Today might be Earth Day, but as most people work on Mondays, I got together with friends over the weekend to celebrate the annual day of awareness for the natural environment. We put together a simple ritual and found a lovely spot in a country park to say a few words in honour of the Earth Goddess Gaia. These included this ancient Homeric hymn to Gaia that dates back to the 7th century BCE:
I will sing ofYou can find the full words to the hymn and other prayers to Gaia at Sacred Texts.
well-founded Gaia,
Mother of All,
eldest of all beings,
she feeds all creatures,
that are in the world,
all that go upon the goodly land,
and all that are in the paths of,
the sea,
and all that fly:
all these are fed of her store.
Earth Day is a time to honour the plants, trees, wildlife and land around us and to do something to help them. During the ritual we all promised to be more active in helping Mother Earth and drew slips of paper from a 'sorting hat' with suggestions of things to do.
The message I got told me not to buy disposable items like paper cups and plates, because reusable items are better for the environment. Although that's something I already try to do, I have had the occasional paper cup at coffee shops and I'll make efforts to avoid that in future. Some coffee chains are happy to fill your own cup for you if you take one with you and some, including Starbucks, even give you a discount on the price of your drink if you bring your own mug. Worth remembering - not only on Earth Day.
The photo above shows a simple altar we set up under an old oak tree. You can see our purple witch's hat that we filled with environmental ideas next to it. The reason why there's a toy rabbit on the altar I'll be explaining in a future post.
Links and previous related posts
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2011/04/festival-of-week-earth-day.html
http://www.sacred-texts.com/wmn/bog/bog14.htm
http://starbucks.co.uk/customer-service/faqs/coffeehouse
http://www.badwitch.co.uk/2009/04/gaia-bad-witchs-goddess-of-week.html
2 comments:
Hope you're having a great Earth Day, Bad!
My resolution is to stop using plastic bags...it's been so windy here lately they're hanging on trees everywhere , just looking really awful and I just think...well my Mum didn't even have an option , so why can't I make an effort to give them up? Gonna try!
x
Earth Wytch - that sounds a very good Earth Day resolution!
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