Pagan Blog Project | Hearth Moon Rising

Coyote Magic

February 8, 2013

Western Coyote. Photo by John and Karen Hollingsworth

There are many sounds of night that lend a sense of order to the world: a train whistle in the distance, a chorus of peepers, the music of coyotes. Some find coyote ruckus eerie, but for me it’s like traveling between the worlds. I’m convinced that these scraggly canines are making their obeisance in song to the Divine Mother.

Since coyotes are native to North America there is no specific Euro-shamanic belief about this animal. There is quite a bit of folklore about the wolf, of course, and coyotes are in many ways like little wolves, so wolf mythology could be transferred to the coyote. Native American mythology and folklore about the coyote could be absorbed, although there are challenges to this approach involving understanding and respecting the tribal culture in which they arise. Ideas about the coyote can differ significantly among tribes, so there is also the question of which attitude to adopt. Another possibility is to place the coyote in the context of Euro-shamanism by carefully studying the animal.

Coyotes like wolves often live and hunt cooperatively in extended family groups. This gives the coyote significance in divination, ritual and spellcasting involving family and community relationships. Like wolves they are shy, but coyotes are willing to hunt in more open areas, such as over ice. At the same time they are self protective, preferring to den in hilly areas with a view of approaching creatures. Coyotes, like wolves, are very smart, but unlike wolves they are inclined to hang around human habitations, albeit in low profile. Their ability to adapt and figure out new situations makes them a potential magical resource for problem solving. They are remarkably adept at learning how to prey on pets, chickens, and domestic rabbits, and I’ve seen them circumvent some complicated latch systems. For some reason they like to devour most of the animal but leave the face behind, a kind of calling card or a testament about the animal’s demise. (Oh, were you looking for Fluffy?) Coyotes cannot or will not be controlled, which is a factor to consider when calling on their magic. Are you secure about the absolute rightness of your actions, and are you prepared to have the spell turn out differently than intended?

Many have tried to eradicate both the wolf and the coyote without success, and the coyote population has actually increased in numbers and in territory since farmers and ranchers declared an all out war. The much-maligned coyote is a survivor and cannot be gotten rid of. It would be more productive to learn how to live with the animal, but doing this would require accepting that, despite best efforts, the thieving coyote is sometimes going to win a round. Learning to gracefully accept a loss – any loss – is a lesson that eludes many people, but the coyote keeps trying.

The coyote is a master at hiding. Chances are there are more coyotes in your town than you realize. At first glance coyote tracks look the same as dog’s, but with just a bit of study you can learn the difference. If you live in a suburban area where there is snowfall, check for coyote tracks and you will be surprised.

Eastern Coyote. Photo by Christopher Bruno.

The Western Coyote is a scraggly-looking animal, no matter how healthy. She has that disheveled, half-starved look that skinny children can have no matter how well taken care of they are at home. Appearances can be deceiving. Animals associated with deception are used in the occult to unravel truth.

The Eastern Coyote is a more handsome and robust animal. The Eastern Coyote is believed to be a hybrid of coyote and wolf, and people disagree on how much of this animal is coyote and how much is wolf. This makes the Eastern Coyote “neither one thing nor the other,” a mark of transformative power in Celtic and Germanic belief.

Sources

Chapman, William K. with Dennis Aprill. Mammals of the Adirondacks: A Field Guide. Utica, NY: North Country Press, 1991.

Rezendes, Paul. Tracking and the Art of Seeing: How to Read Animal Tracks and Sign, 2nd ed. New York: Harper, 1999.

The Origins of Candlemas

February 1, 2013

Madonna Lily. Photo by Maciek Godlewski.

While there are many longstanding Pagan holidays observed in the beginning of February, the Christian holiday of Candlemas grew out of a specific Roman Pagan observance. February was an important festival month on the Roman calendar and thus began with a purification ceremony known as Juno Februa, Juno the Purifier. The most prominent of the Roman matriarchal deities, Juno is essentially the goddess of essence itself. She is thought of as a moon goddess, since her worship originally revolved around the lunar cycle, but this only partially explains her. She is the state of Being, illustrated by the waxing white moon appearing out of the black void. The Romans saw not only plants, animals, and inanimate objects such as rocks or mountains as having spirit, but core truths or principles as well. Thus the month of vital ceremonies required not simply purification practices, but the calling up of the essence of purification herself. Some say Juno Februa occurred at the second full moon following the winter solstice before Rome adopted a solar calendar, but by the start of the common era the date of the festival was fixed at forty days past the (also static) December 25th date of the winter soltice festivities.

