ostara

Spring Equinox Oracle Reading

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Exquisite Familiars Oracle

What is my current situation?

Lacrimosus tralucidus – Open and vulnerable, your inner wounds are on display.

What do I need to lay to rest with the winter?

Pisces vitta – The fear of being seen and worrying that in being seen, you are showing your weaknesses and vulnerabilities that others will want to take advantage of. You do not need to conceal what’s going on, nor use distraction and misdirection to keep people’s focus directed elsewhere.

Where in my life can I stand I have more balance?

Magma lolligo – There is a time and place for the force and rigidity of anger that can help you confront conflict and overcome challenges, but there is equally a time for adaptability and flexibility.  It’s important to be able to choose which is better for the situation… instead of just allowing yourself to go with whichever one rises up at the time.

What do I need to embrace with the coming light?

Electrophorus medusozoas – Feel that growing light and reflect it back out into the world as it helps you to reconnect with your purpose. Show others how to stretch into the recovery from your depression. Allow them to see it’s okay and can even be safe to share what they’re going through, and that there are others that are experiencing similar. They are not alone.

How can I best nurture the seedlings that are emerging?

Oceanum equus – Be careful that your well used defenses are not holding others at arms length or pushing them away entirely. Sometimes you don’t have to push to protect yourself from harm.  Passive caution is just as effective as aggressive action under the right circumstances.  Find the balance in this area.

What will be my source of joy, the bright spot in my life this spring?

Vulpes caudanovem – Your moral compass will not cause you to have to forsake moments of joy and the small pleasures that life has to offer. Look to home and hearth for comfort, and seek out the little things in life that you enjoy as often as you can.

DECK USED: EXQUISITE FAMILIARS ORACLE

Seasons and Holidays

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This week’s question from the Pagan Perspective YouTube channel is about the holidays we choose to celebrate.

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Topic for the Week of 11/04:  “How did or do you decide what holidays to celebrate?”

Although in the wheel of the year there are eight holidays, I really only dependably celebrate two of them from year to year.  My family, as I was growing up, has always celebrated all eight.

In my case, the holidays mark seasonal transitions, and although I appreciate them and even enjoy spending time recognizing them through hiking and other activities in order to appreciate the transitions from one season to the next?   I don’t celebrate all eight holidays on a dependable year-to-year basis.

I guess, then, that I should first begin by defining “celebrate” since I did just mention that recognize each shift in seasons regardless of “celebrating them” in a traditional sense.

So, for the purpose of this post, celebrating means to include ritual and/or activities that are performed on a specific day or days surrounding the holiday in question.

The holidays that my family celebrates are Samhain, Yule, Imbolc, Ostara, Beltane, Midsummer, Lammas, and Mabon.   Of these holidays, I dependably celebrate Samhain and Beltane every year without fail.   These are the two points in the year where the veil within liminal spaces is at its thinnest, and for me they are not just the most powerful days of the year, but also the most sacred.

So there you have it!  Although I consider the entire transition of season to season sacred and enjoyable, and appreciate them all in my own way.   As far as holidays go?  I really only go “all out” to celebrate just two of them.

Post Script Edit:    As you just pointed out to me, I also celebrate both Thanksgiving (US) and Christmas (in a far less religious way).

These two are celebrated for specific reasons.

Thanksgiving involves visiting my mother’s house, and is celebrated because it’s a holiday she loves.  A core part of her faith involves feeding others, and there is a lot of ritual and spellcraft that goes into the cooking on that day in her home.   Each year, my sister and I visit her because this day is so very important to her (and the food is so goddamn good doesn’t hurt either).

Christmas on the other hand, is not a religious holiday for me.  Instead it is something fun.  It’s a chance to give friends and loved ones gifts, show appreciation and gratitude, and get gifts from them in turn.  It’s a time for absolutely spectacular crooners music and amazing scents and sparkling lights.  I do decorate (alibi sparingly usually), and we do exchange gifts, but it’s more like the holiday is an excuse to do these things rather than a spiritual experience.

So you’re right.   Although they are not pagan holidays, nor spiritual in the sense of the other holidays that I sometimes incorporate into my year, they are absolutely holidays that I celebrate.