In This Issue: *Beltane Lore and Traditions for the Season* New Offerings and Classes for 2023* *Myth and Moon Letters vs. The Blog* *Magical Kittens* *Planting Seeds for the Wild Soul Sanctuary and Preserve*
Dear Community—The lore of the folk reminds us that Beltane is a season and Beltane is an ancestor festival...(mirrored in the South, Samhain is a season and Samhain is an ancestor festival)...In all of my lineage traditions (Norse/Germanic, Celtic, Slavic) the holy days were opportunities for ancestor veneration and seeking council through ritual, divination and visiting the dead. The names change, the traditions vary, but the central theme is one of veneration, feasting and council.
One of the principles behind the Wild Soul Runes book is that ancestral connection is essential to spiritual sovereignty and gnosis-based practice. When we find the threads of earth-veneration and ancestor reverence in our lineages we are empowered with connection and potentiate growth. When we root in to the deep histories of our human connection we find the wyrd huge and ready for re-weaving, healing, repair. When we travel back far enough we find stories and lessons of sustenance that are not romantic, but do contain clues (clew: spools) for crafting presence in this moment of time. We practice right where we are, we ask the ancestors and the land to guide our practice, and are responsive to the answer. This is, at its essence, ancestral animism.
For my ancestors (and yours somewhere too) every day was a holy day, the round of the day was sacred. There were songs, chants and prayers for everything, to everything, blessing, protecting, offering, connecting all through the daily round of labor that meant survival. Celebrations were an honoring of those survivals, grieving losses, ritualizing rounds of protective energy and mystery, reflection on where we were, seeking oracles for what is ahead.
In this turning time we honor our ancestors by being alive. We have survived a global pandemic, and we are changed by the loss and grief we’ve encountered in our survival.
We can honor this gift of life at the turning times by being generous with one another, remembering to help each other, crafting patterns of beauty, reconnection and healing.
Seasonal Inquiry for Beltane/Samhain
What offerings are you making in this Beltane/Samhain season?
What gifts of new growth are you celebrating?
What losses are you mourning?
Where are you mending the wyrd, in life and work and worth?
What is your service to others in this time of ending/rebirth?
Ancestral Traditions for Beltane
Two things I’ve discovered in researching ancestral folk traditions:
Variations on these themes are found in the sacred practices of all of my ancestral lineages—Germanic, Celtic, Baltic and Slavic—during the sacred year.
At these solar turning times occult influences were believed to be more potent, and magical rites more effective than at other times.
Folk Beltane/Samhain practices might involve any of the following:
The kindling of the need-fire, a community ritual for eliminating plague and/or preventing disease.
Saining/reocan blessing with smoke or silvered water of cattle, home, crops, boats and buildings.
Visits to sacred springs and holy wells for healing and fertility.
Divination rites for determining luck in the quarter ahead.
Baking and dedication of sacred cakes for offering and consumption.
These days were also lucky days for setting out on a journey, a new undertaking, or gathering in community.
For charms and spells it was vital to rise before dawn and magical workings were often completed in silence and while fasting.
The most sacred of all water forms was dew, particularly the dew of Beltane morning. Gathering the dew from the grass before sunrise on a sacred day and washing one’s face in it was a traditional beauty charm.
On sacred days was dangerous to give out fire from the house as the recipient could take the luck of the house with them. Similar prohibitions were on loans of any kind, salt, flour, rennet, water.
The sacred day and the first Monday (Moon-day) after were auspicious days for making an augury of things to come.
Smoke blessing and protecting was often done with juniper. Juniper must be pulled from the roots, its branches made into four bundles and taken between five fingers.
Other methods of protection included binding two rowan twigs with red thread and placing them above the home or byre.
Quarter cakes were baked for the family and for individuals, and people ate them outside, throwing a pinch over their shoulders as an offering.
Visiting sacred wells or springs for healing and good fortune at the quarter days increased the water’s potency. Common practice was to approach bare legged and bare footed, walked thrice sunwise around the well, and before drinking, silvering the water (adding a coin as offering), then leaving a rag or pin or a fragment of clothing at the tree or stone commonly associated with the well or spring, symbolic of casting off cares or ills.
Beltane is a fire festival, and traditionally one would gather nine sacred woods to kindle the fires of Beltane or Samhain. These might be any combination of willow, hazel, rowan, alder, birch, ash, yew, elm, apple, oak, holly or elder.
The themes of silence, divination, protection and offering are woven threads throughout these traditions.
One Question I am Always Asked
How do these practices translate into our modern lives?
So much of what we do daily is deeply ancestral—we engage in human activities, such as eating and bathing, that connect us with an ancient past—and this is where we can bring intention and ritual, increasing our celebration and infusing life with purposeful meaning. Here are some of the ways I annually celebrate Beltane season:
Rise at dawn to sip the dew and perform augury.
Create a sacred well in my yard with a bucket of silvered water set out by moon or starlight. In the morning before dawn I go out in silence and hold healing intentions, walking three times around the well while making offerings. Then I drink and bathing my face and hands in the sacred water.
