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From Cunnian comes this topic:
"The utility of set points, cycles. Whether the wheel of the year, the start of school or whatever, these give you a window to assess change, be beset or comforted by memory, make new plans."
It has been awhile since I have regularly kept set points and cycles like The Wheel of the Year. When I was the co-priest of Crossroads Tabernacle Church, an Aquarian Tabernacle Church affiliate some years ago, The Wheel was just a part of how we organized things. It held a sacred flow through the year, and the cycles of our communities and the harvests we have around here were just a part of how we celebrated and brought community together.
I am not the best when it comes to time. For awhile, I reckoned a lot of my years in divisions of which holiday was closest to an event I was trying to recall. For instance, I became a Pagan in 2004 around Samhain. Since the CTC closed, I think the main timekeeping cycle for me has become the three events I have been involved with: ConVocation, Ann Arbor Pagan Pride, and in the last two years, Winter and Summer Trothmoot. If Michigan Paganfest were still around, it would be another event I would reckon the years by. ConVocation and AAPPD have themes, with ConVocation winding down its exploration of the Sephiroth with Malkuth next year, and AAPPD this year being about Healthy Resilience.
I do still occasionally celebrate holidays, but the times I choose to celebrate them tend to be vague. Part of this is simple necessity: I work odd hours and most folks cannot meet up to celebrate. Where I get to celebrate, like the last Solstice celebration of Midsummer, or the Year of Aun celebration before it, they tend to be all-day celebrations. Where I find the most utility in set points and cycles like this is community gathering and community building. Funny enough, this also gives me time to assess change, be beset or comforted (sometimes both!) by memory, and make new plans!
I plan on keeping the Aun celebrations regularly, with the next taking place in 2031. Remembering the lessons of Aun are so crucial, and renewing dedication to living well with the Ginnreginn through all ours souls is so important. By living better and more gentler, at the least we are living in better concert with our Ginnreginn. At most, who knows how many positive effects we can have on our regional environment? By making smaller, conscious choices to live better with Jörð we improve our impact. By doing this as members in community we widen our scope, widen our impacts, and brings ourselves into good Gebo, and good community, with the vættir we live with. Many Pagans keep the Wheel of the Year for similar reasons: the cycle dedicates them to understanding how the world around them exists in each local season, how they relate to it, and to celebrate their visceral experiences they go through in the year. The Wheel of the Year, festival cycles, convention cycles, and rites of passage can bring mindfulness, lived connection, and depth to our communities, our Work, and ourselves, if we allow it to.
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