Wild Onion Yule 2012

This year due to scheduling conflicts, we had Yule at Chris and Jack's house. (No worries though we will be back at Life Force Arts Center in it's new location for Imbolc!)

For the ritual we did the same thing we did last year, we assigned each step of the ritual with a rune (after a bit of re-writing as some runes weren't really in the right places) and then had the participants place the corresponding rune ornament on the tree at the appropriate time. The tree this year was my sparkly one and I also added an excessive amount of tinsel so it looked much nicer than it did last year.

Amazingly Chris' Odin plaque survived the Great Flood of 2011 with minimal damage so it graced the altar and we now have the Heimdallr Bifrost prayer beads to use as a symbol of Heimdallr (our Gatekeeper for Norse style rites) as well.

Overall the rite went very well. I did my Norse Well Tree and Fire, everyone shared their Odin stories, we sang the Snows of Valhalla and the sacrifice was made (beer, lots of beer!) and the Omens were good. We shared more beer for the return flow and for the take-aways Jack made Rune cards for each person to randomly select as a personal omen for the year.

The only major fail was my Wild Onion Wassail song. I usually am not a huge fan of filked Christmas carols but this one seemed sort of appropriate for a reinterpretation and the whole wassailing thing is pretty Pagan anyway. We sort of ran through it at the beginning but then sort of forgot about it. I had intended it to be sung during the return flow as we passed the wassail cup around, but that was vetoed and it was decided it would be sung at the end but by then I think everyone just wanted to go feast and we never sang it. Oh well there is always next year I suppose.

 After the rite we stuffed ourselves silly with lasagna and garlic bread, a vegetable platter, a cheese plate, chips and dip, juice, beer, wine, eggnog, cookies, and homemade gingerbread,  as well as stockings filled with treats and presents courtesy of Jack and Chris!

Imbolc is the next High Day and we will be honoring Brighid and making butter! We will also be resuming our work with the Forest Preserve in February so keep watching this space!

Lughlapalooza!

Please join us as we celebrate Lughnassadhin honor of Lugh. We are making a day of it! Along with the the ritual we are having a potluck picnic, and inspired by country fairs there will be a bake-off with Lugh choosing the winner which will become the offering, games, prizes, and good times! As always, we will also be gathering food donations for the Chicago Food Repository, so feel free to bring a contribution (no glass containers, please). Please contact us with any questions, need for directions, etc. Also, you can now RSVP directly on the website which is greatly appreciated!

Date: July 31st 2011
Time: 12-5pm
Where: Illinois Beach State Park
What to Bring: Non perishable food items in non glass containers for the Food Bank, and if you wish, Praise Offerings for the Deity of the Occasion and/or something for the bake-off!

View Illinois Beach State Park in a larger map

And not to make anyone nervous but for the bake-off I did find a recipe for Irish whiskey filled Irish stout cupcakes with Baileys frosting...just sayin ;)

Summer Solstice 2011

Summer Solstice altar

Summer Solstice day dawned cloudy and potentially wet, so we initiated our rain plan and moved the rite to Jack and Chris' house. Ironically it didn't rain the whole day but I have to admit a certain amount of pleasure at having the rite in air conditioning as the day was muggy and hot.
The first thing we did was prepare the herbs for the herb bags, we have made herb bags before for our rite to Belenos, but this time we could add some grown by Jack in his and Chris' new garden! As people started showing up, we prepared the altar and made sure everyone had a drink and some nibbles.

Herb bags waiting to be blessed and filled

We began the rite processing from the kitchen to the diningroom/ritual room, singing We Call the Tribe, with Jack leading us because we still mess up the words (headdesk) I think we are improving though, it's not that we forget the words just in what order they go in! As always we invoked the Earth Mother, and Jack did a visualization for the meditation. We called Cernunnos as our Gatekeeper (using an invocation by Michael Dangler) and Brigantia for our Bardic inspiration, in keeping with the Gaulish theme.

Wild Onion Grove

We invoked the three Kindreds but did not give offerings I now realize, well they must be quite forgiving as nothing untoward happened (no woad drinking or anything!) I must start keeping better track of the offerings! We then of course invoked Belenos and made praise offerings, Jack read his Belenos story (which I will post a link to as soon as I get it!) and Jennifer read a lovely poem she wrote (again will try to link) For the Sacrifice we offered fresh herbs from Jack and Chris' garden and some Polish honey wine Chris and I found at the store. We thought that the honey wine would be a good choice as its amber color and sweet taste seems to embody this time of year and is very appropriate for a Sun God!

