Imbolc Intro

Imbolc is the name of a major Celtic feast that can be traced back to medieval Irish literary sources and was held on or about February 1st. Although the exact meaning of the name has been lost, it apparently has something to do with milk and is thought to refer to the milking of sheep when they begin to lactate in the early spring, which in the British Isles occurs in February. As historian Ronald Hutton explains in his 1996 book The Stations of the Sun, “During the twentieth century, the notional beginning of spring came itself to be moved backwards to the vernal equinox, by a slow process induced by the mass media. This was part of an adoption of the American system of reckoning seasons from the solstices and equinoxes, which works admirably in the climate of most of the USA, but is nonsensical in the rhythm of the British year” (p.145). Little evidence survives as to the nature of the pagan rites with which Imbolc was celebrated, though it’s possible they involved the Celtic goddess Bridget.

Given that our celebration of Imbolc occurs at mid-winter, it makes sense for the theme of our festivities to be “Cold,” a phenomenon that manifests itself in a variety of ways. Cold can slow things down, like chemical reactions, but also speed some things up, by reducing electrical resistance. We often think of cold as something unpleasant to be guarded against, but it has its upside too. While we may dread going out on bitterly cold winter days, a cool breeze off the ocean can be refreshing. A hike through a snowy forest can be invigorating. For many people, participating in winter sports is the highlight of their year. Part of the fun is defying the threatening aspects of cold temperatures and enjoying camaraderie and companionship regardless. We should scale that feeling up to include all life on the Planet Earth as it spirals through the cold depths of space.

Imbolc Ritual

Celebration for Imbolc, the Winter Festival

Opening Poem

Suggested reading: “Imbolc” by Christopher Nelson

The Winter Festival and the Meaning of Imbolc

We have gathered here to celebrate Imbolc, the Winter Festival. Imbolc also marks the beginning of the annual cycle of birth, growth, and harvest. The Wheel of the Year turns, moving us forward into the light of day as the sun rekindles its fire. We, too, kindle the fires within us as we prepare for the challenges of the year to come. But before we take our first steps, it is right that we pause to envision all that we want to bring into our lives and the world this year. It may be a task we’d like to accomplish, a wish for good fortune, opportunities sought, relationships strengthened, or anything that gives us hope for tomorrow. Tonight, as the veil between worlds grows thin, we will open our hearts to life’s possibilities.

At this time, we honor those who have died. The past generations who walked this Earth before us, who, in the living of their lives, forged a link in the chain that brought us into being. Some of these ancestors are known to us. They are our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, and kin. We cherish our memories of their lives and the time we spent with them, no matter how fleeting. Many more ancestors are unknown to us. Though we may not know their names or faces, we recognize them, too, as kin. We are all part of the great tree of life that stretches back through time to our common human ancestor.

At this time, we honor those who live. The current generations who inhabit this Earth with us, who love the Earth as we do, who struggle, and fight, and laugh, and celebrate beside us. The richness of their lives enriches this world, blessing us daily. We acknowledge the downtrodden, the vulnerable, the oppressed, whose troubles are greater than ours. We cannot relieve all the suffering in the world, but we can honor those who strive to overcome it. As we honor them, we honor the Earth. As we care for the Earth, we care for them. In doing so, we become connected to the web of humanity, and they become part of us.

At this time, we honor those yet to be born. The future generations who will carry on after we’re gone, who will inherit the work of our hands and our minds. They preserve our hopes for the unending renewal of life and spirit and for the advancement of human consciousness. We remember that they will look back on us as the ancestors, known and unknown, who prepared the way for their own journeys. As we honor these descendants, they inspire us to continue to seek a deeper understanding of ourselves, our spirituality, and our world.

In many ways, it feels as though the next twelve months may be a time of trouble and strife. It reminds us that each day we walk the Earth with our loved ones is a day that should be cherished. In recognition of our creativity, strength, and resolve, we light these candles to dispel the darkness.

Candle Lighting

I light this candle in the name of the Ancestors, the Guardians, and all the holy ones who walk the world. May its light guide all the kindly spirits to bless this place.

I light this candle in the name of learning. May its flame remind us to look towards the unknown with curiosity and an open mind.

I light this candle in the name of creativity. May its glow inspire us and give us the confidence to share our true selves with the world.

I light this candle in the name of friendship. May its light continue to bring us together, so that we might offer each other joy, comfort, and company.

I light this candle in the name of the sun. May its flame warm our winter nights and remind us of the ever-returning summer.

I light this candle in the name of the Earth. May it illuminate our path through the coming year and remind us to walk with peace and compassion for all Gaea’s children.

Closing Thoughts

Imbolc is a time for regeneration, for honoring the past, present, and future. In this way, we mark the opening of the year. But in truth, the cycles of time have no beginning and no end. Time is a process, forever unfolding, forever spiraling forward. As we look to the challenges of the coming year, we reflect on the road behind us. And we begin this year with a time of fellowship. The light that is coming draws us out of our slumber to face the world with fortitude and grace. This is our time to prepare ourselves for the days ahead. The Wheel Turns. Blessed be. Blessed Imbolc.

Closing Poem

Suggested reading: “The Candle a Saint” by Wallace Stevens

Bede and Anglo-Saxon Paganism

As I said previously, the 8th-century Christian monk known as the Venerable Bede mentions pagan practices in his writings, although he is usually careful not to give too many details, not wanting his works to serve as a manual for anyone who wished to return to the pre-Christian modes of religious observance. Presumably, if some lapsed Christians were to use his writings to recreate the only-recently extirpated pagan practices of idolatry and thereby damned their eternal souls to hell, Bede would have felt to some degree responsible for their fate. Thus, he keeps his discussion of such practices rather generalized. On occasion, however, he does provide some tantalizing details. In a 1985 article in the academic journal Parergon entitled “Bede and Anglo-Saxon Paganism,” Macquarie University archaeologist Audrey L. Meaney provides a fresh translation of a passage in which Bede discusses the Anglo-Saxon pagans’ lunisolar calendar and some associated seasonal festivals. It is important to keep in mind, she says, that Bede was writing “within living memory of the demise of paganism” in Northumbria (modern-day northern England and southeast Scotland). This suggests to her mind that if Bede distorted the picture of pagan practices, there would have been people around to call him on it. Instead, Bede has a reputation for scrupulous honesty.

In the passage, taken from his De Temporum Ratione (“The Reckoning of Time”), Bede starts off by explaining that the pagans’ names for their months usually end with the term monath, derived from their word for the moon—a practice also followed by the Greeks and the Hebrews. The year began, he says, on December 25th—the eighth day before the Calends of January in the Julian calendar—on which the pagans held a festival called the Night of the Mothers (Modranect). Meaney connects this with the chthonic Triple Goddess figure common in both Celtic and Germanic traditions. Evidence remains of the veneration of such “Matronae” throughout the Roman Empire, including Britain. This is precisely the sort of pagan event that the Christians sought to co-opt by placing their most celebratory holiday, Christmas, on December 25th, in contravention of the clues as to the dating of the birth of the Christ child in the gospels. The month that followed, corresponding roughly to January, was called Giuli, according to Bede, from which descends our word Yule. The month takes its name, he says, “from the change of the sun in lengthening the day,” meaning the Winter Solstice; i.e., this month was thought of as the post-Winter Solstice month. This was followed by Solmonath, a term which Bede translates as “the month of cakes,” the Anglo-Saxon version of February. Despite the lack of evidence for a word sol in Old English referring to cakes, Meaney is willing to give Bede the benefit of the doubt. She recalls the description in a much later medieval text of a ceremony to mark the plowing of the year’s first furrow during this season. As part of the ritual, a flat cake was baked using various types of grain, milk, and holy water. The cake was then buried under the first furrow to ensure a prosperous harvest. She speculates that such a ceremony may have originated in the pagan culture Bede was describing. If so, it was likely connected with Imbolc rituals.

March and April among the Anglo-Saxons were known as Hrethmonath and Eosturmonath, respectively. Bede claims that these months were named in honor of the pagan goddesses Hretha and Eostre, though such deities are attested nowhere else in the extant literature. However, as Meaney points out, there are similar names for February or March in medieval German, such as Retmonat. She also notes that scholars have connected hreth with similar words in Old English meaning “swift, alert, or prompt,” “glory, fame, or triumph,” and “fierce, cruel, or rough” and feels that these would be appropriate characteristics for a goddess presiding over this stormy time of year. However, since a female weather deity would be unusual for either Celtic or Germanic mythology, she suggests that hreth may have resulted from a linguistic inversion of the word eorthe, female earth deities being much more common. She posits some connection, then, between Hretha and the Germanic fertility goddess Nerthus. As for Eostre, Bede notes that, like Christmas, the Christian celebration of the self-sacrifice of the Christ, elsewhere named for Passover (a Christianized Jewish holiday), was among the Anglo-Saxon peoples referred to as Easter, co-opting the pre-existing pagan spring fertility festival. Or as Bede puts it, the month “formerly had its name from their goddess who was called Eostre, and for whom they celebrated a feast in it. From whose name now they name the paschal time, calling a festival of new solemnity with the accustomed name of a former observance.” In Old High German, the festival was called Ostara, the name we have chosen to use, and modern German Christians celebrate Ostern or Osterfest as English speakers celebrate Easter. Since the Old High German word ôstar, like the Old Norse word austr, indicated “movement toward the rising sun,” scholars have postulated that Eostre was a goddess of the dawn, like Aurora and Eos in Greco-Roman mythology. As previously mentioned, other scholars, such as Ronald Hutton, remain unconvinced. Meaney maintains, though, that Bede was unlikely to invent these two goddesses, Hretha and Eostre, out of whole cloth, since he is here comparing paganism negatively to Christianity. If his purpose in getting so uncharacteristically specific was to denigrate paganism, she contends, it would have been more effective for him to focus on the well-known pagan gods for whom days of the week had been named (Odin, Thor, Frey) rather than picking (or making up) some obscure, minor goddesses. His failure to do so she takes as a paradoxical “indication of its veracity.” However, she also suggests that Bede may have seen less danger in speaking of these obscure goddesses if their worship had been in decline for some time—wayward apostates would be unlikely to resume worshiping them in that case, and Bede wouldn’t have to worry about contributing to such sinners’ damnation.

