PaganSquare.com - WitchesAndPagans.com PaganSquare is a community blog space where Pagans can discuss topics relevant to the life and spiritual practice of all Pagans.
Specific paths such as Heathenism, blended traditions, polytheist reconstructionism, etc.
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This is a busy and festive time of year for the Tribe. Over the past month or so we've observed Therasia's Labor, which led up to Winter Solstice and was quickly followed by the Blessing of the Waters.
Because the Blessing of the Waters takes place on the first Full Moon following Winter Solstice, the number of days between the two events varies from year to year. The lunar cycle slithers around the steady points in the solar calendar, the two intertwining in a dance that stretches out into a longer cycle: eight solar years equal 99 full lunations.
...In a shocking display of vitriol for the pages of an old and otherwise respectable mainstream magazine, The Atlantic ran an opinion piece titled The Return of the Pagans which makes numerous outrageous claims about both ancient paganism and the modern manifestations of paganism. The op-ed's author, David Wolpe, contrasts paganism with monotheism and repeatedly expresses his opinion that monotheism is better in every way.
Every paragraph is a new wtf. Starting off by claiming that Trump is pagan because of his crass displays of wealth, the article only gets more disturbed from there. The entire article is a series of untrue and offensive statements about paganism.
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Solstice blessings to you!
Today is the Winter Solstice in the northern hemisphere. In the Tribe, this is a day of two layers of precious mythos, both centered around the concept of birth.
...In the recent Loki series on TV, Marvel-Loki says "I can rewrite the story." He's talking about controlling time, alternate timelines and universes, and time travel. Comics fans are now calling him God of Stories, a title he had in the comics.
Asa-Loki never held that title, but was certainly a driver of stories, being central to the plot of many myths. He makes change happen.
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The days and weeks leading up to the height of the winter holidays are both exciting and sacred to people from many different spiritual traditions. Christians have Advent, for example; Norse Pagans have Sunwait. Liturgical seasons leading up to a sacred day are far older than either of these traditions, and they have an important function: encouraging us to focus not just on the upcoming "special day" but on the way the year hinges around it.
And the Winter Solstice appears to have been the "central peg" on which the sacred calendar turned across much of early Eurasia, with the Sun Goddess as the driving force behind the year. Check out Patricia Monaghan's excellent book O Mother Sun! for some great research about this subject.
...Sometimes we are influenced by writers without even reading them. I recently found out about early influences on me from writers my family knew. As I discussed in Writing and Writers part 1, with the story of the carob being an influence on Snorri's version of the Baldur tale, second hand or third hand influence can have a big impact.
After I blogged about Honoring the Bear, I posted a link with some commentary on the Official Animal Spirit Beings Thread in my discussion group, the Asatru Facebook Forum. In my blog post, I mentioned that when I studied the martial art Shaolin Sho Shu Kung Fu Way of the Beast as a teenager I had learned an exercise to connect to the seven beasts of martial arts and had once seen myself in the mirror as a giant mantis, which had frightened me at the time. I had also connected with other beasts, including cat and bear.
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