Feeling crafty - an alternative Lughnasa

The Lughnasa wreath experiment

 So it's getting close to Lughnasa again and this year I am trying something a little bit different. Usually my Lughnasa involves a family picnic and either some hiking and plant collecting or some age appropriate physical games. This year though we are facing health problems on several fronts that make an active outdoor Lughnasa much more complicated so I decided we needed  a back-up plan. I noticed several people talking about Lughnasa as a time for both the traditional activity of bread baking and also of crafting, and I thought maybe this would be a good direction to go in.
   I am researching how to make my own bread from scratch and plan to make some for Lughnasa. My friends have had several great suggestions about how to approach this new project and I truly appreciate all the advice I've gotten, from recipes to how to properly get the dough to rise. Also - great advice indeed - to have several trial runs before cooking for the actual holy day. I'll be sure to post after Lughnasa to let you all see how it goes.
   Another inspiration I had was to try embroidery, after a good friend suggested it was an easy sowing craft to get into. I went to the store today to look for supplies and I admit I lost my nerve; the array of options was a bit too overwhelming for me without having a certain idea of what I was doing. But when I saw a set of grape wreathes I had a bit of an inspiration for a craft I have done before which can be time consuming but is easy and fun - making my own decorated wreath. I decided to pick up some basic supplies and give it a go today to see how it was and get a better plan for what to do with it on Lughnasa next week. The children wanted to make one too so we purchased a large wreath and a small one, ribbon, and assorted fake flowers. The easiest shape I know how to make on such a wreath is a basic star, so that is what we did, although I am now trying to figure out how to do a more complicated shape, perhaps a triquetra. The project was fun and not too difficult and the girls enjoyed it, so I will definitely start planning a more intricate version for the holiday.

The children's wreath

    Since I had the ribbon I also decided to decorate a blank book, as the one I have for keeping notes on my Druidic material is nearly full and needs a second volume. This is something I have done many times before and something I enjoy doing; I had never really thought of it as crafty, per se, but as I was working on it I found myself reflecting on the different ways that Lughnasa crafts can be expressed. Perhaps there is something appropriate in making decorative wreath to bless my home and a book to write about my spirituality in on a holiday associated with harvesting; certainly I found myself reflecting on the year and what I have harvested in my own life. I think next week on the actual holiday I will intentionally work this retrospective aspect into the craftwork, perhaps as a discussion with my children where we can all share our thoughts on the past few months.

The cover of the new book - the image is from a greeting card

The inside cover of the new book - image is also a greeting card

Cumhacht na Teanga - or why I keep trying to learn Irish

Cumhacht na teanga means 'the power of language' in Irish Gaelic, a language I have been trying since my teens to learn. I have a limited proficiency reading it at this point and some ability to converse in writing; my accent when speaking is probably horrifying. So why, after almost 20 years, do I keep trying, keep working at it, when its obviously such a challenge?
   I have many reasons, of course, for people who ask. First and foremost is that I want to speak it, fluently, and I am driven by the desire to teach my children to speak it. It's the language of my ancestors and makes me feel connected to them and to the gods I honor (as a side note of ancestral languages I also speak German, in which I was at one point fluent). I am also keenly aware of how few people still speak Irish and how easily it could go the way of Cornish and Manx, declared "dead" languages and now seeing efforts at revival. It pains me to think of Irish as a dead language, with all its beauty and lyricism reduced to history books and old songs.
   Second of all it would make studying the material I study easier. In much of the scholarly writings and folklore Gaelic words are used to convey concepts or descriptions and I want to know what those words mean, not just guess from context. I also have many dual language editions of myths and I want to know how similar they are to the translations. I want to be able to read the material directly and draw my own conclusions, instead of relying on someone else's opinions.
  Another driving reason is that I want to understand the culture of the Irish, and so much of culture is conveyed in language, or perhaps we could say that language is an inherent expression of culture. It shapes how we think and how we relate to the world and other people; language in many ways is a direct reflection of culture. In psychology we call this the Whorf-Sapir hypothesis. Although this hypothesis is not supported by everyone, I do believe that language shapes how we relate to the world and our culture because it is the main tool of expressing that culture and perception. Idioms are a great example of this, a way that a culture expresses unique ideas through language.
   In CR and neopagan Druidism there is a continuous discussion about the need to learn a Celtic language. Many persuasive arguments are put forth over the value of langauge and of the need for those following Celtic paths to honor that path by learning the language of the culture they study. For me all of that is moot; I am driven to learn Irish by an intrinsic force, the same kind that makes me write poetry or calls me to be a polytheist. I feel as if the language is a part of who I am in some way, no matter how poorly I speak it now, and no matter how long it takes I will keep trying.
   Tir gan teanga, tir gan anam.

