The Ostara story of the Children's Wheel of the Year is finally here!

With no time to spare... but we made it. The Ostara story of the Children's Wheel of the Year series is out. 

Shanna and the Pentacle is everything I hoped--an adventure story that will have kids rooting for the characters. It's also an example of how to deal with bullying problems and the often difficult new beginnings in life. There are more wonderful and evocative images by Julie Freel.

Here's the story:

The gift of a friend, 
The promise of the pentacle, 
A new beginning… 
And the courage to stand your ground. 

Ostara is a time for buds and shoots, for the smell of wet earth and for asserting your true self. A new beginning can be hard but it’s worth it after all. 

Ten-year-old Shanna and eight-year-old Rye are starting out at a new school just before Ostara. A teacher notices Shanna’s pentacle necklace and asks her to take it off. Brandy, the popular girl, says Shanna is going to “hell” and Rye has his own trouble with kids who say boys don’t draw or sing. Still the magic of Ostara is at work. Shanna and Rye can meet new challenges and find new friends. 

Like Shanna and Rye, children from earth-centered families often stand out in mainstream society. Without strong identity and confidence, they struggle to choose their own path. The Children’s Wheel of the Year books provide concepts our kids need to face these challenges.

The book is currently available in Kindle format and will be out in paperback and other digital formats next week. Look on the Children's Wheel of the Year site for minute-by-minute news about new formats.

Bullying, exclusion and a healing story for children

I walk onto the playground and check my posture, my expression, my clothing. A group stands on the sidewalk halfway to the gate. I approach, carefully crafting a mildly pleasant but not overly enthusiastic smile. 

Original image by Lee Haywood, text by Arie Farnam

My stomach tightens in knots and I concentrate hard, trying to find the dim blotches of eyes on pale oval faces. I can’t see them, but they can see me. Like a perpetual foreigner in a land whose language is beyond my physical capabilities, I try to play the game of eye contact and greeting. 

I’m not a child on this playground. This time I’m a mother. My kids spin away from me toward the playground equipment, yelling to their friends, as I join the loose circle of grown-ups on the sidewalk. A man is handing out forms. That’s good. Maybe this is the leader of the mini-Scouts group I signed my kids up for. That’s the purpose of my trip to the school today and it would be great if I could find the group so easily. 

I lean a few inches toward the woman beside me. “This is the mini-Scouts group, isn’t it?” I ask. My white cane is in my hand and most of these parents know me anyway. They know I can’t see much. My question should be self-explanatory.

But the woman edges away and pretends she didn’t hear me. 

The man handing out the forms has become flustered and the circle is losing cohesion. The man talks to a couple on my other side, turning his back to cut me out of the conversation. I wonder if he thinks a random blind person has wandered into his group and he doesn’t know how to handle it. Many people can’t conceive of the idea of a visually impaired parent. 

I could almost laugh about that, but the knots in my stomach tighten. By the man’s words and explanation to the other couple, I glean that my guess is correct. This is the initial meet-up of the mini-Scouts. Now to get one of those forms without a major public humiliation. 

Creative Commons image by Diego Sevilla Ruiz

I wait and try to make out if I know anyone in the circle. The woman who edged away from me seems to be a neighbor from a few streets over. I’ve heard that she’s signing her daughter up. We’re on okay terms in private, but she still won’t exactly say hello in public. 

I know I’m dressed well, clean and groomed. I don’t wear makeup or dye my hair, so some moms will turn their noses up over that alone. But mostly the shunning has to do with my eyes. They’re squinted half closed all the time. My eyes are small and raggedly, restlessly moving, rarely ever even appearing to make eye contact. 

They make people uncomfortable. I don’t entirely blame people for feeling that way. I know that strange-looking eyes bring up a primal response. People usually aren’t trying to be cruel, but my whole body is tense now. 

The man with the forms turns away from the couple and rocks back and forth. I can make out the blurry bulk of his shape craning to see other parents he’s missed. I’m three feet in front of him, but he pretends not to see me. I greet him anyway, forcing a smile. My words are drowned out as he calls to someone behind me and swerves around me toward a woman approaching with a stroller. He hands her a form and starts explaining about pick-up times again. 

A roaring, buzzing sound seems to have taken over my ears. I feel dizzy and a lump is suddenly blocking my throat. Why is this so damn hard? If this happened once in awhile it would be one thing, but it has been happening again and again.  I want to give up and walk away. I would if it were anything I could forgo, but my kids want to be in this group and they’re still too little to be expected to take the brunt of these situations. 

A voice penetrates. The woman with the stroller has called out to me. “Arie,  you’re kids are going to be in this too? That’s great!”

I can’t recognize her at ten feet but I could kiss her whoever she is. I grin and wave. The man with the forms turns back around, confused. But the woman with the stroller moves to make me part of her conversation with him. Now he has to acknowledge me. I greet him again, forcing my voice to stay steady. Now he returns the greeting and hands me a form. 

How bullying really happens - Creative Commons image by Serge Saint

The mini-Scouts meeting is the tiniest of incidents. I’m not complaining about it, simply telling it like it is. These types of routine social interactions are often like this for me. This one was only unique because of the woman who made it clear to the leader of the group that I belonged there. It could have been much worse. 

That woman is one of those people who understands about social exclusion or simply is conscious about her own reactions to appearance. But three of my near neighbors who stood in the group did not say hello or give any indication that they knew me. This happens. And among adults it usually ends at that, a bit of exclusion but nothing overtly mean. 

Among children, however, difference and social exclusion can easily lead to more—to bullying. 

A story for healing: Shanna and the Pentacle

I’ve always been legally blind—thus an oddball as a kid—so I’ve dealt with my fair share of bullying. My family was also very alternative, including in spiritual matters, so my brothers and I got flak for that as well. My brothers were harassed about having long hair or different clothes. Back in the early 1990s my mother told me her job could be at risk if people found out about our alternative spirituality or using Tarot. I was never harassed about not being Christian at school, because I was never dumb enough to let anyone find out.

That’s why I chose bullying and social exclusion motivated by prejudice as the key issue in the second book of the Children’s Wheel of the Year series. 

Illustration by Julie Freel

Some people have questioned my choice to make the theme of the book something “negative.” It’s supposed to be an Ostara story, after all. My take on it is that the bigger the problem is, the greater the relief when we come into the light. Beyond that, the issue grows directly out of the concept of new beginnings. It arises for the children in the story, because they enter a new school.

The issue of bullying and specifically the issues that children from earth-centered families face in a society where some large groups of people truly believe that our symbols and beliefs are “evil” are reality for children. Silence about these issues from trusted adults doesn’t shelter children. It only makes them feel alone.

When I hear about children who are ostracized or even censured by teachers for wearing Pagan or earth-focused symbols on jewelry or clothing—something that I do hear about every month or so—I know in detail how difficult it is. Most Pagan children who face bullying or prejudice at school will encounter only a bit of it and will not be completely isolated by it. But there are cases today, especially in religiously conservative areas, where harassment can become serious. 

It is crucial that kids know first that this kind of prejudice isn’t acceptable and that if they are targeted by it they aren’t alone or to blame. Portraying common stories in fiction is one way to give kids a sense of connection to others who may deal with the same issue. It also helps to teach sensitivity and empathy. 

The best kind of children’s books are those that have a strong story, a conflict or adventure that children can relate to. And when they teach something, these stories should do so in a way that is sensitive to the feelings of children. The story shouldn’t stop in order to teach and it shouldn’t talk down to kids. 

The Children’s Wheel of the Year books do teach. In particular the upcoming book Shanna and the Pentacle shows ways of dealing with bullying--both things a parent can do to help and things a child can do alone, such as talking openly about the problem and focusing on those peers in a classroom who are open-minded and friendly. But these books teach through providing a good model and creating a suspenseful story around the issues.

In Shanna and the Pentacle, the upcoming Ostara story in the Children’s Wheel of the Year series, Shanna and her brother Rye are the new kids at a larger and more diverse school. One teacher and the popular girls are convinced that pentacles are Satanic and Shanna runs into trouble because of the pendant her best friend gave her before she left her old school. New beginnings aren’t always easy, but Shanna can find ways to celebrate her new life and the Ostara holiday even amid these tensions. She also learns how to keep her own equilibrium in difficult situations, how to stand up for her beliefs and how to make friends despite differences. 

Shanna and the Pentacle is the second book in the Children’s Wheel of the Year. It will be published later this month. 

Spirituality in Practice: Pagans, the Pope and the Earth

I recently shared a post about struggling to live the reality of my beliefs on an on-line forum for Pagans and people with earth-centered spirituality. I don’t have all the answers. I work hard to live in an environmentally sustainable way and I still find myself falling short of goals to reduce my negative impact on the earth. 

The post stirred up some anger and I was labeled a “Pagan Pope,” because I asked for others who believe in our spiritual connection to the earth to step up and take the issue of climate change seriously. 

I was shocked. How could my post about our common struggles to live ethically and bring up our children in a healthy way attract mostly hatred—and from fellow Pagans?

It was like getting a bucket of cold water in the face—a harsh but necessary awakening for me. I grew up in a community of earth-centered, if not overtly Pagan, families. I thought I knew the Pagan community well since childhood and I was certain that we’re the “good guys” and we share a deep concern about environmental issues. 

But during the past couple of years, I’ve been told in no uncertain terms by many people who I’ve met in Pagan groups on-line that I’m promoting stereotypes by saying Pagans share a concern for the earth. The truth I’m told is that many Pagans are not interested in ecology or environmental issues at all. Many are more interested in their personal growth and the deeper, inner reflections of their spirituality. 

My protected and somewhat isolated childhood is showing.

On the one hand, these misunderstandings can be disheartening to those of us who seek some spark of unity in earth-centered and Pagan circles. I mean if the earth doesn’t unite us… then surely nothing does. 

It throws you right back into the debate--which you're probably sick of--over what the word “Pagan” means. The fact is that whether I like it or not a Pagan is primarily anyone who says “I’m a Pagan.” Period. 

We have no central authority, no one who can arbitrate and say “No, I cast you out. You are not Pagan enough!”

And frankly that system doesn’t even work for Christians and they supposedly do have just such an authority. Except all that happens is that people split off and form new churches and call themselves things like Christian “protest-ants” against the central authority. 

And they’re all still Christian. Some may claim the Mormons aren’t Christian or the Catholics or the Hussites or whatever. But they are Christian because they say, “I’m a Christian.” And the vast majority of the world recognizes that they are right. They actually share enough basic ideas that they can be categorized together, despite their wild diversity.

There is a natural human tendency to think that the group one belongs to is exceptional. But that tendency is almost always wrong. And that’s how it is with Pagans and diversity. The old joke goes that if you ask twelve Pagans what a Pagan is you get thirteen answers. That’s true if you do it on a general forum on the internet. But there are places today, where groups are established enough that you’ll get fairly standardized answers. Just as you would with Christians in one church if you asked them what a Christian is. But if you ask twelve Christians all over the world. Well, you get thirteen answers there too. 

I have Christian friends who believe that the core of Christianity—the absolute core which they practice sincerely—is the tolerance and kindness modeled by Jesus. And to them “tolerance and kindness” is their equivalent of my “connection to the earth,” the thing that MUST be at the core of a spiritual path in order for it to have any relation to their own. 

And yet, we know all too well about Christians and “tolerance and kindness.” There are Muslims—many, many of them—who will swear with tears overflowing that the core of Islam is “peace.” The word Islam comes from the word “peace,” for crying out loud… like Pagan comes from “country dweller” (i.e. someone living close to the land and the earth). 

Heehee... You see the problem.

It is not uncommon to have a broad religious group that does not agree on what it stands for or who falls within the pale. So, why do we expect to or desire to have greater unity?
I can’t speak for everyone, but for myself it is because I see the desperate state of the earth’s health and the strained resources to sustain our cycles of life. All those things that are at the core of my spirituality are threatened. And when we are threatened we want to draw a circle and find unity.

