Pagans: How do you celebrate the sabbats?

Hmm... I haven't actually celebrated anything in a while. Mostly, though I write my own rituals. Being 14 (15 in 17 days! woot woot!) myself, I can't say as to what another kid would do on a sabbat day. I'm going to write a ritual for Samain this year, one to honor the dead, my ancestors, etc.

Samhain is a celebration of life and death. It's also the end of the harvest season. I honor the dead and my personal ancestors, as well as gods who govern the dead.

Yule is the Winter Soltice, the shortest day and the longest night of the year. It's a recognition of rebirth.

I also celebrate Midsummer, and the Vernal and Atumnal eqinoxes, mostly by honoring the gods.

A generic ritual for me is to make some sort of cookie or cake, get a bottle of fruit juice (or wine, but I'm not of age, so I usually use sparkling something or other), and present an offering to the gods. I give an offering to the tree in my back yard, and (more recently) to the potted plan in my room. I then say some sort of chant, poem, whatever, do a bit of meditation, then go about my business.

Hope that helps!

-Ulthar

"Ed, go tell that cab driver...to shove a stick up his ass." -Sean Thompson

Hi Doctorj
I'm going to assume you're already familiar with casting a circle and calling the quarters from talkign to your friends. the words I use would probably be different but the basic principle would be the same. For Samhain, after casting the circle the celebrant would perform the great rite symbolic of the union of the goddess and the god. after we would pass the chalice with the ritual (water/ale/wine/juice) and usually a bowl of pomegranate seeds. we eat pomegranate because that is the fruit persephone ate in the underwolrd in greek mythology. we willmeditate to travel to the underworld and speak with loved ones who've passed on. We light candles and place offerings on an altar in honor of our ancestors and deceased loved ones. Many trditions beleive that divinitation and magick are strongest on Samhain so we'll scry with crystal points, crystal balls, and black mirrors, read tarot, runes and other froms of divination. Since Samhain is also the new year we will perfom magick planning ahead for the new year, what goals we are setting what things we want to enter or leave our life.
Oh and after the ritual we usually head out to a Halloween party with cool costumes and too many sweets :)
hope this helps

To preface my comment, I'm not pagan, though I flirted with paganism some years ago. One of the most important thing I noticed was food. A lot of pagan circles will bless wine and food for ritual's end. Besides that, there's a pretty significant emphasis on in season foods, such as root vegetables and stew (vegetarian or meat) at Samhain, early fruit and veg at Beltane, midsummer produce at summer solstice, so on and so forth. The symbolism obviously being the ties to the earth, not the hothouse grocery store supplier. Summer solstice I remember bonfire leaping. Imbolc was heavy on the Brigid symbolism and the maiden incarnation of the goddess, so a girl played the part of Brigid in the ritual and integrated a touch of pageantry into it. I seem to remember some emphasis on cheese at Imbolc, because I think that's when pregnant sheep began lactating way back when, so first fresh food? So, I guess I'd say old traditions, traditional foods, pageantry, and turning the year into a wheel (I remember some items from previous rituals were saved for use in one later in the year and whatnot). Hope that helps.

EDIT: the girl who played Brigid in the one ritual was probably about twelve, playing the maiden incarnation of the goddess. Kids got involved in some of the parts in one of the pagan circles around here.

I'm fond of singing and dancing- nothing highly choreographed, mostly spinning in circles and wordless arias. I also like to make small donations- bread, water, coins. I leave them under trees and bushes. (Then the squirrels steal them. Hee.)

*Wails*

I'm afraid I don't believe in following the "organized religion" asspects of being pagan, since I believe in : do what you will so long as you harm none.

In other words, I do not celebrate the holidays or sabbats or any other days for that matter. Why? Because I believe in living simply, and I do not believe in conforming to "traditions" and "rituals" laid down by others. Let me be free to be me and I'm happy

I'm actively pagan, though a rather weird sort--even other pagans consider myself and my church [a legally incorporated pagan one] weird.

Holidays:

Samhain [which is coming up] is about death and the promise of new life. Our rituals tend to focus on journeying to the underworld [one year it was through the myth of Inanna, another was Egyptian themed, this year has a focus of four different goddesses]. It's a holiday for mourning and greeting your beloved dead.

Yule is the winter solstice and it marks getting towards spring. There's gift-giving since it's so close to Xmas.

Imbolc celebrates the first signs of spring. Since it's associated with Brigid, there's a lot to do with fire which also brings new life.

Ostara is around Easter-ish time and celebrates the lovers rejoining. This year, we put our hopes and wishes for the coming year into eggs and hung them on a sacred tree so that the gods may see them. We also planted a birch, which is significant to the holiday.

Beltaine is fertility, plain and simple. We do a traditional Maypole and have a green man and may queen and, since the church is based on a functioning farm, they are actually a couple who must consumate their roles so that the farm may be fertile.

Midsummer is about growing and changing as the year turns. We celebrated around a specific goddess.

