June . . . love is in the air.  It’s the traditional month for weddings.  The solstice is upon us and the days are filled with light.  The wedding month traces its roots back to Celtic origins and the story of a marriage which resulted in an unnaturally long day.

Celtic mythology states that Dagda and Danu loved each other so much that they married in secret and hid themselves on the Earth in order to make love away from the prying eyes of the other gods. Their marathon love-making session lasted nine days and nine nights.  When Danu finally climaxed a great rush of water issued from her, creating the Danube River.  From their union the goddess conceived.  To prevent discovery of her pregnancy Dagda harnessed the sun and held it in place until Danu gave birth, thus their son was conceived and born on the same day.

The marriage of Dagda and Danu represents the union of a tribal god and a mother goddess, uniting land and people, a concept that remained popular in the sacral marriages of kings to their goddesses in later generations.  If the king upheld the duties of a husband well, the land and his people prospered.  Fail to show adequate love, respect, and devotion to the Goddess and the kingdom would fall into disarray, just like the household of any unhappy marriage.  And that is the whole point of writing today: sometimes relationships stumble. Continue reading →

It’s that time of year again.  Beaten down by rampant consumerism, we’re all left wondering how to balance work and pleasure.  Laughter and Libations is a survival guide of sorts, helping people to drink and be merry during a season over-powered with puritanical messages.  This year’s edition includes recipes for favorite winter drinks along with three categories of songs: Traditional Treasures, Simple Substitutions, and Ridiculous Rewrites.  Traditional Treasures can be traced back to a less than pious origin whereas Ridiculous Rewrites takes an originally pious hymn and alters it to appeal to our most base and carnal instincts.

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I am conflicted. I didn’t used to be. I used to know where I stood. Kneeling during the anthem was a-okay by me! But like John Kerry, I was against it before I was for it. Or perhaps it was the other way around, I can’t remember now.

It all started innocently enough.  Continue reading →

Being Pagan is difficult.  Sure there’s discrimination, nasty comments, and the like, but you also have to figure out when to celebrate your holidays.  Christians have it easy; the calendar is designed around their holy days, church happens every Sunday.  But for Pagans it’s a bit more difficult.  Astronomers have been kind enough to track the solstices and equinoxes for us and make those dates readily available, but when it comes to the cross-quarter days, we’re on our own.

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When I was a child, somewhere deep within me, I knew I needed to celebrate ‘mid-summer.’  The drive was so strong that, when I was about 10 years old, I actually got out a calendar and counted all the days between the summer solstice and the autumnal equinox.  Ever since then I’ve been celebrating in early August.

This year the mid-point occurs on August 6th.

Imagine my surprise when, as an adult, I discovered there was an actual holiday, associated with a real religion in early August.  Even more surprising was that they observed all my “made up” holidays.  (The quarter days and the cross-quarter days.)  Sometimes the call to honor the seasons runs so deep that even an unsuspecting 10 year-old in Idaho cannot help but heed it.

Since the scorching summer sun beats down on the fields, ripening the wheat, the Palouse smells faintly of baking bread every August.  To observe the holiday I’m making fresh bread, then heading outside with a glass of wine to catch the beginnings of the Perseid Meteor Shower.  (Peak is August 11 & 12, shortly after midnight.)  I hope all of you find a way to celebrate the rotating wheel of the year, too.