Summer Solstice

Litha is the longest day of the year when the sun is at his full might.  Therefore fire imagery is strong on this day.  A bonfire again is common.  Fire purifies the woe and the discord and gives warmth to life.  Common herbs are lavender (personal favorite), chamomile, and vervain.  Harvesting herbs on this night and drying them by the bonfire is said to increase potency in the herbs for magical workings.  White is a common color as is gold for the sun.  Many who use mirrors for magical dealings will cleanse and then absorb the midsummer magic into the mirrors for future use as well.  Summer fruits of course provide the menu—cherries, apricots, and plums for example are tasty at any time this day.  My ritual bowl was brimming with them.

In the past I have performed full blown rituals, rituals outside, simplified rituals at a campground as well as shared rituals with friends in the backyard which entailed burning packets of summer herbs while pouring all of the negativity I felt at the time into the little packet and watching it get cleansed by the fire.  There are many possibilities, but I must say I really enjoy being outside for this ritual rather than in the basement where most of my rituals occur.  Being in a short season for outdoor rituals area Litha is typically one of those celebrations that I relish the opportunity to be outside making merry.  I would really have preferred to be out of town for solstice--somewhere in the mountains.  Alas!  I have workshops all week and couldn't get out of city limits this year.

If I am inside though, I will use a green candle for the Goddess and gold candle for the God on my altar as well as either a white or a gold cloth.  Outdoors though, I cut way back on the accoutrement.  The idea is the same however—asking that the God cleanse what isn’t currently working and thank the Goddess for her continued energy to propel forward what is working.

Blazing God, I feel the fire of your passion burning in all life.
Mother Goddess I see the earth full to bursting with the fruit of your bounty.
On this night of unequaled magic
Fires flame to their zenith in the Lord and Lady’s combined joy.

This is when I would place the summer herbs into the white packet and tie it with a red ribbon.  On the paper used as an envelope I would write what I see going well and what needs a bit of cleansing.

Midsummer fire burning bright
Take these items from my life and world
Purify them in the Lord’s fervent light.


Midsummer fire glowing sight
Take these items from my life and world
Nourish them to the Lady’s delight.

Simple feast and thanks then close.

Please Allow Me to Introduce My Brain

I apologize for not posting for a few weeks.  I fully intended to do so.  However my mind prefers to continually race at unearthly speeds thereby devouring so much information that at times it overwhelms me.  Consequently, I have been at a loss of where to begin.  That said, I’ll say the crux of this post plainly.

I don’t believe in God.

The story that kicked off this most recent introspection on faith happened to be about a Mormon woman whose husband told her quietly before bed that he no longer believed.  This deeply moving article provided a different perspective for me.  I have read countless stories about Catholics who no longer believe, but this was the first by a Mormon that I have read.  The tone of the article touched me to my core.    Her tale reflects what is so often overlooked or disregarded—we disbelievers spend a great deal of time pondering this notion.  It does not just occur.  We reflect, we pray, we consider, we study and ultimately we use the magnificent lump of grey matter in our skulls to reason out what we truly believe about spirituality and our place in the universe. We can reach a conclusion that may not agree with everything that we’ve been taught to believe up to that point, but we made the choice for ourselves and guess what?  We can do it peacefully without condemning or harassing others who still believe.  As we close the door on the church we’ve always known, we also open doors to new kinds of equally valuable relationships.

What astonished me the most this week involved the number of articles that described clergy men and women who are leaving their faiths and discovering comfort in some of those new and valuable relationships.  If people who have dedicated their lives to delivering God’s message can find themselves doubting to the point they describe themselves as atheist—what does that say about the state of faith in America?  This is the flipside to that coin that keeps getting thrown around when policy decisions run up against religion.  The Clergy Project provides a much needed network of support for these people who find themselves ostracized and threatened and suddenly without security of home and finance.  In the CNN article, Dewitt raises an interesting point: he’s still ministering, just a little differently than he used to.  How beautiful is that?  It acknowledges that his ministering changed over time as his understanding and belief changed, but he’s still ministering to people in need.  Clearly we can still be compassionate and loving counselors to one another even without deferring to a supreme being.  The Clergy Project started with about 52 members last year.  It now lists 285 on its homepage.  With the coverage it has been receiving, I bet it continues to grow.  The clergy men and women are fortunate to have this connection and I hope that it continues to assist them.  Each story I’ve read lately includes a common thread beyond the loss of faith; they include a lack of animosity toward the religion they leave—even toward the members of their congregation who threaten them.

