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Handfasting History: An Old Tradition Made New

SGC Admin: Summer time is a time of weddings, and each belief system has its own way of celebrating the act of marriage, or the joining of two lives… Check out what Patti Wigington has to share about the Pagan/Wiccan way of getting wed or Handfasting… :) If you are planning your handfasting this summer, Patti has some helpful tips for you… oh and Congratulations… !!!

Hands tied with ribbon at wedding hand fasting ceremony Stock Photo - 3337511
copy right: andreblais

We’re now into the merry month of May, which means that handfasting season is upon us. Many people in the Pagan community opt to have a handfasting instead of the “traditional wedding” that our non-Pagan friends have. In some cases, it may be simply ceremonial — a couple declaring their love for one another without the benefit of a state license. For other couples, it can be tied in with a state marriage certification issued by a legally authorized party such as a clergyperson or justice of the peace. Either way, the handfasting is becoming more and more popular, as Pagan couples are seeing that there is indeed an alternative for non-Christians who want more than just a courthouse wedding. Today we’ll look at some of the things to keep in mind when you’re planning a handfasting, as well as tips to help make it a magical and successful day!

Handfasting History:

An Old Tradition Made New

In centuries gone by, handfasting was a popular custom in the British Isles. In rural areas, it could be weeks or even months before a clergyman happened to stop by your village, so couples learned to make allowances. A handfasting was the equivalent of today’s common-law marriage — a man and woman simply clasped hands and declared themselves married.

Handfasting History Spring is here, and love is in the air! For many people of Pagan faiths, this is the time of year for a handfasting ceremony. If you’re lucky enough to have someone you love this much, there are a few things you may want to keep in mind while planning your handfasting ceremony.

Handfasting Tips Sample Handfasting Ceremony If you’re planning on having a handfasting ceremony rather than a traditional wedding, you may want to work with your Pagan clergyperson on the writing of the vows. This is a sample ceremony that you can make adjustments to based upon your needs and your spiritual tradition. 

It’s become traditional to give each of your guests a small wedding favor. Typically, these are small trinkets with either the date of the event or the couples’ names on them. However, if you’re having a Pagan or Wiccan handfasting, rather than a traditional wedding ceremony, why not come up with an idea that celebrates your spiritual path, as well as announcing your commitment to the community? Magical Gifts for Your Guests

 Click Here to visit Patti and find our more about Paganism and Wiccan… :) 

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Happy Beltane… Happy May Day… Happy days ahead… :)

SGC Admin: From our inbox to you from From Patti Wigington, your Guide to Paganism / Wicca

Happy May Day Everyone from the SGC Staff… :) 

Please Click Here to find out more about Wicca with Patti…. :) 

Please Click Here to find out more about Beltane one of the 8 Wiccan celebrations

 

Evening of Beltaine, a young witch boils a love potion under the conjuncted Moon and Venus Stock Vector - 19219467
http://www.123rf.com: Illustrator Copyright : Belyaev Viacheslav

 

Beltane is almost here! It falls on May 1 here in the northern hemisphere, and there are all kinds of ways to celebrate. From rites and rituals to crafts and feasts, this spring Sabbat celebrates the greening of the earth, fertility and fire, and the beginning of the planting season. Here are some great ways you and your family can celebrate Beltane this week.

Depending on your particular tradition, there are many different ways you can celebrate Beltane, but the focus is nearly always on fertility and the greening of the earth. It’s the time when the earth mother opens up to the fertility god, and their union brings about healthy livestock, strong crops, and new life all around.

As Beltane approaches, you can decorate your home (and keep your kids entertained) with a number of easy craft projects. Start celebrating a bit early with fun floral crowns and a Maypole altar centrepiece. Also, don’t forget the feast – no celebration is complete without a meal that celebrates the themes of the season!

Southern hemisphere readers, be sure to read up on crafts and recipes that focus on the season of Samhain!

For our southern hemisphere readers, Samhain is this week – it’s a time to honor the end of the harvest and the coming darkness of the year. 

Whichever you may be observing, I wish you and yours a happy and blessed Sabbat.