Book Review: Through the Faerie Glass

  Yesterday I read Through the Faerie Glass by Kenny Klein, a book I had high hopes for and very much wanted to like. Unfortunately it didn't live up to my expectations. I decided to review it here to share my thoughts on it with everyone.
   This book is a truly mixed bag, with good material and points side by side with bad. One of the most frustrating things when reading it is that the author often states information without any references of sources, leaving the reader unable to track down how factual something is, or what an idea is based on. His bibliography is extensive but random, with everything from the Rees's Celtic Heritage and Yeats to the Bible and modern fiction novels. It is also difficult at many points to follow what the author is saying as he will make one statement at one point and then a contradictory statement later; he goes around and around about the Fey being human folk memories of people meeting more primitive peoples, or being Gods, or being supernatural, for example, intermixing theories together and stating them each on their own. He is particularly set on the Faeries being the ancient Picts who were driven into the hills, he says, by the Celts and their iron technology, although he also says the Picts themselves may be Otherworldly, magical, shamanic, etc.,. This theory was a pet one of Gerald Gardner and featured in the novel The Mists of Avalon but there is absolutely no evidence, archaeological or folkloric, to support the idea.
  Looking at the good points first the book starts with a warning against the Victorian view of faeries, and advises that the Fey are more complex and potentially dangerous than little garden sprites. The book also includes excerpts of many traditional pieces including the Ballad of True Thomas, Tam Lin, and other traditional folk songs or poems about faeries. The book also includes some good genuine folklore and belief that can often be ignored in other modern books, like the Selkies marrying human husbands or the Fey stealing children and brides.
  Now intermixed within the good we see the bad. I've already mentioned his belief that the Picts were the Faeries and this becomes the crux of several problematic points. He says the words fairies and pixies are directly from the term Picts, which is just not etymologically sound. Pict is from the Latin for painted; pixie is of unknown origin, and fairy is from the Latin for fate.He states that the Irish word Sidhe means mound dweller (it means fairy hill) and is derived from the name for the Picts who lived, he claims, in underground homes. He states that iron is a good protection against faeiries (true) but he says its because the Picts would have feared the strange new metal or else associated it with death and warfare. He also claims that the reported time difference between our world and Fairyland comes from Celts who visited with the Picts and ingested psychogenic plants that distorted their sense of time, creating a false sense of being in another world; because, he says, the Picts were shamans who used psychotropic plants and apparently gave them out to untrained visitors.
   Getting away from the Pictish nonsense, he also is very fond of the idea that Gods are actually fairies, a reverse of what many fairy faith and Celtic pagans believe. So instead of the gods being reduced into fairies, or put into the category of the aos sidhe, he says that the gods are fairies themselves along the lines of traditional pixies, selkies, etc., He says that  Rhiannon is an underworld horse fairy. Cerridwen is a bird fairy because in her myth she turns into a bird twice, and the Sumerian/Hebrew goddess Lilith is an owl fairy. Surprisingly Llew is not a bird fairy, but a Sun God, so maybe its especially goddesses? Although he does say Odin is a fairy (and that Tyr is Odin), so, I don't know. Which sums up a lot of this book.
   His section on Samhain is comic, with a very interesting discussion about how the Celts believed that Death (capital D) was wandering around on Samhain and could freely take anyone It felt like. So, he says, the Celts dressed up as ghosts to trick Death into thinking they'd already kicked it, and they placed lit turnips in front of their homes to signal that Death had already been there. Because apparently he thinks that Death leaves a glowing turnip as a "Death was here" marker; I assume so that It isn't wasting It's time going back to the same houses It's already been to. I found this extremely funny.
   The author also mixes in a lot of Middle Eastern and Hebrew material with the Celtic and talks a lot about Greek Nymphs and Dryads in a Celtic context which I thought was a bit odd, but neither good nor bad. Alright the bit about Druids sleeping by streams to receive inspiration from naiads was bad, and that bit about "Cailleach bheara" being the title of the banshee when she takes the form of a deer...um, yeah, that was kind of painful.
  Anyway, I wouldn't recommend it. There are good points but not nearly enough to outweigh the awful. I'm not going to bother with the second book about Fairy Tale rituals. I'm kind of surprised there is a second book, but I guess people who don't know better can't discern the quality of the material. Or they just don't care.