The waves of refugees this past year are fleeing climate change every bit as much as they are fleeing war. The areas that were once marginal for agriculture have now become deserts. In the year two thousand and fifteen, we finally reached the breaking point at which several countries that used to produce their own food no longer can. 

There is no more warning time left. Mother has counted to ten and she is not counting anymore.

When I look into the eyes of starving, terrified refugees I see the heart of the mother of the earth breaking. I feel the gasping breathes of our poisoned Mother Earth, when I walk down my street where there used to be bees, butterflies and fireflies even ten years ago and today there are none, even though the houses are the same. When I swim in the ocean and no longer feel tiny fish brush my feet as I did as a child, I hear the sobs of a mother for her lost children.

This I cannot separate from my spirituality—especially if I claim to know a goddess or ancestors or the elements of nature.

There are those who do separate it from their spirit and who claim it is not relevant or not even true because they have not felt the fish or seen the fireflies or looked into the eyes of the refugees. And I will not tell them that they are not Pagan, because that is their choice. 

And because Pagan is a path, not a destination.  

But I will say one other thing on this subject, one that could land me in even hotter water, but still it's something I must say. 

Neopagans are ostensibly the inheritors of indigenous European spiritual traditions. I know that most are not in any way directly descended from ancient beliefs and some of us give little more than a nod to the past. Wiccans take some words and concepts from the old Celtic and Anglo-Saxon beliefs and make a beautiful and rich tradition primarily from much more recent discoveries. (Not my path but beautiful nonetheless.) But still, what is called Pagan or Neopagan today is almost entirely tied in some way to indigenous European beliefs. 

And it is very sensitive to mention any non-European polytheistic, earth-centered belief systems (garble garble… trying to avoid using the obvious word from the dictionary). We are… I am… afraid of being criticized for cultural piracy and colonialism. 

Because of our fear and inability to talk to other groups, there is no umbrella term. I’m told we cannot use the term “Pagan” to encompass all indigenous-based, earth-centered belief systems, even though that seems like a logical step. Many peoples have experienced the word “Pagan” used against them in a derogatory way and they cannot accept it now—no matter how humble, empathetic and inclusive our intentions may be. 

So, I will use “indigenous” as the broader term rather than “Pagan,” though even Judeo-Christian faiths have a geographical point of origin too. But I digress…

I simply find it interesting that I have never—in all my travels on five continents and mostly among rural people and often among indigenous people—never encountered an active practitioner of Native American, African or Asian-Siberian spiritual traditions who claimed that taking action to protect the earth was NOT at the core of their beliefs. I have yet to encounter such a person on the internet either. And even Hindus, who arguably share many traits, with other indigenous, polytheistic religions, often cite care for the land and water as central to their beliefs. 

It seems ironically that those who make the most noise about the earth—the proponents of European-based Paganism—are the primary group also taken with berating those who claim concern for the earth as a core tenant of daily spiritual practice.

I am not an authority for Pagans, nor do I wish to be. I am myself, here, taking a stand and declaring solidarity and spiritual fellowship with all those who hold care for the earth and empathy for all the people and living beings of the earth at the core of spirit. I do not know if I can call such a group “Pagan.” For now, it is the best term I know of because it is the most widely recognized term that encompasses what I mean. 

In fact, it is so widely recognized that a prominent fundamentalist Christian--Gene Koprowski, director of marketing at the Heartland Institute--understands these words of the English language and uses them in much the same way. Last fall he declared that we do have a literal “Pagan Pope” (i.e. the one in Rome). 

It was after Pope Francis put out a statement of unprecedented urgency and clarity calling for immediate action to mitigate climate change in September 2015. And here is what Koprowski said about it in Chicago: “I would say, contrary to some of the criticism, that this is not communism that has entered the church. It's, rather, Paganism."

And it's not that I take Koprowski as an authority on anything. (Although I would gladly pray with the Pope if he was amenable to praying with a flagrant Pagan.) It is more that the comment shows how far and how wide the concept of concern for the earth as inextricably tied to Paganism has spread. 

And thus it is all in the intent behind a word. When I say “Pagan.” This is what I mean. I mean reverence and care for the earth and for other beings. And because it's a path of practice, I mean living in accordance with this belief in the physical world, making sacrifices of time and energy for it and standing up to injustice done against the earth.

Pagan Book Review: Pagan Planet looks at how modern Pagans live and act on their beliefs in the twenty-first century

What are the diverse experiences of contemporary Pagans of an indigenous European bent? What are the challenges of reclaiming and integrating ancient beliefs in the twenty-first century?  What are our values and how do we act on them?

There may be some blogs and other online sites that discuss these intense and complex issues that take the Pagan community beyond romantic ideas of candles, crystals and witchy hats, but they are scattered and often jumbled in with other things. Getting a balanced view of where the Pagan community really stands by skimming such websites would be a daunting task. That’s where the book Pagan Planet (edited by Nimue Brown of Moon Books) comes in. 

This is an anthology that sets out to chart the breadth and depth of the contemporary Pagan community. The subtitle Being, Believing and Belonging in the 21st Century brings issues of identity, faith and ethics to mind. Here at last is a credible attempt to take a serious look at Neopaganism without any delusions or fetishes, simply as a contemporary way of life. For that, it is most welcome.

The list of authors and topics in the anthology is delightful and intriguing. There are essays on specific issues and musings on life as a modern Pagan, even a poetic or fictional bit or two for added flavor. All around, I was not bored reading this. The writing is varied, and professional--the cream of the Neopagan community. I found a few of the insights particularly gripping, especially when they had to do with how Pagans act on the values promoted in our teachings, such as honoring elders and ancestors, helping those in desperate poverty to gain self-reliance through Pagan Aid and protecting the earth in many valuable ways. As a Pagan parent I found the pieces on Pagan parenting entertaining and the entry on Authentic Shamanism was fascinating. All this is contained in the book.

At the same time, many of the authors were clearly aware of the eyes of history reading their words as well as today’s readers. They were not only setting out to reflect our community back to us. They were also attempting to document a moment in the development of Neopaganism to say essentially: “Here in 2016, this is where we stand. These are our struggles, concerns and achievements. Let it be remembered.” That too is a good and honorable task.

Because of these goals, this anthology is almost too broad. In trying to look at all the diverse aspects of Pagan life, it is limited in its ability to explore in great depth. That isn’t a serious flaw because we need a book that takes into account many different issues. There are already books on many of the specifics. And at the same time, I was disappointed in one aspect of this book--its focus not just on indigenous European traditions but the heavy emphasis on the British Isles in particular. This is a more serious limitation because it purports to give a global perspective. While there is a southern hemisphere piece and a few North American entries, most of those that mention place are in the UK or Ireland. 

It is beyond sensitive to tread on the borderlines between European Pagan traditions and other indigenous and earth-based traditions that have mostly not adopted the word “Pagan” though they essentially fit the description aside from not being European. I recognize the difficulty of forming bridges to other earth-based cultures because of the issues of cultural appropriation and historical colonialism, However there are so many of us who dwell in the borderlands between European and non-European ancestry, lands and cultures (whether we like it or not) that we ignore this aspect at our peril.

This book shies away from earth-centered traditions of non-European in origin with only the briefest mentions of trading vague comments with a fellow Shaman in Africa and one author who admits to mixing in some Native American ideas with a careful caveat against usurping Native American culture. However, this last was another case of someone living in Ireland, not dealing with Native American culture because of proximity or the ancestry of one’s land, but because it is personally interesting. 

I offer that as a critique not in order to tear down a good and much-needed book, but to ask for our community to stretch even further in the issues we dare to talk about publicly. I grew up on a plot of land that tangibly spoke of fairly recent Native American ancestry and this influenced my understanding of the world, history and spirituality. I am now raising two children of mixed ancestry, who will have to bridge the gaps between Europe and other continents. I would like them to grow up into a Pagan community that is more inclusive of those who are not all European. Globally as well, the issue of race cannot and should not be ignored. 

Another enormous issue that is barely touched in this book is climate change. Many of the authors in this anthology are active in the anti-fracking movement, an extremely important part of the environmental struggle. And yet there was almost no mention of climate change and the challenges the next generation will face, including ethical issues when faced with massive waves of refugees and real hardship encroaching on the edges of our community. Our children will struggle with these and other heavy issues. Can we give no sign posts or explanation to the next generation who will have to struggle with issues so painful that we barely dare to touch them? 

All in all, Pagan Planet is a good book discussing issues important to the Neopagan community with some geographical and cultural emphasis on one area. It should be included in comparative religion and multicultural courses, studied by those beginning a Pagan path and discussed with passion and gusto by experienced Pagans. 

A book review and then some: How I found the goddess Brigid

I think a Goddess may have chosen me. I say this not with the connotation that I am special. Instead I feel as though I was trying in vain to find my own Gods for a good part of my adult life. I'm too analytical for this to be a conscious task. Instead, I think a Goddess has finally chosen me--in the same way that I think a God or Goddess would choose every one of us if given a chance.

I was brought up with earth-based spirituality, but not much focus on deities. We had Greek, Norse and Native American myths and I felt a spiritual connection to the stories of Persephone and Demeter and I liked Thor simply for his brashness. But other than that, they were just stories—stories of significance and meaning, sure, but not infused with that sense of powerful consciousness and personality that seems to mark the true presence of a deity for others. 

Then a few years ago, I began noticing references to Brigid in increasing frequency—in stories that I read or in spiritual books and divination. The name kept coming up. I had never even heard of a Goddess named Brigid before that time. And I felt it was too cumbersome a name to give to a child, even though I had good reason to like it.

When I was sixteen, I ended up alone and frightened at a strict Catholic school in Germany among strangers who vocally rejected me because of my vision impairment. The one person who was kind and accepting toward me was a classmate named Birgid, obviously a variant of Brigid. I was not able to stay in contact with that classmate, but over more than twenty years, her memory has always stayed strong with me. And so when I began to hear the name Brigid, I connected it to that memory.

As such, Brigid had a head start in my heart. But at first, I thought that this Goddess was only one among many. Despite the fact that she is quite popular in some Neopagan circles, I did not find her in many of the lists and books about European Gods and Goddesses. From her conspicuous absence from some anthologies, I would have thought she was a minor figure. But as I have since learned, that is far from the truth. 

Brigid began to come into my life more forcefully in the past two years, when I became a published author. I heard more about Brigid, although it was usually in a passing comment or a random story, rather than in weighty spiritual books. After I had published my first three novels, I decided to begin my hearth-side email circle and make the theme of my website an online hearth that welcomes all and particularly those who have faced injustice in society. 

The idea first came to me while I was traveling in Portland, Oregon and one night I sat down with friends for a little wine and Tarot. I was telling my friends about my new business plans, when one woman--who says she doesn’t even remember doing so--turned to me and said, “Well, you know. There is a connection you should make. The hearth, writing, your healing work with herbs and your activism—it’s all very much the work of Brigid.”

I was taken aback and momentarily confused. Here was Brigid again, this time not just a passing reference but one very specifically directed at me. At the same time, I was struggling to integrate my new ideas and I didn’t have the patience for any digression. So, I let the comment pass. 

But Brigid didn’t let me be. Over the next few months, it seemed as if her name came up in every book I picked up. But there was precious little real information to be had about her until I ran across an Amazon recommendation for a book called Brigid: History, mystery, and magick of the Celtic Goddess by Courtney Weber. 

I’m a shrewd shopper, so I looked at other books on the goddess, but that one that I came across at random called to me. And I didn’t have the money to buy any book at the time, so I put it on my wish list. 

Then this past month, I ended up on the other side of the world in Portland, Oregon again and went into a Pagan bookstore with a little money in my pocket and a promise to get a gift “from my higher self to myself” as my mother likes to put it. And that was where I finally found a real goddess.

So, here is my review of the book with one caveat. This is a highly subjective, personal thing. Many people may be inspired by another deity or another book. And this book may not speak to everyone in the way that it speaks to me. But there it is.

