Now, if I had any sense, I’d have posted about this before it happened, so y’all could have listened live, but here’s my appearance, from this afternoon, on Witchtalk Radio with Karagan. We talk mostly about Wicca, but at the end, we do get into James Bond as well.
Archive for Paganism
Blessed Solstice
photo credit: gogoloopie
On the longest night of the year, we await the dawn.
The celebration of the Winter Solstice is the celebration of hope. In the darkness, we await light. We expect, anticipate, pray for, and believe in, that light.
Our human scientific knowledge has known for a very long time that the light would return. Certainly, by the time we were able to measure the astronomical phenomenon of solstice, we were able to understand that at the end of the longest night, the sun would rise. And yet, for all these centuries, we continue to await the dawn of the day after solstice, ending the longest night. Because it is not science that inspires us to believe the sun will rise. It is hope. It is the human spirit. It is our ability to look into the darkness and say “I see that light will come.”
I see that light will come.
“Yule” means “wheel.” We believe the wheel will turn. We believe that our dark nights will turn into bright dawns, and our cold winters will turn into warm springs. We believe.
It is faith itself we celebrate, lighting a single candle rather than cursing the darkness.
May your wheel turn. May your darkness end. May your dawn arise bright and glorious.
Blessed be.
The intrusion of nature
I was riding to work and a leaf landed on my windshield.
Just that. Just, I was in a car, on a heavily-trafficked road, at a stoplight, commuting. I was all the things that aren’t about nature, and aren’t about the Gods. I was not thinking. I was not in sacred space, either in my mind or in my body.
And a leaf, a big brown leaf, landed on my windshield, exactly at eye level, and said “Look at me, I am nature.” Yes, leaf, you are. I looked.
Yes.
Blessed Samhain: Honor the Ancestors
Here’s what happens: At some point when you’re young, you face your first terrible, unexpected death. Some people, it is true, are born or raised in tragic circumstances, and death surrounds them: Iraqi children right now don’t know their first experience with death, because it is a background to their lives. But in more normal, more privileged circumstances, we recognize a moment as shifting things for us. My beloved, adored grandfather when I was nine. My father’s close friend when I was 16 (the friend was in his late 20s or early 30s; he died in a bizarre mountain-climbing accident). My fiance when I was 24.
We carry those dead with us. They are a personal photo wallet; we bring them to our dumb suppers, and we can allow them to change us.
And people keep dying. People we love, people near to us, people we admire from afar. People who are very old, and for whom death was timely, people for whom death was tragically young. Illness, accident, suicide, murder, war…death piles up.
And then, you are no longer young, and the people you carry with you are legion. It’s not a few photos in your wallet anymore, it’s an album.
This isn’t a terrible thing, this is nature. At Samhain, when we cast the circle, we are Between the Worlds. On the day when the veil between living and dead is most thin, we share our circle with beloveds on both sides, and if we are blessed, both sides are more crowded than we can accomodate, because our love is so big.
There are more people I love than would fit into my circle. Just among Pagans, just among people who might, potentially, have made it to ritual this weekend, there are more people I love than the room we used would accommodate. That’s a lot of love.
And among the dead? There were more whom I love than I had time to name. More than I remembered to name. More than I can count. My honored dead were with me, beloved, wept for, missed, and celebrating. I am sorry, so sorry, for the losses that came too soon. But I am happy for the love.
Blessed Equinox!
It’s the Fall Equinox. May the turning of the seasons brighten your life.
It’s always been an odd holiday for me; it’s the middle of three harvests, and the other two: Lammas and Samhain, have a great deal more folklore and interesting accouterments. I mean, Lammas, you’ve got all that bread baking, all the traditional gathering stuff, the games, the murder of John Barleycorn: Very colorful. Then there’s Samhain, which, hello, is when the whole world wakes up and notices Witches. Costumes, death, apple-bobbing, dumb suppers, funerary rites, and that whole New Year thing.
So Fall Equinox sits there like a red-headed stepchild, and no modern renaming (“Mabon”) is going to change that. It’s also known as Harvest Home, and some people do a Thanksgiving thing, but I’ve got a close biological family and we do the November Thanksgiving to a fare-thee-well, so I can’t say I’m excited about another one.
Most importantly, the Wheel is turning, and it will continue to turn. We mark our lives by these 8 moments, and that’s incredibly important. Also important, the perfect balance of light and dark. We stand between Summer and Autumn, and can look in both directions at once.
So we must ask: What is ahead? What is behind?
Blessed be.
An Open Letter to ADF
Note: This letter was sent to the Archdruid of ADF and shared with the Mother Grove (Board of Directors) before publication. I include their response at the end.
Isaac Bonewits’s death has been a great tragedy for me and mine. I have lost my beloved friend of almost 25 years, my ex-husband, my former High Priest, and the father of my only child, Arthur Lipp-Bonewits. I have struggled to balance immense personal grief with the heartbreaking loss to the entire Pagan community of a brilliant leader, teacher, scholar, thinker, and bard. More than either of these, I have had to prioritize being a mother, as Arthur, at far too young an age, has not only lost his father, but has gone through the difficult and often frightening ordeal of caring for him in his last months.
