By The Broomstick

Monday, 3 January 2011

12 days of Mithra-mas day 9

January 3rd, Evergreen Day

There are many instances within human history where trees have been revered. From the ancient Oak groves of the Celts, to the standing trees which were sacred to Demeter, to the belief in the “Tree of Knowledge” from christian fable, to the “Tree of Life” of Kabalistic traditions, and even the "Tree of the World" where Thor hung to receive the runes, worship and reverence have always surrounded the trees.

Why it’s called an evergreen a Cherokee fable:
When the Great Mystery created the planet, he sought to give a gift to one lucky tree, but didn’t know which tree deserved the gift. So he held a contest, to see which tree would stay awake for seven days and seven nights. One by one each tree fell asleep until the seventh night, where only the pine, the cedar, the spruce, the fir, the holly, and the laurel were still awake. So to them the great mystery gave the gift for life during winter. and thus created the evergreens.

Honoring the Evergreens
when trimming the tree, decorate it with intent, remember that the tree is revered for many reasons, including being the home of the green man.
Invoke and thank the tree for being the home’s protector the purveyor of goodwill and good fortune for those that are in the home, and as the messenger of the New Year.

gather around the tree to sing songs.
Make your home a sanctuary of greenery, either purchased or found, thank the spirits within for their presence.
Honor the greenery
When the season is over, thanks the tree for it’s presence in your home, find a way to either recycle it or get it chipped into mulch for your spring garden.
For the holly and mistletoe, and laurels 9fi real) you can save these for the Imbolc fire and burn them, with reverence, letting go of the old year and bringing good will and prosperity into the new year.

Some information for Honoring the Tree derived from John Matthews Winter Solstice

Blessed Be

Sunday, 2 January 2011

12 days of Mithra-mas day 8

Snow Day January: 2nd

Just as the name states, today we honor snow. modern day Christmas or Midwinter celebrations would not be complete without it (unless of course you live in the tropics or Africa). Despite it being a pain to shovel, snow brings so many different adventures with it. As children we enjoy, skiing, tubing, and just plain old snow ball fights. There is the magic of creating a snow man and looking to see if that hat has magic in it like frosty’s hat.

In college I remember a leaving work late one night with two co-workers, and making a dare to go tubing in on the town's hilliest parks. because we left work we had none of the things needed we created our own. We went to the local Walgreen's and split the cost of buying a box of large trash bags, we also bought huge sweatshirts and extra sweatpants. We parked across the park, grabbed our bags and went "sledding", we were having so much fun, some of the neighborhood kids came out with their sleds and tubes, and we all had a pretty good party. When the comes came rolling by, we all dropped into the snow and lay there until they left 9as the park was closed at sundown, and it was well after midnight. I remember the full moon shining down and illuminating the park and the hills, the feel of the wind as we rushed down the slopes and the laughter the impromptu party caused.

One of my fondest memories of christmas was just before we moved to America, we had our last tropical christmas as a new family, our flight was delayed due to a snowstorm and we ended up spending christmas in Jamaica. But because most of the big things had been shipped already (including my mother’s antique Victorian christmas tree) we created our own tree including snow. We cut down big mango leaves and created our tree, my mother let us place some of her precious heirloom decorations on it, and we made some decorations as well, we had a blast creating the snow with cotton balls stretched and fluffed to look like puffy strands, with tossed on glitter to give the shimmer of icicles. Out of all the trees, the expensive trees with their Tiffany decorations, and antiques, the one I remember to this day is that tree we created with our own snow.

Celebrate:
If it has snowed already in your area, collect some in a bowl, place it on your altar, as it sits there, thing of any fond memories you have of snow, and when they happened. Your first snowman, or first snow angel. Bring up these memories and imagine them going into the snow, once there allow the snow to melt, you can either use the snow-water to cleanse your home and bring good memories like the ones you added to it, or you can save it to use during a ritual as holy water.

Go outside (if you live with snow) have some fun, take you animals for a walk, run thru the snow, fall back create a snow angel. Imagine the dancing swirling snow flurries are the winter fairies, and allow yourself to enjoy this feeling of the Goddess and her glory.

No snow in your area?? You can still create snow for yourself with some paper or if you can crochet with a nice crochet pattern.
You can also read the legends of the different Goddesses associated with snow, and use the created snow or fresh snow as a way to honor them and acknowledge them.

Let the joy of childhood fun in the snow run thru you and enjoy the feeling of winter, pretty soon the snow will melt and Spring will be here.

How ever you choose to celebrate
Enjoy today's mission of snowbound fun
Be blessed

Saturday, 1 January 2011

12 days of Mithras-mas day 7: Wassail Drink Hail

Jan 1st, New Year's Day; The Kalends of January

I’m a big fan of the susatainable movement and homesteading. So over the winter one of the blogs I have been (obsessiveness) following mentioned the Victorian Farm, and I of course went looking for it on youtube and fell head over heels in love.

I found this amazing Wassial idea and history from the recent show Edwardian Farm from BBC, I love watching Victorian Farm especially the Christmas special, but the shows are great at showing how we lived before and how our farming and domestic life evolved to a semblance of what we have today. I love reading the recipes that Ruth (the resident domestic historian) makes and shares.

