When the Wind Blows, They Dance
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When the Wind Blows, They Dance

by Arianna Knapp

Deirdre held up a tent stake wrapped in white cord and said, “Who will hold a strand for the Trees? The Green Ones among us?” It was May of 2017 and we were at the Community Web Ritual. I turned to Dag’r, looked in his eyes and said “I have to go.” Then I ran across the circle  and sensed a blur of floppy sun hats, sunburned shoulders, and giant parasols as I took the stake from Deirdre’s hands.

As I held the stake, tied to the strand, connected to the Maypole being woven with the songs and energy of my friends, family, and community, there was a simple “knowing.” I had taken the first step on a journey and I had no idea why, or where it would lead. 

In the weeks and months that followed the pledge faded in and out of focus. What did it mean to “hold a strand”? In the Fall of 2017, I attended my first Twilight Covening and then I stepped into the Anamanta journey and I realized a growing drive to be deeper among the beings of the land. I opened to the trees, I gave space in my meditation for green ones, and it brought peace.

While enjoying a rambling mid-Winter drive, Dag’r and I discovered a homestead among the hemlocks, and so we moved. As we introduced ourselves to the land and beings of the land, it was the green ones who taught us, and they continue every day. Open to the wind rolling down the hill, echoing the sounds of waves crashing to the land; open to the creak and groan of Summer breezes, the crack and snap of the coldest clearest night as the trees keep watch. 

As planning for the next Rites of Spring and Village Builders gathering started, there was Deirdre looking at a sea of faces and said “Does anyone feel called to lead the Green Ones Grove?” My hand shot in the air and I found a new way to hold that strand for my community. 

This moment, like that sunny day on the ritual field, is remarkable because I was not making a choice to volunteer. I was not “going to the next level.” I was not acting on information from my methodical, logical, well-planned brain. I simply knew that I would do it, and it was right.

There was a pandemic. We stayed home among the Hemlocks. After weeks had passed and it was clear that normalcy was going to be a ways off, I began to hang out with the trees. The Azalia outside my bedroom door is my confidant. The crabapple with the birdfeeder is a friend. The Hemlocks are my elders, my ancestors, and my guides. The green ones of our land are the Tall Lords and Ladies, and when the wind blows they dance.

As the World opened back up and we gathered again, my shape had changed. I am stronger now, yet more willing to bend. I can see the many shades of the long horizon and I choose to watch the light shift instead of chasing the Sun. My roots are not holding me back, they feed me. 

Being in people-centric spaces has become a chore. When I must spend time in concrete covered lands, I seek the green ones who may be found in planters, on desk tops, or stoically anchoring sidewalks. Breathe with and touch the tree, hug the tree, open to the experience of the tree. 

Last Fall I was appointed the official Tree Warden of Chester, Vermont. This is one among other political roles I fill, but it brings me deep joy. In this capacity, I have now spearheaded a grant process that has garnered funds to replant trees on a riverbank prone to flooding, and to begin to return shade trees to our Main Street corridor. 

I took a strand and pledged to hold it without knowing what it could mean. It has changed me.

-Arianna Knapp
EarthSpirit Board of Directors

photographs © Arianna Knapp

Pisces III: A time for the Lesser Mysteries
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Pisces III: A time for the Lesser Mysteries

by Andrew B. Watt

Editor’s note: The zodiac divides the sky into 12 signs of 30º each. An ancient subdivision of these 30º signs is into three “decans” (from the word for “ten”), or 10º segments. Each year, ten days before the Spring Equinox, the Sun reaches the third decan of the sign of Pisces, before beginning the astrological year again as it enters Aries at the Equinox. This post was written specifically for this third decan of Pisces.

This time of year, I find my thoughts drifting back to something my friend Sara Mastros said about visiting Greece in February. She got into a cab one day at her hotel, and told the cab driver to take her to Eleusis, about fourteen miles away. The driver, once he understood her request, nodded and sighed. “There, it will already be spring.” In downtown Athens, she said, this was a hard statement to credit —it was cold and blustery, with an extra needle or two of frost in every breeze. But, once there, she found it impossible to ignore — there was new greenery everywhere, and flowers were starting to open in every sunny sheltered place around the site of the ancient Telasterion, the hall where the Mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated.

It was already spring there.

