Lughnasadh is coming!

"Kernnunos" by Yannick Germain

I spent my Midsummer circling with other traditional Witches in a small ritual circle and subsequent feast. We invited the red and green man to come visit and tell us of upcoming needs and duties.  It was a pretty traditional sabbat, according to the wheel of the year mythos that my tradition follows.

The next sabbat is coming at the beginning of August- and since we are moving very soon afterwards (across the country from the SF Bay Area to Columbus, Ohio), we are doing a purely social harvest feast rather than planning an elaborate ritual and invoking gods this time around. We want to be surrounded by our friends and chosen family here, regardless of religion. We have decided that Lughnasadh is going to be our farewell party to many of our family and friends here. In case you don't know about this sabbat, here is some background:

It is a harvest festival- one of a few in the Wheel of the Year (the next is Mabon, a type of Witches' Thanksgiving). Lugh, the Irish god of light, called for the celebration at the beginning of August as a funeral feast for his mother, Tailte- who had been a patron of beginning agriculture. What better wake for such a figure than a harvest feast? Lugh also called for games of skill and strength for the celebration, and it has been a favorite time for marriages and handfastings.

The first of the three harvest festivals that make up the Wheel of the Year, Lughnasadh is the "festival of first fruits", where a blessing of the crop would take place around this time of the year as now was the time that apples were beginning to ripen on the trees, summer vegetables being picked from the gardens, and the corn waits to be harvested. It is the time to start gathering in the first harvests of grain, wheat and barley. That is certainly cause for celebration! Baking loaves of bread for this celebration is appropriate and we will certainly do so.

And so we celebrate this year- the Wheel is turning and we Kunnings turn with it. Our family turns eastward- to Columbus, our new home. Any of my readers from central Ohio? I would love to hear from you!

Save West Virginia!

I have been to West Virginia a few times and have always been impressed at just how beautiful it is. The mountains and wildlife there are unlike anywhere else, and the Appalachian culture, which contributed much to my and other folks' Witchcraft traditions, is one I greatly value.

This is what mountaintop removal looks like.

But West Virginia (and all of Appalachia) are in peril because of coal mining and in particular, coal mining companies outlandish greed. Coal mining has had an uneasy history in this region- providing much-needed jobs to poor communities and also taking the lives of the poor that work in the mines (be it through black lung, cave-ins, accidents, explosions, or company thugs killing those that try and organize for better working or living conditions). Many people in the United States don't realize if it were not for the efforts of coal mining unions, we would not have the 8 hour work day. We owe a lot to these working people, even if we do not face their struggles or do their particular jobs.

Lately, the struggle in this area has been the outrageous practice of mountaintop removal, which has devastating effects for generations to come.Women, in particular, have been instrumental in fighting this environmental scourge. And it is no longer environmentalists versus the coal miners who live there, either. These forces have banded together against coal company greed.

So what can you do, especially if you do not live nearby?

• See for yourself what mountaintop removal looks like.
• Sign a petition to revoke Massey's energy charter.
• Read, pass on, and possibly write your story if you are from that area.
• Write your Congresspeople and Senators to express your feelings. Passing the Clean Water Act will allow some enforcement against these practices.
• Join Reverend Billy and the Church of Earthalujah when they come near you!
• If you use Chase Bank or UBS Bank, ditch them and tell them why. These banks lead the charge for mountaintop removal. This includes using their credit cards.
• Sign up for ongoing action alerts.
• Fight this kind of stupidity.

I leave you with my favorite song about this issue, Hazel Dickens singing They'll Never Keep Us Down:


It's a sing-along!

United we stand, divided we fall
For every dime they give us a battle must be fought
So working people use your power the key to liberty
Don't support the rich man's style of luxury

There ain't no way they can ever keep us down
There ain't no way they can ever keep us down
We won't be bought, we won't be sold
To be treated right, well that's our goal
There ain't no way they can ever keep us down

We've been shot, we've been jailed, lord its a sin
Women and children stood right by the men
We've got a union contract that keeps the worker free
They'll never shoot that union out of me

They'll never shoot that union out of me, oh no
They'll never shoot that union out of me
Got a contract in our hand signed by the blood of honest
men
They'll never shoot that union out of me

The power wheel is rolling, rolling right along
The government is keep it going going strong
so working people get your help from your own kind
Your welfare on the rich man's mind

Your welfare on the rich man's mind
Your welfare on the rich man's mind
They want the power in their hands just to keep out of the workers hands
Your welfare on the rich man's mind

They'll never, never, never keep us down
They'll never, never, never keep us down
The cheat, rob and kill but we'll stop that big wheel
They'll never, never, never keep us down

New Blog Carnivals I Discovered and a New Forum, Too!

