Glad Yule!

Glad Yule! Blessed Yuletide! 'Tis the season of the longest period of darkness of the year, from which is born the light!

Ordinary Time

Back to Ordinary Time, until Yule.

All Hallows

Now begins the big feast of All Hallows, which seems to be a very good generic word for this holy tide. From today thru 5 November, this is the time to remember the ancestors and call to mind their gifts to us and what kind of stewards we are of those gifts.

Ordinary Time/Frithmaking

I, along with my partner Skallabjorn, have come up with a slighty smaller holy tide for this time of year. The harvest is mostly in by now, and come late Oct/early Nov, people would start slaughtering the animals that would not make it through the winter. This might be a good period for reaching out to one's neighbor and making frith/peace. It's sort of like Yom Kippur and Lent in the Jewish and Christian calendars. I think the holy tide color here should remain grey and possibly incorporate black. This will need some ironing out.

Second Harvest/Autumn Equinox

The harvest season continues with this festival of the second harvest...this is like a big pagan Thanksgiving-tide. This festival also marks the balance between light and dark, with a focus on coming darkness - from here on out, the daylight hours will be noticeably shorter, and the temperatures will start cooling down markedly. Happy Harvest Home!

Happy Loafmas!

Now begins the side of the year when we start offering thanks for the wonderful harvests of all varieties in our lives, and this is a very long season - in my calendar, I'm having it run at least through the autumn equinox, if not past it.

The most obvious manifestation of the gifts from the earth is the bread, from the grain that has been harvested from the fields. This is a good time to make offerings of bread and beer to Freyr. Happy Loafmas!

Ordinary Time

Today is the first day of ordinary time between Midsummer and Loafmas. This period will run until 30 July.

Midsummer

Hail Sunna, bright lady of the Sun! It's Midsummer! And damn, it's HOT OUT THERE in central Florida at this time of year! Sometimes I think the best way to celebrate Midsummer is by going to the beach and swimming, it's so dang hot. So maybe I should turn the liturgical color here to aqua and other oceanic colors! Relief from the HEAT! Haha! Happy Midsummer!

Ordinary Time

Now that we have welcomed May and the bright side of the year, we are back to Ordinary Time.

Ring in the May!

Happy May Eve! Tonight is May Eve, tomorrow is May Day, and this festival of welcoming the May (and saying bye-bye to winter) will run through 5 May. Dance round a Maypole! Break out the floral garlands! Kiss the one you love! Yay for May!

Back to Ordinary Time

Back to using normal grey text. Ordinary time runs from today - 29 April.

Happy Lententide!

Today, tomorrow and the next day mark the formal observance to welcome Spring. Happy Lententide!

Pagan Liturgical Calendar

18th day of Ordinary Time

At least, according to my pagan liturgical calendar, that's what today is. Thus, I will be typing in grey text. My text color will change according to what season it is, according to my liturgical calendar.

This is the color for Yuletide: Prussian blue or midnight blue. Yule is defined as 20 Dec - 1 Jan. This holy tide honors the longest night of the year, and the coming of light from darkness. Appropriate deities to honor at this time are Sunna and Freyr and Odin and Frigg.

Ordinary time, from 2 Jan - 31 Jan, will be grey.

Red is the color for the holy tide that I will call either the Feast of Technology, the Arts and possibly even Up the Working Class. This feast, from 1-9 February, commemorates the working people, artisans, their creative power and how this builds civilization. There are at least 2 deities honored at this time: Brighid and Thor.

Ordinary time, from 11 Feb - 20 March, is grey.

21 March - 23 March is Lententide or Oestara or Spring Equinox. Pale green & pastel yellow and pink would be appropriate colors for this holy tide. I may have to deepen the color a bit if I'm going to use it as a text color for my blog. Of course, this holy tide observes the balance of light and darkness, with a focus on the increasing light and the continuing blossoming of the earth.

Ordinary time runs from 24 March - 29 April.

May Day, which would start 30 April and run thru 5 May, is the time for Maypole dancing (because the Germanic people did do this) and celebration of love and fertility.

Ordinary time runs 6 May - 20 June.

Midsummer would run 21 June - 23 June. This edifies the strength of the Light, but from this period on, the light weakens and the days shorten.

Ordinary time would be 24 June - 30 July.

1-5 August is First Harvest or Loafmas. Some might choose to observe Freyrfaxi at this time.

Ordinary time: 6 Aug - 19 Sept

20-23 Sept would be Second Harvest and a sort of pagan Thanksgiving.

Ordinary time: 24 Sept - 13 Oct. This period may be used as "Frithtide" or a season of making peace with one's neighbors, before the big slaughter and the ancestor feast/All Hallows coming up.

This brings us to a big holy tide, Samhain or Winternights or Hallowmas. Shades of black and purple and dark orange are appropriate here. This holy tide would run 14 Oct. - 5 Nov.

Ordinary time 6 Nov - 19 December, then of course back around to Yule.