Under Christian rule, Juno Februa became a celebration of the purification of the Virgin Mary following the birth of Jesus. The mass was celebrated with a procession involving a great many candles like the earlier Roman holiday. Mary took on not only the ritual date and its association with purification, but Juno’s white lily. The lily became a symbol of Mary’s renewed purity. The goddess Juno, though like Mary also a mother, needed no such purification because the idea of pollution in childbirth was foreign to her cult. She came to bestow purification, not to partake of it, and would give birth a full month later to her own son, the god Mars. The birth of Mars was also a virgin birth: Juno conceived him through the fragrance of the white lily, the white lily being a form of Juno herself. In other words, Juno impregnated herself and her white lily symbolizes self generation.

Detail from restored statue of Juno. 2nd century. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen.

Some attribute the instigation of Candlemas to Pope Gelasius I in the fifth century, but it appears that he was railing against the climactic February festival of Lupercalia, which eventually became St. Valentine’s day. Gelasius may have been successful at driving Lupercalia underground, where it began its own long transformation, but people continued to openly celebrate the Juno rite. In 684 Pope Sergius I officially instituted the mass of the Purification of the Virgin Mary at February 2nd on the church calendar. From the start many theologians protested the event, arguing that Mary would have needed no purification since she was impregnated not through sexual intercourse but by the Holy Spirit. Within the logic of Christianity they were right, but as time wore on the church had conflicts at Candlemas not only with remnants of the Roman pagan cult but with propitiation to weather deities and and fire goddesses elsewhere. The tension between theological purists and synergistic forces was eventually satisfied by fixing the time of the presentation of Jesus at the temple, which is referenced in scripture, at forty days following his birth, or February 2nd. The focus on Mary on this day remained popular with the masses, however, so the celebration of the purification of the Virgin, while declining in emphasis, never totally went away.

Today among witches and many other Pagans February 2nd is a time for vows and initiations. There are many reasons for this having to do with Celtic and Germanic beliefs, but the Roman observation of Juno Februa also fits nicely with this understanding of the holy day. During this time of commitment intentions need to be unassailable, informed by the essence of purity Herself.

Sources

Durdin-Robertson, Lawrence. The Year of the Goddess: A Perpetual Calender of Festivals. Wellborough, UK: Aquarian Press, 1990.

Hazlitt, William Carew and John Brand. Faiths and folklore of the British Isles. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1905. http://books.google.com/books/about/Faiths_and_folklore_of_the_British_Isles.html?id=JDXYAAAAMAAJ

Monaghan, Patricia. The Book of Goddesses and Heroines. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1990.

Perowne, Stewart. Roman Mythology. London: Paul Hamlin, 1969.

Walsh, William Shepard. Curiosities of Popular Customs and of Rites, Ceremonies, Observances. 1898. Detroit: Gale Research Company. 1966 Reprint. http://books.google.com/books?id=VKwYAAAAIAAJ&dq=Candlemas+Pope+Innocent+XII&source=gbs_navlinks_s

Walker, Barbara G. The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

Baba Yaga and the Pelican

January 25, 2013

Dalmatian Penguin. Photo by Sengkang. — Dalmatian Pelican. Photo by Sengkang.

When I was a little girl I liked to hang out at the boat dock where my retired grandfather earned a few extra dollars cleaning “grouper” caught by tourists on deep-sea outings. As my grandfather pushed aside the entrails of the fish, I would gather and carry them over to the water, where I admonished the pelicans to be polite and share. They were a noisy and ruthless bunch, jostling and dunking one another in a desperate attempt to gobble the biggest portions. I had favorite foods myself, but I did not approve of this behavior, and I threw my offerings in different places so that everyone could have their fair share of fish guts. The birds accepted some of my rules of engagement, such as not moving onto the dock or the ground. They swam around in an agitated fashion, trying to gauge my movements and intent, then swooped en masse as the goodies sailed into the water.

