Free Ostara Celebration Guide

Happy Friday! I’ve been recovering from a cold and trying to balance all.the.things in my life from my family to my job to this newsletter. Though I’ve been busy, I’ve still been able to appreciate the promise of springtime. The temps in New England are still hovering in the teens and twenties, but the sunshine is growing warmer and the days are getting longer. So there’s hope yet!

In celebration of the coming Sabbat, this week’s free printable is an Ostara Celebration Guide. I hope you like it!

The OSTARA CELEBRATION GUIDE is available for free to subscribers until MARCH 1, so be sure to grab your copy today!

Ostara Recipes & Potluck Planner

Happy February! I don’t know about you, but I always feel like a champ for surviving January in New England. Several of you have asked about recipes and party planning for your Sabbat celebrations. So this week I thought it would fun to put together some pagan-inspired recipes and share an easy potluck guide.

The trick with hosting any kind of gathering is to make it fun for yourself. Nothing is worse than cooking and cleaning and setting up all day (or days) and being so tired you can’t enjoy your own party. I find the easiest way to host a fun and affordable gathering is to make it a potluck.

So to help you out, this week’s free printable is a Potluck Party Planner (say that 10 times fast) that will help you plan a lovely gathering while keeping your sanity.

Pagan Inspired Food & Some Recipes (sort of)

Because paganism is a wide umbrella of beliefs and customs, there are unlimited ingredients and recipes that you can incorporate into your Sabbat and holiday celebrations.

Here’s a short list of common foods associated with Wheel of the Year Sabbats, starting with the next Sabbat, Ostara:

Ostara -Eggs, honey, sprouted greens, baked goods, asparagus 

Beltane - Dairy foods, honey, oats, mead, lamb 

Litha - Honey, elderberry, strawberry, fennel, thyme, fresh greens, mead, light wines

Lughnasadh - Grapes, wine, beer, bread, grains, blackberries, pears, raspberries, black currants, corn

Mabon - Corn, beans, squash, apples, pumpkins, cider, root vegetables, pomegranate, wine 

Samhain - Apples, pumpkins, roasted game birds, cider, dark wine, pears, root vegetables 

Yule - Cookies, caraway, dried fruits and nuts, pork dishes, eggnog, ginger tea, spiced cider and wassail. 

Imbolc - Baked goods, winter vegetables, seeds, dried fruit, butter, milk, cheese, lamb, mutton

About those recipes…

So I’m gonna totally honest here - while I LOVE cooking, I do not really like writing recipes. And I like testing recipes even less. So, rather than spend the limited amount of time I have for Mabon House doing something I don’t love, I decided we’d all just be happier if I curated some of my favorite recipes from Pinterest.

Maybe this is a lazy shortcut? Or maybe it’s excellent time management. You decide. ;)

Ostara Menu Inspiration

I’ve gathered up some of my favorite Ostara Recipes from around Pinterest and organized them into a curated menu on Mabon House. I choose the recipes based on cost, complimentary flavors and incorporating traditional spring foods.

Let me know what you think. If you find this helpful, I’m happy to create more curated menus for the rest of the Wheel of the Year Sabbats.

I hope you had a lovely Imbolc and an even lovelier start to February. Just think, we are more than halfway to Springtime!

How Do You Explain Paganism?

I have a lot of mixed feelings toward organized religion - some of which stem from childhood and some of which are a result of my observations and experiences as an adult. I appreciate all religions and the good they bring to people who follow them - the sense of community and faith and genuine good work that churches, religious groups and devout individuals do every day- but I am also acutely aware of the hypocrisy, strife and hatred that religion brings out in certain people and groups.

Even now, I have a hard time labeling myself as any specific ‘religion’. I have a keen interest in Paganism, but I wouldn’t say I am a Pagan. I mostly identify first as myself, second as a woman, third as a mother, and so on. I could never figure out why we feel the need to label people based on the way they believe in God (or Goddess). Why must we all be put into certain boxes?

But even though I view patriarchal religions with a tinge of suspicion, I have never lost the desire to connect with a higher spiritual power. I tried going to church for a while and felt like a duck out of water. I had no feelings of closeness or peace. I was mostly uncomfortable and kind of bored.

After my father died a decade ago, I spent a lot of time being angry at God. Not just for my father’s premature death from cancer, but at the total absence in my heart of any kind of comfort or solace. The only time I felt any kind of spiritual relief was when I was outside. When I took a walk by myself next to the river near my house, I would finally feel a peace settle over me.

And that is in part what brought me to explore Pagan beliefs and customs.

I love the weaving of nature and the seasons into my life. I know that winter is a time of rest for me, both physically and emotionally. Spring is an awakening and I find myself invigorated to work on household projects, or start new initiatives at my day job. Summer is busy and slow at the same time. I try to get outside as much as possible because in New England nice weather is fleeting. Autumn is my favorite - the end of the Wheel of the Year and a time that I take stock and start thinking about the new year ahead.

I believe that even though many of us are far removed from living by seasons, like they did in ancient times, the seasons can still help guide and direct us to better things.

So, I may not be a text book Pagan practitioner (what does that even look like?) but I think I do well enough.

What about you? How did you discover the Wheel of the Year and the Pagan sabbats? How do you follow these beliefs and rituals in your own life? And do you even feel like you aren’t pagan-enough? I’d love to hear your thoughts!