As the title says, this is our ritual for Lá Fhéile Bhríd. Using the lunar reckoning this would have been January 21st, we held our ritual and feast on January 25th. We also made butter and Brigit’s Crosses this year. The butter will be used in our rituals for the coming year.
Happy Solar New Year!
First post of the year 2015 on the Gregorian Calendar and I thought it should be about the calendar used in Gentlidecht na gCuanaigh. In the article “Telling Time Through Worship” I talk a bit about what the Gentlidecht calendar should look like so in this article I am going to apply that information using the Notional Celtic Calendar. This is a lunar calendar so it is not as easy as just looking up the first of the month for November, February. May or August. We have to look at when the moon phases fall and as this year will have 13 months instead of 12 (there is one interracial month this year) we will have to make an adjustment to our usual calculations of having a festival every third month (1st of the 1st month, 1st of the 4th month, 1st of the 7th month, 1st of the 10th month and three months later the 1st of the 1st month in the new year).
So let’s start with some terms. Quarter Day and Cross Quarter Day, or as we call them Fíor Ráithí and Cam Ráithí, we follow the pre-Christian Irish usage of these terms so the quarter days are the main festivals commonly placed at February 1, May 1, August 1, and November 1. The Cross Quarter Day (crooked if you translated our Irish) would be the equinoxes and solstices and crooked as is better term in this instance as you will notice these dates will not fall at exactly between the quarter days. I want to point out this is the opposite usage of the same terms by other Neopagan religions (and most English based calendars), which is why it is better to use the Irish as not to confuse folks.
As the Cam Ráithí are solar events they are easily identified on any calendar, so we don’t need to go into detailed explanation on how to find the dates. To figure out the Fíor Ráithí using the Notional Celtic Calendar you have to go back to October 2014, as that is when the this year began, on 1 Samhain or October 24, 2014. This is the point we start going forward to identify Lá Fhéile Bhríd.
What we are looking for are the New Moons as it is the day after each New Moon that the new month begins. Knowing that the commonly accepted Neopagan date is February 1 and that the solar date would be the exact (English) cross quarter date, we jump ahead to February 2015. We find the New Moon in February to be the 18th and the Winter Cross Quarter Day to be on the 4th, further we see that the 5th month of the lunar year begins on the 19th. Which date is it? Well, none of them. What we want is the first day of the 4th month of the year. Even though there is going to be 13 months this year, we want to stick as close to the usual 12 month cycle as possible, so we go back to January and find the New Moon to be on the 20th, making the 21st the first day of the 4th month and our date for Lá Fhéile Bhríd as it is not too far off from the expected solar date.
Now we will do the same thing for Lá Bealtaine, and jump to May 2015. We find the Spring Cross Quarter day on the 5th and the New Moon on the 18th. Note that the 19th starts the eighth month, what we are looking for is the start of the seventh month so we jump back to April and find the start of the seventh month to be April 19th. So this is the date of our lunar based Lá Bealtaine.
For Lá Lúnasa we again jump to the expected date in August and find the Summer Cross Quarter day to be the 7th and the new Moon to be the 14th. With the start of the 11th month on the 15th we have to go back to July and locate the start of the 10th month which is July 17th.
Finally, we identify the start of the following year and Samhain. Jumping to November this date is easily identified as November 12th. Which seems odd as every other date occurred prior to the expected date and this one occurs after. What occurred is what is called an intercalary month, or a leap month. An entire month added in to keep the lunar calendar in sync with the common solar calendar. As this month is added at the end of the year it created a larger space between festivals that what would usually occur. We could have chosen to skip a month at any point to stay as close to the expected dates but as I started earlier, the idea was to keep as close to the every three lunar month cycle as possible.
Using the same method with different assumptions you may place your festivals at other dates. This is perfectly acceptable as it is important for groups to establish their own methods of identifying their holy periods and ritual year. What is important is consistency in method of identifying the dates.
Here is the resulting calendar with the lunar Fíor Ráithí and solar Cam Ráithí for 2015.
Lá Fhéile Bhríd – January 21st
Spring Equinox – March 20th
Lá Bealtaine – April 19th
Summer Solstice – June 21st
Lá Lúnasa – July 17th
Fall Equinox – September 23rd
Féile na Shamhna – November 12th
Winter Solstice – December 21st
Notes:
Gentlidecht na gCuanaigh – As there are variations on Gentlidecht throughout the world this is the specific form of Gentlidecht as it is done by the Genti of Five Rivers Protogrove and myself.
