I am a witch

 I was born with a flicker of ability
It wasn’t enough
I learned what I could
It wasn’t enough
I did what I could
It wasn’t enough
I taught what I could
It won’t be enough
Now I am old
Now I draw maps
You have concerns about the pen I use
You have concerns about the ink’s source
Have your concerns
But take the maps
I paid for them with my days

Hooray, Hooray, for the First of May

One of the things that I have always loved about the Wheel of the Year; the cycle of eight holidays that are celebrated in the Craft, is that they are anchored to real events. You can look out of your window and see the Winter Solstice happen. Likewise the Summer Solstice, Spring and Autumn Equinoxes. They are not the anniversary of a supposed historical event, or the day when ‘our people traditionally do the thing’ but rather the reverent observation of the patterns of movement in the Universe around us.

The tricky bit happens because of two guys: Julian, and Gregory. Julian invented this calendar system, and it was predominant in Western Europe when the ancient holidays marked on the Wheel of the Year entered into a broader syncretic cultural context. The first of May, for example, was actually just about always right in between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice. Same with the first of February, August, and November being just about exactly poised between equinoxes and solstices.

Gregory, however, screwed that all up. He made a new calendar and moved things four or five days away from where they previously were.

In my opinion, clinging to the human-invented date of 1 May as the day to celebrate when the actual halfway day is 4 or 5 May is an elevation of a defunct human calendar over the divine movement of the Universe around us.

In the year 2020 of what is called the Common Era, the halfway day between Spring Equinox and Summer Solstice is 4 May, not 1 May. That is the day that I will celebrate; the day when it is really happening outside my front door.

The Winter Solstice Banquet

When I was growing up, Christmas was often a stressful and traumatic time. Life in my family wasn't peaceful in general, so adding stress, expectations, and a fair amount of alcohol didn't improve matters. I was baptized and partially raised in the Catholic Church, so Christmas was very definitely a religious holiday with a bunch of other fun stuff tacked on to it.

I stopped celebrating Christmas when I was 15 years old because I had decided to commit myself to living a Pagan life, and it seemed the height of hypocrisy to make a fuss over the birth of Jesus. My friends and I who formed our teenage coven celebrated Winter Solstice together, of course, but without a home to decorate or the ability to mark the shortest day rather than Jesus' birthday it still kind of felt like Christmas and I didn't like it.

When, after lots of adventures I finally got my first real home in Ballard, I was absolutely resolved that I would decorate for Solstice and have a real celebration. My close friend Pandora and I conceived of a multi-course celebratory dinner, and that was the start of what became the Winter Solstice Banquet.

The Banquet is a ritual meal, rather than a ritual per se. If the Solstice is a religious holiday for you, then the Banquet is a religious event, but if it isn't, it's still a really nice evening with good food, good friends, and heart-felt reflection on the year that is ending. Each of the courses of the meal has a question that each guest answers during that course. The meal doesn't progress until everyone has had a chance to speak. For that reason, it's best to limit guests to about eight. Otherwise, you are likely to spend an uncomfortable amount of time sitting in front of empty plates.

I held the Banquet in my home in Ballard until I was forced out and moved to my condo in Greenwood. My place here doesn't have a dining area, so I thought that the Banquet was lost to me forever.

From 2007 until 2017 there was no Banquet and I grew more bitter and despondent during Christmas with each passing year. I would usually spend Christmas with Doug and his mother in Victoria, and although entirely pleasant, I had grown so resentful of the day that it was a struggle to keep my feelings under wraps.

Then, in 2016, I drew the Tower card (It's a Tarot reference - go look it up). I came home from US Thanksgiving with my family to a home in the process of being destroyed by flooding from my upstairs neighbor. When all was said and done, I came back from two months of living in a hotel to a living room with no furniture. For a while, I looked for replacement items, but nothing felt right. I started using folding camping furniture for convenience. That solution also allowed me to put the seating away when I wanted to set up my sewing studio.

