Muin Mound Grove

Brighid-along with Sassafras Grove · Sassafras Grove

greycatsidhe — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 21:44:13 +0000

Brighid-along with Sassafras Grove · Sassafras Grove.

via Brighid-along with Sassafras Grove · Sassafras Grove.

A really interesting idea from another ADF grove!

Garden Update

greycatsidhe — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 21:33:09 +0000

EDIT: This was meant for my personal blog, The Ditzy Druid, but I’ll leave this here anyway. If anyone else wants to share photos of their garden, let me know!

Summer is on its way out, but the garden is still going strong! Despite the increasingly chilly nights, the days are still warm. I’ve got some time left to enjoy my patio garden!

From Garden

Lavender flowers

From Garden

Still getting some bush beans…

From Garden

New baby zucchinis!

From Garden

Big, fat brandywine tomatoes growing on the vine

From Garden

An increasingly orange pumpkin. I think it’s ready to pick…

From Garden

Eggplants

From Garden

A new baby pumpkin!

From Garden

Peppers

From Garden

The moon is still waxing so it’s a great time to harvest herbs. I brought some lavender flowers and Italian Oregano in for drying, but not before making offerings of specially blessed waters in exchange.

Tagged: food, garden, herbalism, nature spirits

Website Updates

greycatsidhe — Mon, 08 Aug 2011 19:42:46 +0000

Some big updates to share with everyone today! I spent Saturday and this afternoon on the website and I’m excited to report the following changes/additions:

After the “Home” link, all other links have been alphabetized.
The “About” page consists of two links – one to a FAQ and another to the Story of the Grove.
The “Archives” page has been changed. Links are alphabetical. I changed some categories. There’s a yet to be made section for articles and the book club. The “Chants” and “DP” page have been changed to match the main pages. I moved “Artisans, Bards, Folk of the Grove, and Warriors” to a “People of Muin Mound Grove” section. Also there is a yet to be made “Druid Scouts.” I have to tweak the layout a bit. There are some minute things annoying me… I also left room for future additions.
I added our social event to the calendar.
A new page, “Services” has been added including information about weddings and sainings. I included a couple photos from my wedding featuring the altar and Skip. I’ve asked Parallax if she is willing to share a photo from her wedding as well. If anyone else has a photo of their wedding/handfasting or saining (done by Skip or at the Grove), please send them my way! I mentioned funerals but I don’t know what to say about those. This page will be a work in progress, of course. I look to the rest of you for help in fleshing it out. I thought it was important for newcomers to see what we can offer in terms of major life events.
I’ve saved the best for last – The CafePress link! Skip sent me the shop he made and you can now access it from our website! Skip also informed me that $3 of every purchase goes towards Muin Mound Grove. There are SO many things to buy including organic tees, a tank top, onesies, magnets, totes, sweatshirts, and dog bowls.

Once more, I’d like to request artisans, bards, and warriors to send any examples of their work. At the moment, I have links to my ADF consignment page and my Deviant Art page, as well as Phoenix’s ADF consignment page. I know Willow won an award at the Wellspring Artisan competition but I can’t remember the name of the piece or the category. I have a few honors mentioned under “Bards” but I don’t have any examples. If you’d like to send in some poetry or music, please do!

Tagged: artisans, bards, shopping, updates, website

Lughnasadh Games Results

greycatsidhe — Sat, 06 Aug 2011 16:41:38 +0000

As part of our Lughnasadh festivities, we held our traditional games. This year, the games were more physical and included such activities as racing, stone put, caber tossing, balancing, dancing, and a lawn game from Sweden called Kubb.

The competition was fierce and everyone performed valiantly. In the end, the winters of the games were:

Weretoad
Brian
Dragonfly and Abby

Huzzah to each of our heroes!

The overall champion, Weretoad, gave his prize, the champion’s wreath, to the fires in honor of Lugh.

Tagged: 2011, games, Lughnasadh

Happy Birthday Muin Mound!

greycatsidhe — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 19:54:41 +0000

Yesterday, Folk and Friends of the grove gathered to celebrate Lughnasadh. In addition, we took this occasion to celebrate Muin Mound’s 21st birthday!

We had cake...

...and party hats!

