I'd earmarked the Winter Solstice to combine my first circle and first full moon esbat, and had spent some time preparing for it. I work as a solitary and so I set up my circle boundary, altar and quarters. As this was a personal milestone for me and worthy of a photo, I spent awhile taking pics of my altar and circle for my journal. Deciding what to wear for the event caused a momentary problem, I did think about going skyclad but settled for wearing a blue patterned cotton yukata (summer kimono) instead.

In conversations with students, and indeed with many longer term Wiccans as well, it seems to me that full moon Esbat rituals have become the accepted necessity, the expected norm if you like and this worries me. If you look at the evidential history of Wicca, in the beginning under Gerald Gardner rituals were rarely conducted at full moons and instead it was the Sabbats that were the main focus of group ritual.

I know full moon was a couple of days ago but given my schedule, I can't always hold Esbats on the correct evening so tonight the coven get's together and we celebrate our Gods and Goddesses with communion together. I guess this illustrates my point that while it's wonderful to have Esbats on "the night", that shouldn't necessarily be the only reason to hold a ritual.