Category: Articles
Coven Yule Ritual (It is rare to read a coven ritual)
A coven ritual is something that you will get to see unless you are a part of that coven. You sure won’t have the opportunity to read or hear about any of their rituals. Before I started writing this, I was thinking about how I use to feel about coven witches. I always thought that were so secretive. Everything was hush, hush. Then it hit me, Solitary witches are the same way. We keep all our spells and rituals secret. We don’t broadcast to the public what we are or what we do. So I guess when you get right down to the nit-gritty, we are all alike, lol! The only difference is a coven witch has kindred spirits and the Solitaries have to wonder through life bumming into their kindreds!
Whatever, we are all Witches and one big family! What’s the important part is that we have found each other. We can fellowship, laugh, cry, share, learn and most of all become friends.
I hope you enjoy reading the ritual.
Coven Yule Ritual
by Julia Phillips
Circle is cast and Quarters erected.
High Priestess:
We now stand at the turning of the year.
Dark Lord:
Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter, All fades and passes, day to night.
Dark Lord extinguishes candles leaving only altar candles alight.
High Priestess:
Let us dance for the long year’s end, for the sun sets quickly in the west, and we begin the long night of hope.
Coven do Wheel or Cord dance widdershins about the cauldron chanting:
Time and Death, Life and Seasons, All must pass, All must change.
Star Child now leaves the circle, and stands behind the veil in the North.
High Priestess stands at the cauldron in the centre, wearing a black veil.
High Priestess:
I am the Hag who engendered you all; I am the Three and the One who is here; I am the log that is ripe for burning; In my end is your hope of beginning.
High Priestess now lifts the cauldron aloft and presents it to each quarter. She returns to the centre, and lights the cauldron candle, from which she lights a quarter candle for each member of the coven. The quarter candles are placed in their respective quarters.
Narrator:
This is the night of the Solstice; the Mother Night. Now darkness triumphs, and yet gives way and changes to light. Time stops, and all wait while the cauldron of the Dark King is transformed into the infant Light. We watch for the dawn when the Mother again gives birth to the sun, who is the bringer of hope and the promise of summer. Holly gives way to Oak, the Wren to the Robin, Old to New.
We stand now in the long night, we pray for the sun’s return. In darkness and shadows the Great Mother groans. The Mother labours to bring forth the sun from her pain. From her cries of labour comes forth our cries of welcome; from her toil and anguish our hope is reborn. Let us now call forth the Great Mother, and the Lord of Life, her husband and son.
The Star Child emerges from behind the veil, and lays at the feet of the High Priestess. The High Priestess points to the Star Child and proclaims:
Behold the Child! Here lies our king!
The High Priestess crowns the Star Child with a crown of mistletoe. She removes her veil and announces:
I am the Mother who brought forth the child; I am the inspiration, and I am the rebirth.
Narrator:
You are the ecstasy of the blessed. You are the light of the sun’s beams. You are the lordly door of welcome. You are the guiding star. Yours is the step of the roe on the hill. Yours is the step of the white-faced mare. Yours is the grace of the swimming swan. You are the jewel in each mystery.
Coven now do Wheel or Cord dance deosil about the cauldron chanting:
Power of soil and power of air, Power of fire and power of water, Power that spins the wheel of birth, Spins the wheel of joy and mirth, Spins the wheel of sun and moon, Push, push, push, Open the gate.
Power of spell and magic free, Eternal power that binds the sea, Weaves the web of infinity, Light of dark and light of day, Speed the spokes fast on their way, Push push push – ah ah Open the gate, So Mote It Be!
High Priestess now invokes the Lord of Misrule into the circle. He is challenged upon entry by the Dark Lord, and must explain who he is, and why he is there. The Lord of Misrule is now in charge of the circle, and may behave as he sees fit. At some point, he must take the burdens of the coven for the previous twelve moons and pack them in his bag. Cakes and Wine.
The Lord of Misrule must be ritually hunted as a wren to bring about his downfall. The coven mime hunting the wren chanting,
Burn the bush, Hunt the wren
When he is discovered, the coven point their athames at his neck to symbolise his death.
Close ritual.
Midwinter Night’s Eve: Yule by Mike Nichols
To be it wouldn’t be a Sabbat without an article from Mike Nichols. He is absolutely, fabulous Pagan writer. I hope you enjoy this article as much as I do.
Midwinter Night’s Eve: Yule
by Mike Nichols
Our Christian friends are often quite surprised at how enthusiastically we Pagans celebrate the ‘Christmas’ season. Even though we prefer to use the word ‘Yule’, and our celebrations may peak a few days before the 25th, we nonetheless follow many of the traditional customs of the season: decorated trees, carolling, presents, Yule logs, and mistletoe. We might even go so far as putting up a ‘Nativity set’, though for us the three central characters are likely to be interpreted as Mother Nature, Father Time, and the Baby Sun-God. None of this will come as a surprise to anyone who knows the true history of the holiday, of course.
In fact, if truth be known, the holiday of Christmas has always been more Pagan than Christian, with it’s associations of Nordic divination, Celtic fertility rites, and Roman Mithraism. That is why both Martin Luther and John Calvin abhorred it, why the Puritans refused to acknowledge it, much less celebrate it (to them, no day of the year could be more holy than the Sabbath), and why it was even made illegal in Boston! The holiday was already too closely associated with the birth of older Pagan gods and heroes. And many of them (like Oedipus, Theseus, Hercules, Perseus, Jason, Dionysus, Apollo, Mithra, Horus and even Arthur) possessed a narrative of birth, death, and resurrection that was uncomfortably close to that of Jesus. And to make matters worse, many of them pre-dated the Christian Savior.
Ultimately, of course, the holiday is rooted deeply in the cycle of the year. It is the Winter Solstice that is being celebrated, seed-time of the year, the longest night and shortest day. It is the birthday of the new Sun King, the Son of God — by whatever name you choose to call him. On this darkest of nights, the Goddess becomes the Great Mother and once again gives birth. And it makes perfect poetic sense that on the longest night of the winter, ‘the dark night of our souls’, there springs the new spark of hope, the Sacred Fire, the Light of the World, the Coel Coeth.
That is why Pagans have as much right to claim this holiday as Christians. Perhaps even more so, as the Christians were rather late in laying claim to it, and tried more than once to reject it. There had been a tradition in the West that Mary bore the child Jesus on the twenty-fifth day, but no one could seem to decide on the month. Finally, in 320 C.E., the Catholic Fathers in Rome decided to make it December, in an effort to co-opt the Mithraic celebration of the Romans and the Yule celebrations of the Celts and Saxons.
There was never much pretense that the date they finally chose was historically accurate. Shepherds just don’t ‘tend their flocks by night’ in the high pastures in the dead of winter! But if one wishes to use the New Testament as historical evidence, this reference may point to sometime in the spring as the time of Jesus’s birth. This is because the lambing season occurs in the spring and that is the only time when shepherds are likely to ‘watch their flocks by night’ — to make sure the lambing goes well. Knowing this, the Eastern half of the Church continued to reject December 25, preferring a ‘movable date’ fixed by their astrologers according to the moon.
Thus, despite its shaky start (for over three centuries, no one knew when Jesus was supposed to have been born!), December 25 finally began to catch on. By 529, it was a civic holiday, and all work or public business (except that of cooks, bakers, or any that contributed to the delight of the holiday) was prohibited by the Emperor Justinian. In 563, the Council of Braga forbade fasting on Christmas Day, and four years later the Council of Tours proclaimed the twelve days from December 25 to Epiphany as a sacred, festive season. This last point is perhaps the hardest to impress upon the modern reader, who is lucky to get a single day off work. Christmas, in the Middle Ages, was not a single day, but rather a period of twelve days, from December 25 to January 6. The Twelve Days of Christmas, in fact. It is certainly lamentable that the modern world has abandoned this approach, along with the popular Twelfth Night celebrations.
Of course, the Christian version of the holiday spread to many countries no faster than Christianity itself, which means that ‘Christmas’ wasn’t celebrated in Ireland until the late fifth century; in England, Switzerland, and Austria until the seventh; in Germany until the eighth; and in the Slavic lands until the ninth and tenth. Not that these countries lacked their own mid-winter celebrations of Yuletide. Long before the world had heard of Jesus, Pagans had been observing the season by bringing in the Yule log, wishing on it, and lighting it from the remains of last year’s log. Riddles were posed and answered, magic and rituals were practiced, wild boars were sacrificed and consumed along with large quantities of liquor, corn dollies were carried from house to house while carolling, fertility rites were practiced (girls standing under a sprig of mistletoe were subject to a bit more than a kiss), and divinations were cast for the coming Spring. Many of these Pagan customs, in an appropriately watered-down form, have entered the mainstream of Christian celebration, though most celebrants do not realize (or do not mention it, if they do) their origins.