Tagged: birthday, food, fun, Lughnasadh, Skip

Final “Bard” Discussion

greycatsidhe — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 17:07:00 +0000

Hey Grovies,

Sorry it took me awhile to get this started. Things have been a bit hectic recently but I didn’t forget!

We’re going to finish our discussion on the novel Bard the Odyssey of the Irish by Morgan Llywelyn on the blog. Our last discussion didn’t happen because of schedule changes and our next meeting will include our Lughnasadh games… So there might not be a lot of time for book chat.

Here are some points that might be worth discussing:

Morgan Llywelyn’s portrayal of the Tuatha de Danann?

Morgan Llywelyn’s portrayal of the Tuatha de Danann
Amergin’s relationship with his brothers
Amergin’s relationship with Shinnan
The life and death of Odba and Taya
The role of bards, warriors, and sacrificers in Ireland and Celtic culture in general
Morgan Llywelyn’s portrayal of Druids
Sakkar’s transformation

In addition, I’m curious as to whether you found this book enjoyable and if you’d like to read another book as a grove in the future. I’ll let some of you chime in. I’m going to visit family for a couple days, but I’ll add my two cents when I return!

Peace,

Grey Catsidhe

Tagged: Book Club, books, Celtic culture, Gods, Ireland

Female Vikings

greycatsidhe — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 16:05:34 +0000

A couple meetings ago, we had a brief discussion on women in Celtic society. I’ve been very interested in updating my understanding of the subject since. Today I saw this post in “The Mary Sue” about Viking women. The author doesn’t link to the research/findings she references, though. I thought some of you would enjoy it.

So, if anyone has any good, recent articles about women in IE cultures, share some links below!

Peace,

Grey Catsidhe

Tagged: Celts, links, meetings, Vikings, women

Muin Mound Grove Gift Registry for Lughnasadh

j87eliot — Sat, 02 Jul 2011 03:57:26 +0000

As many of you know we will be having a birthday party themed service for Lughnasadh to celebrate our grove’s 21st anniversary. We sat down and developed the following list of ritual supplies the grove routinely requires. In addition we have included items that the Ellison family tends to supply that the rest of us often take for granted. We ask that people sign up for specific items the way you would in a gift registry. However for most items is ok if we get mutiples, they will eventually get used.
Olive oil, tobacco (Candee), cornmeal, ale (the good stuff) (Sharon), herbs (Candee), votives (Jen K), fire pot, bug spray, soda, rolled oats, small whiskey bottles, insence sticks, small insence sticks (Willow), bird seed w/bucket & lid, long handled lighters, old sheets, and silver.

Tagged: gift registry

Book Club Question

greycatsidhe — Mon, 27 Jun 2011 17:05:38 +0000

Most of you know that we’ve been reading Bard the Odyssey of the Irish by Morgan Llywelyn. As planned, we discussed the first twelve chapters at our Beltaine meeting. We had scheduled our discussion of chapters thirteen through twenty-four for our Summer Solstice meeting, but an emergency put it on hold. I suggested moving our second discussion to the blog. Now I’m wondering if those participating would like to finish discussing the book here. Let me know what you think. If you haven’t shared your thoughts on the beginning of the book, feel free to add those thoughts to this thread.

Our last discussion of the book includeded:

the role women play in Celtic societies and their strength
the role of the bard, warrior, and sacrificer
the complicated character of Colptha
brief thoughts on the portrayal of the Tuatha de Danann

I will post some questions about the next section shortly. I look forward to more discussions!

Tagged: bards, Beltaine, Book Club, books, business meetings, Celtic culture, sacrifice, Summer Solstice, warriors, women

Website Update

greycatsidhe — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 18:20:29 +0000

Jen K. requested a different image on the homepage as the lightening had more to do with Taranis than Airmid and Miach – the Gods we’ll be honoring for Midsummer. I suggested a photo of the Airmid doll I made and she thought that sounded great. I’m happy to share my work as I think the site would benefit from more “homemade” images.

I also noticed that Beltaine’s meeting minutes weren’t loading correctly so I tweaked that.

Soon I’ll be adding our Wellspring meeting minutes and photos!

Visit our website: http://www.muinmound.org/index.htm.

Tagged: arts and crafts, business, Gods, ritual, website, Wellspring