Lammas is the harvest/reaping and is about sacrifice. This year our ritual involved what you would give up/sacrifice and had a traditional John Barleycorn rite.

Mabon is the Wild Hunt for us--a specific deity who feeds the predator/prey is brought down and some people run as predators, others as prey...and all prey are ritually sacrificed to the deity in question at the end.

We don't cast circles or anything...we call the four directions with their attributes.

My most meaningful holidays are Midsummer and Mabon--I am big on sacrifice to grow. Beltaine is important to me because I met my boyfriend at our celebration. :)

---
'05 "The Good Parts"

oh god.

In our home sabbats are celebrated with a glass of wine and quiet reflection...but we are pretty dull.

Ages ago we used to participate with a quasi-organized group, we would cast circles next to a river, have drumming circles...the whole nine yards...but then we got all urban and whatnot.

You might want to browse the Pagan Library for some ideas. There are rituals there as well as recipes, folk traditions etc. that you may find useful. Especially check the reference section for overviews of the sabbats, as the articles often include descriptions of old folk practices and modern ideas and alternatives.

Just adding in little things, like baking bread at Lammas or leaving a lantern in the window on Samhain, would be nice touches; they're also practices that younger Pagans would regularly participate in (as children will not always participate in formal ritual).

Personally, if I can't have a ritual, I take a walk outside to attune myself with nature and the turning of the Wheel of the Year. Connection with nature is a very important aspect of my neopaganism.

Good luck!

------------------------------
S. Azelma Melmoth

Are you thinking of a universalist pagan religion (i.e., as widespread as, say, Christianity and Buddhism are now, or the cult of Isis was before the Christian era?), or a polytheistic tradition that varies from place to place in which gods and rituals are most important? What's going to matter most about how holidays are celebrated is to respect the natural world in which the religion is set. The ancient Egyptian calendar, for example, was centered around the flooding cycle of the Nile, while the neopagan one is loosely based on a combination of Celtic, Germanic, and Roman pagan calendars.

In short, make it match your world.

As far as what pagan kids do on various holidays (not all of us call them sabbats), it often looks like what Christian or non-religious kids do on the co-opted equivalent holidays--carving pumpkins, trick or treating, but also perhaps sitting out at the graveyard or participating a ritual to honor deceased relatives on Samhain/Winternights/Day of the Dead; Putting shoes out during the 12 days of Yule for the tomtens to leave candy in, decorating a tree, helping make a wreath, and getting presents from Father Yule and family members are all things my daughter looks forward to in the Yule season. She also participates in the rituals I perform that time of year. And at Ostara/Eostre she decorates eggs and we have an egg hunt.

I actually do public rituals at a local new age/pagan/wiccan shop. If my husband isn't available, I use one of my friends as High Priest (often a female, we aren't picky). I do this for all 8 holidays.
During the summer, I have rituals in the sacred space in my yard. For Beltane, I have a maypole, which we dance around, and then do a ritual to open the sacred space for the season. Then I do the Summer Solstice (Litha) and sometimes Lunasadh, and a circle closing ritual for the fall equinox (Mabon). I do different ceremonies at home than at the store, because some people come to both, and also because in the store we can't use candles or incense due to fire regulations, so all my fire-based rituals are outside, at home.
The sacred space in my yard is a 15-foot diameter circle between two maple trees. It has been hollowed out and refilled with 5 cubic yards of beach sand. It is outlined with a dual ring of curved grey bricks; in between the bricks I have planted cactus for protection. Among the cactus are home-made poetry bricks with sacred words relating to the specific deities I worship and work with. A set of slate steps leads into the circle. In the center, I have a slate painted with a compass aligned to the directions, a large rock I brought home from the beach, and a small table we use as an altar. Two picnic table benches for sitting are sometimes used too, for longer rituals. We always bury offerings, such as crystals, herbs, flowers, and incense, in the circle during the ritual. To the west we built a 8' tall sacred tree carved with Reiki symbols and other sacred symbols, and it is hung with dream catchers, tobacco ties, sun catchers and wind chimes.
Pictures of my indoor altar and sacred space are here: http://www.obsidianbutterfly.com/articles/altar1.html
There is an old version of my Circle here, before the double layer of bricks, the cactus and the stairs were installed: http://www.obsidianbutterfly.com/offerings/ctlightworkers.html
Any questions, please PM me as I might not find my way back here anytime soon.
Gevera

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You might find the Spiral Scouts fodder for inspiration. They're like a pagan, Earth-minded version of the Girl Scouts or Boy Scouts:

http://www.spiralscouts.org/metadot/index.pl

The circle that I celebrate with usually takes time to tell the story behind the sabbat after casting the circle/grounding and centering/etc. Then afterwards, as a group, we raise energy by chanting and then holding hands while we move in a clockwise manner.

http://www.manygods.org.uk/articles/essays/wheel.html

That website has a bit of a poem going explaining the 8 holidays and what happens on them, on a spiritual and historical level.

Live more and commemorate less.