(An outline for the Lughnasad celebration Jeff and I are planning for tomorrow evening. Forgive the formatting -- I'm composing and posting from my iPad while I sit outside in our front yard. Yeah, that's right. #awesome)
# Opening
**Peace to the Four Corners**
May there be peace in the North,
a light of courage to shine
May there be peace in the South,
a rock of truth to stan upon
May there be peace in the East,
a chalice of kindness to drink
May there be peace in the West,
a staff of wisdom to lean upon
We join here now in peace,
May peace hold sway throughout the three realms
Awen.
**Weaving the Circle**
I weave this circle as sacred space,
Woven in stone, in calas, in bone
I weave this circle as holy time,
Woven with water, with gwyar, with blood
I weave this circle as a nemeton,
sanctuary of spirit,
Woven by flame, by nwfyre, by breath
The circle is woven, the grove is open,
By land, sea and sky, where the three realms meet.
Awen.
**Welcoming the Directions**
Hail and welcome, swift Hawk of Dawn
and the powers of the East!
Winging across the wide lands, far-sighted,
far-seeking, riding the high winds.
May you bless and cleanse our circle
with your presence.
Hail and welcome, bright Stag of Noon
and the powers of the South!
Poised at the height of your power, courageous,
strong with the fiery music of the hunt.
May you bless and strengthen our circle
with your presence.
Hail and welcome, wise Salmon of Dusk
and the powers of the West!
Quiet and quick-silver beneath clear waters,
in touch with the ebb and flow of awen.
May you bless and inspire our circle
with your presence.
Hail and welcome, starry Bear of Midnight
and the powers of the North!
Dark and deep-rooted in the nurturing earth,
great protector of the wilderness.
May you bless and guard our circle
with your presence.
The four corners of the realms are joined.
We stand in the center, place of sovereignty and grace.
Awen.
**Druid's Prayer**
Let us join now in the prayer we share with our fellow Druids.
Grant, oh gods, your protection,
And in protection, strength,
And in strength, understanding,
And in understanding, knowledge,
And in knowledge, the knowledge of justice,
And in the knowledge of justice, the love of it,
And in the love of it, the love of all existences,
And in the love of all existences,
the love of Spirit and all goodness.
Awen.
**Marking the Center**
(Charge the candle for abundance)
By spirit and fire, we mark
the center of this rite.
Gateway between the worlds,
light in dark and dark in light.
(Light the candle)
By land, sea and sky,
sacred fire, well and tree,
The center way is open,
by the three realms, so may it be.
**Invocation of the Gods**
(Improvised invitation and prayer to the gods)
**Making Offerings**
We honor our ancestors of blood, spirit and land,
who walk with us still.
We honor our gods and the gods of our people,
shining ones of spirit.
We honor the earth and all of her beings,
flora and fauna, kith and kindred.
May you accept our offerings
as a symbol of our gratitude and devotion.
Awen.
# Central Working
**Prayer of the Season**
The season of harvest is upon us. Fresh fruits ripen on tree and vine, and the earth prepares herself in her self-giving to welcome her children into a time of plenty and celebration. The majesty of the sun warms us even as the days grow shorter, and we gather in the lingering summer evening to offer our praise to the earth. As Lugh, god of skill and light, Lugh of the long arm, honored his mother with harvest and celebration, so we honor Earth Mother, she who sustains and nourishes us, she who supports and encourages us.
We place upon our altar the gifts of the season: Sweet corn, tall and golden in the field, each kernel a drop of sunlight, round and nourishing, promising wealth and abundance still to come. Berries swollen with juice, fresh and ready to be enjoyed, falling to the earth full of seeds from which future harvests will grow. And wine, blushing, refreshing water of life, coaxing us to joy and celebration.
**Raising Power**
In the sight of the gods and the company of friends,
We raise power for our working,
and open ourselves to receive the blessings
of abundance in our turn.
Prayer:
Flame of creativity and productivity.
Light of abundance and prosperity.
Warmth of gratitude and generosity.
We welcome all these into our lives.
Chant:
(Build the chant as symbols of abundance are shared around the circle: corn, berries and wine. Keep chant going as long as necessary, in multiples of three.)
