Green Man Grove, ADF Report:
Beltane 0 to Lughnasadh 0


Grove reorganization is proceeding along merrily– Norma Hoffman, formerly Grove Organizer, will be installed as Senior Druid on Samhain. Skraelling will be Chief Liturgist and Susan Shaftan will be the new Grove Organizer. Xuk Shupe was elected Pursewarden and Edwin Chapman will remain Scribe. Peggy Kaan will remain acting Bard. Our postal address will change from Jersey City to Box 1483, Highland Park, NJ 08904.

Ed and Norma represented the grove during various panel discussions at the Free Spirit Festival in Maryland in June. Will Pierson of Cedarlight Grove moderated the discussions. We had a lot of fun, and hope that Will considers doing this sort of thing again next year.

We had a lovely Beltane with White Horse Grove (an independent grove) on the last Saturday in April– 30-odd people at a park in Morristown. We got to play with our hobby-horse, horned man, giant puppet and our new creation: a big red Welsh dragon– this last was partially in honor of Shãne who flew in from Wales for her second Beltane with Green Man and White Horse. We walked a labyrinth, danced the maypole, sang songs and had a pretty ritual by a flowing stream. On May 1, we got up before dawn and joined Morris dancers in Princeton to ‘wake up the Earth’. Beltane Omens: Ancestors-Raido; Nature Spirits-Isa; Goddesses & Gods- Fehu; Belenos-Thurisaz; Epona-Jera.

The grove participated in the main Summer Solstice ritual at Free Spirit, which was led by Cedarlight Grove, Mugwort Grove and Hearthfire Grove. Much praise goes to those groves for creating a beautiful, powerful ritual.

Our Lughnasadh was held at Bryan and Susan’s new home in Olive Bridge, NY. Jenne and Karl and Ed and Norma made the 3-hour drive in the pouring rain– a true Lughnasadh test of our driving skills. The ritual was indoors, and the omens received were: Ancestors- 2 of wands; Nature Spirits- high priestess; Goddesses and Gods- justice; Lugh- the fool; Tailitu- knight of cups; Manannan- 7 of cups.

We co-sponsored the 3rd Annual NJ Pagan Picnic, organized by our friends at Hands of Change Coven and held on August 5th in a local park on the Raritan River. Covens of various traditions, Norse Hearths, Druid Groves, Goddess worshipers, solitaries, students, drummers and vendors all met for a day of workshops, discussions, ritual and fun. Green Man Grove gave a workshop on the ADF liturgy. Dragyn of Grove of the Midnight Sun, ADF led a workshop on Divination. Grinning Wolf and Mari of the Grove of Tyr’s Hand (an independent grove) gave a workshop on kinship. Over a hundred Pagans participated in a community-building ritual as various local groups poured offerings into a common cauldron. The Green Man, in a green robe and leafy mask, added fresh mint leaves to the potion, representing our gifts of laughter and spontaneity. The grove also created a cretan-style labyrinth in flour on the grass, and Norma painted people with henna. It was inspirational to see so many Pagans in one place– and people who only knew each other from web lists meeting for the first time!

Our website is up and running. It’s at members.nbci.com/greenmanadf. NBCI is sometimes slow, and sometimes doesn’t run at all, so we’re looking at other servers. Try it out in the meantime– it’s got photos dating back to 1991, MetroDruid Nüz articles, poetry, calendars, artwork and rants.

In other news: our dedicants program is continuing to meet on an irregular basis; we’ve got a Samhain ritual planning meeting on Oct. 29th and we’ve been asked to do a workshop on Druidry by the Rutgers Pagan Students Association on November 2nd; the grove has volunteered some time to the Mid-Atlantic Pagan Alliance to help clean their section of highway in Lakewood; we’ve got a geneaology workshop coming up and an anime movie night; a tongue-twisting Yule in December; we'll Wassail trees in January; we’re planning a spring river blessing at the source of the Raritan and we’re planning for Samhain on November 4th. Jersey’s cool, rainy summer is slowly coming to an end!

Edwin Chapman, Grove Scribbler