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Author Topic: What's your favorite holiday?  (Read 18697 times)

AlisonLeighLilly

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What's your favorite holiday?
« on: July 04, 2011, 03:06:43 pm »
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

AlisonLeighLilly

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #1 on: July 04, 2011, 03:10:21 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
And I guess I should start with mine, actually.

My favorite holy day is Imbolc, probably because it was the first real holiday that I celebrated "as a Pagan." I was still in college, and it was a dark, cold February night, and I spread about two dozen tea-light candles all over my dorm room while I performed a very basic ritual celebrating the growing warmth and light.

Since that year, I've had many truly moving and beautiful Imbolc rituals - often subdued and intimate ones where it's just me and a single candle huddled out in a dark, snowy wood somewhere. And since I began cultivating my relationship with Brigid as a patron goddess, the holiday has taken on even more meaning for me.

--Ali

Sage

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #2 on: July 04, 2011, 03:10:57 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
Ostara was my first holiday I celebrated, so it's my Pagan birthday. :) I also really like Mabon and always have. Not sure why.
Maker, though the darkness comes upon me,
I shall embrace the light. I shall weather the storm.
I shall endure.
What you have created, no one can tear asunder.

-Canticle of Trials 1:10

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Auress

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #3 on: July 04, 2011, 03:17:36 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?



Halloween.:)

In all honesty, I love all the fall/winter holidays. I loathe the spring and summer as a general rule.

AlisonLeighLilly

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #4 on: July 04, 2011, 03:20:40 pm »
Quote from: Vermillion;807
Halloween.:)

In all honesty, I love all the fall/winter holidays. I loathe the spring and summer as a general rule.

 
Heh, my birthday is in the summer, just a few days before the solstice, so of course growing up that was always my absolute favorite time of year. I think I'd still have to vote for the Summer Solstice (what we call Alban Heruin, or "Light of the Shore" in my Druidic tradition) as my second favorite.

--Ali

Aisling

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #5 on: July 04, 2011, 03:23:07 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
Samhain/Halloween by a long shot.  Late October is absolutely my favorite time of the year and a time when I can usually visit with my best friends who live in another state.  Spiritually speaking, a lot of my work revolves around the dead and dying and transitional states, so Samhain takes on a particular significance for me.

"The universe is under no obligation to make sense to you." -
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Nehet

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #6 on: July 04, 2011, 03:25:56 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
Ooh, ooh, mysteries of Ausir!

I know, big shocker for everybody.

It happens in December.  It involves raising of the Djed pillar and of course, honoring our Akhu.

I'm currently looking at how I can make "seed mummies" with my temple.

I mentioned it on SMF.  Excited about trying out the idea this year.
See, life is but a movement of eternal return.  Even Trees fall ~ Berlin papyrus 3024, (A man tired of life).

Live, Ausir, for all time and all eternity! Ankh Neheh Djet!

SatAset

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #7 on: July 04, 2011, 03:35:43 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?


Aset Luminous which is a festival of lights for Aset.  I also really like Awakening of Aset by Ra's Majesty where Aset's statue is taken outside to greet the sun or inside light candles if the sun isn't out.  Hmm.  I apparently love to light candles.

My favorite Heathen holiday would be either Yule with Mothers' Night or Disablot.  

Oya only has a couple of festivals and some of them are because of syncretism with Catholicism.  So February 2nd and her one Yoruban one in October.
I am the Goddess of Who I can Become. I mix the magic of the sorceress with the blade of a warrior. I walk the liminal pathways to see the face of the Goddess, both terrible and kind. As She stares back at me, I tremble in awe and ecstasy.  --SatAset

Harzgeist

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #8 on: July 04, 2011, 03:37:22 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
I love Mabon. Just thinking of my Mabon stew wafting through the flat makes me go all warm and fuzzy inside. Autumn's always been my favourite time of the year, I don't really know why. Maybe because it's my birthday in November. Maybe because going out in the dark with my little lantern when I was a kid, or collecting brightly coloured leaves or chestnuts. Anyway, I just love the time when the weather is getting colder and when we say thanks for our harvests.

And since I've become a devotee of Anann, Litha has become really important to me. It was on Litha last year that I've done a ritual that was very meaningful for me, so this holiday will always hold a special place in my heart.
give us a creed / To believe / a night of Lust / give us trust in / the Night

Morag

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #9 on: July 04, 2011, 04:09:12 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
Samhain/Hallowe'en (both religiously and secular-ly).