Of course, the Greater Mysteries of Eleusis were celebrated at the start of the ancient month of Boedromion. Called “The Showing” and open only to initiates, it was a multi-day ritual that we know only a little bit about, and some of that only from Christian apologists attacking it as pagan nonsense. The season of these Mysteries began on the 14th day of Boedromion, and probably at or just before the Autumn Equinox, and with particular pomp and circumstance every four years. We know that these rites involved the story of Hades kidnapping Persephone, of Demeter’s imposition of the first winter on the Earth, and Zeus and Hermes negotiation of a truce.

But by the 7th century BCE, the Mysteries were already so old and full of archaic language that people barely knew what they were witnessing. And sometime in the century or so that saw the elevation of Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey to cultural prominence in Greece, the priestly families that oversaw the Eleusinian rites established the Lesser Mysteries. These lesser mysteries, called “the Teaching” or “The Telling”, were also only open to would-be initiates, who sent a donation of a piglet as an offering to the Telasterion and its attendant families as the price of initiation.

This Telling was held at this time of year, in our mid-March before the Spring Equinox, in the Athenian “month of flowers” — and they were a catechism of sorts, a multi-day series of rituals, sacred meals, purifications, lectures and discussions about what would be received by the initiates at the Greater Mysteries. Once inducted, attendees then were eligible to participate in the Greater Mysteries eighteen months later, where they would have the background and intellectual framework to understand the experiences that the initiates went through in the autumn.

It sounds a lot like a modern pagan gathering, with rituals interspersed with workshops, doesn’t it? And how many of us had the depth of knowledge to understand our first pagan gathering? How many of us needed to come a second time, or a third, to really understand what was going on?

Of course, our rituals today are not the same. At Eleusis in the fall, we know there was “an ear of grain in silence reaped” — there was a mass washing of people at a beach, and a night in complete darkness, and a sacred drink in the dark, and a chest or box with sacred secret things in it, and a basket whose contents are similarly obscure to us today. And our rites and rituals are not so obscure or ancient to us that we have to hold special training sessions eighteen months ahead of time to have clarity about them.

But. All the same?

It’s not a bad idea to use this time of year to reflect on our own mysteries — not the Mysteries of what this object or that ancient text might mean to us as pagans today; or how to interpret the strange symbolism of rituals that haven’t been performed in almost eighteen hundred years.

No — instead, let’s take the time to talk about the Mysteries of how all life on Earth is dependent on the interrelationships of Sun and seed and soil, of rock and planetary orbit and seasonal shifts in daily sunlight, and the way that the dead provide both the fuel and foundation for new life. We can couch it in myth — like Persephone and Hades and Demeter and Helios — or in the most up-to-date scientific lingo we can.

But at its heart, this is still a mystery we humans understand only a little. And we deserve to be reminded of it, again and again — and perhaps most especially at this time of year, when the equinox is not yet come and the trees are still bare of leaf or blossom. This is the time of year when we most benefit from the reminders and the explanation, of course — because in summer and in autumn, the bounty of this transformation is obvious. Now we need to Tell ourselves the story, because the Show will be so obvious, later in the year.

And perhaps this is the reason to mark the Lesser Mysteries now, at this time of year when it’s still gray. It’s how we make spring come early in our hearts and minds, and bring a little of the mystery of Eleusis into our life.

There, it is already spring.

Photo of a stone church in Eleusis, Greece, on top of a rocky mound, with blue skies above.
Eleusis. Photo by Vassilis St on Pexels.com
In The Dark Time
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In The Dark Time

by Katie LaFond

Culture is the context; if it is holding you firmly and comfortably, it is mostly invisible. In my writing, I like to bring these unseen things forward, and try to make them a little easier to feel and to weave into your own context. Today, I’m going to talk about what I (and my family) do in the Dark. 

Pagans often talk about the Light half of the year, and the Dark half. Most understand this to mean the time between Beltane (May) and Samhain (November), and Samhain to Beltane. Most understand the Light Time to be a time to come together, to celebrate, to share, and to socialize, and the Dark Time to draw within, to rest, to dream, and to tend the inner fire. 

The Light half of the year brings us together at Gatherings, Sacred Land observances, Harvest Festivals, and frequent opportunities to come together. Pagans can mostly be as busy as they want to be during this time of the year, which my extroverted friends delight in, and even my introverted friends appreciate the overt model for “what to do.”