A pelican’s life is brutal from the beginning. Typically three newly hatched siblings compete aggressively for food, nagging their parents incessantly. When the chicks are developed enough to move around in the nest, the two largest chicks push the smallest onto the ground, where it soon dies. The two remaining chicks engage in mortal combat while the parents are foraging for food, and eventually there is only one surviving chick.

The aggressive pelican in many ways fits the Baba Yaga of Russian fairy tales, who eats little children and decorates her picket fence with the skulls of men. Quoting from Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother in Witch Of the Russian Folktale by Andreas Johns

Michael Shapiro (1983) finds that Baba Yaga is derived from two prehistoric theriomorphic prototypes – the snake and the pelican. The Slavic word baba, like other Slavic kinship terms, has been applied to species of plants and animals. Baba has come to be the indigenous term for the pelican in some Russian, Ukrainian, Bulgarian, and Upper Sorbian dialects…

The pelican depends mostly on fresh fish kills for her diet, but she is also a scavenger who has undoubtedly dogged humans since we began fishing. An animal which develops a symbiotic relationship with humans often becomes a divinity. Baba Yaga is depicted today as an old woman, and she parallels the grandmother owl and raven goddesses of northern Europe, who are scavengers or predators like the pelican. Baba Yaga is usually described as having a very long nose, and sometimes a pronounced chin as well, which also evokes the pelican. The pouch of the pelican can be compared to the skin hanging from the jowls of an old woman, and the large body of the pelican is like the sturdy stout figure many women develop as they age.

Marija Gimbutas has documented in detail the fondness of Neolithic European cultures for water bird goddesses. While in most cases it is impossible to know what type of water bird is being depicted, it would make sense for the pelican to be represented. Outside of warm climates the pelican is a migratory bird, it typically lives in flocks, and (at least in Europe) it is mostly white. I won’t go into the reasons for this now, but migration, communal living, and the colors black, white or red usually have special religious or magical significance. The Dalmatian Pelican is usually silent in adulthood except when breeding, a detail I find fascinating because Baba Yaga is known for her long silences. Johns sees the erratic head feathers that distinguish this species as related to the messy hair attributed to Baba Yaga. Another interesting detail is that Baba Yaga never walks anywhere except in her house or yard. She flies in a mortar, using the pestle to steer, and she either uses a broom to sweep away her sky tracks, or she ditches the mortar and pestle and uses the broom to fly instead. Baba Yaga’s penchant for flying has led many to surmise that she must have once been a bird goddess.

One problem with associating Baba Yaga with the aggressive pelican is that she is a rather ambiguous figure in Russian literature. Usually she is a dangerous witch, ugly in every sense of the word, but sometimes she is a wise old woman who helps the protagonist – and sometimes she is both. This contradiction becomes even more pronounced when we move into the Balkan region. Radomir Ristic says

The Balkan Baba is quite different from Russian Baba Yaga because she is much less negative and evil, and quite possibly [the] only way that the two are related is the fact that both of them are old women. However, if we know that people and Witches have different opinions of Forest Mother, we can assume that their opinions of Baba also differ. She is still the “ancestor” who helps her generations, and if she picks someone to be her pupil, they are not in danger because that person has passed all manner of tests that they are not even aware of. She only punishes selfish and evil people who want magical knowledge solely for selfish goals or material profit.

Johns does not see the pelican as a negative association for Baba Yaga. “If we associate the snake with Yaga’s wicked aspect, the pelican can be associated with her good aspect (which in turn connects her with the bird and Great Goddesses). As the benevolent Baba Yaga is forced into the background, now appearing only as a relic, the pelican disappears.” The pelican has a mythical association with sacrifice and selfless motherhood, an association predating Christianity which nevertheless became a popular allegory of Christ’s martyrdom. The story goes that a mother pelican unable to provide for her chicks during a famine pierced her own chest so the chicks could drink her blood. This may be linking the blood of the womb with the pelican as mother goddess. At any rate pelican mothers and fathers do work tirelessly to feed their insatiable brood, and they defend their young forcefully against predators.