I very rarely find a non-fiction book I can’t put down, but I read this book in record time, snatching every little minute and skimping on sleep while trying to juggle work, writing, herbal practice, activism and children—much the way Brigid juggles the aspects of hearth-keeper, bard, healer, smith and occasional warrior for just causes. The writing is that good.

Within these pages I found a reflection of the divine that I can embrace personally and wholeheartedly as never before. The author Courtney Weber does a masterful job of telling her own story of discovery in a way that is humble, credible and humorous while presenting spirited retellings of traditional tales, historical research, personal reflections, meditation exercises, ritual templates and divination practices.

The structure of the book is both organic and quite clear to me. Reading it felt like gaining two spiritual allies at the same time, Weber and Brigid—one immediate in this world and the other a picture pieced together from fragments until it became the goddess.

I had long since despaired of ever finding a specific path or teaching that I could adopt as my own. And I am very excited to have been proven wrong in that jaded belief. Weber’s approach to Brigid is as close as I have ever found to my heart’s way. I recommend that particularly those devoted to writing and other poetic arts, healing and activism give this book a try. It may just have more miracles to work.

Imbolc blessings to children, parents and grandparents!

Imbolc is the time of firelight and long evenings. It is a time to curl up indoors, to think, to dream and to read. There is no better time to delve into the mysteries of intuition, magic and hope. 

Photo and words by Arie Farnam, Creative Commons License, share and share alike

I'm a mother and Julie Freel, the illustrator of the Children's Wheel of the Year series, is a grandmother. Our first concern is that children can access books that support earth-based spirituality. That's why we're making the ebook of Shanna and the Raven available for $2.99 on Amazon and other ebook stores until Imbolc. This means we take a loss on some copies of this book, but it also means that it is affordable for everyone knows a child who would like to read or listen to this book. 

Get the ebook of Shanna and the Raven for $2.99 until Imbolc from these stores:

Read the excerpt here

Check out the prefer paperback you can get a copy from Amazon and see photos from the inside here.

Reclaiming Pagan identity

"I'm not a Gypsy!" a thirteen-year-old boy in a Romani (otherwise known as Gypsy) settlement in Eastern Europe once told me. "Do I look like I have some kind of free and easy life? I don't have a wagon or one of those funny round guitars."

I was a journalist at the time--supposed to be impartial and not interfere with the natural course of events--so I didn't do what I wanted to do. I have since regretted that I didn't put an arm around the kid's shoulders and say, "I hear ya, brother. I know what it's like to have your identity usurped and dragged around to serve various fashion trends and self-indulgent subcultures. Don't let that stop you from knowing who you are." 

I do know because my identity is bound up with similarly loaded words. And when I first started writing Pagan children's books that was the greatest obstacle I faced. Many people who I expected to be supportive (because I grew up with their earth-centered spirituality) were skeptical and even resistant to the idea. 

A Pagan symbol from Latvian mythology of the Sun Tree -- Creative Commons image by Inga Vitola

"If you use words like 'Pagan' or 'magic' or 'witch,' you're going to limit the types of people who will read the book," one critic told me in no uncertain terms. "And a cauldron?  I mean seriously! I can't believe you called it a 'cauldron.'" 

Other times I've heard people who clearly practice earth-centered spirituality say essentially the same thing that the Romani boy told me.  "I'm not Pagan," one said. "When people hear 'Pagan' they think about immature mind games, hedonism and irresponsibility. It's the sort of thing that teenagers play around with just to annoy their parents. It's not a serious earth-centered spirituality." 

There are always tough decisions to make when presenting a book to the world and foremost among them is "Who am I writing this for?" I had to keep that question firmly in mind as I navigated the publishing process for Shanna and the Raven. 

The answer is that I wrote it for Pagan and earth-centered families. I want people who share these beliefs to be able to find the book using those search terms. And I'm not as interested in what everyone else in society thinks those terms mean. 

And moreover, I have two children myself and I think about what it meant to me to grow up with an identity that had no socially acceptable name.

Why "Pagan?"

I know there are a good number of people in the United States, Europe and Australia who accept the term "Pagan" readily. However, the fact is that there are many more people (possibly several times our number) who share our essential beliefs yet don't accept that term. That's why it's worth addressing the issue of why I use the specific term "Pagan."

I grew up with earth-centered spirituality but I didn't adopt the term "Pagan" until I was about thirty. That was mostly because I spent many years looking for a word that could accurately convey my meaning. Over the past twenty years many terms have become well-known--some ultra specific like "Wiccan," "Druid," "Asatru" or "Reconstructionalist." Some vague or only used by some, such as "New Age" or "goddess culture."

I chose the term "Pagan" for one simple reason. It is broad enough, yet to those who accept it, it means what I am trying to express. Thus if I find someone who identifies as Pagan and I say that I am Pagan, we both have a rough idea of what that means. Not perfect, no. But look at the wild diversity of Christianity or Islam. We're hardly alone in not being uniform. 

The term "Pagan" is also used in a specific way by serious news media. In the code of newspaper journalism, one should call a group "Pagan," if it represents an indigenous belief system with strong ties to nature and probably several gods or goddesses. Recently I have seen newspapers refer to tribes enslaved by ISIS as "Pagan" because they fit those criteria. Thus the term "Pagan" Is not exclusive to indigenous European religions, although it is most often used that way.

I know I'm treading on dangerous ground among fellow Pagans, asserting that I have a firm definition for the term "Pagan." But it isn't so much that I have that definition myself. It is that I accept and identify with the standard definition of the term. I don't fight the meanings of words because the most popular definitions of words will prevail in over time and resistance in this case really is futile. If I had come of age and discovered that most people called the beliefs I hold "gobbledygook" I would have identified with that term and fought for its correct interpretation and positive identity. Thus I don't fight against the term but rather for its clearer understanding. 

Get the Pagan children's book Shanna and the Raven here.

That is why I use the term "Pagan" both for myself and to my children and in my children's books. Yes, "Pagan" originally meant something like country bumpkin and it wasn't specific to a religious path. But it is now. It has a commonly accepted definition, whether we like it or not.

Gay used to mean happy. American Indian and Gypsy were both terms assigned to (and largely accepted by) whole nations of people based on someone else's poor grasp of geography. (Gypsy comes from the incorrect belief that the Roma came from Egypt.)

Seriously, we need to stop whining and be glad for the identity we have. Show me a better or more understood term, and I'll seriously consider it.  But for now "Pagan" is the term we have. The term "Witch" is in a similar category, though the road to the broader understanding of that term will be even more rocky.

Why do we need an identity term?

There is another argument I encounter in the community discussion on this issue and that is that some people strongly believe that we don't need terms of identity at all, that these are just "labels" and actually potentially damaging. I do understand the idealistic and positive intention behind these concerns. We should all be human beings first--dwellers of this earth and universe, in kinship with every being. 

But... you knew that was coming, didn't you? But we don't live in an ideal universe and neither do our children. The concept of rejecting all labels and merging into one big happy identity is akin to the argument for "colorblindness" among many white people in the United States or Western Europe. The lack of identity works just fine if there are truly no distinctions or problems between people in society. However, if there is any measure of tension, lack of identity works in favor of those associated with the largest and most privileged group and to the detriment of minority groups. 

Get the Pagan children's book Shanna and the Raven here.

Many of those who embrace earth-based spirituality today grew up in another religion with a very distinct name, and part of their change is to release themselves from names and labels, so our community members often balk at terms such as "Pagan" or even "earth-centered."

It's understandable. However, there is an issue here that goes beyond the desires of individual spiritual development. These first-generation Pagans did grow up with an identity, one they could understand, make decisions about and even reject because it had a name. And they also grew up in the majority culture.

Children raised in earth-centered families are not fully in the majority culture and they often lack the words needed to make their own decisions about their beliefs. That was why out of all the worthy topics for children's books, I chose to devote my first books to stories of contemporary Pagan children.

As I write the second book in the Children's Wheel of the Year series I note that the only times identity labels are needed or even arise in these stories are when the characters encounter hostility from the majority culture. We could live happily without labels, if we lived in isolation. But we don't and our children don't. If you send a child out into the world after teaching them values and stories that are very different from those of the majority but give that child no words with which to think consciously about such things, you send the child into inevitable confusion and pain and cut the child off from a sense of belonging. 

Psychologist Abraham Maslow defined a hierarchy of needs, beginning with physical needs for food, shelter and safety and culminating in self-actualization. The theory, which is used widely by psychologists, is that one cannot progress to higher levels without fulfilling the lower needs on the hierarchy. Thus to reach self-actualization an individual must have basic physical needs met. And directly above the basic needs of the body and safety is the need for belonging. 

For children to fulfill the need for belonging in the majority culture, they must  feel that their ideas, values and beliefs are supported and shared by others at least to some degree. The facts of today's world are that many Pagan children encounter not a world where labels don't matter but a world where their beliefs are disregarded or rejected and their celebrations are unknown or mocked. In such a world, children must still have belonging in order to reach self-actualization and that belonging comes from the understanding is that there is a community out there--though scattered--that shares and honors their values and stories.

That is why we need a Pagan identity.

Night terrors and protection magic: Addressing fear without dismissing it

It isn't suave to make this kind of confession, but in this case its necessary. I was afraid of the dark as a child. Very much afraid.

I wasn't afraid of monsters under the bed or of ogres in the closet. At least not unless I had recently watched a scary movie. Adults would often ask me what I feared and it was impossible to say exactly. 

I feared the tingling pressure of darkness against the back of my neck. I feared the way my muscles tightened and sometimes I couldn't move, even though I was fully aware of my surroundings. I feared the sense of consciousness and non-physical forms that I couldn't possibly understand. But as a child I didn't have words for these things and so I simply clung and  refused to be alone.

I found that darkness was actually only part of the problem. The other part was being alone. I found that the pressure against my senses didn't come if I was with another person... even a child much smaller than me. It wasn't that I thought a smaller child could protect me from something malicious. I didn't fear harm. I just did not like the strange pressure and awareness I felt but couldn't understand. And that feeling lasted until I was well beyond childhood.

 Today I understand better what I perceived as a child. I had some sort of gift for sensing non-physical reality. Despite the fact that I had very poor eyesight and couldn't see the facial expressions of others, I often sensed the emotions of others correctly, even when they wished to hide their feelings. And several specific experiences convinced me that I could at times perceive non-physical beings. Because I couldn't understand what I perceived, it was frightening and some of it may have actually been negative and beyond the abilities of a child to handle. 

It is because I've experienced this that I have a lot of sympathy for children who have fears they can't describe. Some of these fears may come from sensing non-physical reality. Others may come from deep memories or previous traumatic experiences that are not consciously remembered. Either way, there are ways to deal with these fears that address the root cause and allow children to keep their emotional and spiritual sensitivity without being afraid or encountering psychic negativity.

In popular western culture today, the primary response of adults to a child's fear of the dark or the unknown is either suppression, denial or mockery. "Look. There's nothing under the bed. Just calm down and go to sleep!" or "If you just be brave and ignore it, it will go away." 

From my experience, these usual responses are utterly useless. Most children just suffer through it until they are old enough to block out the non-physical world. And that can seriously limit their sensitivity and ability to know themselves and reach their potential.

A few more creative adults make a game of battling those things that trouble the child, dressing up in capes with swords and charging around the bedroom to exorcise the monsters. This latter approach does often work, and that's more than just because it's fun and distracting for children. It is also because such games often contain the basic elements of energetic ritual.

That is where the real solution lies. If an adult is skilled in their own spiritual path and can keep a steady center while giving a child the tools of self-protection and energy conservation, lengthy struggles with these fears can be avoided. And the child can grow to develop psychic gifts to their fullest without having to put blocks on their sensitivities. I have seen people of various religious persuasions do this in various forms--from Christians to a Cuban voodoo practitioner. So, I can't say there is one "correct" way to go about it. 

