Eight Parties a Year

I’ve started to do an offering at the new and full moons where I pull some loose hairs from my head, offer them to the moon, and ask the moon for support. Here’s one spot I recently did this moon ritual. I did something similar at Lúnasa, the 1 of August, this year.

Here in Raleigh, the cool breeze of early autumn has already made its debut. Has it where you are? This soft shift from heat to less heat has already got everyone commenting: friends share with me their delight, their surprise, their wariness. This tells me just how much we already live our lives in relationship with the seasons. There’s more there, if you want it: support in slowing down to nature’s pace, joy in relishing each seasonal moment for what it brings.

There are lots of ways to attune to nature, but it takes structure to attune in the midst of a world full of of manufactured urgency. Today as I was driving to the farmer’s market, I noticed my impulse to drive as quickly as was safe, so I could get home and start working. No one was waiting for me to clock in. Those 10 minutes will not make me a “better coach.” I’ll actually be a better coach if I myself practice slowing down, remember that urgency is the default of a capitalistic culture, and unhook myself.

The wheel of the year is a huge support for me in this, plus it’s my friend, a companion that I get to enjoy spending time with and learning from. The wheel comes up in a few different pagan traditions. There are eight different holidays in the wheel of the year, including the solstice, equinoxes, and 4 other holidays.

Most recently was Lúnasa (Gaelic name), AKA Lammas (English name), a holiday celebrating the start of harvest season. Over on my Patreon, I wrote up a ritual for this holiday (you can access my rituals for $3 a month, and there’s lots of free materials over there).

What my rituals sometimes look like. I did this one last week - usually my Patreon rituals involve objects anyone would have in their home.

When I did the ritual, I thought about what I’d grown this year that I was starting to harvest in August. What seeds had I planted in the dark of winter that spring and summer had brought to fruit?

My fruits included deeper relationships, clarity and regularity in my business, chosen family living nearby, and a strong, capable body healed of some significant injuries.

These are all things I’m enjoying daily that might have passed me by if I didn’t take the time to be with the rhythm of the earth and see them. The wheel of the year holidays exemplify what is already going on in the cycles of our personal worlds, and give us a structure to witness it, appreciate it, and then welcome in more. It gives us an outline for when we can surrender into release (winter) and when we can embrace growth (spring), when we can harvest our fruits (summer) and compost them back into the earth (fall).

There’s infinite nuance to each season - I won’t pretend to capture it all in an email, or even a book (which I plan to write, on living with the seasons). You don’t need to know it all - just feel what is there in the moment.

I’ve made all sorts of materials for enjoying the wheel of the year: meditations, Tarot readings, personal card pulls for people, rituals, explanations of each holiday.

A few months ago, I made a container for all of them in the form of my Patreon. It’s intended as a way for you to pick and choose what materials suit you in your practice, and as a way for you to support the creation of my seasonal work, much of which I offer for free.

Check it out below. For folks who join any paid tier within the next week, I’ll also send you my Wheel of the Year Holiday graphic, a visually pleasing reference tool for learning the meaning of the holidays and some ways to celebrate them. (I am going out of town for the next couple days, so expect it in your email sometime early next week.)

It’s a good time to sign up - you can enjoy the tail end of Lúnasa season, and then get all the fresh goods right before the Autumnal Equinox.

Much early autumn / later summer love,

Isabel

Village Witch’s Corner

My intention this week : 

Stay grounded enough, but don’t force it.

Question(s) I'm asking this week:

What is enough?

What I’m listening to:

This album by the olllam, an incredible musical group inspired by Irish traditional music and “Detroit’s post-rock psych-sensibility.”

Spell of the Week:

Go to a close friend’s wedding, enter the wild portal of her celebration, and then return home.