Annotated Notes from the Wild Goose Festival, Day 2

[This post has been backdated to the appropriate day of the festival itself, just to make future reference convenient for me and to break things up a bit.]

[We were up fairly early and had the fruit we'd packed for breakfast, before heading to the main festival area for the various talks and presentations. Walking along the path from the camping area to the main area, we ran into Carl almost immediately, who right away put us in a good mood with his cheerfulness and optimism. After exchanging a few words, Jeff and I headed over to a talk on our own, agreeing to meet up again with Carl later.]


9 AM | Christine Sine | Spirituality & Gardening

• cooks like to compete, gardeners like to share
• generosity of God ["God" - Earth?] so much that we have to share
  - perishable produce
  - reaching out to neighbors
• scarcity transformed into abundance
• the garden as a church
[this is a very familiar concept in Paganism, that nature is our "church" and we learn the lessons of the Earth as Mother and teacher; in fact, much of this talk could have been pulled straight from a Pagan festival presentation, with a few vocabulary changes]
• health and spiritual benefits of time spent outside in creation ["creation"? why not just say "nature" or "natural world" as the actual scientific research does? is "man-made" not part of creation? is indoors not as much "creation" as outdoors?]
• garden in monastic community represents Garden of Eden (apple or other fruit tree in center as Tree of Life)
• using plants to tell stories, as mnemonic device
  - the passion flower
  - the three-leaf clover
• rhythms and cycles of the garden
  - liturgical year of the church (Easter as spring time, rebirth, f'ex)
[the speaker herself was from Australia and spoke about how the story of Easter and its timing in the liturgical year never made much sense to her, living as she did in a place where in March and April everything is dying and preparing for winter - only when she moved to the northern hemisphere did the story suddenly make sense; isn't this one example of the limits of universal tradition?]
• putting down roots at the "beginning" of the liturgical year, in winter
• pruning in winter because no sap, easier to see deadwood among the bare branches and to see what needs to be pruned
  - why do we prune? to increase yield, be more fruitful/productive later on
• summer flourishing - effortless, natural, God doing the work [Earth doing the work of self-giving and natural fecundity]
• organic gardening
  - all about soil, the story of the seeds falling on rock, soil, etc. to take root (or not)
  - not enough focus on the soil in Christianity [duh! not enough focus on the Earth and earth mysteries]
  - speaker says it's "a shame that the fall harvest festivals aren't really celebrated or popular anymore" and thinks they should be brought back [Jeff comments: they're not celebrated anymore because they were stamped out for being "too pagan"]
[a lot of her language involves this idea of being a better/more productive Christian, which prompted Jeff to ask, "what does it actually mean to be a 'productive Christian'?" is this the same as being a productive or a good person, or is there some other criteria? nurturing members of the church to do what, exactly?] [another assertion the speaker makes is that there's a disconnect between what we can learn in the garden, and what Christians are often taught in church/community about who/what to focus on - this prompts me to ask, slightly ironically, why is there a disconnect between the garden and theology? does it have something to do with the story of the Fall and human beings forced to leave the garden behind? also, what is the role of wilderness and the wild natural world? interacting with the relatively safe, human-cultivated space of a garden to grow food mostly as a hobby - when you don't have to rely on it for your very life if something goes wrong - is a very different approach to nature than the one that acknowledges its power and destruction, as well as its capriciousness]
• composting - the transformative work that God does, "we're full of garbage" that God changes into "black gold" of rich soil
[after the talk, Jeff points out that compost isn't just some mysterious-magical process of transformation, but involves a million million tiny beings each on their own working to break down the "garbage" and changing it into something we can use - these beings deserve acknowledgement and respect as well, and they provide us with perspective, our "garbage" is, to them, the stuff of life - I add, what looks like decay is just another kind of life]

11 AM | Margot Starbuck | Shame-Based Advertising: Faith and Justice Transforming Women's Body Image Obsessions

[we were a bit late to this talk because we were trying to find our way around and we went back to our campsite to grab our chairs]

• marketing based on the idea that something is wrong with you - this is not true, you are loved just as you are, already
[umm - Christianity? hello? didn't we just finish hearing someone speaking about how we're "full of garbage" and in need of transformation? what is the role of salvation in Christianity, and how does this relate to this idea?]
• always apologizing for our appearance anxieties
  -> we're not being present
  -> we're still turned inward and focused on ourselves
  -> we're communicating to others what we most value not just about ourselves but about them
• "that's what bodies are for" - the idea that our body is for others, to be used in service to them [frankly, this idea makes me a bit uncomfortable, overly self-abnegating]
• humility - genuine interest in others, escaping interiority
• stop at enough
  - stewardship - when you stop at enough, whatever you have beyond enough is your gift to others, a call to stewardship
[beauty - what about art? can the body be viewed as art, as a kind of self-expression or aesthetic expression? the speaker told a story of her daughter wanting to dye her hair - is this because she didn't like herself as she was, or because she wanted to experiment with her own style? is there a message of ascetic simplicity hidden in this?] [liturgical dress and ritual dress - the speaker seemed to suggest that wearing fine clothes to worship service was mostly a conceit and/or an invitation to be judged shallowly - but this leaves me wondering what is the role of aesthetics in ritual when it comes to dress and appearance of ritual participants? this seems to reflect a generally Protestant distaste for ritual]

