Treasa's Thoughts

Charter Oak Grove’s equinox ritual honoring Rosmerta and Mercury was a success. We called upon Dea Matrona as the Earth Mother, Cernnunos as the Gatekeeper, Brigindona as the patron of inspiration, and–of course–Rosmerta and Mercury as the deities of the occasion.

The blessings we received were:

• From the Ancestors: the sow–generosity.
• From the Nature Spirits: the swan–parenthood and parents.
• From the Shining Ones: the fox–wildness.

As always, we followed the ritual with a pot-luck, where we were able to get to know each other better and talk about our future plans (especially with Harvest Nights Gathering).

Charter Oak Grove is very excited to announce our brand new ADF festival: Harvest Nights Gathering!

The festival will be taking place at Camp Bonnie Brae in Otis, MA on October 14-16, 2011, and it is the only festival in New England.

We will offer workshops and a wonderful opportunity to meet your fellow ADF members in the region.

More information will be available here as our plans finalize!

(I found this at Walking the Hedge and at The Ditzy Druid )
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The focus of tonight’s ritual was Maponos, encouraging his birthday in the morning, as well as investigating a personal relationship. Results were favorable, I believe, and the sun should rise on schedule. (I hope. We’ll have to ask Diana Abnoba wtf she’s doing with the moon later.)

Omens were personally significant:

• From the Ancestors: Owl–an underworld guide, psychopomp
• From the Nature Spirits: Ancient Scholar–wisdom and learning
• From the Shining Ones: Snake–the ability to shed the past

okie-dokie…

Yule with Charter Oak Grove was wonderful, as expected. We honored Aengus Mac Óg as the deity of the occasion. We also had a wonderful turnout–we had 11 people participating in the main ritual (and 17 people, including spouses and children, present). I’m very excited about how well our little grove is doing (especially comparing this ritual to my first ritual with the grove last Yule).

Our omens were ambiguous again, and there will likely be some discussion about what they mean:

• The Ancestors: Sow (generosity)
• The Nature Spirits: Bear (sovereignty)
• The Shining Ones: Cow (the Goddess)

As I showed yesterday I am currently using a new divination system.

The system consists of six categories of six tiles each. This was a deliberate paring down from my original set of 54 tiles (6 x 9), which had too much overlapping of meanings between the tiles (and which would have required a much larger bag to hold the tiles).
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Since about Yule of last year I have been working with a divination system for use in ritual that was specifically designed with ADF in mind. Originally, I just wrote what I had in mind on small wooden hearts (so I would have something to easily pull). The system has gone through some changes, but a few weeks ago I reached the point where I felt comfortable committing the system to larger, craftier pieces.

I’m happy with how they came out. The method I used to transfer the designs was not as simple as I had hoped, and there was a clear point about halfway through making them that they started looking much better.

Last weekend I saw Agora. For those of you unfamiliar with the story, it tells the tale of Hypatia of Alexandria, a philosopher (who happens to be a woman) at the time of the Christianization of Alexandria (and the rest of the Empire).

The story centers around two periods in history: the taking of the Library of Alexandria by a Christian mob and then, later, the expulsion of Jews from Alexandria and the solidification of political power by the Church.

No, it is not a happy story. It doesn’t have a surprise ending (after all, this is historical fiction). This is the story of someone who is so concerned with science that she doesn’t really pay all that much attention to what is going on with the people around her. With Christians as the bad guys, I expected to have more representation of a pagan viewpoint, but Hypatia was portrayed as an Atheist, and the passing of the old religion was barely a footnote in the first half of the movie. In that, I was disappointed. I was not disappointed in much else about this movie, though. As a story of what can happen if you take your worldview and inflict it on others, it has few peers.

I would recommend this movie to:

• Anyone looking for a good cry.
• People (especially scientists) who are interested in history and historical fiction.
• Anyone interested in a look at the early Church that is not biased towards Christians.

Yesterday Charter Oak Grove had a wonderful Samhain ritual. We honored Cathubodua and the Ancestors, using the Gaulish hearth culture for the ritual. In spite of the wind (which did not quite blow out our candles) and the cold, the rite went very well.

We honored the Ancestors in four parts (Ancestors of Humanity, Blood, Religion, and Culture). As an unusual step for us, we read the Declaration of Independence as a praise offering for the Ancestors of Culture. We also honored Isaac Bonewits (Kat sang the English verse of his Hymn to Brigit).

We called on Dea Matrona as Earth Mother, Brigindona for Inspiration, and Cernnunos as the Gatekeeper. As it is our Samhain tradition, the gates were left open while we were on site to allow people private time with the Kindreds.

We had a wonderful, if chilly, pot-luck in the park afterward. We had 8 people in attendance, including two new attendees. It’s wonderful and exciting to meet new people and to get to spend time with such great people.

Blessings

We received some wonderful blessings from the Kindreds:

• From the Deities we received Piety
• From the Nature Spirits we received Travel/Journey
• From the Ancestors we received Wisdom

After the water was blessed, our wonderful Senior Druid blessed tokens of grove membership (Connecticut quarters with the Charter Oak on them) with the Waters and gave them to the full members of the grove.