Notes on Heathen seasonal rituals delivered to Pagan Festivals

1.Opening Prayer
2.Thanking Jeanette
3.Greeting the audience
4.Traditionally, October is the month of Spirits. It is a time of reflection: an occasion to recall both joys and sorrows; a period in which my Anglo Saxon ancestors remembered departed souls. In other words, a time of Harvest and Repose. Whatever epithets we use to signify these ancient as well as hallowed festivals, the majority of our British customs were undoubtedly born from that Pre- Christian faith. Long ago, these celebrations marked the key dates of the Communal Year; the day when planting began, or animals were herded, or when winter foods were carefully stored. As Britons, we were equally mindful of Life days such as the Spring Equinox and Death days, when we honoured the struggles of our ancestors. Indeed, it is no accident that we pay our respects to the soldiers of two World Wars around the time of All Souls Day or Halloween. This exemplifies, of course, a deep awareness on the part of the early Church that seasonal rites proved impossible to purge. They could taint or distort them, but to defy the connection between human communities and the living continuum courted disaster. An obvious irony considering that so many Christian rituals had their origin in Hebraic celebrations of the same events. Yet as Church institutions gained in political power they did their best to cut people off from their Heathen cultural heritage. A process ending up with a Puritanical suspicion of the festive calendar itself, and the increasingly dark connotations of Halloween. Yet the British are by nature Heathens. This is why we have always found it easy to enjoy the very stuff of life with our songs, our drinking culture, our folk-rituals and our dances. Perhaps this is also why we have continually felt Nature Spirits to be both Immanent as well as Transcendent in our acts of Worship. After all, these ceremonial affirmations of Identity and Meaning assisted participants to assert their place in the spirals of Creation; blessed circles where human beings discover their relationship with starlight, bone and air.
5.Repose:
Please do not misunderstand my words. I have nothing against the largely plastic trivialities surrounding modern day Halloween parties. Come Jack-o-lantern or green faced witch, we all need to adapt to changing cultural circumstances. Even Americanisation’s such as the vaguely annoying “trick or treat” games played by children on their neighbours need to be encouraged as ways to let off some communal steam. There has never been anything wrong with high spirits or those occasionally elemental activities, which indirectly prepare younger generations for the inevitable knocks they will experience in life. All I am saying is that we mustn’t forget our native British traditions. Tied as they are to the endlessly wheeling seasons. Certainly, Anglo Saxon spirit lore is still preserved in our inherited social activities. Conker fights, autumn bonfires and apple bobbing have a history that stretches back into the long nights of antiquity. On a slightly more serious note, it was whispered that particularly at this time of year the spirits foretold someone’s death through small but noticeable interruptions in domestic patterns. The cries and movements of a startled bird, flowers blooming out of season, any clock striking thirteen times or pictures suddenly falling from a wall, even the persistent appearance in ironed linen of the diamond shaped crease known as a “coffin” have all been cited as death omens. It was also an English custom to tell local Rooks of a Landowner’s death. As birds associated with Lord Odin, new landowners were advised to stand under a canopy of trees to give this sombre news to the assembled birds, while adding a promise that only he and his friends would be allowed to hunt fowl in the future. Pundits claimed that if this ceremony were to be neglected, local Rookeries would be abandoned; a sure sign of misfortune. Indeed, the lore surrounding Rooks and Ravens is surprisingly rich. If Rooks flew away from their nests for no reason, it forecast the loss of land and the downfall of a Noble Family through poverty. This traditional sympathy shared between men and other living creatures demonstrated the interconnection between all things in the Orlog.
More disturbingly, autumnal events such as the appearance of corpse candles were held to be infallible warnings of death sent by our spirit ancestors. Indeed, these corpse lights were lambent flames, which would often float over the ground between the Parish Churchyard and the home of the doomed person. This is because their path indicated the route, which the funeral procession was most likely to take. If the spirits were foretelling the death of a child, the flame would burn blue in colour; in the case of an adult, its flame would be yellow. Furthermore, the body of a deceased kinsman usually needed to be examined for the signs and portents of future fatal incidents. The older women of English villages would frequently say that if rigor mortis was unusually slow to set in, then the spirits were announcing another death in the same household before too long. Moreover, keeping a corpse in the family house through an entire Sunday, or leaving a grave open during the Suns golden midday, provoked protective spirits into giving further indications of impending death. With this in mind, the annual Armistice Evening in November - a modern survival of the ancient Odinist Einheriar or Heroes day - commemorates those brave warriors who have given their lives in the service of our nation. It is, however, a double edged act of remembrance in that our communities attempt to welcome the shades of the departed back home; an expression of our guilt as well as our gratitude. In ages past, it was said that only Great Souls found the level of individuation necessary to be received in Valhallah, whereas those who had never fought in the Holy Battles demanded by existential fact went to the gloomy realm of the faceless Goddess Hel. That is why her “piebald” character was described by the poets as both black as our fertile Earth Mother as well as unsettlingly pale in her corpse-like complexion. This may be one of the reasons why Saxon sages taught that the hard won wisdom gathered over centuries of strife showed us an ever-pregnant end to every season.
6.Harvest: Clearly, the Saxon hlaf-maesse or loaf mass ( known nowadays to some Pagans as Lammas tide), was the culmination to our British festival of first fruits, or in other words, the time when the first corn was ground and made into loaves, which were then dedicated to the spirits themselves. This ritual marked the end of the ripening season, lasting from May until October. Following this communal rite, Corn dollies were then woven. Some scholars have written that rural celebrations of Harvest Home were seen as a mixed blessing. Certainly, none of the reapers wished to be the one who cut down the last sheaf of corn and so they threw their sickles at the last stand of corn in an attempt to decide who would get this solemn duty. The sheaf was then plaited into a female form and given a place of honour at the subsequent supper. Lastly, Michaelmas marked the time when Englishmen could rest and reflect on past happenings. It was an occasion for great fairs and animal sales.
7. Heathens don’t believe in conclusions. Unlike the desert religions of Christianity, Judaism or Islam, we proclaim Process: a veritable metempsychosis of possibilities. As seekers after continuity, we embrace every level of existence in all of its complexity and dynamism. Our view is that the Gods are archetypal forces in the starry continuum; powers within which every other environmental process operates. They create the basic structures of the Cosmos. Call them, therefore, by whatever name you will, their energy is their presence. They are the spirits who govern a magical ‘Becoming” rather than a merely static ‘Being.’ They are the Divine Causes as well as the Effects of all things. To an extent, this is seen in our forefather’s attitude to fertility and sex, along with the acts of fleshly Worship they practised. As Heathens we still stress the bi-polar or experimental. The actualisation of every potential. To illustrate this point all we need to do is examine our ancestor’s attitude to the soil as a substance to nurture and venerate; it was the sentient substance of all edible things and the final resting place of all material objects.
8.Conclusion:
This is a time of abundance and celebration, not an occasion for malicious tricks or drunken violence. Across the globe, similar seasonal festivals have marked the repose of the previous cycle, along with a charged expectancy of the next. This is one of the ways we all find a sense of orientation in our lives. Certainly, in Europe, the Church has done its damnest to accentuate the ambiguous side of these celebrations and highlight the uncertainties which accompany the start of any rebirth. Adopting this plan of attack, they have steadily assaulted our gratitude to Nature Spirits by turning children’s minds to mischief and more mature outlooks to simple abandon. But, as Heathens and Pagans it is our duty to oppose these distortions to our ageless tradition and dance to the rhythms of a resurrected tune. After all, history is once again turning in our favour.