it's beginning to look a lot like...
You ever come across those groups that, you're pretty sure you like them, or can't stand them, but you don't quite know which one yet? Meet the Pipettes.
Tartan generator!
Woke up this morning to the strains of In Gloria Excelcis and it suddenly struck me--this is the first year in at least a decade I haven't hit December 1st and found the nearest carol-playing radio station. Or rigged my player with carols, start to finish.
Now, I know part of this is both iPods we were given died, my player is nonrecoverable (at least, for power-sourcing--it can be done, I could probably even do it, can't afford the parts...and I can't find my personal radio.
Irksome.
But the point is, even with that, there are online radio stations, and I'd have long before this flipped on a station and just grooved on down to the jingle all month long.
Weirdly? This is not blaming anyone, but I think this has something to do with spending a great deal of time talking to two Jewish people, one of whom flinches at Nativity scenes. That one and I, we've discussed a lot about religious ethics, faith versus ritual, where to draw the line when dealing with celebrations of faiths not ours...you may think dry, passionless stuph, but I've been fascinated, and I'm also learning a lot about Jewish festivals and celebrations I never knew before.
(To be fair, I have nearly always had Jewish--or even formerly Jewish, as sukinova puts it, "Jewitch"--friends, but for the most part? Just haven't asked.)
It also started me thinking again, about my odd personal cobble, for religious celebrations on my own. This is my religious year:
Samhain on October 31st starts things off, it's not the closing of the growing season, but I tend to treat it as such, as the official start of the Dark Half of the year. Yes, I'm American, so there's also candy and dressing up, but we do acknowledge the passing of any who've died, stand before the thinning veil between the worlds, and recognize that things get weird in October.
Feast of Kali is next on November 2nd or 3rd, it's not Kali Puja as it once was, I do not have the little Kali to feed red ochre and milk, but I try to have Indian food, at least, and celebrate in her name with lit candles and fellowship.
Einherjar when we remember (we're not an active military family anymore, so um, we forget), is generally held on November 11th. It celebrates the fallen in battle. Lighting candles, long moments of silence for those we've lost, and a (fairly sober) feast.
Yule on the 21st of December is the Winter Solstice; actually, as a Solstice, the day varies, but in America, it's common on the 21st, so. This is traditionally the shortest day of the year, and we spend it staying up, playing games, watching (bad, sometimes good) movies, and keeping fires burning--all the way from logs to candles, depending, and one memorable year, when we had neither, turning on and upending flashlights. :) This one ends when dawn comes, we walk out on our lawn, dancing and singing and banging pots and pans, and the neighbors call the cops on us for waking them up, because it's six in the #^%$^(@! morning.
Emperor Norton's Demise, celebrated on January 8th. We don't know when he was born, so we celebrate when he left us. It's generally a feast day and acknowledged as an excuse to party. :)
Candlemas, February 2nd, a feast generally of fertility and renewal, but also inspiration and purification. The days start to get longer, we have emerged from the Dark Half of the year (nearly), and again, we drag out the candles and have a feast if we can. (Technically, every lamp in the house should be lit this night, for at least a few minutes, but we rarely do this, we're trolls.)
Summer Finding/Ostara/Easter is around March 21st. Dyeing eggs, another feast, collecting wildflowers, cooking with new-grown herbs--we don't have kids, so we don't do a lot of the kid things. We do try to get a basket and pack it with candy and unusually-colored stuphed animals. (For us, not children. Hee.) This is also--and little-known, this--the closest pagans come to a Day of Atonement--it's generally put as, this is the time to free yourself from anything that's holding you back, and if you do have something, cast it into an egg, and bury the egg. Most pagans? Do not do this. (Most pagans don't throw the Chocolate Ritual here, either, but we either do it here, or at Yule. Depending on which part of the year we really need the chocolate blessing for.)
Feast of Padraig is March 17th, and is our single largest cooking day (yes, even eclipsing Harvest Home/Thanksgiving). One year we had over seventeen people, and had:
Fools' Day on Aprille 1st. Rimble-Rimble. Hail Eris. Hail Loki. Generally not much but an excuse to have fun, but we do remember we walk a path of chaos and this is its biggest spin. On some occasions, we've held the Bill the Cat ritual on Aprille 1st, but usually, that's a summer thing.
