Tag Archives: holidays

Twenty Ways To Celebrate Imbolc

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  1. Make a Swedish Snow Lantern. This is a fun way to enjoy the snow, involve kids, and candles. If you live somewhere there is snow, this is a great way to spend the day.
  2. Make a Brigid’s Cross. The Goddess Brigid is always a big part of Imbolc. This cross is usually hung over or near the entry doorway for protection?
  3. Light candles. Candles are used as a form of sympathetic magic to help bring the sun and the warmth back after winter.
  4. Clean your home. A long time ago, our ancestors that lived in colder climates, virtually spent all of their time indoors. As a result, their homes were well-kept during this time.
  5. Declutter your home. Again, one of the themes of this day is about hearth and home. If you have more items than you need, take the time to figure out what you no longer need and donate, sell, or give it to someone who needs it.
  6. Cleanse your home. Every so often, homes have negative energy build up. Now is a great time to cleanse your home of that negativity.
  7. Do guided meditations. A lot of this day is about stillness as well. Search YouTube and find some guided meditations that you like.
  8. Do inner work. Do lit work. Do shadow work. Learn to lucid dream, astral project, or shamanic journeying. The important this is to improve your spirituality by learning something new.
  9. Unplug all electronics for the day. This should be a day of calm self-refllection. Electronics tend to ruin that. Turn off all electronics. If it’s something that you find difficult to do, you may want to make it a habit. Back when I was learning to meditate, I was encouraged to do it during down time like waiting in line at the post office or grocery store. However, that’s the time when most of us pull out our phones now, robbing us of those opportunities.
  10. Light your home by candlelight for the night. I always loved candlelight. It really seems to make things seem special. It gives enough light for interactions with family and friends, but not really enough for solo activities.
  11. Make and eat foods made with milk and dairy products. This is probably the least-celebrated of all of the Sabbats, historically. I think there were only two cultures that celebrated it, back in the day. Those that did, celebrated it because after a long and hard winter, the goats started to lactate again, giving everyone milk and cheese to eat. You don’t have to go out of your way to get goats milk and cheese, but if you do, my favorite is gjetost, a Norwegian goat cheese. But really anything to do with dairy is great. We have a homemade Mac & cheese recipe we like. Ice cream or cheesecake are also fun options. Here is a link to some other cooking options for Imbolc.
  12. Make your own cheese. Making your own cheese is surprisingly easy. The tough part is finding creamline milk that hasn’t been ultra pasteurized. I am lucky that I have a dairy up the road that sells milk like that! Here is a how-to guide on making simple cheese at home.
  13. Read books to improve your spiritual knowledge. There are so many great Pagan books out there. There is also a lot of fluff out there too. In order to find a good book nowadays I usually go off the recommendations of friends or go to an actual bookstore and flip through the book first. You can also try the inter-library loan system. Unfortunately, where I live, they don’t have a lot of Pagan books, even for inter-library loan.
  14. Feed animals who might be struggling through the winter. Those of us whose ancestors lived in cold climates struggled with having enough to eat throughout the winter. Animals still experience that struggle. If you live in a cold climate, consider leaving out some food for them.
  15. Take a walk in the snow (if your locale permits). Even if you live in a warm climate, it’s still a great idea to take a walk in nature and experience what weather is typical for Imbolc in the climate you live in.
  16. Create a corn dolly. This sounds odd because corn is associated with Lughnasadh, but the husks need to be dried first. Apparently Imbolc was a time they were made, possibly in keeping with the need for fertility for planting at Ostara. Here is a tutorial on how to make one.
  17. Create a protective sigil. Home magic is something that is great to do on this day. Here is a guide to making your own sigil.
  18. Do divination. Divination is something else that was commonly practiced historically. Usually questions were asked about the harvest and community, but feel free to ask what you want to know. Don’t have a form of divination? Now s a great time to learn! Tarot, runes, pendulums, palmistry, tea leaves, scrying, the choices are endless!
  19. Tell stories. Now is a great time for storytelling, preferably by candlelight. Pick stories that teach a lesson, teach about your religion, or traditional stories from your people.
  20. Do a ritual. Spend time honoring your personal God’s and beliefs in a ritual.

Practicing Paganism Daily

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One of the reasons I started this blog was because I was feeling really stagnant in my spirituality.   I used to just celebrate the Sabbats with my Circle.  Then I moved away for a year and didn’t really celebrate them much at all.  I am really trying to find a way to live as a Pagan rather than just be like one of those Christians who goes to church on just Easter and Christmas. I am back, but moved a bit far to make it to every Circle, though I am close enough to attend some of them now.