I see the pelican as embodying both the benevolent and the cruel sides of Baba Yaga. This bird arouses conflicting feelings and cannot be easily categorized. The pelican holds the key to many of life’s more complex mysteries.

Baba Yaga by Vicktor M. Vasnetsov, 1917. Note the owl and the snakes.

Sources

Attenborough, David. The Life of Birds. Documentary film. London: BBC, 1998.

Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

Johns, Andreas. Baba Yaga: The Ambiguous Mother and Witch of the Russian Folktale. New York: Peter Lang, 2010.

Ristic, Radomir. Balkan Traditional Witchcraft. Trans. Michael C. Carter, Jr. Los Angeles: Pendraig, 2009.

Saunders, William. The Symbolism of the Pelican. Arlington Catholic Herald, 2003.

The following film clips, entitled “Pelican Attack” were put together by an individual named Siegetuka who is exploring the aggressive side of the pelican. I have to say that most of the pelicans seem to be provoked by the people and animals attacked. Note the superb hunting skills around 2:40 and the (nesting?) pelican fighting off an attacker at 2:50. You might want to stop at the pigeon meal, as it only gets worse.

Las Brujas

January 18, 2013

Most people who meet my casual acquaintance struggle with where to place me. Many file me with “must be Native American.” A few ask point blank if my parents were hippies. When I lived in southern Arizona, I was surprised (and a bit disturbed, because I wasn’t used to it) to discover that many Mexicans and Mexican-Americans had me pegged right away. Some (actually the majority) carefully avoided me. Others cajoled me into telling their fortunes or even asked for charms. My landlady had trouble getting repairs done because the Mexican construction workers she employed refused to enter my house. A friend of mine, also a brujo, had an even more disconcerting experience: some Spanish-speaking landscapers he hired reported him to the sheriff.

In Brujas, Bultos, y Brasas: Tales of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the Pecos Valley Nasario Garcia interviews los viejitos, the old folks, in rural New Mexico about the witches. The book reminds me of ghost story compilations from the Ozarks or Appalachia. Witches and supernatural occurrences are portrayed in wholly malevolent ways. The line between witches and healers is firmly drawn, something which contradicts my own observations in southern Arizona and in another part of New Mexico. The familiar story of folk healers defaming rival healers with accusations of witchcraft sounds like it might be part of the subtext in these reminiscences, although this is reading between the lines. Another possible parallel with other folklore of European derivation is the description of ghosts or witches as points of light – brasas or embers. In some cultures the fairies are described as sparks of light.

The viejitos often talk about El Mal Ojo, the evil eye. According to Viviana Tapia, “You treated it by spitting wild pie plant with cachana, a root used to ward off evil. You had to spit it – spit in the face of the afflicted so that the evil eye could be lifted, so that it would go away. It’s cachana, that’s what the medicine is called. The same persons who would spit it are the ones who would chew it (the root). And it had to be a Juan or a Juana in order to cure the victim, got it? Any other way was not possible.”

Another common theme in the interviews is La Llorona, The Wailing Woman, for those who like to collect these stories. I won’t go into this legend here today, but if there’s some interest I’ll do a post on it later.

Most of the people interviewed do not appear to know anything special about witchcraft (although you never know), but there is one woman I would like to have talked to. The interviews happened about twenty years ago, so it is unlikely that any of the storytellers are still alive. I appreciated having both the Spanish and the translation. Academic researchers have a hard time understanding magical concepts, and what they interpret is highly suspect. Although my Spanish is not the best, I think the translation is dependable.

I wonder if some day a folklorist in the Sonoran Desert will be collecting stories about La Bruja Gringa. I did NOT put El Ojo on anybody, just so you know. I will haunt you with a thousand brasas if you say I did.

The Alder Tree

January 11, 2013

The Black Alder is renowned for thriving in marginal environments. Photo by Johan Fredriksson.

What can no house ever contain?
Answer: The piles upon which it is built.

This riddle refers to the alder wood base that ancient houses were built upon, before the concrete cinder blocks or stone-and-mortar that are used today. Alder was the preferred wood because it is resistant to water decay.

