May 30, 2025:
June 20, 2024 - Summer Solstice
I know I attended Three Cranes Grove and a Virtual Fire Proto-Grove's Summer Solstice rituals, but I can't find my notes or photos! However, I also celebrated the First Day of Summer with my family, in ADF-style.
For this ritual I honored the Norse Sun Goddess Sunna and the First Day of Summer. There was drumming, dancing, ribbon rings, and fun. We asked for blessings of joy and healing. I dedicated a small throw that I had crocheted to Sunna and in return she blessed it. This blanket was inspired by a quilt that Three Cranes Grove made that's blessed by Brigando every Imbolc. Inspired by them, I crochet myself a queen size blanket to be blessed by my Healers for the Fall and Winter months. Being too big and heavy for spring and summer, I put that one away and now pull out this throw that's blessed with joy and healing energies, too.
Sunna was very present and gave us a joy boost, after months of mourning my mom, who died in October 2023. Her light cleared the gloom. I still grieved, but I was also able to enjoy my summer more with my kids.
Aug 1, 2024 - Midsummer Honeysweet
August 1st is a major High Day for me, where I've been celebrating a day called Honeysweet since 2020-21. I've always struggled to connect to Lughnasadh, so the last group I was with made a new day, born from months of difficult Shadow Work. We decided we need a month of joy–to attract good things into our lives and to help us prepare for the upcoming months of darkness and SAD. Once my other group broke up, Honeysweet became a day to honor The Melissae and celebrate Bee Spirits, too.
Adapting my existing Honeysweet script to an ADF-style script wasn't very difficult. This is also a script for kids and/or adults (my kids really look forward to Honeysweet!).
We make hive containers to hold our gratitude, our joys, our hopes, and our dreams–our honeysweets. Like bees feed on honey during the cold months, so do we–pulling a note or a photo from the hive to read, to remind, to bring a bit of joy to help us through our darknesses.
The rite is also for grief work, too. I've done grief rituals with the Bees, by having attendees make origami bees or little cut outs, and write their griefs, their pain and sorrows, their dead on their paper–to "whisper it to the bees". Bees can bring joy, sustainment, and can guide the dead, too. So, we honor and celebrate Bee, thanking them for their sacred work.
I enjoy performing this ritual with my family and sharing it with other people. In fact, Honeysweet was the first ritual that I adapted to ADF-style in 2023.
Sept 17, 2024 - Persephone's Descent
This is a personal ritual that I did in the Hellenic Hearth Culture style (minus the Norse Rune cards used for the omen) for the Fall Equinox. I did it with a small group of non-ADFers. In this ritual, I honor Persephone as She journeys to the Underworld to be with her husband for the next six months, officially bringing in the seasons of Fall and Winter. In years past of doing this rite, I may do trance work and/or oracle work and/or guided meditation if others are present.
On this night, I did a consensual possession with Persephone, and thus I can't remember a whole lot, but the small group I was with filled me in, and for the most part the script was followed. It was powerful and helped those in attendance, which is what I aim for when I do rituals with others. It helped me, too. I love doing possession work. It was deeply healing, and I was told that instead of brumating underground as snakes do during the winter, to instead stay above ground and follow the sun and the moon.
I also attended a Zoom Fall Equinox ritual with Virtual Fire Proto-Grove, where Rev. Pagano led the rite (on or around September 17, 2024). Unfortunately, the only notes that I took from that night were the omens. Even though I can't remember what happened during Persephone Descent, I wanted to include it, because I didn't write enough down from Rev. Pagano's ritual. It was a good ritual, too, I just forgot to write about it.
Nov 1, 2024 - A Time for Our
I used to really love this High Day so much that in 2010, I was handfasted on Samhain. But over the years with a miscarriage in '11, grief work, my mom's suicide in '23, an uptick in spirit activity, my kids’ activities, and birthdays it's hard for me to find that spark again.
I honor our ancestors every month (I'm one of the Tree Keepers in my family), I work with spirits and deities for most weeks. I'm a psychic and a Seiðkona/spirit worker, I hear and work with them practically all of the time. If anything, Nov 1st is a day of rest for me after such a busy and emotional month–and the entities are silent on Midfall, whether it's kindness or Mama Hekate blocking them from me. Not complaining either way.
Every fall, I try to write an ADF-style Midfall ritual and I just can't. Immediate blockages. I don't even fight it anymore. Instead, I focus on doing spiritual and psychic work for clients, teaching my psychic students how to protect themselves during this time, on my family, and myself, as best as I can. The older that I get the more that I'm realizing that I don't have to do anything for Midfall. After a month of serving my Kindreds and Community, I can take a break. If you ain't got the spoons, you ain't got the spoons. It's okay.
When I have the memory and energy, I attend rituals hosted by Three Cranes Grove and/or Virtual Fire Proto-Grove, but I attend and don't usually record anything (unless I'm asked to do the omen, or my Kindred nudge me to do the omen). I just attend and enjoy the community and ritual. Couldn't tell you any specifics, only that the High Days followed the COoR as the ADF rules state.
