts equated with the land of the dead) are flung wide open and unguarded as the fae folk have all spilt out into the world to dance and play and prank. The "fetch" or astral self is also said to be far more tenuously attached to the physical at this time, and astral travel can be nearly effortless, especially with the right teas and incenses, such as mugwort and wormwood. Since Faerie is the land of the dead, this is the one night of the year on which those who have died in the past year are able to return to the mortal world; on Lughnasadh in early August, people would visit cairns and cemetaries to honor and appease the dead so that they would return with friendly thoughts. Then at the end of the night, as on every Samhuine, the Horned King (a manifestation of the God) would lead the Wild Hunt through the land, collecting the souls of the dead and pulling them away to the great Black Cauldron of the Goddess Ceridwen to be reincarnated. The Cauldron was an early prototype of the Holy Grail, and lay hidden in an ancient castle in the middle of an orchard on the Isle of Glass (which was also known as Avalon).

Personally, what Samhuine means to me is this: a time filled with the energy of death and change (Key 13 in the Tarot), in which to cut away the useless deadwood which has accumulated over the past year, and to defy the creeping atmosphere of despair that pervades as winter/reality sets in — at whatever point of the year that might occur. I find myself surrounded by ghosts... Brenda Gross, now Sam... the girls who've dated me then disappeared, The Group in general.

I've said before that I believe everyone lives in their own personal reality, or paradigm, and the only way we can relate to others is by interpreting signals they send us from across the abyss, and using those interpretations to construct representations of those people in our realities. The more accurate and complete the information is, the closer we are to truly knowing them,
though that total knowledge of another is an ideal that can never be achieved in life as it is (as far as I can tell). But it is possible for perceptions to be inaccurate, and, especially as time progresses, these inaccuracies can grow larger and larger, just as an
error of a few degrees is hardly noticeable until the line is extended for a few meters. What I'm trying to say here is that, in
many relationships, we create inaccurate representations (or "icons") of those around us, and that when it becomes obvious that the icon we have created does not really represent the person we are seeking to know, it is time to destroy that icon. The
problem is, doing so is exactly the same, in our personal reality, as murdering someone we have come to care for — but if it is
not done, then only delusion and problems can result, or even madness. However difficult, if we are to function in the
consensual reality — and that is the challenge — we must destroy these ghosts that swarm around us, these spirits we have
created that do not exist.

Samhuine is the time I have chosen to set aside for this, because it is a time to howl defiance in the face of despair, and these hundreds of killings I have performed over the years threaten much anguish and despair. It is my assertion that no amount of pain and loss can ever conquer me, my raging oath that I will continue to stand and take joy in existence, even if all I know is
destroyed or lost. It is a time to meet with the living, with friends and acquaintances, to forget solemn and sorrowful concerns
and take pleasure in music and food and drink and company. God is dead. But the funeral was at Lughnasadh — and this is
the wake, the final rage against the dying of the light.

That's about all I can say, I guess, and so I'll leave you with a poem from Dylan Thomas:

Do not go gentle into that good night, old age should burn and rage at close of day; rage, rage against the dying of the light. Though wise men at their end know dark is right, because their words had forked no lightning they do not go gentle into that good night. Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay, rage, rage against the dying of the light. Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight, and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way Do not go gentle into that good night. Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight Blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay, rage, rage against the dying of the light. And you, my father, there on the sad height, Curse, bless, me now with your fierce tears, I pray. Do not go gentle into that dark night. Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

YULE THE REBIRTH OF THE SUN THE WINTER SOLSTICE Also known as Midwinter, Alban Arthan

Apollo, Ra, Hyperion, Baal, Balder, Mithras, Jesus
Rituals: Kiss, fast all day & feast the next, give hand-made gifts, tell stories, pass spiced teas and ginger-root, abandon celibacy, hang bells, celebrate friends and family, spread hope and joy

IMBOLG THE FESTIVAL OF CANDLES Also known as Candlemas, Candelaria

        Quickening of the earth, stirrings of fertility. A time to honor the Earth Money, as the Maiden Bride -- the goddess Brigid, goddess of fire, fertility, and poetry, the waiting bride of the youthful Sun God.
         An old Roman celebration in honor of the goddess Demeter, who sought by candlelight for her daughter, the maiden Persephone. A search for life, for new beginnings, for truth and enlightenment.
        Associations: The Hermit, Mother and Maiden, Aquarius, Dawn, Inanna/Ishtar, Artemis, Venus
        Rituals: dress in poor clothes & ask charities (humility), bury negative things at crossroads, collect stones, pass a chalice of milk, throw coins into wells & springs, read poetry with friends, greet the dawn with candles and song,

OSTARA THE FESTIVAL OF BIRDS THE SPRING EQUINOX Also known as Alban Eilir, Eostar