For modern Witches, Yule (from the Anglo-Saxon ‘Yula’, meaning ‘wheel’ of the year) is usually celebrated on the actual Winter Solstice, which may vary by a few days, though it usually occurs on or around December 21st. It is a Lesser Sabbat or Lower Holiday in the modern Pagan calendar, one of the four quarter-days of the year, but a very important one. This year (1988) it occurs on December 21st at 9:28 am CST. Pagan customs are still enthusiastically followed. Once, the Yule log had been the center of the celebration. It was lighted on the eve of the solstice (it should light on the first try) and must be kept burning for twelve hours, for good luck. It should be made of ash. Later, the Yule log was replaced by the Yule tree but, instead of burning it, burning candles were placed on it. In Christianity, Protestants might claim that Martin Luther invented the custom, and Catholics might grant St. Boniface the honor, but the custom can demonstrably be traced back through the Roman Saturnalia all the way to ancient Egypt. Needless to say, such a tree should be cut down rather than purchased, and should be disposed of by burning, the proper way to dispatch any sacred object.
Along with the evergreen, the holly and the ivy and the mistletoe were important plants of the season, all symbolizing fertility and everlasting life. Mistletoe was especially venerated by the Celtic Druids, who cut it with a golden sickle on the sixth night of the moon, and believed it to be an aphrodisiac. (Magically — not medicinally! It’s highly toxic!) But aphrodisiacs must have been the smallest part of the Yuletide menu in ancient times, as contemporary reports indicate that the tables fairly creaked under the strain of every type of good food. And drink! The most popular of which was the ‘wassail cup’ deriving its name from the Anglo-Saxon term ‘waes hael’ (be whole or hale).
Medieval Christmas folklore seems endless: that animals will all kneel down as the Holy Night arrives, that bees hum the ‘100th psalm’ on Christmas Eve, that a windy Christmas will bring good luck, that a person born on Christmas Day can see the Little People, that a cricket on the hearth brings good luck, that if one opens all the doors of the house at midnight all the evil spirits will depart, that you will have one lucky month for each Christmas pudding you sample, that the tree must be taken down by Twelfth Night or bad luck is sure to follow, that ‘if Christmas on a Sunday be, a windy winter we shall see’, that ‘hours of sun on Christmas Day, so many frosts in the month of May’, that one can use the Twelve Days of Christmas to predict the weather for each of the twelve months of the coming year, and so on.
Remembering that most Christmas customs are ultimately based upon older Pagan customs, it only remains for modern Pagans to reclaim their lost traditions. In doing so, we can share many common customs with our Christian friends, albeit with a slightly different interpretation. And thus we all share in the beauty of this most magical of seasons, when the Mother Goddess once again gives birth to the baby Sun-God and sets the wheel in motion again. To conclude with a long-overdue paraphrase, ‘Goddess bless us, every one!’
Hey Guess What?
We’re Still Here!
That’s the Good News!
Now for the bad, WordPress is being a pain in the royal ass today. I don’t know if they are working on the sites or not. But every time I go to post there is something. I had to stop one time and write a complete line of html codes. My dear friends put smiley duct tape over my mouth, lol! I can’t help it. This is suppose to be a fantastic day! I don’t something to screw it up for me.
Thought I would let you know you are still here and so is WordPress :(!
Have a super day!
Blessed Yule, dear friends!
December 21, 2012: The Cosmos Converge
December 21, 2012: The Cosmos Converge
Winter Solstice, Sun in Capricorn and the end of the Mayan calendar
Tarotcom Staff on the topics of winter solstice, sun, capricorn, astrology, 2012
It’s finally here! The epic date of December 21, 2012, which we’ve been hearing so much about for so many years, is finally here. And no, the world is not going to end, but yes — it’s a mighty day for many other reasons!
First of all, we know this date stands out in many minds because of its association with the Mayan calendar — and also because of that really bad John Cusack movie from a couple of years ago. But in the minds of Astrologers and Numerologists, this date has more true significance.
When the Sun moves into Capricorn on December 21, 2012, it also marks the Winter Solstice and the beginning of our return to the light. On this darkest night of the year, a cycle of the Mayan calendar ends, but life on Earth grows stronger and brighter as we move forward into the longer days of winter and the most serious sign of the zodiac.
The Sun in Capricorn is a time of determination, when we set new goals for the New Year and begin working harder to reach them. From the moment the Sun moves into Capricorn until New Year’s Day of 2013, we’ll celebrate the hectic holidays and the arrival of winter by reflecting on the past year, learning from its lessons and looking to the future with renewed hope.
It all adds up to a great awakening
In Numerology, the date of 12/21/2012 is also considered extraordinary because the sum total of this number arrangement reduces to an 11, and then down to a 2. Together this adds ups to challenges, and the need for personal awareness that will lead to our individual transformation first, and eventually a great awakening on a global scale.
Whatever you may have heard about December 21, 2012, it’s not the end of the world. There is no wayward Planet Nibiru on a collision path with Earth. There will not be a total blackout of the Earth. There are no unusual planetary alignments. There is no polar shift and Earth will not reverse its rotation.
But it is the end of fall, the end of the year and the end of an era — as well as the beginning of a great new one. Remember, December 21, 2012 is just the beginning of a powerful time of profound change that starts right now — with YOU.
The Yule Tree (Lore, Decorating/Consecrating & Correspondences)
THE YULE TREEThe Celtic Druids venerated evergreen trees as manifestations of deity and as symbols of the universe. To the Celts, these trees were sacred because they did not die from year to year like deciduous trees. Therefore they represented the eternal aspect of the Goddess who also never dies. Their greenery was symbolic of the hope for the sun’s return.
The Druids decorated the evergreen trees at Yule with all the images of the things they wished the waxing year to bring. Fruits for a successful harvest, love charms for happiness, nuts for fertility, and coins for wealth adorned the trees. These were forerunners to many of the images on today’s Christmas trees. Candles were the forerunners of today’s electric tree lights.
In Scandinavia, Yule trees were brought inside to provide a warm and festive place for tree elementals who inhabited the woodland. This was also a good way to coax the native faery folk to participate in Solstice rituals. Some believed the Saxons were the first to place candles in the tree.
Gradually sacred tree imagery was absorbed and minimalized by the Christian church–but it was never able to destroy trees’ resonance within our collective unconscious completely. We realize when we plant a tree we are encouraging the Earth to breathe. And when we decorate our evergreen trees at Yule, we are making a symbol of our dream world with the objects we hang upon it. Perhaps a chain or garland, reflecting the linking of all together on Earth. Lights–for the light of human consciousness, animal figures who serve as our totems, fruits and colors that nourish and give beauty to our world, gold and silver for prosperity, treats and nuts that blend sweet and bitter–just as in real life. The trees we decorate now with symbols of our perfect worlds actually animate what we esteem and what we hope for in the coming year; as from this night, the light returns, reborn.
Decorating the Tree
It’s best to use a live tree, but if you can’t, you can perform an outdoor ritual thanking a tree, making sure to leave it a gift when you’re finished (either some herbs or food for the animals and birds). Start a seedling for a new tree to be planted at Beltane.
If apartment rules or other conditions prevent you from using a live tree indoors, be sure to bring live evergreen garlands or wreaths into the house as decorations.
* String popcorn and cranberries and hang them on the Yule tree or an outdoor tree for birds.
* Decorate pine cones with glue and glitter as symbols of the faeries and place them in the Yule tree.
* Glue the caps onto acorns and attach with a red string to hang on the Yule tree.
* Hang little bells on the Yule tree to call the spirits and faeries.
* Hang robin and wren ornaments on the tree. The robin is the animal equivalent of the Oak King, the wren of the Holly King. Each Yule and Midsummer they play out the same battle as the two kings.
* Hang 6-spoked snowflakes on the branches of the tree. The Witches Rune, or Hagalaz, has 6 spokes.
* Hang sun, moon, star, Holly King, faery, or fruit decorations.
* String electric lights on your tree to encourage the return of the Sun.
Consecrating the Tree
Consecrate the Yule tree by sprinkling it with salted water, passing the smoke of incense (bayberry, pine, spruce, pine, spice, cedar, or cinnamon)through the branches, and walking around the tree with a lighted candle saying:
By fire and water, air and earth, I consecrate this tree of rebirth.
Correspondences
EVERGREENS
Symbolizing: Continuity of Life, Protection, Prosperity
Types: Pine, Fir, Cedar, Juniper, other evergreens
Forms: boughs, wreaths, garlands, trees
Divinities: Green Goddesses & Gods; Hertha; Cybele, Attis, Dionysius (Pine); Woodland Spirits
Traditions: Roman, Celtic, Teutonic, ChristianOAK
Symbolizing: New Solar Year; Waxing Sun; Endurance, Strength, Triumph, Protection, Good Luck
Forms: Yule log, acorns, wood for sacred fires
Divinities: Oak King; Oak Spirit; Sky Gods including Thor, Jupiter, Zeus
Traditions: Teutonic, Celtic, ChristianSACRED TREES OF WINTER SOLSTICE from the Celtic Tree Calendar
Yew: Last Day of Solar Year; Death.
Silver Fir: Winter Solstice Day; Birth.
