Imbolc brings an invitation into change, to step into the forge of transformation, to sink into the holy well of healing, to open ourselves up to an evolving path of growth and discovery. It is now that we remember we are our own seeds of promise and while there is time yet to stay in the waiting place biding our time and strengthening our resources so we have what we need to grow, soon we will feel the wheel urging us onward, the call to set forth becoming unmistakable and strong. Let us settle ourselves into center, nestle into trust and determination, and extend outward from here feeling the sweet wind caress us and the fiery forge beckon us as we heed the summons to roll on, the path opening up before us as we move.
One of the members of my app put a Yule event in Tuscambia, Alabama on the divine feminine app. The description is as follows:
A FREE EVENT! Saturday December 3 from 1-9pm. Come out and enjoy the Celtic and Mystical Vibes of the Holiday Season! Dress up if you would like in Celtic, Viking, gods or goddesses, wizards, witches, or any other mystic! Enjoy last minute holiday shopping, downtown local restaurants and some street food, some street performers and photo ops with a 7 foot Krampus and others in character walking around! A very entertaining event in the quaint downtown of Tuscumbia, AL. See you there!! – Hesperia Mystic Shoppe
A few leaders from local churches became upset upon learning of the event saying that they were inviting in demons with this event (the Krampus is what they were particularly opposed to). They asked to speak at the local council meeting, and you can see a news story and video here.
Find some pine trees and a wide rock in the sun. Settle down and feel gratitude curl around your shoulders. Listen to the wind sense that there is sorrow too in this place, deep and old, threaded through the lines of sun slices of shadows. It tells of what has been lost, what has been stolen, of silenced stories, and of fracturing. Make a vow, silent and sacred, to do what you can, to rebuild the web to reweave the fabric. Lie on your back in the pine needles, feel your body soften into the ground and become still. Allow yourself to feel held, heavy bones and soft skin becoming part of the land. Wonder how many of your ancestors kept other people from becoming ancestors themselves. Watch the sunlight making tiny rainbows through your eyelashes and pines. Find a pretty rock. Don’t take it. Leave it where it belongs, on the land that gave it birth. Go home. Keep your promise.
In the United States turkeys are equated with Thanksgiving. But there is so much more to Turkey – a gentle creature who forms strong attachments. Reputed to be dumb, Turkey is in fact quite intelligent and curious, with the ability to solve problems. Turkeys have an excellent understanding of the details of their location which makes them so successful at feeding themselves. They also love to play and to cluck along with music.
photo by Tony Castro
Turkeys, indigenous to North America, evolved over 20 million years ago and share a common ancestor with grouse, pheasants and other fowl. Two species of wild turkey exist today – the wild turkey of eastern and central North America of which there are 5 sub-species and the ocellated wild turkey of the Yucatan.
Yet why is turkey named turkey? Strangely enough it was a mistake. English colonial settlers thought turkeys were a type of guinea fowl which England imported from Turkey – thus the name. The Spanish word for turkey is guajolote which is derived from the Nahuatl (Aztec) name huexolotl.
No matter which or how many gods we believe in, thinking about what we’ve done wrong and how we can set it straight is useful. The Day of Atonement, the Talmud says, “absolves from sins against God, but not from sins against a fellow man unless the pardon of the offended person is secured.”
Back in the Stone Age, otherwise known as the early 1980s, I had jobs as a technical writer and editor in five different industries, including aerospace and computer development. Hey, I was trained as a Shakespearean scholar, but in those days—pretty much like today—there were almost no jobs in the academy for newly-hatched Ph.D’s. So I tried technical writing. At one of the aerospace jobs, I sat in the “bullpen”—me and nineteen middle-aged white guys—whereas all the other women slaved—on typewriters in that pre-computer age—in the typing pool. There was a major class distinction in that aerospace firm, and I was glad to be with the guys. (Yes, shame on me.) Those were the days of 9 to 5. As far as I’m concerned, that movie is nonfiction.
One of my tech-writing buddies at the aerospace company was a former Jehovah’s Witness who had been disfellowshipped because his beard was the wrong shape and he’d refused to correct it. Another was an older man who had studied with Earnest Holmes himself and had also known Manly P. Hall in earlier days. A third friend, the project librarian, was a Conservative Jew. All three of these guys soon noticed the books I was bringing to read at lunch. These included the works of Dion Fortune and Gerald B. Gardner, and numerous metaphysical authors, plus every book I could find on alchemy, the tarot, New Thought, reincarnation, trance channeling…well, you get the idea. I was exploring occult worlds and ideas. When we weren’t talking about how to help the engineers write gooder English and I wasn’t trying to figure out how a FLIR (Forward-Looking InfraRed) helmet works, my three buds and I had some majorly interesting conversations on comparative religion and the occult (the word means “secret, hidden”) aspects of religions in general.
