Imbolc 2016

February 7^th, 2016

Three Cranes Grove @ Blacklick Woods Metro Park
Ritual dedicated to Brigando.

The rite began with a pre-ritual briefing and we were led outside of the ritual area for a centering exercise focusing on the seasons beginning to turn from winter to spring. When the ritual team was ready we were led back into the ritual area being purified as we walked in with water from a sprig and incense. As always the first honor and sacrifice was given to the Earth Mother. This was followed by a general purification and an offering to inspiration in the form of Agneos. This was followed by a sacrifice to the outdwellers (Strong Coffee) so they might not interfere with our rite. The Two Powers meditation was next followed by the portal song with the hollowing of the hallows.

Garanus crane was called upon as gatekeeper to open the gates by the grove. Offerings were then made to the three kindred. I took this opportunity to make offering to some fox spirits I work with. Then the deity of the occasion, Brigando, was called upon and the folk brought praise and offerings. During this time an effigy of Brigando (the Brideog) was taken around and all of the folk got some time with her. After this candles were lit to the poem “Nineteen Candles for Brigid” by Philip Carr-Gomm. Teams of two paired off and I read “Eighth is the strength of your oxen of Dil - Fea and Fernea, the red and the black“ while another grove member lit a candle.

Following this Omens were taken using the Ogham ask what blessings each of the three kindred had for us. From the Ancestors we received muin, the vine, which was interpreted by the seer as inspiration. From the nature spirits Eabadh, The White Poplar, interpreted as buoyancy and overcoming obstacles. Finally from the shining ones we received Duir, the Oak strength. Upon the pronouncement that the omens were indeed good the priests then invoked them into the waters which were shared with the folk.

After this was the working in which the Three Cranes Grove healing quilt was recharged for the year with the folk intoning and channeling healing energy into it. Brigando was then thanked followed by the three kindreds and Angneos for participating in the rite. Garanus crane was then thanked and asked as gatekeeper to close the gates and the hallows were returned to their normal state. The Earth Mother was finally thanked ending the rite.

The rite was followed by a walk and sing to the nearby bog to deposit the sealed offering that had been sunk in the well in the past year. This year there was no ice so it was easily chucked in so that the offering were taken from the secular world and given to the gods and also in the far future confuse any archaeologists digging on the site.

Over all the rite was moving experience and while I was tired and still semi-ill I had a wonderful time as Imbolc is traditionally one of our biggest and most important grove rites.

ADF Dedicant Pathy Questions Stuff

*Dusts off Journal*

I haven't used this thing in a while and I need a place to do an ADF Dedicant Path Journal so this blog is reactivated and rededicated to that purpose. Perhaps I might even turn this into a decent blog when this stuff is all said and done. Anyways, I've grabbed Rev. Michael J. Dangler's The ADF Dedicant Path Through the Wheel of the Year and one of the first exercises is a set of questions so might as well as get crackin'.

Why have you chosen to take the first steps on the Dedicant Path?

Because it's something I want to accomplish so I can look into getting more involved with the ADF and perhaps join a guild and take their training courses. Also doing this is an attempt to get my spiritual life back in order after falling off the wagon and getting lax during a period where I had some dark times.

Is this a step on your path, or will this become the Path itself?

Oh definitely a step on the path, as I stated before I'm mostly doing this so I can move on to better things after rebuilding my basics of practice.

What do you expect to learn?

From the study material I'm not expecting to learn much more than I've already learned and studied. I've already read a lot including checking out more than a few of the books on the DP Reading List for my own personal edification. Instead what I hope to learn is how to re-balance my life. Part of the reason I came to fall off the wagon was trying to focus too much energy into side events and having a kind of chaotic schedule which tossed me to the proverbial waves. I'm hoping getting back to basics will help me right my spiritual ship and help with getting a lot of other things back on track.

What would you like to get out of this journey?

As I said above getting my spiritual ship righted and rebuilding my currently messy foundation.  From there I'd like to get more involved in the ADF and the general neo-pagan community again.

Do you know where this path will take you?

Nope. But I believe that's where the fun lies. :p

If you have just joined ADF, why have you chosen to work on this immediately?
If you have been in ADF for a long time, why are you starting only now? 