Flame, Light, Warmth, Welcome (x3)
*clap* Light, Warmth, Welcome (x3)
*clap* *snap* Warmth, Welcome (x3)
*clap* *snap* *slap* Welcome (x3)
*clap* *snap* *slap* *stomp* (X3)
(for final repetition, both words and gestures)
Flame, Light, Warmth, Welcome!
Awen.
# Closing
**Prayer for Peace**
We join together now in a prayer for peace throughout the world.
Deep in the still center of my being,
May I find peace.
Silently in the quiet of the grove,
May I cultivate peace.
Gently within the greater circle of humankind,
May I radiate peace.
Awen.
**Farewell to the Directions**
Hail and farewell, starry Bear.
We honor your presence in our circle tonight.
May peace and gratitude go with you to the North.
Hail and farewell, wise Salmon.
We honor your presence in our circle tonight.
May peace and gratitude go with you to the West.
Hail and farewell, bright Stag.
We honor your presence in our circle tonight.
May peace and gratitude go with you to the South.
Hail and farewell, swift Hawk.
We honor your presence in our circle tonight.
May peace and gratitude go with you to the East.
**Closing the Center and Unweaving the Circle**
The fire that burns before us guides our love and will.
Extinguished on the altar, but carried with us still.
(blow out candle)
The circle is unwoven, returned to time and space.
What power is remaining, may it bless this place.
(empty remaining offerings of water, herbs)
By calas, gwyar, nwfyre, by land and sky and sea,
The rite we’ve worked is over,
By the three realms, may it be.
Tuesday, July 31, 2012
Sunday, July 29, 2012
Sacred Poetry Workshop
Jeff is on his way home from the airport (he should be home any minute!), and I find myself too excited to settle down to read or do anything even remotely productive. Plus, it's gorgeous and sunny outside, and FF&C's last episode of the season is up. So in general, I am a very happy Ali.
Yesterday, I attended a two-hour workshop put on by the OBOD seed-group in the area, the Circle of Coll. It was a very small group, just the workshop leader, M., one other member, R., and me (several other who'd been planning on attending had to cancel at the last minute). The workshop was a variation of the one M. presented at Pantheacon this past year, along the theme of "unity in diversity." It focused on crafting sacred poetry to be used in ritual context, and explored how poetry might be used in a non-tradition-specific way.
The discussion during the first part of the workshop was fascinating, as I got to learn a little bit more about how this particular group approaches ritual and the discussions that go on within the group. It was great to be able to have a conversation with other Druids in person in this way, though I think my enthusiasm made me a bit inarticulate and bubbly when I tried to share some of my own thoughts. One thing that was interesting was how clearly M.'s approach to ritual as a general structure is shaped by Isaac Bonewits' approach — I felt a bit awkward in following along to some of the conclusions he reached about just how "universal" this basic structure was, based on my own research working on my thesis. But it's been years since I was immersed in that research in any case, and that's a more complicated discussion for another time.
What struck me most about the workshop was just how differently M.'s approach was to what he called sacred poetry (i.e. poetry to be used in a ritual context) compared to, for lack of a better word, "secular" poetry. I'm not sure I agree with this distinction, but let's go with it for now and consider what he said. His most striking claim about sacred poetry was that it was deliberately designed to transcend itself. This flies in the face of how I usually think of poetry and other forms of art more generally, which to me are most successful when they are most whole, when they do not seek to point outside of themselves to something external but instead embody fully what they are.This is according to some philosophies of aesthetics, I think, the difference between a sign (which points at something external to itself) and a symbol (which embodies something which it both is and is not). To me, the symbol is the more powerful and potent of the two. So I'm not sure how I feel about treating sacred poetry as sign rather than symbol, and to make the goal of writing such poems to be explicitly transcendent. (And I don't think I agree with M. when he says that a "secular" poem that manages to express something sacred is an accidental miracle. To me, that is simply the mark of a truly great poem, or any other work of art.)