Descent

The first part of the Dark Time follows a fairly predictable pattern, and one we have plenty of models for. At Samhain, many families will clean graves, have a Dumb Supper, and Honor the Ancestors. At Yule, we sing up the Sun, burn a Yule Log, and gather with loved ones. 

Then, for a lot of people, it feels like a very long, cold time before Beltane. 

We have fewer models for “what to do” as New England pagans. We have Imbolc, which isn’t really the start of spring here, and even Spring Equinox often still feels like winter. We make Brigid crosses and often have our children hunt for eggs amid snowdrifts, but it is too cold to eat all that chocolate outside.

An image of an outdoor fire with a foreground closeup of a hand holding two metal knitting needles.

I return to the idea that we draw within, rest, dream, and tend the inner fire. When we lived in close knit communities that relied on each other for survival, we would spend the winter together, gathered around the hearth. We would tell stories, make music, make tools, weapons, art, and clothing. We would tap the trees during sugaring season and take turns tending the boiling sap, watching the billowing water vapor create dragons in the frosty air. We slept more, and dreamt more deeply, telling each other about our dreams, and letting the Unseen be a little closer to us. 

In January I Dream. I foster a deep dreaming culture with my family. We have an extravagant sleep hygiene routine including stories, songs, vaporizers, fuzzy blankets, dream journals, and hot water bottles. We set alarms well before “get out of bed” time and talk about our dreams each morning while we snuggle before our busy day starts. I add events to my calendar so I don’t accidentally accept too many invitations, and instead I sit still, reflect, and journal about the year behind me, and what my hopes are for the year ahead. I add other events to my calendar to remind me to do things just for enjoyment. Joy is a pagan value, and January is a wonderful time to indulge in long hot baths, stargazing with heated socks on, and a massage or two. It can be hard to motivate yourself to go outside during the long cold dark, but your body will thank you for it.

February brings creation forward, as things Gestate. It is not about the product; the act of creating is joyful in itself. I try to make something each day; cooking, carving, writing, knitting, colored pencil drawings… anything that gets my creative juices flowing. I spend hours choosing seeds for my garden and planning this year’s layout. February is also Sugaring season, and I like to think about how the Sap is running in the Maples, and I like to think of something each day that brings sweetness to my life. Something small and beautiful; the sap isn’t boiled into syrup yet… 

Ascent

March sees things Emerge. I begin to sprout the seeds I’ve been collecting in the Dark, both literal and figurative. My onion seeds are first, quickly joined by kale and parsley. I look over my journals from Twilight Covening and Yule, and finally put my annual Tarot Card up by my desk. I make new jewelry to remind myself of the ways I want to grow and I stretch into these new pieces and test drive nascent shapes that limber as I grow into them. 

The word April literally means Open. I work to Open Wide. I walk outside every day, noticing how each day there is something new blooming, chirping, or emerging. I appreciate these last days with my wings still wrapped around myself and my family before I open wide my arms to embrace my community again at Rites of Spring. 

What do you do in the Dark? 

In the Spirit of the Earth,
Katie LaFond February 2024

February Festivals
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February Festivals

by Andrew B. Watt

From time to time, flashes of the ancient world of the Mediterranean help me illuminate the life I lead today. The three days of festivals at the end of February are among those flashes — not exactly the Eight Greats of solstices, equinoxes and cross-quarter days, but something in-between. Rome’s second king after Romulus, the semi-mythical Numa Pompilius, set up the sacred calendar of ancient Rome and decided which days should be the important festivals of the gods. In a no-nonsense, legalistic approach, he chose dates based on day-counts rather than complex formulae relying on the relative positions of the Sun and Moon, or elaborate astronomical calculations.

By these simplistic day-counts, the twenty-first, twenty-second, and twenty-third days of February were marked as the time for “end of year” celebrations, for a year that began on March 21. Why not hold those festivals on March 18-20? The weather might change, and an early spring would give farmers a chance to start their planting. Better to hold the formal observations of the end of the year when it was still cold and frosty nights might still delay the seeding of the ground!

Today, the twenty-first of February, was the Feralia. A day for honoring the dead, not with elaborate rites but with a washing of the family’s graves and a small offering, and perhaps a re-arrangement of images of the dead in the family shrine. The Roman poet Ovid, in Book II of his poetic exploration of the Roman sacred calendar Fasti, writes of the Feralia, “a tile wreathed ‘round with garlands is enough, a scattering of meal and a few grains of salt, bread soaked in wine, and loose violets, is enough.”

