We held our full moon esbat tonight. There were six of us. We had a feast. We lit a bonfire and charged tools that people had brought. We did another wordless quarter call this time, not with music but things like whistling and body music. It went well.
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Today we held our Ostara sabbat. For the feast we had corned beef hash, brussels sprout salad, a veggie tray, and flower-shaped cookies for dessert.
Next we painted rocks for a spring craft. I had prepared some in advance, painting them either green or white, and left others natural. We had tubes of acrylic paint, paint pens (which proved more popular than the tubes), assorted brushes, and other tools. I also printed out tutorials for various rock painting techniques. People made flowers, mandalas, words, and other things. Two people did mountains, which were mentioned in a chant in the ritual -- before they had seen the chant! In the sabbat ritual, we cast circle with a bouquet of flowers, then called quarters. We invoked the goddesses of spring who paint the flower petals. We blessed the stones with a chant, and then seed packets with another chant. For cakes and ale we had a flower-shaped cookie and raspberry lemonade. We also did our March esbat. This one took an elemental focus. For the first time we tried a nonverbal quarter call. Each of us had a musical instrument -- recorder (Air), zills (Fire), sea drum (Water), doumbek (Earth), and body music for Spirit. It sounded really good! Everyone loved it too, so we'll definitely be doing this again. It's a terrific approach if you have people who aren't good at reading or ad libbing quarter calls, or who don't speak, or someone has a sore throat that day. We read the Charge of the Great Mother and we chanted "Earth My Body" too. We held our Imbolc celebration today. There were some challenges because only one other person was able to attend, and not everything worked as planned, but it turned out okay in the end.
We built a fire in the woodstove, then melted wax on top of it. We used that to make firestarters from pinecones, and we also made small candles in various containers. I had been planning to make rainbow candles, but we didn't have enough cans and also the colors got mixed up. But they came out beautiful anyway! :D Important lesson for enjoying crafts: don't obsess over perfection. Some other things we learned: Leaving the blower off means that the fire doesn't overheat the house nearly as much. Adding scented wax melts to the paraffin makes it a little softer and it melts faster. Also it smells amazing. For the ritual, we gathered our freshly finished candles and firestarters. We chanted and raised power to charge them. These will get used to start bonfires for sabbats and other activities in the future. This year we celebrated Yule as the longest night. There were six of us this time. We let the house get cold, and all the food was either cold or brought in later. We cast the large circle around the whole yard just before sunset.
For the Yule ritual, we lit lots of candles and built a fire in the woodstove. We sang "To Drive the Cold Winter Away" and "Deck the Halls." After the ritual we held the feast. We also did an esbat because it was the full moon. We gave thanks for blessings from the past year and asked a blessing for the coming year. We held a gift exchange using the giveaway box. We played games. We kept vigil until dawn, although not everyone was awake the whole time. This year's Litha celebration had four people. We celebrated the joys of summer, and dogs. We had a huge bonfire, with brush that had been piling up for months. \o/ One of the fun things we did to capture the playful aspect of summer was cast the circle by blowing bubbles, one quarter caller at a time walking around part of the circle to the next quarter. We also did some drumming and dancing around the bonfire. We released the circle by walking it in reverse, with each quarter caller leading for their quarter of the circle. That's a new technique worth remembering.
I have posted our 2015 Beltane ritual on the Beltane page. This year we did it as a fire festival.
Today we held our Litha ritual. This is our tenth anniversary as a coven and a tradition! Our ritual was a water-sharing, inspired by the Church of All Worlds.
After the ritual, we picked black raspberries. Usually there's more fruit growing here at Fieldhaven than we can pick and use ourselves, so coven members and other friends are welcome to the extras. Last year the drought made for a meagre harvest. This year, there are raspberries and mulberries as far as the eye can see. Tonight we celebrated Beltane. We made a feast with chicken, yams, and asparagus. We built a bonfire, which burned quite well, even considering all the rain we've gotten recently. We danced around a Maypole. It was a vibrating Maypole -- I used holographic holiday ribbon, which when stretched out tight, hummed in the breeze. So that was amusing. The flower crown was made from blooming cherry twigs.
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. |
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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