The approach to writing sacred poetry for a ritual context does not seem to me to be all that different from writing poetry in general. I liked his emphasis on two key aspects: synchronicity, and constraint. The poetic form, even in free verse, is a masterpiece of constraint, even just in the concrete, concise language and the use of metaphor and juxtaposition. And synchronicity plays a big part in the process of crafting a poem and the choice of juxtaposition and metaphor, even for folks who don't sit with a Tarot deck or ogham on hand. I've always found that observations of the natural world will play off of my own mental or emotional state in a way that allows for surprising synchronicities.
On the other hand, I don't exactly agree with the impression M. left that in order for sacred poetry to be truly transcendent, you should avoid revision. The idea of "getting yourself out of the way" and using techniques to help loosen up your creativity and your willingness to make leaps and take risks in your work — that's all very helpful, but I don't think poetry (unless you're very lucky and "in the groove") can stop at that stage in the process, even sacred poetry. Sacred poetry, as part of embodied ritual, is bound to be just as much a kind of self-expression, since the purpose of ritual is to bring us into the greater patterns and allow us to embody those sacred patterns within our lives. You could argue that ritual is quintessentially about self-expression, and if rituals can be practiced and polished and their forms refined over time, then I don't see why sacred poetry to be used in ritual shouldn't also be revised and refined.
That said, learning to more freely enter a state of mind (and spirit) that allows for inspired automatic writing (even if it is not always polished) is definitely a good skill to cultivate, and one that I probably can benefit from working on, especially since I tend to be a perfectionist and move at a painstaking pace when I write. (I do find it easier to get into the swing of things when I'm typing and when I'm writing in poetic prose, though.) M. is obviously very skilled at this, since his piece that he shared at the end of the workshop (after we'd each had half an hour to craft a poem to be used in a culminating ritual at the end) was very good and very effective. I took quite a while, and I don't know if mine was all that good, at least at what it was meant for (raising power at the peak of the ritual).
I've included the poem I wrote below. We were each assigned one of the three sections of the ritual, which we'd decided would be about welcoming prosperity and success into our lives. The task was to draw a tarot card and use it as inspiration for the poem, and to use some kind of structure or form as a constraint to help us "get out of our own way" and step aside from our own voice. The card I drew (from a random deck I selected) had an image thick with ferns, which immediately put me in mind of a fern growing from tiny, invisible spore into tender fiddlehead and then unfolding completely as full-grown plant. The number of the card was 2, so I decided to go for rhyming couplets in the structure where the last word of the previous line repeats at the beginning of the following line. Here's what I wrote:
Rooted in the lush earth, we feel ourselves secure
Secure in our potential, small hopeful seed
Seed of our skill, knowledge and power, responding to the sun's touch
Touch of rain, warmth of earth, nurturing our need
Our need opens us to new possibilities,
Possibilities call us beyond ourselves, open to the new
New in strength, we feel the power of sky and earth,
Earth and sky lend power to the work we do.
Dew of morning on green leaves unfurling
Unfurling into mid-day's energy
Engery we need for our success surrounds us
Surrounds us as the earth's fecundity
Fecundity of field and forest through season's turning
Turning seed to sprout to blossom, then to fruit
Fruit ripens now, we celebrate our harvest
Harvest and prosperity take root
Rooted in the lush earth, we build the power to its peak
Peak of power, by land, sky and sea
We welcome in prosperity, so may it be.
Yesterday, I attended a two-hour workshop put on by the OBOD seed-group in the area, the Circle of Coll. It was a very small group, just the workshop leader, M., one other member, R., and me (several other who'd been planning on attending had to cancel at the last minute). The workshop was a variation of the one M. presented at Pantheacon this past year, along the theme of "unity in diversity." It focused on crafting sacred poetry to be used in ritual context, and explored how poetry might be used in a non-tradition-specific way.
The discussion during the first part of the workshop was fascinating, as I got to learn a little bit more about how this particular group approaches ritual and the discussions that go on within the group. It was great to be able to have a conversation with other Druids in person in this way, though I think my enthusiasm made me a bit inarticulate and bubbly when I tried to share some of my own thoughts. One thing that was interesting was how clearly M.'s approach to ritual as a general structure is shaped by Isaac Bonewits' approach — I felt a bit awkward in following along to some of the conclusions he reached about just how "universal" this basic structure was, based on my own research working on my thesis. But it's been years since I was immersed in that research in any case, and that's a more complicated discussion for another time.
