SEASONAL MYSTERIES

Found myself typing this to a friend and thought I'd expand upon it a bit...

...To me, the Rites of the Wheel* are primarily for
   the celebration of seasonal mysteries,
   not just being occasional opportunities to call on
   certain deities and pay tribute to them.

Unfortunately I find a good proportion of the ADF groves out there these days are doing just that . It seems that the seasonal content I hold to be fundamental to our Work is held to be secondary or sometimes even virtually irrelevant to the setup many of their high-day rites. Such an outcome is utterly abhorrent to my vision of Our Druidry.

During the years where I was steering the direction of Sassafras I had always seen the Seasonal Mysteries principle as the Grove's primary liturgical mission. In my opinion this has always been what has made Sassafras unique and I’d hope, somehow, they’d recognize it too and strive to keep it going.

- E.



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* In ADF, as in most of Neopaganism, the annual religious calendar is dominated by eight primary celebrations, sometimes referred to as the "Wheel of the Year" or the "Rites of the Wheel". These eight are comprised of a sequence of the two annual solstices and the two equinoxes and the four midpoints between the solstices and their adjacent equinoxes, known as the cross-quarterdays. In ADF these eight are required to be held as open to the public and are to hold to the minimum set of content and sequential process known as the ADF Core Order of Ritual (COoR).