Alder is considered a core magical tree. It corresponds to the letter Fearn of the Irish Ogham alphabet and to the rune Isa. It is sacred to the Greek goddesses Circe and Calypso.

In Finnish the word for alder is derived from a word meaning “blood,” which refers to the red sap the tree oozes when cut. Red pigment from the bark was once used as a dye and a face paint. There is an old superstition against cutting down the alder tree, ostensibly because it “bleeds.” This seems to me a strange rationale, since a pig or any other edible animal also bleeds when killed. However, there are ecological reasons for leaving a stand of alder trees unmolested in certain cases, since the alder is an important pioneer species, fixing nitrogen to the soil in marginal growing areas.

In some stories the Black Alder is substituted for the Black Poplar. For example, in the myth of the Greek sun god Phaeton, the god’s sisters turn to poplars at his death in one version and to alders in another. Substitutions such as this can give a clue as to the magical properties of the tree. Both the Black Alder and the Black Poplar grow in wet soil or along riverbanks. They are also pioneer species, meaning they are early volunteers on cleared land or nutrient poor soils. The riverbank association would link the alder with death, while the pioneer aspect evokes the concept of resurrection. (For a discussion of the relationship of rivers with death see Hecate and the Waterway.)

The death aspect is unmistakable with the lovely goddess Calypso, who has a thicket of alder, poplar and cypress growing at the entrance to her island cavern. Calypso amuses herself pulling drowning sailors from the sea and taking them to her love cave. In the mythology of Greece, Scandinavia, Britain, and Ireland, islands are otherworld places where the dead are received or where magical events occur. The Greek goddess Circe, who transforms men into animals, has a ring of alder trees surrounding her island.

Bran the Blessed, who carries an alder branch, is certainly associated with death and resurrection. The giant king gives his Irish in-laws a magic cauldron as a peace offering, a cauldron which brings to life any dead thing that is put inside it. Bran repents of his gift when he goes to war against the Irish, because they revive their dead warriors with the cauldron. When Bran later dies, he tells his comrades to cut off his head. This in itself is not unusual, as the Celts often brought home the heads of their fallen heroes when for some reason they could not bring the whole body. But the disembodied head of Bran is rather remarkable. For the next 87 years it recites poetry, performs divination, and tells stories from the past, serving as a bridge between the otherworld and the land of the living.

The fairies bring another link between the alder and magic by virtue of their own otherworld connection. Green is the color usually worn by fairies, and they are said to dye their clothing from the immature alder catkins, which produce a green pigment. Of course, the red pigment from the bark would link the alder tree to the blood of the womb, often represented by the cauldron, a symbol of death and rebirth.

Sources

Basic Runes

Graves, Robert. The Greek Myths. London: Penguin, 1960.

Graves, Robert. The White Goddess. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 1948.

Hybrid Poplar

Lefevre, Francois, Agnès Légionnet, Sven de Vries Jozef Turok. Strategies for the conservation of a pioneer tree species, Populus nigra L., in Europe, 1998.

Monaghan, Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008.

Walker, Barbara. The Woman’s Dictionary of Symbols and Sacred Objects. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1988.

Woodland Trust. Common Alder.

A Look Ahead

January 4, 2013

This week marks the one year anniversary of this blog. I started with the goal of producing one post each Friday, and I more than realized this objective with sixty-eight posts for 2012, only a few of them past my self-imposed deadline. My visitors have increased steadily over the year, and I know that it’s not charitable friends and acquaintances building up my traffic because they tell me they hardly ever go to the site. The old adage that one can never be a hero in one’s own country comes to mind here, not that I’m a hero for having a blog. Yet I cannot say that Gertrude Stein’s observation that “I write for myself and strangers” applies to me, since through comments about my posts on blogs and social media I feel like I know you.

