Catching up to winter

 It's the Winter Solstice and I've realized I've not yet posted about Samhuinn at all. I had a few things kicking around I was going to write about then, like the meaning of sacrifice. After all, I see a lot of people prattling on about animal sacrifice who aren't actually involved in the raising of food animals and most of it is ludicrous.  I mean some is the idea that you can by factory-farmed meat and "sacrifice" it but one bunch actually proudly proclaims they "sacrifice" the "blood" they think is in the bottom off their packages of frozen (factory-farmed no doubt) chicken. Dearies, that's not blood, that's blood tinged water and it's a waste product. You seriously offer to your Gods that which normal people throw away? I'm sorry there's something wrong with that.

Obviously, not everyone is raising any of their own food animals so doing a sacrifice is not possible. I do believe you can do a meat offering with purchased meat, but I'm going to maintain that it really should be purchased with consideration including not using factory farmed meat for offerings. Even if YOU choose to eat factory farmed meat, consider that perhaps you want to splurge if you are buying for them. There are enough resources to find pasture-raised meat in any given area, after all. But also do on think that it is the same as sacrificing an animal you raised from infancy, that you cared for and nurtured and made sure had the best life you could provide for him. Because it's just not. It's an offering.

Lucky (left) with Pops (right) and two hens

Shortly before Samhuinn we did our chicken sacrifice, killing all but one of this year's cockerels. This did include offering the best one to the Gods. We hadn't planned on keeping any, but one little guy who had somehow worked his way into the older flock, with our older rooster, Pops, accepting him after the younger rooster, Sonny, (we don't work real hard in naming our chickens) had gone and taken over the pullets in this year's hatch. Most of the other cockerels had been separated out already, two others managed to live with Sonny okay, but this one head to take Sonny's place in the other flock. I had wanted to keep him, Aaron got me to agree to dispatch him as well, but then he escaped. Found a hole the others didn't. So I put my foot down, he might not be real big or real flashy but he was real smart so he got to live. He still lives with Pops and his hens, but we may eventually try to establish three flocks. Or not. The other factor is that if something happens to either of the other two, we have him. We seem to be calling him "Lucky" but I don't think luck had much to do with it. I think he's a bit of a con artist, but I like that about him. It's a good survival skill in the very complicated society of chickens.

I would have also liked to have written about  how things were going with the mares, but we got rain. Lots of rain. Serious ground-soaking too much mud to do much sort of rain. Which then froze the mud into nasty, hard ground.  So we didn't work with them a lot. A bit of brushing if the rain let up long enough for them to be dry, as much game playing as the mushy and then frozen ground allows. Now we have snow, well today it's turning to slush in a winter rain but I'm hoping it will turn back to snow without painfully frozen slush that resembles that painfully frozen mud. Meanwhile we seem to be settling into a nice winter routine with the four horses and the goat.

So not a lot to talk about which is why I hadn't. We survived Superstorm Sandy which actually wasn't so super by the time she got here so we were again lucky. Or, as I keep noting when others say something nasty about our weather...we found a good place, nestled here in the mountains, when it comes to storms we never seem to get the worse. *knockswood* We celebrated Samhuinn about mid-November, had a nice fire followed by a nice meal. Aaron found a 7lb turnip for our Jack, as our swede growing attempts failed (seriously we need to figure out the goat-proof fencing thing better). So this was damn nice. The meal was one of our chickens with veggies, including most of the inside of the turnip...we actually had too much from it fit it all in the clay cooker. Next year hope to grow our own but matching this size might take a few years.

Now we're settling into winter routine. The past week has been one of sadness and contemplation. And annoyance at rampant stupidity. I think a lot of my winter will be like I am right now, surrounded by snuggling dogs, trying to write and realizing I should get out to check the outside animals and the fires soon.

Winter is getting here...mostly....

Yes, Samhuinn was celebrated, just a few days after my last post. In a nice heavy wet snowfall. It made for a wet, cold ritual, but at least that means didn't have to obsess over whether the fire really was out after, there was enough snow to not matter. We came in, put out our ancestor plate and had a nice feast. The hounds didn't attend, just didn't seem like they'd appreciate it, but they were happy to get a bit of shortbread when we came back. The fuzzy dogs joined us, unfazed by the snow, and seem to have assigned themselves particular ritual parts during the Outsiders' offering.....Gleann went out, like always, with me, but Sachairi stayed to guard Aaron. This is the first we noticed this, it may be because the hounds weren't there.

That snow is now gone again, although at the moment some is trying to come back. We had more warm weather, which has led to continued horse training. In one session Saorsa had her first training in how to carry my enemies' heads. She seemed to be fine about this at first, but then did get a bit upset over the whole thing. Our trainer, btw, thought my interpretation of what this exercise was very odd. In general, this is Saorsa, though, something new doesn't bother her...until she gets bored with it. Keeping this mare occupied is going to always be a challenge.

Misty on the other hand is lazy and stubborn. Riding her is rather a chore at this point for me, but that will just take time and doing it more. Aaron' has begun actual riding lessons and as the trainer/instructor is there on the ground to get Misty to move she moves a bit more during their lessons.