Birch: Month following Winter Solstice; Beginnings.written by Selena Fox
Correspondences for Sacred Plants of the Winter Solstice
Sacred plants of the Winter Solstice
by Selena Fox
HOLLY
Symbolizing: Old Solar Year; Waning Sun; Protection; Good Luck
Forms: boughs over portals, wreaths
Divinities: Holly King; Old Nick; Saturn; Bacchus; Wood Spirits; Holly Boys
Traditions: Roman, Celtic, English, Christian
MISTLETOE
Symbolizing: Peace, Prosperity, Healing, Wellness, Fertility, Rest, Protection
Forms: boughs, amulet sprigs above doorways, kissing balls
Divinities: Oak Spirit; Frigga and Balder
Traditions: Celtic, Teutonic
IVY
Symbolizing: Fidelity, Protection, Healing, Marriage, Victory, Honor, Good Luck
Forms: crowns, wreaths, garlands
Divinities: Dionysius; Bacchus; Great Goddess; Ivy Girls
Traditions: Greek, Roman, English, Christian
FRANKINCENSE
Symbolizing: Sun, Purification, Consecration, Protection, Spiritual Illumination
Forms: incense, oils
Divinities: Sun Gods, Ra at Dawn, Bel
Traditions: Babalyonian, Assyrian, Egyptian, Jewish, Greek, Roman, Christian
MYRRH
Symbolizing: Healing, Death and Afterlife, Purification, Inner Peace
Forms: incense, oils
Divinities: Isis, Ra at Midday
Traditions: Egyptian, Jewish, Christian
WHEAT
Symbolizing: Sustenance, Abundance, Fertility, Good Luck
Forms: grain, straw figures and symbols, cookies, cakes, breads
Divinities: Earth Goddesses; Saturn & Ops; Goat Spirit; Fairy Folk
Traditions: Roman, Celtic, Scots, Teutonic, Sweedish, Christian
Glory to The Newborn King
Glory to The Newborn King
(Tune: Hark the Herald Angels Sing)
Brothers, sisters, come and sing
Glory to the new-born king!
Gardens peaceful, forests wild
Celebrate the Winter Child!
Now the time of glowing starts!
Joyful hands and joyful hearts!
Cheer the Yule log as it burns!
For once again, the Sun returns!
Brothers, sisters, come and sing!
Glory to the new-born King!
Brothers, sisters, singing come
Glory to the new-born Sun
Through the wind and dark of night
Celebrate the coming light.
Suns glad rays through fear’s cold burns
Life through death the Wheels now turns
Gather round Yule log and tree
Celebrate Life’s mystery
Brothers, sisters, singing come
Glory to the new-born Sun.
Yule – Winter Solstice
Yule – Winter Solstice
After Samhain and Beltane, Yule is the most important feast. Elaborate rites are performed to insure the rebirth of the Sun. It is the greatest crisis of the year, and before the commercial value of sentimentality was discovered, popular customs reflected a wide contrast of the dark and eerie against joyful music and glittering lights.
Samhain to Yule is a season of preparation. A fast is not exactly enjoined, but it is as good a time as any to lose a little weight, because you’ll surely gain it back during Yule. It is a time for serious introspection and spiritual discipline. Perform your devotions and meditations regularly. Just before Yule, thoroughly clean your home.
The celebration begins on Yule Eve with religious rites. Yule Day is for family observances of a cheerful, social nature, with a feast, perhaps in the evening, unless there is a ball or theater event. The next day is a peculiar time. It is the day left over in the old Pagan calendar of thirteen 28-day months. It belongs to no month and no year; truly a “time that is not time”. (On a leap year there are two of these intercalary days.) what is done on the third day, then, hasn’t really happened, or doesn’t count. It gives us a perfect opportunity to step outside our usual roles and experiment, even if we look foolish. No one is allowed to hold it against us. No commitments can be made of this day; they will not be binding.
The next day is the New Year from a solar point of view.
The season of Yule runs till the Eve of Oimelc, so for Pagans there is no post- Xmas letdown. You can have Yule parties every weekend till February. When your evergreen decorations dry up, you can renew them. But by Oimelc, every trace of the Yule greens must be out of the house. It is pleasant to burn them in your fireplace.
Good Blessed Solstice Morning To You, My Brothers & Sisters Of The Craft
Good Blessed Solstice Morning To You, My Brothers & Sisters Of The Craft,
What a glorious event awaits us on the longest night of the year. We will gather with loved ones, family and friends alike. We will sing carols, play games, talk and fellowship. Have a huge traditional Yule supper. I can almost smell it now. After we are through eating, we will exchange presents with each other. Then I am sure for the children stories will read. Preparation for the burning of the Yule log begins. You can either burn it in your fireplace or go outside and build a bonfire.
Each of our traditions vary on how we do things. But the men here go and prepare a huge stack of wood to be burned. Then on top, the yule log is placed. We are central time remember. Around 3:30, we light the fire. We start by singing carols and praying to the Goddess. Then it is time for our ritual. I have included it here so perhaps in some way we can all be together this year.
It has always been a dream of mine, that one day we could all meet and have a ritual together. This year would have been exceptionally nice. With all the horrors and tragedies that have occurred it is comforting to have a kindred spirit with you. You can hold each other and give comfort, cry, let all you feelings that have been bottled up out. Let your sadness go, turn it over to the Goddess. Now is the time to start anew. We have a fresh start with the rebirth of our Sun. The promise of life, love and hope.
With this fresh new season upon us, let us pray. Pray that mankind becomes kind and gentler. Pray that we learn how to show compassion and love to all. Pray for an end to all the senseless killings of our children, our future. Pray that the Goddess continues to watch over us, keep us in her love and light.
Now join us in ritual, my dear brothers and sisters!
Our Yule Ritual We Would Like To Share With You
Our Altar has:
Presence candle
Goddess and God candles
salt
water
small cauldron with sand for incense stick
bell
chalice, four decanters and juice
plates with bread
Corner candles are set out and lit.
HP: Let it be known that the circle is about to be cast, let none
be here but of their own free will.
Priestess: “I cleanse and purify this space with sound.”
Rings bell three times, circling deosil.
HPS lights Presence candle.
I light this Candle (light
Presence Lamp)
in the name of that ancient presence,
which is, was, and ever shall be
male, female, all-knowing, all-powerful
and present everywhere.
And in the names of the four Mighty Ones,
the rulers of the elements,
may power and blessing descend
in this hour upon this place
and those gathered here.”
HPS: Salt and water blessings, fire and air blessings
Priestess: “With water and earth I cleanse and purify this space.”
Sprinkles consecrated salt and water.
Priestess: “With fire and air, I cleanse and consecrate this
space.”
Circles deosil with incense.
HPS:
Take up athame, face north and say:
I conjure thee, O Circle of Power, as a boundary between the worlds. A
meeting of love and joy and truth; a shield against all wickedness and
evil; a Rampart and Protection that shall preserve and contain the
power which we shall raise within thee. I do bless and consecrate
thee.
Cast circle to the east. See it glow. Salute the East, then draw an
invoking pentagram and say:
Spirit of the East! Spirits of Air!
Oh Lords of the great icy towers of the North,
I, Lady of the Abyss, do summon, stir and call you up
To guard our circle and Witness our rites!
We ask you to come to us now on the cold winter wind
and breathe into us the spirit of the pure joy of life.
So mote it be!
Cast circle to the south. See it glow. Salute the south, then draw
an invoking pentagram and say:
Spirit of the South! Spirits of Fire!
O lords of the firey towers of the South,
I, Lady Of The Abyss, do summon, stir and call you up
To guard our circle and Witness our rites!
We ask you to come forth from the fires that
warm the planets heart, from the fires that
protect us on this winters night. Kindle
within us the warmth of spiritual awakening.
So mote it be!
Cast circle to the west. See it glow. Salute the west, then draw an
invoking pentagram and say:
Spirit of the West! Spirits of Water!
I, Lady Of The Abyss, do summon, stir and call you up
To guard our circle and Witness our rites!
We ask you to come forth from the streams,
the lakes, from the vast expanse of your watery realm.
Bring to us the water of life to wash away our fears and resentments
that we may find peace of mind.
So mote it be!
Cast circle to the north. See it glow. Salute the north, then draw
an invoking pentagram and say:
Spirit of the North! Spirits of Earth!
I, Lady Of The Abyss, do summon, stir and call you up
To guard our circle and Witness our rites!
We ask you to come forth from the fertile bosom of our Blessed
Mother Earth, and nourish us so that our wisdom may grow in strength.
So mote it be!
Close the circle, then turn to the altar and say:
HPS:
The circle is cast. We are between the worlds.
Tonight we celebrate the Solstice, the night that the darkness is
triumphant over light, and yet on the morrow, the dark begins to give
way and the light will return.
The spirit of nature is suspended, all living things wait the
transformation of the Dark Lord of Shadow into the newborn Child of
Light. We watch for the coming of Dawn, when the Holy Mother will
again give birth to the Divine Child, the Sun God who is the bringer
of the life of Spring and the promise of Summer. We call the Sun from
the womb of night, and so, turn the Wheel.
Blessed be!
All: Blessed Be!
HPS: Antlered God, Winter God, Father of the Sun, with frost upon your
beard and the blazing of Yule fires in your eyes, you bless us with
your presence. We invoke and greet you!
All: So mote it be.
HP: Blessed Lady, Maiden, Mother and Crone, Mother heavy with unborn
child, we greet you and ask your blessings upon your people gathered
here. We invoke and adore thee!
HPS:
The light was born, and the light has died.
All: Everything passes, all fades away.
