AODA Once again invites members and friends of the order to participate in our Fall Equinox Telluric Waterway blessing ritual for 2025!
Our Telluric Waterway ritual is an earth healing ritual that allows us to work in a local way while also drawing upon the power of our larger order. Thus, this is a distributed ritual–you can participate from anywhere. The more people we are able to have do the ceremony, the stronger and better our work becomes. You can do the ceremony anytime around the Fall Equinox. This ceremony is part of AODA’s commitment to both physical and metaphysical work to support the earth.
It is always a joy to see who else is participating in the ritual. Please feel free to add yourself (with however you’d like to call yourself or your group to our map). Our ritual map is here–please use the 2025 layer!: AODA Fall Equinox Telluric Waterway Blessing - Google My Maps
And instructions to add yourself to the map are below:
Just returned from releasing my ‘earth’ to a local waterway. With both the seasonality of local streams and this year’s dry conditions, I chose to release my offerings where I know there will be water this spring. And finding stones in our landscape is not exactly a common event. Other forms of earth spoke to me and they received my meditation of healing energy. Near the base of a willow I set the snake skin I found near my outdoor altar this March. It had graced my altar for six months. I wove it into a wreath of dried flowers that wanted to keep the skin company.
Before bringing these to the dry Creek bed, I cast an SOP earlier in the day and imagined it able to grow or shrink in size as my work in the house, garden and at the little creek just one mile away would need.
While at the native plant area through which the creek passes, I was in the company of monarchs, sulphurs and many varieties of bees all eagerly feasting on so much Goldenrod in bloom.
The day is still beautiful. Sunny, about 80*. I rode my bike to and from the creek.
May healing energies wait and then flow with spring waters.
I’m the tiniest bit confused. The way I remember it, we did the Hearth Blessing for fall, and the Waterway Blessing for winter. Is that faulty recall on my part?
Hi Scott, we switched the order of them after a lot of feedback from members during the calls :). It was harder to do the Water blessing when the streams and rivers were frozen over and the stones were buried beneath snow!
Hi everyone! I was able to do two ceremonies, one on our land here in PA and also out on the Czech Republic when I was there visiting for work. They were beautiful ceremonies! The water and needs of the water felt very different in Europe compared to here in North America. When I dropped the stone in the spring here in PA, I could feel it connecting to the other stones from last year and this year :).
Last year I left a stone at the confluence of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers. This year I focused to a much smaller scale: the headwater tributary of Watkins Creek that our land drains to, about a block downhill from our land. I energized a stone I found in the vegetable garden, walked to the tributary while picking up litter as I did so, and then tossed the rock into a little bit of water. Most of the year the tributary doesn’t have flowing water, but it had rained enough before the ceremony that a bit of water was flowing. I think it was right to focus this close since I have been particularly active in working spiritually with our land this year.
I think these earth-healing rituals are such a beautiful aspect of AODA. This is one of the major reasons I wanted to become a member. I am looking forward to participating later this month!
I completed my waterway blessing today. (Yesterday, I was supposed to help clear trash from a trap on a different part of the creek, but the volunteer event was cancelled.) This is my first time participating in an order-wide ritual. I’m looking forward to the other ones.
I should have taken pictures of my stone and creek! It didn’t even occur to me.
This was also my first time performing the solo grove ritual. Despite a couple of hiccups, I felt more strongly connected to Mother Earth and the Powers than during any ritual that I can recall.
I think the “hiccups” are a natural part of the process…at least for me! There aren’t too many rituals I’ve engaged in that there isn’t at least something that goes a bit off-plan. Brings me right back to the present moment and less “in my head”. I usually have a quick laugh and forge ahead.
Makes sense, though; thanks!