The Anglo-Saxons referred to May by the quirky name Thrimilchi (“Tri-Milky”). Bede says it “was so named because in it the herds were milked three times a day; for such was once the productiveness of Britain or Germany, from where the English nation invaded Britain.” It sounds a bit like Bede longed for those good old days when everything was better, not like the less productive present day when society’s going to hell in a handbasket. I guess some things never change. June and July were both called Litha, essentially being thought of as the pre-Summer Solstice month and the post-Summer Solstice month. According to Bede, the word Litha means pleasant or navigable, in the sense that “in each of those months, the gentleness of the winds is pleasant, and [the Anglo-Saxons] are accustomed to navigate the calm seas.” Since the lunar calendar does not keep pace with the solar year, a thirteenth month was periodically inserted. This was also called Litha and placed in the summer. Such years were, as a result, called Thrilithi (“Three-Litha”) years and served as their version of leap years. August the Anglo-Saxons named Weodmonath (“Weed-Month”), Bede says, “because then [weeds] flourish very greatly.” September corresponded to Halegmonath (“Holy Month”), “the month of sacred observances” related to the harvest.

October was known as Winterfilleth (“Winter Full Moon”). According to Bede, the Anglo-Saxons considered their year to be divided into two main periods, the waxing half (winter) and the waning half (summer). The wintry half of the year was said to start with the full moon of this month, hence the name. Bede does not indicate whether the pagans held any sort of festival on this date. November was called Blotmonath, “the month of sacrifices, because in it they dedicated the herds which were to be killed to their gods.” Meaney suggests, “it was the custom to kill off superfluous stock at this time, in order not to have to feed over the winter anything surplus to the next year’s breeding requirements.” Thus, a practical matter of animal husbandry was imbued with a ritualistic dimension by dedicating the slaughtered animals to the gods. These sacrificial rituals were called Blōt, a term still used by many Neo-Pagan groups such as Ásatrú. Also, as mentioned in my post on Samhain, historian Ronald Hutton has pointed out that this was the ideal time for the year’s most important tribal assemblies: the harvest had been completed, the livestock brought in from the pastures, and the normal seasons for warfare and trading closed. Thus, royalty, warriors, and peasants alike had some extra time on their hands—perfect for taking care of tribal business before the onset of winter. Like June and July, December shared its name, Giuli, with January, due to being primarily thought of as the pre-Winter Solstice month. As noted above, we still refer to this time of year as Yule.

Meaney points out that “Bede does not indicate at what stage of the moon the months are supposed to begin and end, but it would be logical to assume that the new month began with the appearance of the new moon. But if this were so, then winter must have been supposed to begin halfway through the month Winterfilleth, and end halfway through Eosturmonath.” Given this, it seems just as likely that the months may have begun with the full moon. The rest of Meaney’s article is given over to a description of the archeological site at Yeavering in Northumberland, located not too far from where Bede spent his time.

Yule Intro

The celebration of the Winter Solstice, the border between autumn and winter, is known by many Pagans as Yule, a name derived from a Scandinavian seasonal festival that was imported into the British Isles by Vikings in the 11th century. According to the 13th-century Icelandic author Snorri Sturluson, Yule had been celebrated at least as long as an October “Winter Nights” festival that is described in the earliest Scandinavian literature, placing its origins firmly in prehistory. Though little evidence has survived, it seems clear that British pagans had been celebrating the winter solstice for at least half a millennium before the Vikings came. In the 5th century, St. Patrick excoriated Irish pagans who venerated the sun and would have celebrated the solstices and equinoxes. Anglo-Saxon and Welsh sources from before the 11th century also refer to a “midwinter” festival held at this time of year—for them the solstice was considered the midpoint of winter, and it is still celebrated as such throughout Great Britain. However, in America, due to climatic differences, the Winter Solstice marks the beginning of the season. In his 1996 book The Stations of the Sun, historian Ronald Hutton notes that we know little of how ancient British pagans celebrated the season, but we can be sure of “the existence of a major pre-Christian festival marking the opening of the new year, at the moment at which the sun had reached the winter solstice and its strength was being renewed. There is testimony to this in the Anglo-Saxon, the Viking, and the Welsh components of the medieval British heritage” (p.8).

Since the Winter Solstice is the longest night of the year (and consequently the shortest day), it seems appropriate that the theme of Yule celebrations should be “Darkness.” What does darkness mean to us? From prehistoric times, human beings have associated darkness with fear and danger, but it also provides respite—the perfect conditions for introspection, rest, and sleep. There is also a special beauty to lights in the dark; colors become more vivid and our attention more focused. The universe itself is predominantly darkness, punctuated by points of sparkling light and wisps of color. The glowing sun and the Earth, that pale blue dot, spiral through the dark unafraid. We can do likewise: hunker down, snuggle up, and take some time to contemplate the darkness within us. In some ways, the Winter Solstice feels like a low point; the light is at its weakest and the world seems dull and gray, the darkness can feel relentless and overwhelming. But we should be mindful that it is the shadows that are now in retreat, for we are crossing over into the waxing half of the year.

Yule Ritual

Celebration for Yule, the Winter Solstice

Opening Poem

Suggested reading: “Air and Water in Darkness” by Juan Ramón Jiménez

The Winter Solstice and the Meaning of Yule

Twice a year, the Earth reaches the balance point between day and night. On those days, the equinoxes, we celebrate the life-sustaining cycles of light and dark and reflect on the turning wheel of life and death. When the day and the night are of equal length, we are reminded of the equality of all living things—for they are all aspects of Gaea, our living world. We celebrate with flame, whether the flicker of candlelight or the roar of a bonfire, to remind us of the energy of the sun and the creative spark of the cosmos beyond.

Twice a year, too, the Earth transitions from lightness into darkness and then darkness into light. On these days, the solstices, we pause again, to celebrate the lesson the Earth teaches us: that all things are temporary and that change is inevitable. The winter solstice comes at a time of cold and darkness, of shortening days and lengthening nights.

At Yule, our celebration of the winter solstice, we are reminded that no matter how dark it gets, the light always returns. The night will always end and a new day will always begin. Life is often a struggle; we grasp and slip, fight and fail, win then lose. But hope, like the light, is always present, if we have the presence of mind to find it.

We are at the year’s closing; as the wheel turns around us, the days will now grow longer and longer until we are once again spiraling beneath the late sun at Litha, the celebration of the summer solstice. Even though we look to the light with hope and anticipation, we must remember that we need winter’s long dark nights. They are the time for us to turn inward, to reflect, and to renew ourselves so that we might be capable of fulfilling our role in this world in the year to come.

Today is the beginning of the waxing half of the year; from now until the summer solstice the day will lengthen and night will shorten. Today marks the re-birth of light into our world, with the promise that winter will come to an end. Now we shed our fears and worries and celebrate all that is and all that will be, the ideas and projects we have brought to fruition, the joys and sorrows that have grown from the seeds we planted.

As we walk the spiral, let us think about what it is we want to celebrate about this year. What do we hope to bring into our lives next year? What do we hope to let go of? What attitudes and actions did not serve us in the last year? Where do we need to forgive ourselves and others to make peace with past hurts? In the darkness of winter, what do we want to learn, to create, to nurture? This is the dream of Yule, to honor all that we have made manifest in our lives, and to begin again in joy and peace.

Walking the Spiral

In the greatest darkness   The light is reborn
Out of winter’s cold   The light is reborn
From our deepest fears   The light is reborn
When we most despair   The light is reborn
When all seems lost   The light is reborn
When the earth lies waste   The light is reborn
When animals hide   The light is reborn
When the leaves are gone   The light is reborn
When the river is frozen   The light is reborn
When the ground is hard   The light is reborn
Shadows are fleeing   The light is reborn
Light is returning   The light is reborn
Warmth will come again   The light is reborn
Summer will be here once more   The light is reborn
Plants will grow again   The light is reborn
Animals will be seen once more   The light is reborn
Green will come again   The light is reborn
Life will continue   The light is reborn

(Repeat until all have completed the spiral walk.)

Candle Lighting

I light this candle in the name of the Ancestors, the Guardians, and all the holy ones who walk the world. May its light guide all the kindly spirits to bless this place.

I light this candle in the name of learning. May its flame remind us to look towards the unknown with curiosity and an open mind.

I light this candle in the name of creativity. May its glow inspire us and give us the confidence to share our true selves with the world.

I light this candle in the name of friendship. May its light continue to bring us together, so that we might offer each other joy, comfort, and company.

