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…
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…
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…
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!…
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.
‘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…
