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Over a doobie one festival afternoon, Feri elder Alison Harlow and I are talking holidays.

“I just love Imbolc,” she says wistfully, “when the almond trees bloom.”

All real paganism is local. Allison was a daughter of Califia, through and through.

Me, though, I'm a naturalized Minnesotan. For us, Imbolc is the time of year when we're up to our asses in snow, when the cold between the stars descends to Earth, when night is loud with the gunshot report of cracking trees.

Here in the North Country, we love Imbolc too, but we love it because it means that Winter's halfway over, and that we may just—if we're lucky—have a chance of living to see Spring again.

Truly, all paganism is local.

“Shut the f*ck up,” I tell her, laughing.

If I believed in reincarnation, I would say that the guy from across the street is the young Jim Morrison come again, hair and all. Now here he is in all his glory, out walking the dog.

He's so beautiful that you just want to stare at him, but of course I don't. That's no way to treat someone, especially someone who's giving you pleasure, and besides, who wants to be the creepy, leering old guy across the street?

Ah, aging. You can be resentful, or you can savor the gifts of time. As Sokrates said, the contemplation of beauty is its own reward.

In his old age, poet Victor Anderson, Father of the Feri tradition, was on a bus one day when someone, noticing the direction of his gaze, said—probably disparagingly—“Well, you certainly like looking at the young ladies, don't you?”

Anderson smiled.

I can feel my neurons, they are a rapidly proliferating web of connections like mycelial network running through deep forest soil, intertwined with the roots of trees.

Virtually all tribal societies transmit tradition through the medium of songs. In this Season of the Ancestors, we remember the Mothers and Fathers by gathering to tell their stories and sing their songs.

Green Grow the Rushes-O has been part of the Younger Witchery since the early 1960s at very least (some would say for much longer than that); Robert Cochrane, father of the modern Old Craft movement, mentions the song in his letters. This version, which I learned from Feri elder Alison Harlow in 1980, functions both as riddle-song and teaching-song. (Any teacher can tell you that making the student figure things out for herself is the most effective heuristic.)

The mysterious Eleven Words of Power are said in witch legend to be, in fact, the very basis of all existence; but of this I should probably say no more.

Ask most folks how a pearl is formed and they'll tell you something like "A piece of sand or grit gets into the oyster's shell and then the oyster coats the grit and hey presto! We have a pearl"

It's  a lovely story, but  it isn't quite right. The coating part is accurate, but the "piece of sand or grit" isn't. Actually, the irritant is usually a parasite and it begins to eat at the lining of the oyster. The oysters immune system then begins to secrete two substances that form a nacre and then it basically entombs the parasite and its host, killing it and protecting itself. The byproduct of that self-preservation is a pearl. In cultured pearls, the oyster is actually wounded and it's that wounding that begins the healing process, eventually forming a pearl. 

Who is this flower above me,
And what is the work of this god?
I would know myself in all my parts.
~ Feri Flower Prayer

My work of late has been focused around surrender, specifically, surrendering to the moment and surrendering to the Gods. And first and foremost, I have to surrender to my Self, specifically, to my Godself.*

For this next edition in my series of devotional playlists for the gods of the Feri tradition of Witchcraft, we take a look at Dian Y Glas (and boy does he liked to be looked at). Dian Y Glas, also called simply "Blue God", Is the youngest [mostly]male emanation of the Star Goddess in the pantheon of Feri deities. Dian Y Glas is often seen as young, lustful, and androgynous. He represents the love and passion held deep within the heart of the Star Goddess, where all things emerge. 

Blue God to me represents the power of the ecstatic Craft that celebrates all things free and wild. His energy is chaotic but seems to make sense on a deep and cellular level. He is filled with pride, confidence, and attraction, which are all things that awaken within us when we follow the tune of his call. My playlist for Dian Y Glas consists of songs that make me jump up and down and scream "I am ME and I am completely and utterly awesome in every sense of the word."