4  Rituals of Celebration
Through those years of rituals I discovered many things. I learned how to run the rituals, successfully include children, and bring rituals to life with the participation and energy of everyone there. I also learned about the Festivals themselves, and the great Wheel they are part of. Far from becoming repetitive, I felt each time we returned to a particular Festival we went more deeply into it, and the following year more deeply again. Being in the Southern Hemisphere helped me to step beyond traditional interpretations and activities as detailed in many reference books. Each time, I tried to find what was relevant to the local natural cycle as well as current political and personal themes. In a way Damon was my mentor. Not only was he my inspiration for creating these rituals, he was there throughout them, as he is throughout this book; invoking the God, hiding eggs for the egg hunt, leading a journey into the realms of death, or dashing into the sea on the Winter Solstice. Many stages of his growing up were lived in those rituals, and different stages of my journey as his mother. His boldness, certainty, and willingness have often taken me beyond what I felt safe or comfortable with, into the realm of living ritual. I am deeply grateful to him. This book includes memories of some of those rituals. In one of them Damon is five, in another he is nineteen, and in others he is any of the ages between. These memories are windows into what it’s like for a parent and child to celebrate the Festivals together. Moving beyond the immediately personal, the book centers on a discussion of the themes of the Festivals—not as they may have applied to people living in rural England hundreds or more years ago, but as they apply to us today. And they do apply. These Eight Festivals reflect our lives whether we live in the city or country and regardless of our spiritual tradition, age, race, belief, sexuality, or family situation. When we acknowledge and celebrate the Festivals we are honoring each part of our life: birth, growing seasons, love and letting go, harvest, and dying and death.