Naturalistic Paganism
Playlist for the Wheel of the Year: Mid-Summer
Over the years, I have created rituals to celebrate the Wheel of the Year with my wife and children. Music has been an essential part of the experience. Without it, it would be much more difficult to create the sense of sacred time and space and to evoke the experience I desire for each ritual. So I want to share with you my playlist for each station on the Wheel of Year. Here’s the fifth list. Enjoy! And share your suggestions in the comments below.
Read MoreHappy Summer Thermstice/Lammas!
Celebrations
Heat! Productivity! Success! Growing Darkness! These and many other themes join with the baking of bread and early harvest celebrations of Lunasa. I strive this year to balance both the recognition of the heat of global climate change with the celebration of heat with Lunasa. It can be a delicate balance, and with it, we sometimes need to remind ourselves that spiritual celebration is part of empowering ourselves, and that we still deserve it, even when there is bad news.
This year we have just had a heat wave in Europe (with thousands dead), and are seeing the continued climate changes in the American West, with drought and fire. Lake Mead, for instance, is dropping to historically low levels, and this change can even be seen over one short month.
Nonetheless – we still have hundreds of millions of people the world over pushing for climate change action. We still have human resilience, and the many wonders of our Universe around us (as the Webb Telescope has just reminded us of). We can still celebrate our Earth with joy!
Some of the ways many of us are celebrating were recently published (along with many online rituals you can join, some of which are still ahead of us). For my family, celebrations with our annual Lunasa blueberry harvest, baking bread, and evening ritual are coming up! As a special Lunasa treat, check out this Lammas music from Bart Everson, and the additional music from John Halstead which will soon be published on this blog. It could be part of a ritual, solitary observation, or just having around now.
For some of us, the celebrations will be later this week – the actual midpoint between the Solstice and the Equinox is August 7th. However you are celebrating (including Imbolc celebrations in the Southern Hemisphere), may your be celebration be blessed.
My, What Big Eyes YOU Have! The Webb Telescope Means We All have Bigger Eyes! [Starstuff, Contemplating]
Every morning I rededicate myself to our world, to future generations, and to our web of life on Earth which includes you. The words I use include “I am the dimly seeing, thinking Universe….” I say “dimly seeing” because we see only a tiny fraction of reality, including only a tiny fraction of the electromagnetic spectrum, can’t detect all sound frequencies, are blind to magnetic fields, voltages, and so much more – a lot of which we don’t even know about. But with the instruments invented through science, our eyes grow bigger every year. We just grew again – with a big step up when first light was detected by the James Webb telescope, far beyond the Earth, earlier this month!
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The Summer Cross-Quarter (Summer Thermstice) Approaches (+ 16 online Lunasa Rituals)!
Lunasa is the start of the prime campfire and stargazing season – bringing the unique combination of both warmth and longer nights “Sunlit Summer”, see the 8 season names here. Lunasa arrives again, but it’s not like last year, nor the year before. Why not? Because the many nested and interwoven cycles of our solar system make each stargazing season unique, and hence make every Lunasa unique! Last year we had a great Perseid show. This year, the moon washes out the Perseids, but is wonderful to see itself. Plus, here are a half dozen online Lunasa ritual opportunities!
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Pagan Coming Out Day – May 2nd
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