Sigillaria debrief…

So, it was a good Sigillaria yesterday!

I took the bus down to my dad’s house, and while I had not planned on doing so, I ended up watching Ballanchine’s version of The Nutcracker on television. I’ve written about that story’s significance before, so I was glad to do that. After dinner, we did a bit of the “religious” observances for the date, and for Saturnalia generally. And, we were unexpectedly joined by a deity who I had not realized might be making an epiphany, but one can never predict such things…

(Please excuse my disheveled look, as I was not expecting photos to be taken; and, ignore the nonplussed look on my face here–funny story, actually. Glykon is not only our favorite snake god of late antiquity, but it is also the name of a drug used to treat diabetes; etymologically, glykon means “sweetie, sweetness.” Quite unexpectedly, Glykon showed up, and I had…a low blood sugar! And, as the photo above was being taken, I was in the process of realizing that my blood sugar was low, which briefly postponed our observances until I could eat a bit…!)

So, I set up my whole Saturnalia wreath, which you can see here:

For the first iteration of such, I’m pretty happy with it–it will improve from year to year, and I’ve already improved it a bit since the photo above was taken.

But, we couldn’t simply just set it up, light the candles, and go “Okay, that’s done”–that isn’t an observance or a ritual at all! So, what better way to do it than to sing the full version of the “Saturnalia Song” that I wrote? (In case you need a refresher, here’s the final verse of it!) But (But BUT!), just singing and lighting candles wouldn’t be enough either, would it? So, I had several other members of my family act out parts during the singing. We got a “Santa hat” to represent Saturn, and my dad (the “Old Man”) was him; then, we got a horse (well, actually, a unicorn) from my youngest sister to represent Epona, and my step-mother represented her. We got some wheat to represent Ops, and my step-mother held that, and my youngest sister represented Ops’ daughter, Abundantia. To represent Hercules, I wanted to get a club, and we couldn’t come up with one easily; but, I thought a baseball bat might suffice instead, as those have been fairly plentiful at my dad’s house before, but he was only able to find a (rather silly) plastic one, so we used that, and dad raised it over his head to represent Hercules Victor. My youngest sister played Angerona by putting her finger over her lips in a gesture indicating silence. Then, for the Lares Permarini, my dad put on a sailor’s hat and danced a sea shanty. So, I sung through each day, and each person played all the parts as the lines came around for them. It was fun and silly, and I expect fully-choreographed dances and dramatic vignettes for the future on this tradition!

My sister took the following photo (as she doesn’t like to be in photos–rather appropriate, perhaps, to Angerona!), in which myself, my dad and step-mom were holding/wearing as many of the emblems as possible. (And Glykon was in it as well because, well, snakes get into everything!)

Being that yesterday and today was also the Festival of Bast, the cat that has adopted my dad’s family (and they’ve in turn adopted, though he’s mostly an outdoor cat) was a part of the festivities last night, as he took a nap on the chair for a while, and as he woke me up this morning meowling…!

After we did our Sigillaria/Saturnalia wreath observance last night, we went and took a gift to the neighbors, and on the way, we saw two deer going across the lawn of a nearby house–we were no more than fifty feet from them. Then we took a walk downtown, and went out on the wharf (Lares Permarini again, anyone?) and happened to see an otter on the dock, which then went into the water and disappeared. There is a large wooden wheel near the wharf, which used to have salmon carvings on it, but because it got vandalized slowly over years, it was recently removed and replaced with a wheel that has killer whales on it instead. (And, it’s already been vandalized, too…) So, we took our turns spinning the wheel and guessing how many times it would go around. My sister spun it and it went nine times; I spun it, and guessed correctly that it would go around 27 times; and my dad spun it, and it went around 37 times. Does all of that mean anything? I’m not sure, but it doesn’t necessarily have to…!

We then had dessert at a local restaurant, which was nice, and when I folded up my straw wrapper, it suddenly reminded me of a fortune cookie, so I handed it around the table and asked each person to open it and read what their fortune was, which was an amusing and enjoyable game to play for a few minutes. These kinds of improvisational games appeal to me a great deal, and I think were very much in the spirit of the season.

And, what sigilla did I end up getting? A blank book and some paper! So, very useful and appropriate!

All in all, not a bad way to have spent Sigillaria eve! I hope everyone else’s was good!