The God enters in the west, HPS goes to him and raises him up. He
begins to dance and chant , deosil around the circle:
At Yule I’m born and at Yule I’ll die,
round and round the wheel,
forever flying thru the sky,
ever mindful of what must be.
All: So turns the wheel.
At spring I nourish the seed and hide therein growing with the light!
Round and round the wheel,
forever flying thru the sky,
ever mindful of what must be.
All: So turns the wheel.
In summer the young stag am I in love and lust I seek the Goddess, our
union and bliss sustains the world.
Round and round the wheel,
forever flying thru the sky,
ever mindful what must be.
All: So turns the wheel.
In fall as I weaken with the sun, the grain is cut
for Harvest, that all may carry on.
Round and round the wheel,
forever flying thru the sky,
ever mindful of what must be.
All: So turns the wheel!
In winter old and tired am I, dying with the light.
Round and round the wheel,
forever flying thru thr sky,
ever mindful of what must be.
All: So turns the wheel!
God falls into crouch, dies, is covered by black cloth, behind the
birthing mother.
All light is extinguished and the Mother wails for the loss of the
God.
All: Start chanting “It is Winter, It is night chant”
It is winter, it is night,
We await the sun,
We await the light.
In the darkness
In this night,
We await the warmth,
We await the light.
The Mother, kneeling in the east moans in labor., Make ’em fit the
breaks in the sentences of HPS/narrator.
HPS: I am the great Mother. I exist beyond time and space. I bring
forth all of creation.
Moan.
HPS: My voice rides upon the wind. Stars pour from my soul. I am
the silence of the sea, and the secret of the standing stones.
Moan.
I am the Mother of all things, and the soul of nature, who gives life
to the universe.
Moan.
I am the Giver of light. Tonight I give light back to the world as I
mourn the death of the God and rejoice in his birth.
Moans come to crescendo.
HP exits from beneath Mother’s legs, then lights fireplace match.
All chant:
Mother who has birthed this light
In the darkness of this night
Infant child of glowing light
We celebrate you both tonight!
Light cauldron, all other candles.
Repeat, with drumming, dancing and singing, then send off the power.
When everyone has calmed down a bit, have them gather again into a
circle.
HPS: Blessings of the Goddess and God upon this bread and the fruit of
the vine!
Pours out juice into decanters, holds hands over them.
May you never thirst!
Holds hands over bread plates.
May you never hunger!
Juice and Bread are passed among gathered folk.
When everyone has partaken, ground the energy (two hands on the
floor).
Then dismiss the elementals, and open the circle.
The Yule Log
The Yule Log
by Lila
The tradition of the Yule logs dates back millennia. The origin of the word Yule seems to originate from the Anglo Saxon word for sun and light. People used to burn a yule log on the Winter Solstice in December. The Winter Solstice is the day of the year with the shortest amount of daylight. Yule is celebrated by fire, which provides a dual role of warmth and keeping evil spirits away. Many people thought that evil spirits were more likely to wander the earth on the longest night of the year. All night bonfires and hearth fires kept evil at bay and provided gathering places for folks to share feasts and stories.
Winter Solstice marks the sun’s victory over darkness; the days would now grow longer. The cinders from the burnt log were thought to protect homes from lightning and the evil powers of the devil. The ashes were also sprinkled on the surrounding fields to ensure good luck for the coming year’s harvest. The largest remaining part of the log was kept safe to kindle next year’s fire.
The Yule log has waned in popularity with the advent of electric heaters and wood stoves. With no access to a hearth, fireplace or fire pit, modern folks are losing a sacred tradition. Today, we may still partake of the Yule Log tradition by creating a smaller version as a table ornament, embellished with greenery and candles, or the popular Yule log cake. As we eat a slice, we can imagine taking in the protective properties of the log.
Many enjoy the practice of lighting the Yule Log. If you choose to burn one, select a log and carve or chalk upon it a figure of the Sun (a rayed disc) or the Horned God (a horned circle). Set it alight in the fireplace at dusk, on Yule. This is a graphic representation of the rebirth of the God within the sacred fire of the Mother Goddess. As the log burns, visualize the Sun shining within it and think of the coming warmer days. Traditionally, a portion of the Yule Log is saved to be used in lighting next year’s log. This piece is kept throughout the year to protect the home.
Whether you are burning a log or creating a centrepiece, different woods may be used to produce different effects:
Aspen: invokes understanding of the grand design
Birch: signifies new beginnings
Holly: inspires visions and reveals past lives
Oak: brings healing, strength, and wisdom, symbol of the Oak king, the New year
Pine: signifies prosperity and growth
Willow: invokes the Goddess to achieve desires
Decorate your log with the any of the following items:
bright green needles of fir represents the birth of the new year
dark green needles of yew represent death of the waning year
vines of ivy or birch branches represent the Goddess
sprigs of holly with red berries represent the Holly king of the dying year
As you light the Yule log chant the following:
As the yule log is kindled
so is the new year begun
as it has been down through the ages
an unending cycle of birth, death, and rebirth
every ending is a new beginning
May the Yule log burn
May all good enter here
May there be wheat for bread
and vats full of wine
(or may we never hunger may we never thirst)
When the log has almost completely burned, collect a small piece of the Yule log (dip in a bucket of water to ensure it is completely out) wrap carefully and keep somewhere in the home for safety and protection.
collect some of the cold ashes and store in a glass bottle. The ash can be used for spells of protection and amulets. The remainder of the Yule ash can be scattered over fields or gardens to ensure fertility in the spring.
Pauline Campanelli; Wheel of the Year
Lila is an initiate in The Sacred Three Goddess school. She lives on a mountain in beautiful British Columbia with her husband, four cats, two ferrets and other varied critters of nature. She spends her time communing with the Faerie folk and long walks by the river.
Invoking the Holly King
Today we do bid Hail to our beloved Holly King
With these ancient carols, we do again sing
He who is called Father Christmas is returning yet again
As the Solstice’s longest night has finally begun
We await you, Santa Claus, Lord of Winter
To honor you on this day that you always were
Saint Nicholas, patron of children on Gaia’s sphere
This invocation, we pray you do hear
Come bless us, upon this season of the Yuletide
Great Holly King as you fly upon your sleigh ride
Whether your gifts to us be physical or spiritual
We know that they will always be most magical
Grateful, because we know your blessings’ great worth
We offer a blessing of our own — Peace on Earth!
by Ginger Strivelli
‘Twas the night before Yule
‘Twas the night before Yule, and all through the Coven,
The cookies were baked and removed from the oven.
The bayberry candles were lit on the table,
The altar was wrapped in a new cloth of sable.
The children were nestled, all snug in their beds,
While visions of Yuletime danced in their heads.
Their stockings were hung by the chimney with care,
In hopes that some presents soon would be there!
With Rocker in his new robe, and I in mine,
We were asking our Goddess her blessing divine.
When out on the lawn there arose such a clatter,
We sprang from our Circle to see what was the matter.
Away to the window, tripping over my sash,
My eyes were a-glamoured with a bright silver flash.
The moon on the breasts of the Goddess and God
Drew my eyes to behold the blessed Circle they trod.
When, what to my wondering eyes should appear,
But the manifestations of all those we hold Dear.
The physical forms of those whom we pray to,
Even Saint Nick, and his miniature sleigh, too!
Jehovah, Mohammed, Shiva, Hera and Thor.
Zeus, Freya, Brahma, and many, many more.
All the Spiritual Entities who’d ever been mentioned.
Even some, like dear Loki, who sowed seeds of dissension.
They greeted each other with smile, warm and sweet.
Then, forming a Circle, they all took a seat.
With multiple Voices all joined as One,
The Corners were Called. And, when that was done.
The Chalice was passed from Hand to Hand.
Then, a blanket of silence enfolded the land.
A crystal clear Voice began to hold sway.
Which Deity spoke? I could not say.
But, clearly, I heard all the love in that Voice.
It caused my tired heart to take flight and rejoice.
“Our Children, it seems, have missed the whole point.
“We now join together, their hearts to anoint.
“Pour all of Our love O’er their hearts of stone.
“Let them see that together they’re never alone!
“Show them it matters not which of Us that they choose.
“Their sad hate and mistrust cause each of Us to lose!”
As I stood there transfixed, I could suddenly see
If we all stand as one, what a world this could be!
Put ALL of our differences well behind us.
Let the love of the Gods enfold and remind us.
We ARE all the same, though varied our skins.
We all dream the same dreams, we all sin the same sins.
With a look of enlightenment etched on my face,
I beheld all the Gods in Their glory and grace!
They all bowed Their heads then said “So mote it be!”
They all smiled at each Other bestowing winks on me.
One by One they disappeared from my sight.
Just the Goddess and God were left in the light.
As slowly They twinkled, fading by degree,
“Happy Yuletide to all!!
Blessed be times three!”
~Written by Mary, a.k.a. Wandering Poet, a.k.a.littlebit~
Permission to reprint granted to all who keep keep this credit line by the author
Quick Yule Project – Love & Protection Sachet
Love & Protection Sachet
Fill a green or gold sachet with cinnamon to draw money and success or to use as a healing charm. Use a purple sachet with Cinnamon can help increase your magickal or psychic powers. Use a pink or red sachet w/cinnamon to draw love or white to insure protection.
