Lammas

 

The Sabbat, Lammas is celebrated next week. It is also known as Lughnasadh, and Loaf-Mass day.

History tells us the Catholic church took many of the old pagan celebrations and incorporated them as Christian holidays to make the transition for converts easier. Christmas was taken from Yule, Easter from Ostara, and; I did not know this; Lammas is also known as Loaf-mass day and is celebrated in some English-speaking countries in the northern hemisphere. This makes total sense as Lughnasadh honours Lugh, a Celtic deity.

In Catholicism, clergy would lead parishioners in a procession to their local bakery where a blessing was given to the bakers of the bread and thanks to God for providing the grain. Nowadays, thanks is given for providing the wheat and for a successful harvest to make the Eucharist (representing the body of Christ in communion).

In Paganism, it is celebrated to mark the arrival of the first harvest. Many of us bake our own bread in a symbolic gesture or buy and eat freshly baked goodies. The idea is to give thanks to the land/Lugh/the universe/God (whichever resonates with you) for providing the grain that makes the food and gives us good health.  In days gone by, the community would bake and distribute loaves to the poor.

Some of us mark the day with a small personal ritual, some decorate our altars, and others go all out and prepare a celebratory meal and make a big day of it. Then there are those who are forced to hide who they are and can’t really do much. Whatever your situation or choice, it doesn’t really matter how you celebrate; the point is to practice gratitude and be mindful of the meaning of the day.  

Although Lammas, or Lughnasadh is primarily seen as the celebration of the first wheat harvest and bread is generally used worldwide, remember it’s about the harvest, so there are other options if you’re going gluten-free, are grain intolerant, or on a low-carb eating plan. Think root vegies, corn, or for Keto, your greens, berries, and herbs will be ready for harvest too.

As an accompanying drink, you could opt for beer, ale, mead, berry, and grape juices or berry and grape wines. A great African option for those of us here in South Africa would be umqombothi which is made from maize, and other grains, depending on your recipe.  

If you’re unable to practice openly, take a few minutes alone, outside if possible, and spend some quiet time with your drink of choice and a cookie, or a carrot, or a slice of delicious carrot cake (grain and veg)! Close your eyes and give thanks as you eat and drink, smile. You can do this anywhere at any time. Think limitless!

Lammas is traditionally celebrated annually on the 1^st of February although it falls on a different day each year depending on the timing of the solstices. This year it’s actually is on the 4^th of February which is a Friday.

Whichever day you choose for celebration, may this Lammas bring blessings of the harvest to nourish your mind, body, and soul.

 

 

Harvest  Photo by Shiwa Yachachin from Pexels

Bread and Wheat Photo by Mariana Kurnyk from Pexels

Walking with the gods

With my 52nd birthday just around the corner, I am reflecting on the path I have walked this half century.

I was, like many of us, brought up in a Christian home. My first experience of God was a low-key Sunday visit to the local Anglican church where a frocked minister led a strictly prescribed service, which as a child, I found captivating and otherworldly at first, but tedious as I grew older and used to it. That was about the sum of religion in our home and the rest of the week was pretty secular. My parents were members of the local Round Table, a charity organisation that held fund raisers several times a year. We spent many weekends playing outside the clubhouse with other kids, while the parents partied inside. When I turned 13, my parents left the RT and went away on a weekend only to return reborn Christians and might I say, very different people.

We joined a new charismatic church which was intriguing at first, but after some years, the church politics and the many questions I had in my reasoning mind, that no-one seemed to be able to answer began to put me off. In my later teen years I became uninterested and drifted away.

My father continuously 'encouraged' me to return, often with emotional blackmail, which spoiled our relationship somewhat. When I went to boarding school, I drifted further away and noticed their influence on my two younger sisters, when I came home on weekends.

Once during high school, and once during my military service, I reached out to God and recommitted myself, during lonely phases, when I felt I needed a spiritual confidant. On both occasions, two older peers approached me, under the guise of Christian brothers that I could confide in, but on both occasions they had other motives. Sexual motives, which once I realized, made me deeply angry.

