Pagan Pride Day and an ADF Equinox Ritual

Pagan Pride Day Altar

This past Saturday, the Pagan Pride Day I'd spent the better part of my summer and fall helping to plan for was finally in full-swing.  We had about 120 people stop by, a good number of vendors and workshops, and overall I considered it a great success.  But it was also incredibly draining for me.  This actually is a fairly rare phenomenon - usually I get energy from events, even ones that I put a lot of work into planning and executing.  But Sunday, the day after, I was just exhausted both physically and emotionally.  Leading two rituals, giving a workshop, and generally schmoozing all day just wore me out - not to mention being out in the sun for 11 hours.

Our closing ritual was an ADF one, led by Prairie Shadow Protogrove, honoring the spirits of the harvest as the beings of occasion.  I wrote this one awhile ago, actually sitting at the park location for some of my writing.  I think it's one of the best rituals I've ever written, actually; and it's one of the most participated in rituals we've ever held.  Everyone came up and gave praise offerings, all in a line - it was almost like watching communion at a church, except this was people who were giving to the gods.  While reading the welcoming phrases, I felt I was truly connecting with the spirits of that lovely place; a place I'd spent a few years living near, spirits I had grown up loving and honoring.  When I called to the spirits of the shoreline to aid in the opening of the Gates, I remembered being a little girl exploring the icy edges of that lake, falling through a weak spot and ending up soaked up to my knees.  When I called to the spirits of the treeline, I remembered climbing high up in the branches of the pines, hands sticky with sap, waving in the wind.  These spirits were my friends from long ago.  It was incredibly powerful.

I've always had a close connection with the natural world, ever since my Grandmother took me out walking and talking to trees as a little girl.  I know I've written about it here before.  I heard someone say at Midnight Flame, an ADF festival I attended recently, that in ADF there are many people who feel drawn largely towards one of the specific Kindred, and I think that I am one of those people.  I honor the Gods, I love my Ancestors, and make regular sacrifices to both - but there is something so immediate, so material about the oak in my backyard when compared to those beings.  I can touch it, feel it, understand what it wants.  The squirrels that run through my yard and feast on acorns chat with me, look at me, engage with me - just as I engage with them.  I have always loved them, because they have always been there.  The land wights are not an abstract concept that I learned about later in my life, but a presence that I grew up with, that I ran to for refuge when people felt too difficult.  This is not to say that those who are deity- or ancestor-centered are wrong for connecting more with those Kindred - it's just a difference that helps make up the diverse tapestry of ADF.

A Return and Update, Scheduling Announcements, and a Moonlit Walk

Photo from Nasa.gov

It's been a long time, my friends.  My computer crashed back in May, and I'm just now returning to the world of the internet thanks to a loan from a very generous friend.  It feels great to be back!  But also a little weird.  There's so many things that have completely fallen off my radar that I must now go back and pick up the threads of.  A backlog of blog posts, Pagan news (and drama), all waiting to be read and explored and ruminated upon.  School starts back up this week for one of my little ones, so I may have a bit of time in the afternoon to actually devote to those things!

Quick announcement before I carry on with updates about my rather mundane life: Pagan Pride Day Omaha is being held on September 20th of this year at Zorinsky Lake, and Prairie Shadow Protogrove ADF is holding the main ritual as our official Equinox rite.  We're having lots of vendors, lots of workshops, and a bunch of informational tables; so if you're at all interested in the Omaha/Lincoln Pagan scene, please come down and meet some of these awesome people - non-Pagans are totally welcome as well!

Okay, back to the updates.  Since I last wrote, a lot of different things have happened in my life that have evolved my spiritual practice and changed what exactly I'm doing.  First, I've been slowly feeling a call from a subset of the Germanic deities I honor to do a very specific and special work for Them, that will require much of my time and focus.  I've spent a lot of my time without internet working on this goal - carefully reading, researching and making footnotes in the books I already owned; along with a slow and steady building of relationships with the spirits and deities whose assistance and goodwill I will need.  This focus has left little time for other spiritual pursuits, however, and it seems to have been the mutual conclusion of I and the Gaelic deities I have honored to move apart from one another for now.  This has been difficult for me - Brigid and Manannán have long been very present in my life, and having to move on and build relationships with others has been a sorrowful time.

The other event that has thrown my usual life out of whack was the death of my Grandfather.  He passed away on Father's Day, the night before I was coming to see him for the first time in awhile.  He was an amazing man, and he was ready and accepting of his own death - but I was not ready for him to go.  I'm still carrying around a lot of guilt and grief over his passing, and am trying to channel that energy into writing a sort of guide/ritual for the welcoming of a new Ancestor in an ADF context.  It has been difficult, but I'm hopeful that now I have access to the greater online ADF community, I can get some input and possible examples from others who've faced the same situation.

Last night, as I walked home from an extremely enjoyable full moon ritual put on by the Order of the Red Grail - including some amazing Lughnasadh games - I had the wonderful experience of walking home under a bright silvery full moon in a sky full of lightning and rushing clouds.  As I reached the final stretch of my walk, a park in my neighborhood with no electric lights and long stretches of open grassland, I was amazed by just how bright the moon really is!  A vague silver, shifting light, it is nonetheless strong enough to create dark shadows where the occasional tree stands next to the path.  Though I adore summer, you will often hear me say that the winter sky is best for viewing stars: I always feel that the cold air sharpens them somehow, making their sparkles that much brighter.  But I have never seen a moon as bright as the one that led my way home last night.