But the basic elements are common. An adult should help a child to create a safe psychic space, often a circle. There may be candles or other items that help in concentration and a feeling of peace. Teach your tradition's form of centering, whether that is through visualization, meditation or prayer. Then cleanse the negativity in the area in a way that makes sense to you, such as smudging with herbs, drumming or prayer. Set a boundary around the room or home, using substances (such as salt and herbs) or protective symbols. And give the child a symbol or talisman of psychic protection. Talk about energy and spirit with the child in terms the child can understand and explain what you have done. Don't forget to close the sacred space and give thanks.

Even this very general description may go beyond the spiritual experience of some adults. I don't expect those who believe solely in a materialist world devoid of gods, ancestors and spirits to agree with my perspective on this. I'm not a guru and my own spiritual path is very personal and eclectic, reflecting my varied past and international family.

However, I can offer a more concrete depiction of this process for those who embrace a Pagan, Wiccan or earth-centered path in the children's book Shanna and the Raven, which is an adventure story linked to the February 2 festival of Imbolc. The book follows a ten-year-old girl through experiences of both perceived and real danger and shows how her mother helps her to use both physical measures and ritual to empower her, connect with intuition and obtain safety. There are serious themes in this book but children love it for the story and don't realize it means to "teach" something and that alone makes the concepts much easier to absorb.

I often hear parents say that they don't allow their children to participate in their spiritual path until they are teenagers. And this perplexes me. Certainly, there are practices that are beyond the capabilities of children and children shouldn't be forced into a straight-jacket of specific beliefs. However,  there are many simple practices, rituals and traditions that can give children protection that truly soothes fears rather than simply suppressing them. And the successful use of such means will inevitably give children a greater overall sense of security and confidence. 

I wrote Shanna and the Raven as the first book in the Children's Wheel of the Year series precisely because I see these needs in my own children. And I hope they may help others as much as they have brought comfort to my family. 

What are your experiences with unexplained fears, the need for protection and using spiritual means to banish anxiety? Drop a line in the comments section below and join the discussion.

A Yule call

In this world of strife, stress and quick anger, may the healing and peace of the long nights give you joy and rest. May you gather those dear to your heart near and sing beauty and love against all hardship. The spirit of the Solstice has been steadfast since the dawn of time. So, now we dance and spin into a new year.

When Imbolc comes, check out this captivating new children's book for earth-centered and Pagan families, Shanna and the Raven. The ebook is available for pre-order now. Shanna and the Raven will be published in paperback and for Kindle on January 8, 2016. 

Why do our kids need contemporary Pagan stories?

"Just don't say 'Solstice' where anyone can hear you, Mom," a fifth-grader says. "Everyone says 'Christmas' - even the people who have other holidays."

This is the kind of thing you will hear, if you're an earth-centered parent living someplace multicultural enough that you would actually consider using Pagan terms in public. This is a fact. We live in a society where the majority culture is very strong in the media and public space, despite the fact that only about half of the population shares that culture. 

You want a Pagan children's story? Here are some of the beautiful illustrations by Julie Freel from the soon-to-be-published story Shanna and the Raven. Ten-year-old Shanna and seven-year-old Rye learn to use the magic and energy of Imbolc for protection in a dicey situation.

I grew up Pagan in a conservative, rural corner of the United States. Wait... I have to amend that because my mother is likely to lodge a complaint. I grew up with many Pagan ideas, stories, practices and beliefs, but I was nearly thirty before I had a word for it or knew the names of the solar holidays.

If and when we did a ritual or used something like Tarot when I was a kid, my mother either didn't overtly talk about it at all or called it "woo woo." By the time I went to school, I didn't have to be told that I should keep quiet about the whole subject of spirituality.

When I was sixteen, I had to fill out a form including my religion and I asked my mother what I should say.

She said, "You better say Protestant just in case." I knew we weren't Protestant, but I put it on the form anyway. The only options were Catholic, Protestant, Muslim and Buddhist.  There wasn't even an "other" category in those days. I was tempted to mark the Buddhist category just to buck the system, but it was an important form, so I decided to take my mother's advice and keep my head down as I did at many other times.

Pagan kids choosing their path in a media world

As a result, I understand why many Pagan kids are worried about being publicly identified as non-Christian, let alone Pagan. Sure, it can be considered brazen and cool among teenagers, but at earlier ages, both teachers and other kids often react negatively to open use of Pagan terms or symbols. Kids listen to the news and to the way people talk. And they take their cues from the media.

Today's kids can relate to to Shanna and Rye because they are just like them, going to school, having fun with friends and thinking about how they fit in.

While the film Frozen may drop many Pagan hints, it stops short of using any Pagan terms. Meanwhile, the majority of stories and films encounter Christmas or other Christian terms and integrate them with ease. These terms pervade the common media culture and make clear what is "normal" for kids.

Some kids will be strong inside and not care much. I didn't. I kept my own beliefs and sat through plenty of public and semi-public Christian prayers throughout my childhood. But I always felt the coldness of the outside world and the isolation of my family. I struggled to find words when I traveled in my teens and people asked me "what" I was. When I came close to being able to describe it, I was met with a wall denial: "That's not a real religion." "That's fake." "You just made that up." 

And I didn't listen. I knew that I hadn't made up the myths of Norse and Greek mythology or the casting of a circle and the calling of quarters. (I knew neither term for those actions but I knew how to do them.) However, I teetered on the edge of despair over it. I envied my Native American friends, who were the only people I knew with similar practices and yet I sensed the wrongness in cultural appropriation at a young age and I refused to go that route. 

Many more kids will not want to stand so alone. Only a few of the similarly "quiet Pagan" kids I knew growing up retain any of this spiritual path today. And it's fine for everyone to choose their own path. As long as they are happy where they are.

The problem I see is that Pagan children are routinely denied a reasonable chance to truly choose. They are told bits and pieces of their parent's spiritual practice, but mostly they are thrown into the world of Christian and secular media. There are a few books about Pagan beliefs aimed at children, but almost all of them are focused on teaching specific facts and practices. They bear little resemblance to the fun and adventurous stories where kids usually find Christmas, Easter and the Fourth of July.

A child's need for engaging identity

The divide is stark - Pagan literature which is often dry and school-like versus pop culture which is fast-paced, fun and focused on Christian and secular terms.  The inevitable conclusion that children draw is that Pagan things are stilted and boring, while the majority culture is adventurous and laid back.

How did this happen? Paganism is supposed to be the religion of freedom, play, dreams and the natural world, is it not?

A holiday story should include the magic and comfort of family traditions but should also include a story to grip and entertain the reader. These stories are for earth-centered kids themselves, rather than meant to educate their classmates about Pagan beliefs.

And beyond the issue of what path our children will choose as they mature, I would like to make a plea for childhood free from fear, secrecy and self-doubt. Yes, I was strong enough to weather the great silence and that feeling of isolation alone, but I hope my own children won't have to undergo it. I want them to know what our beliefs are called, to use these terms without fear and to respect other beliefs without feeling dominated.

These are key parts of a healthy identity. And without a solid identity we can't freely choose our own path.  

That's why I am turning my story-telling craft to earth-centered and Pagan children's stories for a time.  I am indebted to the writers of Circle Round, Pooka Pages and similar materials for families and children, which have done a great deal to provide Pagan education for kids. This leaves me free to embark on a new path with my stories.

These are stories rooted in today's most common Pagan paths, but they are primarily about adventures and difficulties that children actually overcome. These stories are to Pagan beliefs as the American Girl series is to history. There might be a bit about the facts in the back of the book, but the focus will be on stories that children will actively ask for - stories that will grip the reader with suspense and joy. 

A series of contemporary adventure stories for Pagan kids

I have begun the Children's Wheel of the Year stories with a book that will be published in January 2016. It's an Imbolc story because it occurs at that time of year and includes a family's Imbolc celebration. It also includes the themes of Imbolc - protection from danger, the good use of intuition and the cleansing of negative energies. But these themes are not taught with a heavy hand. They are part of the story of how ten-year-old Shanna acts bravely and intuitively to protect her younger brother from a criminal. 

Yes, these stories will encounter some real conflict and suspense. They aren't meant for preschool-age children, but for those who read adventure stories involving an element of danger. The stories that my own children love don't pretend that children are immune to or unaware of the darkness in the world. They are the stories that show children as strong and capable of facing difficulties, protecting themselves and standing up for important principles.

That strength comes from facing real problems and battling fear itself. These stories will have happy endings and be empowering for children, but they will involve true conflict and adventure that kids can relate to.

Modern Pagan kids just like me

"Class, who can tell us what is special about February 2?" the teacher asks. Shanna is excited that someone else knows about Imbolc. But then the other kids laugh and the teacher really meant Ground Hog's Day. Fortunately, the teacher is open-minded and she asks Shanna to tell the class about her lovely traditions.

The Children's Wheel of the Year books are meant for kids ages six to ten and may interest kids outside this age range as well. The stories are realistic and contemporary, following a brother and sister named Shanna and Rye whose family follow an unspecified earth-centered path. Like other children today, they go to school, have friends, enjoy fun times and encounter real problems and fears. Like the Magic Tree House books or The Little House on the Prairie, these stories are relatable and fun. They can help in teaching kids about a Pagan path, but their focus is on building a strong and fearless Pagan identity in general, rather than on teaching details of a particular path. 

The first book in the series is titled Shanna and the Raven: An Imbolc Story. The series will continue around the wheel of the year. There is no particular significance to beginning at Imbolc. It simply fits the children in the story best.

I strive for accuracy in all references to Pagan practices, but I keep much of the specifics out of these stories in order to allow a wide variety of families with different paths to use them. It will be possible to enter the story with any of the books, though there will be a gentle overall story running from Imbolc through Yule as well. 

Get this book here

If you want to learn more about the Children's Wheel of the Year stories, you're invited to sign up for my Hearth-side Email Circle. Subscribers are entitled to a free ebook, and you can either grab one of my adult fantasy books or Shanna and the Raven as a thank you from me.. 

I love your comments on these Pagan Notes posts and I would be particularly interested in the ideas and concerns of fellow Pagan parents. What issues are your kids concerned about? What kinds of books, movies and other media do you wish we had for Pagan kids? Thanks for your comments.

The Dead are Never Gone - Samhain meditations

I spent most of November of 1992 sitting in a basement in Hessen, Germany listening to a young Czech migrant worker play folk songs on a guitar and tell stories of the dead. 

I was sixteen at the time and wide-eyed at the horizons that had just burst open before me. Up until a few months before, I had been a girl living in a remote part of the Blue Mountains of Eastern Oregon. I couldn't spell Czechoslovakia and I had never heard the world Pagan, even though my family was Pagan. Now I heard about the deep Celtic roots of Bohemia and of the centuries of conquest and struggle that successive totalitarian regimes had brought. I soaked up tales of grandfather healers, tough-as-nails grandmothers and one who took his own life. 

In that month of November, I grew more than I have in most years of my life. I learned that the dead are never gone, that we breathe because of the struggles of our ancestors, that the stones of a place tell their own story, that my roots stretch back to many traditions and that the whispers of spirit can come through music even in another language.  

I had never heard of Birago Diop at the time. He was a great Senegalese poet, story-teller and veterinarian, a man of the African renaissance, whose words would inform my spirituality later and haunt the world. But though I had yet to hear of him, Birago Diop died that month at the age of 83, becoming an honored ancestor of his people.  

Today when I look back at those who have passed into the realm of ancestors and prepare for the time of long, dark nights and contemplation, Diop's poem "Breaths" is my primary meditation. They are words true to the beliefs of Pagans all over the world in one form or another, no matter our continent. Surely, they link us back to the common past of humanity, to the ancestors that link us all.

What honor do we give our ancestors if we make war or draw lines between cultures, traditions and races? What honor do we give our ancestors if we fritter away the gift of our lives with consumerism and lifestyles that make the earth unlivable for the next generation?  

I make the offering of candles inside vegetables beside my door and freshly brewed tea. Bless the ancestors of this land and hearth. May you be nourished and healed of your wounds that we may be free in our day. 

