Spring stirs

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Imbolc or Candlemas (2nd August) Southern Hemisphere.

Imbolc is the celebration of the first foetal stirrings of Spring. Candles are lit, homes decorated with fresh flowers, and thanks is given that warmth is returning to the earth. Imbolc is a celebration of all that is fresh, new and imminent. It is a particularly feminine festival, sacred to women, associated with the earth as the Great Mother the earth giving birth to new life.

Imbolc is associated and also often known as Candlemas (British), Imbolic (Irish), Brigantia (Scottish) and Lupercus (Italian/Latin). It falls on August 2nd in the Southern hemisphere, and February 2nd in the Northern hemisphere.

Associated with the goddess Brigid in the Celtic world, special crosses were made and a straw figure of Brigid, called a Brídeóg, would be paraded from house-to-house. To receive her blessings, people would leave her food and drink, while items of clothing would be left outside for her to bless. Brigid was also invoked to protect homes and livestock.  Brigid is the Goddess of Fire, Poetry, Healing, Smithcraft, and Midwifery. If you can make it with your hands, Brigid rules it. This is a time for communing with her, and tending the lighting of her sacred flame. At this time of year, it is common tradition to light multiple candles, reminding us of the passing of winter and the entrance into spring, the time of the Sun.

It is the festival commemorating the successful passing of winter and the beginning of the agricultural year. For us it is a time to come out from the cold, dark and hermit like energy of winter and begin to sow the seeds we want to grow in our lives. To nurture dreams, projects, hopes and desires. To give energy to and pay attention to the process of growth in our lives!

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Yule 2016

Southern Hemisphere Midwinter Solstice June 21^st         

The Solstice is an astronomical event that happens twice, once in summer and once in winter, each year when the Sun reaches its highest position in the sky as seen from the North or South Pole. During Solstices the tilt of the axil of the Earth (with respect to the Sun) is the maximum at 23° 26'.

The Pagan celebration of Winter Solstice (also known as Yule) is one of the oldest winter celebrations in the world. This is a pivotal  point, a point of change, where the tides of the year turn. At this time of the year, no matter how cold it may be, there is a glimmer of spring in the distance. The shortest day of the year has come and the next festival on the calendar is Imbolc, which marks the beginning of spring. At Yule, we decorate our living spaces with evergreen, non-deciduous trees, and small gifts are given to all family members and all who pass the threshold to symbolise the gift of new growth and possibility that has been bestowed upon the Earth. It's a marvellous time to do workings for peace, harmony, love, and increased  well being and happiness as.

Many folk have forgotten some of the simplicity of living with nature and the natural earth energies, and seasonal rituals can bring  us closer to this  nature! Solstice celebrations don’t need to be complicated, overly serious affairs; a solstice ritual can be as relaxed and simple as sharing a potluck meal and having your guests share a funny story from the previous year. Ask guests to make a wish/put out an intent for the upcoming year while lighting a single candle. With each wish, the room grows brighter — a symbol of the light returning. A small rosemary plant, also known as a herb of the sun can be used in table decoration!

You might also like to practice this lovely warming meditation and at the same time remember that our lives are becoming warmer and the moment for sowing seeds will soon be here. Spend a little time contemplating what you ahve learnt through the past year and what seeds you really feel you need to sow and grow in the months ahead! 

 Warming Meditation.

Focus on your breathing, slow, steady and abdominal. Your belly should expand rhythmically with each inhale and shrink with each exhale. Imagine a warm, colored light radiating up from the ground, make the light a warm colour such as orange, yellow or red. Start with your feet. Imagine that the light is moving through each foot, one at a time, over each part and each toe. Imagine the light is moving up through your body slowly, one body part at a time. Have it go through your ankles, your calves, you knees and your thighs. Let visualized warm light radiate throughout your whole body. Concentrate harder and longer on the body parts closest to your core. Visualize your limbs first, your hands and arms after your legs and feet, arriving at last to your head and trunk. Visualize the warm light within the core of your body, flowing through each organ. Breathe in the warm light with each inhale, and get rid of any cold energy with each exhale. With practice, meditation to make you feel warmer will only take a few minutes. Feel yourself getting warmer to the point of feeling hot. Imagine sweat beads forming on your brow. Place the warm light inside of your chest to stay there and keep your warm. Slowly open your eyes.

samhain

May 1^st Samhain Southern hemisphere

To follow the older traditional ways and work with nature we must recognize the seasons and our celebrations and practices must mirror this if they are to be alive and not merely dogmatic procedure.