Hate to be the stereotypical Witch here, but it's true. Samhain is about death and dying, crossing over, the veil between the worlds thinning, and that's stuff I have a lot of first-hand experience with. The story that has always resonated with me is the Descent to the Underworld -- first Persephone, because I was a big Greek-o-phile, and then pretty much every other story I ever read about Underworld-Descent-and-Return. I see it as a metaphor for my own life and my battles with depression.

Also, by the time I was 15 I'd seen more death in my own life than most "normal" people my age had. Add that to my suicidal tendencies and thoughts and I soon became obsessed with death, and everything to do with it -- especially Samhain.

It remains to this day my favourite holiday, even if my celebrations of it lately have been somewhat lackluster (or just plain bad, like the public temple ritual last year).

(Following Samhain, Imbolc, Beltaine, and the Solstices are my favourites.)
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caelestisraven

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #10 on: July 04, 2011, 04:13:00 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?


For me Autumn Equinox hands down. I love autumn, the weather is lovely- not too hot & not yet too cold. All the leaves changing colors.

It often also falls on my birthday (sept 22 ♥)

I am also a priestess of Persephone & in my tradition the Autumn Equinox is devoted to Her. So it all comes together to be a great holiday for me!
♥ I walk in the shadow of the moon, I dance to the pulse of the earth. ♥

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Micheál

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #11 on: July 04, 2011, 05:06:12 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

It looks like I'm yet another one chiming in with Samhain, with Lughnasadh a close 2nd. ;) Although we don't have much other than Victorian folklorists and certain interpretations of the Coligny Calender indicating it can be marked the "Celtic New Year," it has always been a powerful time for me.

Having an Autumn birthday close to the equinox, Meán and Deireadh Fómhair have always been my favourite season. The crisp autumn air, smell of peat fires, and golden fields, you just can't beat it. Even as a child Halloween festivities were among my favourite, and today hearing the contemporary Gaeltacht lore of Oíche Shamhna makes me anticipate it even more. The energy in the air around Samhain is one I'm very sensitive to, and one I really enjoy celebrating....

It also happens to be my wedding anniversary too ;)
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Dragonfly68

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #12 on: July 04, 2011, 05:09:48 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 
Well, Beltaine is my daughter's favorite because it was the first ritual we attended.  Myself, I mainly like the Fall Equinox and Samhain.  Both because I LOVE the fall season.

Arynn

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #13 on: July 04, 2011, 05:17:43 pm »
Quote from: AlisonLeighLilly;790
For the sake of getting things rolling in this subforum, here's a real easy one:

What's your favorite Pagan holiday or festival, and why?

 

Mine is Samhain/Halloween...October and November are my favorite months (my birthday is in October, but mostly I'm just a really big fan of Autumn, it's my favorite season), so it makes sense that this would be my favorite holiday. Even when I was a kid, and not a Pagan yet, Halloween was still my absolute favorite holiday...for more reasons than simply because we got a lot of candy! I loved dressing up, I loved going out at night, I loved carving pumpkins and setting up all the Halloween decorations, I loved the colors we always decorated with - black and orange and purple and gold - and I loved the idea of honoring the dead, which was an aspect of Halloween that I was always taught by my parents (again, even before I became a Pagan).

In general, I love Autumn (the changing color of the leaves! The smells and spices! Pumpkin flavored foods!) - really, all of the harvest festivals make me happy and I look forward to celebrating them each year. The trio of Lughnasadh, Mabon, and Samhain...that whole time period is a great time for me, I get really happy and excited. It's also traditionally the time when most American schools start, and, believe it or not, I've always really loved the whole "going back to school" feeling. It will be strange, as a recent college graduate, not to have that this year... ! ^_^;;

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Re: What's your favorite holiday?
« Reply #14 on: July 04, 2011, 05:23:11 pm »
Quote from: Aisling;814
Samhain/Halloween by a long shot.  Late October is absolutely my favorite time of the year and a time when I can usually visit with my best friends who live in another state.  Spiritually speaking, a lot of my work revolves around the dead and dying and transitional states, so Samhain takes on a particular significance for me.

 
Given that Aisling and I share the exact same mind, I am going to second this.


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