Solstice Celebrations

[Elphame]

Anyone else celebrating on the Solstice? It'll be very low key here, a religious/spiritual observation rather than gift giving, eating and all the commercial hype. We save that for the birthday of Sol Invictus on the 25th.

I'll decorate the house with natural greenery the day before and leave candles burning during the longest night vigil but I'm not sure I'll have the energy to stay up all night this year.

Yes I celebrate the solstice. I have a home altar and I will light candles, and make a special meal for my family.

I celebrate christmas too, but I see that as an extension of the soltice/Yule.

Always try to here, in small ways. A bit isolated but keep it in mind every year. Its been a hard life.

Supper

I have had a hard life in parts too, but I am a fierce survivor. There is always hope.

I have tried to celebrate Yule/Solstice here instead of Christmas , but children wanted Christmas, so I celebrate on my own.

I do both.

We effectively do both as well. We celebrate Xmas as a totally secular festival though. It has the presents, food and drink. The religious festival for me is Yule and in my trad it is quite a minor one so a low key observance is fine.

Candlemas (Imbolc) is much harder work!

Do you have a religion elphame?

Yes. I'm an initiate in one of the Cochronite streams 🙂

Iv'e never heard of that elphame- where does that originate from?

It's one of the esoteric streams from the work of Robert Cochrane - basically a form of religious witchcraft. 1734 and the Clan of Tubal Cain are the best known. The rest of us stay well under the radar having seen what Scot Cunningham did for Wicca....

Interesting. I prefer to follow my own path, and I don't consider myself religious

Elphame does your religion have theosophical underpinnings?

Only to the same extent as Alexandrian or Gardnarian Wicca. It's an initiatory mystery trad of similar age to Wicca but despite some superficial similarity is significantly different in its theology. Rather than the sexual/fertility cycle of Wicca ours is Sacred King based (Jesus is an excellent example of one) and my stream also pulls in a lot of the old cunning craft. The ultimate aim is to be one with the divine

As Roy Bowers left so little written material, each of his descendant streams is different as we work with the material and interpret it.

I work with a lot of family craft, I remember my gran ( who was born in 1883) teaching me knot spells when I was a child..

Haha I'll be teaching a class on knot magic to my student class tomorrow...

These pagan beliefs are really interesting to me. I was raised Catholic, now atheist but spiritual. Can you recommend any resources for a beginner to find out more about these traditions?

Paganism covers a huge range of beliefs and practices Jiminey - is there any aspect of paganism that interests you in particular? Gods/Goddesses, nature, cultural practices, witchcraft or all of it!

Thanks for responding Elphame!

I'm really interested in getting in touch with nature, the cycle of the seasons and celebrating the old festivals (solstice etc). If you know any books / websites where i could read up about things like this I'd really appreciate it.

Unlike Christianity ( an orthodoxy), paganism is more about what you do than what you believe (an orthopraxy).

Reading is all very well and good (and essential as you progress) but there is no substitute for actually doing. An awful lot of people fall into the trap of reading lots but never take the next step into actually doing so I think it's important to incorporate some actual practice right from the beginning.

A nice place to start is to find yourself a tree and make yourself comfortable underneath it. Visualize your legs and feet sinking into the ground like roots and your arms reaching up to the sky and becoming branches. Then just wait and see what happens, what crosses your mind and what you become aware of. At first the answer may well be not much but if you keep at it that will start to change pretty quickly.

You can do this exercise without a tree if absolutely necessary but if you want to connect with nature you do really need to get out there.

There are plenty of facebook groups out there - most are pretty terrible to be honest but there are a few that aren't too bad. Look for groups focused on Druidism and Hedgewitchery for the sort of thing you're interested in. The OBOD website might click too

www.druidry.org

It's a UK based site which is quite important. There are distinct differences between European Paganism and US based paganism!

If there is a local moot near you (www.witchvox.com has a list) then don't be shy about going down. You'll learn more from a conversation with someone across a cup of coffee or a beer than from books or websites. Nearly all of us are happy to help new seekers starting on their own journeys. We have a number of non pagans who are regulars just because they enjoy the craic and the company!

And Happy Solstice

i'm an eclectic, i follow a roughly celtic pantheon, but i do honor the Norse Gods too.

I do acknowledge the sabbats, but i'm more of a White Light worker, so i don't do altars and tools.

Yule is my favourite time, i nod to the 21st, but tend to tie it all in with Christmas as we celebrate the secular holiday :)