Tiocobrextio: An Autumnal Equinox Feast

The spirit of the north wind. This is my first high-day ritual incorporating the Gaul hearth culture. One of the great challenges was to find the Gaulish equivalent for Mabon. There is no clear evidence as to whether the Gauls celebrate the Automnal Equinox. In fact, it isn't very clear either whether there's a Gaulish word for "autumn". Scholars suggest the words uogiamos ("before winter"), or messus ("harvest"), but being in the Pacific tropics I wanted a less season-related word. I may be worshiping Gaulish gods but I'd like to keep my rituals relevant to the spirit of the land. In the ADF dedicant manual, the Gaulish fall equinox festival is called Diocomrextios. I could hardly find any resources as to the origin...

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On Praying to the Ancestors

My ancestor shrine, inspired by the colorful egun'gun tradition of West Africa and Lucumi religion. It's also my first work on clay. The nine masks represent the collective spirits of my ancestors. Nine is the number of the orisha Oya, guardian of the dead. The pattern around the frame represents the river of life force (ashé) to which our spirits are bound to return. Having come from the Llewellyn-Wicca variant of neopaganism, the idea of ancestor worship was unfamiliar to me when I first got introduced to it via a group of friends practicing African traditional religions. Nevertheless I have made it a part of my practice as well. I felt that there is something important to it other than the obvious purpose of giving respect to the elders,...

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