The lack of animosity suggests to me that these people truly spent time deep in contemplation about their beliefs and therefore reached peace in their decision.  I too am at that point.  While it would be easy for me to cite the priest abuse scandal or the Vatican’s war on nuns as reasons for anger and be perfectly justified in that outrage, I tend not to take that tack.  Don’t get me wrong—both of those situations are horrifying to me, but I can forgive them and be completely thankful that I do not recognize the infallibility of the Pope.  That lump of grey matter in my skull tells me holding on to anger about these situations would serve no purpose.  While these two situations appall me and revolt me, they are not the only reasons why I will not describe myself as Catholic.  Greta Christina posted a fantastic article about the topten reasons she doesn’t believe in God and I tend to agree with the article wholeheartedly. I’ve read a couple of articles from Big Think lately about how we continue to discover consciousness as part of the brain, not a soul gifted us by God.  Through MRIs and photon emission computed topography now we know that prayer and meditation and speaking in tongues affect the brain in very specific ways—it alters our consciousness.  If someone wants to call that evidence of God moving through them, fine. However I do not.  When I am deep in meditation or visualization I know I am tapping into a part of my brain that apparently is dedicated specifically for this purpose and it produces some amazing sensations and experiences. To me though, it’s not some supernatural supreme entity saying “Hi!” It’s my brain doing something that takes a lot of practice to do.  It feels amazing and euphoric and it benefits my health and well being therefore I do it.  It’s no wonder that humans created all these amazing lush stories to explain this effect.  It’s no wonder we created fantastical myths to explain the world around us and all of its beauty.  Yet now we know other explanations exist.  There are no turtles supporting the world.  There is no Mount Olympus where Zeus rules all.  There are no demons at the core of our planet; it’s made of our original Earthly core and a gigantic Mars-sized pseudo planet that hit Earth a really long time ago causing both Earth’s axis tilt and the formation of the moon.

My husband and I also recently began watching Carl Sagan’s Cosmos on Netflix.  I love a little brain stimulation about the universe and he likens it to Mr. Rogers in space.  In one of the early episodes they show an experiment that uses just the essential, basic gases like helium being squirted into a glass container and guess what happens?  Given enough time those gases combine to create the primordial sludge of life.  Hmm…ponderous is it not?  Allow that brown goo some more time and those little bacteria etc. will begin the process of evolution.  I do not believe in Adam and Eve.  It’s a lovely tale, but it’s not how things happened.

I’m sure you might be wondering how I can call myself a solitary Wiccan given this perspective.  Surely there must be a different label that better fits.  Well, believe it or not paganism and specifically for me Wicca fit the best in my understanding of the universe so far.  Granted I am heavily influenced by the works of cosmology like Carl Sagan and I disregard a lot of dogma that some schools of Wicca insist upon.  There's that lump of grey matter at work again.  You see, from studying the universe I have learned the moon was part of earth.  Now it’s not and without it, our planet would wobble around worse than a bowl full of jelly.  Our climate would be uncontrollable and we’d probably die soon after the moon goes away.  The moon stabilizes this beautiful planet.  It controls the tides so our land masses are not almost completely submerged by water.  It provides the gravity we need to stay on just the right tilt to the sun.  The sun also exerts a little gravitational pull to keep us in the sweet spot.  Thanks to this lovely balance life as we know it exists.  Pagans got this part right—the sun and moon help us thrive.  Without either one, we’d perish.  I believe in the power of nature and that magical thinking is enough.