Sunwise

In the northern hemisphere to go sunwise is to walk in a clockwise direction, whereas in the southern hemisphere it is anticlockwise, that is the sunwise direction. Its not hard to figure this out as the sun is quite prominently in the north, and when it rises in the east as it does everywhere in the world, it heads north to where the equator is. Well it does do for us southerners. Now why am I posting about this, well you see being that I live in the southern hemisphere, and being that I am a Witch, I cast my circle and sacred space in a sunwise direction, and I use the word sunwise, however many of the books I read are written in the northern hemisphere, thus, their circle casting is in the other direction, which more often than not is referred to as clockwise. which makes me grind my teeth a little cause sunwise is not clockwise everywhere in the world…. And given that clocks were invented in the northern hemisphear, it is not a supprise that they turn in a sunwise direction for where they were invented. But then the adventures came south, passed the equator and low and behold the sun went in a different direction…. But that is a whole nother story. Well actually its not.. here in the southern hemisphear pagans of what every variety cast their circles starting in the east and then go north, then west then south and then finishing at east completing the circle. I did spend quite a bit of time contemplating this, and trying to figure out if this was an arbitrary thing or if it really had any merit this sunwise thing.



Then I got to wondering why it is that we cast in a sunwise direction, and uncast or banish in a widdershins direction.. why is that? How does that work.. and an answer arrived, which happens when you think about things. *grins* You see the sun rises in the east, no matter where you are in the world the sun will always rise in the somewhere in the east. However depening on where you live in the world can change which way is sunwise, left or right of east. The sun is also what powers our planet and in many ways it is representative of the element of fire, being a large fiery ball in the sky. First thing in the morning just as the sun peeks over the horizon, it does not have much heat energy, but as it rises, and heads towards its zenith, which is north for us southerners, and south for you northerners, (say that ten times fast) its power grows, its heat grows as to the light grows, bringing with it clarity, shedding its light if you will, as well as heat and a fast moving energy that is associated with things when they heat up. Once it has reached it zenith, things start to slow down, perhaps they start to temper, like tempering after the blacksmith has finished shaping his metal, once the sun dips behind the horizon in the east, the light fades away, and night is upon us reaching its zenith at midnight, south for us southerners and north for the northerners, (now that is easer to say ten times fast) with the darkest hours just before dawn, and the rising once again of the sun in the east.



So when casting you are repeating the same kind of cycle, with the exception that insead of lessening energy you are continuing to build energy as you call the various elements from the cardinal directions, following the building path of the sun and increasing the energy as you by pass each of the stations, dawn, midday, dusk, midnight, and back to dawn, so that the energy is contained, the energy is balanced, and ready for you to give it its intention and send it out to the world in that ‘change the world’ like way.



Gosh, that made sense to me, and what’s more I could picture it happening, almost feeling the energy of the elements combine with that of the sun and universe to create a circle as I moved in a sunwise direction.. excellent. ! did it make sense to you? *ponders this*



Just one more thing tho, you budding authors out there and you veteran ones, we don’t have many books that are written from down here, thus we do spend quite a bit of time reading ones written in the northern hemisphere, so if you would be ever so helpful and remember that down here south of the equator, our sun goes from east to north, not clockwise, and our season are about six months different from yours.. so when you are celebrating Beltane however you want to spell it, we are celebrating Samhane, however that is spelt. And for you others playing along at home.. the above is also a reminder that you must practice your magic in the land you live in and with the direction that your sun goes in as well as the season that your land has for the land you live, that is where much of you magic comes from.. mmk…



*skips about*

Seasons on the Down Under

< equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

I have been thinking quite a lot recently about seasons, particularly pagan season of which there are eight. Here in New Zealand which is the southern hemisphere, our seasons are six months ahead or behind, of the northern hemisphere. This is something that the settlers did not think about when they settled here, thus Christmas, which is Yule, is celebrated by the general public on December the 25th. December the 21st in New Zealand is summer solstice , where as Yule is a Winter solstice’s holey day.

With Christmas bearing down on us at great knots, there are those wintery Xmas decorations starting to show in the windows of shops, and the famous Kirks, Xmas shop with its shiny expensive heirloom decorations, of snow laden trees, baubles, and jandal wearing, cloak draped Santa’s. In contrast the weather is warming up and the sun showing a bit more often, the days getting longer and the muggles are breaking out their bbq and inviting their friends over for meat and beer.