One day the Jewish librarian brought me a book to add to my library. This was the 1973 edition of The Jewish Catalog. What a wonderful book! I still have it. It’s sitting next to my keyboard as I type this.
Back in those innocent days, I still believed the pagan myth of the nine million witches burned by the inquisition during the Middle Ages. Yes, it’s a myth—there were never that many witches on the face of the earth at the same time; such a holocaust would have nearly depopulated medieval Europe. I have since learned that it is shameful to compare a mythological holocaust with the real Holocaust of World War II. I read The Jewish Catalog from cover to cover and learned a great deal.
Now flash forward to 2002 when the owner of RedWheel/Weiser phoned to ask me to write a book for them. I immediately said yes. The book, which they titled Pagan Every Day, is not, however, a pagan tome. It’s a daybook, a year and a day of short essays on topics that include goddesses, gods, and old pagan festivals and philosophy, and also saints and holy days from Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Hinduism, and Buddhism, plus less well known religions, plus interesting historical events…and then I also named Miss Piggy as The Goddess Of Everything. I get fan emails from people saying they reread the book, a day at a time, every year and still enjoy every page.
For September 24, I wrote about Judy Chicago’s Dinner Party, which was the most amazing exhibition I’d ever seen. The next day that year was Yom Kippur. I turned to my copy of The Jewish Catalog, where I learned about an obscure custom called kapparot. Here is what I wrote. Yes, I believe that we can borrow—but not pirate!—other people’s customs, acknowledge and express our gratitude to those other people and their religions, and then adapt what we borrow to a pagan perspective. After all, we’re all kin.
September 25: Yom Kippur
The Jewish Catalog describes custom called kapparot, which “entails swinging a chicken around one’s head as a…symbol of expiating sins. The chicken is then slaughtered and given to the poor….” Most people these days tie money in a handkerchief and swing that around their head, saying, This is my change, this is my compensation, this is my redemption.
Yom Kippur, the last of the ten days of Yamim Noraim, occurs at nightfall on the ninth day of Tishri. The rites for Yom Kippur are set forth in Leviticus 16.
No matter which or how many gods we believe in, thinking about what we’ve done wrong and how we can set it straight is useful. The Day of Atonement, the Talmud says, “absolves from sins against God, but not from sins against a fellow man unless the pardon of the offended person is secured.” People seeking recovery in Twelve-Step programs likewise turn their lives over to the care of “God as they understand him” (Step 3), make a list of people they have harmed and become “willing to make amends” (Step 8), and then actually make amends (Step 9).
Pagans can make amends before Samhain. We want to have a clean emotional field in which to rest over the winter and plant fresh seeds in when spring comes. Let’s revive that old Jewish custom. But not swinging the chicken! That’s cruelty to swinger and swingee. Tie crystals or red corn or other symbolic items in a clean white handkerchief and swing it around your head, reciting the blessing quoted above. Then go around and see the people you need to see. Speak heart to heart with them. Give them something blessed from your handkerchief. Get on with your lives, as friends or no longer as friends, but not as enemies.
BIO: Barbara Ardinger, Ph.D. (www.barbaraardinger.com), is a published author and freelance editor. Her newest book is Secret Lives, a novel about grandmothers who do magic. Her earlier nonfiction books include the daybook Pagan Every Day, Finding New Goddesses (a pun-filled parody of goddess encyclopedias), and Goddess Meditations. When she can get away from the computer, she goes to the theater as often as possible—she loves musical theater and movies in which people sing and dance. She is also an active CERT (Community Emergency Rescue Team) volunteer and a member (and occasional secretary pro-tem) of a neighborhood organization that focuses on code enforcement and safety for citizens. She has been an AIDS emotional support volunteer and a literacy volunteer. She is an active member of the Neopagan community and is well known for the rituals she creates and leads.
During late summer a few years ago I had a vision. I know it was summer because it was hurricane season and there were several active storms in the Atlantic & Caribbean. Since I grew up in Florida and lived in New Orleans for many years, I have a lot of experience with hurricanes.
In this vision, I found myself seated at the side of the Great Mother Goddess looking down thru a portal at planet Earth. The Goddess looked at me and then turned back to the portal. She put a finger out and touched a place on the planet with a spark of light. Then She turned to me and said, “The energy must be discharged!” She repeated this multiple times and ultimately put her finger on planet Earth five times, each time touching a spot where a hurricane was active.
Sheep – soft-footed, fluffy creatures – graze and amble along with frolicking lambs by their sides. Know worldwide as docile and friendly, sheep – in particular the female ewes and their lambs – have come to symbolize innocence, gentleness and peacefulness. The symbolism of rams takes on a slightly different, more masculine tone and will be looked at separately.