What struck me most about the workshop was just how differently M.'s approach was to what he called sacred poetry (i.e. poetry to be used in a ritual context) compared to, for lack of a better word, "secular" poetry. I'm not sure I agree with this distinction, but let's go with it for now and consider what he said. His most striking claim about sacred poetry was that it was deliberately designed to transcend itself. This flies in the face of how I usually think of poetry and other forms of art more generally, which to me are most successful when they are most whole, when they do not seek to point outside of themselves to something external but instead embody fully what they are.This is according to some philosophies of aesthetics, I think, the difference between a sign (which points at something external to itself) and a symbol (which embodies something which it both is and is not). To me, the symbol is the more powerful and potent of the two. So I'm not sure how I feel about treating sacred poetry as sign rather than symbol, and to make the goal of writing such poems to be explicitly transcendent. (And I don't think I agree with M. when he says that a "secular" poem that manages to express something sacred is an accidental miracle. To me, that is simply the mark of a truly great poem, or any other work of art.)
The approach to writing sacred poetry for a ritual context does not seem to me to be all that different from writing poetry in general. I liked his emphasis on two key aspects: synchronicity, and constraint. The poetic form, even in free verse, is a masterpiece of constraint, even just in the concrete, concise language and the use of metaphor and juxtaposition. And synchronicity plays a big part in the process of crafting a poem and the choice of juxtaposition and metaphor, even for folks who don't sit with a Tarot deck or ogham on hand. I've always found that observations of the natural world will play off of my own mental or emotional state in a way that allows for surprising synchronicities.
On the other hand, I don't exactly agree with the impression M. left that in order for sacred poetry to be truly transcendent, you should avoid revision. The idea of "getting yourself out of the way" and using techniques to help loosen up your creativity and your willingness to make leaps and take risks in your work — that's all very helpful, but I don't think poetry (unless you're very lucky and "in the groove") can stop at that stage in the process, even sacred poetry. Sacred poetry, as part of embodied ritual, is bound to be just as much a kind of self-expression, since the purpose of ritual is to bring us into the greater patterns and allow us to embody those sacred patterns within our lives. You could argue that ritual is quintessentially about self-expression, and if rituals can be practiced and polished and their forms refined over time, then I don't see why sacred poetry to be used in ritual shouldn't also be revised and refined.
That said, learning to more freely enter a state of mind (and spirit) that allows for inspired automatic writing (even if it is not always polished) is definitely a good skill to cultivate, and one that I probably can benefit from working on, especially since I tend to be a perfectionist and move at a painstaking pace when I write. (I do find it easier to get into the swing of things when I'm typing and when I'm writing in poetic prose, though.) M. is obviously very skilled at this, since his piece that he shared at the end of the workshop (after we'd each had half an hour to craft a poem to be used in a culminating ritual at the end) was very good and very effective. I took quite a while, and I don't know if mine was all that good, at least at what it was meant for (raising power at the peak of the ritual).
I've included the poem I wrote below. We were each assigned one of the three sections of the ritual, which we'd decided would be about welcoming prosperity and success into our lives. The task was to draw a tarot card and use it as inspiration for the poem, and to use some kind of structure or form as a constraint to help us "get out of our own way" and step aside from our own voice. The card I drew (from a random deck I selected) had an image thick with ferns, which immediately put me in mind of a fern growing from tiny, invisible spore into tender fiddlehead and then unfolding completely as full-grown plant. The number of the card was 2, so I decided to go for rhyming couplets in the structure where the last word of the previous line repeats at the beginning of the following line. Here's what I wrote:
Rooted in the lush earth, we feel ourselves secure
Secure in our potential, small hopeful seed
Seed of our skill, knowledge and power, responding to the sun's touch
Touch of rain, warmth of earth, nurturing our need
Our need opens us to new possibilities,
Possibilities call us beyond ourselves, open to the new
New in strength, we feel the power of sky and earth,
Earth and sky lend power to the work we do.
