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 I. A Satyr Remembers

 Imbolc was coming up, and I remember we were all thinking: Oh gods. The ritualists here in town were in a pretty major rut, and had been for years: it was All Brigid, All the Time, and not only that but pretty-pretty, nicey-nicey too, all gauze and Laura Ashley. Boring. “We need something with some juice in it, some testosterone,” we kept saying. So we put together the Dance of the Satyrs. The initial inspiration came from the old Roman Lupercalia, but the goat-men danced (and still do dance) all over Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East, so it felt like something we could do here in Minnesota, too.

The satyrs agreed beforehand that we would all refrain from ejaculating for a week before the ritual. I made it, but just barely. I swear, that must be the longest I've gone without since I was a kid and first figured out what my body could do. I swear, by the end of the week, it was coming out my ears. I could practically taste it. I'd get aroused taking the garbage out.

So just before the ritual, we're all in back getting ready. We stripped down and Paul [B. Rucker] painted us up. We looked like something from off a Greek vase, or maybe a cave wall. And you could practically smell the spooge. It was raunchy, like a goat barn or something.

Howdy Pagan News Beagle fans! Today we are going to concentrate on stories about the actual Element of Water. (I know, revolutionary!) Today we've got atmospheric rivers; melting glaciers; growing sea ice; heavy surf; and a (possible) Saturnian lunar ocean.

This new scientific study focuses on the atmospheric rivers that arise off California (and provide much of the rainfall for the entire West Coast of North America.

(This is the Goddess MayAnne I created from farm junk. She lives in the Sacred Garden. Photograph courtesy of No Worries Farm. All rights Reserved.)



My aunt’s impeccable scrolling penmanship screamed, Julia! Are you out of your mind? I am a bride of Christ. I am married to God. There is no way I married a woman!

When I moved into the house I’m living in now (about 13 years ago), one of the first things I did was to set up a couple of birdfeeders. I’d never been able to do this in the previous places I lived, either because I had outdoor cats—and it always seemed kind of cruel for me to put out food for the birds, knowing that some of them were going to get attacked when they came to eat—or because I was living in an apartment with no good place to put a feeder.

We like to think of the gods as having always existed, time out of mind. In one sense they are timeless, of course, but in another sense they are closely linked to the cultures and societies of specific eras. It’s important to know when each deity ‘showed up’ and in what culture they did so, in order to understand which versions of the myths are the original ones and which are later alterations.

That’s right, later cultures came along and changed the earlier versions of myths, in most cases because they were taking over a society and wanted to downplay or even demonize its deities in favor of their own. You may be familiar with the way the writers of the Old Testament (the Hebrew Bible) depicted Asherah, Ba’al and other Middle Eastern deities as evil demons. You may also have heard about the ways the medieval Christian church condemned the European Pagan gods as evil spirits in the cases where they couldn’t manage to transform them into local saints. Well, these kinds of propaganda weren’t invented by the Judeo-Christian world; they’ve been going on as long as there have been people and pantheons.

They say that at Winter's midpoint, Spring walks the earth for a single night. (Or maybe it is her Dreaming that walks.) Look for her footprints in new snow. At her passing, they say, sleeping animals stir in their burrows and dens. At her passing, they say, seeds stir in the frozen soil, and dream of germination.

This playful Appalachian (originally English) folk carol, with its charmingly medieval-sounding minor tune, tells the story of the growing season to come, from plow to winnow. Originally sung at an already oversubscribed “Christemas,” we've reassigned it—for reasons that seem good to us—to Candlemas instead.

Generally we sing this song while standing in a circle, with lots of stomping, clapping, and percussion to help wake the animals and seeds. Each in turn jumps into the center, mimes a verse, and then jumps out again.

After all, there's no reason why making magic shouldn't be a raucous, joyful experience.

No reason at all.

The New Moon this month occurs in the sign of Aquarius (0 degrees) on Tuesday, January 20^th, at 5:14 am (PST).  Aquarius is a Fixed Air sign, meaning that it is a sign that embodies the heart of the season, in this case winter, in the Northern hemisphere.  It also resonates with the objective and intellectual element of Air.  Aquarius is the Visionary, The Wild Card, the Genius, the Rebel and the Revolutionary.  Uranus rules this Air sign, and is known as the Great Awakener.  Uranus also rules electricity, and lightening flashes of intuition and moments of revelation characterize the often times brilliant Aquarian psyche.