October 3–October 30
Thirteenth Lunation, October
Ogham: Ruis (roush, roo-ish), R: 
Keywords: Elders, grandmothers and clan keepers, renewal, death and rebirth, transformation, the passing of the soul from the physical realm to the spiritual, the crane bag (wisdom)
Totems: Cranes, storks, and the ibis
Guides and Deities: The crone aspect of the Goddess:
• Scotland—Cailleach, Carline, Mag-Moullach, or Bera
• Britain—the old hag, the Sowain Goddess
• Wales—Cerridwen
• Ireland—Sheela-na-gig
• Death and underworld goddesses, ancestors
Practical Guidance: Healing and transformation are yours.
Ruis/Elder Month Ceremony
Purpose
Celebrating the Elder portal. Reviewing the year and giving gratitude to the elders, ancestors, those who have passed through the veil, and our guides, totems, and helpers. Letting go.
Preparation
Ask participants to bring their journal. Collect or sew one small bag for each of your participants, to be introduced as crane bags. Cranes were the repository of the mystical moon wisdom of the Celts, and their bags held charms, incantations, poetry, stories and myths, songs, scripts and symbols—the collective wisdom of the Druids. These can be a sack or silk purse or any kind of little bag that will be used to hold good medicine and magic tools. Prepare affirmations on strips of folded paper. Prepare small squares of paper to be burned. Provide pens or pencils. Fan a tarot deck out facedown on the altar.
Welcome and Greetings
Welcome to our Elder month ceremony. Introduce yourself and go around the circle having each participant share their name and why they came to the circle. Have them close their eyes and share a moment of silence to prepare for the ceremony.
Call the Directions
Call the directions and invoke the energies of Elder (transformation, death and rebirth, endings) and the totems, guides, and deities (crane, stork, ibis, crone aspects of the Goddess). At the center call the Winged Ones. Call the goddesses Maat (Egyptian) and Hecate (Greek) and the mother vulture goddess Mut (Egyptian). Call in the crones of the British Isles.
Teachings
Elder is a threshold month and a corridor because it marks the last month of the year and the end of the growing season. This was a time to save the seeds and prepare for the winter. Because there was no guarantee that the people would make it through the long, cold, barren months, this was a period to think about death, and let go of grudges and resentments. This was a time to understand that death is a doorway we all walk through so that we may join our loved ones on the other side who are waiting for us with love. Other themes that fall under the Elder tree’s governance are completions and endings, looking over the year and deciding what no longer serves or was created but is limiting, and honoring our ancestors and lineages.
This is a wisdom portal and the totem helpers are the Winged Ones, especially the ibis, stork, and crane. These birds are wisdom carriers with the ability to fly between the worlds and retrieve information. This is a time to seek guidance from those who have passed over. This is a time when we can remember our loved ones and our ancestors. The crone is especially revered. This is a time of deep gratitude for all that has gone before us and all that will come after. As we take stock of the year, it is a time to let go. It is also a time for forgiveness and healing.
Chant
What is the teaching of the Elder? Transformation.
Our freedom comes from accepting death as new life.
Behold! We die in our endings and are rebirthed
in our new beginnings.
And we are free to become our true nature.
We seek the wisdom of our elders and our ancestors.
What is the teaching of the Elder? Forgive. Let go.
Sing
Choose songs that honor the three aspects of the Goddess and especially the crone, as well songs that have to do with transformation and the Winged Ones.
Activity: Maat (Egypt) and Reviewing the Year
Show your group a picture of Maat. You can print one out easily enough from the internet. Maat is an Egyptian goddess of wisdom and inner truth and she wears an ostrich feather upon her headdress. She protects each soul through the journey of spiritual evolution. She is ancient wisdom that urges us toward truth. She urges you to look at the balance and imbalance in your life. Maat is also the goddess of justice, judgment, equanimity, and fairness. She holds the world in balance and creates order out of confusion.
Have each person take a moment to meet with Maat in their mind’s eye and to envision her. Have them ask Maat to help them review the past year that began last November 1. They can write their review in their journals. Take a good bit of time with this.
Have each person consider what they choose to compost and recycle from the year. These can be attitudes and beliefs, emotions, circumstances, relationships, behaviors, or old patterns. Have them ask the vulture goddess mother Mut/Nekhbet (Egypt) or falcon to help them pick and choose that which is ready to go. She does this with her sharp beak and her keen eyesight. Have them write these down on a piece of paper.
Pass a dish so that each participant can burn their paper. A large abalone shell works well for this, or an earthenware bowl with dirt in it. Keep the paper small. They can talk about what they are letting go, or they can choose silence.
After each person burns their paper, everyone repeats:
All that is burned here is released.
We ask the Crone Goddesses to
help in this composting process.
What we let go of becomes energy for what
we will create, and we ask the crone’s blessings.
Guided Meditation
(Turn off the lights and light one candle at the center of your altar.) Close your eyes and begin to pay attention to your breath. Slow it down a bit. Notice where you are holding any tension in your body. Allow that to go. Relax and breathe. Place your attention on your heart and feed your heart with love. Allow that love to fill every cell of your body. Relax into that love. Take a few more very deep breaths as you enter the silence … (pause)
Tonight, we wish also to honor our ancestors, and thank them for all their gifts. Take a moment to consider this …
Return to the lands from which you hail. Pick the country that you feel the most affinity with. Travel within until you come to just the right place … (pause)
Here you are greeted by people who seem to know you already. You find yourself meeting your relatives and ancestors. There is no sense of fear here. You experience a sense of delight to have the opportunity to meet these people. They are openhearted with you and they let you know that you are part of the family. In the background you hear singing and music and you know it represents the country that you have chosen. It feels right to be able to be here in this place, on this ground, and with these people.
