These posts describe both personal seasonal rituals and community-wide Earth-based ceremonies that honor our relationship to nature and spirit throughout the wheel of the year. Perhaps you will gain ideas for creating or participating in some seasonal celebrations of your own, large or small.
Spirit-and-Nature seasonal celebrations are inspired by Celtic myth and legend. They share consciousness of the continuity of Earth and Spirit with worldwide indigenous/animist cultures. In them we aspire to bring to the community an opportunity to share our loving relationship with spirit and nature through live music, crafts, circle dances, song, story, ritual, and ceremony which honors both the ecology of this our sacred Place and the presence of Spirit at these potent times. Western culture is doing its best to split nature from people and nature from spirit. We, as elders, feel the responsibility to try to hold nature/human/spirit together in Love as an act of joyous resistance. Past events are included as an archive of posts dated on or near the day they were presented.
This year we will celebrate with a small fire ceremony, but the summer before Covid, Summer Solstice was especially rich with diverse observances. Each celebration sprang up and flowered exuberantly, just as the plants in our gardens were stretching up … Continued
This spring’s momentous challenges seemed to call for a different kind of equinox ceremony, but I didn’t know what. I felt the need to offer something beyond the familiar personal balancing ritual that helps our inner life match the outer … Continued
The seasonal Celtic rite of Imbolc is about preparing, purifying, and healing. It expresses ancient and contemporary peoples’ hope for new growth — for fertility arising in nature, for creativity arising in us. This year Imbolc coincides beautifully with our … Continued
Big Dreams are those especially compelling dreams that provide potent images to guide us in times of need. Some big dreams seem to arise as a call to us from the Earth herself. The process of working on these dreams … Continued
Every Thanksgiving I pretend that this is a holy day when we reaffirm that this land is sacred. I have always loved Thanksgiving for two reasons: The excuse it gives to gather with family and friends. And because it is … Continued
This year the season of Hallowtide feels even more potent than usual. We seek new meaning in the old myths that tell of this being a dangerous time when the spirits of chaos, the forces of disintegration, threaten. Of this … Continued
In these socially stressful times, with protests against raging inequalities on one side and counter protests that instill fear on the other, any sense of centeredness can be hard to find. Great divisions between left and right have been widened. … Continued
On the Celtic Wheel of the Year the cross-quarter festival of Lughnasa falls on August 1, mid-way between Summer Solstice and Autumn Equinox. The mythology of Lughnasa is particularly rich and significant. Amidst this Covid pandemic it has become clear … Continued
It takes a whole community to put on the firey celebration of Beltane (la Bealtaine in Irish), replete with music, dance and ceremony. Many of us who are of European ancestry did not grow up within the intact indigenous traditions … Continued
Summer Solstice this year was especially full of rich and diverse observances. Each celebration sprang up and flowered exuberantly, just as our gardens are emerging into the height of their flowering. And each one was co-created in a process of … Continued