Michael and Jaspenelle

Samhain

The Festival of Samhain was an ancient Celtic festival, falling on October 31st. A day which also marks Catholic All-Souls-Day and the secular Halloween, both strongly colored by the Celtic festival. Unlike most of the other sabbats, Samhain is not dictated by astrological events and therefor always falls on October 31st. Beltane is it’s counterpart laying directly opposite to Samhain in the Wheel of the year.

Samhain marks the end of the planted harvest and the beginning of the meat harvest. In days long past this time was vital, with the first snows nearing it was time to cull the herds and preserve their meat for Winter; without which the communities survival would be in question. Our ancestors knew this and so lived in harmony and with intuitive knowledge of the weather and changing seasons.

The Celtic year was split into two parts, and Samhain marks the start of the dark half, or Winter, which will transition into summer at Beltane. Now is the time for Old Wild Mother Earth to slip into a deep slumber, there she will gather strength till the Spring planting. This rest period is important, if not vital, not only for Her but also as a lesson to us. We must all take a break from time to time, as to regain our energy. With our renewed energy, the fruits of our labor will be even better.

Historically Samhain was an important festival celebrated for three days in the royal court in Tara (in modern day Ireland.) All hearth fires were extinguished and a ritual fire was started on the Hill of Tara, signaling people to gathered on hilltops all across Ireland and light community bonfires. Sometimes two bonfires were lit and people and livestock passed between then in a purification and protection rite. At the end of the Samhain celebrations a burning ember was taken home by each family to relight their own hearth fires. This was a common flame binding together the entire community. (more…)

Rowan Berries

Flower Friday: Seeds of Rebirth

Nightmare on 29th Street

My hands are stained red, the cutting board and knife drip crimson, chunks of scarlet bubble away in the crockpot, anything that didn’t fit in there is in the freezer, for future use…

Bwahahahahahahaha!

*Cough* Um, this isn’t the start of a B-flick! I just finished processing a bushel of pluots! I also have most of the latest ripe (and a few green just to experiment) tomatoes from Shannon’s garden in my dehydrator. Can you believe I filled 8 square feet of space and still have a few pounds to go?

I still have a bushel of apples to either freeze or dry, as well as more summer squash. Thank goodness I love zucchini (I made relish with the last batch.) I also roasted a chicken and made an apple pie from scratch today. My pie crust was a little chewy (hey I am a bread maker, it feels weird not to work my dough) but got the Michael seal of approval, which is good enough for me. I have some sage and oregano to jar and label before bed still.

Oh Eternal Spirits of the Harvest, how I love this Autumn bounty! But if I see one more pluot… Oh wait, I still have 20 on the table. *Horror-movie-esque scream*

Harvest Festival

We went to Beck’s Harvest House in Greenbluff yesterday, this is our third year going out there to pick apples and it is always really fun. Our friends Andrea, Peter, Shannon and Rachelle came along (the photos in this post were taken by Andrea.)

Damian stayed in the wrap most of the time, snoozing, but he was awake for a bit and all happiness (except when he wet himself in his carseat… I would be cranky about that too.) We didn’t bring his potty and he was very unwilling to go in his diaper. We are going to have to start bringing it when we take longer outings. Damian loved the red apples, he loves anything red. I am sorting them today for peeling and he keeps grabbing at the reddest ones.

I love that creepy scarecrow picture. I also love the hat of that kid in the pumpkin patch. Orange for the win! Normally we drive up to Mt Spokane after the festival but the road is closed right now. It washed with the spring flooding and they are rebuilding it. That’s okay though, I was pretty tuckered out between carrying Damian and picking apples.

We picked a huge box of Valstars, Jonafrees and… something else (I don’t remember the name but it accounts for about 90% of my apples… They are crunchy and tart, my favorite type for pies and eating.) I also picked up a case of pluots, they are a plum/apricot cross. (They look a lot like something I called dinosaur eggs as a kid.) I am going to dry or freeze most of what we bought and also make some butter (some of which will be turned into fruit leather.) Oh we also got fresh pressed cider (one gallon of which I froze for mulled cider at Samhain) and two bottles of local wine (one cranberry infused one for Winter Solstice.)

Now to go make some apple pie! (Lots more photos from the festival here! I took some video too but I don’t have it on the computer yet.)

Autumn Equinox

The cool down of Autumn have finally arrived and so has the peak of the harvest season. Fat pumpkins lay in fields, apple branches bend low with heavy yield and the Earth’s bounty overflows the garden and farm. This harvest begs to be enjoyed, but also preserved. Winter’s icy days draw near.

Technically speaking an equinox is a day when the Sun will spend an equal amount of time above and below the horizon. This happens twice a year, in Autumn and Spring. Autumn Equinox is the tipping point into the dark half of the year. Today we are also entering into the sunsign of Libra, her scales are a perfect echo of the light/dark balance of this equinox. Historically speaking, nearly every culture has some form of harvest festival, many celebrated still today.