What does this mean for Witches and pagans of varying hues living in New Zealand. Most of us are first generation, with our families being nominally Christian,( as in, they Celebrate Easter with secular chocolate and Christmas with secular presents and do not go to church even semi-regularly, also xmas and Easter has pretty much been relegated to secular type holidays here in NZ), but Xmas is still considered a time for families to spend together, thus spending xmas day with our families is still a requirement. I call it a command performance but i digress.

Others however enjoy this time they spend with their families eating too much, trying to stop aunty hit the sherry again, and herding the children away from the present laden pine tree, with its fake snow, until after lunch when the gifts are allowed to be torn apart, opened. These are of course age old rituals, and can differ from family to family. In my family where all packed up our presents, food, kids and animals and headed to a place called Mokau, where my grandfather jack built a batch, a very traditional kiwi batch, with its kikouia grass and cactus garden and toilet on the outside and the zip.. oh the zip i have fond memories of the bottom dropping out of the zip, water everywhere, luckily it was not hot water as we had only just finished filling it up. Opps digressing again and yes the batch was sometimes refered to the house that Jack built. (it’s a poem)

Anyway our family would go the batch as it was called, and spend Christmas and new years, fishing, building sand castles, eating, digging for pippies, floundering, swimming and all manner of beach like activities. The Christmas tree was a pine branch that the uncles had ‘found’ somewhere, and xmas dinner was leg of lamb or beef, roast chook stuffed, roast potatoes, kumara, carrots, salads, and for new years there was always a bbq outside. Both were followed with a night time walk down the beach and watching the ocean.. it was pretty cool.

Now as i am older, that lovely batch is no longer, and i am a practicing witch, so how do i relate to this season of summer with its winter celebration? Sure i could ‘only’ celebrate the summer solstice, and ignore the existence of xmas all together but then I have tried this and it doesn’t sit right in my head nor for that matter my heart. So now i am contemplating how can I sanely combine the two.

As a younger Witch when reading the various witchy books out there that explained the seasons and what the stood for i can remember questioning the reasoning’s presented, actually i still to, mostly because these books where written in a different country for a somewhat different climate, sure New Zealand has very distinct Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn, but they do not fall precisely on the days that were prescribed in these books. So eventually for me the pagan calander changed and evolved, and these holy days became more times, or seaons. Let me explain.

Firstly i see these holy days, more as sacred seasons, or time periods, thus summer solstice lasts when the seasons have changed over form spring to summer through to the beginnings of autumn, and the actually dates, per say change every year. Take this year for example; the weather in windy Wellington has not followed a traditional pattern. Traditionally the frosts do not happen until early spring, (end of august/September) however this year they happened nearer the end of winter july/august, which along with some warm bursts, confused our local pine trees which spat there pollen over the city during the course of one foggy weekend, and covered the city with a fine yellow dust, i know this because i was gifted with a sinus infection, which i have not had in years.. good grief.. So the plants, pine trees thought that it was spring, however spring it was not, instead it was winter, sure the end of winter but still winter. Spring this year didn’t really get into the swing of things until the end of September and beginning of October.. and here in November we are still getting cold bursts of southerly winds, which are brrrr.. but it is defiantly spring, that quickening. You can feel it in the air, see it in the unpredictable weather, and the new growth of various plants. As Wendy would say magic grass day has happened. (magic grass day is the day when after the slow growth of winter the grass all of a sudden grow very quickely.)

On the last day of October and 1^st of November was for us Beltane, although that does depend on what calendar you follow, this was for us in Wellington this year still very early spring, even though we had passed the spring equinox. I suspect that it will be this way up until December, which brings me neatly around to the original point of this post; how to celebrate summer solstice with its Yule trimmings.

Another thing to note is that we on the internet are very much like a global village, so while we are celebrating summer solstice here in New Zealand the southern hemisphere, in places like England, Canada and America pagans are celebrating the winter solstice. Beltane for us just gone, was samhain for the northern counterparts, this for me brings a sense of balance, dark and light life and death, however the seasons of balance are actually the equinoxes, when the days and nights are of equal length, and while this is happening I often find that my life has become decidedly unbalanced.. it’s a thing.

So how to make it all feel right in my head especially the Xmas and Summer Solstice? Things I will have to mull over the next few weeks.