One thing I love about Diop's poem is that it can be adapted. The cadence of it is easily shaped to whatever signals the presence of ancestors for you. As long as you don't try to publish it as your own original work, you can use the poem "Breaths" to make a personal meditation.

Here's mine with all honor to Diop:

The dead are never gone.

They are there in the evening shadow.

The dead are not under the earth.

They are there in the falling rain.

They are there in the line of a child's smile.

They are there in the black soil of the garden.

They are in the fire on the hearth.

They are in cold night wind.

The dead are never, never gone.

Pagan Book Review: A sound and a readable explanation of Irish Reconstructionist Paganism at last

Every religion has it's sub-categories, nooks and crannies. And given that these are matters of spirit, faith and passion, there are often vehement disagreements and a bit of prejudice between various factions. Modern Pagans are really no different from anyone else in this. I have heard my share of grumblings between "reconstructionists" and other types of Neopagans. 

It's easy to be confused and I withhold judgment until I can find good sources. 

I have been curious about recontructionists and Irish paganism specifically for some time, but most of what you can read on the subject is exceedingly dry and arcane or else overly influenced by contemporary pop culture. So,  I remained largely mystified until now. 

Morgan Daimler's book Pagan Portals - Irish Paganism: Reconstructing Irish Polytheism has provided exactly the clear, friendly and readable introduction I needed. I am sure that some who have studied Irish and/or Celtic reconstructionism in depth may find this too simplistic but for those of us who simply want to understand it and have a readable and even entertaining introduction to the concepts without a lot of intellectual jabber this is perfect. As in her other books, Daimler presents complexity in an honest yet understandable way and then relates it to personal stories. The result is both fun and informative, backed by a wealth of research.

Here are the key points about this book.

• There is no fluff in here at all. It's all brisk, concise information.
• It's eminently readable with a pleasant voice for a scholarly book.
• It's extensively researched and has good reviews by credible scholars.
• It is clear and never wishy-washy. Daimler doesn't try to manipulate, but rather simply states when she has come to her own conclusions and when it's a matter of established record.
• Daimler isn't afraid to use practical, personal experience to both liven up and engage the text.
• The book tackles some controversial issues around race, cultural appropriation and sexuality. While I do wish she had included something on environmentalism, that is simply because I would love to know her take on the issue and that of other reconstructionists.
• There is also a chapter about the false myths many people believe about reconstructionism, a chapter on the Irish Pagan beliefs, including a list of the most important gods and goddesses, a very practical chapter on modern practices and how it is actually done today, a chapter on the holy days and more.

Many books on reconstructionism that I have encountered focus so narrowly on specifics and are so bent on proving the author as "the" scholarly authority on the subject that the average person with sincere interest could easy be lost. The mark of a truly broad and informed scholar is not so much one who can delve into the greatest detail on obscure subjects but one who knows the field well enough to present a coherent picture of the whole in terms that are understandable to outsiders. This is what this book does. I appreciate the clarity and warmth Daimler brings to this subject.

Book Review: The Other Side of Virtue and a vessel with which to drink the good life

"Pagan is a negative term," I was told. "It means wanton, imature snotty, rebellious and without morals." 

And this was not said by someone ideologically opposed to earth spirituality. Quite the opposite. It was said by one who taught me much of my spirituality and who finds spirit in nature and in authenticity and compassion. But the term "Pagan" has become negative for this person, through media messages, the words of critics and the words and deeds of some visible Pagans as well. 

And I while I vehemently disagree with that negative definition of the word "Pagan," I can't entirely refute the connotations of the social movement that has grown around the word in pop culture. Google it and you'll get endless pictures of objectified women in slinky black clothing with ugly makeup and suggestive poses. I have found spiritual sisters and brothers among Pagans, but I also often find a lot of nihilism and immature rebel-without-a-cause mentality. I find a subculture where many proudly claim that morals are for brainwashed idiots and that they have no spiritual obligation to do anything but satisfy their own desires as long as there isn't obvious harm done to someone else. And if there is harm done, well then "that so-and-so shouldn't have gotten in the way."

The most popular thread in one of the largest Facebook groups for Pagans for the past year has been one about how sick of "nice Pagans all full of light" the members are. These posts are full of adolescent self-righteousness, denial of spiritual meaning and flaunt-your-sex-because-it-annoys-Christians messages. By contrast, when I posted about my personal struggles around responding to climate change as a Pagan, I was met with several angry responses that demanded, "How dare you suggest that Pagans should be specifically concerned about climate change?" and "I'm so sick of Pagan popes."  

The person who told me that "Pagan" is a negative term has glimpsed this side of the Pagan community and been repelled with disgust, even though her spirituality is not far from true Pagan roots at all. And I struggle because I want to cry that there is no truth at all in the lies of the church-influenced media. Because this has nothing to do with the spirituality I know and love. But I do know that it isn't entirely a figment of evangelical propaganda. There are Pagans who say these things and openly espouse the values of wanton, immature, rebellious nihilism.

And I have searched for a coherent answer, a common definition or even a code of ethics broad enough and yet specific enough to be called "the Pagan way." And I've been told again and again that we are too broad, that nothing but external trappings connect us. And perhaps that is true, if you count everyone who ever used the word Pagan.

But today I've found a surprising spark of hope in this search.

It comes from Brendan Myers, who holds a doctorate in philosophy and writes extensively on environmental ethics and Neopagan topics. Many of Myers books may be too specific to one path or another but in The Other Side of Virtue (first published in 2008) he makes a credible, scholarly study of ethics and the meaning of a virtuous life, from ancient times to Harry Potter. Every other philosopher I have read and in fact my entire university philosophy program where I read Plato and the other thinkers that have shaped western society limited their study to the classical Roman and Greek period onward. Myers does what has been taboo and reaches beyond that boundary to explore the definition of "virtue" apparent in the remnants of ancient "heroic societies," the term he gives to pre-classical European tribal civilizations. 

Myers does not say in his book that he is defining indigenous-European Pagan ethics. It would be a very controversial claim. But he does it without the fanfare nonetheless. 

It is true that his entire study is limited to European thought, but the vast majority of those who self-identify as "Pagan" today do so in reference to spiritual paths that are at least inspired by indigenous European ideas. Even Wicca, which is so clearly not reconstructing a pre-Christian European Pagan faith, uses terms and concepts that are a clear reflection of its European roots. While I and many others may believe that Native American, Hindu, African and other earth-centered spiritual traditions are also "Pagan" in that they are non-Judeo-Christian and nature-based and involve similar ideas of deities, these communities generally do not use the term "Pagan" to describe themselves and thus they have to at least be given their own categories. Myers speaks specifically, though perhaps not exclusively, about indigenous-European Paganism--whether it be reconstructionist Celtic, Nordic, Slavic or Hellenistic or Wiccan, non-reconstructionalist Druidic or eclectic. He doesn't claim to speak to or for all these groups himself, but I assert that he makes a very good stab at it. 

The first half of The Other Side of Virtue is primarily a scholarly treatise on the development of European thought about what constitutes "virtue" and "the good way to live" since ancient times. Rather than glossing over the ancient Pagan era, Myers devotes the most pages and detail to that period and from what I have read of reconstructionist literature, his general conclusions easily apply to Celtic, Nordic (Germanic), Roman and Slavic belief systems of the times. This part of the book then presents today's Pagans with at the very least an interpretation of what ancient Eujropean Pagan ethics and philosophy was like.

And it is not a view without its uncomfortable corners. According to Myers the highest virtue for these "heroic societies was "honor" and that honor was something seen through a social lens. Those who were held in high esteem were truly believed to be good. The fact that a person was born with strength and physical beauty made them virtuous, as did their deeds. Virtue, including honor, meant being a strong chieftain or being the supporter of a strong chieftain. Those who won gained honor and those who lost were bereft. Honor can thus be seen in this ethos as more important than life and thus the focus in so many ancient tales such as Beowolf on saving honor even when it means giving up one's own life. And yet the way in which Myers shows the development and application of these ideas makes it eminently useful for modern life. 

Honor in Myers's study becomes the living of a life that is worthy of being told as a story. Honor and thus a large part of virtue can be attained by being an excellent craftsperson, a skilled and ethical businessperson, a leader who makes difficult decision, a soldier who thinks while also working within a team, an artist who creates something great. Honor is in the worthy use of the gifts one is given by "fate," whether they be physical attributes, wealth, position or internal talents. Thus while some honor may be due to a person who is famous for great beauty or success in business in their own right, far greater honor comes to those who have these gifts and use them for a great purpose. It is more in what you do with your blessings than what blessings you acquired. It is more in the sacrifice offered than in the size of what was horded. 

The second half of the book deals with a logical, philosophical argument, presented in clear, lay terms that are easy for those without a doctorate in philosophy to follow. Myers's thesis attempts to show what he believes can be proven based on natural objective principles to be the basis for living a good life, defined as a life of virtue or excellence. The ultimate measure of virtue in Myers's thinking is not what is applauded by others or what stands up to the laws of gods or human beings, but what way of life allows the individual to flourish and find greatest happiness and fulfillment. And so while Myers admits that there are unflattering strains of European thought, such as Nietzsche's concept of the ubermensch, which use the same ideas of honor to create great suffering, he shows where their logical pitfalls lie. And he does this without preaching about what is morally or ethically necessary by any law or teaching of society or gods. Instead he shows how living a life that can be told as a story of excellence is also to live the good life for one's self. 

The end of The Other Side of Virtue presents a deceptively simple test by which a person can determine--very individually and without the judgment of others--how to live with virtue and honor.

Because the underpinnings of the historical study and the logical argumentation are both sound and rooted in diverse Pagan philosophies, I would argue that Myers has a great deal to say about how one can find a moral compass for Neopaganism. It is true that such a compass may be different for different people. Myers doesn't offer any fully baked answers that don't come from within the individual, but he does give the raw materials by which a compass can be constructed.  

The Other Side of Virtue is both well written and readable but it is also groundbreaking in its gathering of today's Pagan movement. Certainly there will be those who continue to claim that we need no moral compass or even that such a thing is antithetical to the broad scope of modern Paganism, but I believe that if one reads Myers with an understanding that his descriptions of various historical beliefs do not mean that he sees them as any sort of law for how we should behave but simply a historical study and if one employs the objective tools he provides to look at one's own life, there can be some real conclusions drawn about what is true to Pagan beliefs and what is a pop-culture picture based on what Myers would term "modern malaise." No one is going to make that distinction for the individual but if individuals  pour their life into this vessel and look at the reflection, they may find their own definitions of what a life of great spirit and excellence looks like.

Mabon as an earth-centered thanksgiving

Some people poke fun at the number of holidays Pagan families celebrate. In reality we don't have that many more than other people. The problem is more that we often feel obliged to celebrate mainstream secular and/or Christian holidays as well, so that our children don't feel left out of school celebrations or to please extended families of different faiths.

Mabon is about the warmth of a home and a hearth as well as an open door to travelers and guests - image by Arie Farnam

That does sometimes leave us trying to do too much and rushing through what should be fun  and relaxed family traditions.

Sometimes the holidays work out fine. When we have Yule before Christmas it simply frees us up to be less stressed about it when the extended family wants to do secular Christmas and demand their preferred dates. We are done with our most important holiday of the season and we get to be flexible about it. So, we sort of include secular Christmas and Easter in our calendar. We ignore most political holidays and that leaves us with the issue of Thanksgiving.

We now live in Europe where we don't get a day off for American Thanksgiving and it is more difficult to have a fresh harvest feast in November in northern latitudes anyway. It is no surprise that Canadians celebrate Thanksgiving in September. And that got me thinking. 

For me the primary theme of Mabon is giving thanks and celebrating the bounty of the harvest. It also has to do with hospitality, honoring elders and giving both thanks and comfort to the animals in our vicinity. A few years ago, I realized that these themes work very well with the US Thanksgiving traditions of my youth.

