Yule Greetings!

Blessed Yule to all of you! May you enjoy the company of your families at this time, and stay safe if you must travel.

My son is happy, he opened his gifts and now he is ready to eat a fancy feast at our yule table. He loves it when I set up the table all fancy for us. :)

Many Hands House Yule

Each year, weather permitting, we head over to my covenmate's house for a big Yule party. We love going, it's so packed with fun traditions!

We always start the night off with a vegetarian potluck feast. Wonderful food!

Not long after, Melanie sits the kids down and tells them the story of Mother Berchta, an old germanic Yule figure who brings gifts to kids. (or not, if they've been bad!)  Then Chris dresses himself up as Berchta and appears at the door, "GOOD YULE YOU ASSHOLES!" is her traditional greeting. LOL  The kids love it, they are a little intimidated by the figure of Berchta, but they know she brings them a gift (dollar tree gifts!)

The evening festivities also include a mummers play. It's always short and funny. :) 

Later after dark, if it's not super cold or snowy, the older boys spin fire for us. They are amazing at it.

The night isn't complete without lots of dancing, including the traditional Mr. Roboto that the Many Hands family always does, every Yule party. Everyone joins in!  There's nothing like celebrating the season with people of like mind!

Yule time is near!

We set up our Yule tree. :)

It's artificial, and it was a pre-lit. As you can see, some of the lights no longer work. :(   When I take it down, I will remove all the lights, they are just clipped on. For now, we have to make do with a half-lit tree.

We have a number of little traditions with out tree. A couple of very old ornaments that go in certain places. My kid does most of the decorating. Unfortunately we have cats who won't leave low-hanging ornaments alone so we don't hang anything on the lower 2 feet. Between that and the missing lights, our tree looks decidedly odd.

Kevin always wears his santa hat to decorate. This is, of course, one of his favorite holidays. ;)

Crafty Yule present for me!

I don't get many presents at Yule time. Our focus is mostly on the kiddo. He also has his own Yule "advent" calendar.  I was thinking to myself, I wish I had my own advent calendar... one that give me an awesome treat every day!

And then I thought of this. I made little boxes and glued them together, decorated them and made "Mama's Merry Yuletide Spirits" advent calendar. Rather than stopping at Yule (which is not the same day every year) I went to the 24th, because I needed the even number of boxes and also though Yule ends for me before xmas, I still spend time with family for xmas... and maybe I still want to keep getting little "gifts" for myself to fortify myself for the season. ;)

I think it turned out fantastic and I can't want to use it all next month!

witchy knitting

I'm just learning to knit.  I've knitted several washcloths of a few different patterns from a book I have.

I was looking around on ravelry and found this pentacle washcloth pattern and decided to try it. It turned out pretty cool. I suspect the pentacle pattern would be more visible in a solid color yarn, but I don't have any at the moment. I might make another later. This was not hard at all, just required counting!

I just recently bought some fancy expensive yarn to do my first non-washcloth pattern... a pair of fingerless mitts to wear under larger mittens for driving school bus. I am intimidated! lol

Mabon 2014

#nakedcoffee

My coven spent Mabon camping together at a local campground. Super awesome! We had so much fun! We like campfires, drinking and hanging out. :)

One of our members is pregnant and wanted a blessingway. We had a wonderful little ritual. We pampered her, hennaed her belly, made a special birthing candle and did some magick for blessing her.  It was lovely.

We also had a big "family" Mabon harvest celebration meal. Our meal gatherings are so awesome. Most of my coven is vegetarian, so we always have vegetarian potlucks. I love it because though I'm not yet vegetarian, I'm working in that direction. The potlucks help me find things I like, give me ideas on what works. My son doesn't realize it, but he and I were vegetarian that whole weekend.

witches knitting

In the evening, some of the boys spun fire, and we drank and hung out some more.