Dew of morning on green leaves unfurling
Unfurling into mid-day's energy
Engery we need for our success surrounds us
Surrounds us as the earth's fecundity
Fecundity of field and forest through season's turning
Turning seed to sprout to blossom, then to fruit
Fruit ripens now, we celebrate our harvest
Harvest and prosperity take root
Rooted in the lush earth, we build the power to its peak
Peak of power, by land, sky and sea
We welcome in prosperity, so may it be.
Saturday, July 28, 2012
Wild Maiden of the Mountains
Had an awesome day yesterday out hiking with Leah near Barclay Lake, about an hour east of here in the Wild Sky wilderness area. The day was gray and misty (even in the city, the morning was one of those that seemed mysteriously calm and quiet, no breeze to carry the noise of traffic from busier streets). It felt so good to be out in the woods again, and to take some time to sit quietly by the shore of the lake and watch the mist drift through among the hemlocks and cedar. Everything was damp, darkening the skin of the trees to deep shades of brown and mahogany beneath the myriad shades of green from moss, lichen, needles, ferns.
After writing my first column for SageWoman (which, damn it all, bounced back when I tried emailing it apparently, so I don't know if it will have made it to Anne in time or not), I shared a draft with Jeff, who asked me if I weren't perhaps getting in touch with another goddess. When I read that reply, there was a thrill of recognition, and almost immediately a shy giddiness. (What it reminded me of most was way back, sophomore year of college, when Elliott asked me randomly one day if I had a crush on Ray... and it was like naming something I had already known but hadn't yet named for myself. Sometimes I need people in my life to point out the astoundingly obvious.)
I have a great deal of ambivalence about it. Not about.... her, but about the community. I am very hesitant to talk about it with anyone as yet, and maybe will remain that way. She isn't Celtic at all, and so I feel on the one hand that my cosmology has been thrown completely out of whack. I talked awkwardly about it with Leah some and found myself having to repeatedly hedge in what I was saying, tacking on all sorts of qualifiers about how maybe it wasn't really her, I would have to do more research and see. But even as I said it, I could feel what bullshit that was: it most definitely is her, I knew it right away, as soon as I recognized the truth of it. Why did I feel the need to pretend I wasn't sure, or to apologize that she didn't fit into a carefully planned and organized cosmological framework with all the appropriate cultural context?
I did some poking around on TC today, seeing what I could find of other people talking about her. It was depressing and frustrating — the main threads I found were full of bickering and nit-picking. Sometimes I feel like reconstructionists are so astoundingly literal, so pinned down by a misunderstanding of how historical research even works in the context of theology and relationship. I feel like I've met this amazing new person in my life, and these folks are full of dating advice along the lines of rifling through her old photo albums to find pictures of her dressed up for her school plays when she was five. And if you dare to suggest that maybe who she is now is not the same girl who wanted to be a pretty-pink-princess for Halloween, you get shouted down for historical inaccuracy. Not only does that seem deeply disrespectful to her and her wildness and her power, but I don't think I can have a relationship with a deity who is restricted to the past, fenced in by the interpretations laid on her by the ancient Greeks (many of whose views I find deeply problematic in any case).
I did a Google search for images of her done by more modern artists, and there she was, shining through in every graceful, powerful curve and arch, the whole ecstatic tension of her freedom, her self-possessed sensuality like a wild thing, a bridge between dark earth and illuminated night.... and to think, the folks on TC box her into the role of "pre-pubescent female" because the Greeks always portrayed her wearing a knee-length chiton. Like I give a fuck how the Greeks wanted to dress up their goddesses. My mother used to dress me in overalls and Oshkosh-b'gosh.
I am not sure why the reconstructionists believe that our ancestors were always in the best possible relationship with the gods — they were clearly not in the best possible relationship with other humans, instead they held views that were often misogynistic, xenophobic and downright cruel. Slavery, servitude, the second-class status of women. Why would I automatically think that they were any better at establishing healthy relationships with the divine? Didn't the gods abandon them, in the end, didn't Christianity take root in a society rife with injustice and the absence of the old gods? I just don't think that, if the old ways of being religious were so goddamned perfect, a bit of fire and sword and cross could have overcome them.
But I'm getting away from the point.
