Baltic Fire Ritual for Goddess Gabija

This is 5th year now that we will be going to Vermont to pay respects to goddess Gabija and celebrate Užgavėnės - and it already feels like a pilgrimage of some sort. With each trip, our crowd grew bigger (as I was trying to show in the slideshow) and our fire burns brighter. And it’s easy to understand why - the mystery of finding the forgotten path through the woods of Brattleboro to the hidden fire altar on a starry (or not) winter night is intriguing enough! And Gabija is one of my favorite Baltic Goddesses besides being a patron of fire and family hearth she is also the only connector between humans and their Gods, as all the prayers and sacrifices are made through fire. Gabija is the gatekeeper, the unifier and the holy fire itself. It’s practically impossible to find the exact English translation to Lithuanian word Užgavėnės. It would be Fasching in German or Масленица in Russian. But in Brazil, Bolivia, Haiti, Italy, Greece, Portugal, Switzerland they have it