Today, I thought it would be appropriate to post for the current season. Spring will be here soon and I started off with my Lá Fhéile Bríde celebration. I had decided this year to do so nearer to the Gregorian calendar date, celebrating on the 2nd and 3rd of this month, rather than doing so at the first significant melt, as I usually do in Minnesota. No, this year I'm in a new and unfamiliar place where the growing season is even shorter than in Minnesota and I haven't the faintest idea what its like here without snow. We arrived in the Rocky Mountains during the first snows and all I've seen since is snow and occasionally some rock and dirt. And definitely no green rushes for a new Cros Bríde, though I made an unsuccessful attempt with some dead grass...I would have made one with different material, but I've never made one out of something other than grass or reeds. Natural materials are just more aesthetically pleasing to me, so I'm rarely satisfied with substitutes and simply unwilling to dedicate something to the Gods, Ancestors, or Spirits without it being pleasing to me, as well. So, I've made the decision to make one when Luke and I return home, which will conveniently be right around when the new reeds will be popping out of the pond and lake next to home.
This year I settled with a smaller celebration than I usually like to plan. Thankfully, Brigid seems the forgiving goddess and I don't think she was displeased, though I was unable to make out any signs in the ashes of our woodstove the next morning (so I made sure to burn juniper the following day). I made do with a meal and music, as well as the usual offerings and prayers to Brigid. For the meal I made pork roast in the crockpot with some dumplings, salmon, soda bread, colcannon, leeks, butter, and some shortbread with some stewed apples, blackberries and cream. I like cooking. Like, I really like to cook and I do a lot of it, so the festivals are always a great excuse for me to splurge and get expensive things like cream and salmon and berries! Much of that meal consisted of my standard go-to dishes for the festivals, though it may change according to the season, the central focus for this festival being the butter and other dairy products our ancestors found much of their nutrition from in the meager Winter months leading up to the growing season.
I gave my prayers and offerings in the fire of our woodstove and shared the meal with my friends/roommates all the while Irish tunes played on Pandora. It was a good day, I always enjoy preparing for the festivals, though I'm usually exhausted by the end of it and passed out in bed earlier than usual.
We'll be arriving back home in Minnesota right around Lá Bealtaine at the end of April/beginning of May, so I imagine I have a lot to do. Thank the gods the house will be clean when I get back, so that's taken care of, at least! And then I will be back in my home environment and can go back to following the weather patterns of Minnesota. I haven't yet figured out a specific marker for Lá Bealtaine in Minnesota, so I usually rely on when the lilacs bloom and the asparagus starts shooting out of the ground. We'll also be ordering our chickens soon, I plan to purify them and their coup with juniper and blessed water and maybe the marsh marigolds will be in bloom to decorate the house!
Wednesday, February 18, 2015
Tuesday, December 30, 2014
We All Start Somewhere
As 2015 dawns upon us, it dawned upon me to start utilizing this blog which I've had waiting for almost six years now. I had originally planned to record my experience going to college and how that interacted with my Gaelic Polytheist way of life, but college tends to throw you through a loop and mess up any plans you had for life before you started school. So here I am, years later, with the sudden urge to put this blog to use, for myself and for any future readers that may find my posts of value.
A little introduction for those of you who don't know me, my name is Brandon, some of you may know me through An Chuallacht Ghaol Naofa where I serve as hospitaller for the organization under the alias Breandán Mac Suibhne (Sweeney being my family name on my mother's side). I was raised in an Irish American family in Minnesota and my first exposure to religion outside of Catholicism and Buddhism (my father's family hailing from Vietnam) was when I was 8 years of age with my mother's exploration of neo-pagan religions and witchcraft, which set me on the path leading to now. While my mother left much of that behind (she now adheres to her own duotheistic idea of Christianity), I began reading various mythologies from different cultures at a young age and studied various neo-pagan religions until I began researching Celtic religions at the age of 14. I studied neo-Druidic religions and philosophy until my discovery of Celtic Reconstructionism in a book on witchcraft. I then began studying arduously and then joined Gaol Naofa in 2009 at the age of 17 after meeting the founder, Tomás Flannabhra, on forums like Mystic Wicks and BeliefNet. I went to school at the University of Minnesota Duluth for three years where I met my partner, Luke, of 5 years now and then I dropped out, due to various reasons, my dissatisfaction with the Anthropology program and inability to juggle full time work with full time school among them. Nowadays Luke and I spend much of our time growing our own vegetables and raising chickens on the south side of Lake Mille Lacs, though we decided this year to spend our first Winter away from Minnesota to work at the Winter Park Ski Resort here in Colorado.
I haven't really even attempted to develop much of a focus for this blog, though much of it will consist of my own musings and projects. I imagine when we return back home I'll begin posting more and more about our life in the woods as we make our way through the web of knowledge that makes up homesteading alongside my religious and cultural activities, which I'm sure will cross over into many of our projects in one way or another. I'm also quite passionate about language, culture, and travelling, so I imagine I'll have quite a range of subjects if I can just push myself to keep up with it! No promises, but we all start somewhere.
A little introduction for those of you who don't know me, my name is Brandon, some of you may know me through An Chuallacht Ghaol Naofa where I serve as hospitaller for the organization under the alias Breandán Mac Suibhne (Sweeney being my family name on my mother's side). I was raised in an Irish American family in Minnesota and my first exposure to religion outside of Catholicism and Buddhism (my father's family hailing from Vietnam) was when I was 8 years of age with my mother's exploration of neo-pagan religions and witchcraft, which set me on the path leading to now. While my mother left much of that behind (she now adheres to her own duotheistic idea of Christianity), I began reading various mythologies from different cultures at a young age and studied various neo-pagan religions until I began researching Celtic religions at the age of 14. I studied neo-Druidic religions and philosophy until my discovery of Celtic Reconstructionism in a book on witchcraft. I then began studying arduously and then joined Gaol Naofa in 2009 at the age of 17 after meeting the founder, Tomás Flannabhra, on forums like Mystic Wicks and BeliefNet. I went to school at the University of Minnesota Duluth for three years where I met my partner, Luke, of 5 years now and then I dropped out, due to various reasons, my dissatisfaction with the Anthropology program and inability to juggle full time work with full time school among them. Nowadays Luke and I spend much of our time growing our own vegetables and raising chickens on the south side of Lake Mille Lacs, though we decided this year to spend our first Winter away from Minnesota to work at the Winter Park Ski Resort here in Colorado.
I haven't really even attempted to develop much of a focus for this blog, though much of it will consist of my own musings and projects. I imagine when we return back home I'll begin posting more and more about our life in the woods as we make our way through the web of knowledge that makes up homesteading alongside my religious and cultural activities, which I'm sure will cross over into many of our projects in one way or another. I'm also quite passionate about language, culture, and travelling, so I imagine I'll have quite a range of subjects if I can just push myself to keep up with it! No promises, but we all start somewhere.
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