12 PM | Richard Rohr | Falling Upward

• Two Halves of Life
  - "What is healthy in the first half of life becomes neurosis in the second half." - Jung
• 1st Half of Life - developing ego structure [individuation?]
  - creating the "container"
  - can get stuck defending boundaries and entrenched in establishing identity
• 2nd Half of Life - "contents"
• Plotkin's terms:
  - Survival Dance
  - Sacred Dance
• Hindu four stages of life:
  - student
  - householder
  - forest dweller
  - sage
  [here we see this return to the cycles of life again as a way of expanding the Christian context]
• Rohr says you'd think that Christianity [or I guess religion in general?] would be right out in front leading this process of growth from 1st half to 2nd half of life, then asks why aren't Christian traditions out in front leading the way?
• duality - paradox
  - for Catholics - the Pascal Mystery: "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again" is not just a statement about Jesus, but a statement about the self
• "The cleverest way to avoid following Jesus is to worship Jesus." [got lots of laughs]
• "your game must fail you" - powerlessness, weakness, otherwise you cannot move on
• necessary suffering
• grace is punishment for the ego
  - there's nothing the ego hates more than this freely given love/forgiveness, because the ego likes things balanced, tit for tat, etc.
• permission to trust the movement into the 2nd half of life
• as a speaker/teacher/writer - not saying anything new
  - the role of the writer/teacher is to forward conversation by articulating certain ideas in helpful ways
  - recognition, not cognition (the reader/student says, "oh, this is something like what I've thought before" [but hopefully is also challenged?])
  - spiritual guidance
• the story of Odysseus - the second journey after the journey home
  - walk inland carrying an oar from your ship, until you come across someone who mistakes your oar for a winnowing fan, then plant the winnowing fan in the ground, make offerings to Poseidon, and return home
  - the winnowing fan - symbol of maturity, the ability of proper discernment
• reevaluating the Survival Dance
• flesh = ego (in Acts and Paul's letters)
  - the overly-defended self
• going from Ego-Driven to Soul-Drawn
• Spiral Dynamics
  - 9 levels
  - transcend and include (-> forgiveness)

[Conversation over lunch with Carl about the discipline of writing and the difficult of networking and publicity. Had a chance to meet Mike Morrell, as well as Pete Rollins briefly.]


3 PM | Phyllis Tickle | What In This World Is Going On?

• every 500 years - a reformation / rummage sale / "hoopla" of some kind - everything changes
  (for cultures stemming from, influenced by or colonized under latinized Christianity - i.e. "First World")
  - 33(ish) AD - Jesus, Christianity out of Judaism
  - 500(ish) AD - Fall of Roman Empire
  - 1000(ish) AD - Great Schism between Catholic and Orthodox Churches
  - 1500(ish) AD - Great Reformation, birth of Protestantism
  - 2000(ish) AD - "Great Emergence"? Emergent Christianity
• no more experts - culture too saturated, too much info to process
[does knowing that we're in a recurring reformation change how we react? is this similar to the self-conscious evolution where culture comes to take the place of natural selection forces?]
• 12 distinct forms of Emergent Christianity (also, distinct from "progressive Christianity")
• very diverse, but share some common traits:
  - nonhierarchical
  - no institution or formal organization
  - concern very much with social justice
  - reject any kind of arrogance in claiming to know "what God thinks"
[these are traits that tend to be shared with the Pagan movement, though the emphasis on social justice has been subverted somewhat in recent years; and the rejection of arrogance extends to actually rejecting a monotheistic God itself, though a new arrogance is cropping up in claiming to know what the many polytheistic gods think or want from us]
• things different about the current "hoopla" going on:
  - the knowledge and historical perspective afforded means we can address this current reformation with tranquility and calm, take it in stride
  - 65+ demographic is more involved, not just young folks
  - important to realize that U.S. and Canada are late to the game, this has been going on in Europe and other places for a while
  - b/c of internet, globalization, there's no physical location where this is happening - this means we need to focus on ways of cultivating personal contact among members of the movement (we need to get together every once in a while to "smell each other")
• the key question for the reformation/emergence is: Where now is your authority? or, How now shall we live?
• changing location of authority as Christianity evolved in history
  - pope -> scripture (during Protestant reformation, introducing the idea of Protestant inerrancy)
  
