The First Woodland Walk Of Autumn 2023

Canadien français trouvé!! :D!!

allo! C'est moi, un québecois et de descendance acadienne ⚜️⭐

Cultural Centres for French Heritage in Canada

Below are the links for French cultural centres and archives around Canada. Whether you're looking into maritime Acadian culture, Quebecois traditions, Franco-Ontarian culture, Franco-Manitoban history and heritage, there's so much out there for you! Many of these centres host events, music concerts, cultural festivals, art galleries, and research centres to help you learn your roots.

Franco-Ontarian Folklore Centre

Centre for Research on French Canadian Culture at University of Ottawa

The Acadian Centre of the Université Sainte-Anne

Historical Society of Saint-Boniface, Winnipeg, Manitoba

Franco-Manitoban Cultural Centre

Marius Barbeau Centre, Montréal, Québec

Saint Isidore Museum and Cultural Centre, Alberta

Université Sainte-Anne

Centre acadien

Founded in 1972, the Centre acadien has large collections of primary and secondary sources that mainly feature the Acadian and Nova Scotian

https://ccfm.mb.ca/en/

Mighty Peace Tourism

St. Isidore Museum & Cultural Centre - Mighty Peace Tourism

St. Isidore Museum & Cultural Centre – English Situated in the quaint hamlet of St-Isidore, is a museum that depicts the storied heritage of

thank you for this! It really explains traditional ways and contextualizes it for today!

12 Things You Need to Know About Traditional Spells

Why are traditional spells so goddamn weird?

There is no black or white magic.

Elements That Make a Spell Truly Powerful

5 Signs that a Spell Book is Authentic

The Power in Witches’ Hair

Spell Ingredients in Traditional Witchcraft

We do not cast spells against haunted places.

Do not mistake grimoires for journals and scrapbooks.

We call it the Ritual of Wandering.

Shielding is entirely pointless.

Gold and Silver in Witchcraft

Why Blood Magic is Powerful

Good morning, from my freshened up altar to yours!

I decorated a Huckleberry compass this week! The shape is reminiscent of a planchette and it held the perfect opportunity for some stained glass painting.

La Chandeleur

Candlemas, or La Chandeleur as it is known in French-speaking Catholic communities, starts on the evening of February 1st into February 2nd. It commemorates Jesus's presentation at the Temple (Luke 2:22-40) as the Light of the World.

The Blessed Candle

This time of year is full of light festivals all over the world. For Acadians, la Chandeleur is celebrated with the blessing of a candle at church at 8am, and bringing it home to in turn bless the home.

The blessed candle is kept at the parents' bedside, or on a tiny shelf in the kitchen. It would be lit during big storms, as a foil to lightning, during periods of illness, a hard childbirth, and when a death occurs in the house. When a priest would visit the house to provide communion to a sick parishioner, the candle would be lit and carried to guide the priest to the ailing person's bedside, and the same rite would apply to the final rites of a dying person. The flame remains lit during the wake. The candle is also lit during Marial devotions during the month of May. If healing is prayed for during a novena, it also doesn't hurt to light this candle.

Once those candles are blessed, the master of the home is to bring the lit candle to every corner of the house to bless it with its light. They would also bring this light to the barn and the fields for blessings. Many families boast of a special candle holder just for this candle.

On Prince Edward Island, pieces of this candle's wax were also brought aboard on fishing boats along with woven palm fronds, and were meant to keep the fisherman safe during storms at sea.

Acadian Candle Blessing

"Daignez bénir et sanctifier ces cierges pour notre usage, pour la santé des corps et des âmes, sur terre comme sur mer."

"May these candles be blessed and sanctified for our use, for the health of our bodies and souls, on land as on the sea."

Chandeleur Crêpes

It's also a crêpe-making day!!! On the eve of this holiday (Feb.1), families would make crêpes for dinner, often using the last of last year's flour. This stems from medieval France, when peasants would use the previous year's flour (most likely their only flour left) to ensure the next year's harvest would be bountiful. It is tradition in Acadie to have every member of the household flip their own crêpe, to determine if a successful flip would grant them luck for the year. Some families even kept a piece of the crêpe in their cupboard all year long to ward off bad luck.

Crêpe recipe

One cup white flour

1 1/4 cup of milk

1/2 tsp of salt

1 cup of freshly fallen snow, compacted (nowadays, I wouldn't recommend it. Snow falls on the ground polluted. It used to be a common ingredient in Acadian and Quebecois cooking. You can skip it and the recipe would still turn out fine.)

Frying grease or vegetable shortening, or butter for the pan.

Serve with molasses or grated maple sugar.

A Season of Giving

It is also a time in Acadian villages where folks would go around and ask for donations to their local food banks or church soup kitchen service. They would parade with a tall staff with a rooster figure on top (called a chief's cane) and with each donation, a ribbon is added to the stick. In the evening, when the village would gather for a community potluck, people could reclaim their ribbons from the rooster staff. Festivities of fiddle playing, dancing and merriment were in order in most homes and community centres.

Acadian communities like Chéticamp and other small Acadian hamlets still celebrate to this day!

Ideas for Anyone Far from a Community

Seeing as I don't live in an Acadian community sadly, here are some ideas of things I can do, and maybe you can do too, to celebrate today!

Make crêpes and perform the best flip! Your luck depends on it!

Bless your own candle with holy water, parade it to every corner of your home.

Create a chief's cane, and plant it in your front yard. With every donation you accept for a food bank or other charitable effort, add a ribbon, heck, ask your neighbours and friends to participate!

Organize a potluck!

Use the wax from the candle to bless the lintel post of your doors, or other objects you wish to bless.

Bonus photo: Moonshadow blocking my holiday book's Chandeleur page and refusing to move.

Source

Georges Arsenault. La Chandeleur en Acadie. Editions la Grande Marée. 2011.

Painting

La Chandeleur. Painting by Camille Cormier, painted in 1984. Oil on canvas. Coll. Musée Acadien, Moncton University. Acq. 1986-17.

Nativity Scene progress

I'm painting my Nativity scene figurines and scenery for Advent this year. It'll be a quiet Christmas season here, on account of my top surgery. Here are the Three Magi for now :) the figures are from Dollarama, and they needed some serious personality and color!

Folk Altar Stained Glass Painted Windows

I finished my stained glass painted windows today, and I'm so proud of them! The window's scene selections were to highlight important parts of my path as a catholic folk practitioner in my Quebec and Acadian culture. The scene on the right is a painting originally by Clarence Gagnon (Harvesting, c.1928-33) portraying some farmers in the fields of Charlevoix. The center window showcases the Star of the Sea, patron saint of the Acadians, keeping a ship safe in an ocean storm. (My own design). And the last window shows a scene from the folk tale "la chasse-galerie" from Honoré Beaugrand, when a group of woodsmen make a deal with the Devil to fly in an airborne magic canoe to visit their families on New Year's Eve. My practice entails researching my family's agricultural lifestyles and crafts, their religious life, and their folk tales.

My next project will be to paint the medallions on the doors of the altar cabinet.

Lent 2025 personal devotion

For Lent this year, I'll read 12 pages a day for 40 days of this wonderful translation.

at 500 followers i will gift you my print of st. sebastian with top surgery scars

Everyone go go go reblog i desperately need this print