*This will end up being a category Tab that replaces âRituals & Ceremoniesâ and will be periodically updated*
This is Paths Through The Forestsâ go to page for all things weâve written on Holidays, Rituals and History â organized by time of year it is related to.
Festivities of Natural Annual Events
Rua Lupa shares what the seasons are like around the world for each time of year and what celebrations are happening because of them.
Borealis Equilux (Equal Length of Day & Night Globally)
Borealis Translux (Midway Global Equinox & Solstice)
Borealis Lux (Longest Day & Night of The Year)
Australis Transequilux (Midway Global Solstice & Equinox)
Australis Equilux (Equal Length of Day & Night Globally)
Australis Translux (Midway Global Equinox & Solstice)
Australis Lux (Longest Night & Day of The Year)
Borealis Transequilux (Midway Global Solstice & Equinox)
Articles the Lupas wrote that relate to the seasons:
Equilux / Spring Equinox / Ostara
âEquilux, Preparing For A New Day: Ethical House Cleaning, Downsizing, Mending & An Offering To The Birdsâ â âRua Lupa gets into the nitty gritty of conscientious house cleaning and downsizing, with added tips on how to repurpose sentimental items, mend clothes with style, and use what comes out of house cleaning as gifts for the birds.â
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Translux / Beltane
âCultural Quandaries: Spring & Sexâ â âSpring celebrations have a lot of sexual suggestion in them, but is human sexuality relevant to this time of year?â
âA Message For Earth Day: The Separation Effectâ â âRua Lupa writes on a way of thought that influenced our past and is crucial in understanding for our future. The Separation Effect.â
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Lux / Summer Solstice / Litha / Midsummer
âSaegoah Celebrations: Lux (Summer Solstice)â â âA Saegoahâs Way of Celebrating The Longest Day of The Year. Playing with light, movement, colour and celebrating the youth coming into their own.â
âSolitary Solsticeâ â âLupa Greenwolf has plans for a very sedate solsticeâ
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Transequinox / Lughnasadh / Lammas
âA Saegoah Styled Wedding Ceremony â Or Bonding Ceremonyâ â âA Saegoah Wedding is called a Bonding Ceremony, and it is typically done between Transequinox & Equinox when the weather is warm, food is plentiful, and if conception occurs the offspring arrives when most life does â in spring. As it is now that time of year, here are a couple of Bonding Ceremonies. One Public, and one Personal.â
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Equinox / Autumn Equinox / Mabon
âDIY Autumn Adventures â Growing A Forest Garden. It can supply food, medicine, and sanity, while protecting against drought & floodâ â âLearn how you can turn a energy and resource guzzling lawn into a food forest oasis! And you can start the process this autumn by working with natureâs natural seeding time. â
âDIY Autumn Adventures â Dyeing With Goldenrodâ â Tis the season for dyeing.
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Transnox / Samhain
âCultural Quandaries: Deathâ â âDeath is often something dreaded and not talked about. This sort of reaction to a reality we face has caused more grief than warranted for the amazing thing that it is. Here is a way to approach death in a very positive way that makes the transition easier for you, your loved ones and the ecosystem we all rely on.â
âViridos â Green Bonesâ â ââŚwithout death there would be no soil or nutrients in the water, and no soil or aquatic nutrient means no plants, and no plants means nothing for creatures to eat â its the dead that nourish the living.â
âLove Letters To My Ancestors Iâ â âLupa Greenwolf marks this Samhain seasonâand an interfaith collaborationâwith the first of three love letters to her ancestors, starting with her human ancestors.â
âLove Letters To My Ancestors IIâ â âLupa Greenwolf addresses her second love letter to her non-human ancestors, those all too often forgotten in human ritesâ
âLove Letters To My Ancestors IIIâ â âLupa Greenwolf addresses her third and final Samhain love letter to those she will be an ancestor to someday, voicing both regret and hope for the future she will leave for others.â
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Nox / Winter Solstice / Yule / Midwinter
âThe Real Reason For The Seasonâ â âEach year I encounter something that most Pagans know, but the general public is oddly oblivious to. People who casually complain about the dark and donât know about the shortest day of the year, or even when it is. I know this because that is when I mention that soon enough the days will be getting longer they blankly stare at me and say, âReally? When?â It becomes very hard not to do a face palm each time I encounter this, and its frequent. So I feel compelled to talk about the Real reason for the season.â
âCelebrating Nox â The Longest Night â The Yearâs Midnight. What You Can Do At Homeâ
âHow You Can Have A Nox Festival â A Festival for The Longest Nightâ
âSaegoah Celebrations: Nox (Winter Solstice)â â âOne Saegoahâs way of celebrating the longest night of the yearâ
âWhen, In The New Year, Antlers Dropâ â âAs the New Year arrives, Lupa Greenwolf describes how an antler is like a bad habitâand what we can learn from deer and elkâ
âCultural Quandaries: Earthâs Civil Calendar. How did we end up with the calendar we have anyway?â â With one of the biggest civil holidays and new year occurring at this time, here is why and how they came to be.