• changing focus on Persons of the Trinity:
  - some Christians very comfortable with God-the-Father but not as comfortable with Jesus Christ (e.g. Catholics and mainline Protestants?)
  - some Christians all about Jesus Christ but shy away from God-the-Father aspect (e.g. Evangelicals)
  - very few Christians comfortable with the role of Holy Spirit
  - recent shift towards role of Holy Spirit and direct experience of God (e.g. Pentecostals)

[will this be reflected in where the next source of authority is located? in charismatic leadership, for instance? does this reflect somewhat the direction the general culture is headed, towards effective mass-marketing and emotionalism/sensationalism? also, what makes Phyllis Tickle think this will be "the last reformation" once Christians have "completed the Trinity" so to speak? evidence for this? naive, considering the evidence of history? would approaching this from the perspective of the cyclical nature of time change our view of things?]

• Big Questions coming up for Christians:
  - What is our theology of religion? (i.e. how do "we as Christians" interface with and live in a multicultral, multifaith world?)
  - What is the nature of atonement?
  - What is a human being?


• "Most world religions agree in their wisdom and their morality. It is in their Mysteries that they differ."


• newest discoveries in modern physics are driving this current reformation, bringing up big questions about ontology and the nature of human existence and meaning


• science and knowledge changing culture, these changes come last to religion (where we do the hard work of integrating ideas and understanding their implications)

[Conversation over dinner with Carl and his friend, Pat, who was a practicing Pagan back in the 80s (?) but now considers herself the Pagan version of "spiritual but not religious." We talked about issues of social justice and environmentalism, and the tendency for Pagans to be too insular and prone to in-fighting, rather than focusing on larger social issues. I had a chance to brag a bit about the PNC and the No Unsacred Place blog project as examples of how social media is helping Pagans build the necessary community infrastructure to expand the conversation and participate more effectively in national conversations over important issues.]


8 PM | Doug Pagitt | The Inventive Age

• institutions are cultural artifacts (including churches)
• Four Aspects of Culture:
  - thinking (head)
  - values (heart)
  - aesthetics (gut)
  - tools (hands)
• Four Ages:
  - Agrarian Age (farming)
  - Industirial Age (industrial revolution)
  - Information Age (science and technology)
  - Inventive Age (current age, creativity and innovation, social media, etc.)
• Churches in the 4 Ages have had a shifting focus:
  - Agrian Age (rural) had the "parish church", all about location
  - Industrial Age (urban) had competing "brands"/denominations
  - Information Age (suburban) all about learning, education
  - Inventive Age (global) all about creativity and meaning-making (?)
• role of books is to help further conversation that is already going on
• What Defines the Inventive Age:
  - the need to make meaning
  - the need to make beauty
[not sure how these are different from any other age, or if this is just the natural focus of any transitional period of time when everything seems to be in flux; is meaning-making and beauty-making a sustainable cultural model? what are some of the pitfalls of the Inventive Age - perhaps that mirror the pitfalls of the previous Ages - again, focus on marketing and cult of personality (in contrast to, f'ex, consumerism and capitalism getting going in the Industrial Age, or the emphasis on knowledge = power in the Information Age?)]
• Bounded Set Systems v. Center Set Systems v. Relational Set Systems
  - Bounded Set: a playground with a fence around it to keep kids inside and safe, clear lines between who's in and who's out, concern with identity markers and community boundaries
  - Center Set: playground with really interesting, fun stuff in the center, no boundaries or fuzzy boundaries, the "main attraction" in the center gathers interested participants, who are free to come and go as they choose
  - Relational Set: no playground, each kid brings their own toys and no one knows what games will be played until everyone shows up and you see what you have [this could be understood as "emergent community"? also, if there's "no playground" - how do you know where and when to go to meet up with others? how do you mobilize and connect? festivals and temporary meeting spaces becoming increasingly important?]

[After such a long day, we were exhausted, so Jeff and I headed back to camp pretty early and were sound asleep by 9:30 PM or so.]

Annotated Notes from the Wild Goose Festival, Day 1

[This post has been backdated to the appropriate day of the festival itself, just to make future reference convenient for me and to break things up a bit.]

[Today is nothing but annotation, as I didn't take any notes during the first day of the festival.