I light this candle in the name of the sun. May its flame warm our winter nights and remind us of the ever-returning summer.

I light this candle in the name of the Earth. May it illuminate our path through the coming year and remind us to walk with peace and compassion for all Gaea’s children.

Closing Poem

Suggested reading: “Burning the Old Year” by Naomi Shihab Nye

Pagan Paths

Since starting this blog, I’ve discovered that what I call “Scientific Paganism” is akin to other spiritual paths classed under the umbrella term “non-theistic paganism,” such as Naturalistic Paganism (or Pagan Naturalism) and Atheopaganism. These are Earth-based spiritualities that eschew belief (or “faith”) in supernatural entities or occult powers that defy the generally accepted laws of physics while still finding value in ritual behavior and deep, purposeful exploration of the human spirit. The same impulses that lead people to monotheist or polytheist religions are also present in those who have rejected the very idea of the “supernatural,” i.e., beings or forces that somehow exist outside, above, or beyond the natural world or the cosmos surrounding it.

My view is that, even if cosmic-level sentient entities were proved to exist, they would still be part of the natural order of the universe, and science would expand its horizons to accommodate them. This process has already occurred, as when Albert Einstein was freaked out by the notion of “spooky action at a distance,” only for it to go on to become the respectable scientific principle of quantum entanglement. There are many things about the universe that we do not yet understand and much more to be discovered. But there’s no need to carve out a privileged space that’s exempt from rationality where “and then a miracle happened” is an acceptable explanation. So in religion, as in science, the “supernatural” is, in fact, superfluous.

Rather than wasting time arguing with intractable “true believers,” non-theistic pagans prefer to take a skeptical attitude toward all unsupportable assertions and a practical approach to ritual. They value creativity over adherence to dogma. They generally celebrate or revere the Earth itself, the existence of which does not need to be debated. In this way, they get to the heart of religion and the psychological benefits it confers without building around it an elaborate house of cards that must be defended at all costs. Whatever terms such Neo-Pagans are most comfortable describing themselves with, they share a similar approach to honoring that which gives us life and the wondrous cosmos that we all inhabit.

Samhain Intro

Samhain (the ‘mh’ makes a ‘w’ sound) is the name of a major Celtic feast that can be traced back to early medieval sources, held on November 1st. In the British Isles it marked the beginning of the winter season, though in America we find ourselves at mid-autumn at this time due to climatic differences. According to historian Ronald Hutton in his 1996 book The Stations of the Sun, Samhain was the ideal time for the year’s most important tribal assemblies: the harvest had been completed, the livestock brought in from the pastures, and the normal seasons for warfare and trading closed. Thus, royalty, warriors, and peasants alike had some extra time on their hands. As such, it was the perfect setting for numerous tales involving encounters with gods and monsters. Like Beltane, which lies at the opposite point on the Wheel of the Year, Samhain was “a particularly numinous time,” during which “fairies and witches were especially active, and magical devices required to guard against them” (pp. 365–366). In time, the medieval Christian Church overlaid this festival with its feast of the dead, which brought with it its own arcane associations. The modern Samhain, then, along with the associated celebration of Halloween, is a hybrid of these ancient Celtic and Christian traditions.

Even so, being the time of year when leaves are dropping from the trees and flowers wither, it seems appropriate that the theme of Samhain celebrations should be “Death”—not as something to be warded off or feared but acknowledged as an integral part of life’s cycles. It is a time to remember our ancestors—and all those who came before us—and to reflect on how their paths influenced ours. We can tell their stories, and honor them for what they did and what they tried to do. Likewise, we can reflect on how we hope to be remembered by those who will come after us, and thereby to remind ourselves that our lives are but one step in the spiral path of the human race and, beyond that, in the journey of our living world, the Earth. Death comes to all things, perhaps even the universe itself, and being mindful of that can help us keep life’s difficulties and disappointments in perspective. Even in the darkest quarter of the year, when the world looks as if it were dying around us, we can set aside a night to celebrate our own spiral path.

Samhain Ritual

Celebration for Samhain, the Autumn Festival

Opening Poem

Suggested reading: “Door in the Mountain” by Jean Valentine

The Autumn Festival and the Meaning of Samhain

We have gathered here to celebrate Samhain, the year’s third and final harvest festival. Samhain also marks the end of the annual cycle of birth, growth, harvest, and death. The Wheel of the Year turns, moving us forward into the quiet darkness, where our seeds slumber until being reborn into the light of spring. We, too, look forward to the blessings of the year to come. But before we move on, we pause to look back and honor all that we have lost in the last year, whether it be someone who was dear to us, some task at which we did not succeed or a wish that did not come to pass, opportunities missed, relationships ended, or anything that causes sorrow from its loss. Tonight, as the veil between worlds grows thin, we will let go of all of these, leaving us free to pass on, at peace and without regrets.

At this time, we honor the ancestors of our blood. The generations of human beings who walked this Earth before us, who, in the living of their lives, forged a link in the chain that brought us into existence. Some of these ancestors are known to us. They are our parents and grandparents, aunts and uncles, siblings, cousins, and kin. We cherish our memories of their lives and the time we spent with them, no matter how fleeting. Many more ancestors are unknown to us. Though we may not know their names or faces, we recognize them, too, as kin. We are all part of the great tree of life that stretches back through time to our common human ancestor.

At this time, we honor the ancestors of this land. Those who lived in this place before us, who loved in this place before us, who struggled, and fought, and laughed, and celebrated in this place before us. The richness of their lives enriches this place still, blessing us daily. We recognize, too, that our presence here is the result of a long history of violence and injustice. While we did not participate in these tragedies, we benefit from them. We cannot undo the pain of the past, but we can honor the suffering and sacrifice of those who lived through it. As we honor them, we honor this place. As we care for this place, we care for them. In doing so, we become connected to the ancestors of this land, and they become part of us.

At this time, we honor the ancestors of the traditions that speak to us, that call to us and claim us as their own. We do so not to appropriate or diminish these traditions but to honor the truth they contain. Perhaps our recognition of these truths reflects an echoing of ancestors long past and cultures long forgotten. Buried deep in our bones, these sacred beliefs become restless within us, urging us toward the greater truths of the universe and the Earth we inhabit. As we honor these ancestors, we ask them to continue to walk with us, inspiring us to deeper understandings of ourselves, our spirituality, and our world.

In many ways, it feels as though the twelve months since we last stood around the Samhain fire have been a time of grief and anxiety. The world feels more uncertain than ever, and yet we must remember that each day we walk the Earth with our loved ones is a day that should be cherished. In recognition of these truths and the lessons they bring, we offer five bundles in the Samhain fire. We will burn these bundles one at a time, pausing to reflect as we watch each burn. If, in this time of reflection, anyone feels they have a memory to share or something to say, please feel welcome to do so.

Burning of Remembrance Bundles

The first bundle is in honor of Gaea, Mother Earth, our planet. We mourn the destruction of ecosystems, the depletion of the forests and the soil, the loss of so many species of plants and animals, the poisoning of the air and water. We recognize that we have played a part in these processes. We ask forgiveness, and we vow to take better care of our planetary home in the year to come.

The second is in honor of all our ancestors who moved through this world as refugees, who left their homes in one part of the world and migrated to another, seeking better opportunities, safe haven, or a happier life. We thank them for the difficult choices they made and for all the people who helped them along their journey, as their travails brought us here to this place together. We ask that they guide all those who seek refuge today and inspire us to provide safe havens for others where and when we can.

The third is in honor of our civic ancestors—the brave activists who imagined a country rooted in fundamental human rights and dignity, a country that relied upon and respected the processes of democracy and fair representation, a country that for over two hundred years worked to live up to its ideals and promises. We thank those of past generations who fought for social justice, civil rights, and human dignity. We ask that they guide us as we struggle to preserve their legacies.

The fourth is in honor of all those whose lives have been lost to violence, whether by their own hand, in an accident, in an act of oppression, or in one of the many wars, both declared and undeclared, that have taken place worldwide. We pray that their spirits may find peace.

The final bundle is in honor of those for whom we will be ancestors. We ask that they forgive us for our shortcomings and mistakes, and we promise to work every day to leave for them a legacy of hope, compassion, peace, and joy. We pray that they will remember us.

Closing Thoughts

Samhain is a time for remembrance, for honoring ancestors and the past, for letting go. In this way, we mark the closing of the year. But in truth, this ending, this closure is illusory. The cycles of time have no beginning and no end. Time is a process, forever unfolding, forever spiraling forward. As we let go of the losses of the passing year, we welcome the possibilities to come. And we begin this year with a time for retreat. The darkness that is falling pushes us inward, into our homes and into ourselves. It is important to note that we begin with turning inwards, with rest. The coming winter is a space for planning, for quietly germinating seeds that will not see the light of day for many months. This is our time for quiet, for healing, for preparing ourselves for the spring. The Wheel Turns. Blessed Be. Blessed Samhain.

