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Post by potia on Oct 20, 2010 10:41:14 GMT -1
Back in April this year we talked about differentiating the seasonal change into winter from the ancestral remembrance aspects of Nos Calan Gaeaf. See: www.dunbrython.org.uk/2010/04/brython-festivals-part-2/Today I looked out on the first real frosts I have seen for this coming winter. I realise that I may well be experiencing this seasonal change earlier than anyone else on CF living in the UK but it's prompted me to start thinking about how I am going to celebrate this change. And from those thought to wondering how others might be celebrating this seasonal change. Any ideas anyone?
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Post by Francis on Oct 20, 2010 17:29:09 GMT -1
I think one of the big changes I'm going to experiment with this year is to more fully embrace the supermarket-led, secular, commercial, american contrivance that is halloween. I've always done nothing but find fault with the bastard child of Samhain/calan gaeaf that is halloween in the past, but now that it's gradually grown in scale on the the general public's radar I'm going to deliberately make the most of the opportunity it offers. For the last couple of years we've had big family parties, obviously based around all the children in dreadful little costumes run up by Chinese infants and sold in tescos for tuppence. Orange bloody pumpkins everywhere! But it does bring the family together, and after the children are in bed then sat around a huge log fire at Anna's family's seat in Cheshire last year we did talk of dead family members - and it will be good to do the same again, particularly after burying so many this year. So great bring on a commercial halloween. I think it's probably no different than christians continuing to take part in the commercial, and in reality, secular monster into which christmas has transmogrified. Both halloween and christmas are really now no more than just coincident with the respective celebrations that their origins lie in, but in a secular society this does offer possibilities, involving the family, for those of us with a different perspective that are worth making the most of. I don't mean any sort of evangelising, but because these feasts are so rooted in the seasonality of the year conversation, and family communion, with only the tiniest contrivance, seems to quite naturally fall in relevant directions. I'm going to carve, with good grace, a pumpkin not a swede this year and might even buy some pumpkin fairy lights If you'd suggested I might do this to me a short while ago I'd have taken umbrage with you...
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Post by Lee on Oct 24, 2010 17:30:22 GMT -1
i know it's tacky and i know it's commercial but there is something great about immersing in the plastic tat witch'n'pumpkins of halloween. i think my current plan will involve celebrating both close together; it has turned a lot colder here in london but is still sunny - lovely autumn weather still. i am probably going to work something together at some point this week and will probably blog about it
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Post by Francis on Oct 27, 2010 19:44:41 GMT -1
Does anyone dabble in divination / prophecy on this night? Coelcerth, apple peel, mirror/water scrying etc. etc.
Also what about the place of Apples themselves? Do they play an important part in anyone's approach to this feast?
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Post by potia on Oct 27, 2010 20:29:36 GMT -1
On the afternoon of the 31st I'll be in Pollok Park celebrating Samhain with local pagans. In the evening there will be lots of trick or treating going on in our local area. As always I remind my children and those of my brother that just as Christmas has a deeper reason behind all the gifts so does this time of year.
First frosts though has been marked by me more quietly. I re-read my modern myth about Rigantona and posted it on a local elist as bits of it seemed particularly appropriate to me. And I have quietly greeted the being I know as the Cailleach who has clearly begun walking the land up here again.