And in fact, they fit much more with my sensibilities than a holiday devoted to a legend about Christians invading a country of cousin Pagans, abusing their hospitality and then giving all the credit for what good came of it to their foreign god. I never could relate to it from the time I was in kindergarten. And as an adult I can't eat a Thanksgiving dinner in November without feeling more grief over our history of genocide than gratitude for the blessings of the season. 

Yet we celebrated it because there was obviously something very important about a feast of harvest foods where the whole family gathered and gave attention to our gratitude. That is too good a thing to give up, which is why people who are uncomfortable with the history continue to celebrate that Thursday in November.

And that led me to a perfect solution. Mabon is the Pagan equivalent of Thanksgiving. It comes at a better (and more natural) time of year and we can use US Thanksgiving for what it should be, a day to commemorate a painful history and make restitution. So, I moved Thanksgiving to a weekend nearest to Mabon. 

Sharing the Mabon feast - image by Arie Farnam

In September I often have that comforting feeling of primal security when I look at the rows of canned fruits and vegetables and the bins of apples, potatoes, pumpkins and carrots in our root cellar, the freezers bulging with organic meat we have bartered for, the jars of dried fruit and the cupboards overflowing with dried, emulsified and tinctured herbs. 

And this all sets a natural mood for thanksgiving. We usually get a turkey or a half turkey, make a giant pan of stuffing, mashed potatoes, apple and pumpkin pies, even cranberry sauce when we can, often baked pumpkin from our garden. We often share the holiday with another family because my extended family is back home in North America. But even if we only eat a great harvest meal of our own, there are several specific traditions that make this day special.   

The children make beautiful Mabon crafts of tiny little acorn people (nature spirits who paint the leaves) and leaf rubbings framed with colorful paper on which we write Mabon blessings. The kids and I spend some time reading in front of the fire. We read from several Mabon editions of Pooka Pages, which both kids love, as well as a few seasonal books, including “Smoky and the Feast of Mabon” and “By the Light of the Harvest Moon.” As Mabon is also about thanking our animals, we snuggle with Eliska, our hardworking mouser, and thank her for keeping the rustlings in the walls at bay. We make sure she gets a generous portion of the feast as well.

I make a wreath for our door with corn husks, dried apples, dried herbs and currants, all things actually from our own harvest. I often make a centerpiece for the table consisting of sand in a nice bowl with vary-colored popcorn decoratively arranged on top to form a flat spot. Then, on that I place a cornhusk doll, symbolizing the full-bodied harvest goddess. Around her I put some of the children’s tiny toy animals representing all the animals that either help us in our daily lives or have given themselves for our sustenance.

On Mabon day, the those who wish to take part hold a Mabon ritual of thanksgiving and reciprocity. We sing the song “Ancient Mother”. And we made up an alternative to the standard goddess chant that focuses on the harvest goddesses of many cultures.

Creative Commons image by Julia Falk

Lajja Gauri, Zulu, Freya,
Sowathara, Sara Mama,
Rosmerta, Zeme, Demeter,
Oh, Mother Earth!

Lajja Gauri is a Hindu harvest goddess. Zulu is African. Freya is Scandinavian. Sowathara is Vietnamese. Sara Mama is Native American. Rosmerta is Celtic-Roman. Zeme is Slavic. Demeter hopefully needs no explanation. Our spiritual focus is international due to the international make-up of our family and home.

We also make symbolic offerings and bless a handful of coins that will be used to give to street musicians and people who forgot their train fares at the station. We don't have much in the way of financial resources, but it is important to share our harvest in whatever ways we can. When the harvest is good we give away extra pumpkins and squash to those who will actually eat them. Thanksgiving is after all in the end about interconnectedness.

A few years ago, I made up a Mabon song, which has become traditional in our house.

Mabon decorations - Image by Arie Farnam

Autumn Song
By Arie Anna Meadowlark

Hail to the Gods of winter.
Hail to the Night.
Hail to the dark times
With your stars bright.

Bring healing with your darkness.
Be gentle with your cold.
Give insight with your solitude
That brings comfort to the soul.

Farewell to the summer days.
Farewell to old man sun.
Farewell to the times of toil
And rough and tumble fun.

And though I love the summer,
I shall not shed a tear.
For the promise has been given.
The sun returns next year.

I love your comments on these posts. Share your own ideas and traditions below. How do you juggle both the Wheel of the Year and holidays celebrated in the wider community around you?  What are your traditions of thanksgiving and harvest?

And thank you for all the shares of these posts! May your harvest be blessed.

Book Review: Pagan Portals - The Morrigan: Meeting the Great Queens

Irish reconstructionist author Morgan Daimler is better known to me for her fiction, which is quite entertaining. I picked up her nonfiction book Pagan Portals - The Morrigan because I have been hearing a lot of murmurs among Pagans of various stripes about "dark Goddesses" and I wanted to understand the trend and its roots as well as learn about a tradition that isn't so distant from my own.

Pagan Portals - The Morrigan is essentially a beginner's text. As the subtitle Meeting the Great Queens suggests, it is an introduction.  As such it is tightly packed with information. The author presents concise and well-researched chapters on the history and stories surrounding various goddesses known as or associated with the Morrigan, which is presented as both a title held by several goddesses and the name of one goddess. This part of the book can be rather dry and difficult for those who have no access to the cultural atmosphere and tradition it comes out of. 

To help alleviate the dryness, Daimler presents poems, invocations and prayers of offering to the various goddesses highlighted and then a short passage on her personal experiences with the goddess or issue presented at the end of each chapter. These parts of the book serve to focus the scattered information and ground the reader on a sensory and emotional level. 

Many reviewers view it as a positive thing that Daimler presents all sides of various disagreements among Pagans on the goddesses and issues presented. She lets the reader know which side she favors, but this is simply f information. There is no attempt to persuade the reader of the various arguments and thus for a beginner it can be disorienting. Some of the information and arguments are contradictory, and Daimler isn't going to tell you what to think. It's hard to keep straight what is debated from this short tight text. And I come out of it with very few questions actually answered, although I do know a lot more.

I particularly enjoyed the chapter on the Morrigan in the context of contemporary neopaganism. It's full of welcome practicality and clear definitions. It can be viewed as a very broad how-to and with creativity and focus, one could begin a relationship with the Morrigan on this basis. 

As Daimler mentions, this is an introduction. It can give a sense of what there is to learn about the Morrigan. And it gives distinct hope for those, particularly women, seeking strong spiritual guidance and direction. Anyway you look at it the Morrigan is a fierce goddess of feminine power and intensity. For those who face a hard road in life and need strong protection and courageous support, there is hope here. And for those who have been made to suppress their inner fire and to feel shame for their intensity, this can be a breath of fresh air. 

You can find this book, Pagan Portals - The Morrigan here.

I have no affiliation with this author, but I do occasionally get free ebooks from her publisher in exchange for an honest review. 

Lughnasadh: A time for community and craft

Lughnasadh or Lammas is stands out for our family from the other Pagan holidays. Most holidays we spend with family and the focus is on special meals, crafts, songs and kid-friendly rituals. But this holiday at the very beginning of August is different by its very nature. This is the season to focus on the harvest, community as well as work, skilled crafts and mentors or teaching. It's an outwardly focused time, the polar opposite of Imbolc's introspection. 

Creative Commons image by Amber Fray

Many Pagan communities choose to hold their large community gatherings at this time of year. The weather is most likely to be good and the energy is community oriented. As a result many families have very simple and flexible traditions attached to this season.

This year for the first time, we have a local Pagan event for Lughnasadh that is appropriate for families with children. That's because we're hosting it in our back yard. We're gathering Pagan families to do a simple ritual and hold a community feast. But given that this is the first year we've done this, it isn't a tradition yet.

Helping with this sort of gathering is a great way to combine the themes of this time. If your local community does organize Pagan events, consider asking what you can do to help, clean up the area after the event, arrive early to help set things up or take on one of the many small roles that are needed to make a gathering work. This is the day of giving back. 

Even if your community doesn't have Pagan events and you can't make one happen yourself, there are other ways to contribute to your community. Many years we have found some way to volunteer. We plan to volunteer as ESL teachers at a summer camp for disadvantaged children when our kids are old enough. And we always have litter-clean-up expeditions at this time of year. 

Even so, it's a challenge to do a big community project right in the middle of the harvest. If you grow a big garden like we do, this is a busy time of the year.  The garden still needs tending and canning, freezing and drying food are now taking up a lot of time. Part of my craft is making herbal medicines for my extended family and friends. That is also one way I contribute to the community because I give my medicinals freely rather than selling them. That means that even when I don't pull off a community project at this time, I'm still putting energy into community with the herbs I'm gathering. 

And yet, as always I want my children to have a tradition to anchor them in the energy of the season. So, we still have a few things we do as a family that will always tie the holiday together. They are simpler than usual and can be done anywhere, because we may not be home.

Crafts and Ritual

We sometimes do a ritual giving thanks for our harvest and blessing our garden. This is always outdoors at this time of year and often a bit informal. In our climate the corn on the cob isn't ready yet but it is tall and looking like it will be ready soon. The kids are eagerly waiting for it to get ripe.

So, this is a good time to use cornmeal as an offering to scatter outside. If you grow a different staple crop, you might want to use something related to that crop. 

Because the kids are so active outside these days and more likely to be half naked and wet than not, it's a good time for crafts like face painting and tie-dye. But the primary craft of the season is a craft for me rather than for the children. And it's also our most important Lughnasadh family tradition.

Lughnasadh cloth - Creative Commons image by Arie Farnam

A few years ago, my mother gave me a special table cloth that I remembered from my childhood and this became our special Lughnasadh cloth. Whatever gathering of friends, family and community we attend at Lughnasadh, we take the table cloth with us, even if it is an outside event. I encourage everyone to sign the table cloth.  Then I carry the cloth around with me most of the winter. And in those idle moments when I am waiting for kids at music classes or when there is a quiet evening, I embroider the names on the signed cloth in a color specific to that year. Last year our Lughnasadh event was a camping trip that included a bunch of Ukrainian friends of friends, so I spent the winter embroidering beautiful Cyrillic letters. 

The result is a beautiful cloth full of incredible memories. I'm not particularly skilled with a needle but that doesn't matter much after the project gets going. It is still quite beautiful and it carries the sense of community that is perfect for Lughnasadh.

You can duplicate this tradition by choosing a sturdy table cloth and starting with whatever gathering you attend this year. White isn't mandatory and orange or light brown would absorb stains better than mine and be wonderful for the season. You could use permanent markers instead of embroidery for an easier but no-less-meaningful version. Just remember to use just one color per year and mark the year in the same color in the corner of the cloth. In a few years the cloth will be colorful and you will be able to look back and recall the gatherings of past years based on the colors of the names of those who were there. 

Cooking

The best food of Lughnasadh is the fresh produce of a garden. Ripe tomatoes, corn on the cob, salad greens, carrots and herbs. We eat big salads or put the veggies into no-cook spring rolls.  Lughnasadh is also the known as the grain harvest so bread or pasta salad are big favorites and it's handy that they are easy to carry because unless we're working in the garden, we're unlikely to be home at all. 