I sain my home with mugwort and silvered moon water, sprinkling all doorways and windowsills in blessing and clearing.
Walking three times around my property deasil (sunward, clockwise) with burning plants—I will be using mugwort and yarrow—for protection.
Baking oatcakes and making offerings to the ancestors and the land spirits.
For more information on Beltane/Samhain lore, I recommend the following books:
The Golden Bough by James Fraser
The Carmina Gadelica by Alexander Carmichael
The Silver Bough F. Marian McNeill
Healing Threads by Mary Beith
And remember: however we choose to celebrate this season, there is no right way. There is only the way, which is a way of honoring and intention.
By this and every effort may the balance be regained.
ᚨᛚᚢ
New Offerings and Classes for 2023
Time has warped again, as it can whenever we are in transition. Since my last Myth and Moon letter I’ve completed the first draft of the Dark Goddess book—and promptly fell of the cliff of illness. I’m recovering now, but had to necessarily adjust my offerings for the year ahead.
However, in spite of this…wyrd…beginning, I am very excited about the summer’s Wild Soul School classes and experiences. Please note: These were voted on by patrons and are community supported! If you would like to become a part of the community that supports this work (and receive early registration, discounts on classes, along with many other opportunities and benefits) click here to become a patron. Community support helps me offer many practices by donation/with no financial barriers, keep costs low for tuition based classes and offer full scholarships for all in need.
If all goes well and I can maintain a healthful pacing I will also be offering a Land Spirits class in the fall.
Myth & Moon Letters and More Writing
Since the inception of my email list I have been practicing my personal golden rule of newslettering, do unto others as you would have others do unto you. So I send/post quarterly-ish letters with lots of content rather than blasting your inboxes.
However, I do write…a lot. (It is how I figure out what I think, part of my spiritual and devotional practice, and a way that I integrate research/keep a record of my process.) And I have decided to continue a blog on my website, then will link to posts in the quarterly Myth and Moon Letters. This gives me the ability to post regularly, while reserving your inbox for the more substantive Myth and Moon. If you would like to follow the blog, you are welcome to do so here.
Recent Posts
Domestic Arts and Ancestral Reclaiming
Reflections on the Dark Goddess Year
Magical Kittens!!!
In January I began feeding a stray cat who was lingering around our house. She was skinny and very shy, would not let me touch her for weeks. When I was finally able to get her to the vet we discovered she did not have a microchip and was pregnant. On March 24th she had five gorgeous kittens—four black and one grey, three girls and two boys—and I am currently fostering the litter. It is one of the most meaningful experiences of my life (especially with Freyja as kindred) and I want to link here a couple of local organizations that support stray cats in need and can always use support:
CAT Adoption Team: These folks have volunteers that consistently foster kittens and can always use donations.
Meow Village: This decentralized bunch of committed volunteers helps find homes for adult cats and fosters kittens. My own cat, Crowma, came from Meow Village six years ago and she was so well socialized—she is an incredible cat.
And if you are an animal lover (or ancestral animist) who has considered fostering cats or dogs, I highly recommend it. It is a lot of work, but the connection, love and service is absolute joy.
(We plan to have rescue animals/fosters on the Wild Soul Sanctuary and Preserve—see below!)
A Beginning
This past moon my husband and I traveled to the Rogue Valley—where I grew up, where my family still lives—to begin planting the seeds for the Wild Soul Sanctuary and Preserve, a physical place for land-based healing and ancestral animist practice.
The above photo is in one of the areas we are exploring. Isn’t it gorgeous?
This has been our dream since we first met, and has been my dream since childhood. For most of my adult life, however, it was a dream out of reach, delayed, deferred, denied by illness and circumstance.
In the last years, thanks in no small part to the generosity of my patrons and students, to the folks who have purchased my books and helped weave community with me, we have been able to heal our credit and balance our family after the devastations caused by years of undiagnosed and untreated chronic illness.
We still have a long way to go. But the land feels possible now, the intention is there, the vision is held. And you are invited on the journey.
I have a post on Patreon that sketches the vision for the Preserve, and will be sharing more in the moons ahead. Your good thoughts, prayers and connection are most welcome.
Full Moon Dísir Blessing Journey
I crafted this ceremonial journey for my patrons (along with a Dark Moon one for clearing and grounding) and want to share it here in honor of the season. It may be used to connect, receive information and open to the love and blessing of your ancestors as the Beltane/Samhain moon waxes full.
My Dísir, or ancestral grandmothers in my lineage tradition, are a source of great support and comfort to me. The word Dís is defined in A Concise Old Icelandic Dictionary as meaning, “sister, female guardian, angel, goddess,” and the more I work with them the closer I feel to the healing of my motherline, the weaving of new potential.
In this time of change may you feel the fullness of your ancestor’s care, may they remind you that you are always loved, always connected, always blessed, and that you carry within their deep wisdom.
By this and every effort may the balance be regained.
With love—
ᚨᛚᚢ
Lara