Join Three Cranes Grove as we celebrate the Spring Equinox at the Spring Hollow Lodge Sharon Wood Woods Metro Park! This ritual is public, and open to all.
This ritual will honor Persephone as the Kore, the Maiden, as she returns to the middle realm from her time in the underworld. She brings with her the springtime and the greening of nature, the reign of vegetation on the world. We will give her praise for her vernal gifts, and ask her blessing on us and our works as they blossom. (We will return to her honor for our autumn cross-quarter ritual (i.e. Samhain), when we will observe her cyclic return to the underworld.)
First time?
Check our information for first-time attendees!
Some bullet points, though:
- Everyone is welcome, so long as they come with respect. No matter your ancestry, gender identity, orientation, or ethnicity, you are welcome at our fire. We welcome families and children, and consider kids a blessing and a joy, rather than a problem to be solved.
- Our rituals honor the Three Kindreds (the Ancestors, the Spirits of Nature, and the Shining Goddesses and Gods), as well as the Being(s) of the Occasion, our honored guests — the Kore, in this case. In addition to prayer and song, we generally give two rounds of offerings, one to the Kindreds generally and a second to our Being(s) of the Occasion. Feel free to bring whatever offerings you might wish to make; if you’re not sure, grain is generally a good choice. (We will also have some offering items available for your use.)
- Community support is central to our theology: we are all connected in ways both visible and invisible, and caring for the needy is a vital part of our virtue of hospitality. As such, we generally collect donations to feed the hungry in our communities at our rituals. Please see the Mid-Ohio Foodbank’s information for donors for ideas, both of non-perishable foods and of cash; for every $1 donated, MOF can provide $10 worth of food and groceries.
- We will have a potluck after the rite, so please bring a dish to share. Not sure what to bring? Anything will be welcome, but hearty main dishes are always especially welcome. Many people have dietary restrictions, so if you’d like to be especially hospitable, it’s great to have a label, especially if a dish may be appealing to a particular population (vegetarian, gluten-free, etc.).
Schedule
Social hour: 2:30 PM
Song circle: 3PM
Pre-ritual briefing: 3:15PM
Ritual begins: 3:30 PM
Potluck to follow
Location
Sharon Woods Metro Park is located in Westerville, to the northeast of central Columbus. The Spring Hollow Lodge uses a different entrance (off Main Street) than the main park entrance off Cleveland Ave. Use the lodge’s street address for GPS navigation — 1069 W. Main Street, Westerville, OH — and/or see the park map.
Header image credit
Composite of two photos:
- “Head of Persephone. Earthenware. From Sicily, Centuripae, c. 420 BCE. The Burrell Collection, Glasgow, UK.” By Osama Shukir Muhammed Amin FRCP(Glasg). CC BY-SA 4.0.
- “The Flower Fields, Carlsbad, CA.” By Rob Bertholf. CC BY 2.0.