Seven years later, recently married and expecting our first child, my father again insisted I/we return to his church for the support a young family - 'aught to have'.

After much nagging he convinced me to help him lead a group course over some week, for the purpose of  inviting new members.

The course, in my opinion, was bogus, highly assumptive and full of holes. I prayed to God for real answers to my questions and on the second week of the course, one of the girls in my group offered me a book to read. The book was Conversations with God, by Neale Donald Walsh. I was captivated by the answers and although I now consider it as only a first step, I was consumed by it and couldn't put it down. It was my introduction to New Age ideas. I got my hands on seven more in the series and read them all in record time.

From there my path led me to Buddhism - reading the Bardo Thordal, ( Tibetan Book of the Dead) Carl Jung and the Dalia Lama's interpretations of Buddhist dharma. I sought out a few visiting monks and spent time with them, learning to meditate. Then I discovered Yoga and enrolled in the local school. I studied Patenjali's Sutras and the Eight Fold Path and became an avid Yoga practitioner and teacher with two of my own classes for more than a year. Then one weekend on an unrelated workshop, I met a Lakota shaman who introduced me to Native American mythology. I was smitten. I joined his medicine society and he took us on regular sweat lodges into the mountains. It was very authentic, men only, with rough and harsh initiations.

During that time I had an encounter with a large Bull Masif that attacked me and put me in hospital for four days. I considered him my 'wolf teacher' and never sued the owners, for fear the dog would be put down.

Soon after that, on my last sweat lodge in the Cederberg one weekend, one of the participants stood up and did an invocation to Odinn, in old Norse. My body shuddered and goose flesh over took me, while my mind drifted far away. I felt as though I had heard these words before, although they were completely foreign.

Some time later, I read Donna Darkwolf's book, Dancing under an African Moon and asked the universe to allow us to 'bump into each other', as I discovered that she lived in the same town as I did.

Within a month or so, I went to the bank one day and there btw the glass doors stood this Egyptian looking woman in a Kaftan, with a large Ank, or pentagram dangling between her braless breasts, like an exhibit in a museum. I introduced myself as she exited and asked for an audience with her, but she was not friendly. Rather suspicious, she wanted to know why. I read your book, I said and have some questions. Ok then, she agreed to meet as long as I had no further agendas. I assured her that I did not. She had received a lot of negative press in our conservative dorp.

Our meeting was short but we got on rather well. She invited me back several times and I eventually began to design rituals and talks for her groups.

A few years later, and a devotee to Odinn, as I remain to this day, she encouraged me to become a Registered Marriage Official since she had the channels to make it happen. I agreed, studied the Acts and took the exam.

Several months later on holiday with my wife and some friends in Thailand, I fell into a fire at a hedonistic beach party in Kho Pangan and burned myself rather badly, after a stupid act that I knew I would not pull off successfully, but did it anyway, as if steered by an unseen force. Not alcohol.hat 

The next morning, licking my wounds as it were, I received a call from Donna, telling me that I had passed the exam and I was now officially CAM's first RMO. I told her about my 'accident' the night before and in her usually blasé manner said, " Its your baptism of fire, Shaman. Odinn is a wiley deity. Be careful what you ask for. When he gives, he also takes away." 

Our professional relationship continued until her passing in 2017. I watched her denounce all her spiritual affiliations and abandon her once huge ego. 

At her memorial I met many of her friends and one in particular had a massive impact on my life. In true Odinic style, completely upturning my world, taking away much that I had held dear, but rewarding me at the same time with many gifts and resources I could not even have wished for. A relationship like this I had never known. To both of us, an indecribable detriment and blessing at the same time. Like meeting your favourite family member, that you never even knew you had.

While my career, marriage and other relationships including with my parents, went through a terrifying metamorphosis, I have been endowed with gifts beyond measure. Like Odinn, who sacrificed one eye, I have also lost 50% of my hearing in this process, and doctors cannot determine why.

