It’s been a busy  spring for Sassafras Grove.  Maria, Emerald and Diane W. had a lovely time at Grove of Gaia fest and we were honored to facilitate the closing ritual, themed around Growing Our Community.

Beltain was cold and wet, but we pulled off a beautiful rite complete with Maypole!  A huge thank you to all who braved the weather to come and celebrate with us.  Shout out to Earrach for facilitating a  sing-along and teaching us some of his favorite traditional and modern May Day songs.  Another huge thank you to folks who supported our annual auction.  Because to your generosity we raised almost enough to cover our facility rentals for the upcoming year!  We wouldn’t be able to do what we do without the love and support of our community.

Despite a small scheduling mix up, we had a great time at the meditation workshop! We ended up at Eat n Park and were able to have more casual chats about meditation, trance, apps we use for meditation and mindfulness and just stuff folks were interested in talking about.  The less formal setting gave us a chance to get to know each other a little better and to reinforce the sacred truth that everything is better with pie!!

Our officers met for an executive committee meeting for the first time in years and plan to meet more frequently, quarterly if we can swing it.  Hopefully meeting face to face more often will help facilitate communication between the officers and between the executive committee and grove members.

A group of grove members will be attending the Wellspring Festival this weekend.  We’re looking forward to seeing old friends, meeting new folks, attending some really cool workshops and generally relaxing!

In June we’ll be celebrating Love in all its forms with a blessing rite for Pride Week led by Danielle as part of our Second Fridays at Moonstones series.  Our  Summer Solstice Rite this year, facilitated by Maria, will be a Midsummer’s Eve ritual honoring the Fair Folk in their many aspects.  We’ll be a new venue for us, the Union Project in East Liberty and we’re looking forward to working in a new city neighborhood.   Later in the month, we’ll be holding our annual members-only retreat and plan a fun weekend filled with rituals, crafts, hikes and general fellowship.

We continue to collect monetary donations to plant trees in Nation Parks through the Arbor Day Foundation.

As the song says, Sumer is icumen in, and we look  forward to the adventures the new season brings!

Bright Blessings,

Maria, Grove Scribe