 

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Your Guide to Paganism / Wicca with Patti Wigington: Spring 2014 planting…

SGC Admin: From our inbox to you…. Yes… it’s time to think spring, along which comes the refreshing task of planning our gardens, patio’s and window box’s…. Happy Spring Everyone… :) 

Flower watered from watering. Springtime Stock Vector - 26522609
http://www.123rf.com: Illustrator dgemma
Your Guide to Paganism / Wicca with Patti Wigington:
Spring planting… :) 

It’s spring, which means many of us are planning our upcoming gardens. Sure, it’s still early, but it’s a good time to get seedlings started indoors, mapping out where in the yard you want which plants to go, and figuring out the timing of all the things you’ll be harvesting next fall. The garden can be one of the most magical places in your life. Today we’ll be talking about how to plan, create, and grow your magical garden, as well as ways to create speciality gardens, herb plots, and more!

 Garden Folklore Around the World

In the early spring, many of us who follow earth-based spiritual paths begin planning our gardens for the coming season. The very act of planting, of beginning new life from seed, is a ritual and a magical act in itself. To cultivate something in the black soil, see it sprout and then bloom, is to watch a magical working unfold before our very eyes. The plant cycle is intrinsically tied to so many earth-based belief systems that it should come as no surprise that the magic of the garden is one well worth looking into. Let’s look at some of the folklore and traditions that surround gardening and planting magic. Read Full Article

 

Continue reading “Your Guide to Paganism / Wicca with Patti Wigington: Spring 2014 planting…” →

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Imbolc tips from Selene @ the Magical Blend… and ritual candles/we’moon calendars on sale

SGC Admin: From our inbox to you… Check out the latest from the Magical Blend… Thanks Selene for sharing your knowledge with us… :) 

Greeting card to important Wiccan sabbath Imbolc, or Candlemas Stock Photo - 17084347
http://www.123rf.com: Illustrator: Belyaev Viacheslav

This is Selene! I know it’s not quite time for Imbolc yet, but I figured I’d pass on some good advice I got recently regarding the holiday. That is, in short, start cleaning now.

For those who don’t know, Imbolc is known to be a time for cleaning, purification, and in general, getting rid of junk. This junk can be metaphysical, metaphorical, or very physical in nature– but you can’t get rid of your emotional baggage until you’ve taken care of the physical stuff, I find. And while I always mean to clean my house on Imbolc, I often find that work and the world in general get in the way of my being able to take a day off and de-junk. As such, my Imbolc rituals always seem just a little guilty; after all, if I really wanted to clean up my altar, wouldn’t I have cleaned up my house first?

Well not this year, folks! I’ve already spent one full weekend getting rid of useless stuff and cleaning out the dust-bunnies, and let me tell you, I’m already feeling way more positive about meeting my Imbolc goals. In fact, I’m planning to keep going at it until my house looks the way I keep saying I want it to look. This year, I will sit down and rededicate my altar without having to apologize to any spiritual presences about the mess.

So here’s my earnest advice for your Imbolc this year: join me, compatriots, in the deadly war against the dust-bunnies. Start your Imbolc cleaning now, and hit it so hard that your house won’t know what happened. Then, on Imbolc, instead of worrying about getting the mess cleaned, instead sit back and enjoy the fact that you’ve already won the battle. :)

On Sale…. 

If you’re looking to outfit your altar with some serious candlelight this Imbolc, now is the time to grab your supplies! From now until Sunday, January 19th, all candles on The Magical Blend website are 10% off. That includes both our lovely recycled wax candles and our stock of Coventry Creations.

We are down to our very last four wall calendars for 2014, all of them We’Moon Wall Calendars. As such, we’re now discounting them to 10$ each until January 31st– at which point Selene will go play Pagan Santa and give them away to friends so they don’t go to waste. If you still haven’t grabbed your calendar, this is a great time to check it off your to-do list!

