Chelanya/First Harvest

 Dear Reader,

Yesterday was the holiday of Chelanya, the Golden Festival of grain and nature's bounty. The holy mystery of it, for the Filianic and Déanic communities, is the death and resurrection of the Daughter. In some ways, the cycle of mysteries associated with the harvest season mirror those of the Eastre cycle. In the Eastre cycle, we celebrate the life of the Daughter and her taking on of Fate (and mortality), we follow her journey into the Netherworld, and mourn her death before celebrating her arising from the abyss of absolute death by virtue of her Mother's tears and love.

In the harvest season, we approach the death of the Daughter with holy awe for she has arisen from the abyss of death like the grain springs up from the earth. We celebrate the bounty of the earth, more specifically the grain's bounty, as a reminder of the perpetual life that we find in union with Our Lady and her Mother after we have passed through the gates of death ourselves. This is the celebration of Chelanya.

The next harvest celebration, Cuivanya, comes and we celebrate the fertile earth and it's bounty in all things. It is a day of joyful abudance and embracing the life we have in this world by way of the benevolent gifts of the Bright Mother. The third harvest celebration corresponds with Tamala. With this third harvest celebration, we honor the Dark Mother, who is the ground of all being, and the one whom all souls return to in union at the end of days.

First Harvest is also celebrated within the Wiccan community as Lammas, the celebration of the bounty of the grain and the holy mysteries of the death of the god of the grain. It is, in many ways, like the celebration of the holy mysteries of the death of Freyr within Heathenry. The first harvest marks the beginning of the season where all produce is gathered in and prepared for the long winter.

Freyr, as the grain-lord and patron of the harvest, dies in ritual sacrifice so that the earth remains fertile and he arises a new in the spring with the sprouting grain to the joy of Gerða, his wife. He spend the winter within the halls of Helheim, just as the winter wheat planted at the end of the season spends the earth in fallow ground. When the snows of winter gives way and the season warms, the winter wheat springs up and Freyr returns. This is much like the story of the grain god of the Wiccan belief system. (There are some who theorize that the God of Wicca is a folk memory of the god Freyr of the Anglo-Saxons.)

In either way, First Harvest is a holy day. In my personal practice, First Harvest is a day dedicated to work. I wanted to spend time in meditation but life persisted in refocusing me on work that needed done. I dedicated my efforts to the High Ones and did my best to give thanks for the bounty in my life.

Chelanya: First Harvest

Dear Reader,

I'm a few days late with this post. It figures that on the holy day of Chelanya, the Golden Harvest Festival, I was busy with household work. It was too hot to bake bread. I really wanted to but when it was over 80 deg. F. in my kitchen before I turned on the oven, there's no way you can convince me to bake bread. I'd probably faint from the heat and humidity that day if I had decided to do something so silly. Instead, I made my boys vanilla french toast for dinner as a treat and read them their favorite story at bed time (which is a switch from the usual routine because Beloved was out of the house attending his monthly gaming session).

I've always felt that Lammas was a 'working' holiday. A day made holy by work. They've taken in the first harvest of wheat. Some of that harvest got pelted pretty bad when some harsh weather had come through a few weeks back and I wasn't sure how well it'd go. But, the folks around seem to have bounced back pretty well from what's been a rough growing season this year with strange weather. The hay making has been going well. Corn is due to be brought in soon. It's tasseled out and just about right. I don't think the next town over will be holding their annual corn festival. All of the festivals have been cancelled due to Covid-19. 

Chelanya is a good time to count your blessings and recognize that Déa gives bountifully the gifts of the spirit to the world. I was working to keep that mindset but it was hard. Little things kept going wrong over the weekend. Then a big thing went wrong the day after. I tripped over some toys and fell hard. It was but only by the grace of the High Ones that I didn't land on my spinning wheel and net myself a trip to the hospital by way of injury. But I hurt my back pretty good. I think I landed on a matchbox car, the bruise is about the right shape for it.