When my blog was a month or two old I ran across an enterprise called “The Pagan Blog Project.” Started by Rowan Pendragon, it was a challenge to pagans to write a year-long blog for 2012 related to their practice, with one entry per week made every Friday. I had enrolled in the project before I heard about it! Strictly speaking, participants are supposed to spend two weeks on topics related to a different letter in the alphabet, starting with “A” and moving in chronological order to “Z.” I have enjoyed seeing what bloggers do with the letters “Q,” “X,” and “Z,” but I have usually bowed to other pressures when selecting topics. My first obligation is to my readers, and I choose my topics based on your questions and requests. I also try to be somewhat timely in my posts, moving with the seasons and responding to current events. I recognize that I have a handful of readers in the Southern Hemisphere, and I will try to keep that in mind when choosing topics for the coming year.

Aside from this blog, I have many other projects on the burner for 2013. I will continue to contribute to the Return to Mago blog. I have also agreed to serve on the advisory board of the Mago Circle. Mago is the Great Goddess recognized by peoples of East Asia, particularly Korea, since matriarchal times, and the Mago Circle is a cross-cultural spiritual group.

Late spring 2013 will see the publication of my first book, Invoking Animal Magic, published by Moon Books. The book will discuss my research and experience with animal deities and will include a fair amount of mythology. I will be sharing more about the book in the weeks ahead.

Later this year I hope to begin offering webinars on various topics related to nature and Goddess worship. The webinars will be offered as one-time sessions rather than a series of classes and will be accessible through your computer or phone. A syllabus and other details will be forthcoming.

This blog is meant as a resource for those who worship the Goddess in her many forms. It has a particular focus on the natural elements that form the basis of Pagan beliefs and practices. If you have comments/questions/requests of a general nature please share them. I am vigilant about monitoring for spam and I use spam filters, so if your comment or site registration is deleted it was probably inadvertent.

The Y-Junction

December 14, 2012

The goddess Hecate is often referred to as “Goddess of the Three-Formed Crossroads,” a title which strengthens my belief that she was originally a goddess of the waterways. By “three-formed” the title refers to a junction of three roads meeting in a “Y.” In Greece a statue of the goddess was sometimes placed at such a crossroad, her three faces pointing in three directions. Offerings of food would be placed there, particularly by those embarking on a journey.

heacte3 — Hecate of the Trivium. Roman copy of Greek statue.

Why is Hecate worshiped where three roads meet? While roads and paths do occasionally fork, we think of a crossroad as being a cross, with two joining roads creating an intersection of four directions. I was unable to discover if roads in the ancient worlds were more commonly crossing or forking, and I wonder if anyone has thought to ask the question. One travel route where the meeting is almost always forked, however, is the joining of rivers. We do know that long distance travel in prehistoric times was heavily dependent on water, rather than roads.

An interesting difference between roads, or even trails, and rivers is that the course of rivers is predestined. The river may be dredged or banked, but by and large the goddess decides where the river flows. Hecate’s divine priestess, the witch Medea, can control the course of rivers, but ordinary mortals merely decide which fork to take.

Hecate2 — Hecate is often portrayed carrying a torch to light the road by night.

In life it is an inexorable fact that there are three passages, and three passages only. These are: the passage you take, the passage you don’t take, and the passage you leave behind. Being at the place where the three meet, however you are traveling, is a place of change and of risk. It is a threshold, a place of beginnings, and a place where departure from the past becomes inevitable. It is a place between worlds, the point of your greatest power.

During this time, as the sun crosses its nadir, we often experience a point of departure. If you find yourself at such a turning point, pray to Hecate to lead you in the best direction. Pray to follow your path with conviction and to avoid obsessing over the route you never took or the one you put behind you. And if your situation is intolerable and you cannot see your way out, pray to Hecate to open a fork in the passage.

Hecate is sometimes pictured with a horse, emphasizing her command of travel. As a horse goddess she is called “The Distant One” or “The Far Fleeting One.”

Sources

Goddess Gift. Hecate, Goddess of the Crossroads.

Hellenica World. Hecate.

Hesiod. Theogeny, part V.

Jordan, Michael. Encyclopedia of Gods. New York: Facts on File, 1993.

A Yule Gift I Knew You Wouldn’t Have

December 7, 2012

This Winter Solstice I thought I’d get you something more original than a partridge in a pear tree. This is a bird-of-paradise (Manucodia comrii) from New Guinea, singing a song you’ve probably only heard on a space music soundtrack. The clip is from Cornell University’s ornithology website.

