I saw a post on Twitter from a friend saying we needed to see more portable and small altars. These are important for various reasons but for me, …

Mini Portable Altars and Shrines

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Online, nobody argues with me about raising pagan kids because the first or second thing out of my mouth is usually “I was raised in Neopaganism and …

The post Reblog – Raising Kids in a Polytheist Household appeared first on America Divine.

The Gods are beautiful and worthy of worship. If you are anxious about honoring them, don’t feel embarrassed. This post walks through some false …

Advice About Honoring Gods for the Anxious

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I am indebted to Rowan Williams for his work “On Christian Theology,” wherein he offers a rich and nuanced discussion precisely about how to speak …

The post Reblog: Theological Integrity appeared first on America Divine.

I’m realizing that a lot of my readers, especially in the US, probably aren’t all that familiar with Canada’s historical relations with the …

Why aren’t polytheists talking about Canada?

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You don’t have to be a mystic or super-religious to worship the Gods. A polytheistic mindset is one that affirms the existence of many Gods, whether …

When You Have a Bit of Time for the Gods

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I have made some changes to the “New to Polytheism?” tab up at the top: I removed the sidebar and added six posts that have appeared on my blog over …

I Updated the “New to Polytheism?” Helpful Blog Post List

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“You need to learn to be a polytheist.” I’ve heard some variation on this theme for as long as I’ve been in and around polytheists. And frankly, I …

The Gods Don’t Care What Language You Speak

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In Marinus’ Life of Proclus, one moment that I never thought too much about was the part when Proclus is described as having a vision of Athene. …

When a God Comes Into Your Home

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So, for the last couple of weeks I’ve spent a lot of time noodling how to reframe the Gregorian calendar as a liturgical calendar. While I’m really designing this around my particular brand of syncretic polytheism, I’m hoping that it will be useful for others.

I don’t intend it as a replacement for reconstructed liturgical calendars, especially in mystery traditions. Rather, I think of it as a gateway calendar- a way to help reprogram our relationship to time.

Currently, it’s nigh-impossible to escape the crush of monotheism in our overculture’s calendar. However, “Holy Mother Church” taught us the power of subverting a culture’s existing calendars, holy days, and observances. I think we need to heed that lesson. Heck, they kinda stole that idea from the ancient Romans anyway.

Most of the “Wheel of the Year” charts I see split the year either by the solstices and equinoxes or by holy days that fall roughly halfway in-between those- such as the Irish calendar. The Wiccanate Wheel of the Year is a combination of both:

Of course, many cultures historically divided their year up differently- the Hellenic, Kemetic, Hindu, and Cree calendars, for example. In all of these cases, their agricultural seasonality is different from the “typical” Gregorian seasons.

In thinking through this new Wheel of the Year, I wanted to aim for a decidedly American (U.S.) calendar. If this takes off, I think folks in Canada, Mexico, and many other places could easily use the same principles to adapt their own.

I’m going to get into specific observances later, but for now I just wanted to share my first draft of the wheel:

I’m not entirely happy with the “tide” names for the liturgical months, so those will probably change. Suggestions?

That said, changing tides at roughly the ides of the Julian month seems to help the calendar feel aligned with the solar quarter days without turning them into moveable “feasts”. Of course, this won’t work for Work that requires the actual astronomical moment; but, many rituals already get scheduled for the nearest weekend anyway.

I’ve added a ring with four alternate “seasons” since not all of us get real winter (or summer- Minnesota?). These are based more on the feeling of available light than on specific cultural assumptions like snow, falling leaves, or going to the beach. I also included a rough mapping of rainfall patterns in Central Texas to reinforce how our “seasons” don’t necessarily fit the “traditional” pattern.

I said earlier that I would get into specific holy days and such in later posts, but I did want to share some (very) rough noodling about the transition days at the center of the four “sun seasons”:

Yuletide (Dec. 31 to Jan. 1) – “New Year’s”: A day for safeguarding all that is good in our past and correcting or discarding that which is not. Cleansing and warding Work should definitely be undertaken, even more so than normal.

Blossomtide (Mar. 31 to Apr. 1) – “April Fools”: A day for frivolity and rejoicing in the sensorium, a celebration of life and living.

Victorytide (Jun. 30 to Jul. 1) – “TBD”: I still have a lot of unpacking to do here, but it has something to do with the Gods’ restoring the divine order and us following their example to restore right relations.

Harvestide (Sep. 30 to Oct. 1) – “Autumn Sage?”: A day for taking stock, planning for the future, budgeting, and making hard choices.

Those are very cursory descriptions- obviously, I didn’t really get into the specific Gods and the specific liturgy for worshipping Them on those days. I’m just not yet far enough along in the process to do so.

Anyway, that’s a quick overview of one of my many projects.

-In Deos Confidimus

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