In comments below, Marcellina asks:
[W]hile I remain a happy atheist, your (always interesting) blog has got me interested in the various Pagan markings of the seasons and other celebrations of nature. Can you (or your readers) recommend any kind of online calendar that would take me through the year and explain ceremonies as they approach? Is there anything like that on the nets? I don't want a book or treatise to read all at once, but something I can check in on. Thanks!
I'm not aware of an online calendar of the sort that Marcellina describes (although it sounds like a great idea). Readers?
There is a quarterly ezine called Living in Season, published by Waverley Fitzgerald, who used to run School of the Seasons. It's a bit like the discussion I was having the other day with Son about my house. If I close the door to the ritual room, most people wouldn't know that it's a Witch's house. But a Witch would walk in and know immediately. Living in Season has a Pagan flavor without appearing too overtly Pagan.
It's not online, but We'Moon publishes really wonderful calendars; I get one every year. You can take the information in in bits, not feeling the need to read the whole thing through.
Googling "Wheel of the Year" will turn up dozens of web sites, some better than others. But you can get the general idea of the 4 Solar holidays and the 4 Cross-Quarter days and how they relate to the seasons.
One caution I'll offer for sites on the web and many Pagan books (although Marcellina's not looking for a book): They tend to say, often quite definitively, "This holiday is associated with these Goddesses and Gods. The following colors, stones, plants, etc. are to be used to decorate the altar. Etc." And then you go to the next web site or book and it will say, just as definitively, that the holiday is associated with different Goddesses and Gods and that different colors, stones, plants, etc. are to be used. And then, if you visit a public Pagan ritual, you'll see them doing something else, instead, or mixing elements from both sources.
And that's what keeps this interesting.
Thanks in advance for any suggestions that my wonderful readers can post in comments here.
Picture found here.
7 comments:
I think the blog, Gypsy Magic, (http://gypsymagicspells.blogspot.com/) does a good job of keeping up with the seasons/sabbats/holidays as they happen with helpful and diverse background information.
Peace,
Chris.....
I have a greeting card which shows the Wheel of the Year and is kept by many of my circle sisters on their altars to turn with the turning year. It's at this link: http://www.proseandletters.com/Cards/WheeloftheYear.html
I never thought of offering it as an online calendar, but my blog has a category called "wheel of the year" with many postings. In fact I promised myself I wouldn't let a sabbat go by without posting something about it, in a teaching way, look this is a simple thing we do to honor this time of year. So she could try some of those links to see if anything shows up that she might like to read.
Good question: where do we send people for Pagan 101?
Cari
These are all terrific links. Plus now I have some search terms to help me look even further. Thank you!!
This is off topic, but I wanted to thank you for posting excerpts of Kissing the Hag by Emma Restall Oarr. I just finished reading the entire book and I learned more about myself from that book than I every could have ever imagined. This book is a treasure.
Thank you, Hecate, for all that you do and all that you write. I have learned so much here.
ugg, sorry about the error in the post above. Apparently, I can no longer multi-task! :)
It would be really cool to have a widget one could put on one's blog, LJ page or whatever, that showed a wheel that turns a little each day, with the seasons/sabbats on it. Then a clicky link embedded that takes the reader to a site with details on the upcoming holiday! I wish I could write code and do that...
And any wheel generated in the global north needs to remember the evolving pagan understandings of the southern hemispheres and differing indigenous traditions.
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