Sukkot-Equinox

[bunnyjadwiga]

A week ago last Friday....

I've always wanted to do the Sukkot thing, it sounds like fun, and I'm all about doing fun things in the name of religion. Sarah and I had talked about it desultorily. However, that week Sarah kept talking about doing something for Equinox. (For those who come into this late, we're a tri-religious family: I'm pagan, Juergen is non-church Christian, and Sarah and daughter Becky are Jewish. So, yes, this is silly.)

Finally I got the email from the campus Hillel person about Sukkot on Friday and said to Sarah, "Let's do a Sukkot-Equinox thing tonight!" There was much angst about the difficulties, but I said, "Look, we have a sun-shelter that has a frame. We'll just put up the frame, sling a couple of branches on it, and have a sukkah."

Then we had angst about the Four Species (specifically the lulav and esrog-- palm branch and citron, which we didn't have) which you are supposed to wave around.
Turns out, though, you are not supposed to wave them on Shabbot, which is Friday. So we would do the Shabbot candlelighting etc. and I put some stuff waving and directional blessing in my part instead. (It's a pity I didn't find this site http://www.jewfaq.org/holiday5.htm before, because it's got a nice animation of how to hold/shake the lulav and etrog that has me completely charmed.)

I found a lot of good information on the Magickal Judaism blog "Peeling a Pomegranate": http://www.peelapom.com/ and on the Tel Shemesh site she mentions: http://telshemesh.org/tishrei/

The plan was to combine this with a standard Wiccan-type harvest feast and something related to my own Demetrian-type paganism -- I'd checked out a bunch of kids books on the Demeter/Persephone story earlier in the week, and I've got a book on The Mysteries of Demeter. I figured the libation for rain from the Sukkot ritual went along with that pretty well. And of course there's the primary theme of most Jewish holidays: "They tried to kill us, they failed, let's eat."

I was all about the local foods thing for this meal, so I ran out and got local apples and pears, local red grapes (oh so good), a pumpkin, etc. Sarah had a minor health issue so I did most of the cooking.

Moses was probably spinning in his grave, since I cooked a pork roast with onions, because pig is a traditional sacrifice to Demeter. We had barley cooked with broth, green beans (with butter for Becka, and with dilly butter for us), spaghetti squash that had been par-cooked the night before, and I'm not sure what else (Sarah do you remember?), rice for Becka who won't eat barley...

Juergen lit a nice fire for us in the fire bowl.

I wanted to make hearth sacrifice, and I was concerned about doing it AFTER we had invoked Mr.-Master-of-the-Universe, so I fed bread and salt to the fire with a prayer for hearthblessing from Vesta and the powers of the home right at the beginning.

Sarah and Becka lit the Sabbath candles and did the blessing. Sarah read the blessing for Sukkot.

We read this prayer:
As we take up our palm branches, willows, myrtles, and etrogim on Sukkot, as we wave them in the six directions, may we come to feel how connected we are to all times and places. As we build each sukkah to be a latticework of light and darkness, may we feel the totality of what we are as bodies and spirits. As we invite our ancestors into the sukkah each evening, may we know we are linked to past, present, and future. As we walk in the circles of the festival, may we find ourselves encircled and sustained by the Weaver of the web of life.
-Rabbi Jill Hammer, Tel Shemesh Newsletter

Juergen said the Lord's Prayer, and I got him to read the section of Rilke that begins "Lord: it is time. The summer was immense.
Lay your shadow on the sundials
and let loose the wind in the fields..." from the Earth Prayers book.

I got one of the cobs of local Indian corn that I had bought, and prepared to bless the directions-- Becka had to help, so we waved a corncob in all six directions (north, east, south, west, below and above) and asked "May blessings come from [the direction]; may blessings be upon [the direction]".

We ate. I read some sections from Patricia Monoghan's Goddess Companion, Including this one:

Of her I sing, the All-Mother,
Old and rock-hard and beautiful,
Of her I sing, the nourisher,
she upon whom everything feeds,
Of Gaia I sing. Whoever you are,
wherever you are, she feeds you
from her sacred treasury of life.
Bountiful harvests, beautiful
children, the fullness of life
these are her gifts, praise her.
-- from the Homeric hymn to Gaia

We ate. I told Becka a sort of kind version of the Abduction of Persephone (which involved Hades trying desperately to charm Persephone and Persephone saying, with much relish, "I don't WANT your Dancing Demons!", and her eventually absentmindedly eating pomegranate seeds when not paying attention, but eventually pleading to be allowed to share her time between Demeter and Hades because, "Well, he's really kind of cute, and he's awfully nice to me... and...." and Demeter making faces about it.)
Becka continued to bring up the Dancing Demons for several days.

Sarah did the rains libation.

I did a libation of beer by the firebowl (outside the sukkah) and burnt some of the pork and barley to Ceres.
And it was good.