Grab Bag for the Holiday Season Or, Survival Tips for the Homeward Bound
Grab Bag for the Holiday Season
Or, Survival Tips for the Homeward Bound
by Erika Ginnis
I thought that for this article I would touch on a couple of ideas and techniques that I have found useful during the holiday season. This is the time of year when the light seems like a memory (even as it begins to change and return), and the dark is ever around us. It is a powerful time for inner searching and deep magick. It is a time of cycles both within us and outside of us. In some ways, this is the time of year when it seems like everyone, pagan or not, is bound up in the cyclic sweep of the turning of the year and the seasons.
Whatever your own personal opinions about the many traditions that are celebrated during this time of year (I personally love the holidays regardless of the name they go by — but then again I have also been told I am rather strange!) it is hard to dismiss all that it brings up in us. All our childhood experiences good or bad are there with us. All the hopes and dreams, realized or not, come crowding back on us at this time of year. We get together with family members (many of which have little understanding of our particular spirituality), and sometimes it seems like we become someone we once were, or never were but thought we were supposed to be. It can also be that we love the festivities at this time of year, but those around us are glum and depressed. Perhaps we ourselves like this dark time of inner reflection and long for its quiet wisdom, but are annoyed by all the revelers around us and feel the need to go hibernate under a rock till spring.
Anything sound familiar yet? Well, you are not alone. I have personally found that this period of time right around Yule to be a great opportunity for growth and change. The way I look at it, “If my stuff is going to be up and strewn all around me anyway, I might as well take this opportunity to work on some of it!”
One of the things that I become increasingly aware of in relation to all of this, is something that I call a “growth period.” To define this very simply: “A growth period is the time it takes the body to adjust and process the changes that we make as spirit.” The holiday season is a time ripe for periods of accelerated growth. We are confronted with our pasts, with family issues, with the cyclic and therefore mortal aspects of ourselves. Adding this to the fact that it is already a time of darkness and cold (at least in this part of the world) can inspire some pretty intense stuff.
Have you ever taken a class in some kind of personal development or spiritual work, and felt like you were riding an amazing high, only to find yourself a week or two later getting sick, or wanting to hide from the world? This is an example of a growth period. First of all, you make some kind of change or work on something as spirit. This happens very quickly, since spirit isn’t bound by time and space. Great, no problem, you can make all these changes and wheeeee! Right? Well, only partially; you are spirit, you can change in an instant; however, you have a body, and that body has to operate in time and space. So what happens is that your body needs to integrate what you have changed. It needs time to process the new energy.
While you are in this process, it can feel a little odd. I think of it sometimes like a plant getting a new leaf. When the leaf is just beginning to unfold, it is a lighter green and is a lot more tender, more easily bruised. It hasn’t developed the more waxy finish that the other leaves have.
This is analogous to how we can feel when we are in a state of flux. Over time, the leaf grows out and unfolds and becomes just like the others, and the plant is that much larger. It is the process by which growth occurs. We are not so very different from the plants. We don’t normally sprout leaves, but our changes are just as real and every bit as observable if you know how to look.
Growth periods can be experienced in a number of ways. You may want to sleep much more than usual or not need as much sleep as you are used to. You may want to have a lot of sex or want to go out dancing a lot, or maybe want to hibernate at home all of a sudden. Maybe you want to eat a lot of chocolate, or you may catch a cold, or just feel generally unsettled. It may also be that you feel better than you ever have and you feel like the whole world is opening up to you. These are all growth periods. A growth period does not have to be uncomfortable! It is simply the time it takes the body to process the changes that you make as spirit.
What is important, especially when it feels more challenging, is to remember “This is a normal, natural and necessary part of learning and growing.” Many of us like to try and skip this part, or try and ignore it. We may feel more fragile at this time and want to protect ourselves by denying our changes. Unfortunately, one of the things that denial can do is to prolong the process. If you acknowledge your growth period, you can then begin to communicate with your body about what’s happening and what your body needs. This will make it all go more smoothly.
Sometimes all it takes is that conscious recognition that you are indeed in a growth period. It can make it all make more sense. Another thing to remember is that growth periods are cyclic…. they have a beginning, a middle and an end! They don’t go on forever; you will adjust to the changes, and you will have grown. A former teacher of mine used to use the adage: “When you are up to your ass in alligators, it’s hard to remember that you set out to drain the swamp!”
As long as you are in a body, you will have growth periods; it’s part of the package. If you are into growing spiritually, well, guess what, you will go out of your way to have growth periods! I find that meditation really helps to keep everything flowing. It may be that the time that you want to meditate the least is when you need it the most.
So this brings me back to this particular season. This would be a fabulous time to commit to meditating daily. This is one of the times of the year when we all are aware of the cyclic nature of our lives. It is coming up on the New Year, we are running headlong into our childhood memories, we are seeing people we might not have seen since last year. We become very aware of our own changes or lack thereof, and it can be pretty intense. It will very likely put us into a growth period.
One of the techniques that I suggest people use for getting a handle on where they are, in their growth, is as follows: Find a quiet place where you won’t be disturbed for a few minutes. (Sure, you say, with all my relatives in my house, how will this happen? If all else fails, go into the bathroom, lock the door and say you’re taking a bath.) Take a few minutes to ground and center.
Let yourself become aware of what your current growth period is; let the information flow to you from your stillness. Ask yourself the question: “What are the spiritual changes I have recently made, and how am I responding to them?” Let the answers flow. Maybe you have been feeling odd and unsettled and not wanted to look at it, so have been on the run as much as possible to avoid it all. Take this opportunity to stop running and simply look at what’s happening and why, and give yourself permission to not take it all so seriously. Laugh a little at the huge growth period you are in (if this is the case) and realize that it will pass and you will have grown. Even if the issue that you are working on is serious, treating it with just a little amusement can help the energy move and change more easily.
The next exercise can give you more insight into what you are working on and can also be a wonderful way to get in touch with your own changes.
Take two sheets of paper and a pen. On the first sheet, start the heading of a letter that says “Dear Spirit…” and at the end of the sheet of paper write “… love, Body.” Next, take the other sheet of paper and at the top write “Dear Body….” and at the end of the paper write “…love, Spirit.”
If you haven’t already guessed, you are going to write two letters. Let your mind relax and let your body have a voice; let it talk to you and let you know what’s up, what it feels, what it needs. Write it down in the first letter. This is your body communicating to you, the spiritual being. Don’t judge what you write, just write. It may say things like, “Dear Spirit, you haven’t been paying any attention to me, I need more exercise, I need more sleep, please buy me some flowers.” Or perhaps, “I am trying as best as I can, but I don’t know what we are doing or where we are going, so I am afraid; please let me know what’s going on.” Or even, “I am starting to get a cold, please drink a lot of water so I won’t be sick for the holidays.”
Whatever the communication, it is a valuable tool for staying in touch with the wisdom of the body and for knowing how your body actually feels in this sometimes hectic season. Now realize you don’t have to do everything the body asks for. It may say, “I want to go escape to Hawaii until February,” but what you as Spirit may decide to do is go spend 10 minutes tanning and take a walk in a conservatory of tropical plants. What you may find is that the very act of being listened to is enough to totally change how your body feels.
Next up is the second letter. This is a letter from you as Spirit to your body. Take a minute and breathe and relax. Get in touch with yourself and you own inner voice. I highly recommend meditating as part of writing both these letters if it is at all possible. This is the letter that begins “Dear Body….” You may be surprised at what you write. Let go of your expectations as you write and let it flow. It may sound like, “Dear Body, I love you, but I am not always good at communicating, but I am working on changing that. I want to work on prosperity for the holidays, and so I have stimulated all the memories from our childhood so I can put them to rest. Sorry I didn’t mention this to you before I started….” Or, “I am really proud of the way you didn’t get enough sleep for a few days so that I could create that wonderful holiday dinner. I am going to make sure there is time now to relax and enjoy the next week.”
It may also sound totally different than these examples, which is the point. It is your own voice as spirit communicating into this physical reality to your body so that you can begin to work in harmony with each other. It is all part of the same thing, but it has different aspects and different voices, which are each valid and valuable. I often say that one of our most important relationships, one that colors all our others, is the one we have as spirit with our body. If we can begin to harmonize that one, the others are much more likely to be successful.
Hopefully now that you have some tools to use during this time of change and renewal, you can let yourself enjoy what comes to you and be able to learn from it. If nothing else, you can know what is going on when you want nothing better than to stay in bed and eat chocolate until Spring Equinox. It is just a growth period! Next week, most likely, you’ll be planning what new plants you want to add to your garden when it thaws out, or beginning that new class you wanted to take.
I will end with another saying I heard a lot when I was a student. “Running your energy will get you into a growth period, and running your energy will get you out!” Meditate, meditate, meditate, and I’ll see you next year.
Blessed be.
Review of Grounding and Centering
Close your eyes, and turn within.
Take three nice, deep breaths, breathe down into your belly and soften it as you breathe. Notice how you feel, how your body feels.
Be aware of your first chakra. This is simply an energy center (vortex) that is located in the general area near the base of the spine. For women, the center (vortex) that is located in the general area near the base of the spine. For women the center is usually near the area between the ovaries (note: the chakra positioning doesn’t change if you have had to have your ovaries removed for any reason). For men the location is slightly lower in the body because the chakra placement is associated with the testicles.
