Samhain Season Altar

I’ve neglected my altar for many moons. Not for any particular reason - life just rushes in and gets in the way. Like everyone else’s, our family has been preoccupied by dealing with life in the Covid era. The new school year has been difficult so far. Distance learning is not going well, and it’s been exceedingly frustrating. We aren’t in lockdown, but there are still strict rules about how many people outside your own household you can see per week and how restaurants can operate and so on and so forth. It’s all exhausting. 

Last week I finally cleaned and purified the altar - and used way too much copal. The whole house filled up with resinous, fragrant smoke. I just used my turkey feather wafter to waft it all around, smudging the house basically, and then opened all the windows and doors wide and let the cool breeze finish the job. 

(Altar tools: the turkey feather fan is for wafting smoke, smudging an area. The pampas grass wand is for doing a limpia of a person - brushing their aura, for lack of a better term)

Except for lining up some squash, however, I left the altar empty. I just wasn’t inspired to decorate it. It wasn’t quite Samhain season, not quite time for the day of the dead altar, and too late to dress it for Mabon. So it stayed empty and clean for a week. 

Today my oldest daughter Rowan was visiting, and Hope asked if we could all dress the altar together. She found an altar cloth (a crocheted shawl I had just given her for her birthday) and we all chose seasonal items to place, either from the yard or from my collection of altar pieces I keep on a shelf in the kitchen. It only took about fifteen minutes and was a really nice group activity. 

The picture of the whole altar doesn’t show details, so here are a few of our seasonal items. Shed antlers, decorated with rose hips. Reminds me of a seasonal crown on Cernunnos, although he isn’t really a deity I have dealings with. 

Pomegranates, of course, are a beautiful and appropriate decoration for an autumn altar. Persephone is sinking into Hades right now, to meet her husband and take on her aspect as queen of the dead. The black corn I brought back from Oaxaca, and is there simply for its beauty. The skull shot glass has apple cider in it, for visitors. And that tattered crocheted animal is a representation of the Black Rabbit of Inlé (What? You haven’t read Watership Down? Go start it right now). 

This altar will probably stay up through the day of the dead, and we will add to it as the day approaches. We will out up photos of our dearly departed, and add flowers and fruits and sweet breads. On the day itself, we will make a big batch of hot cocoa, light a fire, and sit around the altar eating and drinking and telling stories of our ancestors and beloved dead. 

The house feels so much more homey with an altar laid. 

Good Beltane to You!

My Beltane Altar. I don't have any images specifically for Beltane, so I used this sketch of Danae welcoming Zeus in the form of a shower of gold. It's sketch for a larger painting, one of a series I did many years ago, reimagining the Ancient Greek tales rape or seduction as instead images of divine love and passion. In this same series I have Persephone and Hades, Leda and the Swan, and Europa being carried off peacefully asleep on the broad back of Zeus as a bull. 

I'm not at all sure how closely my own understanding of Beltane hews to the original meaning - as if anyone can really say. To me, this is the celebration of the yearly renewal of the eternal marriage of heaven and earth. A celebration of the energy and passion that springs from the union of male and female. A celebration of the act of creation that continually remakes the universe. 

My husband went to a neighbor's house and cut me an amazing, fifteen foot tall cane of bamboo to make a maypole. We haven't decorated a maypole in a few years, and it's one of my favorite rituals. I have some witchy friends coming over, and my daughter Rowan, and I'm making a Beltane feast and I'm very happy. 

Welcome to the divine bridegroom, who comes today to wed the Goddess. Welcome the quickening fire. Welcome the bearer of the flowering rod, the staff that brings forth water in the dry places. Welcome the loving, healing embrace of the Divine Masculine, of which this world is sorely in need. 

December Doings

Spiced candied pecans. Made these today to send out in small pretty parcels to my family and close friends. A good friend and neighbor of mine has a relative who owns a large organic pecan farm in Texas, and every year that relative sends her a couple of big boxes of shelled organic pecan halves. Her kids sell them at a very good price to bolster their own Christmas funds. This year I got five pounds. They are the best pecans I've ever tasted, hands down. And they aren't made worse by candying them. Here's how I do it: 

Preheat the oven to 275.

For each pound of pecans:

Whip 1 egg white with one tablespoon water until frothy. Set aside. 

Mix 1 cup sugar with 1 teaspoon cinnamon, 1 teaspoon cayenne, and 1/2 teaspoon salt. You could vary the spice mixture to your taste. One year I made curried pecans. 

In a large bowl, pour egg whites over pecans and mix well to coat. Then add sugar mixture and turn well. Pour out onto a baking sheet and bake for 45 minutes, stirring the pecans well every 15 minutes. They should be almost dry at the end, and toasty but not very browned. 

I'm going to have to keep these pecans under lock and key until I get them packaged up and out the door. 

This year's advent calendar of events. This is the third year in a row I've done this. Some of the events include public festivals like tree lighting ceremonies and free Christmas concerts; some are family traditions like baking cookies and decorating the altar; and some are church events like helping decorate Zion for Christmas and going to the annual Carols by Candlelight evening. A few days just say "redeem this ticket for a piece of Christmas candy." 

Truthfully the kids are getting a little old for this - Hope is 14 and Paloma is 12. Every year I think "this might be the last year I can convince them to sit down and cut out snowflakes with me!" But so far, they have been excited to turn over the tags every evening before bed and happy doing the activities with me. Yesterday we put up Christmas lights, and tomorrow we are going to make cards, to mail out along with the pecans. 

Beautiful frosty December mornings. The mountains have snow on them, and the porch is icy enough to go skating on. 

Time to check the front closet and go over our supply of gloves and hats, and to get out the door a few minutes early to give the cat time to warm up and to defrost the windshield. 

All is well on the farm and we are ready for winter. We have hay, we have a freezer full of beef, we have propane and we have extra quilts. We are snug as bugs in rugs. 

Advent Event Calendar (Slaying the a dragon of Christmas)

The advent-event calendar that I was so excited about in the last post is a reality. It only took me one trip to the dollar store and an hour on the computer looking up local events. It's amazing how many free and low cost events there are in our little town. Many of them, it's true, are aimed at children much younger than mine. I keep forgetting that my kids are both in double digits now. 

This afternoon when the girls got home from school we opened the first door. Tomorrow's event is making Christmas cards and ornaments at the library. 

I wasn't able to find events for every single day, of course, but I wasn't trying to. I saved several days for the things we do every year anyway- bringing in the Christmas tree, hanging lights, decorating cookies. In all probability we won't go to all the events on the calendar, but it's fun and exciting just to open the doors every day. 

The advent event calendar is my latest and best idea to date in the ongoing effort to make the holiday season about experiences rather than about stuff. Like most American families, we do not suffer from an acute lack of "stuff." Personally, I feel quite the opposite - I often feel like I am drowning in "stuff" I don't use or need and am constantly trying to get it out the door. 

More and more lately, I am also feeling the press of time; there are so few years left with my children while they are still young enough to enjoy things like cutting snowflakes or Christmas pageants. Thank God for Rowan - at 22 she has been through her evil adolescence and come through the other side a sweet and wonderful young woman. She actually enjoys our family rituals, and she gives me hope that - after a few years of rebellion and snark - my younger children will enjoy them as adults too. 

Festive holiday season to you all.