Then, in 2018, my beautiful man asked me why I didn't just set up a folding table and have the Banquet again? Uhhh. Ummm. YEAH!!!!

And so on Solstice 2018, the Winter Solstice Banquet was restored.

Here is the order of service in case you want to do this too:

Winter Solstice Banquet

Appetizers

The Shortest Day

The youngest person present reads The Shortest Day by Susan Cooper while all join hands. At the conclusion, toast to "Welcome Yule."

Salad

Question: What was the hardest challenge this year?

Soup

Question: How have you changed?

Seafood

Question: What have you done for others?

Vegetables

Question: What was the highlight this year?

Main

Question: What do you hope for in the new year?

Salutation

Host reads Salutation by Fra Giovanni Giocondo

Dessert

Before posting the poetry texts and the menu we developed last year, I will just add that anyone is welcome to use this as a template to create your own Banquet tradition. Just please tell everyone you know how my genius has enriched your life. Thenk you.

---

The Shortest Day

Susan Cooper

And so the Shortest Day came and the year died
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive.
And when the new year's sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, revelling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us - listen!
All the long echoes, sing the same delight,
This Shortest Day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, feast, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!

---

Salutation

Fra Giovanni Giocondo
excerpted from A Letter to the Most Illustrious the Contessina Allagia degli Aldobrandeschi, Written Christmas Eve 1513 A.D.

I am your friend and my love for you goes deep. There is nothing I can give you which you have not got, but there is much, very much, that, while I cannot give it, you can take.

No heaven can come to us unless our hearts find rest in today. Take heaven!

No peace lies in the future which is not hidden in this present little instant. Take peace!

The gloom of the world is but a shadow. Behind it, yet within our reach is joy. There is radiance and glory in the darkness could we but see - and to see we have only to look. I beseech you to look!

Life is so generous a giver, but we, judging its gifts by the covering, cast them away as ugly, or heavy or hard. Remove the covering and you will find beneath it a living splendor, woven of love, by wisdom, with power.

Welcome it, grasp it, touch the angel's hand that brings it to you. Everything we call a trial, a sorrow, or a duty, believe me, that angel's hand is there, the gift is there, and the wonder of an overshadowing presence. Our joys, too, be not content with them as joys. They, too, conceal diviner gifts.

Life is so full of meaning and purpose, so full of beauty - beneath its covering - that you will find earth but cloaks your heaven.

Courage, then, to claim it, that is all. But courage you have, and the knowledge that we are all pilgrims together, wending through unknown country, home.

And so, at this time, I greet you. Not quite as the world sends greetings, but with profound esteem and with the prayer that for you now and forever, the day breaks, and the shadows flee away.

House Protection

This is the fourth and last of the enchantments that I designed for my House Blessing / Spell Casting party when I moved to Baile Ard in 1999. See Spell To Attract A Cool Boyfriend for more details on the event.

This business of being a Witch is a funny thing. On one hand, you must have absolute confidence in the truth of your words; so much so that the deepest part of you, where you are connected to the fluid underpinnings of reality will respond and make things as you say they are. On the other, you must have an absolute and unflinching dedication to the truth and that means looking honestly at your failures, taking your lumps, and learning from them.

This spell was an utter failure. Harm, grief, and sorrow were regular visitors to Baile Ard. That's where I woke up on the day that I endured the most sorrowful experience of my life so-far: the death of my Mother.

So, I don't offer this as a good example of protective magic. I offer this rather as a quaint remembrance of a time when I thought a safe home and a well-protected life were much simpler things to achieve.

House Protection 

Take a handful of salt from the kitchen and proceed to sprinkle it on the front or back doorsill while repeating the following charm: 

I cast this salt upon the ground and by this act my spell is bound.Keep out all harm, grief, and sorrow on each today and each tomorrow! I mean this for this sill and door and throughout this house forever more! Heed this charm! Cause no harm! So mote it be!

I have since devised a new domestic ward spell which is far, far more demanding to cast and so-far, more effective.