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Subscribe to this list via RSS Blog posts tagged in wheel of the year

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

In the evening we prepare for a very simple family Lammas ritual. I don’t feel inspired to do anything elaborate, so we cut our loaf of special bread,  prepared earlier by my sister-in-law and delivered warm. We add blackberry jelly to our slices and leave one slice for our offering.  We step out together onto the deck and set the bread, a candle, and a garnet-colored meditation goddess onto the center of the deck. We speak aloud of our gratitude for the changes, blessings, and creations of the last few weeks and of the months since Imbolc. Then, we each tear off a piece of bread from the extra piece and speak aloud what we will be sacrificing, what we are willing to change in the new season. a pattern emerges from our words, that of a family-wide wish for a better and healthier schedule, earlier dinner-times and bed-times, more opportunities to play together.
b2ap3_thumbnail_persephone-mandala.jpg

We join hands and close our micro-ritual with our favorite blessing:

"May goddess bless and keep us, may wisdom dwell within us, may we create peace."
—Carol P. Christ

I feel warm and satisfied with this tiny ritual, this simple observance of the season, this connection between the elements to those I love best.

Image and words from my new book, Walking with Persephone: a journey of midlife descent and renewal forthcoming from Womancraft Publishing (now available for pre-order with bonuses!) This book is a walk through the changing cycles of the year and nature with me as I learn to let my steps be guided by Persephone. 

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Put a Cork In It - Charmed Life Charm

The next time you enjoy a beverage sealed with a cork, keep the cork. This does not have to be a champagne cork—they are all lucky. When a bottle is shared and the occasion is a happy event or joyous moment, secret away the cork from the bottle, making a wish for repetition of the pleasure as you do so, and placing a coin in a slit in the top of the cork.

Now you must sleep on the cork every night (under your pillow) and keep it in your pocket all the next day. Rub the cork any day thereafter when you wish to hear from the other person or people who shared the bottle with you; do not wish for love but rather for continuing happiness. The cork symbolizes buoyancy, not love.

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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

Don’t mind me,

I’m out getting lost

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Recent Comments - Show all comments
  • Jamie
    Jamie says #
    Molly, Loved the poem! Thanks for sharing the "May Magic" prayerbook with us, great stuff as always.
  • Molly
    Molly says #
    Thank you so much! I didn't see your comment until today.

Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs
It is April and Earth’s Mystery School
is in session.
The dogwoods are preparingMay be an image of flower and outdoors
to hold council,
draped in white
as they line the corridors
of discovery.
Chickweed has already been
holding a party in the front yard,
scattering the grass with stars.
The violets are keeping company
with dandelion,
trading tips on how to best enjoy the sun,
while waiting for bees
to waltz over from the plums.
Speaking of plums,
they’ve got a lot to say,
bursting with enthusiasm
and excitement to share
all they’ve brought to offer
and arraying their teachings
before you with a delicately irrepressible
and intoxicating air.
Dialogues with daisies will be
beginning just down the way
and there is much to learn
from elderberry
as it stretches tall
and prepares for an audience
capable of patience and possibility.
Lillies and iris are considering
options for collaboration
and preparing a display,
but they will be waiting a bit longer
for just the right moment to speak.
Hyacinth is feeling shy,
but has a small class to offer
on tapping into delight
and touching deep secrets
and long memories.
It is a fine time to divine with witchhazel
along the way
and choose recipes with maple No photo description available.
and morel,
time to talk tea and tinctures
with toothwort and trillium
and to learn sweet secrets from
redbud and lilac.
Raspberry and blackberry
are getting ready for a team effort,
teaching about the sweetness of boundaries and about
holding space.
Rose will be a guest lecturer
as she knows a lot about balancing
bounteous blooming
with assertive limits.
Wild cherry has been wondering
what to share
and soon she’ll spread her
graceful arms
to welcome you when summer school begins.
Leave behind your computer,
you won’t need it.
Lessons are free and open 24 hours,
broadcast live even from
sidewalk cracks and roadsides
and vacant lots.
You’re welcome to study
as long as you like
as long as you’re open
to the schedule
of what is now.
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Posted by on in SageWoman Blogs

“No longer am I only hearing my own voice
but instead I co-exist in a world where
No photo description available.everything speaks with  its own unique, quirky, gorgeous personality. Every berry has a little  voice, every grass stalk makes itself known. I become surrounded by a  community of living Earth, and this entire community is willing to play  with me in this changing game of life.”

—Day Schildkret (Morning Altars, @morningaltars)  

What is waiting for you to notice it?

Do you have time to play in this changing game of life?
  

As we enter the flourishing of spring, I have a practice-based audio meditation to share based on Day Schildkret's book Morning Altars. It is a Place Meditation.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

Pity the poor cowans.

Yes, now is the time of year when I always feel sorry for non-pagans.

Deep Winter. The great, glorious blaze of the holidays has burned itself out, and Spring is still a distant hope on the horizon. Until then, only the endless, hard slog of Winter stretches out before us, a vast, unbroken expanse of snow: long, interminably long.

Poor cowans: all this way till Spring, and nothing in between but (ugh) Valentine's.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Imbolc.

Solstices, equinoxes, and the days that fall in between: the Wheel of the Year, we call it, a wheel of Eight Spokes. A party every 45 days or so. In the pagan world, there's always something to look forward to.

It's a hopeful way to live: a milestone to mark the way, every month and a half. Everything is always moving, nothing lasts. Nothing is permanent but the Cycle. It says a lot about pagans that we find this fact consoling.

It's a way to mark Time, to remind us that we're constantly en route. (Pagans are always in motion. Even when we're sitting still, we're moving.) “Back before Beltane....” we say.

Walking down the street, I see an awful lot of old Yule greens still up, looking pretty tired and desiccated by now. All mark cowan homes.

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Posted by on in Culture Blogs

 

 

A friend's high priestess sent her a beautifully crafted wooden wheel for Yule. An apt gift, certainly.

(Witches are big into wheels. Life, Time, Space: for us, it's all Wheels.)

Naturally, my friend called her up to thank her.

My friend: What's the symbolism of the ten spokes?

(The Witches' Wheel usually has eight.)

High Priestess: No, it has eight spokes.

MF: No, it has ten.

HPss: (Changes subject.)

Myself, I was pretty disappointed to hear this story.

(Talk about a teachable moment. When your student asks you a question that you can't answer, what should be the first words out of your mouth? Obviously, "Well, what do you think?" As a teacher, you don't teach stuff; you teach thinking.)

First off, I was disappointed that the woman hadn't looked carefully enough at the wheel—it was a gift, after all—to realize that it had ten spokes rather than the canonical eight.

Second, I was disappointed that she didn't know the symbolism of the ten-spoked wheel.

Third, I was disappointed that she didn't try to bullshit her way out of it.

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