I've been in the ADF for quite a while and I've attempted to do the DP several times. My biggest stumbling block is really finding a good connection with an IE Hearth Culture. My worship has been across the map and I tend to take interest in what I call bridge deities such as Epona, Saravati, or Mithra(s) who manage to jump cultures. Not only that I find myself often looking towards rather 'mixed' cultures such as the Indo-Greek Kingdom in Gandhara, Roman Britain, or Hellenistic Egypt.
No one particular IE culture has really felt as a solid home to me.

The culture question has always been a big stumbling block with me and the ADF since at least to me it feels like hearth cultures are almost treated as if they're solid things that do not mix and don't really change over time when in reality cultures show a good bit of variation in both time and place. Each Greek polis had varying myths and a few disagreement on who was one of the 12 Olympians, not to mention the fact that the Greek religion of Bronze Age looked rather different from the practices in the Hellenistic period. Not to mention the fact that telling the difference between a Celt and German in the border areas was a very fuzzy thing. Boiling everything down to ideal version of these cultures is a useful tool but it also feels kind of modern. I also suspect that Ronald Hutton's suspicions are correct when he speculates that the whole concept of a Irish-Celtic in the Tuatha de Danaan was possibly invented by storytellers in the early Christian era who brought various intenational and local deities together in a systemic pantheon influnced by the Greco-Roman myths.* Again, it's useful but it tends to paint a more homogeneous picture of the Irish Celts then probably ever existed in practice.

I also have issues with the the stance that I see popping up in the ADF calling Hinduism not IE when it's very much a living and evolving set of religions which spawned from an IE base. To me declaring that it's not IE because it has a lot of non-IE elements seems to be a very reaching argument. If we applied this standard to other IE religions would we not have to toss out say a good chunk of Greek myths and practices since they were influenced by both non-IE local peoples of what became Greece and other nearby non-IE peoples such as the Phonecians and others from the Ancient Near East? That is not to say that modern Hinduisms should be accorded a place in the ADF the Vedic period is a good stopping point to avoid stepping on the toes of modern ethnic practitioners.

Again it's just that our clear cut views of culture seem to be fairly modern inventions when in practice the reality seems to have been a lot more fuzzy and varied. Yes, they're useful and certainly great for study but I worry that we're projecting our ideal versions of culture back on to an idealized version of the past while we're trying to build a religion in a modern era.

A neat answer to culture is a can of worms to me maybe it's because identify a lot with the fox - a very liminal animal - that leads me to focus on messy 'liminal cultures' of boarder areas/periods and shines a questionable light on a lot of the neat cherished cultural ideals by noticing the fuzzy. I don't have any problems with these modern homogenized reconstructions as modern practices but I find myself highly acutely aware of the more fuzzy nature of culture.

If I were to look at my ancestors for a guide besides a dash of Cherokee, my ancestors were pretty much all from the British Isles. But that's it's own can of worms since there I have Welsh, Scottish (Ulster-Scot), and English ancestors. Not to mention the fact that Roman culture was dominant for a period in the southern part of the isle of Britain. It's a mess but if I have to find a hearth culture to use it's probably going to be from that crazy mixed up island. I could do Vedic since I'm very close to Saravati but I'm close to her more modern forms and a write up would probably turn into a rambling rant like this question that I should just end here.

*Ronald Hutton, The Pagan Religions of the Ancient British Isles (Oxford: Blackwell, 1993), 152.

Does it look hard or easy? 

On bare paper it looks very easy... However keeping it up will probably be hard. As will be the cultural questions I rambled about above.

Which requirements appear to be difficult to you now, and which appear to be easy? 

 The book reviews and knowledge essays look very easy as I've been in the ADF a while and read a few of the books. The difficult one is going to be the essay on developing a spiritual practice as that is something I'm going to have to work at and struggle with finding a "solid" hearth culture.

 Do you have doubts, questions, or concerns that you need to ask about? 

Probably the cultural questions which I rambled about earlier.