Manucodia_comrii_by_Bowdler_Sharpe — Curl Crested Manucode. Drawing by Richard Bowdler Sharpe.

The Yule Fire

November 30, 2012

In early December, the equivalent in Pagan households to “Where did we store the Christmas lights?” is “What did we do with the Yule log?” A piece of wood from last year’s Winter Solstice ritual fire is always saved to burn on the next year’s fire. This is a throwback to times when a perpetual fire was burned at the community shrine or temple, and it symbolizes the continuity of tradition.

It is the fire and not the log that is the central theme of the Yule ceremony. The hearth fire is the manifestation of the ancestral spirits and the generating force of new human life. According to Clement A. Miles in Christmas Customs and Traditions: “Ancestral spirits, it seems, were once believed to be immanent in the fire that burned on the hearth, and had to be propitiated with libations, while elsewhere the souls of the dead were thought to return to their old homes at the New Year, and meat and drink had to be set out for them.” This sounds a lot like the holy day of Samhain that just passed on October 31st. Euro-Pagan religions which preceded Christianity are essentially systems of ancestor worship, so we would expect the ancestors to play a role in holy days throughout the year. Also keep in mind that Celtic and Germanic cultures absorbed much of the religion already practiced in the regions they settled, and thus there is duplication.

In Neolithic European cultures, the hearth was the center of worship, so much so that many objects found in the vicinity of the hearth during excavations are assumed to have religious importance. Greek and Roman writings also identify the hearth as the focus of the family’s spiritual life, and indeed the Latin word for “hearth” is “focus.” Olivia Robertson, co-founder of The Fellowship of Isis, has written “The religion of the Goddess centres around the Hearth. Whether this be the inner sun flaming within the matrix of our earth, or the sun itself, this is the source of manifested life.”

Although I frequently reference my symbol encylopedia, interestingly enough I had never until today looked up the entry for “hearth.” The description is short, so I will quote it in full:

An omphalos; the interior spiritual centre; the transference of the spirit by fire. The centre of the home; feminine domination; fire in its feminine-earth aspect, but the fire can also take on the masculine aspect with the earth as the feminine; warmth; provision of food. The Vedic round hearth is the earth, the realm of man, while the fire to the East is the realm of the gods. Among South American Indians the hearth-stone is named the ‘bear’, signifying subterranean powers and the point of communication with them. In Celtic countries the cult of the dead centred on the hearth.

I especially like the part about feminine domination.

German fireplace of Roman era and style. Photo by Mediatus.

Oak is usually, but not always, the traditional wood for the Yule log. (In Provence the log would be from a fruit tree.) Oak is the tree of the Roman god Jupiter and the Lithuanian god Perkunas. Oak is the most sacred tree of the Druids, whose very name was derived from a word for oak. I believe the leafy-faced “Green Man” is actually an anthropomorphized oak tree. Miles (writing in 1912) says that “Among the Serbs and Croats on Christmas eve two or three young oaks are felled for every house, and, as twilight comes on, are brought in and laid on the fire.”

The procession of bringing the Yule log from outdoors into the house used to be an important part of the ceremony. Sometimes the log was decorated with ribbons or vines before being taken inside. Once in the house, it was lit right away. Bread or grain along with wine or mead was thrown on the burning log. An orange might also be offered to the fire. In Croatia the metal part of the plow would be placed at the fire’s edge. In Tuscany the children were blindfolded and beat the log with tongs.

Especially in places where wood was scarce, two tallow candles representing the goddess and god would be lit instead of a log. Bayberry candles at some point became popular, bayberry being a pleasant smelling and expensive wax.

The remains of the candle or log were believed to have magical properties and were often saved. In Sweden the plow would be smeared with leftover tallow. The ashes could enhance fertility of the spring fields or protect from lightening. In Germany a piece of the charred wood was called a Christklotz “Christ Log,” and burned during stressful times to fend off bad weather or misfortune.

