Animisma - All Things In-Spirited

Welcome dear ones to the Sixth Festival of the year that is Lughnasadh - the first of the three harvest festivals. It is high summer. Fields, crops, and orchards have been drinking in the summer rains, hosting the blessed bees, bats, and butterflies, and growing fruits, grains, nuts, and berries. This first harvest festival is also referred to as Lammas, the Loaf Mas, and marks the harvest of the grains.

This time of heat and light is a celebration of all that has been seeded and grown. In the face of our human awakening and the clearing of old wounds and old ways making space for the growth of the new, we can take pause at this time to reflect on all that has grown, all that is beautiful, all that is true.

Sacrifice is also a common theme here at Lughnasadh - that we too must now sacrifice the warm part of the year, the light-filled energetics of the growing half of the year, and welcome the cooling, deepening, and going within. The invitation here is to celebrate life and the harvest with great intention, in preparation for the darkening and cooling ahead. Take stock and assessment of the harvest of your year - what was planted and has now flourished? What blessings can we be thankful for? While the days are long and warm, while the flowers blossom and the trees bear their fruit, let’s unite in our deepest appreciation for all that we have on this resplendent, green, beautiful Earth and fill our hearts and our cups to the brim.

In this offering, we explore the story of Lugh, the Great Goddess Tailtu, and the festival celebrating their myth at this time of year. We pause through poetry and reflection to honor our divinity, wounds, and healing journeys. And we close with a rattling to honor the Sun Gods and the well Divine Masculine energy in our world. May you and all you hold dear be blessed by the radiance of the Sun, the Season, of the Ancient Ones honored by this festival, Lugh and Tailtiu. I wish you a beautiful, sacred, and health-filled high summer festival of Lughnasadh!

Welcome, dear ones, welcome to the beloved, ancient fire festival of Beltane! This sun-fire festival is a full half-year turn of the wheel from Samhain when the ancestral veil is thinnest. At Beltane, the veils are also thinned, but they are the curtains that protect the realms of the fae, our etheric kin. We offer them sweetness and play at this time of the year, and offer them our truest thanks for tending the budding shoots and unfurling tendrils, bringing green life back into our lives.

At the time of this podcast recording, the world is being awoken. An emergence is upon us; we are facing the delicate fragility of our human walk and meeting the sheer force of reckoning that is the natural world. We are also being offered exceptional beauty. The air is clearing. The mountains are being revealed. The animals are returning. The Earth is stilling. 

I dedicate this Beltane podcast to celebrating on your own. There are so many ways to lovingly celebrate at this time and the Earth in all her ripening splendor is so very deserving of our attention! She continues, unphased and unstopped by the cultural movements of human people so even though we may not be able to gather together in large numbers, dancing around a maypole, feasting with friends, or frolicking under the moonlight, there are so many ways we can bring the richness, fecundity, and celebration of Beltane into our lives.

As part of my offering, and in service of this month of May, I offer you some rituals and pathways to connect with the flame of the Belfire, the sacred waters of the Beltane morning dew and the wildness within us all.

Blessings on this Spring Equinox, dear ones. For the Celtic wheel of the year, this celebration is sometimes referred to as Ostara. As the northern hemisphere tilts towards the sun, the days begin to lengthen, and the sun turns towards the North, we officially welcome the Spring and all that it represents - freshness, green shoots, birdsong, warmer days, and cleansing rains.

And in context for those that are listening from the future, we are currently experiencing a rather large tensing of the social fabric of our culture as a virus is spreading very quickly around the world. We are now, and always have been, part of a deeply connected world, and it is times like these that shine a light on how brilliantly interdependent we are.

Today, I invite you to gift yourself with some space to rest and relax during this time of challenge and change. On this day, the light and the dark, the day and the night are conceptually equal. There is a beautiful, balancing quality to the equinox and its gifts of day and night held in dynamic equality offer us an opportunity to reflect on our own sense of balance.

As part of my offering into the cauldron of change and transformation we are experiencing, and in service of this Spring Equinox where the balance of light and dark is upon us, I offer you some pathways to your own inner resiliency via some visualizations and meditations.

May the goddess of the dawn walk beside us and sit with us at our hearth, as we ground, breathe, and deepen into the understanding of what challenge truly is and the wisdom and freedom offered through change.

May the blessings of Imbolc be upon you! I am utterly thrilled to be sharing this beautiful celebration with you. Imbolc is the beautiful festival and celebration of awakening, fertility, birthing, and beginning. It is the promise of renewal, of hidden potential, of the earth slowly awakening and of life-force stirring.

As I explored the celebration of Imbolc, the one recurring theme that arose was that for many who have celebrated Imbolc over the years: it was either the beginning of their year or the ramp to the beginning of their year. To myself and others, it was almost as if we were living in the season of waiting and not knowing, the liminal space, the timeless time between last year and the future year and it was in fact at Imbolc that the year would really begin. So at this time of Imbolc, we welcome the growth of the returning light and witness life's rebirth.

The most prominent deity associated with Imbolc is the great fire goddess, Brighid. Myths regarding Brighid’s birth say she was born with a flame in her head and fed on the milk of a mystical or faery cow as a child. She is thought to provide ample supplies of milk to the community or village that honors her and is the patron goddess of fertility, pregnancy and midwifery, the home and all dairy and domestic-related activities. 

I offer this episode as a way to explore the history and traditions of Imbolc and to connect with the fascinating, protective, loving, fierce, capable, and frankly incredible deity that is Brighid. We will end with ritual, prayer and gentle meditation to honor this magical time of year. 

May Brighid offer us fierce protection, loving protection, and inspiration in this time of re-birth!

Happy Solstice, Good Yule to you, and welcome to the first episode of Animisma - All Things In-Spirited!

During this first season, we will follow The Celtic Wheel of the Year. Eight episodes will be dedicated to the eight traditional festivals and each episode will be released on the day of each festival, offering an opportunity for you to connect with and celebrate the festival.

Season 1 of Animisma is also offered as a bridge towards reclaiming the indigenous wisdom of our Celtic ancestry. My hope for this first season of Animisma is to offer anyone who shares the bloodlines of my ancestors a pathway back to the old ways that welcomed us into the web of all existence and offered us connection to presence, each other, and to the magic of the world around us, wherever we may find ourselves. Perhaps by reclaiming our indigenous wisdom, we can heal our lines, truthfully acknowledge the past, and in doing so, claim a future of connection, respect, and reverence for the lands, waters, trees, animals, and all people. Perhaps today we can claim community as connection and no matter what our bloodline, rest into the deep knowing that we are all indigenous children of the Earth.

So, today we launch this podcast on Yule, which we will take as the 1st celebration of the year. For eons, celebrations of the returning light have taken place on the Hibernal or Winter Solstice. I offer this first episode as a way to reveal a little of its history and to connect with this beloved ancestral celebration of the returning light. We will end with a gentle meditation and a blessing to ring in the season.

May the blessings be plentiful and may grace guide you and hold you into the coming year!