Italian Snake Festival

The Festa di San Domenico Abate (or in English - The Feast of St. Domenic the Abbot) is the "Italian Snake Festival" It is a festival that begins Mid March and culminates the first Thursday in May in the village of Cocullo Italy.

Like many Christian festivals it has pre-Christian roots. What is unique about this festival is that the saint or deity being honored has changed 3 times. It was a festival to worship Apollo, at another time it was to worship the goddess Antgitia before becoming the feast of a Christian Saint.

I feel that this festival is relevant to me because the small town where it takes place is located in the Abruzzo region of Italy and is about an hour and a half drive from the two small towns in Italy where half of my family line originated.

It may be that some of my not so recent ancestors (or even more recent ones, who knows?) visited this festival, maybe under one of the prior incarnations where it was in honor of Apollo or Angitia.

It is a festival that I might call Beltane with sauce and meatballs. It speaks of fertility. One of the customs for the festival is to bless soil and then take it out and sprinkle it on the fields. The soil should act as a protector of the crops.

I can't celebrate the festival in Cocullo, but I can bring elements of it into my own seasonal celebrations. This year I plan to incorporate the symbol of the snake and some of the soil fertility elements into my Beltane ritual. 

 

I also plan on honoring Angitia.

The cakes I will make will be Ciambelli, or at least the not-so-traditional Gluten free version I will have to rig up.

Handparting

In 2008 I was married through a self written Handfasting.It was a beautiful but simple ceremony, but this isn't about handfasting, this is about handparting. While my wedding was awesome I don't feel qualified to give advice on handfasting, after all how much meaning did any of it actually hold since it didn't work out? My marriage didn't last long, only a year and a half. In time I learned not to regret the marriage itself, but to view it as a learning experience.  Which was a difficult thing in and of itself.

While through the preparations for out marriage, we were great at writing our handfasting, what we never did once things fell apart was a formal handparting. My ex stopped seeing the world through a pagan world view and found he was really more of an atheist, so a handparting was unnecessary to him. I however, even after months of living without him, still felt the bond pulling me to him. I was nearly ready to move on but part of my heart still belonged to him. It was like having a wound where the scab kept being pulled off, never able to heal and always seeping a bit. It was one of the most painful experiences of my life. So, knowing that an official handparting was out of the question, I made my own ritual.

I took a pouch, (mine was made of red velvet but that was what I had lying around)

I placed my wedding and engagement rings in it.

I placed pennies from my birth year and my ex's birth year and a dime with the year we were married in it.

I carried the pouch with me everywhere for a little over two weeks. That was when I felt I was ready to let it go, individual responses may vary.

Every time I felt any emotion related to my marriage and its failure, I gave it to the coins in the pouch.

When I felt ready to let go, I placed the pouch on my altar and lit a white candle. I let the candle burn out with the pouch in front. My intention was for all the feelings I had to be dissolved and set free. To free me from the bond that kept me tied to my ex

 

After the candle was burned out I took the coins to a place that was special to us, in this case a park, where we went with a group one of the first nights we met, where we ended up on our first date, where we first kissed, where he proposed. I offered the coins to that place. I thanked the gods for allowing me to know love, however brief and fleeting. I took the rings home and placed them in storage. Where they still sit. I'm not sure what to do with them so there they sit.

After this one person handparting I was ready to sign divorce papers and move on with my life. I have moved on to be someone my marriage would never have allowed me to be.

Deity

There are as many approaches to the divine as there are people. Even adherents of the same religion or religious grouping view the divine differently. Is there one god, many gods, one god with many faces, one god with many separate faces that are indeed gods themselves, no god, or just "the force" ? There is no right or wrong answer. Science can not prove nor disprove the existence of the divine. There are people on all sides who so firmly believe that what they think is fact. I think almost every Pagan will claim to know a Christian who touts their belief as fact, but Christian's aren't the only ones. I know atheists who so adamantly believe that there is no god they won't even entertain the idea that they might be wrong. Who group all religion as one bad thing. In fact those fundamental atheists actually do have faith, they resolutely believe that there is  no divine entity. So what about the Pagans? There are fundie pagans too. Pagans who believe that their way is the only way. I wonder why as a species there are so many among our number who feel the way, regardless of what they believe, that their beliefs, unproven beliefs, are fact?

My view of the divine is ever changing. I believe what I feel and know that depending upon my personal experiences, my beliefs can change. There is no way of knowing what is out there, or not and the only people who might know are in no shape to tell us. To me the divine is some thing "out there" and within. All parts of the same. I also hold that there are many paths. I worship the faces of god that resonate with me. They are as unique in personality as any of my friends, but I understand that they, like my friends are part of something more. I know for sure this is what I feel to be true right now, but I could be woefully wrong and I accept that. I do not feel that anyone's path or experience or belief should be discounted as long as it isn't hurting anyone. I do that which enriches my life.

Perhaps because of my view of deity, I have trouble relating to them, or spending a lot of time on worship. I feel that how I live, how I treat others says a lot more towards worshiping the great over all divine than does pouring libation for one face of the divine. I do spend some time in worship, as I spend time with individual people. My relationships with the gods are like those I have with people. I have had different gods that I spent more time with in my younger days but as many relationships go, we have since grown apart. I have long ongoing relationships with deity that are more akin to a familial relationship.

Some may look at my view and relationship of the divine as informal (it is), or disrespectful (I assure you it isn't). I just see it as life and how I experience it. My experience is valid.