Closing Poem

Suggested reading: “Wild Geese” by Mary Oliver

The Paranormal

I have never experienced any paranormal phenomena, despite being long interested in the subject. As such, I treat such claims with all due skepticism, though without being dismissive. After all, I’m well aware that there is much about the universe that science still can’t explain. Despite the breakneck pace of scientific investigation over the last few centuries, some areas of human experience remain mysterious. Our understanding of how our own brains work, for example, is still rudimentary. And that’s fine; there will always be more experiments to conduct, more theories to develop, more work to do. So it’s important to keep an open mind. The term ‘paranormal’ operates for me much the same way as ‘supernatural’—it describes phenomena that don’t fit into our current scientific models. Our explanations for these experiences amount to sheer guesswork. And yet people continue to experience them. In his 1999 book The Triumph of the Moon, Ronald Hutton offers an interesting take on the issue of paranormal phenomena, which would often come up in the course of his research into the history of witchcraft and magic. He describes encounters with two women who claimed to be able to see apparitions of various kinds. Neither woman, he notes, generally called attention to her ability, though both seemed to have come to terms with their extrasensory perceptions. He then goes on to say:

These encounters are absolutely typical of many that I have had over the years, and especially during the last few, when my research into paganism and witchcraft has encouraged people to speak to me more openly about them. They have convinced me that there is a significant minority of people within British society (and doubtless in many—perhaps all—others) who regularly see, hear, or feel phenomena which most others do not perceive to be present, but which are very real to them. These phenomena can, indeed, be experienced in the same way by other individuals with the same characteristic. The latter seems to be most common among women, though by no means exclusive to them, and is often passed down through families. Let no readers of these paragraphs feel that their personal belief systems are being challenged; the experiences concerned may be the product of chemicals in the brain, or of communications from God Almighty, the Goddess, angels, the spirits of the dear departed, or a range of other entities. The only limitation that I myself would place upon interpretation of them is that the empirical evidence causes me to reject the notion that they are caused by mere overactive imaginations, or by general mental imbalance. (p. 270)

Hutton then questions why psychic phenomena have not received more serious scientific study (beyond merely trying to prove or disprove whether they are “real”) and suggests that, in this case, science has dropped the ball. If such extrasensory experiences are not what people claim them to be, then what are they? And what is the cost of dismissing such claims out of hand?

I also find it highly significant that modern Western society is apparently unique in the human record in that it provides no generally accepted frame of reference for them and no system of explanation within which they may be sustained or discussed. This was not expected to be the final situation by the Enlightenment authors who did their utmost to demolish the previous system of interpretation, in terms of good or evil spirits. Sir Walter Scott, in his Letters on Demonology and Witchcraft, argued vehemently against a literal belief in such entities, but he did not deny that humans often appeared to see or hear them. He suggested instead that an improved understanding of the natural world would eventually yield a scientifically viable explanation for such phenomena. Almost two hundred years have passed since his time, and yet that explanation has not been achieved; instead, the tendency has been to ignore or deride such experiences, leaving those who undergo them to come to terms with them within private frames of reference, and greater or lesser degrees of ease and comfort according to their circumstances. The principal consequence is that large numbers of people in this society have to live with phenomena of which their dominant models of physical and metaphysical explanation do not take account—indeed, which they do not recognize at all (pp. 270–271).

Neo-Paganism in general (and Wicca in particular) seems to attract people who are interested in ritual magic, so developing a consistent stance on the paranormal is relevant to Scientific Paganism. Personally, I see little difference between Wiccan spellcasting and the magical workings of Catholic Christians (or the watered-down versions practiced by mainstream Protestants). Both invoke some mystical entity or other in the hope of a boon of some kind. I’m not convinced the universe works that way, but I acknowledge that such tropes can play a powerful role in holiday rituals. The truth of such phenomena, however, is still “out there.”

Cross-Quarter Days

In his 2012 book Britain Begins, Oxford archaeologist Barry Cunliffe provides a nice overview of the four annual festivals that many Pagans refer to as the “cross-quarter” days, with a particular emphasis on Samhain. Cunliffe maintains that these festivals can be traced all the way back to the Bronze Age in Western Europe.

The intensification of agriculture after the middle of the second millennium would have made a careful appreciation of the changing seasons all the more important to the livelihood of the community. Indeed, it may have required an adjustment in time management and the creation of a calendar more designed to meet the demands of the farming year than one relying on the solstices. By the end of the first millennium BC it is known that in Gaul the year was divided into four quarters, Samhain, beginning on 1 November, Imbolc on 1 February, Beltane on 1 May, and Lughnasadh on 1 August, and this same calendar was in operation in Ireland in the first millennium AD. Since it is closely attuned to the farming year, the probability is that the calendar goes back much further and may well have developed at a time when the intensification of agriculture was getting under way in the second millennium. Samhain heralds the quiet winter period when people are at home repairing and making equipment and tending the livestock that are being overwintered. Imbolc marks the time when lambing and calving takes place and the ewes start to lactate, and land has to be prepared for spring sowing. At Beltane cattle are driven through fires to cleanse them of vermin and all the animals are put out to summer pasture. Lughnasadh is the period of harvesting and the preparation of the grain for storage, for turning livestock onto the harvested fields, and for weaning lambs. The culling of the flocks and herds, with the accompanying feasting, probably took place in the days leading up to the beginning of Samhain, when the old year ended and the new year began. This major turning point in the annual cycle was appropriated by the Christians to be the festival of All Saints and is still widely celebrated in its pagan form as Hallow-e’en. The agrarian calendar differs from the solar calendar of the fourth and third millennium, based on the equinoxes and solstices, and is probably to be regarded as part of the great transformation that was taking place in the mid-second millennium (pp. 269–270).

Cunliffe sees in the many ancient stone monuments of the British Isles evidence that observance of the other four points in the Wheel of the Year—the equinoxes and solstices—goes even further back, into the Stone Age. This is the historical foundation on which the modern re-interpretations of Neo-Paganism are based.

Mabon Intro

The celebration of the Autumnal Equinox, the border between summer and autumn, is known by many Neo-Pagans as Mabon, the name of a Celtic hero from The Mabinogion, a collection of medieval Welsh mythology. In the tale “Culhwch and Olwen,” King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table must rescue the long-forgotten huntsman Mabon ap Modron (a name that means ‘the son of the mother’) from a dank dungeon in the hellish realm of Gloucester, for his special skills are needed in the quest to capture the enchanted boar Twrch Trwyth. Mabon is glad to be liberated from his long imprisonment and soon proves his valor among King Arthur’s men. The hero’s name was associated with the Autumnal Equinox in the 1970s by the American Neo-Pagan author Aidan Kelly while creating a liturgy for a California-based offshoot of Wicca with the somewhat tongue-in-cheek name the New Reformed Orthodox Order of the Golden Dawn. As Kelly describes in a 2017 blog post on the website Patheos, he was dissatisfied with the traditional names of northern European harvest festivals and wanted something with some Celtic cachet. He saw a parallel in the tale of Mabon ap Modron, who was kidnapped as a baby, with the tale of Persephone, whose abduction to the underworld represents the advent of autumn. Furthermore, Kelly was intrigued by similar myths of young people being rescued from certain doom, such as the Biblical story of Abraham and Isaac, and associated them with the autumnal equinox as well. Thus, Kelly chose to name this equinoctial festival “Mabon,” and the name was soon popularized by Oberon Zell’s journal Green Egg. However, Kelly is something of a persona non grata among more traditional Wiccans, so some of them reject his contributions to Pagan ritual.

Regardless, the Autumnal Equinox has long been celebrated as a major turning point, as it is the time when we cross the threshold back into the dark half of the year. In constructing my graphic of the Wheel of the Year, seen above, I searched for an appropriate dichotomy to mark this axis and settled on Hello/Goodbye. In this sense, “goodbye” goes beyond a simple valediction to encompass letting go of old ideas, old habits, old relationships. We find ourselves at the midway point between “heat” and “death,” where we can start the process of unwinding that precedes the coming of winter. “Goodbye” can serve as a theme for Mabon celebrations, as we get ready to retreat to our sanctuaries and turn inward for a period of restful self-reflection—but before we can do that, we need to settle our accounts, tie up loose ends, and ask ourselves, what is it time to let go of?

Mabon Ritual

Celebration for Mabon, the Autumnal Equinox

Opening Poem

Suggested reading: “Equinox” by Patricia Hooper

The Autumnal Equinox and the meaning of Mabon

Tonight we gather once again to honor the ever-turning wheel of the year. The cycles of the year, like the cycles of our lives, have neither beginning nor end. Their movement is constant, yet not repetitive. No year, no season, no day, no life is exactly like the one that came before or that will come after. Every season is unique, and every life is unique.

Like galaxies spiraling through the universe, the paths of our lives also spiral, forever moving us forward. Although the Earth circles the sun, the sun itself is circling the core of the galaxy, creating a spiral path for our planet. Everything in the galaxy follows a spiral path. Therefore, the Earth’s journey, though constant, also never repeats itself.

Twice a year, the Earth seems to pause in its journey around the sun, as it reaches the balance point between day and night. On these days, the equinoxes, we pause also, to celebrate the life-sustaining cycles of light and dark and reflect on the turning wheel of life and death. We celebrate with flame, whether the flicker of candlelight or the roar of a bonfire, to remind us of the energy of the sun and the creative spark of the cosmos beyond.

When the day and the night are of equal length, we are reminded of the equality of all living things—for they are all aspects of Gaea, our living world. From the smallest microbe to the largest redwood, we are all united in life and stand as equals on this planet. When we pause in this moment, we remember this truth, and renew our commitment to caring for the Earth, for each other, and for ourselves.