In books describing Yule ceremonies, I do not find a mention of cleaning, smudging and purifying the hearth or campfire area beforehand, which I consider essential. Sometimes it is difficult, especially for urban dwellers, to get a suitable log of oak. Really any wood will do, and if you don’t have a fireplace a nice candle is a fine replacement. I usually do not decorate the new designated Yule log, although I think this year I will wrap it like a present. I like to burn juniper berries or use juniper oil. Balsam, citrus or wintergreen fragrance is also nice. These fragrances have a sweet yet purifying quality to them. A prayer to the ancestors and to the Goddess and her Divine Child should be made when the flame is lit. The offering can be bread, fruitcake, cookies, or any holiday delicacy. You don’t have to throw the offering into the flame (although there are some fruitcakes that could probably start a good fire). Sweet foods and relaxed, rather than ecstatic, merriment are an important part of this ritual. Don’t clean out the hearth for at least three days, and remember to save some ashes. If the fire burns so hot and so completely that you can’t salvage a piece of wood for next year, or you forget to save it, or the wood accidentally gets used on a different ritual fire, or you can’t find the old piece of log again when you need it (not that any of these things have ever happened to me), this is not something to get upset about. It is merely a sign that you are in some way breaking with your past tradition. There’s nothing really wrong with this, although at the darkest point of the year we usually take the greatest comfort from tradition. That is no doubt why this very pagan holiday became such an important part of Christianity.

Vesta-Roma — Roman coin of the hearth goddess Vesta.

Sources

Campanelli, Pauline. Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1990.

Cooper, J.C. An Illustrated Encyclopaedia Of Traditional Symbols. London: Thames and Hudson, 1978.

Fellowship of Isis Central Site and News, Facebook Group, November 29, 2012.

Gimbutas, Marija. The Language of the Goddess. San Francisco: Harper and Row, 1989.

Miles, Clement A. Christmas Customs and Traditions: Their History and Significance. 1917 Reprint. New York: Dover, 1976.

Monaghan, Patricia. The Encyclopedia of Celtic Mythology and Folklore. New York: Checkmark Books, 2008.

Consecrating the Ritual Broom

November 23, 2012

To finish up the broom series, I will share some tidbits about consecrating the magical broom (also called a besom). There is no consensus about how this should be done, but many witches believe consecration is important. Carrie Moonstone says in her Witchvox article How to Make a Besom, “Once you have finished the besom, it needs to blessed and consecrated as you would with any other magickal tool. You may dedicate it to a spirit or deity of your choice and charge it with protective energies.” As Moonstone implies, the broom is not unique in this; most magical tools are consecrated in some way.

In Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life, Pauline Campanelli says you must first “name your broom as you would a horse.” She tells you to “anoint it with oil as you would a candle, and consecrate it in the names of the Gods:

Besom of Birch with Willow tied
Be my companion and my guide.
On ashen shaft by moonlight pale
My spirit rides the windy gale
To realms beyond both space and time
To magical lands my soul will sail
In the company of the Crone all ride
This Besom of birch with willow tied
So do I consecrate this magical Tree
As I will, so must it be!

Tess Whitehurst gives a detailed ritual for full moon consecration of a new broom (which is too long to quote here) in her book Magical Housekeeping: Simple Charms and Practical Tips for Creating a Harmonious Home. She uses frankincense, candle flame, salt and rosewater to consecrate the broom to all four elements. Christine Zimmerman gives a four-elements consecration here. Yvonne at Earth Witchery does not believe there is anything unique about the broom in this regard and advises to “Consecrate the finished broom as you would any ritual object.”

Radomir Ristic in Balkan Traditional Witchcraft maintains that “The broom itself has magical power and it does not require consecration.” I myself lean toward this point of view.

Sources

Campanelli, Pauline. The Wheel of the Year: Living the Magical Life. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1989.

Moonstone, Carrie. “How to Make a Besom.” At Witchvox.

Ristic, Radomir. Balkan Traditional Witchcraft. Michael C. Carter, Jr., trans. Los Angeles: Pendraig, 2009.

Whitehurst, Tess. Magical housekeeping: Simple Charms and Practical Tips for Creating A Harmonious Home. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 2010.

Zimmerman, Christine. A Pray or Ritual for a Broom Cleansing.

In honor of the last article in the witch broom series, apropos of nothing, I leave you with my favorite magic broom video.