Mists and Ice

This summer solstice, the bulk of our ritual was sung. It was a very fun experience, and I think the Gods enjoyed it. I know I did. More than that, I think that music has a way of touching us in ways that simple words cannot; it’s the same way with poetry, and I think this is the reason that the ancient Celts and Norse put so much of their lore into poems. In many instances, poetry was also used to curse or bless, and this, too, showed its power. Lyrics are a type of poetry, adding in music to an already powerful arrangement; we have some evidence that a number of the poems we have now were originally intended to be sung; other cultures definitely did this, such as the Greeks and the Jews.

Writing a ritual to music, however, has shown me one detriment to a Very Musical Midsummer. Music and poetry are not very descriptive; they do not often tell you why you are doing something, and it is hard to write poetry and music that tells you how to do something. Interspersed with the music, our Grove Organizer described our next course of action in prose to the gathered assembly. It certainly helped them follow the ritual, but took away somewhat from the power of the music. This is alright, of course, but it was certainly a learning experience for me. Something to keep in mind when writing poems for future rites.

The reason we put these rites on is for community and fellowship, in the presence of the Gods. Power is part of that, and so is understanding. One should not be without the other; we as Americans have a harder time, though, because we lack the cultural experience that the ancient Indo-Europeans had with their Gods and Goddesses. So prose becomes a bigger part of our rites, because that speaks more to our current culture. Not a bad thing, but it can be frustrating.

This rite was to Njord, the keeper of bounty, the God of the Seas and Rivers and what fruits come from them, from travel to fish to trade. We have already had an amazing summer so far, and our lot was increased greatly at Bealtainne. Now, our blessing comes in the form of the Seed, the Sun, and the Tree, a grand omen for the hot days ahead. The solstice marks the longest day of the year, which is a bounty in and of itself, with long days and happy evenings. When I was a child, I looked forward to June, because my bed-time was at sunset, so in May and June I was looking forward to the latest bed-times of my young life. In some ways, it’s still the case, being a school bus driver.

Music was a bounty given at Midsummer, though. Without Njord’s help, and Bragi’s, too, I think it would not have come off so well. Having a good community of attendees was also awesome, a gift given for the work we have put in to have these rites. I hope this is a blessing we see for years to come.

Our next rite is Lughnasadh, on July 31st. It should be a lot of fun; we’re planning some games and sparring matches, and we’re also going to be celebrating the Grove Organizer’s patron, which is always a plus. It will be in the Celtic style, so I think this will be a lot of fun, and very fulfilling.

Alright, so in Colorado, it’s barely spring. Bealtainne yesterday was a chill 52 degrees in the shade, maybe it got up to 60 in the sun. However, by the ancient Irish seasons and celebrations, yesterday was the first day of summer. It makes sense; even here in Denver, we won’t have as much lower temperatures and the wet season is in full swing. (On the other hand, if the US were going by Colorado seasons, Summer wouldn’t start until the end of June and would end in November!)

Summer brings bounty and hard work. Summer brings fertile crops and grand swaths of fields awash in green. America loves summer, even as many Americans loathe winter. I don’t know how different it is in other countries; I’ve never been, myself, but here, summer is the season of increase.

Imagine some of the icons of summer: lemonade, swimming, fresh pie, Fourth of July feasts and parades. In a way, all these are celebrations of increase, from fresh berries thrown in a pie to freshly-squeezed lemons and sugar. In this “Age of Information”, very few of us actually think about why we would be celebrating such things; after all, we can get lemonade in winter now! This might be a contribution to what I’ve seen as a Neopagan backlash against more modern traditions, and being so removed from the picking of the berries and the tending of the tomatoes and corn, I’m not so sure I blame them. In a modern religion based on ancient ways, I think a Romanesque approach might be wise: The city of Rome had many people who were not agricultural in the least, but in the Roman calendar, the seasons were still closely guarded and celebrated, for in those seasons lay the survival of the entire civilization. It is still so today, and some recognize that. Others, though, so far removed from the agricultural scene, have forgotten, even despite the iconic reminders right in front of them, as shown above.

Bealtainne was a time of the lighting of the bonfires, and the cattle would then be driven through the smoke to bless them for the coming summer. Why was this done? To promote increase. To combat disease and promote high volumes of milk and cheese, so that the people would be well-fed, especially the warriors. I think a lot of people forget that the early Irish people were fighters, who often raided each other for their cattle. Being well-fed, therefore, was a requirement. Also during Bealtainne, those that could grow crops were more apt to plant in the British Isles, whereas the mainland was likely to have already tilled and planted, being farther south.

An increase is seen even in the festival aspect of this time of year. At this time period, more people are apt to brave the weather and come to a festival, or to marry (I cannot count the number of May weddings I know of!), or to attend another such type of event. Parades and block parties are all over the papers starting a little before Memorial Day. Even our own group saw a radical increase this year at Bealtainne: 34 attendees! I was impressed. And more than a little scared, considering I was the officiant that day, but I am very happy that everyone seemed to have a good time.

The blessings from the Gods were all a show of increase this Bealtainne, letting us know that they would be present, that we could continue to come together, and that we would be aided in the problems we faced. This was a wonderful omen, I thought. Of course, I also got an increase of sunburn, but that’s okay.