Sunday was cooler, overcast with occasional sprinkles. We were all kind of slow moving from our weekend of partying, not to mention a little sad that our weekend was drawing to a close. We mostly sat around chatting and knitting. :)

A lovely weekend together, we were sad it ended. Mainly because one of our covenmates and her family are full-time RVers, and they were planning to hit the road south in a few weeks, and we weren't going to see them again for months. Lots of wonderful memories though, and that's what matters!

crafty earrings

I was messing around with my new cutting machine, just seeing what materials it could cut and what other things it could do. It has a pen holder in it, and can draw just about any design, and then cut it out.

So I got out this material called "grunge paper" which has a texture like suede, yet it's made from paper. I used ink to change the color, then used my machine to draw neat designs on it and then cut the circles out. I punched holes in them and attached them to earring findings.  Cool instant jewelry. :)  I'm particularly fond of the bees and the compass designs.

Sweater!

Ever seen those lovely sweaters on etsy, the ones pieced together from lots of different sweaters? I've always wanted one.

Saren of Vespertine Fabrications made this sweater, isn't it awesome!

I just love it, it's perfect for festival wear or just when I want to feel magical.  Thanks Saren!

A little crafting...

I recently bought a new cutting machine for scrapbooking, however this machine is supposed to cut all sorts of materials, including iron-on vinyl. I've always loved this skull design, so I cut it with iron-on and put it on a t-shirt. 

Now I have a new t-shirt for Samhain season. ;)

Pagan Spirit Gathering 2014

Opening ritual

Greetings! This post is just going to be mostly photos. We went to Pagan Spirit Gathering for the first time ever. Not my first pagan festival, but it had been several years since we'd been.

Selena Fox

I will say that our first PSG was hard... We spent the first few days fighting high winds, so we were constantly fixing our encampment. It rained a lot as well, which kept us under shelter instead of enjoying the festival programming. And then on friday night I fell and hurt my wrist, which we found out later was broken. But, we still had a great time!

Tuatha Dea Concert

 Selena is the founder of Circle Sanctuary, the organizers of PSG.

PSG is a week long festival that culminates in a celebration of Midsummer/Litha, but there are numerous rituals and celebrations all week long, in addition to workshops, concerts and other activities.

the God Pole

I loved meeting folks, the tarot workshops, the Tuatha Dea concerts. Kevin spent much of his time at the Tween center, where kids his age could go in the afternoon to do crafts, play, and hang out while parents went to workshops. 

My covenmate Melanie, selling raffle tickets

millions of tiny toads... everywhere

Labyrinth

If you ever get the chance to go, you should! It is about an hour and a half from Chicago in a lovely private campground.

I can hardly wait for next year!

Happy May Day!

Happy May Day!

Beltane is an important celebration around here! One of my covenmates has had a May Day celebration for years at their home. Lots of people come, and we dance a wonderful pole. It's often a little windy, and it certainly was yesterday. That didn't stop anyone.

 
We were asked to wear flower wreaths or greenman masks. I made ours from felt. I don't have many flowers in our yard, and we had nothing blooming at the right time to make a wreath from real flowers.



Of course we also leapt the bonfire... well the fire wasn't burning super high. No one needs to get burnt, especially the children. Kevin jumped a couple times!

Good food, good friends. Such a great time!

Passings

I found myself performing a memorial service for a pagan friend who passed away recently. This was my first, and I could certainly have gone my whole life having never needing to do one. But it was an honor being asked by her family, and I accepted the title priestess and the duties of clergy a very long time ago, and those duties may not always be happy ones like handfastings (which I did just a few weeks prior to this!).

The service was kept simple, everything was focused on what our friend loved in life.... her friends, her hobbies and interests. We focused on who she left behind, and each other.

Farewell Tigress. You are missed.

The Prodea Cookbook

Steven Posch is one of my covenmate's teachers, and she told us about the publishing of this book. I mainly wanted it for all the natural egg dying information that Prodea coven has worked out over the years. There are a lot of other wonderful recipes in the book however!

Steven Posch is an excellent scholar and storyteller. He and his co-author share lore and stories as well as recipes. Prodea really is one of the oldest covens out there... at least 40 years old now. This sets the book apart from many of the other books out there.

Check it out! The Prodea Cookbook

Blessed Imbolc!

Brid is come, Brid is welcome!