Solar eclipses reveal a blank slate for us to explore. Open the nooks and crannies of our inner selves, revealing our deepest wishes and darkest desires. Pisces is queen of going "far out" into the astral realms. Eclipses tend to reveal sudden imbalances and creates a hyper-awareness of the world around us. Trust your gut instinct during this time as it is flooded with insight. Pisces offers guidance and curiosity into these spiritual corners. Take note of your dreams and manifest them into reality! Swim on into the rivers of these changes!
Imbolc in dark, cold winter can signify endurance in the face of adversity and scarcity: we may encounter fragility, tenuousness, uncertainty, darkness and despair beyond what we think we can endure.
Women know these experiences.
We have held both new life and death in our hands. We have wondered: will this child make it, will the addict live or die, will my lover come home, will I survive this loss? Will I be OK? Will there be enough resources to see us into spring?
I imagine our ancestors sitting in circle at this time of year, with whatever sources of light they had, listening to one another. Just so. we are invited to sit circle together and share how we "are," what we need, what is frozen, what is thawing, what is fragile. In the deep winter, we begin again.
We say Yes again each year: Yes to the living of life again and whatever it may bring. I speak of Imbolc as a time of Faith.
Lots of news of our many communities in today's Pagan News Beagle: Asatru campaign for recognition in the US Army; We'Moon award; occultism necessary to Paganism?; temples or shrines?; Coph Nia event for Gay and Bi men.
The Norse Mythology blog recently reported that the campaign to include Asatru as an officially recognized religion in the U.S. Army has stalled. This interview offers the most recent updates on the progress (or lack thereof.)
Erin Lale
Fellow faculty at Harvard Divinity School posted an open letter to Wolpe in response to his article. It's available on this page, below the call for p...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. The Wild Hunt has a roundup of numerous responses on its site, but it carried this one as a separate article. It is an accoun...
Erin Lale
Here's another response. This one is by a scholar of paganism. It's unfortunately a Facebook post so this link goes to Facebook. She posted the text o...
Erin Lale
Here's another link to a pagan response to the Atlantic article. I would have included this one in my story too if I had seen it before I published it...
Janet Boyer
I love the idea of green burials! I first heard of Recompose right before it launched. I wish there were more here on the East Coast; that's how I'd l...