Remembering the SUN at the June Solstice

For a number of good reasons, we need to be a little more careful with our thinking than we often are. The words we choose for one thing can unwittingly limit or even exclude another. Such is the case when understanding the relationship of "Sun", "Earth", "Earth Mother", and "Mother Nature". Let's consider the implications in the following:

So, yes... 

The MOTHER is not the EARTH,

The MOTHER is not the "Blue Marble"...

The MOTHER...  is  LIFE

The MOTHER...  is  NATURE.

This, for us specifically, is a terribly important distinction.

As we prepare for our SUMMER SOLSTICE events, 

let us reflect on the role the Sun plays in our lives and how little attention it is given in Neopaganism generally. 

Far too often some ADF Groves, other Druid groups and Wiccans defer to celebrating the lore of some ancient mythic characters in their June Solstice rites with little or no actual acknowledgement of the Real Sun and our absolute dependence on It.

Regardless of what your group has planned for the Solstice, 

this year please consider at least personally exploring and remembering the role of the Sun in our existence and the history of Humanity, for it has only been some two thousand years or so that most of our ancestors have spent their lives draped in the darkness of their own shadows, enslaved by doctrines cursing This Life, while continually fixated on their shallow promises of the "Next"...

TURN AROUND !  

Turn around, I bid you now... 

and forsake those shadows, 

embracing the sunrise as

the True Light of All Life 

reaches its annual summit, 

high in the skies over

our beautiful world....

- Earrach (c) 2015

photo (c.2006)  by Lassair

SUMMER SOLSTICE 2017 occurs at 

12:24 AM Eastern, WEDNESDAY JUNE 21st

SEASONAL READING:

"Why Not the Sun?" 

(click here)

- my standard essay on the Sun and Neodruidic practice. 

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"The (Neopagan) Solar Apostasy"

(click here) 

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"What's a SOLSTICE ? (vs. Equinox, etc.)"

(click here)

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The Gayatri Mantra

Info...
Spoken...

=======================================================

Is the Sun conscious? Is it "divine"?

(click here)

Summer Solstice sunrise 2015 at the Tor over Fairview 

( our holy hill in the Pittsburgh south suburbs ). 

Photo and video by Lassair.

All hail the Invincible Sun !!


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My very best BELTANE BLESSING

There she is in the 1993 Beltane photos, back when I barely knew her. It was the Beltane of 1993 and I had been earnestly working on developing some kind of Neopagan community in our area since the late 1980’s. A small group of us had already begun a tradition of annual Beltane picnics, doing our best to drag whatever local paganfolk we could find, out into the open long enough for them to share and socialize and get a sense of themselves as being part of an actual community. By 1989 I had been self publishing a community newsletter and by September 1992 had officially established Sassafras Grove ADF as Pittsburgh’s branch of Ár nDraíocht Féin, the International Neopagan Druidic organization started by Isaac Bonewits in the 1980’s.

Diana had been to the Beltane picnic and a couple subsequent Sassafras/ADF rites but it wasn't until Valentines Day that we had our first official date. We still consider that our anniversary. We were cohabiting by the mid-late 90's and we bought our house together in September of 2002.  

Every year Beltane seems like an anniversary to us as well. Di and I both look back fondly on those early Beltanes and that beautiful grove in the woods where for so many years we brought in the May with love, passion and hard work. 

This year? Not so romantic. Perhaps some of you know that I've been ill, and great leaping Morris-Men, I've just had to spend Beltane in hospital (where I am writing this now). I had been diagnosed and first treated for CLL (a common form of Leukemia) in 2012. The first chemo treatments at the end of 2012 worked very well and I only had my first relapse now this February of 2015.

I cannot begin to adequately describe how wonderful Diana has been throughout this journey, how constant, hard working and dedicated a companion and caregiver she has been. I am so incredibly lucky to have her. I hope for all of you that when the time comes that you end up having someone to fulfill these roles for you anywhere as well as I have been blessed by having Diana in my life.

SO, there I was Friday, sitting-out a perfect Mayday "in the dugout" (I could do worse; the view from my hospital window actually is spectacular; what a beautiful day!) and, in she comes, and my heart skips a beat; I'm so glad to see her and, well, to me she looks just so "wonderful". I'm 61 now (Di's's 4 years younger) and one's aesthetic assessment of things does change in this period of life but honestly, regardless, to me she's one of those women who actually does get better with age... simply "wonderfuller and wonderfuller".

Bright BELTANE BLESSINGS to all !

- EARRACH of Pittsburgh