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From The Magical Blend Montreal…A study in Tarot… :)

Post Date: October 22 2012: From the Editor: I love my Tarot cards, they truly have proven to be a valuable guide for myself and for others I have read for… They amaze me every time I read them… There are many ways a single card or spread can be interpreted… And as a reader we try hard to remember the basic meaning for each of the 78 cards as our base or foundation for the reading…However,  I for one, do not remember all the meanings all the time and rely on my books to assist when needed… :)

The following study exercise presented by The Magical Blend Montreal sounds the perfect way of getting those meanings placed concretely in the memory…

Ah… now to find the time to indulge in the study… :) 

fairy. illustration of a fairy with the cards Stock Photo - 9170775
Graphic: http://www.123rf.com by: Katarzyna Bruniewska-Gierczak
From Poland

Many organized magickal groups require their students to draw their own Tarot deck. You heard me correctly: the dedicated student is asked to draw their own version of every single card in the 78-card deck. We’ve decided to issue our own challenge to our readers who are interested in tarot: every newsletter, starting today, we will be printing a basic primer on one of the twenty-two Major Arcana, in order to stir up the imaginations of our readers and get them drawing.

But why dedicate yourself to such a lengthy endeavour  78 cards sounds like a lot of work, doesn’t it? The reason most of these groups require their students to draw their own cards is to give them a greater understanding of each card’s meaning, and of its place in the universal scheme of things. Once a student has studied a Tarot card to the extent necessary to draw it meaningfully, they will never need to consult a book on what that card means, ever again.

But wait! There’s more! The Tarot are not just a divination tool: they are also considered to be a spiritual road-map of the universe. Each card is one step on the path to stripping away the confusing illusions of reality which limit our magickal perceptions. Those who study the Tarot in-depth and with a serious mindset will often find that their existing abilities with magic stretch and grow with this study, too! For those interested in doing an even more in-depth and serious study, your editor recommends Understanding Aleister Crowley’s Thoth Tarot, which follows the more complex and more stringently symbolic Thoth Tarot Deck.

Blank Tarot cards are available a few places, but if you’re looking to take part in the challenge and you don’t have any, check out our Blank Tarot Cards, and get drawing! For best quality, we recommend drawing out your cards in pencil on separate paper with an artist’s pen from your local crafts store, and/or using art-level markers. Once you’ve got a finished product you like, you can then glue the picture onto your cards neatly, and even get them laminated. This method will keep you from wasting cards due to a jolted hand or even just a finished drawing which you don’t particularly like. For those of us who aren’t confident in our drawing abilities, a collage of relevant images can work just as well, and might even evoke a more reliable response from your brain.

Below, we give you your first lesson in tarot imagery: The Fool.

Trump 0: The Fool

Associations: The Fool is generally associated with the element of Air. In a cosmic sense, it represents the creation of something from nothing– the very beginning of the Universe. Because the Fool pre-dates existence, in a way, it is sometimes not numbered at all.

Meanings: The Fool is perfectly innocent and trusting of the world around him– thus, he thinks nothing of taking risks, since risk is a concept which has not yet occurred to him. Many Tarot interpretations therefore attribute to the Fool spontaneity and the acceptance of a new road on blind faith. Keep in mind that the Fool is all about beginnings, especially: limitless opportunity spreads out before him as he starts the ball rolling on… well. Everything.

A reversed Fool, or a Fool near to certain inauspicious cards (like the Devil) may indicate that this innocence and spontanaeity are being negatively used. For instance, a reversed Fool might indicate that you have been idly wasting your time, or that you’ve given into temptation to do with frivolity. 

Classic Imagery: The classic image associated with the Fool is that of a young man in ostentatiously rich clothing, with only a single satchel, just setting out into the wider world. His foot is poised over a cliff– his next step will likely take him down– but his gaze is focused upward and carefree, and he completely fails to notice. One of the most important symbols in the Fool card are the prominent sun in the background, which sometimes represents pure and unknowable Spirit, before it is clothed in matter or even in thought; in a less mystical sense, the sun can represent the Fool’s ‘mad wisdom’ or innocence. The dog which sometimes yips at the Fool’s heels could be heeded as a warning that he’s about to go over the cliff, but it’s clear that the Fool hasn’t noticed or heeded that warning in the least. The Fool also uses a long, ornate staff to carry his satchel, which has reason to be associated with mystic fire and beginnings in various traditions (if you have a wand on your altar, it serves much the same symbolism).

Suggested Imagery: If you’re not committed to following the usual images, you might consider finding images which to you represent innocence, foolhardiness, and a gung-ho sense of adventure, heedless of consequences. A bit of frivolity and carefree attitude wouldn’t go awry either.

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