Winter Releasing
(This article has been appreciatively retrieved from an old blog, where I used to chronicle my current explorations in a bit of a looser format. I miss casual blogging sometimes ! The bulk of the writing dates back from Spring 2022, with now minor edits done in 2023.)
My tiny corner of England was blessed, for the past few weeks, with exceptionally gentle weather. Although the initial Equinox plans got disrupted (for a friend in need is a friend indeed), I made do by spreading my devotional celebrations over multiple days. Astrological timing was not harvested the way it ought to have, but folk / land timing was respected, and thus ritual still was held, along with lots of walks in the countryside, lots of foraging, lots of golden light, and lots of blooms – from early Spring flowers shivering, still wet with dew, to blackthorn trees proudly displaying their immaculate blossoms. Boiled down to its bare essentials, Winter Releasing is, for me, a time for seeds and water that ends the thaw of the cosmological principle of Fire-in-Water reflected in the period stretching from Imbolc to the Spring Equinox.
I did not quite get to do all that I wanted to yet, partly because April is also a busy month, calendrically speaking, and thus I am to hold a few endeavors for later deeds. But in the meantime, here are a few snippets :
Water rites
Seven copper pennies were given to the town river in thanks for its aid and protection. I find town river spirits to be particularly efficient for local affairs and have been reliant on the River for procuring me housing and employment since I moved in the UK. I also happen to live in an interesting location with the river snaking around my house flowing in two opposite directions, which makes for a most efficient natural ward. This offering is merely just a little tribute to the river’s yearly beneficience – a greeting, if you may.
In the House
I am in the process of birthing and ensouling a fetish / doll for my house spirit to dwell in. It has long been in the works, truthfully, and I have been meaning to set up a domestic altar proper for a little while : a dedicated, hallowed space for guardian spirits of the home and hearth, and of the family. The fetish will have juniper berries for eyes, ritually harvested blackthorn for a spine, and, I think, a red heart of carnelian. I doubt I will be able to snap pictures once she is done, but I plan on cutting her clothes from my own, and around her neck will be hung a rowan rosary.
In the Kitchen
The garden, fully awakening from the hardship of winter, yields bountiful surprises at the moment. There is an abundance of violets this year in particular. Now, I typically make a point of harvesting the first of the year – it’s a small tradition which never disappoints, for much magical properties are to be enhanced from this simple plucking – but this time, once dried, it will go to a dear friend rather than my own apothecary. I gathered many flowers and turned them into a pale lavender syrup, while saving the leaves for a skin balm. Daisies plucked from the town church on Easter Sunday will be added later, but for now, these leaves will be infusing in olive oil for the next few weeks. Combined with beeswax, this will give the perfect texture. The resulting product is great for soothing breast tenderness, and for all manners of skin conditions. The violets sprouted right after a conversation with a friend, who was worried about her little one’s painful eczema, and I am not one to discard such good timing.
At the Altar : Egg, snakes and stars
I have hinted at how tutelary Sabbatic spirits gave me much to be thankful for recently in procuring the perfect vessel for an upcoming rite. It caught me a little off guard in that I did not even ask for it yet, as I was still mulling over my options, but it looks like they had opinions on what was suitable. The vessel was washed in holy water to cleanse it of its previous life, and blessed with my dear friend Lailoken‘s ´Draconian Water’, in wait for what is to come.
NB Spring 2023 : To read of my subsequent self-initiation in the Draconic current of Sabbatic Witchcraft via the Phoenix Ritual, please visit here.
The altar was kept uncomplicated for the ritual order, I simply pulled out apricot candles and laid fresh offerings of cream, butter, honey, mead and goat’s milk. Three eggs were saved from the latest batch and placed under the watchful gaze of Đirona, Star-Crowned Queen in Heaven – humbly symbolized on the altar by a corn snake shed. The eggs will be later cooked, dyed and consumed during Orthodox Easter, a feast I celebrate not for myself, but because it holds high significance for my fiancé. As I transition more and more into worship, I am debating how to best optimize my set up to ensure all gods and spirits are appropriately represented on the altar, with it still staying a working space. It’s not that easy, as I am trying to navigate which of these « new » relationships will be lasting ones of long-term partnership – one cannot simply assume a god wishes to be involved in one’s ongoing magical development simply because this god brought a gift once.