New Moon – The creator of this calendar uses the term to give the date of the Dark Moon, the night the moon is totally dark.
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Old and deep.
That is the first thing that comes to mind when I consider the nature of the god known as Manannan Mac Lir. I first met him in August of 1994 when my 1st marriage ended. I wrote about it shortly after it occurred and while not a well written piece, it was near 20 years ago, it conveys the experience well enough:
The expansion of the ritual year has always been controversial within
the Celtic Reconstructionist movement with most people publicly settling
on only celebrating the four documented festivals of the ancient
Pre-Christian people. However, with the advent of the internet it has
become clear that many more folk from the CR community have quietly
expanded the ritual year to include other festivals. In the Gentlidecht Holiday Cycle I gave several examples of how the ritual year can be expanded to include many days to celebrate various heroes and gods throughout the year. In this segment I am going to focus on some ideas for a winter festival that are not based wholly on what the Irish are known to have done, but are events based on events in Ireland, American cultural activities, or the weather in my region.
The first option for a winter festival is to make offerings to the Cailleach, assuming you did not do so at Samhain. In Scotland, March 25th is a traditional day on which offerings are made to the Cailleach as this is when winter has truly lost its grip and by Bealtaine she is subdued. Here in the Midatlantic region of the United States winter does not usually begin in earnest until late December and only lasts through early March. By March 25th the Winter is usually well past and the early spring plants are already visible in the gardens.
If offering to the Cailleach is not to your liking, you already made her offerings at Samhain, or you want to stick with tradition then we can look to Ireland for an event that speaks to a possible festival at Winter Solstice, the shining of the sun into the roof box of New Grange. While New Grange predates the coming of the Celtic speaking people to Ireland, it does not pre-date the Irish who, as recent genetic research has shown, have been on the island since at least 2000 BCE with the arrival of the “Beaker People.” While we do not know the religious beliefs or the gods of these pre-Celtic Irish people, we do know that when the Celts arrived they continued to view New Grange as a sacred site, the home of Aengus Og. A festival for Aengus Og this time of year would be to bring joy to the darkness of winter. Being a god associated with youth and lovethis should be a rather fun event.
A third option is to take the secular activities that go on during the Christmas season (that is the most common term for it) and expand them into one that meets your religious needs. As an example my group uses this time of year to celebrate our patrons. This is reflective of the attitude that this time of year is focused on family and gifts so holding a ritual to give and receive gifts from your patron is perfectly appropriate for our culture.
So here are three ideas for you to consider for a festival at the winter solstice. You could make offerings to the Cailleach in the hopes that she blesses you with a mild winter. You could also hold a festival for Aengus Og to bring some light to the darker months. Finally you could celebrate the family. While none are traditional, what is new can eventually become tradition.
Note – There are many who make offerings to the Cailleach at Samhain which is also appropriate.
This years ritual will be held in a park and is open to the public. As with all ritual drafts it may change by the date of the ritual but I wanted folks to see it prior to the event. The lunar date for the start of the month Samhain is October 24th, we will be holding our Feast of Samhain (November) on October 26th.
All:
All:
Let the flame be the hearth fire,
Let the water be the Well of Knowledge
Let the tree be the bile, (bill-uh)
I stand in the grove at the center of the realms,
All: Biodh Se! (bee-shay)
|
Local River Goddesses
|
Corn meal
|
|
Manannan Mac Lir
|
Alcohol, water grasses, yellow flower
|
|
Mighty Dead
|
Food/bread
|
|
Spirits of Place
|
honey/sage smoke
|
|
Tuatha de Danaan
|
Alcohol
|
|
Ancestors
|
A meal
|
|
The folk
|
Apples
|
All:
All:
Let the flame be the hearth fire,
Lets the water be the Well of Knowledge
Let the tree be the bile,
(bill-uh)
I stand in the grove at the center of the realms,
All: Biodh Se! (bee-shay)
|
Local
River Goddesses |
Corn
meal |
|
Manannan
Mac Lir |
Alcohol,
water grasses, yellow flower |
|
Mighty
Dead |
Food/bread
|
|
Spirits
of Place |
honey/sage
smoke |
|
Tuatha
de Danaan |
Alcohol
|
|
Land
Goddesses |
Harvest
Items |
|
The
folk |
Apples
|
In the article Gentlidecht Holiday Cycle I mentioned several possible additional seasonal events that Genti can include in their calender to flesh out the ritual year. Two such events occur in September, with Lá Fhéile Finn mac Cumhaill (or if you prefer the Hero-Feast of Finn mac Cumhaill) at the start of hunting season and Lá Fhéile Aibhneacha towards the end of the month around the time of the fall equinox. Both are modern events created by genti to make offerings to specific beings that they consider to be special and worthy of devotion.