Bohemian fruit pizza

Another way to both use your local fruit harvest and make bread at the same time is to make Bohemian fruit pizza. It is technically called pie in the Czech Republic but it resembles pizza more than anything else to foreigners. This is a pretty healthy recipe and can be eaten for breakfast and snacks, not just for desert. This is also a handy finger food to bring to community feasts.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 pound potatoes
• 1/2 teaspoon salt
• 1 cup cold water
• 1/4 cup butter 
• 2 smallish eggs (or 4 egg yolks)
• 1 tablespoon Yeast
• 1/4 cup slightly warm water
• 1 tablespoon sugar
• Several cups of flour depending on consistency
• Fruit (such as plums, apples, blackberries, pitted cherries, blueberries or huckleberries)
• 1/2 cup Powdered sugar
• 1/2 cup flour (half and half whole grain if you want to be really healthy about it)
• 1/3 cup cold butter

Directions:

1. Peel and chop 1/2 pound of potatoes. Place in a small pan with one cup of water and half a teaspoon of salt. Cook until very soft and don't strain the water off.
2. Mash up the potatoes and add half a stick (1/4 cup) of butter and mash that in to the hot potatoes as well. 
3. Start yeast off to the side. Mix tablespoon of dry yeast, 1/4 cup slightly warm water and one tablespoon of sugar in a separate container. Let it sit while your potatoes cool off.
4. When the potatoes have cooled off a bit add your eggs. You can use just egg yolks instead. This is an old grandmother's trick from Bohemia that is supposed to make the cake even better. Mix it in and make the potato mixture into a smooth mass.
5. Add a cup of flour to your potato mixture and stir well.
6. Once it is cool enough that it is around body temperature, add the yeast mixture and stir well.
7. Transfer the mixture to a large mixing bowl and add more flower until the dough is kneadable. You'll need several more cups of flour.
8. Let the dough rise for an hour under a warm damp cloth.
9. Spread flour on your work surface. Knead your dough again and then roll it out into roughly the shape of your baking tray. Then carefully roll the dough around your rolling pin and transfer it to the greased baking sheet. Gently pull at the corners and sides to shape the dough to fit the pan and stick it slightly to the sides. 
10. Spread thinly sliced fruit over the dough. Try to cover as much of the dough as possible but don't overlap into too thick a layer.  
11. In a separate bowl tweak together 1/2 cup flour with 1/2 cup powdered sugar and 1/3 cup cold butter to make a crumbly mixture. 
12. Scatter the crumbly mixture over your cake. 
13. Let the cake rise for another half an hour or hour. Preheat the oven to 375 degrees Fahrenheit (180 C) fifteen minutes before you want to put it in.
14. Back for 30 to 45 minutes. 

Spring rolls with fresh seasonal greens

1. Prepare:

• Thin sheets of rice paper
• Cooked fine rice noodles
• Small pieces of cooked, lightly salted meat or egg
• A bunch of salad greens an herbs cut up fine
• Thinly sliced strips of red pepper (optional)
• Thinly sliced boiled eggs (optional)

2. Fill a low pan with hot water and place it on a table with all your supplies.

3. Lay a sheet of rice paper into the pan of hot water, covering the sheet entirely and then carefully lift it out and put the wet sheet on a plate.

4. Put the most colorful bits of prepared food on first (usually eggs, peppers and dark greens or herbs). Place them in a line across the middle of the rice paper. Then add greens, meat or tofu and noodles. (You only really need a little of each thing for one sheet of rice paper. Keep them small and rolling will be easier.)

5. Carefully fold a bit of rice paper over the ends of the line and then roll the rice paper around the line of food.  The rice paper will stick to itself, so that the roll won't come open once you've rolled it up.

6. Set your spring roll on a plate and repeat the process until you have enough (An adult in our household usually eats 5 or 6 spring rolls for a meal.)

7. Serve the spring rolls with small bowls of spicy dressing for dipping. To make easy Vietnamese sauce for fresh spring rolls mix these ingredients roughly in this order:

• 2 tablespoons of sugar
• 1/4 cup hot water
• 2 tablespoons of lemon juice
• 1-2 cloves of crushed garlic
• 1/2 teaspoon very hot garlic chili sauce
• 4 teaspoons fish sauce (nuk mam) 

Joyous Lughnasadh and Lammas to you and yours. May your harvest in all areas of life be blessed. 

Leave a comment below and share your own traditions. Send this post around to friends. This is another way to be part of a global community.

Living close to the land at the Summer Solstice

I don't suppose life was ever easy for people who subsisted directly from the land they lived on, whether hunting and gathering or practicing small-scale agriculture. But it has become even harder to live "off the land" in the past thirty years, in particular. 

I grew up in a remote, rural corner of Eastern Oregon and my parents made a fair stab at living an earth-centered life, growing and raising a great deal of our food in the 1980s. There are still people who do that today and some even live off the grid, running their homes with solar and wind power. But there are a lot of hardships involved. The climate has become harsh and unpredictable in many areas. Climate change and international travel have spread pests to areas where they have no predators and made subsistence organic agriculture has become a risky gamble indeed.

Economically, in the United States and Europe at least the burdens of taxes and regulations have made it increasingly hard to raise children while living on the land and off the grid. I'm not saying it's impossible and those who do it, even for short periods, have my respect. But as much as I would like to, I don't live entirely in that way.

Instead my husband and I have worked to build a life that is as ecologically sustainable and low-impact as we reasonably can make it - given our climate, geographic location and economic situation. Our second goal is to raise our children in as healthy an environment as possible without entirely segregating ourselves from modern society. 

In practice, this means we grow as much food as we can, focusing on crops which do well in our climate and which are somewhat resistant to local plagues of slugs and mold. This means that we eat a lot of squash, pumpkins, kale, lettuce, green beans, currants, blackberries and plums. I was fortunate enough to start out loving these foods. Yet I'll admit that going into our tenth year at this, I find bananas exciting and maple syrup is an ecstatic experience. 

But on another level, I have come to grasp viscerally the way agricultural peoples saw their staple crops. Early to mid-June is a very sensitive time for squash and pumpkin plants in our climate. They are still fragile and susceptible to being eaten by slugs until they grow spines and tough sin. One year a hail storm in June decimated our crop, having a painful impact on our family's ability to eat organic meals for the next year. We are fortunate that crop disaster doesn't mean starvation for us, but it does mean unhealthy, pesticide laden food. The fact is that in the Czech Republic organic produce is far beyond our budget, unless we grow it. 

And so gardening, the work of feeding a family directly from the soil has become a big part of my spiritual path as well. This year my pumpkin and squash seedlings were slow to get going and I worried and called out for help. But they finally did come up and are now a good hand high. When a hail storm came last week, I ran out in it with pots and bowls to cover the seedlings. My six-year-old daughter stood in the doorway handing me more, her eyes wide with anxiety and excitement, as the downpour soaked me to the skin and the beginnings of hail bounced off my head. 

I saved the crop and caught a cold. Fortunately, the garden also has medicinal herbs for tea. While I recovered, my daughter devised her first ever ritual and prayer on her own.

I was amazed and gratified to see the level of sophistication she had gained mostly by just watching me in my spiritual practice. She asked me to help her light candles and use a sage smudge. Then she made up a prayer, invoking Thor (as the Norse god she associates with Thunder based on a story she heard once three years ago) and White Shell Woman the Navajo goddess of crops and livelihood. She asked for the hail to move on, for the rain to go to the desert "where grandma Julie really needs it" and for our garden to grow. She made an offering of blackberry cake outside, a true sacrifice because it's a special treat. 

By the time the Solstice comes around the pumpkin and squash plants will be big enough that they can survive both slugs and hail, the corn will be well started, the fruit trees will all have flowered and set fruit and the green beans will be climbing their trellises. We'll have very practical reasons to celebrate and a sense of our labor combining with the energy of the earth and sun to give us our livelihood. 

Whether you live in a city or in a place where you have the luxury of a garden, Litha or the Summer Solstice is a worthy time to think about how you combine your labor with the energies of the earth and sun. Maybe you live in such a way that you do have the budget to buy locally grown organic produce and thus support a large-scale development of sustainability. Maybe you grow basil and sage on your window sill in a small apartment, so that you can cook tasty food from scratch and avoid harmful and ecologically unfriendly flavorings and packaged foods. Maybe you volunteer or contribute financially to organizations that work for ecological and sustainable development.

Whatever it is the Summer Solstice is a time for these energies to come together. Here are some of the ways I celebrate in a family with small children.

Cooking

Picking strawberries - Creative Commons image by Loadmaster (David R. Tribble)

There is one other crop we've worked long and hard to grow. It hasn't been as easy as our staple crops but it is one that is worth it. We grow 20 strawberry plants. After years of trial and error we have hit on a system where we get most of the strawberries and the slugs and mold only get a few. And it is usually right before the Summer Solstice that our full-season-producing strawberries are at their peek. Given a good sunny week, we can all have fresh strawberry shortcake with organic strawberries that I can feel good about watching my kids eat. 

Here is my deluxe strawberry shortcake recipe. Keep in mind that strawberries really are one of those foods that is particularly worth buying organic. If you can't grow them yourself, barter, trade and save to buy them. There are places where you can pick your own in local organic gardens and cut the cost a bit. 

My recipe, developed over the past dozen years is a combination of my mother's buttermilk biscuits and my strawberry sauce

Grandma Julie's buttermilk biscuits

1. Preheat the oven to 425 F (210 C).

2. Mix together:

• 1 1/2 cups flour
• 1 1/2 tablespoons sugar
• 1/4 teaspon salt

3. Stir and tweak in

• 1/4 cup (1/2 stick) cold butter cut into small pieces. 

4. Add

• 1/4 teaspoon soda
• 1 1/2 teaspoon baking powder

5. Stir and add

• 3/4 cup buttermilk (plain yogurt works in a pinch)

6. Combine and kneed a very little in order to make a smooth, somewhat sticky dough.

7. Divide into six equal pieces and shape each piece into a flat disk.

8. Put the biscuit disks on a cookie sheet covered with baking paper (or greased).

9. Bake for 15 minutes. 

Mama Arie's strawberry sauce

10. Clean and cut the tops off the strawberries. Then divide them in half. 

• For each biscuit you'll need about a double handful of strawberries. You can get by with a bit less but the more the merrier.  

11. Put one half of the strawberries into a bowl. Use a potato masher or a fork to slightly crush the strawberries and release their juice. 

12. Add

• about 4 tablespoons of sugar for a standard batch (or add slowly to taste)

13. Mix and add

• 4 - 6 tablespoons of sour cream

14. Save the other half of the strawberries for putting on top.

15. Place a biscuit on a plate and cut it into cubes. Pour strawberry-sour-cream sauce over it and top with cut strawberries. Whipped cream is optional. 

Our other staple of the Summer Solstice is big salads containing garden greens, chives, radishes and edible flowers (dandelions, violets, daisies) - basically whatever we can grow at this season - with feta cheese, boiled eggs, sunflower seeds and herb and yogurt dressing. The kids are very enthusiastic after a winter of cooked veggies.

Crafts

There is so much activity around Beltane that the fairy theme seems to get lost in the shuffle then. This is when we really go all out with fairy crafts, coloring sheets, anything with multicolored wings (butterflies made of tissue paper, wands with fairies at the end). We also make sun catchers to hang in the windows or from trees outside, often using translucent materials that can channel light.

However,these crafts can often be found elsewhere, so the one I want to highlight here is one I partly developed from just the glimmer of an idea mentioned elsewhere. It is particularly special because:

• It is exceptionally easy and can be made by even very young children.
• Yet it's beautiful enough to delight adults and be a real home decoration.
• It's a sun image.
• It's made with natural materials.
• And it helps to clean out the pantry in preparation for storing food for another winter.

Creative Commons attribution required illustration by Arie Farnam

Thus it really combines all the elements we want with the Summer Solstice - sun, natural materials, the bounty of the earth, the remembrance that winter will come again. You could even add a fairy if you wanted. 

You will need:

• A clean, sanded, flat square of wood or stiff cardboard as backing
• A pencil
• A lot of white glue
• A bag of red lentils
• A bag of black beans

And here are the steps: 

1. Draw a simple, bold sun shape on your backing with a pencil.
2. Cover the area you drew generously with glue.
3. Pour red lentils generously over the glue.
4. Lightly press the lentils into the glue with your hand.
5. Set aside to dry.
6. Pour the excess lentils, which did not get glued, off.
7. Cover the remaining area of the backing generously with glue. 
8. Lightly press the beans into the glue with your hand.
9. Set aside to dry.
10. Pour the excess beans off.
11. You can either fix a hanger to the back and hang this on the wall or prop it up on your window sill or alter. 

Blessings of the sun to all!