Here is a Wassail Recipe

Heat a large container of beer or ale about 3 or 4 pints
1/2 cup(4oz, 100g) sugar
1/4 cup(2oz/50g) of mixed spice (cinnamon sticks, & whole cloves are best)
cut up 2 or 3 small sweet apples & add those
add 1 1/2 cup (1/2 pint, 300ml) of pineapple juice & orange juice
squeeze 2 lemons into the brew
place over a slow flame, before it begins to boil,take off the heat & whip up with some cream, allow to float on top of brew.
place into a large bowl. the more ornate the better

Wassail Ceremony

Go out to your trees, (especially apple trees, or fruit trees which is traditional) with a few friends. Wet the roots liberally with the brew, pass the rest around and when everyone has a glass, sing the wassailing songs.And saw "Huzzah" as you drink.

recipe from Winter Solstice by John Matthews.

here's too thee, old apple tree

whence thou may'st bud &

whence thou may'st blow

and whence thou may'st

bear apples enow

Hats full, Caps full, bushel

bushel sacks full

and my pockets full too!

Huzzah!!

As Yule went by they showed a new show and someone very nicely put it on Youtube and I have linked it here on doing Wassailing, and it's history. Peter and Alex noticed that their apple trees weren't producing as they should so they requested help in Wassailing the tree. I also discovered a new blog with an awesome wassial recipe as well (i also got the image from her, which i also found on bing)

Enjoy the clip, let me know what you think about it. if you want to watch the series and aren't in Europe check on Youtube under Edwardian Farm there are clips as well as full episodes loaded.

Wassail Drink Hail
Be Blessed

Happy Solar New Year

Hello my loves
are you recovering yet?? Well, welcome the New Year 2011, this is going to be an excellent and fun filled year. Work towards all your goals, as we are in charge of our destinies.

Some minor updates and changes, I wanted to thank all the participants of the 21 days of Yule blog party, as well as those who stopped by each participants blogs and entered into giveaways; made comments, and generally enjoyed reading the posts.

I also wanted to welcome and thank all the new subscribers, to the blog.
How i live my path maybe different from yours but hopefully we will be able to read each other's differences and not judge but gain an understanding of what make each of us beautifully unique,

As for the updates, I will be implementing the Disqus comments on my posts, so if you don't see your comments, DONT panic i didn't delete them, I changed over because it makes it easier to comment back to each poster, and allows each poster to see when I or others have replied to them And because Disqus isn't from blogger it doesn't keep the old comments, but I still have them they haven't gone anywhere

I have already started the Celtic Tree month posts, which will share some information about the tradition that influences my path greatly while sharing some information you may not have known.

I am also going to be doing the Dark Winter, Dark Magick event on The Domestic Pagan's blog. I have many things I wish to discuss and hope that you will stick around for the posts and the blog party.

I had created in November a new blog called On Alter'd Space, from a suggestion made by Wendy about doing a blog of just altar images. I wasn't sure at the time how to do it, and still am on the fence on how I wish for it to go. I know I wish to see all your altars, and would love to have a space to show mine also. Whatever else it will be will develop along with the page i'm guessing. So if your interested in having your pictures on the blog, email them to me at aishaoaktree1122 (@)* gmail.com *(removing the parenthesis of course) and I will place them up on the blog. I think I will do postings for esbats and of course Sabbats. Whatever you set your altar up for, you can even do a small description of what each item is for and I will put it up as a post. But I was mostly thinking of pictures (being worth a thousan words and all) and the name and link to the blog of the person, where you could of course then do a blog post about it.

I am participating in several book challenges throughout the year, if you have books you think i should check out definitely write in about them in the comment section. I will be doing reviews for all the books I read as well as attempting to knock off as many of my bucket list items off as possible. So stay tuned for all the fun & craziness. I have them listed on the sidebar, including the 100+ reading challenge, the E-book challenge, and the Show me the free E-book challenge. and of course the iChallenge over at the Book Soulmates page.

I will also be starting a new semester on Jan 20th and I will have to concentrate more on school in the beginning (until I get into the swing of things). I am hoping this blog won’t be affected, but there are no guarantees, if it does become too difficult I will write a post and let you know.( I doubt it though I'm pretty well organized once I get into the swing of things)

I hope your New Year is going to be a Blessed and active one
Blessed Be

Friday, 31 December 2010

2010 iChallenge Wrap Up

I have been having an amazing time re-reading all the amazing books for this challenge that I have sitting on my shelves. I have joined all the Challenges listed on the list, the iFae, iVamp and iWere, because sadly (or not so sadly) those are the only books I seem to read. While I wait for a new book from one author I have another author stacked in the background. When I have no other books sitting then and only then do I read some simple (no paranormal stuff) romances.

There are several authors I love so much that I re-read their books like they are sacred texts (sad I know): These are the books I have reviewed for the 2010 challenge, Goddess I know I read more than this but these are the ones that fit the challenge. Stay tuned for the 2011 list which is a whole lot bigger and more expansive.