On this day, the autumnal equinox, darkness and light are in balance. Behind us lies the long, hot summer; before us lies the gathering darkness of winter. The winter’s long dark nights will give us the time and the space to turn inward, to reflect, and to renew ourselves. But first, we must prepare. Trees shed their leaves. Plants let their stalks and flowers wither. Squirrels hoard acorns and nuts. Birds build sturdier nests. All around us, all living things are preparing themselves to let go of what they no longer need in order to make room for life’s essentials. We must do this, too.

The autumnal equinox is a moment for us to pause and reflect upon that which we need to release and that which we need to pull closer. What hopes, fears, relationships, habits, and beliefs are we holding onto even though they no longer inspire our best selves? Can we let go of them in order to make space for new ideas, new people, and new endeavors?

As crops are harvested all around us, we can ask what are we harvesting in our own lives? How might our past accomplishments inspire us to seek out new goals and projects? What plans might we make today, knowing that we will not see the fruits of our labors until next spring or summer? In the coming winter, what do we want to learn, to create, to nurture? This is the wonder of Mabon, to honor all that we have made manifest in our lives, and to look forward to the restful night that is yet to come.

Candle Lighting

I light this candle in the name of the Ancestors, the Guardians, and all the holy ones who walk the world. May its light guide all the kindly spirits to bless this place.

I light this candle in the name of learning. May its flame remind us to look towards the unknown with curiosity and an open mind.

I light this candle in the name of creativity. May its glow inspire us and give us the confidence to share our true selves with the world.

I light this candle in the name of friendship. May its light continue to bring us together, so that we might offer each other joy, comfort, and company.

I light this candle in the name of the sun. May its flame warm our spirit and stay with us in the months to come.

I light this candle in the name of the Earth. May it illuminate our path through the coming year and remind us to walk with peace and compassion for all Gaea’s children.

Closing Poem

Suggested reading: “There Will Be Stars” by Sara Teasdale

Mabon Reflections

By Kelly Hansen Maher


The autumnal equinox, when celebrated as Mabon, is the second of three harvest festivals. Before, at summer’s peak, we celebrated the first of the three. We blessed the loaf and the sweet corn, we enjoyed fresh peaches and ripe berries. Tonight marks the end of summer and the start of autumn. As an equinox, Mabon is a “hinge” Sabbat, when we continue to enjoy our immediate, golden bounty, but we also start to preserve, can, and store, in preparation for winter.

These days, I’ll be out apple picking. In a bumper-crop year like this, I’ll scoop up dozens of dropped apples and try to keep up with the tree. Birds and insects will pierce the apple skins, expose the seed-stars, and take up the job of passage. This year, too, black walnuts from the neighbor’s tree, enclosed in their heavy green balls, fall on our heads as we leave the driveway. We crush them with our cars and make messes. Acorns are falling by the gallon, and I rake them up, add them to the compost.

The plants have many animal helpers—like us, like squirrels and birds—whose industry assists the release and journey of the seed. Even when we harvesters try to preempt rot and preserve what is too tender to last, we are in good relation with the earth. We take what we can, so that we may nourish ourselves in times of scarcity. But we couldn’t possibly take it all. And so the wheel turns.

Equinox means equal night. The autumnal equinox, specifically, means that night’s minutes, hours will begin to overtake day’s and will do so more rapidly than at any other time of year. The earth, too, shifts from production to storage. Mold, rot, and decay will soon move over our gardens and fields, as we tilt ever closer to the next and final harvest celebration, and the death rites of Samhain.

But tonight, we perch. What if we enact the natural forces of Mabon in our own lives? Earth’s seeds, having reached peak potency, are ready to disperse. Once separated from their parent plants, they will embed anew; but it is a long wait to their next form. What must you cast off from? Also: what carries you? Do you hang on the wind, attach yourself to another’s passage, or fall directly to soil?

Shook loose, we are aloft, adrift, we hitchhike, we migrate. Like the word cleave—which can mean to attach as well as to sever, we can meet the equinox both ways. And then we launch, with the new season, into something else. Just for this time, though, can we suspend, outside of form, and honor the sacred carry?

Lawrence of Etruria

Near the end of his life, the British novelist D.H. Lawrence traveled with his friend Earl Brewster to Tuscany to tour tombs and ruins of the ancient Etruscan civilization. The resulting book, Etruscan Places, published posthumously in 1932, is largely a rumination on the state of Italy under Benito Mussolini’s fascist government, which Lawrence compares unfavorably to the Etruscan culture as depicted in elaborate frescos found within the ancient tombs. However, Lawrence also makes several observations about the Etruscan religion, as he conceptualizes it, which reveal an intriguing sensibility on his part that could be described as Gaean, as it definitely reflects the ideas about Gaean Spirituality discussed in previous posts.

In the second chapter, “Tarquinia,” Lawrence displays a receptivity to the belief in a near-universal prehistoric nature religion, even suggesting that it predated the concept of discrete divinities.

There was never an Etruscan nation: only, in historical times, a great league of tribes or nations using the Etruscan language and the Etruscan script—at least officially—and uniting in their religious feeling and observances…. It is probably to a great extent the language of the old aboriginals of southern Etruria, just as the religion is in all probability basically aboriginal, belonging to some vast old religion of the prehistoric world. From the shadow of the prehistoric world emerge dying religions that have not yet invented gods or goddesses, but live by the mystery of the elemental powers in the Universe, the complex vitalities of what we feebly call Nature (p.43).

In the next chapter, “The Painted Tombs of Tarquinia,” Lawrence picks up the thread again, describing the Etruscan religion as one that saw the Planet Earth as a unified living organism, existing in an animistic universe. People and other animals, while discrete entities, are part of the larger system—not separate from it. Lawrence clearly admires the idea of the living world, Gaea, though he wouldn’t have called it that.

To the Etruscan all was alive; the whole universe lived; and the business of man was himself to live amid it all. He had to draw life into himself, out of the wandering huge vitalities of the world. The cosmos was alive, like a vast creature. The whole thing breathed and stirred. Evaporation went up like breath from the nostrils of a whale, steaming up. The sky received it in its blue bosom, breathed it in and pondered on it and transmuted it, before breathing it out again. Inside the earth were fires like the heat in the hot red liver of a beast. Out of the fissures of the earth came breaths of other breathings, vapours direct from the living physical underneath, exhalations carrying inspiration. The whole thing was alive, and had a great soul, or anima: and in spite of one great soul, there were myriad roving, lesser souls; every man, every creature and tree and lake and mountain and stream, was animate, had its own peculiar consciousness. And has it to-day. The cosmos was one, and its anima was one; but it was made up of creatures. And the greatest creature was earth, with its soul of inner fire (p.89).

The fourth chapter describes how classical civilization moved away from and suppressed the Gaean consciousness, replacing the original ecofeminist understanding of the cosmos with a patriarchal, mechanistic system. An integral part of this new system, Lawrence contends, is the concept of hell—a sort of “anti-nature”—which was alien to the Etruscan way of thinking.

The old religion of the profound attempt of man to harmonize himself with nature, and hold his own and come to flower in the great seething of life, changed with the Greeks and Romans into a desire to resist nature, to produce a mental cunning and a mechanical force that would outwit Nature and chain her down completely, completely, till at last there should be nothing free in nature at all, all should be controlled, domesticated, put to man’s meaner uses. Curiously enough, with the idea of the triumph over nature arose the idea of a gloomy Hades, a hell and purgatory. To the peoples of the great natural religions the after-life was a continuing of the wonder-journey of life. To the peoples of the Idea the after-life is hell, or purgatory, or nothingness, and paradise is an inadequate fiction (p.131).

Here we see the same basic ideas later expounded on by late 20th-century Neo-Pagan writers such as Oberon & Morning Glory Zell and Anodea Judith, so the roots of Gaean Spirituality clearly go deeper than the counterculture movement of the 1970s. D.H. Lawrence was responding to the same need for a radically different conception of the cosmos in the 1920s that would inspire the later Pagan resurgence.

Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History

In a 2011 article published in the journal Pomegranate, “Revisionism and Counter-Revisionism in Pagan History,” English historian Ronald Hutton discusses the conflicting narratives put forth to account for the development of modern forms of paganism. A “scholarly orthodoxy” had been established over the course of the 19th and 20th centuries, he explains, that held that Neo-Paganism could trace a direct lineage from the pre-Christian religions practiced in Europe in ancient times. The vast majority of ordinary Europeans, it was claimed, defied Christianization and continued their pagan traditions while merely paying lip service to the new religion of the elite classes. Support for this idea was drawn from decorations found in early Christian churches said to represent pagan deities such as the Green Man, the respectful preservation of geoglyphs like the Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset, the continuing tradition of Morris dancing at springtime village festivals, the passing down of ancient folk remedies and superstitions, and other perceived holdovers from prehistory. In light of all this, scholars maintained that a continent-spanning nature religion, generally known as “witchcraft,” survived—and even flourished—until being persecuted nearly out of existence by Christian “witch hunts” between the 15th and 17th centuries. After its emergence into the public consciousness in the 1950s, Gerald Gardner’s Wiccan religion claimed an unbroken line of descent from this suppressed witchcraft tradition.