It was wonderful being able to celebrate the increase of summer. I’m hoping that our next ritual, Midsummer, grants similar blessings.

I’ve been playing a lot of Tafl lately. This is, of course, not surprising, as I am somewhat of a fan of chess and chess-like games. Games like Hnefatafl come from the Northern Germanic tradition, Scandinavia, specifically, and possibly date from as early as 400 AD (though perhaps not; see Tafl: An Obsession or the write-up in Wikipedia for more information). They are also one of the most well-documented cases for Celtoi-Germanic cross-culture interaction, as there are versions in Ireland (Brandub), Scotland (Ard Ri), and Wales (Tawlbwrdd or Gwyddbwyll). There are some scholars that believe the Irish Fidchell game was a Tafl variant, but I’m not so sure, and it really doesn’t matter too much – after all, the Irish now have a Tafl variant called “Fitchneall”, which is their word now for chess.

There are strong pieces of culture in all these games, hidden for those that wish to look. The greater number of attackers versus defenders, the goal of capture or escape, and the method of capturing pieces all bespeak reenactments of ancient battles, a major part of life in that time period. The positioning of the attackers around the defenders is a noticeable difference from our modern chess games, which have all one’s pieces start on one side of the board. One can imagine in the Hnefatafl version four Viking ships surrounding a village to capture the king for ransom. In ADF spirituality, all this is important, not because we’re interested in war and battles, but because of the link to the type of culture that conceived of and produced this game. Even if Fidchell is not a Tafl variant, one can imagine Cuchulain studying one of these boards, determining how to strike in order to win. The ability to win at such games was considered to show an uncommonly sharp mind in Ireland, and the Norse sagas mention several times a particular Tafl-player’s prowess being indicative of a strong character. Wisdom and intelligence were as prized as a strong arm and keen wit.

We are uncertain if Tafl was used as divination, as there is no evidence for or against the practice, but we know that Fidchell was sometimes used for this purpose. Sometimes the battle on the Fidchell board played out upon the battlefield; sometimes, the losses of battle caused the Fidchell game to play itself. Separation of the game from the ancient Celtic religion was about as possible as separating farming or spinning yarn – that is to say, everything was both a physical and a spiritual act. In the playing of these cultural games of skill, we can tap into the cultural awareness of that time period; moreover, we can become aware ourselves of the spiritual mindset of those ancient players, that even in play, their world-view was closely considered. Magic was powerful in the Celtic and Germanic mindsets, and manifested sometimes in very mundane ways, such as the pieces on a Tafl board.

I’m thinking of making a set of Tafl boards for SBGH, to use at the Lughnasadh games and other feasting times. The chance to enjoy a cultural game to keep us in the mindset of our ancestors is just too good to pass up.

The meet-up went well, but we ended up discussing other things than Spring Myths, so I’ll be posting what I was going to talk about there, here.

Myths of the seasons were quite common in the ancient world. I think it is wrong to say that all myths could be ascribed to natural phenomena, though many authors, such as H.A. Guerber, disagree. However, some natural events were chronicled in the annals of analogy, a way for those before us to share and entertain with the wonders of the world.

I’d like to share something from Oak Leaves #44, albeit in reduced form: Brighid and the Cailleach. The goddess Bright Brighid was imprisoned by the Cailleach for many years. She was kept in the bleak mountain passes of the north lands in perpetual cold, and every day she’d walk the passes, and the winter landscape would grow weaker for moments as she passed. One day, her passing was observed by a young man called the Mac Oc, the Cailleach’s own son, who swore to free the gentle creature, and began a year-long courtship. On the final day of winter, the two resolved to run away, and the Mac Oc covered Brighid’s face with her cloak (or mantle) so that the land’s enchantment, which kept her imprisoned, could not snare her. The Cailleach was soon on their heels, following the great trail of flowers that sprang at Brighid’s feet as she passed. However, the old crone was soon taken by the land spirits, who rebelled against the winter she brought: as she rested upon a boulder, she was pulled inside and turned to stone. Thus Brighid and the Mac Oc were able to live and love together, amid the spring that heralded her passing.

Another myth to share is the Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone. There are many versions, but this is the one I’m most familiar with: Hades found Persephone playing in the fields one day, grabbed her, and made off to his underworld kingdom to take her as bride. Demeter searched everywhere for a way to enter Hades and retrieve her daughter, but while she searched and mourned, the earth languished under the lack of her care – winter had come. Hermes was finally sent to retrieve Persephone, but came to find the young lady had fallen head over heels for the dark lord of the underworld. She also had eaten six seeds of a pomegranate. So, while she was retrieved and returned to her mother, giving the blessing of spring to the earth, she returns every six months to Hades’ arms, and her mother Demeter resumes mourning until she returns.