Saegoah Pursuits: Creative and Eco-Friendly Gift Wrapping â âAs this is the time of year when we reach the climax of seasonal gift wrapping, I have decided to share some of my creative eco-friendly wrapping techniques â and there are really two primary methods to it. 1) Cloth Bag Wrapping, and 2) Paper & Paint Wrappingâ
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Transequilux / Imbolc
âTransequilux Keeps Me Occupiedâ â Transequilux can be a busy time of year, when for most people it is the slowest.
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Miscellaneous Rituals & History Articles
Rituals
âWorldview Connections: A Meditation On Our Worldviews & Their Impactsâ â We live in a world full of connectionsâbut how we view (or ignore) those connections could make or break us.
âInoculative Libations to the Landâ â âOne Saegoahâs way of doing Libationsâ
âA Saegoah Ceremony â Similar To, But Unlike Othersâ â âIn my pursuit for Ehoah, I had sought out practices that were most similar to my worldview to help me in my journey. While many were helpful, none of them satisfied me. Eventually I ended up making a ceremony outline for myself with aspects I found to better fit my worldview. The majority of it ended up being based upon Anishinaabe ceremony structure, reworded to reflect what the scientific method had revealed about the cosmos.â
âSolitary Saegoah Ritual Outline â With Alternative Wordingâ
âGrounding Through Land Stewardshipâ
âThe Art of Taking As An Offeringâ
âOfferings For a Nature-Based Pathâ
âThis World Is Sacred, Tooâ â âLet this world be sacred, too. Let us not see it as a flawed version of some paradise; let us not seek to leave it too soon orâworse yetâtear it down in the hopes of manifesting its perfect cousin.â
âThe Entire Universe is a Sacred Siteâ
âMore Devotional Practices For Naturalist Pagansâ â âInspired by another writerâs blog post, Lupa Greenwolf offers her own four devotional practices for naturalist pagans.â
âSaegoah Pursuits: Gardening with Rainwater Harvesting Earthworksâ â âBecause I strive to live harmoniously within Nature as a Saegoah many conventional methods of doing things gets thrown out the window, like my garden. It is unlike any garden in town because it is self fertile and as of this spring, self watering as well. In the process of making it I got a great many odd looks and even laughed at by those passing by. The following is a photo essay of the process and end result of this endeavor.â
âLearning Aboriginal Teachings & Ceremonies, Spirits, and Why I Am Naturalisticâ â âRua Lupa shares some personal experience with aboriginal teachings, ceremonies, spirits, and why Rua is naturalisticâ
âThe Separation Effectâ â âRua Lupa writes on a way of thought that influenced our past and is crucial in understanding for our future. The Separation Effect.â
âHome Base: Place Altars As Connections to Wildernessâ
The Altar of Curiosities
Part I â âThe Altar of Curiosities is a system thatâs very much based on my relationship with the land and its denizens. Each memento keeps alive the connection I made to the place I brought it from, and the altar as a whole is like having a direct line to each of a circle of friends; all I have to do is pick up my end.â
Part II â âLupa discusses in detail what defines an Altar of Curiosities: a collection of natural or otherwise noteworthy items that are valued both for their intrinsic qualities as specimens, and whatever spiritual qualities their curator ascribes to them.â
Part III â âLupa Greenwolf discusses how to create your own Altar of Curiosities, including some considerations you might not have thought of.â
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Deep Ancestral Totemism
Part 1: The Triune Brain â âreptileâ, âold mammalâ and ânew mammalâ brain
Part2: Triune Brain Meditation
Part:3 Working with Your Triune Brain
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Ritual & Ceremony of A Naturalistic Saegoah
Part 1: Why I do Ritual and Ceremony
Part 2: When & Where I do Ritual and Ceremony
Part 3: What & How I Do Ritual and Ceremony
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History
âOur Human StoryâŚâ â How human cultures arise and influence one another.
âWorldview Connections: A Meditation On Our Worldviews & Their Impactsâ â We live in a world full of connectionsâbut how those connections are made could make or break us.
âCultural Quandaries: Soilâ â Soil. The source of all our nutrition requires it, making it immensely valuable. But our agricultural and gardening practices are not treating it that way. In fact we are killing our soils on a grand scale. How did it become this way? Is there a solution? Weâll get into that and the solutions that are not what youâd thinkâŚ
âA Message For Earth Day: The Separation Effectâ â âRua Lupa writes on a way of thought that influenced our past and is crucial in understanding for our future. The Separation Effect.â
âWhat Nature Has To Say About Genderâ â âIs human gender expression fundamentally messed up? In a richly illustrated essay, Rua Lupa compares human thinking about gender and sex to the realities of the natural world.â
âRomanticism Runs Rampant: Ancestors, Indigenous Peoples, âNaturalââ â âIt doesnât help anybody to unwittingly promote things that are in actuality falsehoods, and often damages a position that is otherwise a fine one to hold.â
âPoem: Our Planet, Our Homeâ â âA poem about our home and how that came to be.â
âCultural Quandaries: Earthâs Civil Calendar. How did we end up with the calendar we have anyway?â â âEver wonder how the calendar we use came to be? Why our year is divided the way it is, how the names of these divisions arose and why New Yearâs day is where it is? Well wonder no more! Here is the most concise summary of our calendarâs history answering all these questions, including others you may not of thought to consider, and reveals some dilemmas that come with it.â
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