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According to Lady Svetlana of Feraferia, the signature foods of Samhain are the “gnomic” ones: i.e. roots and tubers.

Simultaneously bright and dark, this hearty, satisfying melange of above- and below-ground crops welcomes the season when, in the words of her longtime partner, visionary Fred Adams, “as seeds and litter settle to earth, dreams and All Souls rise from the dense, rooted underground to soft[en] and fuse them.”

Also known as wheat gluten, mun cha'i ya, and seitan, mock duck is a traditional meat substitute in the cuisines of East Asia. Sliced into “coins”, the carrots (gold) and parsnips (silver) betoken—or, by the power of sympathetic magic, induce—a year of prosperity to come.

Boss Warlock's Mock Duck with Roasted Root Vegetables in an Orange Glaze

A Cautionary Tale for the New Pagani of the West

He called himself a pagan, but what he really was, was an ex-Christian.

My coven-sib was dating a guy who worked at the Renn Fest. Because he identified as pagan, she invited him to our Sunrise Yule brunch.

Alas, though, he had nothing to say about the Sun, the Wheel, or the Season. All that he wanted to talk about—and he wanted to talk a lot—were Jesus, the Church, and “Christianity”—as if such a monolith actually existed.

Needless to say, the relationship didn't last long.

Needless to say, we never invited him back.

As Norwegian Egyptologist Jan Assmann sees it, the defining distinction between religions is not monotheism or polytheism, but whether they're Primary or Secondary.

Primary religions—what we may call the Old Paganisms—arise directly out of human experience of That Which Is.

Secondary religions—the Abraham religions being prime examples—arise out of reaction against Primary religions. Such worldviews, Assmann notes, are inherently dangerous because they automatically come with an enemy attached. This helps explain the bloody swath that the children of Abraham have cut through human history.

(Check out your favorite news-site. They're still doing it today.)

It also helps define an important distinction between the Old and New Paganisms.

The Old Paganisms were, by definition, Primary Religions.

The New Paganisms—alas—not so much.

I've long admired Svetlana Butyrin (1934-2010), Lady of Feraferia: ace ritualist, pioneer visionary, who could treasure the most minute detail without losing sight of the overarching trajectory, and never feared to follow an idea to its logical conclusion.

The Colors of the Year

For instance: If Samhain has black and orange, and Yule red and green, she asked, what about the other holidays?

Here's her list.

Samhain: black and orange

Yule: red and green

Imbolc: electric blue and purple

Ostara: pink and blue

Beltane: hot pink and turquoise

Midsummer: chartreuse and gold

Lunasa: yellow and beige

Harvest Home: light orange and light brown

Agree or not, one has to admire the sheer daring of such an endeavor.

(Incidentally, lest you think this mere Martha Stewartry, let me hasten to add that we see here a deep, and deeply sophisticated, Goddess-God theologizing. Pagans see theology everywhere, color included.)

The Ostara Horror

A Feriferian Idyll

In the heat of the afternoon, Kouros lay in the leafy shade by the side of the forest pool.

Deep into its dark waters he gazed. There he beheld a Youth of shining beauty gazing back at him. Their eyes met.

Filled with wonder, Kouros stretched forth his hand. The Youth took it, and he drew him forth naked from the waters. They stood gazing, one upon another, admiring.

“How beautiful you are,” said Kouros.

“No more beautiful than you,” said the Kouros of the Pool.

“How sculpted your chest, how tender your nipples,” said Kouros.

“How broad your shoulders, how full your lips,” said the Other Kouros, and their lips joined.

Their bodies pressed together, strength to strength.

Through all that long Summer's afternoon, the grove rang with the sounds of their love play: the Dark Twin and the Light.

Listen well, my love, and you can hear them still.

Ever since planting day, she's been there, back in the corner of the garden, up to her knees in the good, rich soil.

For the last seven months, every time I looked out, she's stood there looking back.

And now she's gone.

It was an amazing growing season, the longest on record.

But now it's over.

I cleared out the garden this weekend, and the little clay goddess came indoors to sleep on her bed of sweet sage in the storage cupboards, among the herbs, the dried beans, and the many-colored jars of summer goodness.

It's the Fallows, the Time Between: the no-more of Samhain and the not-yet of Yule. Fred Adams of Feraferia called this time Repose:

Even by pagan standards, it's an incredible story.

On February 3, 2016, Dr. Yevgeny Botkin (1865-1918), personal physician to Nicholas II, the last tsar of Russia, was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church, 98 years after he was executed by the Bolsheviks along with the tsar, and the tsar's wife and children.

Known as “Righteous Passion-Bearer Yevgeny the Physician,” his son Gleb Botkin (1900-1969) was later to become the founder of the Long Island Church of Aphrodite, which in 1938 became America's first legally-recognized new pagan organization.

“It's better than worshiping Mary Baker Eddy [founder of Christian Science],” quipped the New York judge who granted legal recognition.

In this season of the ancestors, I remember W[illiam] Holman Keith (1900-1993), the Baptist minister who fell in love with the Goddess and so became one of the pioneers of the New Paganism in the United States.

From the jacket of his book Divinity as the Eternal Feminine, the first (1960!) American book of self-consciously pagan theology:

W. Holman Keith, born June 11, 1900 at Vincennes, Indiana, began his “pilgrimage of faith,” to use his own words, with evangelical Christian Protestantism. After taking a BA degree at Franklin College...he went on to earn the degrees of Bachelor of Divinity and Master of Systematic Theology at Newton Theological Institution...and an MA in Theology at the University of Chicago. His subsequent career included two brief pastorates at Baptist churches in Massachusetts and New York. However, he writes, “I was progressively disillusioned in the two theological schools I attended,” and he subsequently abandoned his vocation as a minister. His search for faith “at last found its haven in a small chapel in West Hempstead, Long Island, New York, known as the Church of Aphrodite, of which the Rev. Gleb Botkin was the founder, and the priest of Aphrodite.

Presently, the author writes, “the challenge of this truth commands all my loyalties of mind, heart, and will.

And so it would be to the very end of his life.