Eostara Among Friends

What a wonderful time I had today! Amie swung by and picked me up, and we went to a house down by Johnson Creek for an Eostara ritual given by Spiral Grove. I didn't know it at the time, but our mutual friend Seanachai is high priestess of this group.

The house was warm and funky and totally obviously belongs to someone of esoteric bent, full of random collected objects and mystical books. There was a delicious array of food in the kitchen (in which the biggest griddle I'd ever seen --- "That's the baby-cooker!" one woman cracked --- hung with a bunch of other pots over an ancient black kitchen woodstove), including scrumptious salads, pastas, tortilla sandwich-rolls, and some kind of squishy maraschino cherry sponge cake. The altar was adorably radiant with the energies and colors of spring.

On impulse I'd grabbed two things: my spring-themed spindle (my Brigid spindle wasn't finished yet), and a sachet of seeds from our Full Moon rite for the local pagan community spirits. The spindle went on the altar along with the other cheerful items and offerings.

Best of all, though, I saw someone I typically encounter on a once-every-few-years basis, such as at a Mayday Morris dance: Spiral. For once not in some hectic public venue or swept up in dancing, Spiral and I were able to connect. We found we had a lot to talk about, from mysticism and quantum physics, to job opportunities and why a government job can beget a lack of social media presence. I need to get her phone number!

The ritual began, the quarters invoked. We all rose and filed past a brazier, burning a pinch of herbs along with an intention of release or manifestation. We each drew a colourful plastic Easter egg with a real egg inside, on which a deity name had been written: you might get anyone from Brigid, Demeter or Cerridwen to Hades, Atropos or Persephone. I got Danu, a new one for me; she's a bit like Brigid's greater mother-figure in that same land of the Irish and Celtic, so I felt this was apt for the moment. We then grabbed eggs for those not present; I took one home for Kathleen, who found Persephone inside.

Crazy cool witch home!

We sang songs, such as this traditional threefold goddess seasonal tune:

"She will bring the buds in the Spring
and laugh among the flowers;
In Summer's heat her kisses are sweet
She sings in leafy bowers.
She cuts the cane and gathers the grain
when leaves of fall surround her
Her bones grow old in wintery cold
She wraps her cloak around her."

There was a gift exchange, and to both my relief and regret I picked the same present I had brought (a bottle of tincture). This can be embarrassing, but it's just as much a matter of chance as not for those of us who aren't super-sensitive to energies! I ended up swapping with Spiral, who described herself as a tincture whore, for a healing rock. We also went around to each quarter as we felt called, and gathered seeds or bulbs depending on the qualities we wanted to manifest for the year.

At some point before we rose to pick our seeds, I was moved to speak. The priestess had just finished mentioning the passing of Aunt Susie to the circled coveners, and a blessing had been sent. I pulled out the Full Moon sachet. I described how I and Aurora's little group had invited the energy of Susie and anyone else we could think of into these seeds, and how I didn't know Susie, but felt she would want the seeds --- and their blessings --- to be distributed as widely as possible!

The priestess Seanachai and a few others seemed deeply moved and thanked me, which made me happy --- but my feelings were definitely less about being special than about being a conduit for a good opportunity and blessing that the spirits wanted to make happen: I knew very well those seeds, and everything they meant, would pack more significance for many of the people there than they could for me, since I hadn't known Susie, and would also have a better chance of getting physically dispersed and planted that way! Thus blessing the land and the bees, too. It was more like: "This needs to get done. And you're in a position to help."

A Green Man lamp and other oddness

I found it hard to pick the particular seeds I wanted from the quarters, because they all had such appealing qualities to manifest in ourselves! I finally settled on a fat brown tuber . When the ritual had ended, I could go back and collect more seeds if I desired, or so they told us.

Jade seems to channel Jillian from Practical Magic

For cakes-and-wine, there were pieces of that spongy red-soaked cake, and little orange slices for those with gluten sensitivity. "The cake has ev-erything " we were warned: gluten, sugar, eggs, the lot.

Post-ritual, we hung out and chatted for quite a bit more. As these photos suggest, folks of this stripe tend to be pretty warm and humorous, or at least some are!

I was loth to leave this happy gathering of a couple dozen fellow pagans and mages, but at last Amie drove me home; I gave Kathleen her egg, and then spent the rest of the day content.