Today is Imbolc (Lady Day or Feast of Brigid)….February 2nd

Have a Sprightly Imbolc (Lady Day or Feast of Brigid)….February 2nd

Imbolc, pronounced: EE-Molc, (is an old Celtic name).
Incense: Rosemary, Frankincense, Myrrh, Cinnamon
Decorations: Corn Dolly, Besom, Spring Flowers
Colours: White, Orange, Red

This holiday is also known as Brigid’s (pronounced BREED) Day. One of the 4 Celtic “Fire Festivals. Commemorates the changing of the Goddess from the Crone to the Maiden and celebrates the first signs of Spring.

This is the seasonal change where the first signs of spring and the return of the sun are noted, i.e. the first sprouting of leaves, the sprouting of the Crocus flowers etc. In other words, it is the festival commemorating the successful passing of winter and the beginning of the agricultural year. This Festival also marks the transition point of the threefold Goddess energies from those of Crone to Maiden.

For more information, go to the source:
http://www.thewhitegoddess.co.uk/the_wheel_of_the_year/imbolc.asp

Lighting the Yule log….

Let us pause to consider the meaning of winter solstice, it is the shortest day of the year and the longest night. A time to pause and look back at the last year and savor its good, to reflect on what we could have improved upon, and to be thankful the light will survive and revive.

May you light the Yule log with ones you hold dear,
and celebrate happiness and health all through the next year.
May the long winter night be passed in warmth and good cheer,
for it’s time to remember the past and bring your brighter future near.

Blessed Beeees,
Diane T. and furfamily

Finally…it’s Halloween!

Here’s a poem I wrote, inspired by the holiday….

The Witches’ Cauldron
by Diane Tegarden

A writer is a witches’ cauldron,
full of toil and trouble.
And as a poem comes to mind,
the pot begins to bubble.

It starts out as a single thought,
rising to the surface.
Then faster, faster they roil up,
til all boils at a purpose.

When it is finished, the story told,
you’ve no more to do.
The battle settled, your reward won,
until it starts anew.

Tuesday’s word for the day is….witch!

It’s the day before Halloween…..do you know where the wise ones are?

Witch means wise one, it comes from the Saxon word wica/wicca. Witches were thought to be wise enough to tell the future.

Source cited: from our good friends at Care2.com

Halloween Trivia….only three more days

Chosen to signify the end of the harvest season and the onset of winter, Samhain was also thought to be a day of the dead. Because it was the end of one year and the start of another, the Celts believed that past and present were closely linked, allowing ancestral spirits to join them.

This is a picture of my beloved Friday, the original “Rap Kitty”! (Nov 2002)

Samhain/All Hallows Eve/Halloween….Trivia Day 5

There are many variations on the history of Halloween, but it’s generally believed that Halloween dates back to 700 B.C. to the Celts, a rural society in northern England, Ireland and Scotland.

On November 1, the first day of their new year, the Celts celebrated a festival called Samhain (“sow-in”).

Nine Days of Halloween….Day 8 with Stingy Jack

Nine Days of Halloween….Day 8

Jack-o-lanterns trace back to an old Irish tale about a man named Stingy Jack. Unable to enter Heaven because of his stingy ways and turned away by the Devil, Stingy Jack wandered the world, searching for a resting place. To light his way, Stingy Jack used a burning coal in a hollowed out turnip — hence the name “jack-o-lantern.” The first jack-o-lanterns, in fact, were carved out of turnips. Only when the Irish tradition reached America did turnip carving turn into pumpkin carving.

Nine Days of Halloween trivia……Day 9

Nine Days of Halloween trivia……Day 9

Halloween traditions of trick-or-treating and jack-o-lanterns were brought to America in the 1840s by Irish escaping the Great Potato Famine. On Halloween, Irish peasants begged the rich for food and played practical jokes on those who refused.

To avoid being tricked, the rich handed out cookies, candies, and fruit – a practice that turned into our present day trick-or-treating.

BOO! from the good people at care2.com

Origins of Mother’s Day

Dear Wordmeisters,
According to the http://www.care2.com website:

Mother’s Day celebrations date back at least as far as ancient Greece, where worshipers observed a spring day in honor of Rhea, the Mother of the gods.

In 17th century England, Christians celebrated “Mothering Sunday,” the fourth Sunday in Lent, to honor the Virgin Mary and other faithful Moms.

The first Mother’s Day celebrations in the USA took place in West Virginia in 1908, at the urging of Ana Jarvis. Ana’s own mother had passed away several years earlier, and it had been her dream to reunite families divided by the Civil War with a day dedicated to Mothers.

The idea quickly caught on, and in 1914 Woodrow Wilson declared the second Sunday of May to be the official Mother’s Day.

To put it simply, Moms are the BEST!

Huge hugs,
Diane T. and furfamily

Blessed Beeee this May Day (Beltane)

Wade and I wanted to be married on May 1st, an ancient celebration of love, but that week in 1990 it fell on a Monday, so we were married on Saturday April 29 so that all our guests could attend.

We usually go to the Renaissance Pleasure Faire on May Day to celebrate our nuptials. But this year we couldn’t go because I’ve got some problems with my feet, so we stayed home for our 22nd wedding anniversary (and our 27th year living together!)

Here is some info on Beltane:

Beltane/ May Day/ May 1st
by Gabrielle Diana Laney

In the ‘Wheel of the Year,’ a concept that is becoming a tradition among neo-pagans, much has been written on the ‘cross-quarter’ days. These are the festivals that fall between the solstices and equinoxes. While the solstices and equinoxes mark the sun’s place in the wheel, the cross-quarter days, which were more important to the ancient peoples, are not merely halfway marks in the sun’s progress through the year.

Beltane is celebrated on May first, (in Scotland May 15th) but sometime between May 5th-11th, the goddess Brigit brought in the fire of rebirth, fertility, courtship, and the opening of Summer.

In his book “The Living World of Faery”, R.J. Stuart states: “The rising and setting of the small star group, the Pleiades, is used worldwide to mark the pivot of the year, when they rise in the Northern Hemisphere they are setting in the southern hemisphere and vice versa. The modern dates for this relativistic event are close to May 1st and November 5th, the Celtic feasts of Beltane and Samhain, or May Day and Halloween, the two portal fire-festivals. These pre-Celtic festival dates are not, as is often stated incorrectly, solar events. The Celts did not use a solar calendar but a lunar one. Nor did the pre-Celtic and megalithic people base their time patterns on the seasons and the sun, but upon stellar and planetary patterns linked together.”

To read the whole article go to:
www.avalonvisions.com/beltane.html

Merry Meet and Merry Part and Merry Meet again!