Travel back to an era when the moon was our only calendar, and explore all the timekeeping systems that have been held sacred ever since by peoples all over the world. From the Egyptian feast of Thoth to the Celtic fire festivals, from the Chinese lunisolar year to the lunar-based calendar of the Muslim world, Dance of the Moon will take you on a cross-cultural tour of traditions, pagan rituals, and practices throughout history that honor life's cycles.
Discover the Mayan calendar as a soul evolution tool and see what it foretells about 2012. Explore the spiritual underpinnings of the Pagan Wheel of the Year alongside holy days from communities spanning several generations and thousands of miles. Learn about a wide array of deities, symbols, plants, and elements that are sacred to each month of the year.
Just as the rhythms of the moon and the earth resonated long ago for our ancestors, these life-affirming cycles persist today in the rituals and festivals of the Hindus, Buddhists, Jews, Taoists, Christians, and the indigenous peoples of Africa and the Americas. Reconnect with nature and dance along with life's sacred rhythms.
Once the year moves past mid-May and into June, festivals celebrate days that are getting so long that the Russians still call the June summer solstice week the White Nights. For ancient peoples in the northern hemisphere, the point of the time leading to the next mid-season feast of Lughnasad (July 31—August 1) was the waxing power of the Sun, especially after July 3 during the dog days, so...
In most ways, the Summer Solstice of 2009 is likely to play out in the Northern Hemisphere much as it has for thousands of years now, with reverence for the feminine, the moon, and water. Dan Furst, author of Dance of the Moon: Celebrating the Sacred Cycles of the Earth, shares how this Summer Solstice of 2009 marks our even more fervent awareness of water as the hot summer months loom ahead.
Today is the new moon, a time when many--even witches-- say that magic and meditative activity should be forgone. Instead, bravely travel inward and find what the darkness is hiding from you. Revel in this harvest season and commune with the darkness.
As one of three annual harvest celebrations marked in the Witch's sabbat cycle, Lughnasadh doesn't seem like much of a stand-out. Unless you're tending crops on a daily basis, you're not very likely to be especially filled with excitement over the thought of the first harvest, as opposed to the second or third harvest. The book Lughnasadh in... read this article