My Top 6 G1 MLP Characters

Well, looks like I may be presenting a 'G1 is more Hardcore than G4' panel at Trotcon so to celebrate:

My Personal Top 6 G1 MLP Characters:

1. Wind Whistler - I've harped on her before but this pegasus mare is awesome. She's an extremely intelligent and often downright cunning pony who often jumps up to be the leader in a crisis. She does have some issues with being wordy / technobable and favors logic over emotions to the point that she's extremely stoic. I just find her awesome as she just doesn't fit with the rest of the ponies at all and would probably be more at home in Star Trek. Given what happened in 'Crunch the Rockdog' where she sacrificed Truly to get a chance of hitting the Rockdog with the heartstone to save everypony else she'd pass that 'Bridge Officer's Test' quite easily.

Closest G4 Equivalent: Twilight Sparkle - if she was mixed with Mr. Spock.

2. Fizzy - This Pony. This pony single hoofedly broke my brain. She's a happy-go-lucky, klutzy, scatterbrained unicorn mare who has the power of creating and controlling bubbles and who has the occasional moments of awesome (like drawing off the fire from the demon trees in the Shadow Forest so that everypony else could escape). She is also the most prominent of the few 'Twinkle-Eyed Ponies' who have gems for eyes. She's pretty much the Derpy/Ditzy Doo of G1.

Then I found out the official canon back story of the 'Twinkle-Eyed Ponies':  Turns out Fizzy spent a good bit of her life as an horribly mistreated slave forced to work in a hazardous mine by the 'Jewel Wizard'. She lost her sight but when she was rescued by Applejack (who killed the Jewel Wizard and destroyed his gem throne). Some of the magical gem shrapnel from the exploding jewel throne embedded itself in her corneas and thanks to the gems she regained her sight. Dear feaking gods. It would be like finding out G4 Derpy/Ditzy's official back story is that she was horrible mistreated by an abusive alcoholic father and her eyes are that way because she was once nearly beaten to death before Applejack saved her by killing her father. Yeah. Anyway, I now have immense levels of respect for Fizzy.

Since the original page hosting the comic got overloaded:

Applejack's Amazing Adventure - 1
Applejack's Amazing Adventure - 2
Applejack's Amazing Adventure - 3 
Applejack's Amazing Adventure - 4

Closest G4 Equivalent: Derpy/Ditzy Doo

3. Gusty -  Ah G1's Action Mare. Gusty is an impatient brave headstrong white colored unicorn mare with a red striped mane who is always rushing headlong into a fight and usually getting her flank handed to her as a result. She also isn't a smart pony and she has a bad habit of whining, being the occasional grouch, and dropping wisecracks. But she'll be a whiny grouchy and an ass one moment then in the next moment the kindest, bravest, and most noble pony in the show. Hrmmm... This all sounds familiar... One big problem with her is that her voice (done by Nancy Cartwright) sounds rather close to Bart Simpson's voice so its kinda jarring.

Closest G4 Equivalent: I'm going to cheat here with a fan work - but it fits so well: Blackjack from FoE: Project Horizons.

4. Paradise - She's a pegasus mare in a magical land who loves legends and fantasy and once asked "Why can't my life be more like a fairy tale?". Then again she lives in Ponyland, which seems to be full of slavers, crazed evil overlords, sealed ancient evils all about the place, and a lot of the G1 MLP stories feature near apocalypses. Yeah, I'd want to escape that place and live in a generic happy fantasy land too. She usually is the storyteller or dropping lore exposition. She also has a glorious epic fail trying to hammer a nail.

Closest G4 Equivalent: Going by her card description of being obsessed by legends and fairy tales: Sugar Grape

4. North Star - An adventurous explorer pegasus mare with a compass and star cutie mark. She had a Big Damn Hero moment in Return of Tambelon by hitting the ancient bell and thus screwing with the source of Grogar & Tambelon's powerful magic while the other ponies distracted Grogar. She also is a mare who cannot resist a big door with a 'Don't Touch' sign on it despite a warning that the door holds back an ancient evil (she's probably not safe around big red buttons ether).

Closest G4 Equivalent: Daring Do.

5. Heart Throb - A romance loving pegasus mare who is all about sharing love and dreams of meeting her Prince Charming... And she pictures him as a human - which is a bit disturbing especially when the fantasy comes to life and starts reciprocating. She's usually more on the funny side since most of the episodes are action & adventures.

Closest G4 Equivalent: Princess Cadance with a bit of Rarity and... Lyra...