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Post by Lee on Oct 31, 2010 22:22:54 GMT -1
I haven't really been feeling it this year... i have done lit some candles in the window and will leave them to burn as long as they will. made tea and lit candles on the altar... but something just doesnt feel right yet. winter isnt here... it is still autumn, the leaves are turning, its a bit chillier and rainy but there isnt the bite in the air yet, the chill that draws itself on your bones that tells you winter is coming to town. so, with that in mind i will mark that transition separately i think this year though it has 2 weeks to make itself known or im gonna be in the middle of a southern american summer not sure how i will mark it.. something to welcome Mokkonos back and i think Potia's myth will feature. as to divination, i dont really go in for it these days. i am far to skeptical that said, i did a quick rune reading relating to a current issue and it was rather accurate- i just need to see if its future prediction will pan out. i will know in a week or so
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Post by Heron on Nov 1, 2010 9:40:10 GMT -1
I haven't really been feeling it this year... i have done lit some candles in the window and will leave them to burn as long as they will. made tea and lit candles on the altar... but something just doesnt feel right yet. winter isnt here... it is still autumn, the leaves are turning, its a bit chillier and rainy but there isnt the bite in the air yet, the chill that draws itself on your bones that tells you winter is coming to town. so, with that in mind i will mark that transition separately i think this year though it has 2 weeks to make itself known or im gonna be in the middle of a southern american summer not sure how i will mark it.. something to welcome Mokkonos back and i think Potia's myth will feature. as to divination, i dont really go in for it these days. i am far to skeptical that said, i did a quick rune reading relating to a current issue and it was rather accurate- i just need to see if its future prediction will pan out. i will know in a week or so I agree about it not being Winter yet, and have always thought that the festival of the coming of Winter (whatever it is called) should be later than the traditional date for Samhain. I continually return to that story I wrote many years ago on the Grey Mare coming to the house of Winter, although I wouldn't write it like that now it was my first (unconscious) story featuring Rhiannon and it still speaks deeply to me.
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Post by Adam on Nov 1, 2010 13:16:40 GMT -1
haven't really felt it myself yet. Similar to Francis I've renounced my old curmudgeonly ways and entertained the local kids knocking on doors with bowls of sweets and it was delightful... great fun and the mood seems to have changed from a few years ago when it was older kids... now seems to be much smaller kids with older sibling or parent in charge... all good harmless fun
My instinct is to turn to the next dark moon
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Post by potia on Nov 1, 2010 14:59:47 GMT -1
As I write this it's getting dark outside my office window. The weather is cold and even when the sun is shinning there is a distinct bite to the air. The frosts aren't every morning but they are happening and the nasturtiums that had wreathed my roses in the garden are dying away.
Up here Winter has come calling but then the fact that we feel winter at differnt times is one of the reasons we had talked about splitting the festivals into remembering the ancestors and the coming of winter.
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Post by Rion on Nov 1, 2010 18:05:21 GMT -1
Well I can finally go outside without sweating too profusely, so I think Winter may be creeping upon us here too. I'm going back to the UK for a bit in December so I'll experience it then. I should be back here in time for the rainy season, so it'll be a while.
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Post by Heron on Nov 4, 2010 17:09:00 GMT -1
For Rigantona at the Dark of the MoonIn this dark of the Moon I hold vigil here For your going into the Otherworld Rigantona - I strew rose petals About your altar For your going into the Otherworld Winter now is upon us And the darkness.
Rigantona - the leaves are strewn Upon the earth The hawthorn tree is bare For your going into the Otherworld.
The song of your birds is lost In the sigh of the wind In the shriek of the wind But I listen still for its echo With your going into the Otherworld.
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Post by potia on Nov 4, 2010 18:18:24 GMT -1
That is absolutely beautiful Heron.
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Post by Adam on Nov 6, 2010 13:47:14 GMT -1
Beautiful indeed...
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Post by Lee on Nov 6, 2010 17:03:30 GMT -1
gosh. simply gosh.
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Post by Heron on Nov 14, 2010 22:29:22 GMT -1
I've started a 'Devotions for Rigantona' offshoot of my Mabinogi website and put the Winternights piece on it. It's still very much 'under construction' but if anyone else wants me to put something on it, just let me know. Here's the link: homepage.mac.com/teyrnon/Rhiannon/Devotions.htmlwhich takes you straight to the page or it can be accessed via the menu at: www.rhiannon-and-manawydan.net
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Post by Deleted on Nov 16, 2010 16:05:17 GMT -1
What a beautiful poem!
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