Odinn truly hears my calls and knows better what I need, than I do. Far more engaging than the God of my childhood who seems indifferent to prayer, I stand in awe on this road less travelled, but warn any wannabe Odinson, to be very very careful of what you might ask of the All Father. Be ready to have your spiritual house demolished.

Fire Blessings

 

FIRE. 

The word conjures up thoughts of its beauty and warmth, and of its potential to destroy.  It burns. Almost all life is susceptible to fire. The smoke, the flames and the heat capture our imagination and draw us in.  Occasionally we hear of other natural states related to fire such as a volcano about to erupt, a tree struck by lightning, solar flares, and every year there is news covering forest fires from California to the Cape Province. Firefighters and volunteers rush out to help save people, animals and property while we watch in fascination.

And fascinating it is. It’s a theme that’s been used in countless movies. Sitting around a campfire or in front of an open fireplace; we find ourselves mesmerised by the yellow, orange, gold, and by the red glow of the embers. We’ve all been around a fire, toasting marshmallows, having a braai (similar to a barbeque), gathered for warmth, singing songs, or swopped tall tales. For as long as man has been able to make fire, it’s been a place where memories are made, social connections are formed and communities have gathered. This is one thing all humankind, regardless of geographic origins, has in common.

We associate fire with one of the five points of the pentacle (or pentagram, whichever you prefer), it sits south in a circle and in feng shui it represents inspiration and expression. It is affiliated to the zodiac signs Aries, Leo and Sagittarius and is one of the five Chinese elements. Religion uses fire on the one hand as a threat (you’ll burn in the fires of hell), and on the other, it’s used to light incense to purify the space and congregants. In numerology, it is given the number nine, which represents endings. Personally, my brain associates the number nine with the protea and phoenix, both are destroyed by the flames, and both rise again from the ashes.

I think it’s interesting to note the colours associated with fire, yellow, orange and red are also the colours of the base, sacral and solar plexus chakras. These deal with stability, community and identity.  

On a practical note, man has taken something once feared and learned to control it, mostly. We’ve turned it into something we can use. It cooks our food, warms our bodies, wards off predators, is used to forge tools and jewellery, and to light candles and incense for meditation. 

The idiom “Fight fire with fire” means to use the same methods against your enemies that they use on you. I think it comes from the method farmers and fire departments use by creating fire breaks to prevent fires and to control wildfires. Some other idioms and phrases are:

-          Burning to say something

-          Fire away

-          Add fuel to the flames

-         Blazing a trail

-          Burning bridges

-          Light a fire under someone

Our ancestors learned to use and appreciate it in spite of their fear, and without them doing so life would be much different. To a large extent, fire was instrumental in our evolution and there’s no denying it’s made our modern lives much more comfortable.

I think it’s inspiring that our ancestors faced their fears, and this year I’m going to try and do the same. I’m hoping to conquer my fears and use them to my benefit, or I’ll get burned in the process. Either way, it’ll be a life lesson and have value.

May you always have fire in your belly, just enough irons in the fire, and be capable of firing on all cylinders!

Photo by Tomáš Malík from Pexels

Sticks and Stones

 When someone tells me -they're offended, Im prone to say, Well, I'm still waiting to hear what your point is. Christopher Hitchens.

Some things offend me too, But honestly, my feelings are irrelevant. Dr. Richard Dawkins.

Dec 1989: My matric year, and boy did we know how to party back then! Camping in Hermanus and Saldanha bay, windsurfing by day and a bevy of local girls to flirt with in the evenings. It was paradise... with one small twist.

In the back of my mind... a niggling feeling.

As the three delightful weeks past, day by day the clock hand ticked louder and louder.

It would soon all be over and I was headed for the unknown.

On the 4th of January, my mother and father, loaded their three kids into the family car for a once in a lifetime outing. Five of us left the house, but only four would be returning home that day, forever.