Very early in Henri Bosco’s 1948 novel Malicroix, a young man, Martial de Mégremut, living placidly amid fruitful orchards in a tame Provençal village, receives a letter informing him he has inherited “some marshland, a few livestock, a ramshackle house” from a reclusive great-uncle, Cornélius de Malicroix. Against his family’s strenuous objections–with alarm they speak of “marshes, mosquitoes, miasmas”–Mégremut resolves to travel alone to the remote Camargue to claim his “wild” Malicroix inheritance. The house is on an island, and to reach it Mégremut must cross a rough river, at night, in a frail wooden boat piloted by a taciturn old man who meets him at dusk in the middle of a vast plain.
So begins a deeply internal quest narrative, an initiatory journey that forces Mégremut to come to terms with himself and with the elements–earth, water, wind, and fire–that are ever-present, sometimes terrifyingly so, on the island. For once he arrives, he learns that he must remain there alone for a full three months if he wishes to obtain the inheritance. Torn about whether to stay or leave, he finds that the decision to stay is made of its “own accord,” unconsciously.
I felt compelled to visit Scotland without truly understanding why. I said I was called by my studies of Celtic mythology and by images I had seen of the land. I told people in Scotland I was on an artist’s journey. But now I see that Mother Earth wanted my attention – and in Scotland, particularly in the Highlands, Earth energy is strongly present. From the start, a major part of that calling was the ancient Callanais Stones – pronounced like the English translation “Callanish” – located on the remote Isle of Lewis.
Getting around the Hebrides and the Highlands was difficult without a car as bus access is very limited. Though a little restricting, it kept me connected to Earth as I walked and I walked. With every step I felt the call of Earth – from even before the human family began.
It was a glorious sunny afternoon when I arrived by ferry on the Isle of Lewis/Harris. Next was a bus ride north to Stornoway, my base for exploring Callanais. Here I first learned of the Stones connection to the Cailleich, an ancient goddess whose origins are unknown. Her name literally means “the Veiled One” but has come to mean “Old Woman or Wife.” Yet she was all powerful and ageless.
An elder man spoke about Callanias and the Stones’ connection to the nearby mountain – “Cailleach na Mointeach” – Gaelic for “The Old Woman of the Moors” or affectionately called “Sleeping Beauty” as the mountain looks like a woman lying on her back with bent knees. He said you could see this mountain through the stones. His storytelling got me searching for more info on the Cailleach’s connection to the Stones.
Cailleach na Mointeach, Isle of Lewis
First, I learned of the extreme age of the islands and of the stones that make up the land. The Callanais Stones date back to 3500 BC but the rocks that created Scotland come from an inconceivable 3 billion years ago as the landmasses of Earth were created from out of the waters.
Around 450 million years ago, at the beginning of the Caledonian Orogeny, Scotland, Scandinavia and North America were one continent with the now, non-existent Iapetu Ocean separating them from England, which was joined with the rest of northern Europe. This was a long geological period of continental collision and mountain building, that turned Iapetu Ocean into land and fused Scotland and England together.
Quieter conditions occurred for several millennia, covering Scotland with layers of sediment forming various sedimentary rocks until 60 million years ago when Earth moved again and the continent split apart forming the North Atlantic Ocean with volcanoes erupting all along Scotland’s new western edge.
These are the creation stories the science of geology tells us. But our ancient ancestors told a different story of the creation of Scotland and the other Celtic lands. Long, long before the Celts arrived in Ireland and Scotland, the indigenous people worshipped The Cailleach, as both the goddess of creation and the goddess of destruction. She became Calleach Bheur to the Scots. “Bheur” means sharp and she was credited with creating the sharp and biting winter weather, which helped to shape Scotland.
The Cailleach, a Dark Goddess of nature, is one with the land. Sometimes depicted with one eye, she sees beyond duality peering into the Oneness of all Being. She is the embodiment of winter, clothing the land with snow. Sacred Stones are her special places.
She leapt from mountaintop to mountaintop, dropping rocks to create hills, mountains and islands. She carried a slachdam – the Druidic rod, or a hammer with which she wielded power over the seasons and weather.
She is the guardian of the life force, finding and nourishing the seeds, commanding the power of life and death. The Cailleach personifies death and the transformative power of darkness, leading us through death to rebirth.
Our ancestors believed that the rocks on the Isle of Lewis used to create the Callanais Stone Circle were gifts from the Cailleach – from her acts of Earth building. These metamorphic gneiss rocks are among the oldest in Europe and are embedded with various types of crystal such as quartz, feldspar and hornblende. Perhaps these crystals in the ancient rocks create the energy field I felt so strongly on my visit – all coming from the hand of the Cailleach, a personification of the power of Mother Earth.