Tomorrow, the twenty-second of February, was the Charistia. This was a day for renewing ties with neighbors, walking the boundaries of your personal property lines as a home-owner; sharing food and drink with the humans whose territory touched yours. It was also a day for calling on more-distant friends through letters or even personal visits, and renewing bonds of friendship. Here, Ovid says, “It’s surely joyful to turn our faces to those alive, after so many are mourned, to see those of our clan who remain alive, and count the degrees of kinship.” Incense was often burned for the health of one’s living kin and friends, although Ovid warns the impious brother and the cruel mother-in-law to stay away — how ancient is that cliche that one’s mother-in-law is awful, anyway??

At the end of the day, at the meal, there was a toast to one’s own elected officials, beginning with the duoviri, the co-mayors of your city, and ending with the Emperor. We might begin with a similar toast for our own elected officials… including, perhaps, an equal recognition of a safe and successful re-election for our preferred officials — or their replacements!

The twenty-third of February – Friday this year –,was the Terminalia — a day for personally reinforcing the boundaries of your city or town on both the physical and spiritual level. Many Roman citizens belonged to the auxiliary militias, and would walk the town wall and confirm that stores of arrows and spears were still secure, while the city’s priests ceremonially re-cut the pomeranium, the sacred trench that separated the civitas, the human community, from the wilderness beyond the wall.

In rural areas, Ovid says, the men brought the firewood, and the women carried coals in a pot from the hearth fire; the neighbors brought a suckling pig. The boy throws grain five times in the air from a basket, and the girls bring out honeycomb and wine. The boundary stones are found and honored, and Terminus, the two-faced boundary lord, is commanded to move not an inch in the coming year. Then there’s a feast out there on the edge where our fence meets yours, and where both of our boundary markers touch the wild places.

I don’t know how other people might do this, but I’ve identified a route that will take me from my home on a long circuit through the centers of all of the towns that border mine, and then back past my community’s town hall. On foot, it would take me 18 hours (Google claims); I think I’ll probably drive this year since it’s uphill (both ways!), but it will take me past the doors of a number of friends’ homes.

There’s no obligation on anyone to honor these three festivals as February’s days grow longer and there’s a shift in the weather, of course. But there’s something simple, here, too, about counting heads among the living and the dead, re-thinking boundaries, and having a minor celebration or two. And I think these three days have something of that simplicity of expectation that can shape familial traditions and practices.

I’ve not quoted directly from this translation of Ovid, but Book II of Fasti. has been ably translated here by A.S. Klein. https://www.poetryintranslation.com/PITBR/Latin/OvidFastiBkTwo.php

Discernment, Danger, & Discomfort
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Discernment, Danger, & Discomfort

by Irene Glasse

Silhouette image of a person climbing a mountain with ropes, against a muted sunset.

I have a confession for you today. Are you ready? Here goes.

I am afraid of the dark.

Ridiculous for a witch, no? Especially for one who regularly participates in events and ceremonies that put her outside in the middle of the night, in the middle of nowhere?

There are reasons for the fear. Since childhood, I’ve experienced something called “REM Sleep Behavior Disorder” or “REM Intrusion.” The short description of this condition is that my brain sometimes fails the gear shift between sleeping and waking. When I have a bad dream, if the gear shift fails, my body wakes up while my mind is still dreaming. I open my eyes, and the dream is overlaid on the reality before me.

That would be fine if I were dreaming about… say… mermaids or unicorns. But in those moments, I’m not. The gear shift failure mostly occurs during nightmares.

As an adult, I understand why this happens, and I’m able to talk myself down once my brain fully wakes up and the dream fades. But as a child?

Bad things happened in the dark. And no one was able to help me, or to explain. The fear is rooted deeply into my early years.

And, given that, I still place myself outside in the darkness.

You see, discomfort and danger are not the same thing. And there’s a good deal to be said for sitting with discomfort in a safe place. I can be utterly terrified, startling at small sounds, with my heart pounding, and also know beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am, in fact, quite safe. These spaces of discomfort allow me to continue working on the trigger and all the emotions and behaviors attached to it within a safe container.

So, I head out into the forest, into the darkness, pretty regularly. I go deliberately in order to learn to dance more gracefully with my fear.