Or maybe not. My relationship with Brighid has become increasingly difficult — I feel her presence as a task-master and guide, but there is a distance between us that wasn't there before. I find myself troubled by the cosmology of it, feeling like I can't get it to hang together, and a resistance on her end. The other day I found myself feeling somewhat envious of Jeff's relationships with his deities, how they seemed natural and organic, to arise from a place of messiness that was closer to reality than the stilted, patterned structure I've tried to make of my theology. In some ways, I almost feel as though Brighid has referred me to... her to shake me up and break me free from my Libra-rian need for balance and equal-opposites in all things. She is just so utterly wild and beautiful. As though her wildness will break open my relationship with Brighid (and perhaps Manannan, too, though he has always come and gone as he chooses mostly in dream and vision), shake me out of this bizarre need I've developed over the past couple years to always ensure that my relationships with the gods conforms to the expectations of "historical accuracy."
I think maybe I won't call her by her more familiar name, at least for now. Maybe that will help.
After writing my first column for SageWoman (which, damn it all, bounced back when I tried emailing it apparently, so I don't know if it will have made it to Anne in time or not), I shared a draft with Jeff, who asked me if I weren't perhaps getting in touch with another goddess. When I read that reply, there was a thrill of recognition, and almost immediately a shy giddiness. (What it reminded me of most was way back, sophomore year of college, when Elliott asked me randomly one day if I had a crush on Ray... and it was like naming something I had already known but hadn't yet named for myself. Sometimes I need people in my life to point out the astoundingly obvious.)
I have a great deal of ambivalence about it. Not about.... her, but about the community. I am very hesitant to talk about it with anyone as yet, and maybe will remain that way. She isn't Celtic at all, and so I feel on the one hand that my cosmology has been thrown completely out of whack. I talked awkwardly about it with Leah some and found myself having to repeatedly hedge in what I was saying, tacking on all sorts of qualifiers about how maybe it wasn't really her, I would have to do more research and see. But even as I said it, I could feel what bullshit that was: it most definitely is her, I knew it right away, as soon as I recognized the truth of it. Why did I feel the need to pretend I wasn't sure, or to apologize that she didn't fit into a carefully planned and organized cosmological framework with all the appropriate cultural context?
I did some poking around on TC today, seeing what I could find of other people talking about her. It was depressing and frustrating — the main threads I found were full of bickering and nit-picking. Sometimes I feel like reconstructionists are so astoundingly literal, so pinned down by a misunderstanding of how historical research even works in the context of theology and relationship. I feel like I've met this amazing new person in my life, and these folks are full of dating advice along the lines of rifling through her old photo albums to find pictures of her dressed up for her school plays when she was five. And if you dare to suggest that maybe who she is now is not the same girl who wanted to be a pretty-pink-princess for Halloween, you get shouted down for historical inaccuracy. Not only does that seem deeply disrespectful to her and her wildness and her power, but I don't think I can have a relationship with a deity who is restricted to the past, fenced in by the interpretations laid on her by the ancient Greeks (many of whose views I find deeply problematic in any case).
I did a Google search for images of her done by more modern artists, and there she was, shining through in every graceful, powerful curve and arch, the whole ecstatic tension of her freedom, her self-possessed sensuality like a wild thing, a bridge between dark earth and illuminated night.... and to think, the folks on TC box her into the role of "pre-pubescent female" because the Greeks always portrayed her wearing a knee-length chiton. Like I give a fuck how the Greeks wanted to dress up their goddesses. My mother used to dress me in overalls and Oshkosh-b'gosh.
I am not sure why the reconstructionists believe that our ancestors were always in the best possible relationship with the gods — they were clearly not in the best possible relationship with other humans, instead they held views that were often misogynistic, xenophobic and downright cruel. Slavery, servitude, the second-class status of women. Why would I automatically think that they were any better at establishing healthy relationships with the divine? Didn't the gods abandon them, in the end, didn't Christianity take root in a society rife with injustice and the absence of the old gods? I just don't think that, if the old ways of being religious were so goddamned perfect, a bit of fire and sword and cross could have overcome them.
But I'm getting away from the point.