However, Hutton continues, subsequent scholarship could not uphold this view. No evidence of such a witchcraft religion resisting national Christianization could be found, and meticulous alternative explanations and interpretations of the previous suppositions were put forward. Accounts of witch practices taken from early modern trial transcripts were dismissed as inventions of the prosecutors. By the end of the 20th century, the old orthodoxy had fallen apart, having found no one in the academic community willing to defend it. Hutton refers to this scholarly realignment as “revisionism” and goes on to describe how this proved not to be the death knell of Neo-Paganism, for it was able to thrive despite the loss of this historical validation as a thoroughly modern religious movement:

These developments made the foundation story of modern Paganism untenable and opened the way to the construction of a different sort of history for it, which could be based on demonstrable evidence. In this, it was certainly based on older images and ideas, gathered from the ancient, medieval, and early modern worlds, but evolved in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries to suit modern needs and ideals; which it did very well, thereby explaining most of its appeal and viability. As such, it was no less genuine than any other faith which had undergone a process of renewal and revival, such as Protestant Christianity’s rejection of more than a millennium of developing Catholic theology and ritual to return to what its exponents regarded as ancient truths. (p.227)

Hutton further argues that the collapse of the old narrative was, in fact, beneficial to Neo-Paganism, as it had encouraged a set of antisocial attitudes in its adherents. The legacy of the witch trials inspired “a deep suspicion of mainstream society and a particularly adversarial attitude towards established Christianity” (p.231). Modern-day witches complained that tens of thousands, if not millions, of their forebears had been unjustly executed by Christian authorities with the full complicity of their families, friends, and neighbors. They were thus drawn into unproductive and alienating historical debates that hindered the larger Neo-Pagan community from gaining widespread acceptance. Furthermore, the idea that paganism survived centuries of repression only through the secret rites of “true believers” held back the development of new approaches by placing a premium on initiation and its attendant hierarchical structures, creating just the sort of rules and restrictions that many ex-Christians had turned to Neo-Paganism to escape. Conversely, Hutton asserts:

The revisionist history encourages a greater sense of integration into, and of a common inheritance with, the parent society. Instead of a line of martyrs and embattled tradition-bearers, the immediate ancestors of Paganism become a succession of cultural radicals, appearing from the eighteenth century onward, who carried out the work of distinguishing the Pagan elements preserved in Western culture and recombining them with images and ideas retrieved directly from the remains of the ancient past, to create a set of modern religions…. In this model, Paganism is not something inherently different from mainstream society, and traditionally oppressed and persecuted by it, but represents an extreme, and courageous, distillation of some of its deepest and most important modern impulses. That is precisely why Pagans can regard themselves as peculiarly well positioned to serve some of the most profound instincts and needs of modernity. This model reduces the emphasis on the authority of elders, group leaders, and initiatory lineages and encourages a greater liberalism and eclecticism within the movement, as that movement itself arose from creativity, self-expression, and individual will within the relatively recent past (pp.231–232).

Neo-Paganism, then, is perhaps better suited to modern sensibilities—and modern problems—than any ancient religion. The past, though it haunts us, has fallen away, and I believe we’re better off focusing on the future.

Lughnasadh Intro

Lughnasadh is the name of a major Celtic feast that can be traced back to early medieval sources. It means ‘Festival of Lugh,’ a god who appears frequently in early Irish literature, and was held on or about August 1st, which in the British Isles marked the beginning of the autumn season. In America, however, we find ourselves at mid-summer at this time due to climatic differences. According to historian Ronald Hutton in his 1996 book The Stations of the Sun, this pagan Celtic festival and its Anglo-Saxon counterpart, Lammas, are attested to in official records as early as the seventh century. They were both intended to celebrate the opening of the harvest season, when the first batches of corn were ready to be eaten (pp.327–331). The evidence for how these festivals were celebrated is scant, but the sources suggest it generally involved open-air feasting, hill-climbing, and assorted sports and games, which seems appropriate for the warmest season of the year.

Given that our celebration of Lughnasadh occurs at mid-summer, it makes sense for the theme of our festivities to be “Heat,” the phenomenon that does more than any other to preserve life. The sun’s heat warms the surface of Planet Earth, allowing lifeforms of every description to thrive. The heat of Earth’s core causes the convective circulation that generates the planet’s magnetic field, which in turn preserves its protective atmosphere. Even at the bottom of the ocean, cut off from the sun’s rays, extremophile organisms exist in vents of boiling water heated by subterranean magma. Where there is heat, life flourishes. We can’t imagine life without heat, and this concept infuses our language. We recognize the life-preserving power of heat when we speak of “warm feelings” among friends or of how “hot” an attractive person is. Heat allows us to function and keeps us going when we would otherwise start to shut down. Lughnasadh, then, is a time to celebrate our persistence in the face of adversity.

Lughnasadh Ritual

Celebration for Lughnasadh, the Summer Festival

Opening Poem

Suggested reading: “Under the Harvest Moon” by Carl Sandburg

The Summer Festival and the Meaning of Lughnasadh

We have gathered here to celebrate Lughnasadh, the Summer Festival. Lughnasadh also marks the beginning of the annual harvest season, when the first crops are brought in from the fields. Some celebrations on this day focus on bread or corn, others on the first fruits of the season, but they all mark the time when we see the early results of our labors since the end of winter. It is a time to appreciate what we have accomplished and prepare for the hard work that is yet to come.

The Celts called this celebration Lughnasadh, which means ‘the Festival of Lugh.’ Lugh was a god who embodied human skills and ingenuity rather than the primal forces of nature. He was also associated with games of strategy as well as athletic contests. So it seems fitting to invoke him as we honor our own skills and accomplishments and have fun in the long, warm days of mid-summer. The Wheel of the Year turns, and we look forward with hope to a bountiful harvest in our own lives.

At this time, we celebrate our strength of mind. In the face of life’s challenges, we strive to understand where we came from, how we got to this point, and where we need to go. By understanding our circumstances, we maintain our equilibrium and can choose wisely among the paths that diverge before us. We can set our goals and intentions in the light of self-knowledge and find the resolve we’ll need when the road gets rocky.

At this time, we celebrate our strength of body. In spite of our many illnesses and infirmities, we strive to find those deep reserves of inner strength that we harbor within us. In this way, we carry on even when our adversities seem insurmountable. Our strength enables us to bear those burdens that we must carry and to cast off those that only weigh us down. Whatever troubles life brings us, we find the strength to endure and continue to seek joy.

At this time, we celebrate our strength of spirit. When darkness looms on the horizon, we strive to rekindle our inner light, and we draw together with our families, friends, and communities to find comfort and inspiration. We know that the storms will come and those long, dark nights are never far away, but we hold out for the days when our hearts will be light and our minds will be at ease. Despite the fear and uncertainty, we persist, and we remain true to ourselves.

In many ways, the previous twelve months have been a time of trouble and strife. We recognize that each day we walk the Earth with our loved ones is a day that should be cherished. In recognition of our resolve, inner strength, and persistence, we light these candles to dispel the darkness.

Candle Lighting

I light this candle in the name of the Ancestors, the Guardians, and all the holy ones who walk the world. May its light guide all the kindly spirits to bless this place.

I light this candle in the name of learning. May its flame remind us to look towards the unknown with curiosity and an open mind.

I light this candle in the name of creativity. May its glow inspire us and give us the confidence to share our true selves with the world.

I light this candle in the name of friendship. May its light continue to bring us together, so that we might offer each other joy, comfort, and company.

I light this candle in the name of the sun. May its flame warm our spirit and stay with us in the months to come.

I light this candle in the name of the Earth. May it illuminate our path through the coming year and remind us to walk with peace and compassion for all Gaea’s children.

Closing Thoughts

Lughnasadh is a time for celebration, for honoring our skills and achievements and the work we do to be our best selves. It is also a time for reflection, to keep ourselves on track as we are buffeted by life’s challenges. In this way we prepare for the waning half of the year, for the work that still lies ahead, and for the coming winter. But in truth, the cycles of time have no beginning and no end. Time is a process, forever unfolding, forever spiraling forward. As we assess our progress over the previous year, we ready ourselves for what is to come. We start from this place of fellowship and move forward together to meet the world with fortitude and grace. The Wheel Turns. Blessed be. Blessed Lughnasadh.

Closing Poem

Suggested reading: “Burning Nettles” by Gillian Clarke

The Book of Qoheleth

Some Ancient Wisdom, Translated into the Vernacular by Tony Lewis

This is the Book of Qoheleth, descendant of King David and himself a king in Jerusalem. It’s all pointless, Qoheleth says. Life is pointless. You spend all your time working hard, and when it’s all over, what do you have to show for it? Generations come and go, but nothing really changes. The sun comes up, the sun goes down, the wind blows, the rivers flow into the sea, the rain fills the rivers, and it starts all over again. Round and round. Everything gets boring. You can never get enough stimulation, because at some point you’ve seen it all before. There’s nothing new under the sun. Anybody who says different is lying. Nobody really remembers the past, and in the future no one will really remember today. So what’s the point?


I am Qoheleth, King of Israel, and from my throne in Jerusalem, I decided to figure out the meaning of life.

Basically, life sucks. I’ve seen it all, believe me, and it’s all just smoke. You might as well spend your time trying to whistle down the wind. This may be one mess we just can’t fix. I can’t even tell you how bad it is. You know, I said to myself, “I’m a great man. I’m ten times smarter than all the previous kings put together. I know what real wisdom is, and I know what real knowledge is, so I’m going to figure out what’s smart and what’s stupid, what makes sense and what’s just plain crazy.” But like I said, you might as well be whistling down the wind. The smarter you are, the more you worry. A little knowledge is a dangerous thing.

