Feast of Regeneration

Summer is where we currently are; yet we know that autumn will soon be arriving on the wind, bringing an end to green, the heat of the sun, and lead towards the rest of nature during the winter. So too does each person experience these cycles of growth, achievement, release, dissolution, and renewal. We will experience this many times over the course of our life as we sense various ebbs and flows, bounty and dearth. 

Summer and autumn are the months of the year recognized as the Mother portion of the year. As She is transcendent Goddess, She watches over our lives and the timeless cycles of all life; birth, growth, old age, and death. And eventually our rebirth into the next life. There are three great festivals to reflect this from summer to autumn, and we start with the Feast of Regeneration on 22nd of the month of Kerea. 

The Feast of Regeneration is a celebration of renewal and rebirth. Throughout our lives even, we will go through transformations and increase in wisdom (and make mistakes!) as we age and live with the choices that we make. We repeat this in every life that we live, as we move through lives until we reach apotheosis, or our highest self that we may once again be a part of our Mother in transcendence.

The traditional symbol of the Feast has been an ear of corn (corn in the sense of grain), as grain is grown and harvested and regrown. 'As an ear of corn falls to the ground that it may sprout anew, so every daughter of the earth must die and reborn in her cycle'.

Making bread and giving some in offering to the Goddess is also a traditional way to celebrate the feast, as well as cooking a great feast and inviting friends to partake.

Another symbol that I find most apt for this day is the labyrinth; a longtime symbol of spiritual meaning across humanity, it can be a wonderful tool for introspection and meditating on the cyclical mysteries, wending inward to the center and thence back out, over and over as in our lives. 

If you have one locally to walk, or the means to create your own, this would be a wonderful way to meditate on this feast. If not, drawing one and tracing with your fingers is another means to do so.

A traditional meditation could be said, as follows:

All things pass and are born in their season;

all things turn and return again.

The threads are woven in an endless pattern;

the shuttle passes from life to death.

The corn returns to the earth's deep bosom;

the river runs to the boundless sea.

O, lead my soul through the turning labyrinth,

that she may return to Thee.

May you be able to find meaningful ways to participate and meditate upon the mysteries of this season.