As regular readers know, I participate almost every month in the Carnival of Natural Parenting (stay tuned for this month's submission on July 12 on Parenting Philosophy!). One of the hosts of that carnival also hosts another that I will be reading regularly: The Carnival of Gentle Discipline.

I want to raise my son to have ethics, not morals. What do I mean? Morals are an external code that people adhere to, like laws and the ten commandments, because it is what they are told to do. While morals will have to do for some people, I want my son to be a discerning, ethical person that can do what is necessary and just without always having to look outside of himself for the answers.

One of the ways that I am modeling that ideal is the way I am interacting with him and instilling discipline. Discipline is not a bad word- after all, it has the same root as disciple. And a disciple follows... what? To me, a disciple of the Flow is one that can listen for that which is not audible and use it to make sound decisions. So I am working WITH him so that he can discover his ethical compass- one that will guide him out of love, not fear.

To that end, spanking, threats, witholding love, and other forms of intimidation are not the way for us in this family. We work very, very hard (oh my hell- is it hard!) to be cooperative with our toddler and teach him to cooperate with us in turn. This is going to be great reading for us!

The site, Parenting Gently is the co-host of the carnival. I will be joining so as to take advantage of the words and ideas that have walked this path before me.

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Another new blog carnival that I will be participating in (I think) is Families Create! A Monthly Make and Play Carnival. Play is serious business, people. It's how kids learn and families bond. So stay tuned for some upcoming posts in that vein.

Upcoming themes include Weird and Wonderful, Rhymes and Verse, and Favorite Books.

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A new forum that I am loving is the Natural Parenting Forum. I was on the Mothering Board for a while, and while that has a long and storied history, it has imploded for many reasons I will not get into here. One of the members that I met there has built a new community for us to enjoy and so far, I really am! Take a look and register if you are so inclined.

The Charter for Compassion

This is an amazing video is a TED Talk by one of the founders of the Charter for Compassion, Karen Armstrong. The Charter for Compassion has been mentioned in some of my previous blog posts. She is a former Catholic nun, an author and scholar, who won the 2008 TED Prize. In this video, she talks about how the Abrahamic religions -- Islam, Judaism, Christianity -- have been diverted from the moral purpose they share to foster compassion.

But Armstrong has seen a yearning to change this fact. People want to be religious, she says; we should act to help make religion a force for harmony. She asks the TED community to help her build a Charter for Compassion -- to help restore the Golden Rule as the central global religious doctrine.




Check them out for yourself. It makes me hopeful for the future.

Voynich Manuscript

Do you know about this amazing book? While scientists puzzle over what it is, what language it is written in and what its illustrations mean ("Is it a code, a cipher of some kind? People are doing statistical analysis of letter use and word use – the tools that have been used for code breaking. But they still haven't figured it out.")*, I think religious Witches will know precisely what the book is about without much guesswork!

After all, what kind of book would be written in code (so that only like minded approved others could understand it), have illustrations of plants, the cosmos and their workings, and multiple pictures of dozens of women ritually bathing together? Who would take all that time to painstakingly transcribe in gorgeous calligraphy and illustrations a book in no known human language?

Scientists describe the book as "Rows of text scrawled on visibly aged parchment, flowing around intricately drawn illustrations depicting plants, astronomical charts and human figures bathing in – perhaps – the fountain of youth." They have radiocarbon dated the pages to the early 15th century.

Linguists have studied the book and it does not appear to be written in any knwn human language- alive or dead. "Alien characters, some resembling Latin letters, others unlike anything used in any known language, are arranged into what appear to be words and sentences, except they don't resemble anything written – or read – by human beings." says one scientist.

Our intrepid scientist added, ""Who knows what's being written about in this manuscript, but it appears to be dealing with a range of topics that might relate to alchemy. Secrecy is sometimes associated with alchemy, and so it would be consistent with that tradition if the knowledge contained in the book was encoded. What we have are the drawings. Just look at those drawings: Are they botanical? Are they marine organisms? Are they astrological? Nobody knows."

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*Greg Hodgins, University of Arizona's Department of Physics