The Family

The Family is a way of understanding the forces of nature and the cycles of the seasons as personified in a family of deities.

The Parents

The Parents represent abstract concepts common to all life, and rule only single days in the calendar: the cross-quarter transitional days between seasons.

• The Tessarine is the disciplining parent and rules the summer/fall cross-quarter.
• The Keterine is the empowering parent and rules the spring/summer cross-quarter.
• The Calycine, from the part of the plant (Calyx) that covers and protects the flower before blooming. The Calycine is the nurturing parent and rules the winter/spring cross-quarter.
• The Vekarine, from the Finnish vek and proto-Slavic век, is the watchful, distant parent who governs death and time and the fall/winter cross-quarter.

The Children

The Children represent the seasons of the year, with their correspondances particularly focused on how humans and other animals relate to them. The Parents created the Children in groups of three, composed of the two parents whose cross-quarters bound the child's season, plus the parent widdershins of those two.

We can also think of the children as lacking the influence of a single parent. Spring, for instance, can feel like it's devoid of discipline; food and warmth are plentiful and life is just at the beginning of its cycles, bursting forth from the ground and multiplying wantonly. The Lanicine, accordingly, was created by all parents except the Tesserine.

• Spring, named the Lanicine, child of the Calycine, Keterine, and Vekarine, is artistic, creative, and flighty, representing the directed will to change, rebellion, and progress.
• Summer, named the Samosine, child of the Keterine, Tesserine, and Calycine, is social, outgoing, and gossipy, representing tradition, celebration, order, and social connection.
• Autumn, named the Svepparine, the child of the Vekarine, Tessarine, and Keterine, is quiet and melancholy, representing rot, weathering, and gentle, slow failure: the warm death.
• Winter, named the Ieldine, the child of the Vekarine, Calycine, and Tessarine, is studious and withdrawn, representing preservation, stillness, and emptiness: the cold death.

Our Place in the Family

Where the seasonal Children are creations of three of the four Parents each, mortals are creations of all four. While an individual might feel a particular closeness to one or more of the Parents, we each contain aspects of discipline, empowerment, nurturing grace, and, ultimately, death and preservation.

In the family, we are equals of the Children; they are our siblings, not our parents or caretakers. We mortals, collectively, have just as much of an impact on the world as the seasons, and like them, our impact is not immutable.