The Blessing of the Seeds
On a Friday, the day best for any action not involving the use of an iron tool, and the day where the Pale Ones are deemed most active according to Gaelic folklore, I ritually consecrated the seeds to be planted once all danger of frost has passed. « The Taking of the Sidhe » teaches us the importance of right relationship with the fae, whose favorable eye we aim to propitiate. The rune below, a slightly altered charm from the Carmina Gadelica, is recited while sprinkling the seeds with holy water in a sunwise motion :
“I will go out to sow the seed,
In name of the spirits of the land who gave it growth,
I will place my front in the wind,
And throw a gracious handful on high.
Should a grain fall on a bare rock,
It shall have no soil in which to grow;
The one that falls into the earth,
The dew will make it full.
Friday, day auspicious,
The dew will come down to welcome
Every seed that lay in sleep
Since the coming of cold without mercy;
Every seed will take root in the earth,
As the spirits of the land desired, and with their blessing
The braird will come forth with the dew,
It will inhale life from the soft wind.
I will come round with my step,
I will go rightways with the sun,
In name of the Good People kind,
In name of the Sacred Three.
The Gods of my people
Be giving growth and kindly substance
To every thing that is in my ground,
Till the day of gladness shall come.
The Feast of the Harvest, day beneficent,
I will put my sickle round about
The root of my corn as was wont;
I will lift the first cut quickly;
I will put it three turns round
My head, saying my rune the while,
My back to the airt of the north;
My face to the fair sun of power.
I shall throw the handful far from me,
I shall close my two eyes twice,
Should it fall in one bunch
My stacks will be productive and lasting;
No Carling will come with bad times
To ask a palm bannock from us,
What time rough storms come with frowns
Nor stint nor hardship shall be on us.”
Hand pulling the grain out of its sheath, I found that wheat still has an appetite for blood – which ought not surprise me. I dedicated this batch to the Dark Crooked One, the old Ancestor-God of Sacrifice and Saturnian king of the Harvest.
In the Cards
I was deeply struck by my friend Anna‘s ´Sowing the Seeds’ oracle spread, which I saved eagerly in anticipation for this Equinox. Performing divination at auspicious times of the year is something I am getting more and more into. I rarely read for myself anymore, so to get into the habit of doing it meaningfully, timed with the tides of the land, is a good thing. Besides, it fits so beautifully with the Vernal Equinox rites ! The seeds sowed by Anna’s spread were three :
1) Apple : The Seed of Success, in a soil made of Cooperation, Friendship and Exchange (I have to be actively refusing to see teamwork as a loss of independence, and opening up to others as a danger). The latter is easier said than done. I have my own idea as to what the Apple seed of Success is more particularly in reference to – the apple being a most symbolically obvious fruit.
2) Daisy : Creativity & Productivity. This is a positive and self-explanatory card, however the soil emphasized the idea of a Right Moment for everything, which I interpreted as applying my resources with a discerning eye. I have a lot of projects in the works, and am usually good at tackling things, now I need to align this capacity to add value to self-serving needs.
3) Hawthorn : the Seed of Liminality. While overjoyed to see this card, of all cards, showing in the spread, this speaks deeply of the inherent in-betweenness of my own practice, the duality of being someone who can be belonging fully neither here, nor there, and how unsettling this can be. The soil, then, affirmed a subtle power I found myself most grateful for, insisting on a theme I see repeated from previous readings : that of Choice.