Beltane on Aprille 30th or May 1st, depending, is a celebration of love and desire, honoring the God and Goddess revered (a lot of us are open-ended that way, some more annoyingly than others), and the return of full fertile life to the planet. Flowers are gathered, May Poles are danced, leaping the Balefire for luck and a chance at conception for those interested in such. I, like many pagans, got handfasted for the first time on Beltane, so it's also my anniversary.
Birthday Week from around the 9th of June, to the 22nds of June. This is not a religious celebration, per se, but Midsummer does fall in there, so it gets husbanded in. Midsummer is the day (21st) when the day is longest. So us being us, we keep the house dark in the hopes that night will actually fall (why not? Don't give me that look. We do the same thing in reverse for Yule.)
Lughnasadh begins the harvest on August 1st, the gathering in of good grown food. Traditionally a lot of first-harvest foods are eaten, bread is baked, corn dollies are made, and when we have an altar up (hey, bite me, we don't always, we have cats), we dress it with fruits and vegetables. It's pretty much a day to recognize the balance is going out of whack, light giving way to dark, eating things made from late-harvest foods, and lots of seeds. We've done nature-trail hiking on this day, decorating or making crafts from dried plants, making charged herb blends, the usual.
Harvest Home/Thanksgiving, held on the 4th Thursday of November. Mostly an American yay-we're-not-dead-now-let's-go-kill-something festival (we have a lot of those), but also, it's our second biggest cooking day, and a celebration of the very end of harvest, so lots of squash, lots of root vegetables, lots of cider, lots of potatoes.
Be Late for Something Day on September 5th. It's not a festival per se, but it is a celebration that chaos not only doesn't foster order, but sometimes, really interferes with your ability to get up on time. Be late for something. Have a drink. Go back to bed.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th. Technically not religious, but as it is a holy day for the faith of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of late it's been ushered in with the rest.
Moosemas is a rotation festival, like the casting of the Chocolate Ritual and the Bill the Cat ritual, it fits in wherever.
And that's it. My year more or less complies with 'standard' pagan observations, but has some...notable differences. Hee.
Still very cold here. Very nearly started cooking again today; I think half it's that they didn't need me and half I'm still sick. :) But soon!
Tartan generator!
Woke up this morning to the strains of In Gloria Excelcis and it suddenly struck me--this is the first year in at least a decade I haven't hit December 1st and found the nearest carol-playing radio station. Or rigged my player with carols, start to finish.
Now, I know part of this is both iPods we were given died, my player is nonrecoverable (at least, for power-sourcing--it can be done, I could probably even do it, can't afford the parts...and I can't find my personal radio.
Irksome.
But the point is, even with that, there are online radio stations, and I'd have long before this flipped on a station and just grooved on down to the jingle all month long.
Weirdly? This is not blaming anyone, but I think this has something to do with spending a great deal of time talking to two Jewish people, one of whom flinches at Nativity scenes. That one and I, we've discussed a lot about religious ethics, faith versus ritual, where to draw the line when dealing with celebrations of faiths not ours...you may think dry, passionless stuph, but I've been fascinated, and I'm also learning a lot about Jewish festivals and celebrations I never knew before.
(To be fair, I have nearly always had Jewish--or even formerly Jewish, as sukinova puts it, "Jewitch"--friends, but for the most part? Just haven't asked.)
It also started me thinking again, about my odd personal cobble, for religious celebrations on my own. This is my religious year:
Samhain on October 31st starts things off, it's not the closing of the growing season, but I tend to treat it as such, as the official start of the Dark Half of the year. Yes, I'm American, so there's also candy and dressing up, but we do acknowledge the passing of any who've died, stand before the thinning veil between the worlds, and recognize that things get weird in October.
Feast of Kali is next on November 2nd or 3rd, it's not Kali Puja as it once was, I do not have the little Kali to feed red ochre and milk, but I try to have Indian food, at least, and celebrate in her name with lit candles and fellowship.
Einherjar when we remember (we're not an active military family anymore, so um, we forget), is generally held on November 11th. It celebrates the fallen in battle. Lighting candles, long moments of silence for those we've lost, and a (fairly sober) feast.
Yule on the 21st of December is the Winter Solstice; actually, as a Solstice, the day varies, but in America, it's common on the 21st, so. This is traditionally the shortest day of the year, and we spend it staying up, playing games, watching (bad, sometimes good) movies, and keeping fires burning--all the way from logs to candles, depending, and one memorable year, when we had neither, turning on and upending flashlights. :) This one ends when dawn comes, we walk out on our lawn, dancing and singing and banging pots and pans, and the neighbors call the cops on us for waking them up, because it's six in the #^%$^(@! morning.
