North Stars, Flame-Tending, and the Apocalypse:
Rituals for the Hopeful Heart in Dire Times By Danielle Dulsky, author of Seasons of Moon and Flame
As a young woman, beloved witch, author, and teacher Danielle Dulsky found refuge, nurturance, and wisdom when visiting her grandmother’s rustic home. Next to the fire of the winter hearth and sitting outside with the wildflowers of spring, her anorexic body was loved and fed, her racing thoughts were slowed, and she received a maternal support she did not have in any other part of her life. These visits with Grandmother Grace were the seeds that eventually grew into Danielle’s deepening exploration into the Sacred Hag archetype and the wisdom that these elder women have been sharing since the beginning of humanity. Her third book, Seasons of Moon and Flame: The Wild Dreamer's Epic Journey of Becoming is a “Year of the Wild,” — consisting of thirteen chapters that correspond to the thirteen moon cycles, or lunations.
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he earliest moons of the year, for me, are those best spent pondering my “witch’s north stars;” these are pertinent but unanswerable questions that my Craft moves toward, never quite reaching but always seeking. My north stars give me hope when I find myself struck by sorrow, bemoaning the state of the world, or just spiritually unfed. My north stars keep me from trying to win at my witchcraft, necessarily tempering the lessons of my individualistic, American upbringing and gifting me with the rare opportunity to savor the journey, to be met with joy during the practice of magick, to yet again see a spell from the untainted perspective of an innocent. This year, two of my guiding north stars are these: What is the role of the Witch in a wounded world? What does
it mean to cultivate wonder and whimsy on this damaged miracle we call a planet? Timely questions, these. In spring, as my Witchcraft turns more toward ancestral healing and the myths beloved by my people, I look to the archetype of the “flame-tender” to give greater meaning to these, my 2020 north stars. She is Brighid in the Irish pantheon, the pagan Goddess turned Saint, and she requires us to have the long vision, to resist the short-sightedness the overculture has sold us over and over again, and to keep humble fires burning for the ancients and the yet-to-beborn. Brighid’s fire-temple in Kildare, Ireland, a truly hallowed place I visited three years ago on a misty August morning, is believed
to be the site of at least six centuries of continuous flame-tending, much longer if the assertions made about the fire-temple having even deeper pagan roots are true. Nineteen priestesses tended the fire for nineteen consecutive days, and the Goddess Brighid was left to tend the flame on the twentieth day. The fire never died, as legend says, burning so cleanly there was never even any ash to be swept away, and my heart aches with reverence at the thought of so many generations of priestesses holding the same dedication, keeping the same hope alight in the dark of night when the ghosts were surely thick all around them. Candles through Time: A Small Ritual-Remedy for the Aching Heart Should you need a simple 13