Megalithic people of ancient Britain and Ireland obviously placed some kind of importance on both the solstices and equinoxes. Otherwise they would not have build stone structures like Stonehenge and Loughcrew Cairn to determine their dates. Their methods of celebrating these days has been long lost to history though.

The ancient Celts constructed a wickerman around this time of the year as well. It was ritually burned to represent the plant spirits returning to the earth to rest until Spring. An incarnation of this ancient idea has been reborn in recent years in the Burning Man Project, a yearly festival celebrated in the Autumn in Nevada. A giant wickerman is constructed and burned at the height of the week long festival.

The Mayans constructed a sacred pyramid called Chichen Itza, which acted in a similar way to the stone structures of the Megalithic people of Britain and Ireland. On the day of the Autumn Equinox a “serpent of light” descends the pyramid until it joins this a huge stone rattlesnake head at its base. (This serpent is actually seven isosceles triangles that are formed from the sunlight hitting the pyramid stairs.)
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Greenbluff Harvest Festival

I just realized we are only a couple weeks away from our yearly trip out to the Harvest Festival at Beck’s Harvest House in Greenbluff to pick apples and celebrate Autumn Equinox. It is a big, though very informal thing for me, most of our friends go and we have always had such a blast. Where has the past year gone? It was around this time last year I became pregnant with Damian, now if that isn’t a harvest gift I don’t know what is!

Damian loves being outside so I am sure he will enjoy the Harvest Festival too. It is a love I definitely want to nurture in him and hopefully over time it will instill reverence for Old Wild Mama Earth.

If you want to come apple picking with us, let me know, the more the merrier! If you are worried about not having the storage space, I have a dehydrator and a canner, we can set up a date a few days after to preserve some of the bounty.

(I’ll get around to posting about this past weekend’s camping trip tomorrow probably, it is all typed, but I need to finishing editing some video first.)

Whisperings of Autumn

Today was the first morning it truly felt like Autumn. The air had that beautiful cold crisp quality and when I went outside to get the paper I noticed the edges of the leaves of the maple were just starting to turn. The morning sky has that surreal blue hue that only seem to happen this time of year.

We usually have one more warm spell before we get our first freeze but it will not be this week. Last night’s low was 40°F (about 4°C.) I am glad my sleeping bag is rated down to 30°F for this weekend’s camping trip. With highs expected in the mid-seventies it is going to be perfect. Our group size has also increased, Sal and Rusty are coming with us! I have everything ready except the cinnamon rolls and cornbread, which I will be making today. I may make the cornbread while we are camping as I cook it in cast iron. I have never tried that before though.

In a few weeks the Apple Festival will be here, time for our little framily will head out to Harvest House in Greenbluff to celebrate the Autumn Equinox. We do it every year and it is always fun. Thinking about the harvest, we reminded our California friend the other day that it is time for her to cut back her tomatoes so that what she has will ripen. I have three huge zucchini from her garden waiting on the counter, the fresh green beans, peppers and corn are long gone.

Autumn is certainly on our doorsteps, while I love the sunny vitality of summer, the cool down always is a welcome guest.

Lughnasadh: the grain harvest

Though Lughnasadh was a few days ago, I just finished writing my Book of Shadows page about this sabbat. I thought I would share. Let me know what you think and if you see any glaring typos. Dyslexia and proofreading do not always mesh well…

Lughnasadh: the grain harvest

The blistering first days of August are here, the parched earth does not give us much indication of cooling, but crisp Autumn mornings will soon be on our doorstep. Summer vegetables are at their peak and fill the garden and marketplace, corn and grain are being reaped and pumpkins and apples are beginning to ripen on the farms. In spite of the heat this is also a the time to begin laying down the Winter stores.

Lughnasadh is the first of three harvest sabbats in the Wheel of the Year. It is either celebrated around August 1st or the nearest full moon to it. Lughnasadh has a very convoluted history, Which is something I am certain Lugh would find immensely amusing.

Lughnasadh literally means “assembly of Lugh”. It is an Iris festival that traditionally took place at the start of the grain harvest, around August 1st. In Celtic legend, Lugh decreed that a commemorative feast be held on this day in the honor of his foster mother, the Fir Bolg queen, Tailtiu. She died clearing a forest for her people to plant grain. The legend states that she was buried beneath the hill of Tailte, which is where the first feast of Lughnasadh was held. As time passed, traditions surrounding Lughnasadh began to solidify into events and ceremonial activities designed to celebrate Tailtiu’s sacrifice as well as the bounty of the harvest.

In early Ireland, it was considered bad luck to harvest your grain any time before Lughnasadh, since that meant that the previous year’s harvest had run out early, which was a serious failing in agricultural communities. Grain has been a vital crop since the dawn of civilization as it is one of the foods that can easily be stored through the harshness of Winter. This has caused grain to become strongly associated with the cycle of death and rebirth in many ancient cultures. It is important to note that the grain referred to in old texts was most likely wheat, not corn. Corn is a crop of the Americas and did not exist in Ireland at the time Lughnasadh was founded.