Then after spending an afternoon checking up on / visiting Beloved's parents, we got home and thought it was going to be a typical quiet evening. That strange bit of minor misfortune however continued to swirl about. Beloved wound up going out to help our niece with some car trouble. I had the misfortune of having my plant stand on the back deck get blown over. There's broken pottery over about half of the deck. Strange luck had the pot that I inherited from my late paternal-grandmother land in a pot overgrown with weeds and the pot that I first bought to grow plants in land just right so that it wasn't even chipped and nary a petal on either geranium plant were disturbed. The pot with my fuchsia just had part of the lip broken off, landing right beside my outdoor shrine to Déa (which was thankfully undisturbed).

It has been an odd and exasperating last few days. I look around and wonder what I am harvesting. I no longer remember what seeds I have sown and feel as though Covid-19 cast me to the wind. Everything is in tumult in ways that haven't been before. Emotionally, it is difficult to weather the isolation that has been forced upon my family by the situation. As we look forward to the potential of school opening in September, I am filled with dread instead of anticipation. I can only lay my burdens of grief, fear, and uncertainty into the hands of the High Ones. So, I pray and hope for better days ahead. 

It is the first day of the Filianic Month of Kerea

Dear Reader,

Today is the first day of the Filianic month of Kerea. This is the second month of the season of Summer. The holiday associated with this month is the high holy day of the sacred Feast of Regeneration (also known in orthodox circles as the Golden Grain Festival). This feast day falls on the 22nd of the month (which translates to August 1st, though some celebrate it on the 2nd. More will be written about this celebration when it arrives.

High Holidays: Filianic

Eastre

Florimaia

Exaultation

Rosa Mundi

• Blessed Solstice & Rosa Mundi 2016

Chelayna

• Autumn:Harvest and Creation 2018

Cuviyana

• Autumn: Harvest and Creation 2018

Tamala

• Tamala/Samhain 2018
• A Shrine for the Beloved Dead 2014

Nativity

• Yuletide 2015
• Advent Begins 2015

Lucaid

Amity Day

• Love is Love is Love 2017

Moura Day

• The Season of Moura 2018
• Moura Day 2016
• Moura Eve 2016

Kala

• Eve of Kala Thoughts 2018

Hiatus

• Hiatus and Equinox 2017

This page will be updated as the relevant posts are collated and put here.

Autumn: Harvest and Creation

Image courtesy of Pexels.com

Within Filianic and Déanic faith systems, the season of autumn is a celebration of harvest and of the
creation of the universe. It is the central portion of the 'Mother' half of the year (which is considered to begin at the feast day of Rosa Mundi, Midsummer and end at Nativity day). The major feast days of this part of the year celebrate the whole of Dea. The first harvest festival of Chelanya is the feast of Regeneration. It mirrors the Eastre cycle and is during the second month of Summer (Kerea, named for Ceres) and corresponds with when the harvest of produce begins in earnest. Some consider it the unofficial start of autumn.

The second harvest festival falls during the month of Abolan near the Autumnal Equinox. It is called Cuviyania. This festival is consider the proper harvest festival and is during the height of harvest time. It celebrates Dea as the Ground of All Being, or the fundamental cause of all existence. All three aspects of Dea is celebrated but greater emphasis is placed on the Bright Mother as the benevolent and abundant giver to all of creation. The major meditative focus for this celebration is the mysteries of creation.

The third harvest festival falls during the beginning of the month of Werde and is a three day celebration. It begins on the 30st of October and continues until the 1st of November. Known as Tamala, it is a celebration of the soul's reunion with Dea. It is also a time where the Dark Mother aspect of Dea is celebrated as the comforter and consolation of the dead. Tamala is very much a time for the meditation upon those who have gone before us and for the celebration of the bonds of love that ties us to them, as well as the bonds of love that tie us to the Dark Mother, Deam Mysterium.