Anyway, what I really want to do is make Paganism a daily habit and a family identity, now that my son is 15 months old.  Now is the time to start new habits and traditions because my son will grow up thinking that this is the way things have always been because he won’t remember a time when they weren’t!  My religion was always very internalized.  It doesn’t help that I have to hide it at work, so my practice has almost always been in my mind and my heart.  It’s difficult to do this with any religion that one converts to because one must start from scratch and learn to start incorporating new traditions.  At least with the book religions, there is a set way of doing things.  One thing I like about eclectic Paganism is that you can pick and choose what you like.  The down-side is I have to pick and choose how to practice.  There are a number of things that I need to do:

  • a grace or blessing for food (I wanted something relatively short and simple that rhymes, but haven’t found one that really resonates with me yet)
  • create holiday traditions
  • find some sort of meaningful daily practice that ties into my religion
  • find or make some Pagan decor
  • decorate for each holiday
  • make decorations for each holiday
  • find a way of explaining each holiday to my family and friends and find a way for them to celebrate it with us if they choose (and if appropriate)
  • change language from Christian to Pagan (like instead of “oh my God” replace it with “oh my Goddess”, ‘Jesus Christ” can become “Odin’s balls”, etc.)
  • find some Pagan-friendly children’s books to read to my son

I really like writing this blog because it gives me the opportunity to reexamine my beliefs. I have been focusing on book reviews and Sabbats lately. I love going through my books and rating them based on their usefulness to me! I also love doing each of the Sabbat posts!  It’s really starting to give me some more ideas for how to celebrate each Sabbat.  I have some ideas for the future too!  Once I’m done with the Sabbats, I will move onto the Esbats.  Then I will continue onto different deities, ritual tools, spells, and rituals.  Oddly enough, out of all of those, I am least familiar with the deities.  It’s probably because I see all of the deities around the world as just aspects of one Goddess and one God who, in turn, are just the male and female aspects of one energy/deity/being. As such, I really haven’t researched many of their identities or lore.  Ugh, so much to do, so little time! 

Anyway, I would love to hear any suggestions you have for ways to incorporate Paganism into daily practice, please leave a comment!  Also, if there’s some content you would like to see on here, please comment and let me know!

Book Review: Sabbats

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Title: Sabbats

Author: Edain McCoy

Pages: 355

Genre: Non-fiction, informational, religious (Wiccan)

After the table of contents, this book starts off with its first chapter “The Pageantry and Meaning of the sabbats”.  It is sort of an introduction and sort of a catch-all for various things the author wanted to include that may or may not relate to the subject area. It goes through the Wheel of the Year and explains which holidays are practiced in which Pagan cultures around the world. It takes a brief detour from sabbats to go into ritual tools, the elements, how to make a robe, the role of ritual and about this book.

After the introductory chapter, there is one for each sabbat, which is about 20-30 pages long each.  Each chapter contains 4-8 pages on the historical context of each sabbat, a few recipes, a few crafts with complete how-to guides, an idea for a ritual, and ideas for activities.  Sometimes there is one or two music suggestions for each sabbat as well.

On page 201, part 2 of the book begins.  It is entitled “Rituals”. It contains 60 pages of sabbat rituals for groups and solitaries.  Finally, we have the appendices. Appendix 1 has an outline for ritual construction.  Appendix 2 has the elements of spell construction.  Appendix 3 has a glossary.  Appendix 4 is a resources and merchants guide.  Appendix 5 contains the instructions for making felt sabbat calendars. Appendix 6 has various correspondences such as other names, symbols, colors, animals, deities, activities, stones, foods, taboos, plants, meaning, attunement teas, ritual oils, and mythical creatures associated with each sabbat.  Appendix 7 has Pagan symbols with their meanings.  Appendix 8 has cross stitch patterns.

At the end is the bibliography and selected readings followed by the index.

Verdict: 10/10

This book actually contains more than you really need in a book about the sabbats, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.  It gave a ton of information about each of the sabbats, a bunch of recipes, ways to celebrate culturally, crafts to make, sample rituals for both solitaries or groups.  I was annoyed initially at not getting a generic list of activities and or Gods/Goddesses associated with each sabbat, but the appendices had these in them too!

I actually found this book early on in my spiritual journey.  I was really excited because it contained pronunciations of the different sabbats.  I wanted to talk to my family about the holidays I was practicing, but didn’t know how to say them!

Book Review: The Simple Sabbat

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Title: The Simple Sabbat – A Family Friendly Approach to the Eight Pagan Holidays

Author: M. Flora Peterson

Pages: 154

The first 22 pages were filled with information about the author, table of contents, dedication, prologue, and introduction.

The first chapter of 2 pages explains the wheel of the year. Chapter 2 delves into ritual circle formats. It offers a family-friendly version of rituals.

The remaining chapters are on the Sabbats. Each Sabbat offers the following sections: time, meaning of the season, God, Goddess, colors, altar, activities, an incense recipe, an oil recipe, a food recipe, a ritual, and sometimes a craft. There are also a few pages for notes at the end of each chapter.

The book really ends on page 138, but there are several pages about the author’s other books.

Verdict: 7/10 – I liked a lot of the activity ideas. There were a lot of references to her YouTube channel (probably too many references) for craft ideas and more recipes. Many of the rituals weren’t terribly family friendly. I guess it depends how old your kids are. I would have liked to see more ways to involve your family in ritual. There was also just one to two sentences describing the purpose of each holiday. If I were a beginner, I would have liked more information.

I also tried the recipe for skull bread. They tried to make it accessible for vegans or those with allergies, but mine didn’t taste or look very good, despite my baking experience.

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