Jack tells a story of Belenos

I then drew the Omen and the sacrifice had been accepted, the Grove Omen was also very positive (despite forgetting the Kindred offerings!) So Chris prepared and asked for blessings on the return blessings of mead and of course the herb bags and we all had some mead (and pomegranate juice) and filled our little bags with the herb mix. (The herbs were echinacea, fenugreek, juniper berry, blackberry leaf, eucalyptus, meadowsweet, spearmint, rosemary, and hellebore) We then concluded as the sun came out of the clouds and so we all went outside to enjoy the beautiful garden and quickly improving weather and have more nibbles and honey wine!

Enjoying the garden and each other's company

So next up is Lughnassadh. It looks like we will be going back to Lugh this year and we will be doing the whole country fair theme again with a bake-off (Lugh picks the winner and it becomes the sacrifice), games, prizes etc and it will probably be a whole day affair. We are currently discussing the details on our new message board, as well as some of our future plans, talks, field trips etc. Anyone is welcome to participate even if you aren't in the Chicagoland area, the more the merrier I say! Besides I am hoping we can have some cracking good discussions about a lot of things. We also have an RSVP page on the site now where you can RSVP to any of the remaining High Days of the year as well as any other events that will posted as they arise. Anyway hope everyone had a lovely Solstice and is enjoying the bounties of summer!

Spring Equinox 2011

Freyja tile by Thalia Took

So we tried something new this year and had two Deities of the Occasion, Freyja and Frigg. Both are associated with fertility and spring and even though some think they are the same Goddess we don't think so, so we honored both as distinct entities. I felt I really dropped the ball on this one, starting with high expectations of painting paintings and writing litugy  but failing to even procure my praise offering of amber from the Occult Bookstore and really feeling like I phoned it in. Jack on the other hand, wrote new Triads for the Kindreds, the Invocation to Freyja and Frigg, and researched and found the kit we used to make the seed paper for the takeaway! I did make a Geis (or Oath) that I will get Them their praise offering and (I added this later) will be writing the main invocation for Beltaine regardless of the Deity. If I fail to do these things I have to wear all pink for a week! (The Grove decided my penalty, bless them. /sarcasm) Chris also took an Oath that he would get a similar tile for Frigg from Thalia Took (apparently she takes requests) because we felt bad that we had no image for Her. (We improvised with a pic from the Internet but it's not the same)

Frigg

Anyway we set up the altar, did the ritual run through for new people and began. We had Bragi as the Bardic Deity and of course Heimdall as the Gatekeeper. The Triads went down a treat and the Invocation went well and everything was going tickety boo until we got to the Sacrifice. Now, Colleen had found some lovely strawberries to offer but didn't realize that the Lambic Chris brought was also supposed to be part of the Sacrifice as well as the Return Flow. So when it came time for me to pull the Sacrifice Omen  we got Hagalaz. oops. So we did what almost always works when we get a less than ideal Omen and started pouring Peche and Framboise Lambic over the strawberries! I pulled the Omen again and got Fehu. Whew! Bullet dodged and important lesson learned (again): always share the nice beer with your guests! ;)

I pulled the Grove Omen and which was really positive from the Ancestors and Nature Spirits although the Gods seem to be expecting more from us (or some of us.) We then shared the blessing through the Return Flow and had some Lambic and a delicious strawberry and kiwi tart that Jack also made for us. We asked for blessing for those who were not in attendance and for Japan, Libya etc and Chris asked for blessings on the seed papers and we wrote our wishes on them. We then closed the ritual out thanking the Deities and Kindreds as we went and ended with hugs all around.

All in all it was a good ritual, the seed papers and new Triads are probably the parts that stand out for me. Freyja and Frigg seemed to be content with being invoked in the same rite and I for one would be happy to try multiple Deities again. Anyway, hope everyone had a safe and happy Spring Equinox and we'll see you at Beltaine! :)

Imbolc 2011

You don't really realize how ingrained the turning of the Pagan year is in your psyche until it is disrupted. I think it was really hard for us to get into Imbolc almost a month after the time it is usually celebrated. However, we rallied and manged to have a very nice rite anyway. We didn't do everything we had planned (no butter this year) and we improvised almost the whole thing and we still mess up the words to We Call the Tribe if we don't have it written down in front of us, (it's four lines people!) but I think it was still a meaningful experience for all of us.