Archeologists theorize that the 5,000 year old Callanais Stones were a sacred site created for ritual and prayer, in particular from which to mark the 18.6 year lunar cycle – similar and yet more complicated than the yearly Sun cycle of Summer and Winter Solstices.
Callanais Stone Circle seen from Cross Entrance on East
Every 18.6 years, this moon cycle reaches Major Lunar Standstill with the full moon nearest the Summer Solstice. It is viewed through the Callanais Stones rising out of Cailleach na Mointeach – our Earth Mother. Being so far north it only skims the horizon then appears to set among the stones.
Two stones of the Callanais 13 stone inner circle framing Cailleach na Mointeach
It is hard for our modern minds to understand the awe these ancient people must have felt at the beauty and terror of nature during the Megalithic Era – when the human family was first beginning to settle in one place though had not yet discovered agriculture.
Perhaps the ceremonies held at Callanais helped hold the terror at bay. Closing my eyes I can imagine being there on this short night, near mid-summer, for the ritual marking of the passing of winter – I and my tribe had survived the season of long, dark nights. This was the special time that our tribal shaman knew how to mark. We all understood the precariousness of life and that marking the circuits of Earth and Sky provided invaluable knowledge for our survival. I can imagine feeling immense gratitude witnessing the cycles of life unfold as Earth and Sky and human minds interacted and the full moon rose out of our Earth Mother – Cailleach na Mointeach – and then set within the Sacred Stone Circle.
Further illustrating Callanais’ connection to Goddess, its original construction was comprised of 13 stones arranged in a circle – both number and shape are symbols of Moon and Goddess. At some point an even-armed cross was added around the perimeter – symbolic of the sun and of the meeting place of the divine and the mundane.
It seems unlikely that such a magnificent structure was created for use only once every 18.6 years. Of course these people left no written account of their actions, but local legend and lore suggests the Callanais Stones were seen as a fertility power spot. Given the Stones connection to Moon and Goddess that is not surprising. An old legend claims that Callanais is a promising spot to consummate a marriage or become engaged. In fact I overheard a couple of visitors while I was there claiming to have become engaged at Callanais.
But what does a site like the Callanais Stones hold for us today? Can Mother Earth still speak to us there?
After a bit of a wander through and around the Stones, I sat and sketched. Slowly through that act of eye to hand to pencil to paper I began to feel the deep connection that always comes in when I attempt to translate 3D reality onto a 2D piece of paper.
Time passed and soon the only return bus would arrive so I stopped and just sat quietly, listening to the wind and feeling the energy. I felt strongly a sacred presence in this spot where long, long ago ceremonies for Goddess had been held. I heard the Cailleach’s calling – to an acceptance of our modern world and the difficult days of transformation the 21st century offers up. The winds carried her message – a glimmer of hope that we can find our way back to living in balance with her natural rhythms of creation, destruction and creation. I felt her reassurance that though the geography of Earth changes and the epochs of humankind and the flesh and bones of all creatures pass away, the magnificence of life continues. The Cailleach touched my heart there at her Sacred Stone circle, reminding me that, though pain and suffering has been and will always be with us, life is a gift to be cherished.
Here are a few more photos of the Callanais Stones
Judith Shaw, a graduate of the San Francisco Art Institute, has been interested in myth, culture and mystical studies all her life. Not long after graduating from SFAI, while living in Greece, Judith began exploring the Goddess in her art. She continues to be inspired by the Goddess in all of Her manifestations. She is now working on her next deck of oracle cards – Animal Wisdom. Originally from New Orleans, Judith makes her home in New Mexico where she paints as much as time allows and sells real estate part-time. Give yourself the gift of one of Judith’s prints or paintings.
Judith’s deck of Celtic Goddess Oracle Cards is available now. You can order your deck from Judith’s website – click here. Experience the wisdom of the Celtic Goddesses!
I just returned from a Pagan festival in Tennessee. This is the first overnight event that I have gone to post Covid pandemic and also the first Pagan festival that I have ever been to. Pre-pandemic all the events that I have gone to have been Women’s events and gatherings such as Gather The Women Annual Gathering, ALisa Starkweather’s Daughters of the Earth, Midwest Women’s Herbal Conference and others along those lines.
They pretty much all had a Pagan dusting to them because anything where you find the Divine in the Feminine and in the Earth, rocks, crystals, herbs, the stars, and populated by people who live closer to the Earth, avoid crowds, are empathetic, well, you’ve got Pagan leanings.
But I shied away from the word ‘Pagan’ for a long time, because I grew up Catholic and even though growing up in a very waspy suburb of Dallas, I did not give it much thought at all, I have since realized that the undercurrent of my belief system was that Pagans were evil, animal sacrificing, overly sexual, devil-worshiping and otherwise just something to be avoided.
