Dissonance.....

[mdehners]

Like a lot of Heathens, I Feel dissonance between The Wheel of the Year and historical/traditional Rites. The Ancestors did have seasonal Rites and some even "map" onto the Wheel...though some poorly. Over the last 23 yrs I've Worked BOTH, the modern Heathen WotY and just the historical/traditional ones. Still, I Feel left WANTING.
This yr I've decided to do something different. I'm doing both SEPARATELY. That is, I will "do" Historical Rites and NOT try to "map" them to the Wheel(unless they do, like Yule and Ostara). I will also "do" the seasonal Wheel AS a seasonal Wheel. One of the many Blessings of living here on/in "The Dangly Bits"(below the Bible Belt) is that our actual seasons "map" perfectly to those on the Wheel, unlike folks in other part of the States or World, GENERALLY(like this yr Winter didn't Feel like WInter, like most of the East Coast;>)our Springs are Spring, our Winters are Winter, etc.
Personally, I think I've missed the Ritual/Spiritual connection to seasonality since I left Wicca and CR. The Heathen "Wheel" always felt like someone tried to put the wrong glass slipper on the wrong stepsister;>.
We'll see how this works after a full cycle. At least it'll keep my from "slacking off" religiously ;>!
Cheers,
Pat

Comments

[weofodthignen]

I'm kind of the opposite. It may be because of the visceral loathing of their empty ceremonial that propelled me out of Xianity, but "special days" don't sit very well with me. And I perceive the year as a continuum, or more accurately a set of interwoven changes. Plus of course I have the non-American background, so what's "the start of summer" to most over here is "midsummer" to me ... and I've never been drawn to the Celtic tradition, so the wheel of the year is to me just somebody else's construct.

But Yule is important, and so's remembering the gods (and other wights, including honoring the dead), and we owe them gratitude for the seasons. So I try to do something ... I just blessed my "ploughs" today. It actually felt right this past full moon, but I wasn't well enough; He Who Must Not Be Named says I mustn't blót when I feel ill, and though I don't have your problems, my health ain't what it was. So I went with the day in deference to all the people who phase this and other holy tides to match the Celtic/Wiccan cycle, as I usually do.

Things are also a bit obfuscated by our having added a few in modern times, notably November 11.

When I was researching and writing up the holy tides for the Heathen Thing website (those should still be there), what I found was that in general there's evidence of two times of celebration per season. (Yule instead just runs long.) That was intriguing and seemed to me more likely to reflect actual practice than to be just based on the differing seasons in different places. But I could easily be wrong - I find it very hard to keep numbers and dates straight in my head, and the Icelandic calendar having been fixed as so different complicates things. Plus the very different dates of Disting and Módraneht are an indication that there were regional differences.

However, what I walked away with - follow local seasonal cues but do at least twice as many seasonal rites as one would derive from, say, Heimskringla - fits well with what you say you'll be trying, particularly since you say you find your local seasons in phase with the official tides :-) (I can't say that's particularly how I feel here, but then I've never not been able to match local seasons to the holy tides - except that in NYC there is often exactly one day of spring weather, as opposed to spring light, vegetation, and so on; often a spring shower :-) And winter here is more like autumn in London.

Do the landwights reflect or respond to the seasons the way the beings I can perceive do?

M

[mdehners]

The Landwights in general IME(or Perception;>) are more likely to behave according to the weather, more Active when Warm, Less when Cold. This may be due to our location on the boundary of the Temperate and Subtropical Biomes though;>. I haven't studied this area as much as I did our previous but at Hummingbird while the Activity depended on weather, the numbers depended on season. There simply were more I could See in Summer compared to Winter.(we really don't have Spring and Fall...just a week or two to separate;>).
Being a big "Green Gay", I tend to be attuned to Agricultural "stuff", even though my Growing spaces have been very much curtailed. Every time I "bitch" I remember most of my apts(like mine in The City)where I was damned lucky to have a fire escape to grow a few herbs on.
Climate Change is mucking about with stuff though, both Yule and Charming this yr had Temps in the 70's. Neither felt "Right".
I've ordered some Lilies to plant as soon as they arrive. Normally, I'd have them ordered and(if delivered) Planted by now but LIFE keeps getting in the way. Like getting pulled over this AM for a dead headlight;>.....
Cheers,
Pat