We got on the road around 7:30 AM and arrived at Shakori Hills Farm by late afternoon. After a long, hot day in the car, I know I personally was feeling a bit cranky — this wasn't improved much by finding out on our arrival that our ticket price did not cover the cost of parking or the cost of a festival program, which we had to purchase separately (who ever heard of that?). Though the prices were relatively reasonable, the lack of forewarning left us feeling like we were being nickel and dimed (especially after recent announcements from the Wild Goose that they'd sold so many tickets and made so much money that they could afford to give tickets away for free, while speakers had "waived their speaking fees" as a donation to the festival). Also, we were not prepared with cash and the festival organizers were not prepared with an ATM, so we spent about half an hour being shuffled from one volunteer booth to another trying to find a way to pay. I was initially disappointed by the facilities, or notable lack thereof — not only were there no showers available for campers (except pay-per-minute hot showers), but there weren't even any bathrooms or running water, only port-a-potties and "use your foot" hand-washing stations. This was more a concern for me because I had a cut on my hand that I worried could become infected without regular washing with hot water and soap (but luckily, a barrage of hand sanitizer, soapy water, clean water and a layer of Neosporin after every trip to the bathroom and once before bed kept it clean enough, plus occasional trips into Chapel Hill to use actual bathrooms). The camping ground area itself was wooded and pretty nice, though we were worried that someone would demand that we pay for an extra tent space because we had a small screen house in addition to our tiny two-person tent. Luckily, it was never an issue.

We arrived just as the opening ceremony was going on, so we missed out on that while setting up camp. Once we were settled, we decided to head in to Chapel Hill (about half an hour away) to get out of the heat for a little while, and so Jeff could show me around his alma mater a bit. We had dinner at a small restaurant (forget the name), though a combination of the heat and the long drive left me not feeling very hungry. Over dinner, we joked about the idea of finding a place that sold occult jewelry so that we could wear large, obvious pentacles during the rest of the festival and avoid being mistaken as Christians. (This had already happened a few times even in the short time we'd been at the festival site, and I think we were both feeling somewhat bristled about it. Not that we blamed anyone for the assumption, but it's always slightly uncomfortable to be surrounded by people assuming a certain amount of privilege. Even when I was a Christian, I didn't go around name dropping Jesus and God into casual conversations with strangers.) By this time, though, it was late enough that most of the shops were closed, so we tabled that idea. I resolved to try to set aside my grumpiness and cynicism and put on my "anthropologist hat," to become just an interested observer and note-taker.

When returned to the festival grounds and made our way to the campsite. We were both incredibly hot and disappointed there were no showers available, but we decided to follow Granny Weatherwax's philosophy of hygiene and "wash all the bits as and whens they becomes available." This meant fumbling with a wash cloth, bar of soap and spray bottle of water in the dark as we stripped naked and helped each other wash the most badly-in-need-of-washing areas, while other campers gathered around fires and tents only a few yards away. If anyone was offended (or even saw), we never heard anything. It did lead me to think about how much easier it is to keep clean when you're not worrying about also trying to stay modestly covered up. When we were ready for bed and trying to fall asleep, it was nearly 1 AM, but our neighbors were still going strong chatting and laughing. Jeff got up and politely asked them to quiet down a bit, since we'd been up at 6 AM and had had a long, hot drive that day. I was lying in our tent listening, when I heard the unmistakable accent of Gareth, who explained that this was actually a meeting of festival staff members and so they couldn't stay quiet. He did offer the "compromise" of trying to be a bit quieter and finish up as soon as they could (which, considering they were in the woods surrounded by other campers, I would think would be more common courtesy than compromise — but then, I was still grumpy and exhausted at that point). I'm still not sure Gareth realized who Jeff was, and I'm not sure what to make of the irony of setting up camp right next to the main staff tent completely by accident. For other nights, they moved the meeting elsewhere, so noise wasn't a problem after that, and the people whose tent it was inquired after us the next morning to make sure we'd slept okay, so it all worked out, really. We slept like logs, even though Jeff had forgotten to pack the mats so we were on pretty hard ground for the weekend.]

Diary - Spirit Animal

Sun: cancer (cardinal water), 5:50 AM - 8:54 PM
Moon: last quarter, pisces (mutable water), VoC
Earth: hot and muggy all day with thick clouds this morning giving way to sun this afternoon, with evening comes more clouds again and rustling wind hinting at a thunderstorm


So I finally had a chance to try out some of the shamanic journey work from the book Jeff got me for my birthday, Caitlin Matthews' Singing the Soul Back Home: Shamanic wisdom for every day.

For the ritual, I did draw a circle (with incense) to ward and protect the space, and then invited in the blessings of the four directions. Next, I did the DOTR Three Realms working to connect to below, above and center (my way: sea, sky and land/tree, respectively). Once grounded and centered, I took off my glasses and tied on the blindfold to help with trance work.