Lá Fhéile Finn mac Cumhaill is a festival that I propose should fall at the start of deer hunting season. Finn is a hunter, warrior, outlaw, poet and seer; living off the land and protecting his people from outsiders. In a forthcoming article on him I will make an argument that he is a hunter god (representing both hunter and prey) but for the purposes of this article lets just call him a ‘god of the hunt.’ As such placing his special day at the start of a hunting season is perfect, I chose deer season due to his associations with deer in the names of his son (Oisín) and grandson (Oscar) and in the name of his warrior band ‘fianna’ being modern Irish for a herd of deer.
There are two ways to handle this particular feast. The first way is to do it as a celebration of the opening of hunting season and to make offerings to Finn for his aid in a successful hunt. Another purpose would be to hold the feast after the first successful hunt and make offerings to Finn in gratitude. In either instance the offering of prey meat would be the most appropriate, though you would have to have something remaining from the previous year if you did it as a season opening feast. Other options would be pig, salmon or even mead…everyone likes mead.
The second event of September is called Lá Fhéile Aibhneacha, the Festival of the Rivers. In this instance the rivers are the deified river or land spirits of our local major water sources. I chose the equinox for this one to give genti a ritual to celebrate the second harvest and to give thanks to the rivers that provide the life giving fluids to our crops. Here in Maryland our offerings are to the five mountain born rivers that run to the Chesapeake, irrigating our fields, turning our turbines and providing the water supply. Of course you should look local for your land goddess.
There really is only one offering to make to the land goddesses this time of year, seasonal harvest foods. With all the farmers markets or even our own gardens this is a simple offering and makes the most sense since such crops could not exist without their life giving waters.
So, for us Genti the month of September can be a busy month. With two opportunities for the community to come together to worship and feast. In a coming post I will share my groups ritual for Lá Fhéile Aibhneacha.
In Part 1 of the Outlaw/Outsiders series, I talk about the mythological Fianna protecting Ireland from outsiders, this includes foreigners from other lands and Otherworldly beings bent on harming the people of Ireland. In the stories these beings are not given a special name and by there nature, Otherworldly beings are ‘outsiders’ to our world so for purposes of this article and discussion the term ‘outsiders’ will only represent those beings that are hostile and/or disruptive to us. In most ADF groves they include a section of the ritual where they make offerings to the outsiders as an offering to appease or make peace with them so they do not interfere with the ritual. Others portray the outsiders as negative emotional baggage carried by the ritual attendees which is cleansed by the appeasement of the outsiders. In the version of Gentlidecht
I practice we view the outsiders as beings not emotions, and we do not make offerings to them during the normal course of our rituals.
Among the various Irish Polytheist folk, treating with the outsiders is something that varies from group to group and the reasons for and against are also varied. My group of genti have chosen to not include offerings to the outsiders for a few of reasons. Reason number one is that we have no evidence that I am aware, of the pre-Christian Irish doing such things.
Of course absence of proof is not proof of absence so that leads into the fact that in the legends such beings were dealt with by other outsiders, in Ireland’s case the Fianna lead by Fionn mac Cumhaill, not the members of society. Trained specialists who could travel between the worlds to deal with the hostile forces in an effective, and deadly manner. They did not bribe them, they defeated them. So reason number two is, it is not the place of the community to keep the hostile outsiders at bay, but the responsibility of the ‘friendly’ outsiders.
Finally we do not wish to call to them or attract them with goodies and create a situation of ‘blackmail’ in which we have to constantly provide for them. This situation is not obvious to most but for those groups that have regularly made such offerings in the same space for a period of time, the area used begins to develop a ‘darkness’ about it that doesn’t go away without some serious work.
There is a way for those who wish to include some sort of acknowledgement of the outsiders to do so without creating a ‘hostile’ zone. I have already pointed out that in legends there are beings whose job it is to defend against outsiders. If you wish to include an outsider section in your rituals my suggestion is to make the offerings to a defender being and not the ‘hostile’ forces. Two such beings would be Fionn mac Cumhaill and Angus mac Og who both have qualities of being an outsider or defender from outsider forces. This way you are asking for the being to protect you from those things that are not friendly to what you are trying to accomplish.