Here you see that the elders have a special place of honor. These people of age are wise and they are respected. An old wise woman comes to you and takes your hand. You notice just how ancient this crone is when you feel and see her hands. Yet when you look into her eyes she has great joy and merriment to share with you. You feel her deep unconditional love. She has words of wisdom to share with you about your life. Take some time with her to absorb her messages …
When you feel complete, give your gratitude to your wise one, and to the rest of your clan. Give gratitude to your homeland and know that you can return anytime you want. These people know all about you and they are in your corner always wanting the very best for you. Give them kisses and hugs and handshakes as you say goodbye. Return to this time and space, ground and center, and when you are ready, open your eyes.
Sharing
Have your group share their experiences with the group.
Activity: Working with the Ancestors
Have your circle think of the blessings from ancestors, relatives, and friends that have passed on to the otherworld. Have them consider what they no longer desire to carry for these people. Perhaps there is a legacy, a promise, an addiction, an attitude that you wish to return to its proper owner. Pass the stick and have the circle share what they will carry on and what they will no longer carry.
Sing
Choose songs that honor the ancestors. Now, consider the world of the spirit helpers and totems. Choose songs expressing gratitude, especially to the Winged Ones who help navigate between the worlds.
Activity: Giving Gratitude, Divination,
and the Crane Bag Affirmation
Pass a feather and have your participants speak gratitude for what they are blessed with, as we migrate into the new year.
Have each participant choose a tarot card from a deck fanned out on the altar for the new year. Each participant can share what the card means to them.
Pass out crane bags and talk about the meaning. The crane bag was extra special wisdom teaching said to have been a gift from the sea god Manannan. It held the forfeda (the last five ogham of the alphabet), which held the collective wisdom of the ancient cosmology. These personal bags can hold feathers, stones, crystals and gemstones, rocks, charms, incantations, ogham, runes, affirmations, and other meaningful messages or objects of magic.
Have them pick an affirmation from the bowl that you have set on the altar. This is full of affirmations written on strips of paper that you have prepared ahead of time. Have them read their affirmation out loud so that the group can witness it. They can take their wisdom bag and their affirmation home to place upon their own altar.
Ending
Thank the gods and goddesses that were evoked and all the totems and spirit helpers. Especially thank the Elder tree for its healing properties and energies that have blessed us this month. Open the circle by thanking and releasing the four directions and the center.
An Elder Story: The Ancestors Have Something to Say
I was at the first class of Nicki Scully’s Alchemical Healing series, which was held at Starfeather’s lodge in Edmonds, Washington, and a wonderful woman named Kathryn Ravenwood was leading us on a guided journey to commune with our ancestors. A guided meditation is a wonderful way to contact your ancestors. We were working with forgiveness. In my mind’s eye, I traveled with bees that took me to two beautiful gardens. One was in central England. There I met with my English lineage through my mother’s side of the family. The other was in Swansea, Wales, which is the home of my father’s Welsh lineage.
In the lovely English garden, I spoke with my maternal great-great-great-grandfather, who had been a merchant. I recognized him from old family photos. He came right up to me with a mission on his mind. He told me that he was sorry—for he had very much enjoyed his feeling of superiority as a man and he belittled the powers of the feminine. He had often put down his wife and his daughters. (Indeed my mother never really felt supported or honored for being female, and I suppose this gets handed down through families.) He also communicated that he sorely grieved the deforestation of England and his lack of connection to natural law that was lost with the onslaught of Christianity. I was surprised but touched by his intense sharing.
In the garden in Swansea I met with my own grandmother, Jane Evans. She, who had been a born-again Christian, told me that she grieved her rigidity and judgments. She realized that the divine power of healing is not restricted to one path of human belief. She told me that she had interpreted her belief in Jesus and healing in too narrow a way. She honored my way and she was very proud of the divine feminine knowledge of herbs and healing passed on through the females of her family. She had been a faith healer, and she was glad to give me her blessing now that she had a higher perspective. She was happy to see that my energetic healing work and my astrological and tarot guidance had helped so many people. I was thrilled to receive her recognition and experience her broader perspective.
Then the bees brought both of my lineage lines together in a chalice of the divine feminine that magically appeared in my hands, and from the cup grew a beautiful tree. Both families gave me the words “ancient sovereignty.” These words gave me a connection back to the lands of the British Isles and the trees and Celtic ways. I felt encouraged to keep working with the trees, and to share what I have learned of Celtic cosmology and the Celtic tree calendar.
Much to my surprise, it seems that the dead are as interested in healing, growth, and consciousness as many of the living are. My loved ones wanted to tell me that they had changed. That they were more conscious. That they had learned a thing or two! This was a guided journey that provided healing not only to me, but to my family lineages. Miracles do occur.
When you come to the thirteenth moon month and consider the teachings of Elder, think about your loved ones that have crossed the veil, as well as your ancestors. Write them letters. Call them close. They may have similar stories to share about how they have changed. Every change in consciousness can be healing for a lineage.
Think about the wisdom teachings of the Elder and her totems, guides, and deities. Think about endings and new beginnings. As this ends the Celtic year, it can be a time of letting go. Let go of regrets, mistakes, and any sense of failure. Consider cutting loose any unfinished projects or negative thoughts or behavior patterns. Time to sweep the garden clean and allow it to rest while dreaming of new adventures and plans.
It can be a time to refocus and set new intentions. It may be a time to seek the advice of an elder or to record an elder’s story if you are still lucky enough to have such a person in your life. If you are an elder yourself, do not be afraid to share your wisdom.