For this first attempt, I followed Caitlin Matthews' advice about first trying to connect with your instrument and then finding a "spirit animal." I have a small, square clay rattle — forget where I got it — that seems modeled after some Native American look, with spirals carved into one side. So to begin, I spent some time exploring the rattle and trying to use it in different ways to get a consistent sound. It was more difficult than I'd anticipated and I found that it was very hard to keep a consistent beat with it — it seemed like the beads (or whatever is inside the rattle) would get kind of stuck in a corner if I shook the rattle too consistently in just one direction, so that the rattle would become muted and almost silent…. but thinking too much about it and trying to intentionally vary the movement of my hand often resulted in an uneven rhythm or just plain confused coordination.

I did eventually find a way of holding the rattle where I could get a consistent beat without having to consciously think about it, so at that point then I tried to do some journey work. Caitlin Matthews recommends beginning every journey in the Middle World from a real location — not necessarily the location you're actually in, but some location that actually exists in the physical world somewhere and that you've been to. So instead of going to my "inner grove" as I would normally do, I tried to go to this one outcropping on Mount Desert Island in Acadia, where the cliffs jut out into the ocean and the low pine forests always seem shrouded in fog. It's a very quiet, mist-strewn and magical place and I've felt more than once that I could very well slip between the worlds there. It's also where I saw those wild otters running through the underbrush that one year. So I reached out to try to get there…

But not all that successfully. I felt like I couldn't concentrate very well and kept slipping in and out of focus. I think there are several reasons for this: (a) Not being used to trying to rattle and meditate at the same time. (b) The rattle itself not giving the most resonant rhythm to journey with. (c) Trying to go to a location that I don't have much practice going to. (d) My slight physical discomfort because of the stuffy, overly warm room, the heaviness of the blindfold which made me even warmer, and a mild headache probably from lack of food and/or water. Not the best conditions for trying to do journey work, but it was the only time I really had.

Once or twice, I seemed to catch glimpses of animals — but for a long time, none really came close enough for me to connect or communicate with them in any way. A seagull here or there out over the ocean, that type of thing. I tried to keep my purpose in mind during the work, repeating my intention to journey in order to meet my spirit animal... but for a while, it was touch and go and I was getting frustrated. Once or twice, I seemed to see some kind of creature in front of me on the trail among the trees and undergrowth, but couldn't get a clear impression.

Eventually, I decided to stop rattling and try journeying in silence. I laid down on my back (to relieve the cramped circulation in my left leg from the way I'd been sitting) and untied the blindfold, just draping it gently over my eyes instead. I continued to try to stay focused on the journey work, but I may have started to drift off to sleep or allow my mind to wander. At one point, though, I realized that in my mind that sure enough I was following along behind an animal, short and stocky and low to the ground. I'm not sure if this was in dream or trance or what, but when I realized it, I tried to clarify the impression and asked of the creature if it was my spirit animal whom I'd come to meet. It turned to look at me briefly, and for a second I couldn't tell quite what I was looking at, but then the impression resolved into a grayish, shaggy badger (with the deep black face and the white stripe down its forehead to its nose).

My first reaction was to scoff and think that this couldn't be my spirit animal, because I felt no connection with that animal at all and it seemed so... dull and mundane. Part of me noticed some similarity between the badger and the white dog, Moira, who has shown up in some of my meditations before, and I wondered if this was Moira just in a different guise. I tried to ask the badger its name and find out if it was Moira, but it shrugged and trundled off along the path. I think at this point I began to fall asleep again, because though I continued to follow it, I started to hear very clearly two voices arguing — they were male, youngish, with thick stereotypically Mexican/Hispanic accents — and though I couldn't see anyone (it was as if the voices were behind me or as if my eyes were closed, though I could still see Badger ahead of me), they continued to argue loudly about whether or not Badger was my spirit animal. One of them said (speaking to me, not to the other) something like, "Oh, so, it won't speak to me, so now it won't speak to you!" as though in explanation for why the badger didn't seem interested in speaking and had turned its back on me and trundled away.

Then suddenly, I realized I'd lost track or lost sight of where Badger had gone, but I was standing in front of a huge, thick-trunked tree. Though I hadn't seen anything, I had the vague impression that Badger has actually become the tree, and the tree seemed to have an gnarled old face in its trunk, made from the bumps and knots of the bark. I looked down and it was as though the ground beneath were clear or transparent somehow, or that at least I could see through it, because I could see the roots of the tree reaching down into the earth and rock and spreading out in all directions, just as I could see the branches of the tree spreading out above. It was almost like looking at a painting or drawing (or photoshopped photograph) of a tree with a "reflection" in the ground, except the reflection wasn't a mirror image reversed of the leafy branches, but definitely and distinctly twining, dirty roots. Not sure what to do, I sat down under the tree, my back against the trunk and found myself doing the DOTR Three Realm working the way I had done when visiting the Angel Oak last month.

