Today Is …

 

Irish: The Veneration of the Holy Thorn Tree

Irish Holiday honoring sacred wells. Put some fresh spring water on your altar today. Drink some as a prelude to any healing work or for trance induction prior to Otherworld journeying.

Fairy Day. According to Irish folklore, it is on this day that the mischievous fairy folk emerge from their hiding places. To prevent human children from being stolen by the fairies and replaced by grotesque changelings, an offering of tea and bread must be left on the doorstep for the little people. For protection against fairies while traveling (especially through heavily wooded areas or open fields), wear your coat inside out. This is said to cause them such great confusion that they are unable to cause any trouble.

Ireland: Hawthorn Month – Sacred to Goddess Sheila Na Gig, the protector of the poor. Believers hang old clothes on hawthorn bushes all month beginning on this day to avert poverty.

Greek: The fourth day of every month is sacred to the Goddess Aphrodite and the God Hermes.

Pilgrimage to St Mary’s Well – A writer for the London Times reported on 25 May 1957 about his pilgrimage to St. Mary’s Well in Culloden on the first Sunday in May, the traditional time for performing a ritual that survived for centuries. Pilgrims first threw a coin into the well, as a tribute to the spirit dwelling there, then took a sip of the water, made a wish, and tied a “clootie” or small rag to a branch of the over-hanging tree. The prayer flags were left up to be rotted away by the elements. To remove them would be to bring upon yourself the afflictions the original owners were trying to shed. Blackburn, Bonnie and Leofranc Holford-Strevens, Oxford Companion to the Year, Oxford University Press 1999

St Monica – She is the Matron of Mothers, although she sounds more like the matron of martyrs. She married a pagan, a man of high temper, who made her life miserable, but eventually through her good influence, he was converted. Her son, Augustine, who was 17 when his father died, was equally a cross to bear. He was wild and dissolute, drinking too much and patronizing prostitutes. He had a mistress and became a Manichean heretic. But eventually the prayers of his mother paid off and he became a devout Christian (and a devout misogynist).

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Courtesy of GrannyMoonsMorningFeast