Ostara High Day Recap/Reflection

I was back at Cedarlight Grove for this one, and it was another cold one. Not as frigid as Yule, thankfully, but I wished I'd gone ahead and put on another layer under my jeans and sweatshirt. I really need to get sturdier wet/cold weather shoes, a warm rain-proof coat, and a long winter cloak.

Deities of the Occasion were Grainne, Sadv, and Aengus. Brigit and the Dadga were also called, I'm not sure in what respect. One, or perhaps both, served as the Gatekeeper. I need to follow up on that... as I said, it was cold. I spent a lot of time hunched up in my hoodie trying not to focus on how chilled I was.

Many different Cedarlight folks took parts in the ritual, including some of the children, which I enjoyed. It's always nice to see a group where a lot of different people are involved in projects instead of the same old faces all the time.

We did a bit of group dancing and singing. It was a little tentative, both because many of us didn't know the songs until an hour before ritual, and because they'd done some work to replace/upgrade some of the stones within the sanctuary, so we were all careful not to trip over a stone or slip in the mud. Rain had been forecast and had fallen earlier in the afternoon, but it (thankfully) cleared off prior to ritual.

My offerings (well, our... my husband shared the offerings) were sunflower seeds to Grainne, the winter sun. Sadv got edamame (soybeans) as a treat for the deer (I did a little research to see what deer like to eat), and Aengus got an offering of romantic love -- a kiss between myself and my husband. Everyone thought that was cute, judging by the loud "Awwwwww!" we got for that one.

We had yet another police helicopter incursion. I've now joined the Grove, so we'll see whether this happens during every rite or not. So far I'm 3 for 3 on noisy flyovers. While the Grove is in Baltimore, the neighborhood is really not that bad, so I don't get the air traffic.

I'm not sure what the message is from the omen just yet. We're discussing that on Sunday at the weekly Rites of Caffeina, which I plan to attend unless I'm just too miserable from having a couple teeth pulled tomorrow. Our Seer used a method of dropping raw egg into a boiling cauldron (which was boiled during the ritual over the fire) and interpreting the pictures. I've also heard of people doing this with hot candle wax into cold water.

Egg was appropriate given the Ostara season, though I'm sure neither person working the omen expected the egg to splatter everywhere when it was squeezed. It probably would have been better to crack the egg into a hand, then drip the egg through the fingers, but whatever. I wasn't the one that got splattered. :)

The Grove has had some nice improvements since Yule. There are a couple new stone walkways joining the concrete pavilion with the sanctuary area and another altar area further back. There's also been work on a drainage ditch at the rear of the property, and the gardens have been weeded and such. I can't wait to get my hands into the gardens. I need to start working on my garden at home, before the weeds get even more established. But I digress.

There's a clootie tree on the property now, and I tied a clootie after ritual and offered up some of the Earl Gray tea I was drinking. Brigit is my Patroness, and I figured that asking for boons in Ireland worked so well, I'd try it this time. We'll see how that works out.

All in all, I thought it was a fun ritual. We don't often do enough singing and dancing in Pagan rites. The feast was yummy, though all the Dublin Coddle disappeared too quickly for me to get seconds. I'll be happy when it's warm enough to eat outside, as there really aren't enough seats indoors for a large crowd, and while I don't mind eating on the floor, it does get to my back after a bit.

I'll also admit that now that I've done a few rituals outdoors, I can say that I feel a much keener bond to nature. You really feel close to the winter when you're standing out in it for a couple hours huddled around a fire. Likewise, you appreciate the chill rains of March and how that contrasts with other seasons when you're squishing around in the mud.

An Update, A Rethink, and Some Nature Awareness

Ok, so it's been, like, months since I've updated the blog. It's been months since I did any of my Dedicant Program work. But we're through winter now, and that's great. The last month or so, from mid-February until now, has been a blitz of new projects, mostly involving one of my other major hobbies.

I'd really wanted to get to Cedarlight for the Imbolc ritual,  but they decided to have a dawn ritual and I had to work that weekend. I downloaded the liturgy from Teo Bishop's Solitary Druid Fellowship, and even customized it, and then proceeded to procrastinate my way through the entire weekend. While, yes, it was my birthday weekend, I was still unhappy with myself.

This leads to the rethink...

I'm honestly surprised it's taken me this long to understand that I will never have the motivation to do complicated rituals at home. Now, it's not like I've never done my own solo rituals. I started out as a solitary Wiccan in the late 90s, and did ritual work on my own prior to joining a coven.

What I mean is that I'm just not going to sit down and do a full COoR at home on my own. It's a lot of steps, a lot of materials to gather, and those things give me an easy out for the procrastination. "Oh, I can't do ritual, I don't have all my offerings!" "Oh, I can't do ritual, it'll take an hour and I'm tired!"

Going forward, this means that if I do need to do ritual on my own, I'm going to "plan" a much more relaxed, "kitchen witch" sort of thing. I've always had success with these, and it doesn't matter if half the rituals for my DP are done in another style, anyhow. I can cast circle and wrap up a holiday ritual in 20 minutes if I want to, because I don't have to think about it.

Being Wiccan for almost 20 years, I'm familiar enough with those ritual patterns to do it in my sleep. Sometimes I kind of have. ADF-style ritual is still new to me, even though I've been a card carrying member for like 7 years now, and I have to think about all the steps if I'm alone. If I'm at the Grove, I just follow along with everyone else. I get a lot out of participating, but participating is nowhere near the level of "running things".

So that's that. As a part of my rethink, I've retooled my timeline for completing my DP, as I did not legitimately celebrate Imbolc. Oh, I thought about lying and writing it up anyway, so I could get the project completed at Samhain this year. No one would have known. Except me. And the Gods. And how can I build a foundation on dishonesty? I never cheated at school. Why cheat now?

As part of that rethink, I've decided that it isn't that important to strictly follow the Wheel of the Year booklet. I think it's fabulous, and I do want to make DP work a regular, mostly-weekly part of my life. But again, a weekly regimen gives me ample opportunity to shoot myself in the foot. "Oh, I missed 6 weeks now! I have to start again!"

The only requirements for the DP that have any sort of time-frame attached are the 8 holiday rituals, which must be completed in a 12 month period; the mental discipline training, which needs to take place over a certain number of months; and I think the nature awareness requirement, though I need to look that up. So if I don't write an Ostara essay this month, no big deal. If I don't get my home shrine set up for a while longer, no big deal. No reason to tank things because I'm not doing it perfectly.

Wow. That was long. In other news, I submitted my application to join Cedarlight last night at Ostara. New Grove membership involve a trial/training period, so that'll start once they get me into the system. I can't wait. :)

And a bit of nature awareness... winter is a rough season for me, as I've said before. This year, though, I think I'm more in tune with nature than ever before. In mid-February, I started noticing that the days were actually getting longer, well before I usually do. I've noticed the daffodils have started coming up around my area, and trees are budding... all in the last couple of weeks. This isn't something I've consciously worked at, but it's coming to me all the same, and I'm delighted. I'm also delighted that spring is just around the corner, because I'm SOOOOO ready for flip-flop weather. I hate wearing shoes!