© 2015 Springwolf, D.D., Ph.D. Springwolf Reflections / Springs Haven, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Tag Archive | religion
Merry Mabon and Ostara
Apple Tea Time
The Fall and Spring Equinox
Here in the Northern Hemisphere we are stepping into the cool crisp air and explosion of fall colors as the year begins to wane. Our Fall Equinox officially arrives on Wednesday September 23rd at 4:22 am Eastern U.S.
The Equinox rings in Mabon (May-bawn) for Pagans. A holiday that celebrates the harvest season, also known as the Feast of Avalon, the Festival of the Wine and the Festival of the Apple Harvest. You can learn more about the History of Mabon.
Celebrations often begin at sunset on the night before the official holiday. That would be Tuesday evening. Spiritual observations honor the spirits and energy that assist with the gardens, farms, flocks and herds. Thank Mother Earth for the rain, the fertile ground and Father Sun for the warm rays that promote growth in the fields.
Colors of fall are used for decoration, along with the changing leaves and home-made dishes using the items from the harvest. Pumpkin pie is always a favorite in our house. Along with pecan pie, we are in the south after all.
You can hold a private celebration with an intimate tea party featuring apple tea, apple pie, cinnamon apple bread, cupcakes and more.
Continue reading
Halloween’s 666 Meme
Please Use Your Head
For the past month and increasingly as the seasons change, people are sharing memes on social media linking Halloween to 666 and even Friday the 13th. It simply makes me want to plant my face in my hand and ask what in the world has happened to common sense!
Now one of these memes is meant to be a joke. But I’ve been astounded by some of the emails I’ve gotten asking when Halloween went from Friday the 13th to October 31st? Some people are taking these shared images seriously!
What?! Seriously? Let me clear a few things up! No one knows when the 1st Halloween occurred. It never had an official start date. So there’s no way to know how many observances there have been. So please forget the 666 crap. It’s not true and it’s nothing more than bigots associating a number to a holiday that never had a relationship in the first place.
Second, Halloween has NEVER been on Friday the 13th. Ever! There’s not that many Friday the 13ths in October to begin with. But the holiday, in all it’s observances has always been on the last day of October. Continue reading
Happy Labor Day
From all of us here at
Springwolf Reflections and Spring’s Haven
we wish you all a very safe and
Happy Labor Day!
There will be no Tarot Meditation drawing today and there’s no The Ænigma Project show this evening. Enjoy the holiday everyone!
© 2015 Springwolf, D.D., Ph.D. Springwolf Reflections / Springs Haven, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
Facebook’s Discrimination of Pagans – Update
Empowered
One Win For The Pagan Side!
Back on August 20th I shared news about the Facebook name policy targeting Pagan names and causing havoc for those members.
Here’s a short recap:
Facebook has made a policy that allows any user to report another member because they do not like their name or think the name is being used to bullying others or is fake. However this policy is being used as a weapon by cyber bullies and religious terrorists to harass and intimidate minorities. This happened to me this week.
All it takes is for someone who doesn’t like you, your name or the content of your page to send Facebook a report about your displayed name making an accusation that it’s fake and your account is suspended. No double checking, no review of your page or content, no contacting you first. Your account is suspended until you can prove you are who you say you are.
According to the Facebook Name Confirmation policy:
Two different forms of ID from the list below. The names on your IDs must match each other. One of the IDs must include a photo OR date of birth that matches the information on your Facebook profile so that we can make sure you’re the rightful owner of your account.
The list includes about 15 or so forms of ID that can be provided. So you have a lot to choose from. You need to include a government issued ID. And I wasn’t about to give FB more private information about me than they already have. So an “official” ID wasn’t going to happen. It shouldn’t have to happen! Continue reading
Facebook’s Discrimination of Pagans
Lady Spring Wolf – 06.2015
Help Fight Discrimination on Facebook!
Facebook has made a policy that allows any user to report another member because they do not like their name or think the name is being used to bullying others or is fake. However this policy is being used as a weapon by cyber bullies and religious terrorists to harass and intimidate minorities. This happened to me this week.
All it takes is for someone who doesn’t like you, your name or the content of your page to send Facebook a report about your displayed name making an accusation that it’s fake and your account is suspended. No double checking, no review of your page or content, no contacting you first. Your account is suspended until you can prove you are who you say you are.
Update: 08.22 – 4:50pm Eastern
This afternoon FB responded to an email I submitted concerning this issue. They are asking for additional ID information. I’ve provided 3 forms of ID already. So I sent them an image of the cover of my book and demanded my page be reinstated.
