Gaelic Polytheism – Page 4

Imbolc!

This year for Imbolc, we helped to organize a ritual at our local UU church. At home, our deities of the occasion are Cailleach and Brigid, and the group agreed to honor them for our ritual. We used a shortened version of the ADF creation of sacred space and ritual center, honoring of the Hallows (Fire, Well and Tree), the Kindreds (Shining Ones, Ancestors, and Nature Spirits), and a short meditation to help us connect to the space between the worlds.

Then we invoked the Cailleach and Brigid. Another participant read a prayer they’d found called “Prayer to Brigantia, Keeper of the Forge“, by Patti Wigington, substituting “Brigid” for “Brigantia”. I wrote a poem for Cailleach following the same pattern, and Scott read it during the ritual. I’ve reproduced both, below.

We also tied raffia to pussywillow branches for our hopes and intentions for the spring, similar to cloutie ties, and we sang Kelianna’s song Brighid’s Flame together.

It was a simple ritual, but poignant for many of the participants, and it’s proof that we can pull something together in less than a week. Still, I think we’re going to plan farther ahead for the Spring Equinox!

Imbolc Prayer for Cailleach, by Aleja Nic Bhé Chuille

Hail, Cailleach! Bringer of ice and snow,
She who blankets the world in white,
She who freezes the world so time seems to slow,
She who encourages us to rely on each other,
She who is called the Blue Crone,
And teaches us the true meaning of survival.

Hail, Cailleach! Queen of Winter,
She who frosts the ground with her staff,
She who dropped rocks and made mountains,
She who shaped valleys and hills,
She who flies over the land as a great winter storm.

Prayer for Brigantia, Keeper of the Forge, by Patti Wigington

Hail, Brigantia! Keeper of the forge,
She who shapes the world itself with fire,
She who ignites the spark of passion in the poets,
She who leads the clans with a warrior’s cry,
She who is the bride of the islands,
And who leads the fight of freedom.

Hail, Brigantia! Defender of kin and hearth,
She who inspires the bards to sing,
She who drives the smith to raise his hammer,
She who is a fire sweeping across the land.

[Feel free to use my prayer to Cailleach for your own rituals, with proper attribution!]

Prayer for the Solstice

This is a prayer I just wrote for my 3-day Solstice working for Na Morrigna. It’s a little rough, still, but it was written in a fit of inspiration a few moments ago. I may edit it later, but this is the version I used today, and will be using tomorrow and the following day.

We are the children of light

Children of darkness

And seekers of balance

Darkness beneath our wings

Wings that shelter the oppressed

Oppressors fear our darkness

Light that blazes in our eyes

Eyes that witness injustice

Injustice condemned once brought to light

Balance ripens into peace

Peace sown by justice

Justice grows into balance

A never-ending spiral

The spiral of the Sun

The Sun’s renewal never ending

Shortest day and longest night

Night the deepest darkness

Darkness once more birthing light

We are children of the light

Children of the darkness

And seekers of balance

Samhain 2018

My Samhain Season began with my transition into darkness, timed to the heliacal rise of Spica (a star or multi-star system in the constellation Virgo) on October 24th, the same day as the full moon. The timing was something I discovered by accident, as I fell down a rabbit hole of faery holidays and stellar timing following Morgan Daimler’s revelations about the Pleaides. Spica seems to be closely associated with my Faery Queen, whom I call The Starflower Queen, and she has a sort of light-in-darkness and darkness-in-light balance to her energies that reminds me of the Chinese yin yang symbol. I had noticed on previous years that her transition into darkness happened before November Eve, but this year I really dove into star charts and paid careful attention and though I believe her transition from light to darkness is somewhat gradual, the bulk of the transition seems to occur between the heliacal rise of Spica (when it rises before the sun) and when Spica is at its zenith in conjunction with the sun, which happens much closer to November Eve. (I’m still not 100% clear on whether it’s the zenith at noon or the sun conjunction that matters more, but the zenith at noon was easier to calculate: October 30th this year.)

Hallowed Homecoming, which was the subject of my previous blog post, began my ancestor work and my work with the Morrigna. For the Ancestor Altar there, I prepared a small charm box, in a repurposed Sucrets container. (I’m a huge fan of witchy upcycling.) Inside I placed a sodalite stone from an incomplete rune set carved with Othala, a fortune from a fortune cookie that bore the phrase “missing you” in English and Chinese, and a purple paper heart into which I spoke the names of some of my most beloved ancestors. It spent the weekend on that altar, among other tokens and pictures, and then it came home with me to my own ancestor shrine.

I did very little on the 31st. We passed out candy, and though I expected to pull cards for my Crow Folk, I was told I had to Wait. So, I worked on memorizing some more of the chants for the ritual I was helping plan, and I waited. I did not feel called to pull cards to speak to any of my ancestors, either – I had received the messages that were most important during the main ritual at Hallowed Homecoming.

On the 2nd of November, I attended a Memorial and solidarity Shabbat Service at a local synagogue with my husband’s family, and that was an especially poignant evening of Ancestral Communion. It was also a much needed balm for my grief, and I came away glad for the community I live in, and wishing that my own faith was better represented in it.

On the 3rd, I gathered with some friends at a friend’s house, and together the nine of us had a ritual to the Morrigna, which was powerful despite our greenness and small number. Afterwards we had a pot luck, and there was an ancestor shrine set up in one room for people to visit and take time at. My little sucrets container sat among other tokens for another evening.

Now it is the 7th, the day of the Dark Moon, and my Samhain season comes to a close. I am finishing these blogs as the sun goes down, and then I will pull cards and dream on them, seeking a message from the Morrigna. Tomorrow, I will write up a blog for the Dark Moon, and I will begin to pull cards for all the Crow Folks who have requested them.

Lughnasadh 2018

This year for Lughnasadh, instead of continuing our theme of having a family meal, we were involved in a lay-led worship service at our local UU Church, focusing on Lugh and the bounty of the first harvest. I was part of a team that called the quarters (using the traditional elements this time, instead of my local cultus river goddesses) and presented representations of the harvest on a central table, around which we’d put the chairs for seating in two half circles.

I didn’t have a large role in part because I’d missed the second-to-last planning session, when we went to Wisconsin to visit my family and present the Acorn at the tribal picnic for enrollment. That was nice – seeing everyone, including my brothers, whom I haven’t seen since last August, and before then not for almost two years. With all the talk of community and coming together at the harvest, it’s hard not to think about how much of my community doesn’t live close by. Still, this pagan group and the rest of local UU Church is slowly becoming the community I want and need, somewhere I can raise a child, somewhere I can find help when I need it.

I usually find myself more reflective as we move into autumn, but it seems to be starting early this year. It makes sense, though – with Wep Ronpet following closely afterwards, Lughnasadh is the beginning of the end of my year, with a number of new year’s days of different traditions occurring between now and the secular new year on Jan 1st.

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