Throughout all of this, the kindness, compassion, respect, and support of the Pagan community, including ADF, has been one of the things that has kept me going. That I could look up from my personal sorrow and know that Isaac was being treated with dignity, honor, and love, was a sustaining force through the most acute period of grief.
Imagine, then, my shock and dismay when I learned that ADF was selling DVDs of Isaac’s memorial service. » Read more..
Wicca 101
I am looking to teach a serious Wicca 101 course; 13 classes plus occasional ritual. If you know someone who’s interested, have them email me at deborah at deborahlipp dot com.
No one will be accepted without an application and an interview. These are in-person classes. I cannot accommodate NYC students unless they can drive here (I’m on a commuter rail line that doesn’t run late enough for our meetings).
This is not for the curious, but for people seeking real Gardnerian training.
We need joy
You don’t need me to tell you how bleak the news has been lately. Massacres, political oppression at home and abroad, natural disasters, threat of nuclear meltdown, tornadoes, union busting, racism, and tragedy. Half the time I want to hide under the bed, or stop listening to the news.
I didn’t wake up at 4 a.m. to watch the royal wedding, but I looked at pictures on the Internet, and it gave me a thrill. The hats alone are enough to cheer anyone up. I watched my DVR Today Show coverage on Saturday, and a little more of it on Sunday (there was a lot), and I have to say, it felt good. I’m not one of those royal-obsessed people, but you absorb a certain amount of information, and y’know, I’m Oscar obsessed, and there were two Oscar-winning movies about this particular royal family in the past four years. It’s a strangely-constrained life the Windsors lead, but they allow people to gather around a sense of nationalism that transcends politics. The occasion was beautiful, and when Prince William leaned in and kissed his bride a second time, yes, I kvelled.
And then, last night, the news that Osama bin Laden has finally been killed. I know it’s strange and ambivalent to celebrate death, but I celebrate a victory, and a closure, and a sense of triumph, and again, a sense of nationalism that transcends politics (although there are definitely politics involved).
We can’t just be serious-minded day in, day out, caring about all that bad stuff and struggling to make a difference. We need the punctuations of joy. We need to feel, this is good, this is pretty, this is a win. We need to hug each other and say YES! We need to know that life has all the colors, not just the grays.
How lovely that all this happened around Beltane. May the springtime be our color in a life with too much gray. Blessed be to all!
Spring just might come
We spend the whole damn winter longing for spring. Counting the hours. Watching the damn groundhog.
But our longing doesn’t mitigate the fact that at some level we don’t believe it will come. That the first day it’s warm in a timely manner, we’re surprised. (In a timely manner because, sure, if it’s February 10, we are surprised by sixty degree weather, but on March 17, we shouldn’t be.) At some point, we—at least I—settle into a deep fatalism about winter; it’s here, it will always be here, it has always been here, where’s my scarf and coat?
Yet spring comes.
And February was so long that it lasted into March
And found us walking a path alone together
You stopped and pointed, and you said, “That’s a crocus”
And I said, “What’s a crocus?,” and you said, “It’s a flower”
I tried to remember, but I said, “What’s a flower?”
You said, “I still love you.”–Dar Williams, “February”
6th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival
The annual Brigid Poetry Festival is an online celebration of Imbolg/Brigid’s Day in the form of sharing poetry around the web.
This year, I am deeply inspired by Isaac’s song “There Were Three Sisters:”
There Were Three Sisters
© 1987, 2001 c.e.
words by Isaac Bonewits, music English trad. (“Henry Martin”)
There were three Sisters in our ancient land,
In our ancient land there were three.
And they did dispute which of them
Should be, should be, should be,
Greatest of all in the hearts of the free.
Oh, first spoke Danu, the Mother of All,
Her voice was as rich as the earth:
“I give them my cattle, my grain,
And mirth, and mirth, and mirth.
Freedom without joy is of little worth.”
And then spoke Macha, the Goddess of War,
Her voice was the roar of the wave:
“I give but courage, for fear will
Enslave, enslave, enslave.
Freedom’s a gift given but to the brave.”
Now third spoke Rion, the Light of the Moon,
Her voice was as vast as the sky:
“I give to their thoughts great wings
To fly, to fly, to fly.
Freedom means naught if you never ask why.”
[Repeat first verse. Instrumental break.]
But then came Bridget, the Queen of All Arts,
Her voice was a flickering flame:
“My sisters I fear your gifts miss
Their aim, their aim, their aim.
None but through me can their true freedom claim.”
“For pleasure and riches are fleeting at best,
And a warrior’s strength is quite brief.
And knowledge alone brings them naught
Save grief, save grief, save grief.
Without beauty’s fire within their belief.”
“My healers restore hope to those who despair.
My smiths forge them weapons so grand.
My bards cause all those who kneel
To stand, to stand, to stand.
The fires of Freedom are lit by my hand!”
There were four Sisters in our ancient land…