Be aware of this area, and allow a cord of energy to flow downward from your body…
through the chair you are sitting in…
through the floor and down through the building you are in…
through the foundation and into the deep earth beneath.
Allow your grounding to flow down into the earth past all the rocks and layers of the planet, past the water, deep into the earth into the heart of the Mother. Until it reaches the center of the earth.
Allow your grounding cord to connect securely into the center of the planet.
Be aware of your grounding cord being securely connected also to your first chakra. Allow this connection, breathe and release energy and tension down your grounding.
Now that you are grounded you can take the next step and center yourself. Take a nice deep breath and bring your awareness into the center of your head. That safe neutral place behind your eyes and back a bit.
Notice how you body responds. It might have a reaction to you being centered. Let that reaction simply be, notice it. If you experience any discomfort, release it down your grounding.
Be aware of what the center of your head is like right now. Is it light? Is it dark? Is it crowded, or empty? Cold or warm, big or small? Are you aware of sensations, sounds, images, scents? Relax and breathe yourself into the center of your head. Get comfortable and begin to own this safe neutral place.
Continue to use your grounding to release energy from this space so that you can make more room for you to focus there in the present moment.
Meeting Dionysus
Meeting Dionysus
by NightOwl
“Take a deep, slow breath, and as you exhale, allow yourself to begin to relax.” Sitting on the floor, I began the meditation hoping to meet Dionysus, the god I am dedicated to.
I was leading the meditation that night, for the rest of my circle. I believed I would not go as deeply into trance as I would if someone else were speaking, so I did not really expect to be very successful in meeting my god.
Still, as I began to speak, I found myself drifting deeper and deeper into an altered state of consciousness. Even if I did not meet Dionysus, I felt certain that some teacher or guide would appear for me and reveal something of importance for my life.
The goddess in all her many forms has always been present for me in every aspect of life. A few times a teacher who appeared male has manifested in meditations, but I had not really thought very much about the gods, or about following a god, until I was dedicated to a coven and had to choose one.
My High Priestess suggested Dionysus when I asked for her advice, because of who she knows me to be, and I agreed, but continued to be much more focused on the goddesses and what they were teaching me.
When I am responsible for leading a pathworking (meditation ritual), I seldom expect to fully participate, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself walking upon a path winding through a beautiful meadow. Birds were singing, insects made small buzzes and chirps. The mingled scents of wildflowers in bloom and other plants flooded my senses. The peace and beauty of the natural world filled me with joy as I walked toward the hill ahead.
Occasionally opening my eyes a tiny slit to check on those following my voice, I was pleased that everyone else appeared relaxed and deep in trance.
The path became steeper as I climbed and I instructed everyone to open their hearts to the one waiting ahead, focusing intention on asking him to appear and advise. A twinge of anxiety made me shiver. The thought intruded that I was being foolish, I was making this all up, that even if everyone else in the group met their god, I would not be worthy to do so.
With the next breath I let go of the tension and fear from those thoughts, remembering that what I do not know is much greater than what I do know, so I was opening my heart in trust and love toward the god awaiting me. Creating a state of pleasant anticipation for whatever lay ahead, I continued to climb the path and mentally call for Dionysus to appear and instruct me.
Finally the path became level. A giant boulder rested directly ahead, and the path circled to the right around it. Seeing it, I described it out loud and said, “When you walk around this huge rock, you will meet your god. Allow yourself to feel happy that you are going to meet him and have this opportunity to learn something important.”
Again fear and doubt vibrated through me, again I began breathing deeply, relaxing my body, and affirming my willingness to be present to whomever or whatever appeared. Much to my surprise, when I walked around the rock, Dionysus stood there smiling at me.
Gasping with shock and joy, I paused for a moment and then slowly moved nearer. I always slow way down when approaching a sacred one, as I am not really sure just how to behave. I definitely try to avoid doing anything that might be annoying to a god. Many years ago when I rushed up to a group of them, demanding answers to questions which were driving me crazy at the time, I was swatted really hard energetically. I hope never to annoy a god again.
Dionysus is so beautiful! He appeared as a young man about 25-30, dressed in a loose fitting toga-like white robe. When he looked into my eyes and smiled, it took my breath away and I staggered from the impact of his energy.
“Thank you for coming here and allowing me to see you,” was all I could manage to think of to say. I somehow remembered to speak out loud to remind everyone to ask their god if he had a gift or advice for them, and mentally asked the same of Dionysus. He smiled more, and as I approached closer, held out a bottle of wine and a loaf of bread, inviting me to eat and drink with him. I accepted the bread but, with much fear said, “I no longer drink alcohol, will you still accept me?”
He laughed and changed the wine to fruit juice, took a drink and offered it to me. I drank some, and ate some bread, while never taking my eyes away from his. He reached out and began caressing my face, my breasts, and then rubbing and stroking my whole body. Again I was finding it difficult to breath.
I reached out to caress him in return as he began changing from a young, slim muscular man to one who was older, fatter, and whose smile became a friendly leer as he rubbed his aroused body against mine. In the next moment, he transformed to another male, and then another, continuing to fondle me and bathe me in his extraordinary energy and passion.
By this time I was almost panting with arousal myself, while observing his changing form with amazement. My own arousal gave me the courage to talk, and I said, “I really like this, and I am honored by your attention, but I wonder if I am not just making this all up to justify my behavior in life. You know, it’s not that I’m a slut, I’m a follower of Dionysus?”
At this he laughed out loud, gently hugged me, and stared so deeply into my eyes that I almost fainted, saying, “You are acting exactly how I wish my priestesses to behave, don’t be afraid,” and laughed again.
Stepping back away from me, he smiled again and held out a pinkish heart-shaped stone, saying, “Here, take this and always remember that sexual ecstasy helps people open their hearts to each other and to the deeper mysteries of life. Sex is one of the greatest creations. It enables two to join and create a third which carries their energy into the future. Ecstasy and celebration make life worth living because they open humans up to the joyous energy of the universe, of creation. Never be afraid to love, or to express that love with another.” Then his form began to slowly fade and disappear.
I turned and walked back around the rock, down the path I had earlier climbed, my mind trying to contain and sort the vastness of what he had shown me. My body was almost in a state of shock from the intensity of his energy. Fortunately I was only walking in my altered state and my body was physically sitting on the floor. I doubt I would have been able to have had this experience standing without falling down. It took a few minutes to return to a more ordinary state of consciousness, but I was able to remember to instruct the others to do so too.
Each of us in the group took a turn in describing what had happened to them, and everyone else had also had an equally powerful experience.
This encounter with the god made me want to know more about him and, I learned that he was Bacchus to the Romans, Lusios the Releaser, and Zagreus – son of Zeus and Persephone who was killed by the Titans and eaten. Athene saved his heart, which was swallowed by Semele, another lover of Zeus, and conceived anew. Hera convinced Semele to trick Zeus into revealing himself in his full glory, which burned Semele to ashes. Zeus rescued Dionysus from her ashes, stitched the unborn babe into his thigh until he was able to be born again, so he is sometimes called twice-born, and Zeus then gave him to the nymphs to raise.
When grown he became the god of all altered states, including drunkenness, religious ecstasy, and celebrations of music, dancing, theater and lustful excess. His male followers were the satyrs, half man and half goat with a horse’s tail, and his female followers were the maenads (mad women). His followers often carry a staff with a pine cone on the end, called a thyrsus, sometimes twined with grape or ivy vines.
The experience I had in this ritual meditation has continued to reverberate through my life and I am deeply honored to express the energy of Dionysus into the world.
Hunting the Hunter
Hunting the Hunter
by Melanie Fire Salamander
When I first started work in the Craft, as a solitary, I hadn’t much use for the God. The deity Who attracted me was the Goddess. I remember communing with Her in candlelight, before an altar of old telephone books covered with blue-figured silk. I felt incorporated by Her, supported.
My concept then of the God was the God of the Christians. From my ninth year to my thirteenth, I attended an Episcopalian church, where everyone was too polite to save me, though I did enjoy singing in the Youth Choir. I found the Episcopalian services pretty on the outside, but within they seemed dry as dust. I tried to be moved, but I ended up yawning, more taken by my walks to church through the quiet, sun-splotched Sunday mornings than by the ritual. The most of God I sensed among the Episcopalians was the echo of a long-ago voice.
When I did feel a presence from the God, that presence was of God the Father. Jesus I always saw as a person, a visionary you had to respect; I never got in touch with the loving Christ. We see our gods through the archetypes we’ve found in life, I think, and I was reared in a patriarchal household, from which I wrenched fight by fight over a period of years. In that household, the looming male figure was my father, grey-haired before my birth, the raging patriarch. Though my father and I patched up our relationship as I started serious work as a witch, my wounds were still raw enough I wanted nothing to do with fathers.
One of the first books I read that spoke of witchcraft as a spiritual path was The Spiral Dance. I remember Starhawk’s descriptions of different versions of the God: the gentle, loving Blue God, the viny Green One, and the Horned God, the Hunter. But for me none of Starhawk’s gods rang true. They seemed merely constructs. The Blue God appeared too girlish, and for me green was female. I felt the Horned God as the most real, but frightening and lumpen, as if one would want to mate with a bull. I shrugged, paid lip-service to the God in the group rituals I attended, and on my own worshipped the Goddess.