Random Spritual Update...

I promise to get back to my regular style of blogging soon - I have ideas to blog about the Colloquy of Two Sages, Manannan mac Lir, Brighid, maybe Badhbh, wands, and some other assorted fun things - but I wanted to keep everyone who has been following my rambling spiritual quest up to date. So, here is a random update.
   This past week has been turbulent on several fronts. I found out a very dear friend who has just started chemo again is in the hospital with complications, and I am very worried about her. My youngest daughter, who has chronic medical issues, cut her foot at the beach and now we are infection watch. Personally, I have been fighting repeated migraines as I try to switch from one medication to another and also found out that I am anemic. It has been one of those weeks were everyday seemed to bring more and more challenges.
    I always try to find some good in everything, and if nothing else this past week has helped me to better understand my own need for spiritual fulfillment and, more importantly, what I need in a religion. I have missed the daily routine of my CR Druidic practices and when I have been at my lowest I have sought comfort in the natural world and in the spirits I feel closest too: Macha, my father, my great-grandmother, the spirits of the land and the spirits of certain plants. It's an interesting mix, to be sure. I also had time to really reflect on the ways that Wicca does and doesn't work for me, and I think I've accepted now that, while it will always hold happy memories for me, its just not right for me. From a purely intellectual perspective modern Druidism, specifically ADF, makes the most sense and would allow to me to incorporate my diverse interests and pantheons. Of course I've been a card carrying member of ADF since 2001 and have never done anything with it, having been drawn immediately into more specifically Celtic approaches, but I have decided that the next logical step in this self exploration is to give a fair shot to neopagan Druidism.
  I may find out that, in the end, I will be walking alone on my own path that is a blend of what I like best from all the religions I have experienced. But over time I have forgotten or lost the little bits of joy in each of them, and I am determined now to reclaim them - already I have valuable lessons from Wicca to bring forward, things that I enjoy or make me happy but that I stopped doing because they didn't fit into a new approach. It's time to see what Druidism holds for me.

