Wiccans Ring In Season
By Steve Kidd - Penticton Western News - March 23, 2008
Angela Gallant, priestess of the Temple of the Sacred Well, shows the altar that will be part of Saturday's ritual.
This weekend, Leir House Cultural Centre became home to a different kind of culture as Okanagan Wiccans gathered to celebrate the vernal equinox.
The Ostara ritual is a simple ceremony, celebrating one of the important events in the cycle of the year, said Angela Gallant, priestess of the Temple of the Sacred Well.
"We are an earth-based goddess religion," said Gallant. "On Saturday, we are celebrating Ostara, which is the reawakening of the goddess. She is at her full power in our beliefs and is renewed at this time. We bless her and receive her blessings of strength, fertility and growth."
It's one of eight special days in the Wiccan calendar. Most traditions embrace four "fire festivals" rooted in Celtic history, including Samhain (Halloween) and Beltane (May Day). While these remain the major festivals, Gallant said, Wiccans have also embraced historic festivals celebrating the equinoxes and solstices. "They are also major shifts in the seasons," said Gallant.
The ceremony lasts for about an hour, Gallant said. "We try to keep it short enough to be interesting, long enough to be worthwhile," she joked. The ritual itself revolves a central altar, with the points aligned to the cardinal directions of the compass, with an item to represent the four elements, earth, air, fire and water at each point.
Not only is this an important ritual of renewal to Wiccans, Gallant said, it's also a great festival to introduce the family to Wiccan beliefs, since parts of the celebration are easy for children to understand.
"Children love it, because we all do the Easter egg hunt anyway," she said. "So it's a fun little thing that children can understand and comprehend."
"And it's an opportunity to teach my children about my beliefs without having to get into the more adult aspects," said Gallant. "To teach them about nature and about spring, how each season follows one after the other."
"For me, Ostara is a time to renew my connections with the earth and the goddess," said Gallant. "Coming together as a temple helps to renew our sense of community."
While everyone is invited to join in with the ceremony, Gallant said participation is not required. Involvement depends on your level of comfort, she added. Some may just watch, others join in the circle and there are people that take an active role in the ritual.
The Temple of the Sacred Well, is one of two temples serving the South Okanagan under the banner of the Congregationalist Wiccan Association of B.C., the other being the Temple of the Phoenix.
The other group in the South Okanagan is the Temple of the Phoenix, which is led by Mike Zult, who said having legal status as a church has helped to bring public acceptance of their beliefs.
"People are realizing that we're not the Hollywood version of witches, riding around on broomsticks and casting evil spells," Zult said. "Or that we're Satanists, as we've sometimes been accused."