Holidays
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The February Sabbath
The February Sabbath always seems a bit elusive to me. I don’t believe in the goddess Brighid, who is often celebrated at this time, and I don’t live somewhere where first, small indications of spring are appearing. No, I’m in coastal Northern California, and here in this Mediterranean climate it is wet and the mountains are a beautiful emerald green at the height of its intensity. That green will transform to gold in May as the grasses go to seed, so this is a lovely and fragile moment. So while snowdrops are indeed blooming here, soon too will be crocus and daffodils and milk maids. And they aren’t coming up through…
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Old Ways, New Days
It is midnight on the 29th of December. I have just returned from the Sebastopol Wassail, which is conducted annually by the Apple Tree Morris dancing team in my local area. Wassailing is an old English tradition. Poor people going from house to house begging became conflated with people going from tree to tree in the apple orchards, making offerings in the deep winter in the hopes of bountiful harvests in the coming year. There are many songs, many dances, many traditions. And we hope you prove kind with your cakes and strong ale Or we’ll come no more nigh you until the next year Tonight, I sang the songs,…
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Happy Solstice!
A very joyous Longest Night (or Longest Day, in the Southern Hemisphere) to you! Here is a compendium of Yuletide traditions, projects and rituals you can use to inspire your own celebrations. Wolcum Yule!
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LORE DAY: A New Holiday for the Hallows Season
So, six months from now—in the Northern Hemisphere, mind—there is a two-day traditional holiday comprised of Walpurisnacht on April 30, followed by May Day. The former is a sort of mini-Hallows: ghosts and scary Visitations. Then May Day itself is joy and lusty celebration. Why isn’t this end of the year like that? Why don’t we have a happy joyous day followed by a solemn spooky day? I propose we remedy this situation! Halloween is what it is: it is jolly death-fun with skulls and bones and blood and dress-up. Candy for kids, parties for adults. A denatured, but still potent Festival of Death. Hallows comes at the actual midpoint…
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With Both Hands in Grave Dirt
‘Tis the season for we Pagany/witchy types. There is an entire aesthetic we—or most of us, anyway—enjoy that has a brief moment in the waning sun each year, and this is it. Now, as Atheopagans, we don’t believe in ghosts or spirits or Dark God/desses. But that doesn’t matter: there is plenty of rich fodder for ritual, for reflection, and for psychological transformation at this time of year. We’ve all been hurt. We’ve all suffered loss. And we have only to look out to the world around us to find ample and overflowing reason for rage, for sorrow and for lament. Bones, skulls, graves and funerary ceremonies are powerful images…
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Finding Balance in a Sea of Chaos
So, Harvest is coming up: the autumnal equinox, Sept. 21. And all the usual seasonal meanings apply, of rich harvests and abundant fruits and vegetables and celebration of all the wonderful things that have come to us in the passing year. But there is a second meaning of Harvest. It is the moment at which the night and day are equally long: a moment of balance between darkness and light. And at times like these, the idea of balance is hard to find. So much turmoil in the world, so much insanity in the political sphere, and the Earth’s climate itself spinning out of control. And yet, we must. I…
