Naturalistic Paganism

Celebrations

Spaceweather.com TCrB Nova watch! Check here anytime to see if the Nova has started.

Heat! Productivity! Success! Growing Darkness!  These and many other themes join with the baking of bread and early harvest celebrations of Lunasa.  Maybe a good theme for this year’s Lunasa is our moon.  It’s still an OK year for the Perseid Meteor shower – the waning gibbous moon will drown out the meteors in the middle of the night, but before it rises at around 10:30 pm on the 13th, the early night will give some chance for seeing the meteors (the next really good Perseid moon phase isn’t until 2029).  Also, the TCrB Nova hasn’t happened yet!  It could be any day from now (though a new prediction is saying November).  Spaceweather.com has added a handy monitor on their webpage to see if it is going on yet – check it out!  Here is the post describing what this is, how to see it, and ritual ideas.

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 – like on every Sabbat – the additional music published on this blog, here on the practices hub page (simple page down to the Sabbat you want).  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.

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 the moon was out of the way, giving great Perseids!  This year, however, the moon mostly washes out the best times in the middle of the night – still, you can get some decent Perseids before moonrise, which is ~10:30 pm on August 13.  Plus, here are a half dozen online Lunasa ritual opportunities!

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