Ritual and fun with children

Creative Commons image by Kathie Hodge

We rarely do a large ritual at Litha. If possible we hold a family bonfire in our garden and sing and drum to help the crops and our dreams grow. Because the Book of Runes by Ralph H. Blum was written over the night of the Summer Solstice, I find it to be a good time for run work. I made my rune script of protection that hangs on the center beam of our house on the Summer Solstice, for instance. It's a time of activity and work. 

But I like to have something that sets the special days apart for the children and besides crafts and strawberry shortcake, we often make fairy houses in the woods. The key is to use all found natural materials that don't harm the plants. It is a way for children to connect with the growing natural world in a deep way. 

We usually start by making walls out of rows of sticks, placing leaf dishes and beds inside and then covering the whole with a roof of moss or bark. Pebbles can be used to make a pretty pathway up to the door. 

Children's Summer Solstice Blessing

Here is a short sun blessing that my children have enjoyed this year. Feel free to use and adapt as you wish.

Ancient Sun, reborn sun, giver of life and energy,

in oil, tree, herb and tide, in harvest bounty and in light,

as you shine in the heavens kindle our hearts with fire.

May you light the world as you light the sky

I love to hear from you. Feel free to ask questions or share your own summer solstice blessings and tips in the comments (icon on the lower left). Share this article with your friends using the icon on the lower right. 

I would also like to invite you to my hearth-side email circle. This is a small group of readers with whom I share the occasional virtual cup of tea and links to my latest writing. This is my protected, spam-free corner of the internet, so that's all you'll receive. 

Beltane and the Witch: Celebrating resilience

The night is dark as you drive out across the East Bohemian highlands. The lights of villages are hidden deep in the vales and hollows of the rolling land. The smell of plum blossoms prickles your nose and there is still a nip in the air on the last night of April.

Leaf crowns for Beltane

Then you round a bend and catch your breath. The stars have fallen onto the hills. For there… and there… and there... and right above the road… and twinkling far off to the south are the fires on the hilltops. And there is something in you that knows this calls back across the millennia and connects you through the land to those who came before.

When I first came to the Czech Republic I didn’t know about the tradition of Beltane fires. I grew up with earth-based spirituality but we didn’t call ourselves Pagan and Beltane was actually one of the few Pagan holidays we didn’t mark in any particular way. I d heard of it, of course, but mostly in a historical context.

Then I drove out to East Bohemia one Beltane night and my soul sang with recognition. This is one of the places in Central Europe where Beltane fires are still lit on the tops of hills and groups of people sit around them and play guitars or flutes to commune with the stars.

Today much of the meaning has been lost… or it seems to have been. As with so many Pagan holidays, this one has been corrupted by later anti-Pagan influences. Beltane is actually called "the Witch” in Czech. And before you get excited about that you should know that the reason it's called the Witch is because it's supposed to be about burning witches.

Czech children are encouraged to make ugly, mocking figures of witches and mount them on stakes in the midst of the bonfire. In my husband’s home village, far to the south in the flat swampy land of South Bohemia, they raise a sixty-foot maypole each year. They don't use any machines to do this, despite the abundance of farm tractors and  cranes in the village. It's still an experience of male bonding in which all of the men, young and old, use a system of levers to raise it. There's no dancing but there is sometimes music. The bonfire is as big as a house and usually has multiple stakes with the female figures tied to them.

The men of Stribrec village raise the maypole next to the witch fire.

I try to embrace the good parts of these traditions. There are usually plenty of children around who are eager for a craft, so I bring materials to make flower and leaf crowns. And we play circle games in the dusk on the village green where the bonfire burns. At least it's a Pagan holiday that is still celebrated here, despite the gruesome imagery.

But still... I can’t  celebrate Beltane here without the shadow of sadness or without my trigger buttons of social trauma being pushed. The concept of outcast witches being burnt in fires is a little too close to home when I experienced extreme ostracism and outcast status as a child, due to my vision impairment and earth-based family culture.

Some people, many Czech Pagans included, put a positive spin on the tradition of burning the Witch. They say that the witch figures are “the witch of winter” and burning them (or in some cases casting them into a flowing river) is a symbol of letting go of old, outmoded thinking and making way for new spring growth. I support this weaving of traditions and that is what I tell my children about the witches in the Beltane fires. The are four and six years old and a little young for explanations of the darker aspects. They will encounter this Czech tradition everywhere at this time of year, so I can't abolish it. I can only change my attitude towards it.

Ember Farnam dancing the maypole

Yet I can easily imagine a lighter and more joyful Beltane. Two years ago, we stayed home on Beltane, instead of visiting my husband’s village and we built our own maypole and engaged the kids from our neighborhood in dancing with ribbons. We made flower cake and leaf crowns and sang songs. We hung flower decorations from our fruit trees and built our own bonfire for a brief ritual to celebrate life and passion of all kinds.

I enjoy joyful Beltane celebration of love and life. But then I miss the depth of feeling in the other, grittier version. Though most Czechs don't know it, they celebrate Beltane by dancing along the knife edge of history, going back more than a thousand years to a time when Celtic druids walked these hills and celebrated the rite of spring. And so maybe the symbols of pain and suffering are fitting after all. They tell of the resilience of these people who were forced to change and adapt by multiple invading hordes, by a succession of foreign kings, by a monolithic religion that tried very hard to stamp out their celebrations, by two brutal world wars, by the deadening totalitarian regime of the last century that attempted to crush all traces of spirituality and finally by modern consumerist cultural homogeneity.

And yet they still light Beltane fires... after all that. Now that's resilience.

There's another way I celebrate Beltane with my children. This is the time of year when we read books about environmental problems and the heroes and heroines of earth-protection movements. We talk about what we can do to help. We pick up litter and I give the kids lessons in conserving energy, reducing waste and recycling. We talk about Greenpeace and renew our family contribution. We garden and write letters for environmental activism. These are small things but they are part of the season for us. 

And this too is connected because the earth is "the witch" in so many ways--the quintessential outcast mother figure. The earth has suffered so much and continues to come back. There are places in the Czech Republic that were utterly devastated twenty years ago, the trees all gone and the ground literally gray from the effects of massive acid rain and coal smoke. Industrial conditions have been improved in that area and those places that seemed beyond salvage a few years ago are now some of the most beautiful areas of the country. And that's resilience.

As our ancestors kept on living and loving through all they endured... as the earth keeps on regenerating despite incredible abuse... as the spring always comes again after winter, may Beltane bring us the blessings of resilience. 

Here are my tips for family Beltane celebrations:

Crafts:

Flower babies and mini maypole

Leaf crowns: Construct a simple crown by making a cardboard headband. You can either use double-sided tape and stick real leaves to the headband for a quick and particularly verdant crown or you can paint paper leaves and glue them on for something a bit more durable. 

Flower babies: Paint small balls in various skin tones and add faces to them. Crumple colored tissue paper around them to make petals and glue in place.  Attach a pipe cleaner to the back to make a flower and you have cute images of flowers and babies combined.

Miniature maypole:  You can make a miniature maypole as a table decoration. Fill a pretty bowl with play doh and stick a fairly straight stick into the middle of it. Make a ring out of a piece of ribbon and attach this to the top. Then take lengths of various colored ribbons and attach them to the ring, letting them hang down on the sides or attaching them to the edges of the bowl. 

Flower cake

Cooking

Flower cake:  Make your favorite cake base but add dandelion, violet and daisy petals to the batter. Then make pink frosting with a package of cream cheese, a few teaspoons of beet or black berry juice, two tablespoons of lemon juice and powdered sugar to taste. Decorate the top with more flower petals and candied violets (my recipe here). 

Spring bounty salad: Make a salad with young greens and herbs and add edible flower petals such as dandelion, violets and daisies. Put goat cheese, boiled eggs, seeds and oil and vinegar on top. 

Songs

I like to sing Simple Gifts and The Earth is Our Mother at Beltane time. 

Here is a song I made up that young children can sing around the Beltane fire to the tune of Mulberry Bush:

Children's Beltane decorations

Here we go round the Beltane fire, the Beltane fire, the Beltane fire.

Here we go round the Beltane fire in the rite of spring.

The earth, our mother, rises again, rises again, rises again.

The earth, our mother, rises again with the coming of spring.

Come and dance for love and joy, love and joy, love and joy.

Come and dance for love and joy, that all may live and grow.

Book Review: Naming the Goddess

A defining work for today's goddess spirituality

I'm delighted to share this next book with you. Naming the Goddess, an anthology of over eighty Pagan writers edited by Trevor Greenfield, is a wonderful reflection of Pagan community and writing craft. I expect it will become a mainstay on the bookshelves of Pagans for at least a generation. 

Ceres, the Roman goddess of agriculture: image by the Borghese Collection

The book has two parts. The first section is a series of essays tackling crucial and often divisive issues within goddess-oriented communities. There is no attempt to gloss over or hide from the issues that trouble us. They are brought out and discussed both thoughtfully and eloquently from a variety of perspectives, some of which conflict with each other. The reader is allowed to see differences in perspective and to form independent ideas. 

The second section is among the best references on specific goddesses that I have seen. It is heavy on Egyptian, Middle Eastern, Greek, Roman and Celtic goddesses with a smattering of others. There is a problematic lack of non-Egyptian African goddesses. Still the geographical imbalance is less marked than in most similar references and Naming the Goddess represents a step in the right direction. I hope that future editions of the book will expand the cultural diversity of the anthology.

The reason I say this is one of the best references on goddesses is because each entry is written by a different writer--a writer with specific personal experience of the goddess in question. Each entry has a different flavor and a distinct passion that could never be achieved with a reference written by one person. This allows the reader to gain an intuitive sense of the goddesses, rather than just the intellectual understanding of correspondences and stories. 

Book Review: Wild Earth, Wild Soul

A manual for leading workshops in ecological interconnection

The description I encountered for Wild Earth, Wild Soul by Bill Pfeiffer prior to reading it for review didn't sufficiently prepare me for the fact that this is primarily a manual for leading a particular type of retreat group. The Amazon description makes it sound like the book itself is meant to help the reader tap into ancestral memories, become part of a lasting culture and develop an ecstatic life.  That's a bit misleading.

The book is instead a fairly well-organized manual for workshop and retreat leaders in a specific tradition that the reader is expected to already be somewhat familiar with. The book is well-written with accessible prose and interesting examples. However, its structure as a manual for a specific type of workshop will be less useful to readers who aren't involved in the specific Wild Earth Intensive movement. It also isn't the best introduction to such a movement, with the emphasis being on how to lead groups rather than on the underlying concepts and ideas.

That said the book does have one use for the general reader who is interested in community organizations and leadership. Many of the activities in the book could be adapted to other types of workshops and organizations. While some of the activities and ideas are things familiar to most people involved in environmental movements, some are quite unique and refreshing. There is enough detail that an experienced workshop leader could adapt them to a variety of situations.

The one thing I find truly lacking in the book both for the general reader and for the Wild Earth Intensive movement is a serious treatment of social exclusion in groups. The focus of the book is on developing not only an ecologically sustainable culture but on forming community that will be sustainable through deepening interconnection between human beings in a group and with the natural world. The concept is a good one and mostly it is well executed. However, it comes from the perspective of a person who has always been well-accepted socially and without a deep consciousness of social trauma. There is little or nothing to address the issues facing people with disabilities or other truly marginalized individuals in a group. And these issues will come up for a workshop coordinator in such a setting. They come up at every similar conference or workshop I have attended and I have seen leaders fail time and again to address them well and bring the group to accept excluded members of the group. There is some attempt in Wild Earth, Wild Soul to address the need to balance the more talkative and less talkative members of the group through specific methods, and these are good ones. However, there are also plenty of suggestions of dividing the group up into pairs without the recognition that there will always be one or two individuals who no one will voluntarily pair with because of uncomfortable differences. There can be no sustainable culture and no interconnection as long as these issues are not addressed in the very settings where people are most interested in overcoming social and ecological trauma. The book tackles these tough issues weakly and insufficiently, yet I know of no comparable book that deals with them any better at present.