In the meantime we have converted one of our FB administration accounts to serve as what we hope is a temporary FB page for Spring. You’ll find her at: facebook.com/RevSpringwolf.
Update 08.26 – I’m back! One Win For The Pagan Side!
In February 2015 Steve Dent wrote in “Native Americans still battling Facebook over ‘real name’ policy.”:
Facebook itself doesn’t pore through names to check authenticity. Instead, the reports often come in bunches from users targeting minorities, making Facebook an unwitting party to discrimination. Continue reading
Lughnasadh / Imbolg And The Blue Moon
Lammas Blue Moon
The Celtic Holiday Of Lugh Under The Blue Moon
Tonight in the Northern Hemisphere many Pagans will be celebrating the 1st harvest festival of the season, Lughnasadh, also known as Lammas. In the Southern Hemisphere Pagans are celebrating Imbog.
This is an exciting time for Pagans. As the sun sets on July 31st Northern Pagans will honor the Sun and his blessings upon the gardens and fields. Lughnasadh is known as a Fire Festival and celebrates the Celtic hero Lugh as the Sun God who saved Ireland from its oppressors. Freeing the people from slavery and ensuring the land would always be fertile and abundant.
In the Southern Hemisphere, Imbolg can be seen as a celebration of the return of the Sun or “the return of the light from the dark of winter”. It is also associated with the slow return of spring (in this case early spring), when new life is formed. This makes the holiday one of the Fertility festivals for the new season.
But tonight we complement these observances under a special event, the arrival of a Blue Moon!
A Blue Moon occurs when a full moon falls within a single month twice. For July 2015, the first full moon fell on July 1st. Today on July 31st, we’ll once again see the full moon in the evening sky. Technically the Moon hit its full phase at 6:46am eastern U.S. time. In the world of energy, the moon’s effects can be felt 3 days prior to its official phase and 3 days after. And of course the closer you are to the ‘official’ phase time, the stronger the energy will be.
Keep in mind however, that the ancients who lived by the moon didn’t have the luxury of Naval Observatory and precision clocks the way we do today. For them, the official time was sunset when Grandmother Moon bathed Mother Earth with her loving glow.
In some pagan traditions the phases of the moon represent the transition of knowledge within the Triple Goddess. The quarter moons representing the Maiden Goddess, the New Moon the Mother Goddess, the Full Moon the Grand Mother Goddess (which maybe one reason we refer to the moon as “Grandmother Moon”). The Blue Moon then is seen as the transition of the Grandmother or Crone to the Divine level of existence. She becomes an expression of the evolution of wisdom, as well as an example of the circle of life. She moves from a tangible wise old Crone to a spiritual energy within the Divine force of the universe. Continue reading
Sunday Homily: Forgive and Forget to Heal
The Best Revenge
Thought is energy. To create it, use your imagination. – Einstein
Now I’ve talked a lot about this concept and how we can use our thoughts to make positive changes in our day. To turn things around and endure the challenges life throws at us. How your thoughts really do create your day, week, year and lifetime is all up to you. So think positive thoughts and be mindful through out your day.
But what happens when the actions of others hurt your heart and drill into your mind? How often have you allowed the baggage of the past to impact your current events or situations with others that make you think of that person who caused you harm? Continue reading
Answering Leon In South Africa
eMail Replies
Replying to eMails
It drives me a little nuts when people send me an email, asking a question that I’m happy to answer, only to have the eMail response bounced back because of an invalid eMail. Ugh! That happened today.
Folks, I love answering eMail and trying to share information about something I’m passionate about in my life. But I can’t respond if you don’t tell me the right eMail address.
I try to research the eMail address to see if I can figure out where the mistake is. Usually the cause is a typeo, a .om where the c has been left out. Or mgail, where letters have been transposed. I can fix those and reply. But sometimes, not even I can solve the problem.
So I try to answer those eMail questions here, while still hiding the specific identity of the person who sent me the note. I hope that eventually the person recognizes that I’m talking about them and still receive their reply. So let me try that today for Leon. Continue reading
Sunday Homily: Fake Friends Believe In Rumors
Friendship Is…
Real Friends Believe In You
I saw this on a poster recently. It was talking about the stress and strain of being online and drowning in social media for kids and even some adults. How these new mediums of communication can impact friendships and relationships.
Fake friends believe in rumors, real friends believe in you.
Some of you probably don’t know that my partner Garrett and I met online in an old AOL chat room. As soon as word got out that we were “seeing each other”, the online drama queens started their efforts to spread rumors to break us up.
It didn’t work, obviously. Because we talk. We talk a lot. We tell each other everything! Absolutely everything. And because we respect each other, we’re open, honest and trust each other implicitly. Continue reading
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