Or maybe not. My relationship with Brighid has become increasingly difficult — I feel her presence as a task-master and guide, but there is a distance between us that wasn't there before. I find myself troubled by the cosmology of it, feeling like I can't get it to hang together, and a resistance on her end. The other day I found myself feeling somewhat envious of Jeff's relationships with his deities, how they seemed natural and organic, to arise from a place of messiness that was closer to reality than the stilted, patterned structure I've tried to make of my theology. In some ways, I almost feel as though Brighid has referred me to... her to shake me up and break me free from my Libra-rian need for balance and equal-opposites in all things. She is just so utterly wild and beautiful. As though her wildness will break open my relationship with Brighid (and perhaps Manannan, too, though he has always come and gone as he chooses mostly in dream and vision), shake me out of this bizarre need I've developed over the past couple years to always ensure that my relationships with the gods conforms to the expectations of "historical accuracy."
I think maybe I won't call her by her more familiar name, at least for now. Maybe that will help.
Friday, July 20, 2012
New Moon Rededication
Not sure how three months slipped by without an entry. Oh, wait... yes I do. (a) A new job, and (b) I rather hate the new blogger dashboard layout.
Updates? We haz them.
The new podcast project has been an amazing success, and we're nearing the end of our first season with hundreds of listeners. I'm working regularly, perhaps a bit too much... there were times throughout the past three months, because of the rush to keep ahead of schedule with this summer's craziness, that I was close to burn out — August will be a nice break. My hope is that we will hit a stride that will let me work consistently but not obsessively (they say the first few months of a new job are always the hardest). I also feel as though some of the more subtler transformative effects are starting to work their way in, as well. Hard to articulate exactly, but I feel as though I have a new focus to my work and a vision for this project that I'm following, and it's become much easier to tune out the online social media noise that used to feel so overwhelming and drag me so far off center. In general I feel more confident about my work and happier doing it, instead of feeling like it's pulling teeth. The down side: I am not writing as much, either for my personal blog or No Unsacred Place. But I'm writing just as consistently for both as I would during my times of writer's block back when that was all I was doing, so maybe it just feels like slacking off compared to the huge amount of work I put into the podcast regularly.
On the writing front, though, I do have a new writing gig: a column for SageWoman Magazine. On top of my column with Aontacht Magazine, I'm feeling pretty happy about my writing. I think I actually prefer writing magazine columns to blog posts, the format lends itself to more thoughtful writing with more time for reflection (and revision!) in between each.
The child custody issue culminated when Emily took Jeff to court (because a father wanting to see his kids is a punishable offense, now? she asked for a "relief hearing" because, in her bizarre world, Jeff was the one being stubborn). Anyway, the judge was buddy-buddy with Emily's lawyer and sang Emily's praises for being a noble homeschooling stay-at-home mom (without ever asking for any evidence of Emily's assertions that this way of homeschooling, on a schedule that just would not allow the kids to be away from her for more than a couple weeks at a time, was absolutely necessary and "best for the kids"). So Jeff, who had no lawyer, didn't really get a fair hearing at all, and the judge left him alone in the room with Emily and her lawyer acting as mediator, clearly not impartial or fair. Even so, in the end, they agreed to all of Jeff's requests except Emily refused to allow more than four weeks with the kids. Still, four weeks is better than the two she was originally demanding. Still, the illogic and injustice of it galls me, and when I'm stressed I do still find myself back in that courtroom, playing out all the things I could have said or done, ways that I could have humiliated Emily for being a controlling, selfish bitch. As it is, it seems they found me intimidating enough (her lawyer had a minor freak-out and accused me of "making fun of her," like we were back in middle school, and in response to nothing more than me smiling across the court room at my husband). But before we went into court, Jeff and I agreed that we'd done everything we could and it was in the gods' hands, and I trust that everything will work out for the best. All along, what we've wanted most is some kind of reasonable resolution instead of this endless game of Emily saying no but never giving us her own terms, or when she did, terms that were so vague that they were clearly an excuse to whittle away at Jeff's time with the kids after the fact. Now at least he has firm dates set, and she can kiss our asses. (I won't even go into the ridiculous song-and-dance they did about Christmas, and how panicked they looked when I pointed out that none of the kids four parents, nor the kids themselves, are Christian.... like I was just about to spoil Emily's whole good-suburban-Christian-mom routine.)