If you’re doing anything worthwhile in your spiritual practice, you’re going to come up against your edges. You’ll attend a ritual that brings up emotions you’re not expecting, you’ll read a book that pushes your buttons, you’ll go on a journey that feels unpleasant to you, or you’ll experience any number of other possibilities that suddenly bring you face to face with your own discomfort.

When that happens, it can be tempting to shut the whole thing down. We’ve gotten so used to being comfortable that we’ve forgotten the very real wisdom and power that comes from navigating our edges. The Path of Ordeal is a real one — one of the most profound spiritual experiences I ever had was at the very end of the Crucible, the “final” of Marine Corps Boot Camp back in the 90s. I would not have had that experience without the sleep and food deprivation or forced marches. Navigating discomfort — going through my own resistance — revealed something wholly new to me. Something that continues to inform and support my spiritual practice to this very day.

So, are you in danger? Or are you in discomfort?

If you know that you can step out, can return to your campsite, can raise a hand and someone will help you, can choose to revoke consent, can leave a gathering and go home? You’re not in danger. You’re uncomfortable. And sometimes, that’s more than enough reason to do any of the aforementioned actions. We’re not always up for sitting with our edges. When that’s the case, use your self-awareness to decide what’s right for you. Particularly in the space of shared ritual and ceremonial experiences, you really can just bail. The policy of consent applies to rituals, and it can be revoked by any participant at any time.*

But, make sure that’s what will actually serve you. Encountering our edges usually makes us want to quit. The thing is, if you lean into your discomfort rather than seek to escape it, there are some sparks in that darkness worth seeing. The next time you find yourself navigating your edges, here are some questions to consider:

  • What experiences or memories is this connecting with?
  • What emotions are present right now? (Literally name them — “discomfort” is usually covering a few others.)
  • What is this experience teaching me about myself? What am I learning right now?
  • Why do I want to quit? How do I feel about that reason?
  • What do I think the goal of this experience is? What theories do I have about the design choices?

If I stopped every time I was afraid or uncomfortable, I simply wouldn’t go anywhere. Every single worthwhile spiritual experience in my life has included challenge. Indeed, my mechanism for determining where I’m supposed to go next on my personal spiritual path is to choose the option that scares me a little. The very best candy, as it turns out, is just outside your comfort zone.

The next time you find yourself ready to throw in the towel, look more deeply. Are you in danger? Or are you in discomfort? And, what response to this challenge will serve you best?

*If you are in a situation where consent cannot be revoked, or is not respected/fully complied with when it is revoked, get out using any means necessary.

Irene can be found at https://glassewitchcottage.com/.

Bayberry as a Prosperity Charm
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Bayberry as a Prosperity Charm

Andrew Watt

The last several years, and beginning even before we were married, my wife and I have given bayberry candles as presents at Winter Solstice. Usually, we attach a red ribbon and a tag with one of the many surviving rhymes from US colonial-era folklore:

  A bayberry candle burnt to the socket brings food to the larder and gold to the pocket.

Or possibly you’ve heard a slight variation on this.

  A bayberry candle burnt to the socket puts health in your body and gold in your pocket.

Or again, the longest one my wife and know of (but not always the one we use).

  These bayberry candles come from a friend:
  On [Christmas] Eve or New Year’s Eve, burn it down to the end.
  For a bayberry candle burned to the socket
  will bring joy to the heart & gold to the pocket.

It wasn’t until this year that I found myself wondering why it was that bayberry, so specifically, should be the key ingredient in this charm for the New Year. So I began to do some research, and made a couple of intriguing discoveries.

First, I was startled to learn that bayberry (Myrica cerifera) is native to North America rather than a European import. Originally found on the Mid-Atlantic coast from Delaware to southern Connecticut, English settlers successfully transplanted it to the Caribbean, too.

That meant these charms were neither Welsh nor English in origin. Instead, they were the result of Europeans learning important lessons from the new landscapes of New Jersey, Long Island, Rhode Island, and Cape Cod — possibly through interactions with Native peoples who already lived here, definitely through study of the plant itself. Both Natives and colonists used bayberries as a potent but somewhat risky medication taken as a tea or syrup for exciting and supporting the immune system. More often, though, the berries were boiled in order to extract the wax and essential oils to make candles that scented the air and allegedly drove off disease. Somewhere along the line, Europeans learned that the berries were risky to ingest but easy on the lungs and throat.

