Happy Saturnalia!
I thought I should send out that greeting to the few people on my friends' list here. As most of you know, I don't personally observe the Saturnalia. In fact the closest brush I've had with the Religio Romana this year was at the autumnal rite to Ceres that Sassafras Grove held last September.
One thing I love about Sassafras Grove is its broad ecumenical inclusion of all IE hearth cultures. My own spirituality has a northern Anglo-Saxon inspiration, so for me this holiday season is the Géol. And last night I had the honor and priviledge of serving as one of the primary liturgists for Sassafras Grove's first Anglo-Saxon Yuletide ritual, right here in Pittsburgh. About 45-50 people came, which is a fairly decent attendance for one of the grove's winter solstice rituals. Our senior druid (Earrach) called upon Þunor to ward the site, and we asked Woden to open and watch over the gates between the worlds. The honored deities were my lord Ing and his sister Fréo. At the climax of the ritual I processed in with a boar's head, upon which we called the blessings of the gods. Then we invited people to come forward and make oaths on the boar's head, in the Germanic custom.
It was a good rite, and I was acutely aware of Ing's presence guiding our work both during the ritual and in the preceding days of planning and preparation. And it was especially meaningful to me on several levels:
1. This was the first time I'd taken a leading role in one of the grove's High Day rituals, which was pretty significant.
2. I became a resident of Pennsylvania exactly five years - to the hour - before this ritual (I drove up to my new home on the evening of December 21st, 2001).
3. And last night I turned in all of my paperwork for the ADF Dedicant Program. Then, when it came time for me to approach the boar, I gave my dedicant's oath.
None of this has anything to do with Nova Roma or Roman religion or culture, but it's something I wanted to share. Finding Sassafras Grove was the best thing that's happened to me in the past five years.
One thing I love about Sassafras Grove is its broad ecumenical inclusion of all IE hearth cultures. My own spirituality has a northern Anglo-Saxon inspiration, so for me this holiday season is the Géol. And last night I had the honor and priviledge of serving as one of the primary liturgists for Sassafras Grove's first Anglo-Saxon Yuletide ritual, right here in Pittsburgh. About 45-50 people came, which is a fairly decent attendance for one of the grove's winter solstice rituals. Our senior druid (Earrach) called upon Þunor to ward the site, and we asked Woden to open and watch over the gates between the worlds. The honored deities were my lord Ing and his sister Fréo. At the climax of the ritual I processed in with a boar's head, upon which we called the blessings of the gods. Then we invited people to come forward and make oaths on the boar's head, in the Germanic custom.
It was a good rite, and I was acutely aware of Ing's presence guiding our work both during the ritual and in the preceding days of planning and preparation. And it was especially meaningful to me on several levels:
1. This was the first time I'd taken a leading role in one of the grove's High Day rituals, which was pretty significant.
2. I became a resident of Pennsylvania exactly five years - to the hour - before this ritual (I drove up to my new home on the evening of December 21st, 2001).
3. And last night I turned in all of my paperwork for the ADF Dedicant Program. Then, when it came time for me to approach the boar, I gave my dedicant's oath.
None of this has anything to do with Nova Roma or Roman religion or culture, but it's something I wanted to share. Finding Sassafras Grove was the best thing that's happened to me in the past five years.