It's June, so that must mean it's Litha soon

We moved a while back to pastures new. A good place, with a garden for Littleun, with the hills just a few yards away. One of the things we are enjoying is finding out how the locals do things.

It is very different from where we have come, there yes they celebrated many things but it was a bit of a split community. Here everyone knows everyone. Before we had even finished unpacking I could tell you the names of all our neighbours. I didn't know the names of my old neighbours, even though they had been there for the 13 years I'd lived there!

So we turned the calender over yesterday and started the countdown to Litha/Summer Solstice and had a look around in the area to see what they do for it. And boy are we spoilt for choice. After looking through it all we have decided to go and join our friends the Pentacle Drummers at their celebration a few miles over in the next town.

Here be a few things from their site about it all:

This Summer Solstice come and Join Eastbournes most popular drumming group, The Pentacle Drummers, Lords of Earthen Drums at their spectacular Summer Solstice event in their home town.

A fun filled day for all the family, with Ceremony, Drumming, Morris Dancing, Bouncy castles and slides, Sand pits, Fancy dress, Stoneage games, Belly dancers and much more, followed by an evening of Great music and dancing under the stars.

FREE PARKING & FREE CHILDRENS ACTIVITIES

This event will be held on secure private enclosed grounds, so the whole family can play in a safe private environment.

The Line up so far.
Evening Entertainment:Emma Harrop
DC Fontana
Roxircle
Inkubus Sukkubus

Daytime entertainment will be from:Devilstick Peat
Pentacle Drummers
Emma HarropThe Sea Gypsies
More to be announced.

For the Kids there will be a free Bouncy Castle and Bouncy Slide, plus FREE professional Face Painting (not just for the kids though)

Other traditional summer fayre entertainment will include:
Have a Go Archery run by the Herstmonceux Archers, Hook A Duck, Splat The Rat, Kids Coconut Shy, Pick a Straw, Penny Roller, Tin Can Ally, Teddy Tombola, Bottle Tombola, Water Splat Stocks (filled with your favourite Pentacle Drummer!), Toy Stall, Bric'a'Brac, Books.

There will also be stalls selling magnificent items and crafts.

This event will also be supporting WRAS, a local wild life ambulance service.

 

Please do click on the photo above for a link jump to their Facebook event page.

So mixed up with our personal celebrations and family gathering, we are looking forward to it all.

Busy busy times

Well the last week has seen my littleuns birthday (party was noisy, Pirate themed) His first week at the new school and a whole lot of work at the allotment. And we have loved every minute of it. But it has meant that I haven't a clue what or where I am so you can imagine my surprise when I looked up the date today for some work, eek! where has it all gone? I thought I had days yet to get ready. So this year we are having a slightly scaled back Mabon and what with the Harvest moon to celebrate too the answer has yet again been bake.

Today we made some biscuits for littleun to take into school, the teacher there has read a little of his casefile and found the small word half way down the page that indicates we aren't quite like the others in his class. Fortunately she seems to be very positive and has asked us to provide some things that would show his class mates what we do. And for all my ramblings I found it very hard to do so. Opening up to her our rituals and patterns wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. Bizarre when you consider that I write it all here for anyone anywhere to see!

However fact sheet, photos and biscuits now done, littleun excited at sharing it all and to top it off a blog entry, finally!

Hope you all have a brilliant Mabon and Full Moon. We will be heading up the allotment for ours, hoping the weather holds, to sit in the glorious moonshine.

Mea'n Fo'mhair

So having been openly on my Path for almost a year I thought I would look a bit into the names for the various celebrations, find out some more as to how they have come about.

Mea'n Fo'mhair seems to be the Druid name for the Autumn Equinox but when I typed this into the search station I got a lot of hits for sites which all carried the same short explanation. Having trawled through many of them I have decided to cheat and give you the same answer!

The Druids call this celebration, Mea'n Fo'mhair, and honor the The Green Man, the God of the Forest, by offering libations to trees. Offerings of ciders, wines, herbs and fertilizer are appropriate at this time. Wiccans celebrate the aging Goddess as she passes from Mother to Crone, and her consort the God as he prepares for death and re-birth.

And being me, the type of person who never actually completes what I initially started, having wandered off side tracked by something else which caught my eye, I liked the idea of making an offering. We often leave small plant food cubes on our walks so this was something that littleun was used too. I gave him a choice of which areas he wanted to go to as we have many lovely woods nearby when he pointed out something I had overlooked. On our allotment we have a budding oak. It has decided to grow in a rather inconvenient area but all the same is doing well. This as littleun said would be a good tree to offer our thanks too. To protect it, nurture it, give the area around it the food it needs and to watch it grow hopefully for many years to come. So come the equinox you will know where we will be.