There are other Norse examples that I hope will be shared on this blog soon; however, a central theme surrounds these two examples above, that of change from one state of being to another. Before the spring, winter comes, and the change from the dark half of the year to the light is apparent in both the Celtic and the Greek. Spring myths are about change and renewal, a switch in focus from the cold winter months to the warming and longer days that lead eventually to summer. In the Celtic example above, the winter crone holds all, including the goddess who heralds springtime, in an icy embrace, but in the Greek, winter is the result of a goddess neglecting her responsibility to the earth. Yet both transition to spring time with the arrival of a goddess of brightness, goodness, and light. It is her arrival that marks the certain end of a wintry world, and encourages the flowers (such as the snowdrop) to grow from the renewed soil.

Myths are a way to record the spiritual drama of transitions, and the myths involving the return to spring are, to me, especially compelling. For me, this is one of the primary reasons mythic thinking is still relevant and helpful to modern minds.

Thank you to everyone who came to our Imbolc ritual! I think it turned out beautifully. We had a great turn out, a great feast, and a great time. Some of my own personal favorites were a recounting of a two week pot of borscht, some pecan cookies, and a rather interesting conversation about sacrifice, summoning, and the gods at the feast. We’ll have pictures up on the website soon, I went a little nuts with the camera. Lets hope there’s some pictures in there that ARENT fuzzy.

Again, thank you to everyone who came to the ritual! It wouldn’t've been as good without you.

-Alyssa

It seems the best thing to start with in an ADF blog is what I expected when I first joined.

Honestly, I ignored far too many things far too often, and when I say "things", I mean the Internet. I mean web pages and mailing lists. All I really expected out of ADF was that Stone Creed Grove would put on good rituals, and I would come to them. I stalled when it came to the Dedicant Program, I’ll admit it – because I had read the Membership Guide and the Dedicant Manual and not any of the mailing lists, I was under the impression that I was “strongly encouraged” to pick one Hearth Culture and stick to it. Well, that was hard for me: in many ways, I’m a Celt at heart, and yet most of my experience had been with Norse culture. I got along very well with several Irish deity forms, but I was beholden only to Freyja (again, of Team Norse), and I still had a working relationship with Christ, a hold-over from my days as a Christian (though I had already told YHVH and pretty much all of his dogma to shove off).

Long story short (too late), I put off finishing my Dedicant Program because, in my limited and uninformed experience, I was unfit to dedicate to the principles of ADF: I was a cross-culture polytheist and animist who still dealt with non-Indo-European deity forms and had a large number of experiences the organization did not seem to publicly share.

Again. I should have read the mailing lists. Would have saved me a whole heap of problems and I probably would have finished the Dedicant Program before meeting Tony and the rest of the older SBGH crew. Instead I trudged along with it; not my finest moment.

One of the great things about ADF is the idea of orthopraxy. It means that an ADF group or ritual is more concerned with how a person worships than what a person believes (which is orthodoxy). Discovering that on an ADF webpage one day was like a breath of fresh air after living in a vacuum. It meant that working with both the Celtic and Norse was not only possible, but rather easy to accomplish. One did not even need to share the hearth culture of one’s grove!

Of course, I prefer it when the grove I work with does share my hearth culture; I am very pleased to be working with SBGH in this respect. Some things never change; one thing I’ve always wanted from ADF was community, and their grove-building and nurturing of working groups is key to this. It’s a long explanation for a short revelation, I know…

However, there’s more I’ve seen that’s worthwhile for me in ADF. The Core Order of Ritual, our liturgical outline, has always had a special place in my mind. In fact, the first Yule ritual I ever performed was a badly butchered conglomeration of a Stone Creed Grove Yule rite and the badly-hashed Wiccan principles my friend was trying to teach me at the time. Essentially, slap a four-quarters-drawing-the-circle beginning and end to the whole thing, and there you had it. So their liturgy was one thing I found to be worthwhile, even before I gave serious thought to ADF as an organization. That’s a long story, mind you.

As I continued in my pagan path, I started developing a strong appreciation for good scholarship in one’s paganism. My experiences in Columbus were less than pleasant, in some cases, with a Wiccan High Priest almost literally on every corner, and very few of them knowing a thing about what they were talking about. UPG didn’t run rampant in the area; it, like lore, was trampled underneath the feet of Ego. The more I saw or heard about Wiccans who read one book and were suddenly an expert on Magickal Studies, the more I started shying away from eclecticism and poor informational sources. ADF provided a wonderful change from that environment, at a time when working with the runes had brought me towards Norse Paganism, but the Asatru were likewise not fond of my eclectic ways and choice of deities.

So what do I hope to gain out of working with ADF in the future? I hope the organization continues to always value scholarship, but respect UPG, as well. After having helped found the Protogrove, I’ve discovered the joy of the ADF mailing lists and I hope to get a lot of information via the posts found there. I still expect community to be my biggest reason for being an ADF member, for without ADF, I’d still be Pagan, but perhaps not as wise or book-learned as I am now, which leads me to the fact that ADF provides a lot of good resources on the cultures they base their work on, which is a definite perk. Finally, and perhaps most importantly, I think ADF is in many ways the future of Neopaganism; an emphasis on lore, polytheism, animism, and scholarship, a focus on large group oriented services, and the flexibility to meet new needs as they come. My paganism is something I wish to pass down to children and grandchildren someday. I think that ADF has provided the best plan so far to see that dream come true.

-G