Wishing you a blooming, blossoming, beautiful Beltaine/Beltane/Beltene. Now in Modern Irish Bealtaine can mean the month of may and La Bealtaine is May Day. I will for now use the anglicized spelling Beltane. What the name means of comes from is up for debate. Some say it means 'bright fire', the fire of the Celtic god Bel, or Belenus, a.k.a. Bile or Belinos. Some say the holiday refers to the fire of the Semitci god Ba'al, whose name means 'lord'. Beltain and [...]
I have been staring at my screen for a while now, I feel a bit uninspired and deflated, far from fertile (as in creative) which is we celebrate on May Day. This is a time of passion and sensuality, but I feel far removed from these sensations. Here I am, alone, glued to my computer in my comfy (and very unsexy) home wear, craving to be touched. My skin is famished and writing about Walpurgisnacht and Beltane just feels so out [...]
Dear friend, Because a lot of us are bound to our houses at the moment and we can't physically celebrate Ostara with other people, I just decided to do a live YouTube celebration. Ostara, also called the Spring Equinox, is the time of year when we celebrate the return of light and fertility: the life energy. A time to get rid of the old and start new things. It is the time when life emerges from the earth and winter [...]
May your seeds sprout and start to grow.Light the fire inside your heart and start.It is time to awaken! Spring is coming, can you feel it? When I look outside today I see everlasting Autumn in The Netherlands. We haven't really had a 'proper' winter, all but dark days and rain. But everything is still possible. Now I am not a Winter person so I am rejoicing at seeing the first flowers pop above the ground and show their bright and [...]
These are the 12 silent days between December 25 and January 6. The winter solstice has already happened, but during this period the nights stay about the same length. Only from January 6 do the days get noticeably longer every day. For the ancient Germans these were the holy days, the Rauhnächte. These were a time of purification, change and a new beginning. The ancient people during those holy days and nights performed their rituals to initiate a new fruitful year. [...]
Dear friends, Solstice blessings to you! This weekend was Magickal! Did you feel it? Adam Chang / Unsplash The darkest day of the year has drawn by and the light is gaining strength. I feel a deep need to retreat and regenerate. For those of us in the Northern Hemisphere observing Yule, is our invitation to say goodbye to the dark, and welcome back the light. Even though the Winter Solstice is the shortest day of the year, and the first [...]
Wishing you a merry Yule! At Samhain we honor, celebrate and welcome the return of the dark and the beginning of the Pagan New Year, acknowledging that all beginnings emerge from darkness. At the Winter Solstice we reach the depth of that darkness with the longest night of the year. In these dark days of Winter we start to wonder if the days will continue to grow darker and colder as the Sun disappears, whether it will ever reappear and light [...]
Lunar Samhain has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere. Although Halloween is celebrated on the 31st of October, this year's Samhain portal runs between the 27th of October (New Moon) until the 8th of November, the Solar Samhain (midpoint between the Autumn Equinox and Winter Solstice). The Scorpio New Moon is the darkest Moon of the year and here in Holland last Sunday the clock was set to Winter Time. This always gives me a sense of jet lag and it takes [...]
Patrick Valenza is best known for his Deviant Moon tarot, but I prefer his his independent self-published decks such as Mildred Payne’s Oracle of Black Enchantment. The deck continues the story that he has conjured about the fictional young witch Mildred Payne. The story he provides is that this oracle was found in her coffin and was created in 1933 against the wishes of the Fenwood Coven. The illustrations are such a (Halloween) treat, inspired by English woodblock prints, particularly those [...]
Greetings sweet❤︎ Can you feel it? The changing of the leaves, the slight chill in the air, that particular smell of nature slowly withdrawing… its magick! 🍃🍁🍂 The Autumn Equinox has just turned the wheel and before long it will be Samhain, the Witch's New Year. But I am here to write about the last festival of Mabon and the Harvest Festival of Goddess Nehalennia. Picture by Nehalennia Festival For a long time Nehalennia has been hidden under the water surface, [...]
