Holidays
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Beginnings
Ask around in Pagan circles, and you’ll get disagreement about when the year actually begins. Some say at Hallows (Samhain): the new year is birthed at the very moment of the death of the old. Some say Yule, with the rebirth of the “baby Sun”. And some—not many, but some—go with the calendar year, January 1. I fall in the second camp. To me, the period between Death at Hallows and Birth at Yule is the time of decomposition and recomposition, of decay, uptake into existing life, and spinoff through pregnancy or seed production into new individuals. I wrote about this recently. We have come to the time of year…
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Yule: the Big Picture
Yule is of course a joyous time for celebrating love and family and the return of the Sacred Sun. But it also marks the end of the cycle of the year and the beginning of a new, and it is this I’d like to address today. I often talk about the “arc” of the year instead of the Wheel of the Year, because in my conceptualization of how a human life maps metaphorically onto the year’s cycle, there is an important segment–the period between Hallows and Yule–which we never experience at all, because they are the time of Decomposition and Recomposition. They are what happens after we die, and before…
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Holy Days
OK, to start with let me just say: they’re all holy. Every unique, magnificent, rare and extraordinary day of your life, whether you sleepwalk through it or not, is a holy day. Because there are only so many of them, and then you are gone forever. So try to keep it in mind: every day is a holy day. But a special day, what we usually call a holiday–a Sabbath–whether invented or traditional, is a moment when we step out of routine into ritual: whether it’s convening a meal with loved ones at Harvest or erecting a decorated evergreen at Yule or lighting candles for Hanukkah. We have now entered…
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A Deeper Look into Atheopagan Moon Observances
Not long ago, I posted about a wonderful idea that arose during the weekly Saturday Atheopagan Zoom mixer: to corollate the 13 Moon cycles of the year with the 13 Atheopagan Principles. This enables us to have “themes” for each Moon cycle of the year, and to more deeply contemplate each of the Principles as its cycle rolls around. So I floated the idea before, but no details about how each of these Moons might be celebrated. Here is a more fleshed-out presentation of these Moon themes and what we might incorporate into our celebrations of them. Note that because the Moon cycles do not mesh regularly with the solar…
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Midsummer 2020
In the Northern Hemisphere, the long days are upon us*! These are the days of Midsummer. Click here for all the previous posts about this Sabbath. To me, Midsummer is the celebration of the prime of life–of robust, confident adulthood (rather than the urgent young adulthood of May Day), and, in the agricultural cycle, of relaxation and ease between the earlier plowing, sowing and planting and the later harvest Sabbaths. Many Midsummers I have celebrated have been times to deliberately, conscientiously goof off: to relax, eat and socialize with friends. Perhaps to go to the beach, which is a fine Midsummer tradition. But this is the (first?) year of COVID-19.…
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A Walpurgisnacht/May Day Vigil Ritual Menu
As we collectively shelter in place to slow the advance of the novel coronavirus COVID-19, the world and the Wheel continue to turn. Spring is rolling around into summer (at least, in many places in the Northern Hemisphere), and we have come to that major pillar of the annual celebrations of many Pagans, May Day or Beltane, and the night before, which is known by many as Walpurgisnacht. While we may not be able to conduct the usual festivities, we can still observe this Sabbath in all its richness while sheltering in place. This ritual is a vigil: staying up all night either alone or with a partner or family. If…
