Sun: gemini (mutable air), 5:50 AM - 8:54 PM, solstice at 1:16 PM (local time)
Moon: waning gibbous, pisces (mutable water)
Earth: thunderstorms and rain this morning before dawn, cloudy much of the morning clearing to hot, sunny, muggy day
Jeff and I had the pleasure of celebrating the summer solstice this year with Sassafras Grove, the local Pittsburgh ADF group. Up at 3:30 AM, we drove out to Fairview Park to participate in a sunrise rite that, ideally, would have involved climbing the Tor which offers a view of southwestern Allegheny County and a magnificent view of the sun rising over the city…. except that it was pouring rain and thundering. We debated not going, but decided to head out anyway (since we missed Beltaine because of rain and we had been so looking forward to this one!) — the rain continued on and off, so they ended up holding the ritual under a pavilion at the bottom of the hill instead. Other than the two of us, only seven other people were in attendance (four of them grove members and three of them visitors); apparently, this was the first time in years that anyone other than grove members showed up for the rite. It was also the first time in about ten years that they didn't have a clear morning.
The rite itself was wonderful — focused on veneration of the sun and including deities from several different Indo-European hearth cultures. (I could go into detail about the structure of the ritual and all of that, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit "spacey" after the lack of sleep, mid-morning nap and long, hot afternoon, so I'll skip it for now. (Outlines for their Summer Solstice rituals from past years can be found here. I mostly wanted to note that we did attend, so that I wouldn't forget to write about it in here.) Jeff really enjoyed the rite and said afterward that it was the first time that a group ritual really "did anything for him." It was definitely a much more makeshift rite than the Imbolc rite I attended back in February — mostly because they weren't anticipating very many people showing up, so there was a little less preparation and a little more ad lib. One of the grove members was telling us over breakfast that the Imbolc ritual was actually one of the first regular rituals the group ever did and had started even before the grove was associated with ADF, so a great deal of tradition and such has grown up around it and accrued more and more because no one wants to let go of any. Compared to that ritual (which had between thirty and forty people attending, plus nine acting priests), this summer solstice ritual was simple and more relaxed. But again, the structure of the ritual worked very well so that by the end I was definitely "feeling it" and jiving with the energies raised. I have to admit, though on paper I think the ADF ritual structure tends to be a bit overly complicated, they're starting to win me over by being able to pull it off so well.
That said, I do feel a bit out of sync with the sheer number of deities often involved in rituals. I tend to be more of a "devotee" type, I guess, really focused on just a few and interested in making my own rites very much All About Them. This summer solstice ritual, even though it was mostly focused on veneration and praise for the actual sun itself, still involved calling on triads of deities from different ancient cultures for each major step in the liturgy (warding the space, opening the gates, making offerings to the Kindred, etc.). In fact, I'm pretty sure there were more gods in attendance at this ritual than there were people! Not that this is a bad thing — clearly it works pretty well for them. But it's the difference between a big party and an intimate date. I'm an intimate date kind of person when it comes to my relationship with the gods. During this ritual, the invocation of Brighid as patron goddess of the grove and of Manannan as one of the Gatekeepers was kind of like seeing really good friends at a large gathering, but only being able to wave briefly to them in passing before being swept along again.
Again, not necessarily a bad thing. A big, public ritual like that once every six weeks or so might be just fine. But I'm not sure I'd be up for getting deeply involved in ADF and spending a lot of time planning such rituals and having them be my main focus. Honestly, there are a lot of other things I'm interested in focusing on, and I'm starting to realize that I lean much more towards the mystic-poet type than the minister-priest type. This is what happens when you're an introvert, I guess.
Still, it was excellent to be able to come and participate, and Jeff and I got to have breakfast with two of the grove members after the ritual was over. We got Eric (also spelled Earrach) talking about his history and involvement with ADF and Sassafras Grove, and that was just awesome. I always worry about being a bit too awkward and saying the wrong thing in those kinds of situations, especially when people start talking about topics that I'm pretty familiar with (at least academically) but haven't necessarily had much hands-on or community experience with. But overall, I think it went very well, and I know Jeff and I are both eager to participate in future events of theirs.
After returning home around 9:30 AM, I ended up falling asleep again until 11:30 AM… We eventually made our way to lunch, and then this afternoon I spent working on designing my next tattoo (which I'll be getting in a week, at the beginning of July). I was working on a sun design to match or compliment my Celtic wave armband design and also to somewhat cover the old and faded tattoo on my right shoulder…. But the design I ended up creating is so complex and so pretty that, frankly, I think I'd like to make it larger and put it somewhere else, more prominent, possibly even in the center of my back (similar to the placement of Jen's large henna-like crop circle tattoo). Below is a black-and-white and a color version of the tattoo.
For my birthday, Jeff got me a book on Celtic shamanism "for everyday life" and I'm really interested in trying out some of the techniques, so I also wanted to make some time very soon to do some journey-work, especially since I haven't done any in a while. But we're about to head out to dinner and hang out with Arthur, and then we're leaving Thursday morning for the Wild Goose Festival, so I really have no idea when I'll have a chance to do that. I guess we'll see!
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