I manage to re-arrange/re-do my altar every Sabbat, and almost every Esbat. Here are some pics from the Beltane altar.
The full altar layout. (Its on a shelf in a tall, deep bookshelf.)
Close up of the right side.
Close up of the left side.
… and the center!
This year my coven has decided to quietly embark on a couple of intermediate lessons for ourselves. It’s been a long time since we’ve been able to do more than just teach the class, and it feels really good to get into new things. Daystar is making salves for the wheel of the year; Cynnamon is teaching some of the live classes . . . and I’m heading up a series of lessons on each of the seven major chakras.
Muladhara (Root)
This year we hosted a Jolabokaflod party, and it will be the genesis for future traditions!
We put together a brunch, invited friends, and gave them the rules:
It was fabulous!
Greetings to you!
We’re moving into the holiday season, and with something like 29 holidays celebrated between now and mid January, that’s probably the most useful designation for a period of time I’m aware of.
Storm season has begun here in the PNW! As I write this we’ve just had several days of rain, a storm front that meandered down into the burning lands of California. I’ve been collecting the rain to send to a friend in the Bay Area so she can do some rain calling to keep the fires away and replenish the land after a very dry summer.
(I’ve never shared this story publicly.)
I’m spending Mabon literally in the middle of an orchard. I’m in Italy and all around me they are harvesting apples and pears (the peaches were last week, melons the week before). The house we are staying in is 100s of years old and has been in the same family all of that time. There is a pomegranate tree in the garden, and I’m delighted to see one ‘in the wild’ because it’s so entirely new for me. When we aren’t cooking for ourselves, my husband and I venture uot to one of many local places where we are often the only Americans, if not the only ones speaking something other than Italian. We do our best to expand our vocabulary and laugh when they switch to English because we just aren’t very good at it.
In just a few days the moon will eclipse the sun over North America for the first time in 38+ years. Astrologers are predicting near-seismic changes and upheavals as the physical manifestation of the astral phenomenon. Be excited, be safe, and I hope you get a chance to experience it — even if its just watching the event online.
One of our ‘rules’ is that getting to a foreign country is so expensive that we want to stay there as long as possible. Another rule is that we each pack only a piece of luggage small enough to carry on, and a personal bag. Yet another rule is that we do our best to dress like locals. This means we have to get creative about what — and how — we pack.
