It’s time once again to join together every Sunday through Yule (or Christmas) for our annual Yule Prayer-Spell. If you have been a regular reader of mine in past years, you know that starting in late November, I invite all my visitors, regardless of path, to join together in a virtual prayer circle, or spell … Read more
We honor this night the Dark Goddess, the Mysteries, the Blessed Dead, and the Mighty Ones of the Craft. I send my love and gratitude to all my teachers, elders, brothers and sisters who dance the Spiral Dance with me in spirit, if not in flesh, this night. And I give thanks for each of … Read more
The leaves fall patiently Nothing remembers or grieves The river takes to the sea The yellow drift of leaves. –Sara Teasdale Today, according to the Celtic Tree calendar, we enter the month of The Reed. The Celtic Tree Year is divided into thirteen lunar months. Each has a tree (or in this case, a shrub) … Read more
Once more the liberal year laughs out O’er richer stores than gems or gold: Once more with harvest song and shout Is nature’s boldest triumph told. — John Greenleaf Whittier Today is the Equinox, taken from the Latin for “equal night.” It is the Autumnal equinox in the northern hemisphere, and the Spring equinox below … Read more
Little Summer Poem Touching the Subject of Faithby Mary Oliver Every summerI listen and lookunder the sun’s brass and eveninto the moonlight, but I can’t hear anything, I can’t see anything —not the pale roots digging down, nor the green stalks muscling up,nor the leavesdeepening their damp pleats, nor the tassels making,nor the shucks, nor … Read more
Our hands will work for peace and justiceOur hands will work to heal the landGather ’round the harvest tableLet us feast and bless the land. Lughnassadh (often pronounced “LOO-nahs-ah”) or the Anglo-Saxon “Lammas,” is one of the Greater Sabbats and honors the First Harvest. In agricultural traditions throughout the Northern Hemisphere, this marks the start … Read more
Blessings to all the fathers on Father’s Day! And wishing everyone a most splendid Summer Solstice (and Yule, too, for our friends below the Equator!) Enjoy! Music by Damh the Bard, from the CD The Hills they are Hollow
Over hill, over dale,Thorough bush, thorough brier,Over park, over pale,Thorough flood, thorough fire,I do wander everywhere,Swifter than the moon’s sphere;And I serve the fairy queen,To dew her orbs upon the green. The cowslips tall her pensioners be:In their gold coats spots you see;Those be rubies, fairy favours,In those freckles live their savours:I must go seek … Read more
And this, our life, exempt from public haunt, finds tongues in trees, books in the running brooks, sermons in stones, and good in everything.— William Shakespeare Beltane, the counterpart to Samhain, which Pagans and Witches south of the Equator are now celebrating, is one of the Greater Wiccan Sabbats and is usually celebrated on May … Read more
Throughout my whole life, during every moment I have lived, the world has gradually been taking on light and fire for me, until it has come to envelop me in one mass of luminosity, glowing from within… The purple flush of matter fading imperceptibly into the gold of spirit, to be lost finally in the … Read more