Yesterday, we held an esbat in which we asked the land spirits to ask the weather spirits for gentle rain. Tonight it's raining! Not a lot, but more than we've gotten in the last couple months. So, that technique works.
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We wrote a ritual for Lughnassadh but plans fell through and we were unable to perform it. We have posted the text on our Lammas page in case anyone else wants to use it. The theme is drought and harvest.
So as a fallback we shifted to an esbat, because the moon is full tonight, and we kept the drought theme. You can see that on our main Esbats page, since it follows our "ordinary" and seemed like a useful example to share. Last night we held our January full moon esbat, also doubling for Yule since nobody was available then. We built a bonfire in the ritual meadow. For some reason it didn't want to catch -- even the PAPER was lighting and going out! But eventually we got it lit. We decided to consider making firestarters as part of our Imbolc celebration next month!
The ritual itself was simple. We cast the circle with bells, read the Charge of the Star Goddess, and sang "Deck the Halls." We also shared personal news from the New Year to honor the turning of the Wheel. Back indoors, we got into an impromptu gift exchange. One person brought craft supplies to share. So I hauled out our box of random Pagan goodies for people to look through -- candles, glass jars, incense burners, mojo bags, secondhand Tarot, etc. That was fun. Today we celebrated Samhain here at Fieldhaven. Much of the ritual design was laid out during a car ride yesterday, then fleshed out this afternoon. We had a potluck feast with Egyptian leg of lamb, salad, mixed vegetables, bread rolls, and pumpkin pie. Our ritual has been added to the Samhain page, so you can read about what we did.
This ritual focused on pathfinding, to consider where we are spiritually and to help likeminded people find our coven. We built a nice bonfire in the evening and lit it just before the ritual. There were three main sections of the ritual that dealt with invoking the Ancestors, assessing our personal progress, and reaching out to potential contacts. Some fun things happened that were not planned. The first was when one of the pieces of paper thrown into the fire was grabbed by our resident fire elemental and tossed in midair above the flames -- unburned -- for a couple of minutes before finally settling into the fire and being consumed. Another was a spontaneous rhymed chant that was improvised during the spiral dance. These are typical of the whimsy that characterizes rituals in our tradition; we are always open to the inspiration of the moment and to the cool things that happen in a magical environment. I also noticed something on a personal level. I was calling Spirit, and we used Unicorn as an elemental representative thereof in this ritual. Now, I've always had a pretty good connection with unicorns, but they came through exceptionally strongly this time. I think part of that owes to the writing I've been doing for my poetic series Path of the Paladins, which features a poem about unicorns, "Purity." Another project I participate in is Torn World, which features enormous snow-unicorns. It was a reminder that whatever we pay attention to ... pays attention to us. The unicorns were just really enthusiastic when I called to them, and doused the circle with numinous energy. Yesterday's psychic fair went tolerably well. We made enough to cover our gas and food expenses for the day, with a little profit left over, and we got some books and magazines out of the house.
Today's Mabon ritual was designed around the theme of protection. We called the quarters, cast circle, and read the Charge of the Star Goddess. Then we raised and directed power using two different chants. We also lit incense. (Watching resin incense boil on charcoal is fun, and even a small nugget releases a visible cloud of smoke.) Finally we released the quarters and opened the circle. The quarter calls and releases were composed this afternoon, and have been posted at the bottom of the "Mabon" page. This website has seen a huge spike in activity this month as people searched for Mabon foods, rituals, and other supporting materials. As of today, we've had 504 hits on our "Mabon Recipes" page and 169 on our "Mabon" page where the rituals are. Folks are clearly beginning to prepare for Samhain, too, as we've already got 25 hits on "Samhain Recipes" this month. I suspect that Pagans in the southern hemisphere are responsible for the 30 hits on "Ostara Recipes." It's good to see the interest; I hope some of the visitors browse around other parts of the site. We've got hits on other pages too, so I think it's working. Monday night we held our full moon esbat. We did this one in the ritual meadow lit by four tiki torches. The ritual theme was balance. We focused on balancing work life and home life, with emphasis on time spent with each.
We did this ritual robed, all of us in our long ritual robes. Two people worked on raising and directing power, while the other two provided supporting roles. The supporters wore tabards over robes. One tabard is for day/night balance with a sun counterchanged over a black and white background. The other is for male/female balance with a black god symbol over white and a white goddess symbol over black. We have a pretty diverse set of tabards in different colors and patterns so that we can usually dig in the box and find something to match whatever our current theme is. Today we held the third session of the Knot Magic class. We talked about various types of rope magic. These included symbolic use of knots in spellcraft, some aspects of Gardnerian Wicca involving rope, and some decorative ties with magical potential.
These are some of the reference sites used for inspiration: Animated Knots by Grog How to Tie Knots How to Tie Popular Knots Knots Gallery Today we celebrated Lammas. Given the heat (99F) we decided to stay indoors and just use the Feast as our ritual, in honor of the green harvest. So we had three different types of homemade salsa, two kinds of chips, three cheeses, a summer sausage, a fruit plate, and a jello salad. We also said a blessing that wrote some time ago. It was a nice little celebration.
Tonight we held an esbat in the ritual meadow. We built a bonfire. (Note to self: select a fire-poking stick while building the bonfire, and before full dark.) For this we pulled dead field weeds out of the prairie meadow and other places; they burn nicely, and their removal will make mowing easier.
The bonfire was a bit slow to light, but better than last time. Once it was lit, it flared up We used a different structure of ritual than usual, and more free-form. For instance, we all walked around the circle to call Quarters. Most of the ritual consisted of a guided meditation. The full moon was very bright and clear. Today we held the first class in the Knot Magic set, with two teachers, and two students attending. "Knot Magic I" covered thread magic, with a general overview and some examples such as braiding and embroidery. We made magical braids for the practical part of the class. Both students decided to learn a new 4-strand braid using different colors of embroidery floss. It went pretty well.
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AuthorElizabeth Barrette lives in central Illinois. She belongs to the Fieldhaven coven. Her first book is Composing Magic: How to Create Magical Spells, Rituals, Blessings, Chants, and Prayers. Archives
June 2019
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