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I was wearing my teasing little red shorts,

you were following me through the woods.

I kind of thought you were after me.

So did she, apparently, but you ended up

with her that night instead. So we didn't.

Decades later, I message you at Samhain,

wishing happy new year. I don't text,

you text back, call. But I don't call,

knowing the overwhelming torrent of words

would drown me. So we don't.

Now, if anywhere, you walk the flowering plains

of the Land of Youth, piping among the apple trees.

In 1991, Ohio's Lady Lhianna Sidhe worked an act of audacious magic: she conjured a Tribe of Witches into being.

Weary of the entry-level orientation of the pagan festival circuit, and the demographic swamping of experienced practitioners that invariably ensued, she dreamed of an invitational gathering of magical family with deep and long-time commitment to the Craft.

And so it was.

For 13 years in the nineties and early naughts, the mists would part and the Midwest elders of the Craft would meet on the holy isle of Avalon. Friendships, covens, and marriages were made. There was held (O happy Night!) the first Old-Time Witches' Sabbat—the “ecstatic adoration of the embodied Horned Lord”—of modern times. (Shining with firelight, He stood on the altar in all His naked male beauty, constellations wheeling between His antlers....) And indeed, the Midwest Grand Sabbat continues to work its weird, uncanny magic in the world, as it has ever since: the next will take place later this summer.

Witches being witches, along with the serious work—and no festival ever had inspired such a collective sense of momentum as Return to Avalon—much satire also ensued. Here are fragments of a song that some of us would regularly chant, there beyond the mists.

You already know the tune.

This is Avalon

Mythic Moons of Avalon
by Jhenah Telyndru
Llewellyn Books, 2019
(www.ynysafallon.com)
Reviewed by Molly Remer,
brigidsgrove.com

Rich with insight and lore from Celtic myth and legend, while also steeped in a steady structure of contemporary spirituality, Mythic Moons of Avalon is best for people with a specific interest in lunar workings, lunar magic, and Celtic traditions, and specifically, the stories of Avalon. It makes no pretense at being an authoritative historical compendium and is clear that this is a specific and modern approach with some ancient, historical roots and a deep connection to the physical landscape and terrain of the mystery, culture, and spirit of Avalon and Arthurian Britain (for a modern age).

The book is organized in month by month sections, some of which can feel repetitive, though the workings do build on one another as the book progresses. I did find it somewhat easy to inadvertently start to skim parts of the book due to repetition.

Excellent for a small group study as well as a personal journey of devotion and exploration, Mythic Moons of Avalon is definitely best suited to serious practice rather than casual curiosity. This is a book that is meant to be working into and through. It is meant to be treated respectfully and approached with dedication by someone serious about journeying into the depths of Avalonian mystery and tradition as well as into their own psyches and souls, applying the stories, wisdom, lunar phases, and herbal correspondences to their own lives.

A lesson that I keep on learning in life is that even the worst things usually have some sort of benefit to be wrestled from them with skill, patience, grace, or often luck. One such blessing was my ability to fulfill an adulthood-long dream to attend some of the Glastonbury Goddess Conference this year. Due to social distancing and travel restrictions and all, this was one of many annual events that transitioned to fully virtual. Sure, not everything works as well. Yet, some things work even better. I sat in (zoom) circles with women and men from Germany, Sweden, Portugal, Belgium, Australia, England (of course) and more to discuss everything from the loss of children to owning our power--writing sacred stories and manifesting peace. Of course, it awakened my own past meanderings through my internal isle of Avalon, where (doubly of course) everything is vegan like me! Here's the apple isle as I see it. If you read to the end, you will see that I've solved the riddle of that infamous quest, "Who does the Grail serve, and what is its purpose?" Read ahead at your peril. (JK there's no peril).

It’s been a busy time for me lately. As a magical mother I’m always doing two things or more at once, every day an endless list of practicalities, and my spiritual life is by necessity deeply enmeshed in the mortal physical world. I see no separation between magic and the mundane, I walk through the worlds seamlessly.  But there are times when I feel particularly blessed, when the realms of spirit come to me and I am given space, connection, without purpose, without focus, other than to touch and feed the soul, just a time to revel  in the love of the Otherworld.

Yesterday I walked the dog and child through endless meadows filled with knee high golden buttercups, purple clover and wild white cow-parsley, like sea-foam, as the glorious heat of the day began to subside, and the mists rolled and billowed from the many rhynes, or watery ditches that lace the fields around my home, in the marshes that surround Glastonbury Tor. I waded through clouds of gold and green and white flowers all wrapped in the white mists of Avalon. Soon the Tor ahead of me vanished into clouds, and the meadows became wreathed in their own eerie shimmering light. A buzzard, my ally and kin from the realms Above swooped overhead and vanished into the white encircling walls of mist, and it seemed we had wandered into Faerie. Dog and child leaped and played, and I gathered armfuls of fresh herbs, and the sound of crickets grew still. I breathed and felt the earth beneath me so full of life. We walked for a time in some blessed realm. And my heart was full to the brim.

Deep in the heart of every modern pagan lives the longing for the Pagan Place, where the old fires burn undiminished.

For 13 years, here among the hollow hills of the Midwestern US's Driftless Area, for one week a year, the mists would part, and we would enter into that place, the secret heart of Witchdom.

We called it Avalon.

In 1995, priestess Lhianna Sidhe dreamed of a gathering where those of deep experience in, and dedication to, the Craft could come together and collectively Turn the Wheel.

And turn it we did.

Solstice Blessings everyone! On the 21st, in the northern hemisphere, we celebrate the winter solstice, the shortest day when the Sun appears to 'stand still' while at its lowest  point in its yearly cycle. From then until the summer solstice in June the sun will shine for a little longer each day, in time bringing back the light and warmth.

In Britain this sacred time is said to be overseen by an ancient figure known as the Holly King- a counterpart to the Oak King who rules over the summer, both perhaps aspects of the Green Man, that mysterious divine figure which features in so many ancient Celtic tales. These beings have most evidence in the Middle Ages, but hark back to far older pagan traditions, reflecting both the importance of the oak to the druids, and the evergreen holly as its protective 'other face' during the winter months. The holly is said to have many magical powers, protecting from storms and ill wishes hence is presence as a decoration in the home over the darkest time of the year. It is also helpful as a Celtic 'power plant' in overcoming our own darker issues; pain, anger, jealousy, fear, grief, the darkness of the underworld within our own spirits. It achieves this by raising our life force, our kundalini, to give us the strength to overcome adversity within. The Holly King is a guide and guardian of this inner and underworld, known as Annwn in Celtic lore, which aligns energetically as well as psychologically with the mortal realm over the winter months, calling to us to seek stillness and sink into the cave, the great cauldron of the earth, to look within and seek rest and renewal...