More Samhain with pictures :)

As Jack said, This Samhain was bright and sunny but bone chillingly cold, we sort of ended up speeding through some things so we wouldn't freeze, which is a shame but we did make sure Janus was properly honored as well as the Ancestors, and we had a brief eulogy for Isaac. We invoked Mercury  as the Gatekeeper and Vulcan as the Bardic Deity, and gave tootsie rolls to the Outsiders. Jack read a prayer he wrote and Chris read from Ovid's Fasti.

For the Sacrifice Coleen offered a loaf of Jack's soda bread. The omen was very favorable, we had Janet Berres as a guest and as she is the Tarot queen we asked her to pull the Omen and she pulled the Ace of Swords.  A good start for new beginnings and the ability to cut through the BS, yup that's the Onions through and through! :) Janus seems very pleased to be honored as the Deity of the Occasion and not just the bouncer! I did the Grove Omen and we got the Three of Pentacles, the Page of Swords, and the Two of Rods, I then blanked completely on the Three of Pentacles but did remember the other two! So our Grove Omen was equally good, mastery of skills, direct communication (again very Onion!) and success, power, attainment of goals and collaboration and  I think this does reflect how far we have come as a Grove.

We then made a special sacrifice of incense, rosemary, and apples to the Ancestors and said a prayer and eulogized Isaac and other beloved Dead. We then shared the blessings with mulled wine (very good especially in the cold!) and oatmeal cranberry cookies and quickly handed out the Janus heads.We even more quickly transferred the Senior Druid title from Jack to Chris and then wound the ceremony down to the end. Almost everyone left quickly at this point, people were shivering and hands going numb, but some of us decided to stay as we wanted to find the Haymarket Martyrs monument and Emma Goldman's grave. Which we did and we left a cookie for both.

All in all the rite went well, not quite as elaborate as I had hoped due to the weather, and the fact that we were late, partially due to traffic and partially due to my getting the time wrong. We Onions aren't known for being on "Pagan Standard Time" (i.e. late for everything) but we have found ourselves running behind the last two rites. Hopefully with the resumption of indoor rites at Life Force Arts Center, our on time-ness will resume :)  The only other thing we forgot was as it was a Roman rite, to honor Vesta first and last! That might explain why our fire went out halfway through the rite (facepalm!)....we (or at least I) will probably do a special piacular-type rite for her before Yule.

Hope Everyone had a joyous and blessed Samhain!
Caroline, Webmaster, Wild Onion Grove

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