So I decided to just live it up and be happy. But guess what? That’s just smoke, too. I learned that partying is just foolishness and it doesn’t do you one bit of good. See, I wanted to become a wise man, so I figured I needed to really experience life. And I thought Wine, Women, and Song sounded like a pretty good way for somebody to pass the time before he croaks. But you know, I did some pretty impressive things, too. I built palaces. I had my own vineyards. I had beautifully landscaped gardens. I had orchards with every kind of fruit tree you ever heard of; I even had my own irrigation system. I had more servants than I could ever possibly need, and I owned more livestock than anybody who ever lived. I had piles of cash collected from every corner of my kingdom. I had the best in entertainment. And I got more ass than a toilet seat. Yeah, I was pretty hot shit. And best of all, I was never wrong. Anything I wanted, I got. Simple as that. I denied myself nothing, and I was pretty proud of myself, I have to say. I figured I had busted my ass to get where I was, and I deserved it all. But the more I thought about how hard I’d had to work to get everything I had, the more I realized how pointless it was. It was like pissing in the wind, because I hadn’t done one damn thing that somebody else hadn’t already done before me.

Then I decided to sit down and figure out what it really meant to be wise or foolish or savvy or reckless. Of course everybody says, “Wisdom is better than foolishness, just like light is better than darkness.” But still, whether you’re a wise man or a fool, you’re gonna end up just dirt in the ground, so what do you really gain from all that wisdom? Nada. Not a damn thing. Wise man or fool, you’re gonna end up dead and forgotten, and I don’t care who you are. So I realized that my entire existence was pointless. Even with all my treasures, life was nothing but trouble and strife. It was all smoke. I’d just been whistling down the wind.

Nothing that I’d accomplished meant a damn thing to me anymore, because I realized you can’t take it with you. So I would have to leave it to whoever was king after me, and he might be wise or he might be a fool. Who the hell knows? Either way, he’ll own everything I busted my ass for, everything my so-called wisdom got me, so what’s the point? All of a sudden, I was sorry I’d worked so hard instead of just taking it easy. You work your ass off and put everything you have into it, and you just have to leave it to some jerk who didn’t lift a finger. What is the point? You struggle and sweat your way through life, and what do you have to show for it? Till the day you die, everything you try to do just makes you stressed out. You can’t sleep at night from worrying. It’s pointless.

The best you can do is just eat, drink, and be merry. Enjoy what you’ve got. It all comes from God anyway. Where else? And maybe God does right by the pious, but the less fortunate just slave all day and don’t get to keep what they earn anyway. It’s just smoke. You might as well be whistling down the wind.

Here’s a song:

To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to be born, a time to die
A time to plant, a time to reap
A time to kill, a time to heal
A time to laugh, a time to weep

To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to build up, a time to break down
A time to dance, a time to mourn
A time to cast away stones, a time to gather stones together

To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time of love, a time of hate
A time of war, a time of peace
A time you may embrace, a time to refrain from embracing

To everything there is a season
And a time to every purpose under heaven

A time to gain, a time to lose
A time to rend, a time to sew
A time for love, a time for hate
A time for peace… yada yada yada.

So what’s the point of trying if God really makes all the decisions? Life is a burden, so yeah, thanks a lot, God. He gives us the ability to wonder about life and ponder the future and try to make sense of it all, but he never really clues us in as to what the hell is going on. So the best you can do is don’t worry, be happy. Eat, drink, and be merry. Enjoy what you’ve got. It’s God’s gift to you. What God has made will endure forever. You can’t add anything to it and you can’t take anything away from it. To think otherwise is pure hubris. God is awesome, but it’s just the same stuff over and over and over again. There’s nothing new under the sun.

And another thing, did you ever notice how many times you look for justice and find nothing but injustice and corruption instead? What is up with that? I said to myself, God judges everybody, whether you’re good or bad, and anyway, he makes it all happen, doesn’t he? To everything there is a season, etc.? I think he’s just trying to take us down a peg or two. To make us see that we’re no better than the animals. After all, we wind up just as dead as the animals do. We’re no better off than they are; we both end up just dirt in the ground. Nobody knows what happens after you die. Nobody knows for sure that people go to heaven. Or that animals don’t, for that matter. You can’t possibly know. So why worry about it? Enjoy the good things you’ve got. I mean, what else can you do?

Anyway, about injustice and corruption, I looked around and I saw all the downtrodden people of the earth were crying out for someone to save them, and no one would do anything. Why? Because the people who were doing the trodding had all the power. They held all the cards, and woe to anybody who crossed them. I said to myself, the people who are dead and gone don’t know how lucky they are. They’re better off than the suckers who are still alive. The really lucky ones are the people who were never born in the first place. They’ll never have to deal with this shit at all.

So why do people work so hard to try to get ahead in life? It’s simple. Envy. They want whatever they see their neighbors have. It’s so pointless! It’s just smoke. You might as well be whistling down the wind. You say a man would be a fool to sit on his hands, do nothing, and let himself starve to death. Maybe so, but you’re better off being satisfied with having a little than running around your whole life, knocking yourself out trying to whistle down the wind.

Something else I just don’t get: a guy lives alone, no wife, no family, and still he works himself to death trying to get all he can, never satisfied with what he has. What’s the point? Who’s he doing it for? He’s not enjoying himself, he’s always stressed out and miserable. And for what? It makes no sense. Two heads are better than one, like they say. If you fall on your ass, a friend can help you up. If you’re out in the cold, a friend can help keep you warm. If you’re in a fight, a friend can watch your back. If you’re all alone, you’re shit out of luck. Let me put it another way: A twig is easily broken; a bundle of twigs, not so much.

You may start out with nothing and make yourself into a king, but if you’re too stupid then to take good advice, then you’re actually worse off than a kid with brains but no money. Think about it. And with all the people in the world, somewhere out there right now is a kid who will one day take your place. It doesn’t matter if you’re king of the whole goddamn world, one morning you’ll wake up dead and nobody will be grateful for anything you accomplished. It’s just smoke. You might as well be whistling down the wind.

Be careful what you wish for, especially in church. You’re better off going there to learn about yourself than going just to ask God to do you a favor, like those idiots who pray constantly but don’t even know right from wrong. If you are going to ask God to do something for you, think it through before you make any big promises. Remember, he’s the King of Heaven and you’re just some piss-ant mortal, so don’t get in over your head. The more you worry about it, the more likely you are to have nightmares, and the more you talk, the more likely you are to say something stupid, so when you do make a promise to God, do what you say you’re gonna do and be done with it. Don’t let God down, or what, you’re gonna come back later and say you didn’t really mean it? God don’t take kindly to that. You want him to smite you? It doesn’t matter if you’re a big dreamer, a hard worker, or a smooth talker; in the end, you’re nothing compared to God.

It should come as no surprise that the government treats the poor badly, denies them their rights, and offers them only injustice and corruption. At every level of bureaucracy, the people in charge have their asses covered by the guy above them. Even the king, at the top of the heap, can justify his actions one way or another. And if money is all you care about, you can never get enough. You’ll never be satisfied. It’s pointless. The more money you have, the more people you have to support. All you’ve really got is the privilege of saying “I’m rich.” A poor man may not have enough to eat, but at least he can get a good night’s sleep. A rich man is up all night worrying about his money!

And what’s worse is when people scrimp and save and work for years to squirrel away some money, and end up losing it all on a bad deal and winding up with nothing. What’s the point? You know you can’t take it with you. We come into this world with nothing, and we go out the same way. It doesn’t matter how hard you work, the end result is the same. It’s such a rip-off! You bust your ass trying to whistle down the wind, and what do you have to show for it? A life of misery, that’s what.

Listen, I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. The best you can do, the best anybody can do, is eat, drink, and be merry. Enjoy whatever good things you’ve got while you can, because you’ll be dead and buried soon enough. If God has decreed that you’ll have a good job and a nice house with some cool stuff, then count yourself lucky and don’t bitch and moan about what you ain’t got. It’s God’s gift to you, and it’s probably the best you’re gonna get, so don’t worry about it.

That’s another thing that bugs me. God gives somebody everything he could possibly want, but never lets him just enjoy it. Some complete stranger ends up enjoying it instead. What is the point? It’s a total rip-off. He could live a hundred years and have a hundred children, but he never gets to be happy, and when he dies, nobody even cares. A dead baby is better off than that guy. At least it doesn’t know what it’s missing. Not like the guy who never enjoys his life, no matter how long he lives. And anyway, they’re heading for the same place; the baby just gets there first, without all the hassles along the way.

A man works his life away just to get a meager amount of food, so how is the wise man better off than the fool? What good does it do a poor man to know the secrets of the universe? It’s just smoke. You might as well try whistling down the wind. You’re better off being satisfied with what you’ve got instead of always wanting more. God already determined everything a long time ago, and we all know there’s no point arguing with somebody stronger than you. The more you argue, the more pointless it is, and you’re no better off than when you started. You can’t expect to know where you’re heading in life, just as you can’t expect to know what’s going to happen after you’re dead.

Here’s some aphorisms:

They say a good reputation is better than the most expensive perfume. I say the day you die is better than the day you’re born.

It’s better to go to a funeral than to a wedding, because people need to be reminded that the Grim Reaper is waiting for us all.