One of the plant’s other interesting features is that it creates nodules in its root system — tiny organic caves, almost — which serve as sheltered homes for symbiotic fungi that fix nitrogen in the soil at rates even higher than most legumes. Gardens with bayberry bushes thus tend to thrive, because they make this key nutrient available to other species in their environment. Plant bayberries, and your garden would thrive.

So the rhyme, which for many years my wife and I thought to be of English origin, is really of American origin — the result of communication between original inhabitants, European settlers, and the plants themselves.

And so, after many years of following this custom of giving out bayberry candles to burn at Winter Solstice for prosperity and health in the new year, I can regard it as a special tradition that doesn’t come from Scottish crofters or English peasants or even Welsh carolers parading beneath a Mari Llwyd horse-skull. No. It comes from us. It’s native to here. And maybe that’s a path forward for us all — to recognize that we don’t have to spend all our time regarding our European ancestors as the sole source of spiritual truth. To some extent, it’s necessary for us to recognize that we’re here on this ground, and our spirituality and customs have to be rooted in the places where we live and where our children and grandchildren will grow old. And maybe that means that we have to walk with greater grace and acceptance of the First Peoples who lived here, and honor what they taught our predecessors.

With that in mind, I decided to write my own rhyme, and add to the folklore around this little bit of winter magic, the bayberry candle.

  Our foreign forebears learned to know this land,
  and humbled themselves to learn its treasures.
  Bayberry made golden soil from sand,
  wafting aromas of year’s-end pleasures.
  “Friends, please come, burn these bayberry tapers;
  warm up at the hearth, sing songs of good cheer;
  drink of this wine, eat salmon with capers —
  tell tales to last ’til the turn of the year!”
  So it had happened in long-ago days,
  as the bayberry burned to the socket —
  and shall again, when we revive old ways,
  and treat friends better than gold in pocket.
  Then, a New Year rich with health, wealth and peace,
  is ours for giving — and getting — with ease.

Cultural Gravity
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Cultural Gravity

Katie LaFond

In The EarthSpirit Community, we are “…dedicated to the preservation and development of Earth-centered spirituality, culture and community…” and I have done my best for myself, my family, and the community to embrace and nurture those things. Today I’d like to talk about pagan culture, and the pull of the cultures that surround my family. 

In Western Massachusetts, the wider culture is one I am mostly comfortable in. We enjoy cow pie bingo, many agricultural fairs, a festival in which children roll pumpkins down a hill every year, and other fun, satisfying traditions. Traditions and customs knit people together, and provide the sense of belonging that we need to be happy people. People know what the expectations are about what they will do, and what they can expect in return, because of culture. 

I’m doing my best to raise children who know who they are, and celebrate the customs and traditions of our pagan culture. This is made difficult when the majority of the kids they see day to day aren’t part of those customs and traditions. It can be confusing for them when my kids watch their friends celebrate customs and traditions that my family does not. It is so much easier to be excited about Yule when your friends are also excited about Yule (and not telling you that “you mean Christmas”).

Some of the adults my children see are not part of the pagan community. Many of them are loving and accepting, but don’t understand that when they expect my kids to be excited about their Christian holidays, they reinforce a cultural gravity I’m actively trying to help my kids avoid. A couple of years ago, a grown-up who knows we’re pagan asked my then-four year old if he was looking forward to Easter. He looked confused, put his hand on his hip and said, “I do Equinox, NOT Easter.” I wish my children didn’t have to navigate these difficult cultural waters, and I wish people who know we’re pagan would not put them in that position. It is an opportunity to teach tolerance, of course, but now we’re expecting children to do the emotional work, and not the adults around them.

My husband and I have tried hard to make the pagan culture in our home vibrant and rich, with the gravity to cradle our children in its rhythms. It is much easier to handle the pull of other traditions when you feel secure in your own culture. Words matter. Day-to-day routines, choices, diet, and activities matter. Holidays, rituals, and traditions matter. I have filled my home with pagan books, music, and art, and that matters. The friends they talk with matter.

Adults, too, feel the familiar gravity of the holidays and customs of their families of origin, their workplace, and their circles of friends. But I often wonder if I would be as dedicated to nurturing a rich pagan culture in my home if I didn’t have children. 