In particular the time for Praise Offerings was probably the most important part of the ritual. We are quite casual about this part, we sit and talk about the Deity, read poems or sing songs, tell funny stories, that sort of thing, and this Imbolc was no different. Chris read some poetry and recited some from memory and Colleen read a poem she quickly found using her smartphone (who said Pagans can't embrace technology?) Jack discussed feeling the need to create and then finding the tools to actually create your ideas, and I talked about rediscovering skills you already had and either forgotten about or lost the confidence to use (especially in my case.) We also acknowledged the need to make mistake and fail sometimes in order to grow and improve one's craft.

A new member J, then read a poem she composed a few years ago dedicated to Brighid who is her Patron, and it was very good! Joan the proprietor of LFAC who often attends our rites when we are there (much to our delight) taught us an energy raising technique that involved us singing tones spontaneously and simultaneously to create energy and something that amazingly sounds very pleasing! It's something I'd like to try again in the future.

After the Praise Offerings we lit the candles arranged in the semi circle on the altar and I explained the symbolism behind the colors chosen. Orginally we were going to do something around the nine aspects of Brighid but with all the rescheduling it just didn't come together (honestly Brighid seemed more interested in kicking our collective creative behinds anyway and who I am to argue with Her?)

Colleen then did the Sacrifice (dried sunflower petals which was another improvisation but it seemed appropriate) and I took the Omen, and the Sacrifice was accepted.  Brighid also had some advice to give us regarding creativity with the second Grove Omen. Chris then asked for blessings and we them via a cup of white grape juice and wound the rite down. Everyone got a candle and holder to take home for their personal shrines and altars and I think everyone felt a bit more inspired to get creating and use the Awen we were blessed with at the rite! I am sure we won't make it a habit to have our High Day rituals a month late, but at least if we do have issues and problems in the future we know now that we can roll with the punches and still put on a great ritual! :)

A Merry Wild Onion Yule!

Yule is our first indoor rite of the year and as we do for all our indoor rites we headed to Life Force Arts Center and arrived as it just started to get dark. It has been a particularly chilly December and this evening was no exception. Chris and Colleen went in to start setting up and Jack and I hurried in the cold to Starbucks to get a box of coffee for the post rite socializing. When we returned we helped finish setting up, greeted the people that had shown up while we were gone, and then Chris gave his (not so) brief ritual explanation and we began.

The deity of the occasion was Odin, same as last Yule and so we focused on the Runes and integrated them into the rite. Each part of the core order of ritual got it's own Rune that corresponded to what was taking place (Gebo for the sacrifice and Eihwaz for the Ancestors for example.) As each part was spoken the participant would place the correct rune on the World Tree Yggdrasil. Heimdall was the Gatekeeper and Bragi was the Bardic Deity. I did the Norse Well, Tree and Fire again this year, Colleen baked Julekake for the offering and the return flow, Chris read a poem for Odin that was written by a member of ADF and Jack wrote a carol called the Snows of Valhalla which made me think we need to write more Yule carols, or he does anyway. If he keeps this up we will have an entire song book by next Samhain! We had some guests as well and even though this was their first ADF rite they helped us with the invocations which is always nice, you want people to feel included. (They also brought vegetarian lasagna for the potluck which made it even nicer!) :)

The Julekake and Stella were then offered to Odin (apparently we have it on good authority that Odin favors Stella Artois, who knew?) and the Omen was taken. we got Elhaz (Protection) as the answer to "was the sacrifice accepted" (our sacrifice Omen) and Ingwaz (fertility , creativity, new beginnings) as our Grove Omen. A very positive Omen all around although we had a moment of concern when neither Jack nor I could figure out what Ingwaz was! It was Joan (our host with the most at LFAC who joined us for the rite) who realized that I used the Anglo Saxon version instead of the Elder Futhark when I made my Runes! Whoops! But I rather like the Anglo Saxon version so I figure as long as I know what it means, then it's okay.

We then shared the return blessing and passed around the horn with beer in it and the Julekake with butter and Gjetost which is a caramelized goat cheese and is traditionally served with the Julekake. As always we then asked for blessings for all who couldn't be there, and for our families and friends. The Ansuz Runes that Jack had wood-burned for everyone were also passed out, a tangible reminder of Odin's blessings. Then we wound the rite down and went and feasted on homemade gingerbread, the above mentioned lasagna, Bûche de Noël, coffee, juice, wine, and some other things and socialized and told stories and explained a little about ADF and enjoyed the warmth and companionship that this time of year invokes so perfectly.:)

Hope everyone had a blessed and joyous Yule/Solstice as well! :)