How I celebrate the turning of the year, in solitude, with family, or in community. A post is promised for every sabbat.
Heel-and-Toe! Jolly Rumble-O! We were up, Long before the day-o, To welcome in the summer, To welcome in the May-o, For Summer is a-coming in, And winter’s gone away-o! We were, yes, dancing up the sun on this May Day morning with the Morris dancers at the Baylands. Rolling out of bed at dark o’clock [...]
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This year’s Brigid’s altar glows in the still-dark year, casting strands of hope and connection to those who circle around it. I like to use different symbols for the elements and Spirit, and this year’s choices are especially poignant for me. For the center I use my first Brigid’s cross, one I bought years ago [...]
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Wishing you and yours a blessed, warm, and safe Yuletide on this shortest day. This greeting was printed inside my first Dona Nobis Pacem card in 2000, the first year I produced it as a personal card. I was having a lot of fun with my new parallel pen! This year, winter solstice observances are [...]
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Sunday evening I had the communal pleasure of being enveloped in the magic that is a Revels performance. This has come to be the crowning activity of the holiday season for our family, always much anticipated. The Revels are tradition bearers who bring the past to life to cast a light in the joyful present. [...]
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The making of this year’s altar for Dia de los Muertos was more than ever a labor of love. Yesterday on All Hallow’s Eve, I added photographs and personal items to the basic altar. My husband observed that I had been communing with a great many spirits while doing so, and that is true. I [...]
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As we enter into the dark half of the year in the northern hemisphere, the night sky takes on extra luminosity and mystery. The vast cosmos whirls overhead as we contemplate our small place in the great universe. Here at the autumn equinox, we contemplate the balance of light and dark, in the length of [...]
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How can I tell you about the beauty of my creek? How can I tell you about the magic that is happening there every minute of the day and night? The mandalas that appear before my eyes, the patterns made of light and wind, water and tree? How, when two circles of ripples meet, diamond [...]
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I like to mark the turning of the year in my art journal, but never know just what form it will take. This was a little scrap of gilding on black paper that was left over from another use, and it resembled the brilliance of the horizon when the sun is rising, oh so early [...]
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sit quietly doing nothing spring comes and the grass grows by itself Today is Beltane and the mood is quiet as the Wheel turns and another season arrives. By the same reckoning that names winter solstice as midwinter and summer solstice as midsummer, today is the first day of summer here in the northern hemisphere, [...]
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Looking backward, looking ahead, at the vernal equinox. Dark and light in equilibrium, with the flourishing half of the year now on the increase. Flourishes copied from a Book of Hours page, France, 1475-1499, use of Paris; feminine form of prayer. In the collection of University of California at Berkeley, Bancroft Library BANC MS UCB [...]
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