Enjoying Shabbat and its Blessings

One of the benefits of having Kourtney at home (since she works in theatre and they are not starting back up anytime soon) is that she has been baking constantly. Last week she made apple pie, blueberry cheesecake, and puff pastry with strawberries. This week we’ve been eating strawberry shortcake, broccoli and cheddar pasties. But my favorite new tradition is the challah she makes every Friday, from scratch.

Kourtney is not Jewish, but she loves me, and loves creating new traditions for our daughter, so she has really jumped into weekly challah baking. And beyond that, she’s been helping me build out our weekly Shabbat traditions with Aminah. It’s been really gratifying to now see our daughter get excited as the sun goes down on Friday night, because she knows that it’s time for challah!

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31 Days of Paganism– Day 17

Where do you like to do ritual?

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I typically do ritual in front of my personal altar. The one above is actually our family altar, which was decorated for Halloween/Dia de los Muertos (family tradition).

I would love to do ritual outside, by the light of the moon. There’s a really nice, quiet park just down the street that would be perfect for it. But it closes at sunset, and I don’t want any confrontation with the law, especially when I’m trying to do spiritual work.

Kourtney with her flower offering

Kourtney with her flower offering

Although it’s not necessarily a pagan ritual, sometimes we– and by we I mean me, Kourtney, my mom and our friends Joanne and Katherine and Tashi– go to Limantour Beach for the full moon. We get there mid-day and right before it gets dark we’ll light a fire and eat snacks and enjoy the ocean. We usually bring offerings to the ocean (like flowers or biodegradable things that aren’t like super harmful to the ecosystem there), and sometimes we’ll write something that we want to happen in the next month on pieces of paper and then burn them, so that our intent is known to the universe. The beach is a great place to do ritual, in my opinion.