It’s Imbolc today, the traditional Celtic celebration associated with the warming of the climate and the onset of lambing season as well as the Celtic fire goddess Brigit. Seen by ancient Celts as the start of spring it occupies the midway point between the Winter Solstice and Spring Equinox and is commonly associated with Groundhog Day, which traditionally takes place the day after.
For our annual megapost in celebration of Imbolc, we’ve gathered all of our content for Imbolc this year at PaganSquare as well as some links of interest from other sites. We wish you a merry Imbolc and hope the remaining days before the Equinox are warm for you and your families!
-Aryós Héngwis
EDIT:New posts made since yesterday evening have now been added to the list.
At long last, we’ve come to the valley of the year: the longest night, the middle of winter, and the apex of darkness. But as they so often say “it’s often darkest before the light” and cultures around the world have long celebrated midwinter with merry revelry, well aware that the Sun will soon return.
In our annual megapost for Yuletide, we’ve gathered as many stories as we could find about winter, seasonal merriment, and gift-giving for the holiday season. Many of the linked posts are from our own PaganSquare, but you’ll find plenty more if you feel inclined to look. We hope you and enjoy and wish you a very Merry Yule (and a Happy New Year’s)!
It’s that time of the year again: Samhain, undoubtedly many Pagans’ favorite festival is here and the veil is thinning. Time to get out your candles, dust off your broomsticks, and make the appropriate offerings to your deceased ancestors. It’s also, of course, Halloween, which is easily one of the most popular holidays in Western culture and therefore also a time for merry trick or treating, costuming, and creepy stories about ghosts and monsters.
In our annual megapost for Samhain, we’ve got plenty of both, both from PaganSquare as well as some of our favorite places on the web. Browse through to your heart’s content (though feel no compulsion to read them all), though be forewarned some content isn’t for the faint of heart!
-Aryós Héngwis
H/T to our blogger WeMoon for the wonderful Samhain image!
Greetings, fellow Witches and Pagans, and welcome to our annual marking of the time when light turns to dark. Though Samhain gets more of the attention, Mabon’s an important festival as well, marking the final gasps of summer and the beginning of the long descent into winter. It also marks the midpoint of the traditional harvest season, which begins with Lughnasadh and ends with Samhain.
As we are wont to do, we’ve gathered all of our content about this special time of the year as well as content from elsewhere we thought you’d find interesting. We hope you enjoy and wish you a merry autumnal season!
Welcome brethren, to the annual celebration of the growing season’s end and the harvest season’s beginning! Although perhaps not as widely known or celebrated as Samhain or Beltaine, Lughnasadh (also known as Lammas), remains an important component of the wheel of the year and an integral part of the annual sabbats, commemorating the point at which summer begins to transition to autumn.
As always, we’ve brought out a collection of content we thought would be of interest to all of you who follow us, some from Witches&Pagans, some from elsewhere. We hope you’ll enjoy!
And so that time of year has come again, when the Northern Hemisphere tilts towards the Sun, warming it to its hottest temperature, while the Southern Hemisphere tilts away, resting in the shade. Yes, that’s right, it’s the Summer Solstice for the North and the Winter Solstice for the South and we at PaganSquare are here to celebrate it with you!
As we have in the past for other holidays we’ve gathered a number of articles and posts we found interesting that celebrate this most holy of days. Many of the posts are from our own website, but there’s plenty of stuff from elsewhere listed as well should that catch your interest. In the meantime we wish you a very happy summer... or winter if that’s the side of the globe you hail from ;-) .
Happy Beltane / May Day, fellow Witches and Pagans!
Beltane, which bridges the seasons of spring and summer, is arguably one of the most important and/or popular Celtic festivals out there and we’re doing all we can to help you celebrate. With that in mind, we’ve gathered the most relevant articles from across PaganSquare for your perusing. Additionally we’ve also gathered other pieces from across the web to inaugurate your summer celebrations as well as a few pieces about Earth Day, which passed earlier last week.
We hope you all enjoy your Beltane and have a wonderful summer!
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...
Victoria
I would say as neopagans we are constructing our futures rather than reconstructing THE future. I'm not sure if we are in the process of becoming a tr...
Steven Posch
Not so sure about "culty," though.Many--if not most--peoples with a collective sense of identity have a term for the "not-us people": barbaroi (non-He...
Mark Green
OK, this is funny.But could we [i]please[i] stop using that word (or, worse, "Muggles")?Having a down-putting term for people who aren't a part of you...
ty!