During the development of Gentlidecht na gCuain we have chosen to not include a section for the ‘outdwellers/outsiders’ in our rituals for three clear reasons. One is that we have no evidence that it was part of ancient Irish Pagan rituals, the legends show that it was other outsider beings dealt with outsiders rather than anyone within the community, and because anecdotal evidence shows that having a regular place where offerings are made to hostile outsiders develops a relationship of blackmail, bribery and an unfriendly space near the ritual.
In Irish legend there are only four documented feast days: Samain, Imbolc, Beltain, and Lughnasadh or Brón Trogain, as it is called in Tochmar Emire (Wooing of Emir.) As a result many folks who identify as Celtic Reconstructionists of the Irish persuasion only celebrate those four days as their annual religious cycle. However, neolithic sites, folklore, and evidence in other Indoeuropean cultures show that something could have been going on at other times of the year and just not mentioned by the monks who wrote down the Tochmar Emire. Further, being a modern religion there is no reason why groups or individuals can’t have feasts and festivals specific to their religious practice. What follows are a few examples of feasts and festivals folks in the CR community have added to their ritual year with links so you can do further research.
March 17 – Hero-Feast of Cú Chulainn: Promoted by P. Sufenas Virius Lupus (PSVL) blog posts and a Facebook Page this Saint Patrick Day alternative is gaining popularity.
March 25 – Latha na Cailliche: While the festival is Scottish in origin there is no reason why followers of Gentlidecht can’t also make offerings to her as she is found in Ireland as Cailleach Beara. Being a goddess associated with the winter and storms it may not be a bad idea. Brian Walsh goes into some detail on his blog.
June 17 – Hero-Feast of Suibhne Geilt: Another feast day promoted by PSVL this one is for the legendary Irish king who was afflicted by the curse of a saint (one called Rónán), went mad as the result of being adversely affected by the spirits of battle, and then lived in the wilderness for many years, taking on bird-like characteristics, and occasionally uttering inspired nature poetry.
June 25 (or Summer Solstice) – Midummer, Paying Rent to Manannan and Lá Fhéile Oirbsen (Law Ayluh Oribsheen) are all terms that can be applied to a holiday that many Irish polytheist have taken on to honor Manannan Mac Lir. The practice comes from the June 25th Manx tradition of paying rent (in the form of rushes) to the first king of the Island so that he does not allow the sea to rise up and swallow the land. Many examples of rent paying rituals can be found with a simple search.
September 20 (or Fall Equinox) – Lá Fhéile Aibhneacha (Law Ayluh Ow-wen-uch-ah) or the Festival of the Rivers. This is a festival day I devised to give thanks to the local land goddesses during the harvest season. Just as the Boyne and Shannon are goddesses in Ireland, the rivers in North America are goddesses and we should thank them for the life they bring to our land.
Varied Sept – Nov – Hero-Feast of Finn mac Cumhaill: The third Irish hero feast proposed by PSVL’s blog. Now my placement and reason for this feast do vary from PSVL, and I expect to do a post about it in the future in some detail. For now though, I place what I will be calling Lá Fhéile Finn mac Cumhaill around the start of deer hunting season in hopes for a good hunt.
Decmber 13 – Lá Fhéile Badhbh: This feast is celebrated by Faoladh who has yet to fully explain it other than to say “it’s got to do with werewolves.”
In addition to the major feast days of, Oíche Shamhna (Eekhuh Hownuh), Lá Fhéile Bhríd (Law Ayluh Vreedj), Lá Bealtaine (Law Byaltinyuh), and Lá Lúnasa (Law Loonuhsuh), and any monthly feasts held, genti could have a busy year of festivities that would be the envy of any other Neopagan religion.
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If you are interested in developing feasts and holidays of your own, I encourage you to read the books listed below to get started.
Danaher, K. (1972). The Year in Ireland: Irish Calendar Customs. Dublin: Mercier Press.
Ó Súilleábhain, S. (1977). Irish Folk Custom and Belief. Cork: Mercier Press.
Let me first list the common traits among the groups that
identify as using a congregation model.
During these discussions and interviews I found instances of tribes trying to rebuild ancient social structures such as roles in society (druid, brehon, fili, etc), and fostering, adoption or marriage into the tribe. But I also found tribes that did not have any desire to reconstruct ancient societal structures though they may use terms such as chief for the leader. On the flip side none of the folks using congregation as a model were interested in making such a reconstruction.