The loud, obnoxious invisible voices continued to argue back and forth, until at some point I kind of interrupted them and asked them to shut it. Then I tried reaching out to Badger again to see if it would come back, and there it was, coming out from behind the tree trunk. I asked politely if I could come closer, and it sat back, upright on its back haunches, and allowed me to approach. I saw its amazingly powerful claws, and its small eyes peering at me. I started to think about all the various references to badgers I'd seen recently - the story Emma Restall Orr tells in her book about a badger coming across her in meditation in the woods, the "honey badger don't give a shit" youtube video Ryan showed everyone at the last work conference, some vague impression that maybe the badger was related to the groundhog and was therefore connected somehow to Brigid... When Badger seemed to lose patience with my wandering, chattering mind and clicked it claws at me, then leaned back down onto all fours and trundled off again. I realized I couldn't keep focus for much longer in any case, so at that point I ended the journey work.

I sat back up and wasn't sure what to do for a moment. I was so skeptical of Badger being my spirit animal, fairly convinced that it was just some weird thing in my subconscious picking up pop culture references or something... but I knew that the next step, according to Caitlin Matthews, was to "Dance the Animal" to welcome it and give it a chance to live in the world through you. So in the small space I had in the study where I was set up for ritual, I sort of sat on my haunches and began to try to dance in a way that mimicked the movement of Badger. Since most of my journey had been spent watching it shuffle away, I started by kind of rocking my hips back and forth, as though "trundling in place" — then I allowed this movement to kind of carry all the way up my spine until my whole torso was shifting and twisting back and forth. I got the urge to move my arms as well, and so began to rock them backwards and forwards, swinging them as though walking — it took a bit to get the hang of it and coordinate the swinging with the rocking of my hips. I did this for quite a while (it seemed like a while, anyway), breathing kind of heavily, almost snuffling. By the end of it, I felt... great. The dancing, even in place, was amazingly helpful in seeming to ground me in my body and integrate the Badger energy, so that by the end I no longer was skeptical or scoffing at the idea that Badger might be my spirit animal after all.

To end the ritual, I blessed my small blue pitched of water, and gave a few flicks of water to the fire in thanks to the spirit of Badger, then took a sip of the water to honor the Badger spirit within me as well. I then did some poking around online to see if I could find out anything about the meaning or associations of badgers in mythology... but that'll have to wait until another time.

Diary - Summer Solstice

Days of Note: Alban Heruin ("Light of the Shore") / Summer Solstice

Sun: gemini (mutable air), 5:50 AM - 8:54 PM, solstice at 1:16 PM (local time)
Moon: waning gibbous, pisces (mutable water)
Earth: thunderstorms and rain this morning before dawn, cloudy much of the morning clearing to hot, sunny, muggy day

Jeff and I had the pleasure of celebrating the summer solstice this year with Sassafras Grove, the local Pittsburgh ADF group. Up at 3:30 AM, we drove out to Fairview Park to participate in a sunrise rite that, ideally, would have involved climbing the Tor which offers a view of southwestern Allegheny County and a magnificent view of the sun rising over the city…. except that it was pouring rain and thundering. We debated not going, but decided to head out anyway (since we missed Beltaine because of rain and we had been so looking forward to this one!) — the rain continued on and off, so they ended up holding the ritual under a pavilion at the bottom of the hill instead. Other than the two of us, only seven other people were in attendance (four of them grove members and three of them visitors); apparently, this was the first time in years that anyone other than grove members showed up for the rite. It was also the first time in about ten years that they didn't have a clear morning.

The rite itself was wonderful — focused on veneration of the sun and including deities from several different Indo-European hearth cultures. (I could go into detail about the structure of the ritual and all of that, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit "spacey" after the lack of sleep, mid-morning nap and long, hot afternoon, so I'll skip it for now. (Outlines for their Summer Solstice rituals from past years can be found here. I mostly wanted to note that we did attend, so that I wouldn't forget to write about it in here.) Jeff really enjoyed the rite and said afterward that it was the first time that a group ritual really "did anything for him." It was definitely a much more makeshift rite than the Imbolc rite I attended back in February — mostly because they weren't anticipating very many people showing up, so there was a little less preparation and a little more ad lib. One of the grove members was telling us over breakfast that the Imbolc ritual was actually one of the first regular rituals the group ever did and had started even before the grove was associated with ADF, so a great deal of tradition and such has grown up around it and accrued more and more because no one wants to let go of any. Compared to that ritual (which had between thirty and forty people attending, plus nine acting priests), this summer solstice ritual was simple and more relaxed. But again, the structure of the ritual worked very well so that by the end I was definitely "feeling it" and jiving with the energies raised. I have to admit, though on paper I think the ADF ritual structure tends to be a bit overly complicated, they're starting to win me over by being able to pull it off so well.

