The Wild Hunt (https://wildhunt.org/tag/traditions)
In this week’s Pagan Community Notes, congratulations to Cherry Hill Seminary graduates! A rising Black Moon is ahead just before the new solar year. And speaking of which, blessings of Janus! We look at some New Year’s Day traditions around the world. After all, in our opinion, nothing brings in the new year better than a little Witchcraft!
TWH journalist, J. Michael Rollins, shares the first part of a conversation with the Public Information Officer of the Covenant of the Goddess. The Covenant recently held its Grand Council and made some significant changes in its structure. We discuss some of these changes and how they will frame the Covenant’s future.
TWH – Opportunities to knock on the doors of neighbors — with the expectation that they will provide a gift upon the opening of the door — has largely been relegated to trick-or-treating customs. But these visiting traditions extend back thousands of years in many parts of Europe. Typically the ritual involves some sort of exchange between the visitor and the host that bolster community ties, reinforce common values of culture and religion, and — at least symbolically — redistribute wealth. Sarah Stockwell-Arthen, a member of the EarthSpirit community in western Massachusetts, has researched “visiting” and made efforts to recreate some of these practices in her neighborhood. That effort began with wassailing, for which many songs still survive and from which she could glean understanding about how and why it was done. She has also experimented with going a-maying and even knocked on doors around Samhain.