Emperor Norton's Demise, celebrated on January 8th. We don't know when he was born, so we celebrate when he left us. It's generally a feast day and acknowledged as an excuse to party. :)
Candlemas, February 2nd, a feast generally of fertility and renewal, but also inspiration and purification. The days start to get longer, we have emerged from the Dark Half of the year (nearly), and again, we drag out the candles and have a feast if we can. (Technically, every lamp in the house should be lit this night, for at least a few minutes, but we rarely do this, we're trolls.)
Summer Finding/Ostara/Easter is around March 21st. Dyeing eggs, another feast, collecting wildflowers, cooking with new-grown herbs--we don't have kids, so we don't do a lot of the kid things. We do try to get a basket and pack it with candy and unusually-colored stuphed animals. (For us, not children. Hee.) This is also--and little-known, this--the closest pagans come to a Day of Atonement--it's generally put as, this is the time to free yourself from anything that's holding you back, and if you do have something, cast it into an egg, and bury the egg. Most pagans? Do not do this. (Most pagans don't throw the Chocolate Ritual here, either, but we either do it here, or at Yule. Depending on which part of the year we really need the chocolate blessing for.)
Feast of Padraig is March 17th, and is our single largest cooking day (yes, even eclipsing Harvest Home/Thanksgiving). One year we had over seventeen people, and had:
- * three corned beef briskets
* three large cabbages, quartered and boiled in the brisket water
* two loaves homemade Irish soda bread
* two pans colcannon (technically eaten at Samhain, but we like it better in March)
* one large pan fadge
* one pan bashed neeps (technically saved for Thanksgiving, but hey)
* one bowl boiled new red potatoes with chopped garlic and Parmesan cheese
* chocolate and sour cream stout cake
* honey-glazed carrots
* enough Guinness to drown a small child
* and Irish butter and cheese for the soda bread and just for 'cause.
Fools' Day on Aprille 1st. Rimble-Rimble. Hail Eris. Hail Loki. Generally not much but an excuse to have fun, but we do remember we walk a path of chaos and this is its biggest spin. On some occasions, we've held the Bill the Cat ritual on Aprille 1st, but usually, that's a summer thing.
Beltane on Aprille 30th or May 1st, depending, is a celebration of love and desire, honoring the God and Goddess revered (a lot of us are open-ended that way, some more annoyingly than others), and the return of full fertile life to the planet. Flowers are gathered, May Poles are danced, leaping the Balefire for luck and a chance at conception for those interested in such. I, like many pagans, got handfasted for the first time on Beltane, so it's also my anniversary.
Birthday Week from around the 9th of June, to the 22nds of June. This is not a religious celebration, per se, but Midsummer does fall in there, so it gets husbanded in. Midsummer is the day (21st) when the day is longest. So us being us, we keep the house dark in the hopes that night will actually fall (why not? Don't give me that look. We do the same thing in reverse for Yule.)
Lughnasadh begins the harvest on August 1st, the gathering in of good grown food. Traditionally a lot of first-harvest foods are eaten, bread is baked, corn dollies are made, and when we have an altar up (hey, bite me, we don't always, we have cats), we dress it with fruits and vegetables. It's pretty much a day to recognize the balance is going out of whack, light giving way to dark, eating things made from late-harvest foods, and lots of seeds. We've done nature-trail hiking on this day, decorating or making crafts from dried plants, making charged herb blends, the usual.
Harvest Home/Thanksgiving, held on the 4th Thursday of November. Mostly an American yay-we're-not-dead-now-let's-go-kill-something festival (we have a lot of those), but also, it's our second biggest cooking day, and a celebration of the very end of harvest, so lots of squash, lots of root vegetables, lots of cider, lots of potatoes.
Be Late for Something Day on September 5th. It's not a festival per se, but it is a celebration that chaos not only doesn't foster order, but sometimes, really interferes with your ability to get up on time. Be late for something. Have a drink. Go back to bed.
International Talk Like a Pirate Day on September 19th. Technically not religious, but as it is a holy day for the faith of the Flying Spaghetti Monster, of late it's been ushered in with the rest.
Moosemas is a rotation festival, like the casting of the Chocolate Ritual and the Bill the Cat ritual, it fits in wherever.
And that's it. My year more or less complies with 'standard' pagan observations, but has some...notable differences. Hee.
Still very cold here. Very nearly started cooking again today; I think half it's that they didn't need me and half I'm still sick. :) But soon!