Meanwhile, life went on. Though I had no vision of the God, I managed to enjoy His sex. In Ireland I had a fling with a 21-year-old boy with dyed black hair, who wore a black shirt his friend’s sister made; we drank too much ale and richocheted against the painted stone walls of his village at 2 a.m.. Back in Seattle, I dated a photographer, also younger than me, slender as a brown sapling, sarcastic; I eroticized the smell of developer. I dated men my own age, too, but I kept reverting. Take my intersection with the surly boy, a singer in a band: I fell in love with his pumped chest and pierced nipple, though we never once held a conversation without arguing. Or take my e-mail flirtation, which went on too long and was never consummated: spiky, poison-sweet, dysfunctional as a car crash.
That one finally brought me to full stop. Some of the others had been obsessions, too, but this one patently made no sense. He had a girlfriend; we’d seen each other in the flesh perhaps five times; we’d never touched. What was it about him that sent my head spinning?
Those attachments you get, which are too strong, in the end seem to have little to do with the persons who inspire them. We tend to worship the gods we see in our lives, and the corollary is that if we don’t see the gods, they try harder and harder to reveal themselves.
I came to the God slowly, through His fauns.
Luckily the gods will teach you lessons many times over. But even when you’ve learned a few things, nothing is for sure. This story I’m telling you now, none of it is “true”; it’s just the explanation I’m giving myself.
Right now for me, the God is a muse. He comes on as a lover, but he is not a husband, nor even exactly a friend, more a capricious mentor. Our relationship is only sometimes about satisfaction; mainly the point is longing.
The God inspires my fiction; the characters I find most fun to write are usually fauns. They’re not portraits of boys I’ve known, though on occasion they’ve started out to be. Often they begin as minor players, who then take on a life of their own. The God inspires them: fills them with His breath and sets them moving. As they move, they draw me into the work, and their touch inspires the other characters.
This particular God-energy seems to work better for me driving fiction than real-life relationships. My fauns were never good boyfriends; I don’t think the Muse makes a good partner. His and my relationship is about tension, a pleasurable discomfort that makes me itch. I wouldn’t want that tantalizing, unfulfilling energy in an ongoing human relationship, but it feels right in relating to a god. It keeps me writing.
But the God will not be bound only into fiction.
At a festival, I saw a boy all in leather, crouched among greenery, looking up at me: black eyes, black hair, trembling lips with a fringe of mustache. I knew for certain I wanted him when I saw him take off his shirt. At the firepit, I maneuvered to sit next to him, warmed my cold hands on his thighs.
The Aphrodite shrine was full, locked, so we found the Pan shrine. Under a fake-fur pelt, we made love by candlelight. Something there was intoxicating as whiskey, something glancing, a bit heart-rending. I remembered him a long time, and I wrote him letters, though no permanent connection came.
It was only later I saw the God was laughing at me.
In the Pan shrine? Melanie, don’t you get it?
So it is often, I think. The gods don’t just come when you call. They make cameo appearances, and later you wonder why you remember that scene.
To see Him in your life, use your peripheral vision. Some people He comforts, some He teases; it depends on what He thinks you need from Him. But never doubt the God is there.
Images of the Divine Masculine
Images of the Divine Masculine
by K. C. Holt
In these times, the masculine seems in danger of being devalued. Examples of the masculine demonized as the patriarchal oppressor and destroyer of the environment and all that is good in society are all too easy to find. However, the feminist movement that gained momentum in the ’60s held out much hope not only to women, but to a great many men – men who not only agreed with what women were saying but realized that their own liberation from unrealistic and emotionally crippling stereotypes hung in the balance. In the following paragraphs, we will explore views of the masculine that are not new but have been lost to many in the mainstream of society and religious orthodoxy.
Looking at today’s spiritual landscape, it appears the image of the “Divine Masculine” is in a state of flux. The men’s movement has been late to start, galvanized into existence by some very patriarchal behavior within the women’s movement as well as by the need to reclaim what orthodox patriarchal religion has suppressed and persecuted. Patriarchal society has a numbing effect on the souls of men. Men now seek the door to their feeling, spiritual side with a renewed vigor unfettered by past convention, allowing them to love and work in ways that heal their lives.
Rites of passage for men have become little more than preparation for surrender to the hero image. Men find themselves sent forth to compete, to accumulate wealth, power and dominion over their environment. Dominion separates men from nature; they lack the immediate connection to the earth women gain through the cycles of menstruation and birth.
Men, instead, are linked to nature’s cycles through the activities of hunting and gathering or farming and agriculture. But these activities have largely been removed or distorted through the industrialization of society. Industrialization has helped lead to the incorrect and damaging association of nurture with the feminine and domination with the masculine. This pigeonholing of the male psyche by society and modern psychology has produced a shallow conception of the nature of masculinity. Furthermore, such an association ignores aspects of feminine psychology that do not necessarily fit the image of nurturer.
Aaron R. Kipnis, in his provocative book Knights Without Armor: A Practical Guide for Men in Quest of Masculine Soul, aptly states the problem: “Men in our culture today are undergoing a major restructuring of the basic paradigms governing masculine consciousness and behavior. It’s important to understand and uncover those aspects of the inner psychic life of persons that are essentially masculine in nature. We need to develop a working model that meets the needs of modern men on the basis of their own individual, personal experience. In many cases, this is very different from the constructs that have come out of heroic, monotheistic, patriarchal thinking or the revisions of feminist theory…. We need a more expansive psychology, which embraces the possibility of a moist, soulful, dark, authentic, mysterious, lunar, deep and earthy masculinity.”
Where might we look to find this concept of a mysterious, lunar, deep and earthy masculinity? Does it indeed exist, or does it need to be created? The answer is that it has existed for millennia. The evidence of its existence is carefully concealed by the orthodox monotheistic religions and the admittedly unbalanced patriarchal society we find ourselves in.
Wicca emphasizes polarity, worships the Earth God and has kept His memory alive. Most Wiccans see men and women as equal in spirit and intelligence but opposite in physical and emotional orientation. The practice and philosophy of Wicca is built around this polarity. I claim no authority to speak for any one tradition; Wiccans are as diverse as any religious group, ranging from what I like to affectionately call Fundamentalist Wiccans to Eclectic Wiccans. Some might prefer or better fit the title pagan or shaman. The point is that the gods associated with the deep and lunar side of masculinity are the gods of the earth and the sea.
Within the pagan and Wiccan philosophies, these gods find their emphasis, and as to their personal value to men, I speak from my experience as a son, father, grandfather and pagan. Men navigate their worlds through the powers of air (intellect) and fire (action). When they look to the depths of their souls, however, they find the earth and sea powers of love, attraction, affection, beauty, harmony, artistry and peace.
To turn inward to the subconscious, the feminine, in order to transform yourself does not mean to become feminine! The mistaken concept that one must become feminine has led many men astray from the God. A “real” man is one who lets the gods of the Earth teach him to understand his physical potential and limitations. He follows his heart with the warrior spirit to the depths of the sea, where he finds wisdom, sanctuary and the secrets of his strengths and weaknesses. The world problems we can attribute to the negative aspects of a male-dominated society cannot be solved by immersion only in the female aspects of divinity. They must include recovery of the forgotten and positive aspects of the God. The Great and Horned One, oldest of all the gods, sees women as equals and is a just and strong god rather than judgmental and vengeful.
The Horned God predates civilization. His image first appears in a Paleolithic cave in France, the meager beginnings of what we know as recorded history. He is the Wild Man, the Green Man, God of the Forest and Animals and Consort of Nature, the Goddess. The Horned God of Wicca, Cernunnos, is pictured holding a ram-headed serpent in his hands. He wears an open neck-ring or torque, in which we can see the symbol of the moon. He is the guardian of the cauldron, the lover and son of the Goddess who is Her partner in the sacred dance of creation.
With the shift in consciousness that led to patriarchal monotheistic thought, something was lost. The polytheistic pagan and matriarchal society’s concept of the one universal consciousness or deity that is expressed through a multiplicity of forms, both male and female, was forgotten or more likely totally ignored by the patriarchs. Cernunnos was devoted to Nature and the Goddess. He taught his sons to hunt, protect, nourish and cherish His mother, sisters, daughters and mate. The monotheistic patriarchy now vilified him as a devil.
The concept that sexuality leads men to confuse mystical ecstasy with eroticism led to the lie that the Goddess would seduce men to their folly. With the Horned One demonized and the Goddess expelled from the heaven of the patriarchs, Nature was open to plunder and rape. Is it any wonder that we see the anger of the Mother in the eyes of her female worshipers?
While Wicca has kept the memory of the Earth God alive, there are other places we may look to reclaim positive images of the Divine Masculine. In the pantheon of ancient Egypt, we find Nu, goddess of the night sky and stars, arching her naked body over Geb, god of the earth. He is depicted hard with desire, reaching upward for union with the stars. He strives towards Her, knowing that She will come to Him at Her need: a knowledge all men hold in their hearts.