That said, I do feel a bit out of sync with the sheer number of deities often involved in rituals. I tend to be more of a "devotee" type, I guess, really focused on just a few and interested in making my own rites very much All About Them. This summer solstice ritual, even though it was mostly focused on veneration and praise for the actual sun itself, still involved calling on triads of deities from different ancient cultures for each major step in the liturgy (warding the space, opening the gates, making offerings to the Kindred, etc.). In fact, I'm pretty sure there were more gods in attendance at this ritual than there were people! Not that this is a bad thing — clearly it works pretty well for them. But it's the difference between a big party and an intimate date. I'm an intimate date kind of person when it comes to my relationship with the gods. During this ritual, the invocation of Brighid as patron goddess of the grove and of Manannan as one of the Gatekeepers was kind of like seeing really good friends at a large gathering, but only being able to wave briefly to them in passing before being swept along again.

Again, not necessarily a bad thing. A big, public ritual like that once every six weeks or so might be just fine. But I'm not sure I'd be up for getting deeply involved in ADF and spending a lot of time planning such rituals and having them be my main focus. Honestly, there are a lot of other things I'm interested in focusing on, and I'm starting to realize that I lean much more towards the mystic-poet type than the minister-priest type. This is what happens when you're an introvert, I guess.

Still, it was excellent to be able to come and participate, and Jeff and I got to have breakfast with two of the grove members after the ritual was over. We got Eric (also spelled Earrach) talking about his history and involvement with ADF and Sassafras Grove, and that was just awesome. I always worry about being a bit too awkward and saying the wrong thing in those kinds of situations, especially when people start talking about topics that I'm pretty familiar with (at least academically) but haven't necessarily had much hands-on or community experience with. But overall, I think it went very well, and I know Jeff and I are both eager to participate in future events of theirs.

After returning home around 9:30 AM, I ended up falling asleep again until 11:30 AM… We eventually made our way to lunch, and then this afternoon I spent working on designing my next tattoo (which I'll be getting in a week, at the beginning of July). I was working on a sun design to match or compliment my Celtic wave armband design and also to somewhat cover the old and faded tattoo on my right shoulder…. But the design I ended up creating is so complex and so pretty that, frankly, I think I'd like to make it larger and put it somewhere else, more prominent, possibly even in the center of my back (similar to the placement of Jen's large henna-like crop circle tattoo). Below is a black-and-white and a color version of the tattoo.

For my birthday, Jeff got me a book on Celtic shamanism "for everyday life" and I'm really interested in trying out some of the techniques, so I also wanted to make some time very soon to do some journey-work, especially since I haven't done any in a while. But we're about to head out to dinner and hang out with Arthur, and then we're leaving Thursday morning for the Wild Goose Festival, so I really have no idea when I'll have a chance to do that. I guess we'll see!

Diary - Birthday

Days of Note: My birthday

Sun: gemini (mutable air), 5:49am - 8:53pm
Moon: *waning gibbous, aquarius (fixed air)
Earth: humid much of the day, warm with sun every once in a while through the haze, brief but intense thunderstorms in early evening, rain like a foam-white curtain draped noisily over the landscape, pounding, and now sunset

Once again, I've been very bad at keeping up with this diary, and to be perfectly honest, I haven't done much DOTR work in the past month (despite being so hopeful). Where the month has gone already, it's hard to say! Weekends with the kids have been full and playful, and we've spent a lot more time at the park and on the playground, for which I'm thankful, not to mention the garden. Last weekend, we visited my parents for a combined birthday-slash-engagement-party-slash-wedding-shower and the kids got to meet a lot of my relatives for the first time. I think they left a good impression on them (I hope, anyway!) — in fact, in some ways I think some of my relatives were both charmed and reassured. Perhaps they'd been worried that I was stepping into a slightly dysfunctional family situation. I won't say step-parenting isn't or won't be difficult and stressful at times, but really you couldn't ask for better kids. I've been wanting to write about the party for our wedding blog for the past week, but I've also been bleeding for about seven or eight days now and it's left me incredibly drained of energy (not to mention frustrated at times). This past week was also an intense one in terms of stress about wedding plans, but —


My journaling was interrupted by Jeff and Savanah wanting to watch "The Color of Magic" movie that Jeff got from my parents for his birthday…. and now it's nearly 11 PM. So I'm calling it a night.

This is why I haven't journaled recently.

Goodnight!

