School, Cows, and Pagan Gods

Well, I made it home.

The fountain in Downtown
Brattleboro, VT

And promptly decided to take a month off from blogging. But now I'm back.

Here's the short version of the past month: I got off the plane and went straight to my annual May Day festival. Great three days, and an all around good way to force productive transition. This was followed by two weeks of frantically saying hello and goodby to all my college friends who graduated in May and getting ready for my first In Person Grad School Residency Weekend (and attending said event), launching me into my full time grad student lifestyle. Following this was my 6 day Rites of Spring festival then a week of random appointments.

Looking East on Lucier Rd,
where I live.

Now it's June.

This past week, I looked at some apartments in the Boston area (Somerville for those who know), and had an amazing job interview with the Hope Central Church in Jamaica Plain. I stated digging deeply into my school work and got back in touch with the land.

And I had a busy Saturday.

Some amature marching bands know how to dress up, too!

The first Saturday in June marks what Bernie Sanders dubbed "probably the largest parade in Vermont;" the Strolling of the Heifers, also known as the cow parade. I'm not sure if there is anything more exciting than watching people force their cows up a Main St of a rural town while hundreds of onlookers watch, but if there is, it doesn't happen in Brattleboro, VT.

The Stroll, as it is known to many, is a 14 year old tradition that celebrates local agriculture and activism in southern vermont. It has the local parade traditions of tractor pulled floats from anyone who pays the entrance fee, school and other amature  marching bands, and local political figures. However it is punctuated by cows. Real live cows. With name tags.

That's him. Our Bernie!

If that wasn't impressive enough, this year we had a presidential candidate marching in the parade. Our own Bernie Sanders, right there large as life.

When we got home, I spent some time at our Land Wight's Shrine. In Heathen tradition, the word Wight simply means "being." So I am a wight, you are a wight, the gods are wights, and every plant, animal, and unseen spirit is a wight. At the entrance to our sacred space, we have an area dedicated to the land wights, the spirits and beings connected to the land here. It is centered around a large old Birch Tree Where we have constructed a harrow, piled stones that make an alter. My current spiritual work centers around working with this space and with the wights of this land.

Brattleboro's cow parade

In the evening, my community here on Chase Hill conducted a flower ceremony for the god Ing Frey. It was a fairly short ceremony, we sang a few songs and laid out flowers at the foot of Frey's godpost, and afterwards, we enjoyed a few horns of mead and some good conversation.