Crying is better than laughing—you might look like hell, but you’re closer to the truth about the world.

A person obsessed with happiness is a fool; the wise man is obsessed with death.

It’s better to have smart people criticize you than to have stupid people sing your praises.

When a fool laughs, it’s just noise. It doesn’t mean anything.

When a wise man cheats somebody or takes a bribe, he might as well be a fool.

Endings are better than beginnings.

The patient man is better than the proud man.

Only jerks lose their temper, and only fools hold a grudge.

Never ask why things were so much better back in the old days. It’s a stupid question.

Everybody ought to be wise; it’s the best inheritance anybody could ever get. It keeps you safer than money does.

You think you can fix God’s mistakes? Who the hell are you?

When times are good, just shut up and enjoy it. The shit will hit the fan soon enough.

Remember, life is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you’re going to get.

My life has been pointless, but brother, I’ve seen it all. The good die young and the most evil sons of bitches live to a ripe old age. So don’t knock yourself out trying to be too good or too smart. But don’t be too nasty or too foolish either. I mean, why die before you have to? Look for the middle path. And if you take care of God, he’ll take care of you. Wisdom is good; wisdom will do more for you than ten kings would ever do, but remember, there isn’t a man on earth who is always right and never makes a mistake. And don’t worry about what people are saying about you. Maybe they’re insulting you, but it’s not like you never insulted anybody.

This is as far as my wisdom got me. I set out to figure out the meaning of life, but it was beyond me. And if I couldn’t figure it out, I don’t expect anybody could. Life is just too much of a muddle. I devoted my every waking hour to learning and studying and pondering the Big Questions. I was determined to find wisdom, to unlock the secrets of the ages, and to expose the foolishness and stupidity running rampant in the world.

I’ll tell you one thing I did learn—women are nothing but trouble. Her love will catch you like a fish in a net. Her tender embrace will trap you like iron shackles. A wise man might be able to get away, but a fool will be pussy-whipped forever. Oh yeah, I learned this the hard way during my search for truth. I tried to prove myself wrong, to come to some other conclusion, but there was just no avoiding it. I found maybe one man in a thousand that I could respect, but not a single woman. It all boils down to this: life should be simple, but we’ve made it complicated. Wisdom is the only thing that leads to truth; it’s the only way to find true satisfaction.

You want wisdom? Here’s some wisdom. Do what the king tells you to do, and don’t make any promises you can’t keep. The king answers to no one, so every minute you are with him, you are in danger. Why hang around such a dangerous place? Say what you have to say and get out of there. A wise man knows how to stay in the king’s good graces. There’s a right way and a right time to do everything, though it’s hard to know what that is. But eventually, your number’s up and it’s curtains for you, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Nobody cheats death forever.

I tell you, I’ve seen it all, and there’s no justice in the world. Some men are on the top and some men are on the bottom, and that’s just how it is. I’ve been to funerals for some of the most evil sons of bitches who ever lived, and I’ve seen people who ought to know better stand there and say what a great guy he was. It’s all smoke.

So why are people so willing to do rotten things? It’s simple. They think they can get away with it. And they usually can. You can commit a hundred petty crimes and not have to answer for any of them. I know people always say, “If you’re a good person, everything will work out for the best, but if you’re a sinner, God will punish you.” What a load of crap. Plenty of times, decent folks get the short end of the stick while heartless bastards live like kings. It’s all smoke.

So what can you do? Eat, drink, and be merry. Seriously. That’s all you can do. You can work on cracking the meaning of life 24/7, but you’ll never get anywhere. No matter how long, hard, and deep you think about it, you’ll never figure it out. Philosophers may say they know the answers to the Big Questions, but they don’t know jack shit.

I’ve thought about this and thought about this, and have come to one inescapable conclusion: God is the man in charge, and no matter how smart you are, nothing you do makes one whit of difference. You’re just going to end up dirt in the ground like everybody else. The wise man dies same as the fool. There’s no justice in the world. Life sucks and then you die. That’s just how it is. I guess it’s better to be alive than it is to be worm food. I mean, a living loser is better off than a dead hero, right? At least if you’re alive, you can look forward to tomorrow. Once you’re dead, that’s all she wrote. The dead don’t look forward to anything. They’re just dirt in the ground.

So go ahead—eat, drink, and be merry. Enjoy yourself. It’s okay with God. Don’t worry, be happy. Enjoy making love to your woman, as long as you have to live the worthless life God gave you in this crummy world. Enjoy every worthless day of it, because it’s all you’re gonna get. Do your best at whatever it is you have to do, because you won’t get to do anything once you’re dead. So make the most of it while you have the chance. Everybody dies, and you’re no exception.

You want the truth? Here it is: the fastest guy doesn’t always win the race, and the toughest guy doesn’t always win the fight. A good education doesn’t guarantee you a good job. Smart people don’t usually make a lot of money, and the most qualified guy doesn’t always make it to the top. Shit happens, and you never see it coming.

Let me tell you a little story. Once upon a time, there was a little podunk town, and a mighty army surrounded the town, and was about to roll in and flatten the place. Now, in the town there lived a really smart guy, and he figured out a way to save the town from getting flattened. But since he wasn’t rich or important, nobody listened to him. So the town got flattened. Now, I’ve always said it’s better to be smart than strong, but unless you’ve got money and influence, nobody thinks you know what you’re talking about. Sure, the whisper of one wise man is worth more than the shouts of a roomful of fools, and wisdom is better than any weapon, but the truth is, one idiot can undo the work of thousands.

Just as one bad apple spoils the barrel, one stupid decision can make a genius into a fool. And you can just tell when somebody’s got a good head on his shoulders or if he’s a stupid idiot. You don’t even have to know somebody to know he’s a fool; it’s obvious.

Oh, if the king does get pissed at you, whatever you do, don’t hand in your resignation. You may as well sign your own death warrant. Remember, yes-men rarely get executed, no matter how badly they screw up. That’s something else that pisses me off. I hate it when I see complete morons in positions of authority when the really intelligent guys languish in obscurity. It’s so completely ass-backwards. Some jumped-up little snot is cruising around in his Porsche while the guy with real talent is stuck riding a crummy bicycle.

You know how it is. If you dig a hole, you’re bound to fall in. If you work in a garden, some snake will probably bite you. If you build with bricks, you’re likely to smash your finger. If you try chopping wood, you end up with a nasty splinter. Or you wear yourself out because your ax is too dull. It’s good to plan ahead, but knowing how to charm a snake is no use if you let it bite you in the ass first. When a guy shows that he knows what he’s talking about, people respect him, but a fool just proves he’s a fool. He may start out just being funny, but pretty soon he’s made a complete ass of himself. A fool just doesn’t know when to shut up. You can’t count on the future. No one knows what tomorrow may bring. So don’t wear yourself out with hard work if you don’t know what the hell you’re doing.

A country is in big trouble when the king is an idiot and his advisors are a pack of greedy bastards. Count yourself lucky if the king knows how to make his own decisions and his generals aren’t a bunch of reckless drunks. A couple words of advice: if you’re too lazy to fix your roof, eventually it’s going to collapse on your own head. A good meal and a nice bottle of wine may make you feel happy, but you won’t have either if you’re flat broke. And if you are, don’t blame the king, don’t grouse about the rich and powerful, even in private. You never know who might be listening.

Invest your money in a diversified portfolio, because you never know when a particular market is gonna go south. Someday you might even make a profit. Just remember this: wherever you go, there you are. In other words, if you’re always waiting for conditions to be just right and you’re always testing the wind to see which way it’s blowing and you never actually invest, then you’ll never get the payoff. You can’t win if you don’t play. God is inscrutable. No matter how hard you try, you’ll never figure out what he’s up to. You might as well try understanding when life begins in the womb. So don’t worry about acting when the time is right, just act. You really don’t have any way of knowing if the time is right or not, so just do it.

Whatever happens, you’ve got to be able to enjoy the sun on your face, and be grateful for every year you’re still alive, because no matter how long you live, you’re going to be dead a hell of a lot longer.

Live it up while you’re young. Enjoy the hell out of it. Do whatever you want to do. Follow your dreams. Just remember the day will come when you have to pay the piper. But while you’re young, don’t worry about anything, don’t let anything get you down. Because you’ll get old before you know it, and then it’s all downhill. You become this cranky old curmudgeon, and you have to go to the bathroom constantly, you get frail and feeble, you have to gum your food, your eyesight starts to fail, you start going deaf, the slightest thing will wake you up at night, you get vertigo, you’ll need one of those stupid walkers, your hair goes gray, you’re full of aches and pains, and you can forget about having sex. And the next thing you know, you’re dead. Dirt in the ground. End of story.

You want to tell me life’s not pointless? Well, stop and smell the smoke.


Despite the pointlessness of it all, Qoheleth continued to share his insights with whoever would listen. He never gave up his pursuit of wisdom and deeper understanding. You may not like what he had to say, but at least he was honest. Think of him like a shepherd, trying to get a bunch of stupid sheep to go the right way by poking them with a sharp stick. And I bet his pithy sayings will last longer than the nails in your coffin. God’s like a shepherd too, in much the same way, come to think of it. But let this be a lesson to you: once you start in with the books, there’s no end in sight, and too much book-learning will make you crazy in the head. So fear God and obey his commandments, and don’t think you can put one over on him, or you’ll come up short on Judgment Day, and you better believe it. And that’s all I have to say about that.