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Dryad of Night by Leo Ch

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In Celtic tradition, the autumn equinox was observed as the darker half of the year began. The Incas celebrated Ccoya Raymi and Mama Quilla the moon goddess and the light half of the year with renewal and planting. Today we can reflect on balance of light and dark, growth and rest. 🍃🌞✨🌝🍂

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🌞✨Celebrating Ancient Solstices! ✨🌞

Today, we honor the Celtic Summer Solstice and the Incan Winter Solstice —two ancient celebrations that mark the longest day and the longest night of the year, respectively.

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International Day of Forests is an opportunity for us to focus on the ancient forests of our motherlands. There has been extensive deforestation in both Ireland and Peru.

Historically, Ireland had 80% forest cover before modern agriculture. At one point, Ireland was reduced to just 1% of native forests! One way to help is to gift an Irish tree through reforestnation .ie a “Social Enterprise Planting One Million Trees with the Irish People”.

In Peru, the Amazon rainforest covers 60% of the country’s landscape. In just one year, Peru lost 3.86 million hectares of tree cover (or 4.9%) to deforestation. One way to help is to donate a small amount to provide Indigenous peoples with tools, training, and resources that are proven to reduce deforestation through rainforestfoundation .org

As always, do what you can in the area where you live as well!

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This is the beginning of Spring for us now, and in the places of our ancestors it is the Vernal Equinox in the Northern Hemisphere for Ireland and the Autumnal Equinox in the Southern Hemisphere for Peru. The old ways saw our people celebrating celestial and agricultural events which we recognize today as the Neo-pagan Ostara festival and the Incan Pacha-Puchay festival. The Celts celebrated the awakening of the earth in Spring while the Inca People observed the ripening of the earth as a harvest festival and celebrated their dead, the entrance to the other world, and sacrifices.

It’s important to be in tune with nature around you and so our blended tradition takes cues from the environment where we live. For us, these activities include painting eggs from the chickens in our back yard with organic vegetable dye that we make. Since it is Spring here, we will be celebrating life and fertility. Do celebrate this changing season in the way that makes sense to you, where you are, hopefully in tune with nature.

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Today’s Irish word of the day is PRÁTA (praw-ta) which means potato. May or may not be used while making Colcannon for dinner (Irish mashed potatoes with cabbage mixed in)!

There is an online Irish resource on you tube that helps with pronunciation of Irish words in a series of videos called bite size Irish.

Your interest will help keep Irish alive as it is the oldest living Celtic language that originated in Ireland over a thousand years ago!

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Meet the original Celt & Inka, the dogs in our lives before we opened our shop. They were paired and we adopted them as a couple hoping they would have puppies. When we blended their names for our shop, they became our mascots and representative of our partnership. Theirs is a love story, like ours. Even though Celt passed away last year, she is still loved, missed, and mentioned daily. Inka is lost without her but we make sure to spoil him!

My husband took these pictures and my daughter painted them ❤️

Soon we will have pet tags in our shop with classic Irish and Peruvian designs that can be custom engraved with names, phone numbers, microchip numbers, email addresses, and street addresses.

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Today’s Irish word of the day is GRÁ (graw). There is an online Irish dictionary where you can browse for translations and definitions at focloir. ie

Your interest will help keep Irish alive as it is the oldest living Celtic language that originated in Ireland over a thousand years ago!

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In Incan mythology, Mama Quilla, the Inca goddess of the moon, is married to Inti, the Inca god of the sun. The sun and moon relationship is complementary and the union symbolizes love, balance, and harmony. ❤️🇵🇪

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As we approach Valentines Day, let’s learn some new words for LOVE in the endangered languages of our ancestors… Quechua and Irish Gaelic.

Today’s word of the day is MUNAY (moon-eye). It is said to mean unconditional and eternal love.

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In Celtic tradition, celebrations started at sundown. One simple indoor ritual is to light a candle in every room of your house, mimicking the returning light half of the year. As a safe alternative, turn on the lights on every room, or open the window coverings, with one candle lit in the room you occupy. Focus on the flame and meditate on new beginnings. If you need a re-do on your New Year’s resolutions, consider this a fresh start. What intentions can you set for the year? Later this year on the Celtic harvest festivals, we will reflect back on these things and reap what we’ve sown.

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Simple imbolc tradition: Get outside when the sun is at its highest point in the sky to connect with nature. Emerge from winter hibernation… maybe a hike, a nature walk, a park visit, or mindful enjoyment of your own yard- take time outdoors at the brightest part of the day to look for early signs of spring and reflect on your intentions for the coming months. Plant the seeds of your goals of personal growth in a journal, a metaphorical garden, that will eventually come to bloom as you tend to your vision step by step and day by day.

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We placed our Imbolc pagan sun wheel decal on a journal. There’s one journal dedicated to each of the four Celtic festivals in the wheel of the year calendar. The pages inside hold the reflections and rituals from our celebrations throughout the years. We add information to this journal including associations, moon cycles, and observations in nature around us. It’s a good way to stay in tune with the old ways and nature’s rhythm.

Find this and more in the Celtinka Etsy Shop.

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In practicing the old ways, symbols are a connection to nature. Wearing these as tokens or applying them to our belongings is a method through which objects can be imbued with the energy they represent and life could be influenced by their invocation.

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Perfectionism paralyzes you and fear stops all the good that should come your way. If you believe in something then take action. Take a step and then another one. Enough procrastinating… time to start working on this little Irish-Peruvian project of ours.