Osiris was Geb’s heir. Sometimes he is depicted colored red for the earth, and more often green for vegetation. The Atef crown he wears sometimes is shown with a pair of horns sprouting from its solar disk.
Pan of the Greeks was linked to Aker of the Egyptians. A horned god who guarded the entrance to the Underworld, Assur was an Assyrian supreme god, who while associated with war was a fertility and moon god also. The moon has not always been the sole domain of feminine deities, nor the sun of male deities, for that matter. Osiris was referred to as Lord of the Moon in numerous instances. In Sumer, in the city of Ur, Nanna was worshipped as the Moon Father. In India, the Moon Father is referred to as Soma. The Babylonians knew him as Sinn.
Celtic mythology is also full of gods associated with the earth and the sea. Dagda brought back the cauldron of abundance and led the Tuatha De Danan underground to the faery mounds. He is associated with sexuality and fertility. Cromm Cruaich is known as the Lord of the Mound and associated with the harvest. Manannan Mac Lir was the Irish god of the sea, who separated the world of the faeries and humans.
The image of solar gods is lofty, dry and remote. The other side of masculinity, which is moist and deep with feeling, is to be found in the gods of the sea. Poseidon or Neptune was god of the sea. Poseidon conspired with Hera and Athena to overthrow the sky god Zeus. Most have seen Neptune as a patriarchal god, but this story shows us how the watery, earthy depths of our masculine feeling side can work to overthrow the Sky Father, high above the earth.
Whereas the sky gods often have hidden if not absent sexuality, the earth and sea gods are sexually well-endowed. Poseidon’s trident symbolizes his phallic nature. The trident is also associated with the wild dancing god Shiva of the Hindus. These are just some of the examples of where one may look to find a soulful, dark, lunar and earthy masculinity.
We are the sum total of all that has come before us: the Mesolithic hunters, gatherers and Neolithic farmers of matrilineal culture (7000-2000 B.C.); the Indo-European warriors emphasizing the male sky gods in the centuries of the Bronze and Iron Age (2000-800 B.C.); the turn of the millennium with the advent of Christian mythology and its concepts of dualistic division between body and soul, world and spirit and Original Sin; and finally the age of scientific rationalism. Rationalism allows for nothing supernatural and reduces the universe to a language of numerical abstraction – mathematics.
No one of these periods surpasses the other. They all possess a unique imprint on the human experience. Any one of them taken alone represents but a fraction of the evolutionary progress of the human soul. The earth gods, born in the distant past, still prove necessary to us; they are the force whereby the land springs forth in an ever-changing cycle. We must identify and nurture the positive aspects of maleness embodied in our God or gods and unite the God to the Goddess.
In a time when the orthodox concept of God has become sterile and sexless, the deities of the earth and sea await all men. They possess the ability to guide men to a fuller meaning of what it is to be sons, fathers and grandfathers. They offer a positive alternative of what it means to be male in a world that has lost sight of the good nature of Man. As men, we have the task to reclaim the divine masculine and unite with our sisters in perfect trust and perfect love.
Grandma’s House
Grandma’s House
by Amanda Silvers
I come from an ample extended family who, when I was younger, all got together to celebrate holidays, birthdays, weddings – any excuse for a party.
The winter holidays were always a frenzy of commotion, with 30-40 people taking part. The children were abundant: my mother had six, my aunt had four and my uncle had five. In addition there were other cousins, aunts, uncles, step siblings, ex-husbands, great aunts and second and third cousins.
My family, particularly my grandmother on my mother’s side, at whose household we held the holiday celebrations, enjoyed many traditions and superstitions about all sorts of things, especially Christmas and the New Year.
For instance, she said: if you don’t hang mistletoe above your front door, you’ll have bad luck. And if you do not kiss the person standing under the mistletoe, people will gossip about you. If you stand beneath the mistletoe and no one kisses you, you will not have a lover for a year.
If an unattached young man wanted to date a young woman, he could begin with a kiss under the mistletoe, and all would know his intentions were honorable. You were then considered an “item” and it was regarded almost an engagement.
The mistletoe customs were a fun and enlivening part of our holiday festivities; even when we were very young, we plotted when to get under it – trying to get the object of our desire to kiss us. This very seldom worked, because most of the time our dad or grandpa or some equally boring adult would kiss us before the inept young men got up the nerve.
Another great kissing practice is the “friendship ball,” generally made with a lemon, orange or lime and studded in some interesting and attractive manner with whole cloves.
The idea is to offer the ball to a person that you want to kiss, who then takes it, pulls out a clove with their teeth, chews it and then kisses the person who gave it to them. Then the one with the ball has the option to return it to the person that initially gave it to them, with another kiss, of course or to pass it on to another person and kiss them.
If someone offered you the kissing ball and you refused to kiss them, no one else would offer you one for the rest of the evening.
This game was fun, but more than a few conflicts were initiated when people had a tiny bit too much to drink and an individual kissed someone else’s wife or husband a few too many times or too passionately. The sparring individuals would ordinarily leave in a huff over that, but the kids found it a perfect way to emulate the “adult game” of kissing.
The New Year’s customs were regarded even more earnestly, if that were possible. We always had a special meal on New Year’s day, a sumptuous, extravagant meal, said to insure that we’d eat well the rest of the year. We toasted in the New Year together, as a family, lest one of us die during the year. We, even the kids, had champagne with strawberries, said to please the small folk into aiding us in accomplishing our desires. We toasted one another’s health, prosperity, good nature, marriage, etc. To shower good wishes on one another was necessary to insure that we’d prosper during the coming year. It has only been in the last few years that I no longer call my whole family long distance on New Year’s eve to carry on the tradition, it was that strongly ingrained in me.
More customs included that the last person to finish the meal on New Year’s day was going to get fat, or have a baby, depending on whether it was a man or woman. The first person to leave the house on New Year’s Day was supposed to kiss everyone in the house and they were to say “See ya later, alligator” before leaving the house. If one person was still asleep, or in the shower or something, the person leaving was to wait.
My grandmother, Ma Mère, was the one who was the fanatic about superstitions, and they carried over into everything, but the Christmas and New Year’s holidays customs were clearly the best. I endeavor to begin an amusing new tradition each year. You may want to use some of these or think of a festive new one for this year, and don’t forget the mistletoe!
Sunrise in the Snow
Sunrise in the Snow
An Evocation of Yule
by Levana Lindentree
A field of snow lies, shadows blue, in the gray before dawn. The air is so cold it pinches your nose shut; it smells crisp, like ice. Your breath around you is steam. You crunch forward in the snow, leaving footprints, one by one, in blank snow, like the first person on earth. Into silence, echoing silence.
At the edge of the field sits a wooden fence, wood of its ties gone silver-gray with age. You climb over, drop to the other side. You see that from the fence’s top tie you have peeled a splinter, and in the wound the wood shows warm tan-brown, the old wood still young beneath its skin. You brush yourself off, wondering where the splinter has gone, but you are bundled against the cold and you do not find it.
You stand still a moment on the snowy hill. The sky has lightened to a shining yellow-white, and along the blue mountains on the horizon flames a rim of coral. The sun is about to rise.
Ahead of you is a small wood. You crunch down to it through the cold. Oaks tower there, still holding their last brown leaves; dark firs stand, snow on their shoulders; low and merry holly-trees glisten, berries bright; ivy twines in the shadows.
At the wood’s edge, you greet a sentinel holly, touch one glossy leaf, feel its needle-spiked edge. Then you enter the darkness of the wood. Here the ground is barely snowy, just a few shakings on the path. The earth is deep in decaying leaves, turning to muck, in brown needles that muffle your steps. The air is hushed. Here, the night remains.
The wood’s darkness envelops you like a coat, protective, secret: secrets of earth. You breathe in. The air is warmer here; you smell fir and decaying leaves. You breathe in darkness, secrets, protection.
Now you walk forward, to the edge of the wood, and out again; you look back once, say farewell to the trees. The air is brighter, and ahead you see the red sun-disk poised on the horizon. The sun is rising, liquid fire, and as you watch, bit by bit it surfaces, the whole flaming round, the sun reborn at solstice. The light warms your face, and you reach out your hands.
Red light falls, colors the snow. All around you is silence. You breathe in cold fresh air, new light.
After a few moments, you turn your steps uphill to the small stone house where you are going. You tread fresh snow. Quickly you kneel, pull off a glove and take a handful of snow, bring it to your tongue. It tastes cold, empty. You rise and walk forward, reach the house’s doorstep. You feel nearly frozen; your ears are burning. The door is unlocked. You push inside.
Shutting the door behind you, you take off coat, gloves and boots. To the right is a stone fireplace, where someone has laid a fire. You find matches on the mantel and strike one, set it to the tinder, which blazes up. In a few moments, the fire is flaring, crackling, eating its wood, beginning to warm the house. You hold out your hands to it.
The house is decorated for Yule. Fir branches and holly drape the doorway, and in an arch hangs mistletoe, deep green, white berries, the semen of the God. On the fire is a large log, twined in ivy and fir, runes cut into its skin. You know this is the Yule log, beginning to burn.
There is only one thing missing. Then you hear stamping feet at the door, and it opens: a rush of cold air. There in the doorway stand the people you love best, come to celebrate Yule. You come forward and are enveloped in embraces.
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