Later Ritual Fragments
It is fair to say that the past couple of days have been eventful, magically speaking, and I was much occupied with many ritualistic and devotional practices over the course of the week-end. I typically don’t follow a Catholic calendar, but folk timings and astrological timings seemed to have aligned rather nicely this year. Here follow some snippets of what I have been up to.
Stonehenge
The weather was exceptional and, on Good Friday, brought by my fiancé, I had the pleasure of going there for the very first time of my life. This was long in the making, but I finally got to travel to the holy place, built according to astronomical significance – a place which has now sadly become quite desecrated touristic ground. Though I knew well about the standing stones, of course, I was not expecting the mighty burial mounds located some short distance away, and pretty much ignored by the common visitor. Flanking the processional trenches, four of them (that we know of) stand now protected by a fence, which does not quite conceal the fact that at the top of the sí grow, as is proper to the lore, many a fairy tree. These burial mounds excited me greatly, and I spent a long time there paying my respects to their dwellers. The Cursus, which leads to the stones, is thought to have been likely ceremonial in nature and particularly connected to ancestral veneration. It felt appropriate to walk there on the day. Divination allowing enthusiastically, I gathered dirt from three different places on the Cursus where both the living and the dead travel, along with one (1) thorn from the young hawthorn tree at the edge of the barrows.
Giamouretîmâ
This Gaulish celebration, typically celebrated on the first full moon after the Spring Equinox, is the winter releasing ceremony proper of my devotional calendar. I debated whether or not to feast on the previous full moon instead, as the omens were equally good and meaningful, but my busy schedule decided for me. The ´Spirit of the Harvest´ (the dolly created at Lúnasa), which dwelled in the home on my altar until the festival came, is at the center of this holy day. The effigy was soothed with offerings to ensure the prosperity of the house during the next year – pleas are made for a short next winter, and for all the good blessings of the summer to be granted. The dolly is then burnt to release the spirit, and placed in a body of running water to carry the frost demon away, so as to propitiate the arrival of the warmer days.
On the Church’s ground
Friends who know of my practice will tell you that I do not hold ties to the Church, yet you could still see me on Holy Sunday, on the day and hour of the Sun in its last degrees of exaltation in Aries, gathering daisies from the local church’s ground. The inspiration for this harvesting timing came from the herbalism of Hildegaard Von Bingen : the plan is to add the flowers to the oil infused with violet leaves I started on the Spring Equinox. Soon, this will become a salve, or balm, thickened with beeswax, to soothe breast tenderness and various skin ailments.
The ‘Weeping Mirror’ of the Water Maidens
On a whim, partly because I had all the spell components at hand, and partly because I fell in love with the ritual itself upon reading it, I decided to add Sasha Ravitch’s latest Patreon gem to an already busy list of magical and devotional practices for the weekend – the crafting of the ‘Weeping Mirror’, « a visionary scrying tool blessed by rusalki on Holy Sunday ». Having an established relationship with the Willow Tree already, I was much eager to craft such a beautiful tool with the hallowing of water-spirits. I am partial about sharing pictures of the finished implement, but I can certainly provide a few from the ritual itself.
The magic went beautifully, and lended such immediate results I was the first taken aback by its success. Upon arriving on the river bank that is one of my places of power, and which was to be the ideal place to consecrate the Mirror where water meets the land, I realized I had forgotten the honey cakes and white cloth for the rusalki. So I improvised, and made sure to make do with what I had, taking some extra care into laying out the offerings of white flowers and sunwise drizzled honey in the best aesthetically pleasing way possible, for beauty is important. As I presented the offering and asked for the rusalki’s blessing on my mirror, two wild geese suddenly appeared out of nowhere, gliding on the surface of the river, and holding my gaze, looking straight at me, feasted on the petals and branches I had given back to the water. It stopped my breath for a second, and after a few moments they silently left me to complete the aspersion part of the ritual to awaken the triplicity of white, green and red bloods. I then packed my belongings away (together with the litter I had collected upon cleaning the site), thanked the spirits, and took my leave.
