Today’s Full Monday Moon on the 27th is known as the Beaver Moon or the Mourning Moon. It’s true the holidays aren’t always a barrel of laughs for everyone, and in fact can stir up old resentments and new stressors. You could consider or feel the need to make this a time of hibernating and healing if that sounds healthier for you. Are there any social obligations you can skip? Any family rituals that you’ve outgrown? Perhaps it’s time to create some new traditions of your own with you second “family” network of close and trusted friends. Or just keep it simple with your significant other. As Diana Rajchel points out in this year’s Llewellyn Witches’ Datebook, “forced jollity” might not be the way to go for you at this time. Ask yourself instead if what you need is some self-care and self-love right now. Ask this Full Moon for some added protection as well, so old wounds aren’t reopened again. Because Goddess knows, there are some unhappy souls who will always test your boundaries around this time of year.
It was a warm, clear afternoon in the desert. The children had just hunted eggs and were now happily consuming their candies, busy and out of the way. It was time.
We were gathered around the altar, passing the drinking horn in a sumbel ritual. In sumbel, we pass the horn from person to person. Whoever has the horn makes a toast and then passes the horn. Holding the horn indicates whose turn it is to speak, even when people are actually drinking from individual cups.
Continuing my series on novel gnosis, that is, religious insights I gained via writing my unpublished novel Some Say Fire, today I'm talking about Odin and the number 3. Three as a sacred number recurs in many stories in heathen mythology, that it, the mythology of the pre-Xian peoples of northern Europe. It also occurs again and again in the broader context of pagan mythology in the rest of Europe and related cultures. Odin's symbol the Valknut is a set of 3 interlocking triangles.
In the Fireverse, the universe of Some Say Fire, Odin’s 2 wolves Geri and Freki are generated out of Odin. Like his 2 ravens and his 2 brothers, he creates them by dividing himself. He has the power to divide himself into 3 parts and he does it 3 times: once each to create the wolves, the ravens, and his brothers.
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...