Samhain & Yule 2012

Alrighty, so. Here are our plans for the upcoming holidays, my lovelies. 

Samhain
We will be celebrating at my home, as we did for Beltane. 

Hopefully, we'll be able to pick up some pumpkins to carve and the like<3.

Here's to hoping that Tess can make it. ):

For dinner, we'll be having: 

Rolls with homemade Cinnamon Butter

prepared by myself

Skewered Beef Tips to be Roasted over the Fire

with onions/mushrooms/both/none

prepare by myself

Baked Pumpkin Seeds

prepared together

Cheesy Potato Soup

prepared by Liv

And for dessert, we'll be having:

Pomegranate Parfaits and Witch's Brew

prepared by Liv

Yule

We'll most likely be celebrating at Liv's?

We'll meet the night before, do any last minute cooking, etc.

For breakfast, we'll be having:

Roast Rosemary Chicken on Buttermilk Biscuits

shredded and served with gravy

prepared by myself

Sun King Soup

prepared by myself

To drink, we'll be having:

Traditional Wassail

prepared together

And for desserts/snacks, we'll be having:

Baked Apples

prepared together

Moon Cookies

prepared by Tess

Candied Cranberries

prepared by Liv

Yule Fudge

prepared by Liv

Plans are subject to change, as our schedules may change and so on, but for now, we have this to look forward to. 

I can't wait to meet up with you all again! 

, Grey

Beltane 2012

And so, today, our Beltane festivities begin. 


I'll be picking up the girls around 6, we'll eat, then we'll head outside while the pies are being baked. My boyfriend's family are being insanely gracious and helping me out / letting me host it in our backyard. I'm going to try to find a way to rig up some music for us, and... yeah! 


I'm a little breathy, smell like dirt, a little scatterbrained -- just spent a good bit outside, gathering up fallen branches and dried pine needles, building up our fire in the pit. Hopefully it'll stay lit for more than a few minutes at a time! I have four bits of ribbon for us. Fuchsia, royal blue, pearly white, and lush green. Very Spring-y colors, nice and lively. 


I'm a little sad to say that I couldn't do a big meal for us like I'd planned, but I just haven't had work in a while. (Everyone is having fiscal troubles, eh?) But! We'll be having pizza instead, which isn't too bad an alternative. Who doesn't like pizza? We'll drink water and raspberry tea...


Whelp. I'll update in a few hours -- maybe in the morning -- on how everything goes. 


Happy Beltane all!




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About 12 hours and a fantastic night later, here I am! 


Picked up the girls as I said I would and it turned out they had made some goodies for all of us. Lemon thyme bars, nutmeg cookies, and a salad with almonds and strawberries topped in a raspberry vinaigrette -- all of which was freakin' delicious, of course. We chowed down on pizza, talked and relaxed for a little bit. On my way upstairs to grab our ribbons, my boyfriend's mother and I started talking. She ended up giving us a staff that she'd received from a seer friend of hers to use as our Maypole. 


Excited, we headed outside and prepped our ribbons, writing our hopes for the year and each other on them. We each had our different colors, but the thick green one was for all of us as a whole. We huddled around it and took turns writing on it. Once all of the ribbons were attached to the staff, we lit up our bonfire. 


Our timing was fantastic. The sun was just dipping beneath the trees, painting the sky radiant pinks and oranges. As the flames licked up the sides of the logs, we circled the maypole, our ribbons creating a colorful swirl about it. At the end, we tied them all together to keep them in place, and laughed. We were dizzy but we were happy. 


We left the maypole in the ground and spent the rest of the night nibbling on freshly baked apple pie and the other treats that we'd made. Talking to each other, laughing, making future plans. My boyfriend and his brother joined us. We took 136 pictures all together, half of which came out looking horribly demonic because the camera didn't know how to function around a fire...


We ended up making the girls little beds in our room. We took them home around 11. 


It was so much fun. I can't wait for our next get-together. 


Midsummer, here we come? haha


I hope your Beltane was as wonderful as ours. Blessed be!

Humbly,      

Shannon Grey

P.S. The veil between the worlds is thinner on Beltane, right? Spirits and fae poke about curiously, causing mischief and taking part in the festivities, spreading their own ideas of merriment. -- Well. The wind was definitely playful with the energy of the evening. Numerous times we would attempt to do things, such as pouring cinnamon over the bonfire, or we would say something silly, and it would whip up, dancing all around us or send the smoke billowing in our direction. 

Beltane Planning

My sisters and I spent this past Yule together, as well as Ostara just a few weeks ago. Each time we've made sure to at least see each other, to make some food and get together for a few hours, you know? 


Well, just recently, I've had a bit of a celestial thump to the head. The three of us. Three. Three make a coven. Duh! I'll admit I've been holding back a little. I've always celebrated these things alone, so I've gotten used to keeping it all to myself, etc, etc. Besides, I didn't want to stumble upon... people who might come off as hypocrites or creeps? Oh, I could say such worse things, but I bite my tongue, haha. I shan't judge people so harshly.


My point is, as the 'eldest,' I feel like I should be helping out the girls a little more, ya? Opening up to them, in the very least, and really putting forth the effort to get some real planning done. I want to create traditions that we'll keep for the rest of our lives and, most of all, I want to really make sure that we're all comfortable in our own skin here. So! I'm really taking charge for Beltane -- May Day -- this year. 


The day on my calendar is cleared and I've made sure I can have the girls over. Probably around sunset, I think we'll light up a fire in the pit. Maybe we'll add some aromatic herbs to the fodder? Cinnamon, rosemary, and sandalwood are respective to Beltane and they sell delicious.


Once we've done that, the real fun can begin. I'm definitely going to encourage that we play a lot of good music. Things that we can sing with and dance with, things that will get our energy up. We'll probably set up some speakers and play it just loud enough that we aren't disturbing any neighbors. Most likely turn it down after 9 if we're out that long, though, just to be courteous.


Then, I want to look into making a maypole -- or rather, a sort of maystaff. Nothing too tall or wild, but just a little staff that we can wrap in ribbons. I think it would be really neat if we all had our own specific colors of ribbon, then one to signify the coven as a whole. A little tradition I was looking into included writing little wishes of healing on ribbons and tying them to trees, but instead, I think it would be even neater if we wrote said wishes on the ribbons that will go onto our maystaff~! I would love to keep our maystaff for years to come and just add more ribbons to it with each celebration, you know? 


And, the best part of any celebration, the food! I'm going to go over a few recipes myself -- probably make a pie and a main course with some sort of meat in it? -- and pick out what I want to make, then I encourage that the girls make something as well. Even if they're little treats that can be bought from Publix, so long as they taste good? Awesome. I definitely can't complain.


To close, in the morning, I want each of us to be able to walk around our respective places and beat out a ring of protection. We can walk around our houses, our yards, our rooms, whichever, and hum to ourselves, or sing, or talk. or just. think. and ask for the protection that we need, charge the ground where we walk with our love and energy. Maybe we'll beat around our fire the night before as well! Then, after that, we can roll in the dew and soak up the beauty of the season.


Yeah, I think this Beltane is going to be incredible.


On a side note: I've kind of assigned a little homework assignment for each of us. I want us to write down and really think about what we see when we think of the Goddess and the God. How do they move? How do they talk? What are their mannerisms? What do they look like? Do they have names that you associate with them? The idea is that if we can build a character around them, give them a more familiar form, then perhaps connecting and talking to them will be easier. It's just an idea and they don't have to do it, but I know I certainly will. Maybe I'll share it on here some day~.


Whelp. That's all I've got to share for now.


Blessed be!

Humbly,          

Shannon Grey