This past weekend, although nice for it, we didn't do training, as we were busy going to pick up a cat from a friend who needed to find him a home. So now we're sort of complete on farm companion animals. So far, Merlin, the cat (the name he came with and will keep as changing anything else is going to be too much for him), is not warming up to us. But we have all winter before we'd want to let him roam outside much anyway. He is proving to be a hunter, however. And he is chicken safe, which is good as he's big enough to be a problem if he wasn't.

I have fixed up the website and it is now residing at the new URL http://www.dunsgathan.net/ and the old one should now be resolving into the new address. Not all changes are there, I finally decided that I had to get it up or I'd wait forever waiting for "perfection." And now I can't use working on it as an excuse to not get to other writing. Of course, Merlin needs a page. And I have plans for more stuff on the Gaelic Heathen section, but it won't ALL need to be uploaded again.

Still not Samhuinn?

We had thought we might celebrate on the full moon. I like doing ritual, especially Samhuinn which we do at night, on the full moon. There's speculation out there that this might have been a traditional time for gathering rituals, giving people time to travel in the increasing moonlight. Yeah, I'm way too lazy for citations here and it was mostly discussion on some list or other. I'm not worried as much on that as I am that it works for us. Usually.

But we didn't. It's not just that there are a few things I still don't feel we've gotten ready, but last week the days were in the 60s. We got a couple of cold days, which inspired us to get some of the housework that we wanted to get done done, and yesterday was probably got over 60 again. It doesn't feel like it's time yet, even if it certainly looks it.

It also doesn't help that my perception is probably really skewed due to working nights. Now I'm up and out most of the day most days, the days may be shorter but this is the most sunlight I've gotten in five years. It's like I'm catching up on summer, doing summer things I often didn't have enough daylight hours to do. So on the day we would have done ritual, I spent the early part playing with the horses. (Yes, I went to work Misty but Saorsa joined us ont he outside of our very fancy round pen...it was actually pretty damn awesome. The girls are doing absolutely great. Obviously, lazy little Misty has moments of exuberance. ) Yesterday we, and our trainer, took the mares up the road all the way up to our "sheiling" ... what had been our upper pasture when I was young, where our temple is although we didn't go anywhere near that far. Just for a visit, which brought up our hopes that we can afford to get that turned back into pasture (now it's mostly golden rod, dog wood and milkweed) and put the mares up there in the summer. This is a bit ironic as bringing them back would then be part of Samhuinn....but we did, of course, bring them back so....sorta, kinda symbolic?

There may be another reason that I've not felt ready. A few days ago I was hit by some thoughts about our rituals and a change that needs made. Really, it should have been done a long time ago, but ..... When we moved here we made some changes related to the move, this should have been one. But changing ritual is a tricky thing. Obviously, I can do it. 20 years ago this Samhuinn (which would have been a couple weeks earlier than this, I stuck more to the calendar then), I did my last Wiccan ritual, in which was focused on leaving Wicca. That was a huge change, it actually took me awhile before I did any formal ritual beyond making simple offerings.

Changes that involve no longer inviting and offering to a particular Deity are the most troubling. When we moved here we realized we had to alter Who our Goddess of the Land was. It was troubling, but it felt very important, because I feel the Land Goddess here was calling me back here. We kept offering to the one we offered to in the Seacoast, it was particularly important as this change was upsetting to at least one person in our group at the time. But when the group disbanded and it was just us, we slowly stopped. I later I found more and more evidence that this name, one so very popular in the Pagan Community, was a late invention and is very unlikely to have been a pre-Christian Goddess (mind you some argue none of Them are, as all the literature is Christian). Her creation can be somewhat traced as John Carey noted (“The Name ‘Tuatha Dé Danann’" Éigse, Vol. 18, prt. 2) as well as Alexei Kondratiev. And, of course, by already honoring, to say the least as She is my patron, An Morrígan, I realized I was not going to be stopping honoring "*Danu."

This time it's harder, because the God in question is one where there is some of the best evidence for His existence. And in this case He had been one I felt a connection with, while *Danu as that name and as she's usually worshiped now, I never felt a connection with. Thing is, since moving here, I haven't felt that connection. He's not here. Continuing to offer to Him as we have was sort of a habit, there was no real call by Someone else wanting His "job" and when we were a group it would have been a even bigger problem for the member mentioned above. But he's not been here for a long time, it's really long past due for me to think about this. And how to handle it.

Thing is, making this change sort of leaves open reexamining our entire ritual structure. Since I felt nudged to do this a few days ago, I feel really jazzed to see what happens, because I feel it might wake things up for us in a lot of ways. If we had celebrated on the full moon, it would have been the same thing we've been doing. I think this "on hold" feeling was in part to explore and prepare for these changes to come.

Still not sure what night we'll do this, we have most things prepared now though so it could be any night now. But it's been a long time since I think I've felt this excited about doing a ceremony. It should be interesting, at least.