The 2010 Blackberry Circle classes start on March 6th. Anyone interested in classes need to attend a few rituals for us to get to know you. Particularly the New Moon Ritual on January the 16th and Imbolc on January the 30th. You may also attend Yule on December 19th. Please refer to the website for times and directions.

Blackberry Circle held a sunrise ritual on December 19th to welcome the birth of the sun. The ritual was led by Meical and Ashley with great success. Grandma and Grandpa Blackberry made another appearance to the apparent pleasure of everyone there; even though Grandpa Blackberry kept throwing candy canes at folks in the Circle.

Also did not help with him standing there in the Circle wearing his overalls, flannel shirt, Santa hat with bells and large candy canes in each hand in the God position.

There were 25 people who showed for the ritual with many of them driving over an hour coming from Sugarland, Katy and Friendswood. Meical was able to start a bonfire from wet wood much to everyone’s delight and cold bottoms.

Ritual was followed with a nice breakfast consisting of eggs, ham, biscuits, bagels, coffee cake, muffins, coffee, tea, hot chocolate and some awesome homemade wassail. Weren’t much left for leftovers. Wonderful conversations and some excellent questions developed around the fire following breakfast.

Overall the ritual was a great success. This is something that will have to visited again in future Yule rituals.

The Houston Pagan Pride Day was a great success. Blackberry Circle performed the last ritual of the evening and included a story of how the seasons came to be.

Here are a few pictures taken at the PPD.

As you may know, Blackberry Circle was asked to consecrate a Seven Sisters Stone Circle for the newest Renaissance Fair (grand opening February 2010) called Sherwood Forest http://www.sherwoodforestfaire.com/. We were honored to have been asked to perform this last weekend (September 19th). As complimented as we were, a bit of sadness was mixed in because September 19th was also the coven Mabon celebration. To meet the needs of all, we decided to split up the coven and have half go to the stone circle consecration and half stay at the coven for the Mabon ritual. It felt so odd being a part for a Sabbat but it was very worth while. Below are some comments the owner of the fair made about the consecration ritual (over 100 people were in attendance) which was written specifically for them.

"powerful, powerful source of energy and spirit flowing through these woods. beware, you might just find yourself caught up in something very big!"

"the ceremony around the Seven Sisters was beautiful, majestic, spiritual and meaningful."

"so many people. such an uplifting and affirming rite. one seldom leaves such an experience feeling that it was simply "right with the universe", but that midnight was just that."

"so many folk came up to me or emailed and said how meaningful it was. A couple said that even tho they had been pagans for 10 or 20 years, they had never experienced something so powerful."