Lugh is tied to the bountiful harvest as well, though not in the role of Sun God, as many Neopagans believe. This is a error that appeared in the Victorian era and is still perpetuated by many authors today, who confuse him with John Barleycorn. Lugh was actually a god of many talents, patron to craftsman and bards, who was honored for his cleverness and quick wit. He was fond of games of physical prowess as well as skill, particularly horse racing. Lugh had an affinity with storms as well, and it was considered a good omen for it to be stormy on Lughnasadh. It is Lugh who broke Summer’s hold over the land, heralding the start of the harvest. Lugh is further tied to the harvest through some of his triumph in battles with the land-spirits, in which the harvest was released for the use of Mankind.

Modern day Lughnasadh has a healthy dose of the Christianized “Lammas” mixed into it. This makes the celebration even more strongly oriented around the grain harvest. Lammas is celebrated on the first Sunday of August and is a day when everyone brought loaves of bread to church to be blessed. These loaves were baked from the first grain of the season.

In Wicca, the main figure of Lughnasadh is the Sacrificial King, sometimes called John Barleycorn. He embodies the wheat fields and is reaped/sacrificed so that we can survive the Winter. He is a powerful representation of the life and death cycle as he is reborn again come Spring when the fields are sewn again.

In our modern world, it is easy to forget the importance of the harvest. If we needed a loaf of bread, we can buy a prepackaged one from the store. If it runs out, we can easily go get another one. When our ancestors lived, the grain harvest was crucial. Whether the harvest succeeded or failed was the difference between life and death for many families. By celebrating Lughnasadh as a harvest festival, we honor our ancestors’ hard work. Lughnasadh is a time to reflect on the things we could or could not live without as well as the abundance in our lives.

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Fall Festival Recap

This is my Autumn Equinox “altar”. Since almost everything is packed for next weeks move, this represents pretty much everything that is still left out.

Pumpkins, squash, apples, white wine, huckleberry tea, canning jars, a dehydrator, a pressure canner, a food strainer and an apple peeler corner slicer. It also shows you want I will be doing for the rest of the day, canning and drying apples.

And it shows what I did yesterday, apple picking!

We are making a tradition (currently in it’s second year) of going out as near to the equinox as possible to Beck’s Harvest House with friends and picking apples as well as enjoying the Fall Festival they have out there.

(Some pictures from in the orchard, click the thumbnails for larger pictures of course.)

Apple picking is so fun with a big group of people. Last year I only picked dozen apples, but this year I got two bushels of Red McIntosh and Gold Delicious (for apple sauce) and a few Jonagold (for pie.) Our friends Lily, Mikcos, Nathan, Sal, Rusty, Peter, Stacy and her wife (I can’t remember her name) all came with us and we filled our little cart with apples. The man at the orchard said that we had picked the most apples of anyone that day, hehe. As we picked we shared a big jug of fresh apple cider and good times. I have to say of all the ways to celebrate a sabbat, this is my favorite, with friends and having a great time. Puns did fly! So did a few apples…

I love the Harvest House orchard because they let you taste every apple you are thinking of buying right off the tree. I like Red McIntosh best, as far as just eating an apple off the tree, they are tart and crunchy with a little hint of sweetness. I am using half McIntosh and half Gold Delicious in my apple sauce today.

We also went on a hayride, so I got the opportunity to get good pictures of everyone (except Mikcos, who managed to dodge the camera somehow) and Stacy’s wife, who had to stay behind because they brought their dog, Grace, who wasn’t allowed on the ride.

Some time during the day we ended up in the gift shop and did some wine tasting. I bought a bottle of sweet white wine infused with herbs, as well as a box of huckleberry tea. They also sell a lot of little crafts, preserves, pastas, local honey, baked goods and, of course, fruit. Plums and pears are also in season.

When we all parted ways at the end of the day, I think everyone was in great spirits. I know had a great time. Peter had carpooled with us so he came with us as we dropped by my mother-in-law’s home to borrow her apple peeler corer slicer and food stainer (now I can have a bit of an easier job processing my apples today.) When Michael and I return Kim’s apple peeler gadget and strainer, we might have to stop by Harvest House again and pick up some local honey and more apple fresh cider.

This is my favorite time of the year, nature is tucking in and turning down the lights for the winter to come but she is showing us one last huzzah for the year decked out with all her finery and abundance. I have more photos here and one especially for Autumn Zephyr, who commented on grey skies and smoldering clouds the other day.

Blessed Autumn Equinox!

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Oh and of course no adventure can pass without at least a little mishap. Maybe it was the country roads, or the pothole-ridden streets of Spokane but we managed to knock the muffler off the car. When we stopped to investigate the mysterious dragging sound I found it hanging by one rubber loop, so I pulled it off and we tossed it in the trunk. We will get it put back on when Michael gets off work this afternoon.