I’m not advocating for stripping celebration out of shared spaces; there is nothing wrong with sharing and celebrating lots of holidays and traditions. But it is much easier to handle the pull of other traditions when you feel secure in your own culture, and you don’t feel pressured to pretend you’re part of a culture that you’re not part of. It is important for everyone to notice and respect both the areas of overlap and the areas of difference between the traditions and customs of majority and minority cultures. 

Because the thing is, with gravity, all things are pulling on all other things. People pull on the Earth even as the Earth is pulling us toward it. Cultures have gravity. My hope is that instead of tearing us apart, these different cultural gravities will draw us into a dance. Best wishes from my home to yours for a swirling, twirling season. 

Love From A Witch’s Kitchen
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Love From A Witch’s Kitchen

Tess Matulonis-Archer

One of my teachers once said to me, “look around your home, and see, really see, what you are devoted to.”

It is clear to me that I am devoted to the deep, ancestral, and transient threshold magic of growing, creating, and crafting beautiful food to feed and nourish those I love. Food matters to me. Cooking is the grace note that reverberates through our lives.

Preparing nourishing and delicious homemade food for my family is a most sacred act. Probably one of the most sacred and magical things I do with my life, and life force.

It is devotion and love; magic and craft; and communion with the earth, water, sky, and sun where we live. Immanence. Vegetables and ingredients are carefully weighed and turned in my hands, selected from the garden or the market, to blend into just the right marriage of flavors. I inhale,  and delight in their scent and their color, and explore their textures with my fingers.

Spoons and rolling pins from my grandmothers, worn with time and passed through many hands, stir my cauldrons on my stove and spread dough on the warm wooden counter of my kitchen island. An island which has become, over time, its own altar. Spices and herbs chosen carefully, and blessed with breath and prayer, are stirred and roasted into meals made “just so,” with a particular loved one in mind. Plates of baked goods and food warm my table for my beloveds, and become a time-honored thread in the tapestry of tradition for holidays and gatherings, and the sweetness of the turning seasons. All the while, incense, candles, and bowls of cool water adorn and bless my work in the altar that is my hearth, my home, my kitchen. The very heart of my home.

I have so much magic and gratitude for these small and impactful acts of love and devotion. Food is love. Food blesses family and friends as we gather. And cooking creates a precious container for the little acts of everyday living that mean so much to us, and creates beautiful memories that endure, long after we are gone. I will never, ever, forget my grandmother’s and mother’s hands moving on mine in the kitchen— teaching me how to tell when the sauce is thickened when the spoon glides through the liquid just so, or how shaggy or smooth the dough should be to get the perfect result. Their recipes and love of food and cooking are carried in my blood, so reflexive now that I rarely need to consult the shelf of cookbooks where hand-written recipes dance in the margins.

There really are no “insignificant” little things. To me, they mean the most. If I cook for you, it means that I love you, and I am giving you the very best work of my hearth and hands to nourish and sustain you. It is intimate. I am blending a little of me with a little of you, and a lot of my heart.

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Stones for the Season: Autumnal Equinox

by Sarah Lyn

Stone has a beautiful language. Anyone who has ever had a rock jump out at them has heard it. Pick me! Pick me! Before you know it, you have either slipped it into a pocket, or you find yourself holding it in your hand, uncertain of how long it has been there.

Deep stone sleeps but the closer to the surface it gets, the more connected it is to us and our life cycles. Some rocks just want to introduce themselves and have a conversation. Some rocks will bite and want to be left alone. And some rocks have been looking for you to take them on a quest to some unknown corner of the world they have only heard about in the whispers of the deepest bedrock (even if that’s just your front yard).

[ALWAYS respect places that ask you NOT to take their rocks.]

The Trio

Different stones I encounter have different energies to them. Each sabbat, I put together a trio of stones to focus on for the following six weeks. It’s divination to me. I reach out into the web and see where we are in the world, creating a recipe of stone allies, and then I send that energy back out into the web.

I don’t usually use the same grouping of stones every year, but a couple of times I have. I will work with the stones I choose in my night meditations until the next sabbat, sometimes individually and sometimes as a group.

It’s the Autumnal Equinox, one of my favorite times of the year. For those of us who live in seasonal climates, the leaves are starting to turn colors and drop to the earth. We’re bringing our harvests in even as we are laying some garden beds to rest for the winter. This is when we frequent our local orchards weekly, and pick apples and pears and pumpkins…

It’s the time of year when the days grown shorter and we begin our spiritual descent into the Labyrinth like Ariadne. Into the Underworld like Inanna. What we find in the center is what we bring in with us. This is the time of year to look inward, stand at the crossroads, and calibrate your way forward.