Samhain is the beginning of the Celtic New Year. At this time all the harvest is gathered in, for come winter, the faeries will blast every growing plant with their breath, damaging any nuts and berries remaining on the hedgerows. In the old days peat and wood for winter fires were stacked high by the hearth. It was a joyous time of family reunion, when all members of the household worked together baking, salting meat, and making preserves for the winter feasts to come. The old year had passed, and the leaves fallen from the trees.

Today in our lives this is a good time to look at wrapping up the old and preparing for the new, to face old fears and surmount them, to understand our shadow and begin to live in harmony with ourselves. Think about the things you did in the last twelve months. Have you left anything unresolved? If so, now is the time to get those things in order. Once you’ve gotten all that incomplete matter resolved, then you can begin looking towards the next year. You can spend this ‘darker ‘time of the year meditating on your inner wisdoms and tilling the soil for new seeds to sow just before spring. Samhain is a good time to do a psychological housecleaning. On a slip of paper, write whatever you want to leave behind when the old year dies — fear, self-limiting attitudes, bad habits, and so on. Then burn the paper in a ritual fire. For many Pagan and Wiccan traditions, Samhain is a time to reconnect with our ancestors, and honor those who have died. This is the time when the veil between our world and the spirit realm is thin.

Samhain literally means “summer's end.” In Scotland and Ireland, Halloween is known as Oíche Shamhna, while in Wales it is Nos Calan Gaeaf. With the rise of Christianity, Samhain was changed to Hallowmas, or All Saints' Day, to commemorate the souls of the blessed dead who had been canonized that year, so the night before became popularly known as Halloween.

the space between the leaves....

I was sitting on a chair in the front garden, and my eyes were caught by a momentary wonderfulness, the gentle breeze playing on the leaves of an old gum tree, reflecting in shadow and a subtle play of light on the pavement below. In the background some innovative and experimental music from the Adelaide Festival was playing on the radio, reminiscent of,  but not quite,  Japanese Koto.  Something in me stirred....the Autumn energies were moving in and I caught a breath of them in this moment. I cannot explain the hint of restlessness, the sense of expectancy, the breath that caught in my throat....but I was aware of so much more to this earth than the tangible.

It has been a week of such intangibles... the full Moon on Tuesday... enjoying the friendship and warmth of a gathering at the lake, where we watched the moon rise to the sound of Japanese flute and the gentle lap of water upon the shore. There was a moment here as the moon slid between the leaves of yet another tall and ancient gum,the flute caressed the air and the lake reflected it all back again, where time did indeed stand still. The ancient energies alive all around. I stood with arms upheld and  hands open palmed, soaking in the Moon's vast energies and in that breath of time our Lady,  Queen of the moon was indeed the " cup and grail and wine of life eternal, " pouring out love upon the earth.

If only such moments could be transported to the souls who suffer, the hearts which ache, the minds that hate. If only.

And today, I felt I would burst if I did not sit and try to make form and words of my feelings under the tree. As we near Mabon or Autumn equinox and the days grow shorter and the long arms of the sun begin to wane...it is time to give thanks for what is good and to sort what we need and what we no longer require in our lives. To save seeds of hope and joy and possibility and to bunker down with these as we move into our shadow selves and sit in the quiet of winter listening to our thoughts, understanding our fears and embracing our dreams.

Life is full of change and as we move through the seasonal year we can negotiate this change with wisdom if we are aware of how the earth energy affects us.

This is something that is a part of my spiritual journey every day...and something I feel compelled to share! It is magikal. It is old and wise and it gives us so much more empathy with the trees...with the earth and with the very thing we need to protect in order to preserve life. But first, we need to love. The world seems so bereft of love in so many places. I beseech you all , learn to love, hug each other, a tree, an idea! Hug, love, share, let go, remember we all feel, we all hurt, we all cry.

Mabon …Autumn Equinox workshop

Mabon is the mid-harvest festival, it is when we take a few moments to honor the changing seasons, and celebrate the second harvest. It is a time of giving thanks for the things we have. The workshop teaches about the seasonal cycles and how to produce ritual to celebrate these in our lives. 9 am-2pm Sunday 20^th March. $80 /$70 concession Wooloweyah book early  66469022/0401800210