Calendar of the Sun
26 Eostremonath
Walpurgisnacht Day IV
Color: Brown
Element: Earth
Altar: Upon a brown cloth set shovels and hoes and other tools, four candles, and the rune Jera.
Offering: Do manual labor, especially of a sort that is difficult or unfamiliar for you.
Daily Meal: Coarse bread. Cheese. Raw vegetables. Root tea. An ancient workman's lunch,
served individually to each one, to be eaten alone on workshift during Mesembria, which is a
work-hour today.
Walpurgisnacht Invocation IV
The earth breaks beneath our hoes,
And she receives our sweat and toil
As we work her for our survival.
Long, long ago, Odhinn the All-Father,
Lord of Asgard and Keeper of Valhalla,
Put on the ragged cloak of a peasant,
Wandered down the road alone,
And worked among the peasants
For his daily bread. Day after day,
He who had been enthroned in the sky
Learned the toil of the lowest on earth,
Learned the count of the drops of sweat
That fall like salt rain upon the soil,
Learned the blistered hands and the aching back,
The heat of the sun on bare skin,
The satisfaction of a single turnip
Pulled from the soil on an empty belly.
He who had ordered the life and death of so many
Learned what it was to work for his bread,
And to fear death without it.
On this day we honor his second sacrifice,
The giving up of privilege,
And we put our hands into the earth,
Never forgetting that to be low is to close to Her,
And therefore to be sacred.
(All step forward and take tools from the altar, and then dispense to their various jobs. All work
should be done in silence, and alone, today, until Hesperis when the energy changes.)
[Pagan Book of Hours]