As you go deeper into the labyrinth, the hidden shadows you carry will be revealed.

Who travels with you in fellowship?

My stones for the Equinox are: Snowflake Obsidian, Tourmalinated Quartz, and Howlite.

Snowflake Obsidian is black, volcanic glass, with crystalized snowflake-like inclusions. It’s one of those stones I am drawn to, over and over again. It is a good stone for people who have trouble staying grounded and tend towards escapism, which makes it a great stone for bringing into the darkness, and facing the reality of what waits for you. It’s a friendly stone, too, and is almost impossible to misuse.

Let me be your shield, snowflake obsidian asks.

My second stone choice for the Equinox was another black and white mineral, Tourmalinated Quartz. Quartz is a power staple in spellcrafting and ritual work. Black Tourmaline is one of the most powerful defensive stones I have used, but it is assertive, not aggressive. It absorbs negative darkness and transforms it into positive energy, and transforming that within the quartz creates a battery of power you can both recharge yourself from and use to light your way forward.

Let us scout the way for you, tourmalinated quartz sings.

The last stone, Howlite, took me a while to find. It is accessible to everyone and has a quieter voice. It is milky white with grey veining and shading. It is often dyed as substitutions for other stones, most commonly for Turquoise. I prefer the natural stone (and have many of them strewn about my home). It connects strongly with the heart center, like a balming elixir, exuding tranquility. This stone is a great ally to have in times of stress and uncertainty.

I’m right beside you, howlite whispers.

These stones will both guide you and take your lead as you do your winter work within the dark shadows we all carry. And they will see you through to the other side of the wheel.

For Advanced Work

For those going on an intense internal journey, I picked out Labradorite as an advanced work companion. This is one of my absolute favorite stones. I have pieces in all colors of flash. Out of the sunlight it can appear a dull grey. But once it gets a taste of some light, it flares to life. This stone is a journey stone, growing and evolving along with your Work. It likes to bond to a person and holds immense power for shifting and transforming.

[Notes from Sarah Lyn: I never purchase rocks from people who do not know where they are sourced from. It’s important to know where your rocks come from so you can make informed decisions about where to put your money. For those of us buying tumbled stones at rock shows, we’re picking up the chips of what has already been cut from the earth, we are not part of the demand that influences the mining world. But know where your stones come from.]

All photographs © Sarah Lyn, 2023

Gargoyle Clan
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Gargoyle Clan

by Rose Sinclair

Not long ago I had the good fortune to gather and celebrate with like-minded people and as we caught up, one said to me, “I am glad to see you well.”

I thanked him and explained what was happening in my waking world to which he replied, “I am also glad that life circumstances are peaceful for you, but that is external, I mean you are well on the Inside.”

I paused and considered the difference. What Sight was necessary for him to perceive them separately without being invasive? The idea for the Gargoyle Clan was born. External circumstance doesn’t imply the Stuff originates with me; how do I sort that out? How could I make informed choices about what I was feeling/perceiving/responding to, and see clearly what the implications of those choices might be?

How often do we find ourselves in situations where we are stuck wondering what to feel, say, think, do, or even perceive? Sometimes we get whelmed by sensory overload, regardless of what sense(s) we mean. Sometimes we are convinced we feel something; it wasn’t a spider crawling on us after all, but our own hair moving gently in a breeze (I laugh even now considering spinning around trying to find what was tickling me only to find it was me!). How can we refine what we perceive, how can we separate psychic (and even physical) “noise” from that which is potent and important for Us to know, to sense, to allow, and perhaps to act upon?

There is more to the idea of grounding/centering/shielding than may seem evident. It isn’t enough to say “ground yourself” — that can sometimes feel like we are a fish being told a climb a tree. These processes involve some nature of flow — whether from the self to the physical earth, or in the mind using visualization to affect reality, or light touching our optic nerve; all requires flow. At Twilight Covening this year the Gargoyle Clan will work deeply with this flow concept. What flows over me, around me, past me, through me? Can I change the flow? Can I turn it off and on? What about your flow and how it affects me? In these days of information/idea whelm, Gargoyle Clan will learn practices for discernment, filtering, assessing sensory input, and how to allow the flow of ourselves and our perceptive world back into the stream of life.