Paganistan: Notes from the Secret Commonwealth

In Which One Midwest Man-in-Black Confers, Converses & Otherwise Hob-Nobs with his Fellow Hob-Men (& -Women) Concerning the Sundry Ways of the Famed but Ill-Starred Tribe of Witches.

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On the Wisdom of the Pagan Year

 

 

Pity the poor cowans.

Yes, now is the time of year when I always feel sorry for non-pagans.

Deep Winter. The great, glorious blaze of the holidays has burned itself out, and Spring is still a distant hope on the horizon. Until then, only the endless, hard slog of Winter stretches out before us, a vast, unbroken expanse of snow: long, interminably long.

Poor cowans: all this way till Spring, and nothing in between but (ugh) Valentine's.

Meanwhile, I'm looking forward to Imbolc.

Solstices, equinoxes, and the days that fall in between: the Wheel of the Year, we call it, a wheel of Eight Spokes. A party every 45 days or so. In the pagan world, there's always something to look forward to.

It's a hopeful way to live: a milestone to mark the way, every month and a half. Everything is always moving, nothing lasts. Nothing is permanent but the Cycle. It says a lot about pagans that we find this fact consoling.

It's a way to mark Time, to remind us that we're constantly en route. (Pagans are always in motion. Even when we're sitting still, we're moving.) “Back before Beltane....” we say.

Walking down the street, I see an awful lot of old Yule greens still up, looking pretty tired and desiccated by now. All mark cowan homes.

Not at my place. There, Yule has been packed up and put away a week since.

Time to get ready for Imbolc.

 

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Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.

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