Dark Night of the Soul, part 2

   So its been about a month since I decided to re-assess my spiritual framework and chose to, basically, discard everything and start over at the beginning in order to find what really works for me. It was harder than I expected to let go of decades of built up practice, but there was also something oddly cathartic about it. It's been an interesting experience so far, filled with insight and frustration.
    Part of why I made this decision was that I didn't feel happy with my religious practice anymore, feeling rather that it had become a series of empty actions. I felt that in some areas of religious practice, especially heathen, I had developed a neurotic fear of doing it wrong that was interfering with my ability to genuinely connect to the Powers I was worshipping. I also was feeling a lot of frustration with my communities, for a variety of reasons, that made me feel like an outsider. Whether this was reality or my own perception it created a feeling of alienation. The combination made me feel very inadequate and made ritual something I dreaded instead of looked forward to. So I stopped all the religious practices (although not the devotional or magical practices) and went back to where I began.
    There have been many frustrating aspects of this experience so far, one of which was realizing that some things can't be regained once they are outgrown. Can I really be an eclectic Wiccan? Honestly, I don't know. Wicca is a specific religion with its own cosmology, theology, and rituals. They are beautiful, fulfilling beliefs and in some ways they do overlap with my own but I had to revisit that to see the ways they don't fit. I have been a polytheist for too long to embrace a view of deity as aspects of a single power. Although my own view is in itself a bit vague (is Odin also Wotan? Is Lugh, Llew? etc.,) trying to view deity as a single being that emanates as two gendered beings, that in turn manifest as a multitude of deities has been very difficult. I am just too used to the individual personalities to revert to this other view. I have struggled with the ceremony and detail of Wiccan ritual, which is so much more involved and time-consuming than heathen or CR approaches.
   Now it's true that, in most ways, you can't go back. I'm not an 11 year old anymore and I can't recapture the innocent  belief and uncritical wonder I felt back then. However going back helped me to remember some of the simple things that meant a lot to me but where lost along the way. I love singing during ritual for example and I like a religion that not only allows but normally includes magical practice, something that is lacking in heathenry and CR. I also like the sense of freedom and inclusiveness of eclectic Wicca. On the other hand the past month has also made me realize that I like heathenry's emphasis on community and personal responsibility, as well as CR's emphasis on research and facts. It is also clear to me that my gods are *my* gods, and even with the freedom to wander I chose to stick with the Powers I've built up connections to over the years.
  Probably the biggest thing I've realized so far is that certain things are key aspects of my own practice. The faeries/vaettir and ancestors are pivotal to my system of belief and ritual in a way that transcends any individual religious practice. The gods I worship are who they are, specific individual deities that I am devoted to or otherwise have built relationships with. In the same way whether I call it seidhr, cunning craft, hedgecraft or witchcraft - the actual practice of folk magic - is a cornerstone of what I do. I am a religious witch, and my pagan faith is inseparable, for me, from my magical practice. Perhaps that is why I struggled so much to feel comfortable in faiths that acknowledge a lesser role for magic or see it as separate (and not always equal). I am not a good heathen because most heathens see magic as superfluous, while to me it is essential. I am not a good CR because most CR's see magic as incidental or cerebral, while to me it is a visceral thing like breathing. And perhaps I am not a good Wiccan because I delve into things that most Wiccans seem to avoid (coughhexingcough) and I struggle with the cosmology. Ironic that I can reconcile Norse and Irish cosmology, but struggle with Wiccan views...
   I miss heathenry. I miss the feeling of camaraderie, the simple approach to worship, the stability of the belief system. The cohesiveness. I may, eventually, after giving this current attempt more time, go back to Gaelic Heathenry or otherwise look at ways to comfortably incorporate what works for me and what I miss into one path....or I may find with more time that this current effort begins to gel better and feel less...artificial. I am still working through so many echos of past practice that adjusting is harder than I expected, and I want to give this a totally fair shot so that if I choose to walk away again I will know that I did so because it really wasn't working and not because I didn't try.
   So after a month where does this leave me? Still questioning and still working out what is important to me and what is artificial window dressing added in to please the public....and still making magic.

Midsummer in transition

 So the summer solstice was on Wednesday and this year I found myself feeling very challenged on how to celebrate. I have only just decided to refocus my spiritual practice, well more accurately my religious structure, and I was actually at a bit of a loss as to what to do. I'm still feeling my way slowly into what works best for me but its also very important that my children have a sense of the holiday and get to enjoy it. I also had a very bad experience with a Midsummer ritual last year that I am still working to overcome, so this holiday is especially challenging for me on a personal level - which is probably why it ended up being the first one to come along after my major shift of focus. Life is anything but subtle sometimes when we need to face our issues....
   We have had a family tradition of baking cakes on the solstices for many years. At the summer solstice we bake the cake for the daoine sidhe and Aine, who may be a fairy queen or may be a goddess; and at the winter solstice we bake a cake for the Sun's birthday. In previous years with a more recon based approach we would bake the summer cake and leave pieces as offerings but otherwise we didn't do too much to mark the day. From an eclectic Wiccan perspective I would have done a full circle to the Lord and Lady of summer, the God and Goddess of the Greenwood. Last year I did a public ritual in a more neo-pagan/Wiccan style that honored the fairies, spirits of the land, and Lord and Lady - this ritual will go down in infamy for the disapproval that resulted from some people* so I may be a little gun shy about jumping right in to do something similar again, despite its overall success.
  In the end I settled on a hybrid compromise, which is, perhaps, the best approach anyway. Combining holiday fun with necessity I gave the gift of new summer shoes to the girls (and my husband) something I might keep as a tradition in the future. We baked a vanilla cake with butter cream frosting and the girls decorated it with candy sprinkles from the store.  The cake came out very nicely, and after dinner when everything was ready we sang a Jana Runnall's song called "Graine" that I learned from Kellianna; then I cut a piece of cake for the fairies and another for Aine. The cake was left outside by our little Hawthorn tree and then we went back in and enjoyed some cake ourselves. I read the girls a book about the Summer Solstice by Ellen Jackson that includes folklore and traditions from around the world.
  Later that night I had my own ritual, more along the lines of a Wiccan circle. Perhaps next year I can find an even better way to celebrate everything together; maybe I will finally get over my feelings of Midsummer inadequacy. But this year went well anyway, it was fun, the girls enjoyed it, and the fairies got their cake.

