Sometimes appreciating and communing with nature means accepting the limitations of where you live.
I used to feel bad when I read so much about meditating outside, sitting in stillness with your eyes closed. I thought these writers had to be much better pagans and witches than me to accept the consequences of that in order to be close to nature.
Then I was lucky enough to visit the UK a few years ago and I realized there's just not the same kind of bugs there. These people weren't somehow ignoring swarms of mosquitos to meditate. They weren't better pagans than me; they lived in a different place.
Since then, I've tried to adjust advice to fit my home. I do nature walk meditations instead of sitting by water and I accept that I can't be out for hours when the temperatures get into the high 90s in July. Once I started working within the limits of Florida, I felt a lot more at home in it.
Now I understand that loving nature doesn't have to look the same in every place and that's okay. You're not a bad witch or pagan because you have to adjust your practice to your home.
Bealtaine (not Beltane) is pronounced ‘Beeowl-tinna’. It does not originate the neopagan wheel of the year. It is one of the four Irish fire festivals.
If you’re celebrating it this year, regardless of your tradition, please take some time to research the roots of this holiday. Do your part to help reverse some of the damage done by the neopagan appropriation of this holiday by learning and incorporating some authentic Irish tradition into your celebrations.
Frau Holle is perhaps one of the most documented and recognizable Continental Deities. There's a lot to cover so you're going to appreciate the Read More link here, but for the uninitiated Frau Holle is in charge of:
The weather, the fae, the wild hunt, death, the milling of souls, beauty, babies, the home, spinning, chores, labor, and a slew of animals like cows and sheep.
In her most popular myth from the Grimm Brothers, she's known for guiding a girl, Marie, through the otherworld. She asks her to do some chores, of which includes shaking out a feather bed to create snow back on earth. Marie is sent home to a shower of gold and riches for her hard work. In some editions of the story, there is another girl who is lazy, and at the end of her journey in the otherworld she's dumped in pitch (sewage).
This is only one of the stories that cements her place as a goddess of weather. Her hair is sunbeams, her laundry is rain, her loom is the rainbow, she breathes the wind, her hearth creates the fog, and her sweeping causes dusty storms.
Her place as a psychopomp- reaping the souls of her dead during the Wild Hunt, causes another story of hers. As she mills the souls, separating their pieces, freeing the consciousness and reusing the soul parts of the ancestors, she also assigns jobs to the dead. In Germanic Paganism, death is not stagnant- the only few who live a lazy afterlife are those who go to Valhof. Her favorite children, her closest devotees, are chosen to cut stars out from the sky. Some hold ladders, some cut and trim with scissors, some sweep the frayed fabric.
The etymology of her name means either "loud, cheery", or "sweet". This is backed up by two things; 1, shes quite a nice lady, and 2, her month is the windy March when her breaths howl through the nights.
In another Myth, Emperor Louis the Pious (Charlemagne's son) Was hunting a white buck when he lost his troupe. He came across a grove where a wild rose bush bloomed. He knelt and prayed to the Virgin Mary that he’d find rescue, and fell asleep doing so. When he woke, there was snow all around him, despite the trees being lush and green. He took this as a sign that Frau Holle was blessing him to build a church to the Virgin Mary there, and the rose bush still stands today as it grows against the chapel in Hildesheim.
Her name bears some resemblance to the Nordic 'huldr', which relates to forest nymphs with cow tails and great beauty, which they hide with veils. Frau Holle is said to be very beautiful, her chief animal is the cow, and her maiden form is typically shown with a veil. However, there is no proof that these two are the same. I take it into consideration because Frau Holle is also a queen of the Fae and Wild Spirits.
Her sacred plant is the elderflower/elderberry bush. It's because of this that Urglaawers and some Hexe are forbidden from cutting the branches of it in fear of offending her. (and because it would rid itself of a very medicinal plant). In fact, the name for Elderflower Bush in German is 'Holunderblute'. Elderberry is just "holunder.'
The colors Blue, White, Red and Gold are chief to her. Blue and White for the snow, Red and Gold for apples (which are a preferred fruit for her, if you wish to give her an offering.) Her feast day is December 24, or Modranicht (mothers night in Germany), but she's also celebrated on Walpurgisnacht or Hexennacht, April 30 evening and morning May 1st, when she takes off for the wild hunt for the Summer. She comes back to stay for the wintertime after Alleleweizel, which is Okt 30-Nov 12.
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