Destination: Wingfield military base, where some smart looking army guys welcomed me with big smiles and an authoritative confidence. "He's in good hands Mam!" the burly soldier assured my mother.

On the bus it was another story.

We were handed a form to sign without getting to read it properly. It basically said we were now property of the SADF.

A huge warrant officer bellowed 'do's and dont's' all the way back to Saldanha bay, but this would be no holiday.

This was the beginning of basic training, aka- mind control camp. For the next three months we were drilled and grilled, humiliated, insulted, along with every disgusting thing that could be said about our mothers, shaven bald, with only an oversized overall to wear for the first month. Rank: Shark shit.

Apparently there was nothing lower. The point- to crack the psychologically weak.

We were warned that those stupid enough to attempt suicide had better do a good job because if you failed you would be court marshaled for damage to state property. Four boys did do a good job in those first two months. The rest of us made it through and received our uniforms as a sort of trophy. Forward two months on and we were shipped out to our service posts. I was in the navy, so next stop- seamanship school in Simon's Town. Two months on and I was assigned to the warship, SAS Drakensberg en route to Taiwan for the diplomatic mission, Operation Nexus. After a month at sea, sailing along the equator in stifling heat, forced to wear our blues and working 4 hour on, 4 hour off shifts the whole way, Taiwan was like another world. Strange wet markets with everything from puppies to snakes for sale... to eat. Prostitutes and drugs offered at every turn. It was protocol to wear our white uniforms for the first day in a new port, where we were treated like American GI's and the girls wouldn't leave us alone.

It was a sensory overload for a 20 year old kid.

My two scariest memories were, in reverse order, a stand off I had with a Taiwanese harbor guard frantically chasing two of our ships crew who had had a dispute with a taxi driver over fees and then made a run for the ship, late one night while I was on security detail on the gang plank. As the two ran up onto 'SA soil' the guard was in hot pursuit, weapon raised. He was not allowed on board. We pointed our weapons at each other for what felt like a sublime moment, both screaming incoherently, before I risked lowering mine and gesturing for him to do the same. He did, but it was touch and go for a second. The trigger on an Uzi is a sensitive animal.

But the scariest, was going on duty one night at 2 am on our way there some weeks before, as we headed straight into the eye of tropical cyclone Ikonjo, with 30 ft. swells and 150km/h winds, in the middle of the Indian ocean. The worst part was, as Able Seaman and Quartermaster on the bridge, I had to steer that ship. The pneumatic tiller packed up, then the hydraulic one too, so I was sent to a steel strong room in the base of the ship, just for'ed of the propeller, to man the big old manual steering wheel with only a compass and the captain bellowing coordinates through a crappy speaker. No windows and 375 lives on my conscience that night. After two hours I was relieved by my shit scared buddy who, unlike me has no sailing experience. At breakfast we were congratulated on a job well done.

We returned to a festive dockside, with navy bands and drum majorities and doting families in both Durban and Simon's Town.

I completed my National Service a few months later and returned home, no longer the boy with the hippy long hair, but a man who has done my service to my country. Luckily I didn't have to kill anyone, unlike many of my army peers who were sent to the border to fight APLA, SWAPO and UNITA. And luckier that those who never made it home.

None of it did me any psychological harm. It was my coming of age. I'm sure that most of my contemporaries agree - as testing as that time was for us.

Today I am aghast by this overwhelming discussion over gender fluid pronouns and how terribly offended these non binary people get when they are referred to in language we have used for at least a thousand years. Don't get me wrong. If you were born a boy and want to be a girl, by all means, that is your right. If you dress like a woman convincingly ( bar the Adams apple) and behave accordingly, I will respect that and call you her and she naturally, or vice versa for women who want to be men, although I am not easily fooled as females have a harder time really pulling off being like men. But be that as it may, I sometimes am confused. As for 100 different genders, I don't buy it. Legislating this, as is proposed in the UK and Canada and forcing the world to conform to these demands is a slippery slope to mass mental illness which will only confuse the majority of young children in their formative years.