Dec 22, 2024 - The Winter Solstice Dis And Reconnection
I attended Three Cranes Grove's Winter Solstice Ritual via Zoom. This ritual focused on the Gaulish Horse Goddess Epona, asking her for blessings and guidance through the dark of winter. In this ritual, I think they retired a smaller horse figurine and presented that larger white horse pictured above for Epona–figures that I think were lovingly made by members.
They followed the COoR-style, of course, with lots of music and audience interactions, as is normal for Three Cranes. Unlike most of their rituals, I didn't feel a lot of connection with this one.
Due to this disconnection and the Solstice being one of my favorite rituals, I made one of my yearly Solstice rituals ADF-style. Our Yule Tree already is our Solstice altar and adapting it to the Three Hallows wasn't difficult at all–the tree skirt, tree, and lights represented The Well, The Tree, and The Fire.
Since we were featuring Reindeer Mother as the Deity of the Occasion, Elen of the Ways was our Gatekeeper (normally Reindeer Spirit would be the Gatekeeper for the dark half of the year).
With my children handling the Kindred's invitation and send offs, we all honored the Reindeer Mother and helped her carry the sun in her antlers high into the sky with jingle wands, deer masks, and reindeer snack cake offerings.
I used the Seasons of the Witch: Yule deck for the omen. We hallowed the waters and drank deep the blessings from Reindeer Mother.
The month of December is usually so busy for me and I don't have the time or energy to do major changes to my rituals, but I'm glad that I did with this one–albeit it was far longer than any ADF ritual I've attended so far! I didn't feel the connection with 3CG's Solstice ritual, so I gave an old ritual a make-over.
Feb 2, 2025 - Imbolc with Three Cranes
On February 2, 2025, I believe, I attended a Three Cranes Grove Zoom ritual honoring Brigando. For this ritual, they changed it up a little bit by focusing more on Flame Keeping. I think for this ritual, they usually read a really long poem that they add to every year… and they have this beautiful silver bowl with stag heads that sits on a lazy susan candle holder. I may be confusing this with another High Day.
Either way Rev. Dangler opened with a beautiful bit of wisdom, "There is always hope and light to drive back the dark."
March 18, 2025, with Virtual Fire Proto-Grove and Myself
On March 18th, 2025, I did attend a Gaulish Spring Equinox ritual honoring Artio and Liminal Space, by Jeffrey Keefer. Unfortunately, I can't remember much because I ended up trancing during the rite, and I only wrote down the omen and how they lined up with my own divinations.
I also wrote down the working part, because Jeffrey asked, "What do we want to grow this season and what can we do to make that growth happen?" A question that I explored later.
On March 23rd, I performed my own Family Spring Equinox Ritual honoring the Bee Priestesses, Spirits, and Dancers, The Melissae. It was Hellenic and followed the COoR.
I did a lot of research for this rite, like reading The Sacred Bee by Hilda Ransom and Meeting the Melissae by Elizabeth Ashely. Normally I honor The Melissae in August, but they were adamant about the Spring Equinox.
This ritual was kid friendly, so short and to the point, with my kids participating in Inviting/Thanking the Kindreds. We gave offerings of sugar water to help give the bees energy for their sacred work, and I used the Bee Tarot for the omen. For the Work, I had been studying beehive dynamics and communication, especially the Waggle Dance. I taught the dance to my kids to bring positive abundance into our lives.
The Kindreds were happy, and my kids were excited–it was a fun and spiritually energizing ritual to bring in those Springtime energies.
May the 4th be with Three Cranes Grove for their Beltane Rite
I attended this ritual via Zoom, as "Hearth Foxlyn" up in the left corner. This was a Hellenic ritual honoring Pan and his love of music. One of the members (I think their name is Corbin?) told the story of Pan chasing a Nymph. Like a lot of myths, it's pretty morbid and messed up. And like many Nymphs, she wasn't interested and asked her father to turn her into reeds to escape Pan. So, Pan cut the reeds and turned her body into an instrument–blowing into the desecrated corpse of his victim for music.
I gave offerings to the Nymph first because damn–it's just too real and triggering. And it is just a story not actually written by the Gods, so I also gave an offering to Pan, too. Why that story to celebrate? It made me really uncomfortable, which I've never experienced at a 3CG ritual. I adore my local grove, but it was just a weird choice.
After the story and the sacrifices, came the omen. When they asked the Kindred, a storm kicked up, with darkening skies, thunder and lightning. Most of the people took shelter, except for Rev. Dangler and a couple of others, because "No crane gets wet alone!"
After the omens, Rev. Dangler Called for the Waters…and it rained.
Minus how uncomfortable the story made me, overall, I enjoyed the ritual. It was wonderful, with the Nature Entities making themselves known. Rev. Dangler ended with a reminder, "Our work affects not just us, but the world!"