Follow-Up Letter to Mentor

B--,

Thanks so much for your response - and so quickly! I know you've been busy with your own work. :)

It's very reassuring to know that my variation/approach to the Three Realms Working practice is not only acceptable but welcome, and your description of how it fits in with the overall DOTR philosophy is refreshing. As you probably know, I've been stung before by banging heads a bit about "how things are done" within a certain Ancient Order That Will Not Be Named… One of the things I appreciate most about DOTR is the openness and flexibility - but not just in a wishy-washy kind of way that says, "We're accepting of everyone as long as you stay at 'newbie' level." That's something I have run into in other Druid groups, and it's made me a bit gun-shy about sharing some of my more in-depth thoughts. I know I can get very intense about my work, and sometimes that intensity can come off as over-bearing! So it really is a relief to be reassured on that matter and not feel pressure from DOTR to keep my enthusiasm in check lest I wander off the Approved Path. ;)

The points you brought up in your letter have given me a lot to think about. Your first point, about each of the Three Realms being connectors or bridges, is definitely something that resonates with my experience/understanding of them. To me, the Three are incredibly dynamic, though each in its own way, and they also all lead outward to each other even as you follow them more deeply inward… if that makes sense. So I think you're right that this is a key to my understanding, and keeping that in mind when trying to work with them in a "linear" meditative practice will definitely be helpful.

I think it's interesting that you said my description of Sea is almost completely metaphor compared to the other two Realms. I went back and reread what I wrote to see what you meant, and it seemed to me like they were all pretty evenly balanced (though maybe all of them tending a bit more towards the metaphorical). I remember when I was trying to articulate what I meant in the original letter that it actually helped a lot to go back and forth between my descriptions of each of the Realms looking for patterns of meaning as I wrote them out. I think your point about keeping the material realities of the Realms in mind is really important (and even though I'm, sadly, landlocked where I'm living right now, my dreams very often involve landscapes dominated by the ocean and the shoreline!)… But I wonder if the drought you're experiencing in GA means you're even more sensitive to the material reality of Sea in particular! :)

Your question about the gestures for the Three Realms practice is actually something I've been playing around with for a while, and still trying to work out. The way I do it right now (and it's been a while since I read the DOTR version, so I forget if this is basically the same or modified a little bit) is this:

- Begin with my hands resting lightly, palms down, on my knees (I almost always do this practice sitting cross-legged so that I can physically touch the ground/floor wherever I am).
- After centering through breath meditation, I lower my left hand to touch the ground to my left (palm down and flat), drawing up "blue" energy of the Sea to circulate through my body.
- When ready, with my left hand still touching the ground, I raise my right hand up above my head to my right (palm up and open, fingers extended upwards), drawing down "yellow" energy of the Sky to circulate through my body.
- When ready, I bring both hands together into namaste/prayer position just in front of my solar plexus (blending blue and yellow energy into the "green" energy of the Land).

After the Three Realms working, I sometimes move into another prayer honoring what ADF calls (I think) the "three hallows" of Tree, Fire and Well, using a prayer I adapted (though I forget from what source) and gestures I made to go with it. Either way, I end up in the namaste/prayer position at the end, and afterwards, I lower my hands again to rest, this time palms facing upwards, on my knees for any trance or energy work I'm doing for the session. If I don't do the Three Hallows prayer with gestures, then the energy from the Three Realms working I can either kind of "expand" into a surrounding, misty sphere (and then release/dissipate after my meditation) or I can direct it to a particular purpose/object for blessing/consecration or such.

I hope that gives you some idea of how it goes. :) If I remember right, the version in the Aspirant Lessons calls for turning in a circle at one point, but I've found that in our tiny apartment doing ritual work standing up and turning different ways just isn't practical (though if I'm directing the energy into an object, I will sometimes use the circular motion around it). I've also noticed that using the gestures with the left and right hands during the Three Realms working, the result of holding the position for any length of time is that my left arm (drawing up Sea energy) starts to feel loose and cool from resting relaxed, while my right arm (drawing down Sky energy) begins to feel tense and warm from the effort of holding my hand aloft. When I bring them together, my left hand feels warm to my right hand, and my right hand feels cool to my left hand (because blood has been leaving the right, raised up, and pooling in the left), so it's like a visceral, palpable experience of the energies mixing and exchanging.

And once again, it seems I've written a lengthy letter without meaning to! I hope this has been helpful for you - I know it has for me. :)

A few last things: Jeff's and my wedding will be in North Carolina, on the Outer Banks, on September 16, which is a Friday. It would be lovely if folks in the Order wanted to do a working to bless our marriage, and we would be very grateful! :)

Also, congratulations on the position at Cherry Hill Seminary! I definitely know about CHS (my friend, Cat, was heavily involved in its founding and early years). Every once in a while, I dream about applying to attend - especially once they get accreditation - but I always seem to have too much to do and not enough money. ;) If they're bringing you on and trying to incorporate Druidry a bit more into the curriculum, that sounds like something I'll definitely have to keep my eye on. I saw that you posted on the DOTR network about the course you're developing, so I'll go check that out - sometimes I think "intro" courses are the hardest ones to do, so I'm really interested in seeing what you do with it. :)

All right, that's all I have for now. Hope this letter wasn't too long!

Blessings,
Ali