Cultural Anthropology | The heART of Ritual 2/3

The heART of Ritual

musings

Welcome to the MUSINGS room in our digital nest! Here you will find an extensive selection of articles, poetry, prose, videos, recipes, and tutorials that journey the natural cycles, seasons, elements, and archetypes in the Celtic Wheel of the Year, as well as our Irish indigenous festivals, folklore, and customs.

This is lovingly provided as a free community resource, however it is copyrighted content. As such, we respectfully ask that if you share this content outside of this dedicated space, either in whole, in part, or paraphrased, that you credit the author and source. Thank you.

Witch Bottles and Irish Folk-Magic Protection

I recently read Andrew Michael Hurley's novel, The Loney, which is a tale of folk-magic and superstition, as well as a dark coming of...

The Irish Keening Tradition: Singing the Soul Home

Keening, which was once an integral part of the Irish grieving process, began to vanish from before the 1880’s. In many academic papers...

The Sheela na Gig - An Ancient Fertility Goddess?

Sheela na Gig’s are stone carvings of women exposing their genitals which are found mostly on church buildings associated with the...

A February Goddess: Remembering The Little Things

February the 8th, is the Festival of Broken Needles in Shinto and Buddhist traditions. On this day, women will gather up all of the...

St Brigid: Dove Among Birds, Vine Among Trees, Sun Among Stars

Starting next year, we’ve been given a new National Holiday! February 1 is celebrated as St Brigid’s Day in Ireland and to honour our...

Blúiríní Béaloidis 18 - Brigid In Folk Tradition

St. Brigid’s Day falls on the first of February, and is traditionally understood as marking the beginning of spring in Irish custom....

Brigid: The Pagan Goddess(es) of Ireland?

Imbolc is a celebration of the returning light and Brigid herself is believed to be an incarnation of a Proto-Indo-European dawn goddess,...

Brigid of Kildare

February 1st is celebrated as Lá Féile Bríde (Saint Brigid's Day) in Ireland. St Brigid is the female patron saint of Ireland (together...

Ancient and Holy Wells of Ireland

The bullán (english: bullaun) you see above is situated in wild commonage on the Trafask townland on the Beara Peninsula. It comes with a...

Wren Day - December 26th

Going out on 'The Wran' was a strong tradition that I grew up with in the Mealagh Valley in West Cork. We would all dress up in all sorts...

Shetland folk tradition of Skelling, Skeklers and Guising

'For ‘a coarn o meal, a penny o money, ir a piece o flesh’ a handful of grain, penny of money, or piece of meat.' Any evidence of...

Flying Reindeer and the Fly Agaric

Santa and his fleet of flying reindeer can be traced back to a rather unlikely source: the hallucinogenic fly agaric mushroom, or Amanita...

Women of The Outer Hebrides - Waulking Songs

A selection of short films on waulking songs sung by women while finishing Harris tweed in the Outer Hebrides islands of Scotland. A...

The origins of Santa?

Let’s take a trip to the snow-covered fields of Lapland and Siberia, where the legend of Santa Claus may have originated. Hundreds of...

European Winter Solstice costumes; a ritualistic expression of Shapeshifting and Protection

These images of ritual and ceremonies from old indigenous customs in Europe from around the winter solstice, show a time when we were...

The Deer Mother: Earth's Nurturing Epicenter of Life and Death

The animal mother is one of the most ancient images of birth-giving goddess, spanning continents, millennia, and cultures. Marija...

The unearthing of Ireland's ancient Sweathouses

The sweathouses of Ireland date back to the 9th century and earlier. Now known as Bronze Age sweathouses, these ritual spaces were...

Ritual Headdresses in Celtic Europe

Wearing deer antlers as part of ritual has ancient roots in Celtic Europe – this antler frontlet was made 11,000 years ago probably for...

Winter Masks and Seasonal Rituals among the Iroquois

"False Faces, among the Iroquois, are personifications of mythical beings who live in wild and isolated regions, on the edge of the known...

Christmas Cards from the Victorian Era

A gallery of seasonal greeting cards from a time before Christmas became sanitized. Enjoy!

The heART of Ritual

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