Honorable Mention: Masquerade - This twinkle-eyed pegasus mare is master of disguise, infiltration, and general spying. She doesn't show up much (or does she?) but where she does she has rather interesting skill set and used in plans such as posing as Grogar's second-in-command bray from a distance in costume.

Closest G4 Equivalent: Not sure... Maybe Con Mane with a dash of Dash & Pinkie?

I knew there was a white stallion associated with rising the sun somewhere in Indic lore! Finally managed to track him down (despite the fact that he's been more or less staring me in the face for a while now):

It's Hayagriva and his Vedic prototype Dadhikrāvan!

Sridhara Babu - Hayagriva. The Horse-Headed Deity in Indian Culture

One of the several hymns dedicated to the cosmic stallion Dadhikrāvan who ushers in the morning:

Rig Veda Hymn 4:39 Dadhikrās. (Griffith Translation)

1. Now give we praise to Dadhikrās the rapid, and mention in our laud the Earth and Heaven.
May the Dawns flushing move me to exertion, and bear me safely over every trouble.
2 I praise the mighty Steed who fills my spirit, the Stallion Dadhikrāvan rich in bounties,
Whom, swift of foot and shining bright as Agni, ye, Varuṇa and Mitra, gave to Pūrus.
3 Him who hath honoured, when the flame is kindled at break of dawn, the Courser Dadhikrāvan,
Him, of one mind with Varuṇa and Mitra may Aditi make free from all transgression.
4 When we remember mighty Dadhikrāvan our food and strength, then the blest name of Maruts,
Varuṇa, Mitra, we invoke for welfare, and Agni, and the thunder-wielding Indra.
5 Both sides invoke him as they call on Indra when they stir forth and turn to sacrificing.
To us have Varuṇa and Mitra granted the Courser Dadhikrās, a guide for mortals.
6 So have I glorified with praise strong Dadhikrāvan, conquering Steed.
Sweet may he make our mouths; may he prolong the days we have to live.
Source: http://www.sacred-texts.com/hin/rigveda/rv04039.htm

The stuff I end up spouting off... Victory Star ♦♦♦ made a post about linking ponies with Greek gods... So I ended up writing a wall of text on Pegasus & Rainbow Dash.

If we're going Greek... We have a horse god here.

Pegasus is Chrysaor's brother. It's a weird version of the 'Horse Twins' myth like the Indic Asvins and the (also) Greek Dioscuri (Castor & Pollux). In this variant though instead of two horsemen, one who is mortal and one who is immortal, what resulted from Poseidon and Medusa was a mortal human and his brother... an immortal horse god. Later myths paired him with Perseus and Heracles because flying around on a divine winged horse is the pimpin-est ride yo.

If anyone owns him it's Zeus who made him the bearer of his Thunderbolts and some weather functions (this probably happened due to his link with a Luwian weather god named pihassas who is ether his origin or a deity who was fused with him later in lore and the fact that the rising of his constellation marked the beginning of Spring and the start of the seasonal rainstorms in Greece - Winter Wrap-up! tongue ). His other side is that he is the horse of the muses and there are several springs Hippocrene sacred to Pegasus & the Muses in Greece where he stuck the ground with his hooves and the waters of inspiration burst forth from the ground.

If Pegasus had a pony it would have to be Rainbow Dash - because let's face it she's Pegasus' own Pegasus: Head of the Ponyville Weather Patrol, Inspired the rest of the mane six to get their cutie marks with her bursting Sonic Rainboom, her emphasis on action, her heroics, et cetera.

Also nit-picky but you're thinking Helios whom Apollo was connected with... The appropate deity connections would be:
Helios & Selene (Greek) or Sol & Luna (Roman).

Interesting enough in the story book that came with the molded toys Princess Luna is called Princess Selena.

Luna & Leia

Did I miss anything?
Yesterday: Princess Luna, she's so cute you'll forget she turned into a monster and tried to cloak the world in eternal night during an omnicidal fit of jealousy.



Today: Princess Leia who contrary to reports is no hologram like certain rappers.

Happy National Princess Week!

Yes it's National Princess Week!

A marketing ploy claiming to celebrate the sparkle and wonder of every princess — real, aspiring, or imagined.


First up since it's Sunday Let's Celebrate Princess Celestia, the Ruler of Equestria! The most magical pony and the only pony with wings and a horn!