Furthermore while men have specific roles to play, as do women. Sacred roles which men can never equally perform, both deserve equal 'human' rights, men and women are far from equal, socially and biologically. For one, for women to demand equality to real men they will have to give up their place on the life raft when the ship is sinking or negotiate who will face the intruder in the night. For men to transgender and demand to be treated as women in sport will destroy woman's sport instantly as the top 1000 male tennis players can beat Serena Williams according to rankings.

Not to mention boxing, wrestling and athletics. Gender fluid sport is not equal opportunity sport.

Fatherless families have a detrimental effect on many societies and gangsterism is more rife in areas where this is prevalent. Likewise mother- child bonding is as essential in early development. In early societies, mothers hand over the son to the father around age 7 to begin warrior training.

So let's put our feelings aside and think about the real consequences before we wake up in La-la land and a totally broken society. Bullying is the real problem on both sides.

Beware of the divide and rule strategy of the powers that be, who seek to divide us on every level.

If something or someone offends you, remember the old saying, sticks and stones... and just get over it.

Disclaimer: These are the opinions of the author and not the whole group. Your constructive criticism and comments are welcome. Slander and hate speech will be deleted.

Simply Superstitious

Cultures from all over the world are steeped in superstition. 

Some of us have family superstitions, some are cultural and some are adopted.

There are countless interesting superstitions and some are really strange like a Swedish one I came across; if you are handed a piece of cake and it falls to the side as you accept it, you will apparently never get married. Maybe that’s why I’m still single.

Walking under ladders, a black cat crossing your path, breaking a mirror are some of the common ones. From when I was a child I was one of those people who was thrilled when a black cat crossed me (I had to prove a point), deliberately walked under ladders, and celebrated Friday the 13^th  as my lucky day.

My family believes that taking the largest piece of the broken mirror and deliberately smashing it breaks the bad luck. Conversely, accidentally breaking a glass in the house dispels any negative energy. Yep, totally under the radar pagans.

Whether we are superstitious or not, there is that little nagging voice at the back of our minds messing with us when something “unlucky” happens.  I still break the biggest piece of the broken glass, just in case...

Life has dealt some of us some nasty blows and I can’t help but wonder if were there too many black cats, if I dared the universe a little too often, and if so can I undo it? If I put up a ladder and walk backwards through it will it change my luck? Do I have to go find white cats now, and when someone hands me a piece of cake, do I grab it before it has a chance to fall, or make it fall the other way, and which way is the other way, it’s all very non-specific.

As a child, I often dreamed of snakes.  Western belief is that it means your enemies are after you and the circumstance of the dream foretells their success or failure. This never made sense to me. As a small child, I certainly hope I didn’t have enemies!

Years later I found that in African culture dreaming of a snake means your ancestors are sending you a message or protection. I much prefer their interpretation and “adopted” it. I no longer wake up with dread after dreaming of a snake.

My perception has changed, to suit me, you might say.

Yes, definitely, and I feel better about it.

Other than us pagans, many cultures and religions put a lot of stock in dreams. Stories are written about them in holy books, and many households in the ‘80s and ‘90s had a dream dictionary or two, or three…

Look online and you’ll find all sorts of interpretations but I have to ask; do dream interpretations also fall under superstition? Or do we take them seriously because holy scripture includes them?

I still smile when I think about an old friend and self-proclaimed atheist who scoffed at all of what he referred to as “crutches”, but when I told him I had a dream about him he always paled, quite a feat for a Venda man.

Most of us are philosophers at heart, we have our beliefs, our moments of deep thought, and our own opinions. We see the world through our own eyes. Superstitions, culture, faith, we have our own vantage point depending on our seat at the table.

There are often unusual beliefs and rituals discussed on social media groups especially those run by groups that fall within the pagan umbrella. Keep an eye out and drop a comment if you’d like to share any interesting ones.  

Sweet dreams!