Cake recipe:
  1 cup white sugar 1/2 cup butter 2 eggs 2 teaspoons vanilla extract 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour 1 3/4 teaspoons baking powder 1/2 cup milk
Preheat oven to 350 degrees F
Grease and flour a 9x9 inch pan....
In a medium bowl, cream together the sugar and butter. Beat in the eggs, one at a time, then stir in the vanilla. Combine flour and baking powder, add to the creamed mixture and mix well. Finally stir in the milk until batter is smooth. Pour or spoon batter into the prepared pan.
Bake for 30 to 40 minutes in the preheated oven

Frosting recipe:

 1/2 cup butter, softened, 4-1/2 cups confectioners' sugar, 1-1/2 teaspoons vanilla extract, 5 tablespoons whole milk
In a large bowl, cream butter until light and fluffy. Beat in the confectioners' sugar, vanilla and enough milk to achieve desired consistency.

 * Long, messy backstory. Shortest possible version is that what one person feels is an acceptable offering may not be seen as such by others. Also I am a tangental ritual leader and not everyone likes my style of ritual. Lesson learned the hard way.

Summer Introspection

  I am not a summer person. While everyone else might be out at the beach, at barbecues, hiking, or otherwise enjoying the outdoors I'm avoiding the bright sunlight and heat by holing up inside. I've always been like this; I was the kid in high school who spent my summers staying up until 4 a.m. reading and watching re-runs of classic tv shows and bad b-movies. Each year I dread the returning heat, the oppressive humidity, the bugs and glaring sunshine. Winter is my season, my time to get out and explore the world and enjoy nature - summer is something to be endured. However I have always tried to force myself to go along with the general expectations, the wider view of summer and the season's energies. People talk about summer as a time for planting and growing, and despite my own desire to do the opposite for many years I pushed against my inclinations. I planted when I wanted to harvest. I nurtured and grew when I wanted to withdraw and contemplate.
  I've been thinking about this a lot the past two days as I celebrated Midsummer and as my area experiences a heat wave that has rendered the outdoor atmosphere into something reminiscent of an oven. Online people are talking about the time of year as a time of activity and exploration, in contrast to winter as a time of introspection and withdrawal. What I've come to realize is that for myself these cycles are reversed;   to me summer is a time of introspection, when the pace of everything slows down and I look within to sort through what to keep and what to let go of. Fall is a time for returning to the world, for setting new goals as I wait for the leaves to turn and seek the scent of woodsmoke in the air. Winter is when I get out the most, walking, hiking, exploring; a time to begin new projects and add effort to old ones. And spring is when things begin to slow down, although there is a rush to finish up what's been begun.
   I'm moving into that time of introspection now, assessing and reviewing my life, trying to decide what is worth keeping and what needs to be let go of. One thing I've already come to realize - no surprise to anyone who has been reading my recent blogs - is that I need to start appreciating and honoring my own cycles and patterns instead of trying to fit myself into other people's preconceived cycles. What works for other people may not work for me, but there is no reason I can't find value in my own natural rhythms and learn to appreciate what does work for me. As I move back into an American Wiccan framework I can appreciate the larger concepts of the accepted cycles of the year while simultaneously honoring my own energetic cycles. 
  I am not a summer person, and that's okay. I will spend the next few months in introspection and emerge in the fall ready to move forward with renewed energy and purpose.

original pencil drawing, M. Daimler, copyright 1999