Above: a few photos of our Samhain altar.
Monday night’s Samhain celebration was so beautiful & fulfilling. Both yesterday and today, I feel so invigorated and excited about the new year!
In addition celebrating the sabbat and communing with ancestors, the rite was incredibly powerful., and deeply personal because it also marked another very special occasion. The core group of amazingly gifted, and lovely witches (the AWC) who I have been informally practicing with since 2008 are now bound together as a formal coven.
I feel so blessed to have found this group of priestesses (and priest). They are some of my most favourite people, and I feel like I’ve found my spiritual home. I am absolutely filled to the brim with enthusiasm right now. I feel like I could do anything because of the support and love I have found within this group. I am incredibly proud to say I am a founding member and priestess of The Sacred Society of Rose.
Mabon 2011 Celebration - The Hagging
Above are photos of our altar, including a close-up of some things on it, our feast table and my Hag. Our incense of the season was WonderWorks Equinox blend.
This is a special ritual for two reasons, it was the first one the AWC has had since we decided to formalize, and also because it was the largest ritual we’ve had yet with many special guests in attendance. I love this ritual, it’s my third year (or is it fourth?) doing it with this my lovelies, and its definitely a highlight of our celebration calendar.
This ritual has a definite Celtic flavour, as it is lead by one of our members who originally comes from that path. There are obviously some anachronisms in some of the choices of materials, as it has been adapted to Canadian circumstances and the use of corn instead of wheat. (The former is indigenous to the Americas, whereas the latter is not.)
This ritual is joyful, yet heavy at the same time. We embark on a great commitment of time and energy. We bring forth the heart and wisdom of the crone (Cailleach) into our lives for the continuance of her protection and nourishment in the upcoming seasons of cold. If you take care of her then she in turn will also take care of you. We honour the dark half of the year with the creation of our hags. We care for her throughout the dark her until spring Equinox, when she is then released.
My hags, have in the past, enjoyed offerings of whiskey (traditional), gin and rum (not so traditional). I’ve also heard of hags that enjoy Jägermeister. They all have their own personalities, and I’m excited to get to know this one better. I think this year she looks a bit like a showgirl with a fancy head-dress. LOVE IT!
witchy soirée - full moon edition
I am really excited for dinner tonight - a meeting on the full moon, with the founding member of the AWC (aka The-Not-Coven). My very dear friend, mentor and next door neighbour, Lady Sweet will be hosting on her side of the Compound (how we affectionately refer to the 150 year old building that we live in - its two loft-style apartments and a business below.)
Other than socializing (and maybe a bit of magic), the agenda today includes discussing the future of our expanding efforts, the possibility of formalizing a bit more and planning of my somewhat overdue first degree graduation ritual. I’m not going to be the neophyte anymore.
I can’t think of a more lovely way to spend a Sunday evening. I’ve got a banana-chocolate cake in the oven for dinner. Smells heavenly! ~sparrowqueen ♥
belated Beltane photos
Hi lovelies,
I’ll admit that I am currently procrastinating on school work that really need my attention, but I was sipping on some wine & smoking hash while watching True Blood and now I’m a bit inebriated so the likelihood of accomplishing much tonight is probably quite low.
I was just scrolling through some pictures on my little point and shoot camera and realised I never uploaded photos from the Beltane celebration I had with the autonomous witches’ collective (hereafter referred to as AWC in future posts, methinks.) I co-lead this ritual with my lovely neighbour/witchy mentor, in her apartment.
Our basic altar set-up, featuring the gorgeous piece of stilbite I received as a housewarming gift.
We had way too much food this time, 11 kinds of cheese! In our defence, my housewarming party was the day before, so half of it was leftover from the previous night.
We had an elaborate plan to dance the maypole outdoors, but alas, we live in the middle of downtown Toronto and though we both have decent sized decks we weren’t sure we’d have enough space. We had also contemplated doing it in the churchyard across the street, but imagined the pastor probably wouldn’t have been impressed.
As luck would have it, it was raining quite heavily that day anyway so we improvised and being good urban witches managed to devise a system of keeping our pole erect using only cinderblocks, copies of the local free weekly newspaper and sheer will-power.
Our beautiful maypole, all wound up! (And yes, we did disconnect the fire alarm temporarily, our smokey incense was setting it off.)
I simply adore Beltane, it’s probably my second favourite sabbat behind Samhain. This ritual was a smaller gathering of witches, but incredibly memorable and enjoyable. I can’t wait for next year.
~sparrowqueen ♥
