1. Bread Magic and Lore

hosted by Inner Circle Sanctuary
Saturday, July 7, 2018 at 6 pm
Please RSVP

Come one, come all to our most popular event of the year:
Bread Magic and Lore.
AKA An Excuse to Eat a Ton of Carbs
but it’s for a Good Cause Event.

We will discuss the history of bread making,
how to infuse your baking with magical intent,
and bread’s role in rituals.
More importantly, though,
we will have homemade bread for tasting and for sale. 

Our events are RSVP only,
so if you would like to join us,
please mark yourself as “Going” on our Facebook event invite
or message Inner Circle Sanctuary directly.
Location information is on our Facebook event invite. 

Aside from bread, we will have a potluck.
Feel free to bring something if you’d like...
especially something that will be GREAT with bread!

We ask for a $10 donation or whatever you can afford.
100% of the donations and bread sales will go to a local charity.

For those who like to search out "obscure" holidays, today would be considered one. Unless you're a Wiccan, of course. March is the beginning of the fertility season; it makes sense! So even though we cannot find the "origin": of who made March 18th the day of the Goddess of Fertility, we are glad we found it.

Click on any photo for a larger version.
​Click on the description for the link to the source.

THE SUN GOD 
in the Wiccan Mythos
Presented by Inner Circle Sanctuary

SATURDAY, JANUARY 6, 2018 
at 2pm
at the Las Vegas Natural History Museum
900 Las Vegas Blvd. North 
Las Vegas, NV 89101

$12.00 Adults 
$10.00 Seniors, Military and Students 
$6.00 Children (3-11)
FREE Children (2 and younger),
Las Vegas Natural History Museum Members
ASTC Travel Passport Program (Two Adults & Two Children FREE)

https://www.facebook.com/LasVegasNaturalHistoryMuseum/

Wine is relatively easy to make in today's world, but it hasn't always been so. Sometime in the far distant past, fermentation was a happy seasonal happenstance. The natural yeast on grapes brought about fermentation of the juice into wine and then into vinegar (if it wasn't drank first). This mysterious process, believed to be through divine intervention, was considered a gift from the Gods. Drinking this divinely intoxicating beverage allowed the drinker to take in divine energy. Thus, wine became an integral sacrament in religious rites, and still is today.

​I like the story of the origins of wine told about a King of Persia. He really loved grapes and wanted to eat them all year. His servants carefully stored grapes in jars so the king could eat them any time. One jar had grapes that seeped juice and started to ferment. When opened the odor and appearance of the fermented contents caused the jar to be marked poison. One of the kings wives had chronic nervous headaches and decided to kill herself by drinking the poisoned juice. She fell asleep, but when she woke she felt refreshed and had no headache. She finished off the jar of wine! She evidently had such a good time that the king ordered more of the grape juice “poison” to be made. He declared it to be sacred medicine. As improbable as this story sounds ( I'd have had a hangover, lol), grapes preserved as raisins would make a nice sweet wine.

​At some point in time the wild grape vines were domesticated and planted in vineyards; the grapes were fermented and stored in clay jars, and tree resins were added to prevent the must from turning to vinegar. Archaeologists believe this came about during the Neolithic period around 8500-4000 BC. They have found evidence that resinated wine (wine with wood resin), was being produced during this period (ca 5400-5000 BC) in fairly large amounts at Hajji Firuz Tepe, in the northern mountains of Iran. It was during this period that the growth of agriculture (particularly wheat and barley) and the invention of pottery made permanent settlements possible. These innovations were necessary for a sustainable year round food source and storage. They were also necessary for processing and storing wines. Egyptologists discovered 700 jars of resinated wine in the tomb of Scorpion I, one of the first Egyptian rulers (around 3150 BC). The development of narrow necked jars that could be sealed, were key to the storage and shipping of wine. By 3000 BC, the Nile Delta had transplanted vineyards and developed a thriving wine trade. The jars were inscribed with the year of the pharaoh’s reign, the vineyard location, the vintner’s name and the quality of the wine (good to very very good).

​Autumn Equinox is a time to “Eat, drink, and be merry,” to share and give thanks for the bounty of the harvest. Giving offerings and libations to God and Goddess is a ritual at least as old as agriculture and brewing. Every culture has one or more deities to whom they pay homage for the gift of brewing. One of the oldest is Nin-Kasi of Sumer, She was the brewer for the gods, who taught humans the art of brewing beer as well. Osiris, Egyptian God of the Dead was originally a god of vegetation and fertility. He taught the Egyptian people how to grow wheat and barley and of course the cultivation of grapevines. The main drink of Egyptians and Sumerians was beer which was brewed from bread and malted grain. Tenemet ,the Egyptian Goddess, originally associated with bread making, became Goddess of Beer and aids Osiris in his brewing. More famous for drinking and frivolity is the Greek God, Dionysus.He brings joy and divine ecstasy, and is also a vegetation, and fertility God. He is also known as Bacchus, the Roman God of wine and festivals. So eat, drink, and be merry in honor of the God and Goddess. Share your harvest, bread and wine with them in thanks for their bounty!

Activities you might like to try:

• You might want to try your hand at making wine at this time of year when grapes and berries are plentiful. Apples are also plentiful and the juice can be spiced or fermented for a hard cider.
• Make bread from scratch! You can purchase wheat or barley and grind them into flour yourself. You can find recipes for bread, wine and more on Pinterest; the library is also a great resource.

​One of our very favorite stories is of how Our Lady Morgana started our classes back in 1991. She had been in a coven for a few years and was working at a metaphysical shop where she encountered many, many people who were interested in learning about the Craft. She went to her own High Priestess and asked if they could start some classes for neophytes and her Lady said NO. A few months later, Lady Morgana asked her High Priestess again and her Lady said No. Again, she asked and the answer was no… and again; NO.

Finally, after countless times asking, (she persisted) her Lady acquiesced but admonished that it would be a project for just Lady Morgana and her reluctant working partner, Lord Mordred. They partnered with a couple of other Wiccans they knew and put together a curriculum and a sabbat celebration.

Of course, they asked that their High Priestess attend the sabbat and she did, but after witnessing the non-coven style, haphazard ring, her Lady said, “Oh no, this will never do.”

In the following days and weeks, Lady Morgana worked closely with her Lady and working partner to develop a ritual and curriculum that was based on coven-style training and that included information that was correct, but already in print. Lady Morgana was not allowed to teach her own covens teachings, but if she found something in the myriad of books being published that was accurate or close enough, it could be utilized.

Our group has kept evolving since it’s beginning and is still a growing, advancing, coven, but it’s establishment from the onset; the desire to give back to a curious community, still remains today.

~Lady Atheona