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My wife and I have made profound changes in our lives through green Paganism and simple, ecological living, which have resulted in unforeseen, yet very positive opportunities for peace, joy, laughter, and success. In fact, these opportunities have been so powerful, that I was stirred to share them with others, and not keep all these amazing discoveries to ourselves. We 'unplugged from the matrix' that is the cause of so much distraction and busyness in our lives and created a magickal Pagan homestead. I will share some of these discoveries of how, as a Pagan, you can simplify your life, while living more in sync with your purpose, nature and open up an incredible world of opportunity and possibility.

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A look at the year ahead

Just over a week into the new year and that means it's time to put some plans into action, and look at the year ahead. One of which is steering this blog's content in a more useful direction by providing practical information on how I bring "my" Paganism into my everyday life as well as further explaining more about my spiritual practice, our homesteading adventures, observations of the world and Pagan community, and how that all fits together, even if not perfectly.

Believe it or not, today is a great day for thinking about 'blue' moons! While I don't consider them anything special, plenty of people do. I do admit, however, that it's an extra opportunity to do some full moon-based magick! The funny thing about blue moons is that most people have no idea how to tell when one is going to happen without looking it up in an almanac or the internet.

 

I've written before about there being two definitions of 'blue moon', but I really didn't delve into the subject all that much. I also didn't talk about the two definitions to a "year" when determining them either. So why is now a great time to think about them? If you follow the more contemporary way, the calendar method, of determining blue moons, then you'll agree that 2013 doesn't have any. An easy way to tell if any year will have one is if the first full moon of the year occurs within the first 10 days of that year. This year it happens on January 26th by my timezone, and on January 15, 2014, but it occurs on January 4, 2015, and that means that if you follow the "two full moons in a month" method, 2015 will have a blue moon.

While there are no easy ways to find exactly when the blue moon will happen--you have to use an intimidating formula--there are some basic guidelines that may help you in narrowing it down. Remember, these only apply to the calendar method.

  • February will never contain a blue moon
  • Months with 31 days are four times as likely to have a blue moon than those with 30 days.
  • The blue moon will happen on either the 30th or 31st day of the month.
  • The first full moon of a double moon month will almost always fall within 30 days of a cross-quarter day.

In my upcoming book I will delve a bit deeper into this method, as well as explain the other way, the seasonal method, which is the one used on the Winding Path. I use that method, even though it's not the popular one, because I also do much of my garden planting by the phases of the moon, and the lunar cycles of the year play an important annual set of rituals and observations in my spiritual practice.

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Peter is an American of British and German ancestry who lives in Missouri with his wife Mary, where he is (re)discovering his connections with nature and the Gods. When he's not tending to their homestead, which feeds his family and provides an expression of gratitude and work in veneration to the Gods, he writes for several blogs, and works as a freelance artist/graphic designer. Having many years of experience in various forms of occult systems, including Asatru, Celtic, and Dragon Hollow Wicca, and Witchcraft, Peter finally found what he had been looking for all his life in a blend of Traditional Witchcraft (the nameless art), Heathenry and personal gnosis/exploration (vision/mystic).

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