So Jeff is with the kids up in New Hampshire now, along with Melanie, and they've been having a great time, except for all the other stuff going on (like Melanie not feeling well, and Biff potentially needing to go back into the hospital while she's away, and the summer being unusually hot up in New England). I miss him a lot, but it's been good to have the place to myself for a little while. Well, me and Cu.
I've pretty well trained Cu not to bite, finally, after Leah let us know (she cat-sat while we were away back east for the court hearing and visiting my parents) that he was biting her when she came to check on him. Playful nips, nothing mean-spirited, but that's not acceptable. I was being too lenient with him anyway, and it's been easier to break him of the habit with just the two of us, since he can't just turn to daddy for affection and ignore me ignoring him for being naughty.
What else? I did finally unpack some of our sacred objects and set up and rededicate the indoor and outdoor altars like I'd planned to when we first moved in. I'm doing daily devotionals at the indoor altars now, which is good. I'll take a picture or two to post here eventually, at some point. The indoor altar isn't quite complete, as we still need to incorporate certain symbols for Jeff's deities and mine and decide if any other items need to be included. The outdoor altar is very simple, as usual, just a candle, a vase of cut flowers, te wind chimes and a bowl of sea shells.
I bought a treadmill and a standing desk / drafting table so that, eventually, I can walk while I work. My work on the computer doing research and writing has started to take up a lot of my time, and I haven't been as good about exercising as I want to be, so getting a treadmill seemed like a good solution. I've had it two days, and I'm enjoying being able to move while I work — it helps my concentration and lets me work up a good sweat. I just need to find a more comfortable way to type while I walk, and I'll be good to go.
I've started doing Tai Chi in the mornings. It rocks.
I got an iPad. Forgot to mention that — it was a (somewhat early) birthday present from my parents, and I have to admit, it's even better than I was expecting. I'm using it regularly for ebook reading and researching articles for the podcast, plus there are some really useful nature apps, like flora and fauna guides and moon calendars and such. And productivity apps that are useful. And some pretty nifty drawing apps that I've played around with some (though I haven't been as good about keeping up with my naturalist journal as I'd been hoping). So, yes, I'm very pleased with it. It will work as a good replacement when this laptop finally goes (it's on its last legs now) and I get a desktop family computer for Jeff and I to use so he doesn't have to use his work laptop when we're at home.
I think the hardest thing about getting used to Seattle has been not living near any parks. The SVN training and teaching is fantastic, but it's not exactly "alone time" in the woods like I used to have with Frick just a block away. As much as I love our place, it's very hard for me to not be near a park I can walk to — much harder than I expected, actually. I realized that it's the first time in my life that I haven't had some sort of wooded park within a few blocks.... which means, until now, I've been very, very lucky. It also means I need to work on finding alternatives and ways to cope. It's been hard.
Setting up the altars again has helped somewhat. It also helped when, for my flamekeeping shift the other night, I went whole-hog and performed a full ritual, complete with circle casting and calling the quarters and the traditional prayers and such. I attended a summer solstice event with Jeff and Leah put on by the local OBOD group, and it was really fantastic (in the community sense, if not an amazing, elaborate ritual or anything), and it made me realize just how much I've fought against being too "revivalist" in my Druidry, especially with pressure from people online who all seem to be taking the hard line towards reconstructionist polytheism. Being Wiccan now is almost taboo to hear people talk, and yet.... it's startling to me to discover that in many ways, I'm closer to that spirituality than I will ever be to a reconstructionist. Trying to embrace that has been part of this growing confidence I have about my own path, and moving away from being so reactionary and governed by the opinions of others online (even when I didn't realize that's what was happening).
It's led me to rededicate myself to the Living Druidry work that Jeff and I were doing together when we first began dating several years ago, and that turned out to be so fruitful for me at the time. Once Jeff is home, he's agreed that we'll make weekly trips to the local woods (probably Carkeek) to do our meditations and rituals in the evenings the way we were doing back then, and I hope that will help some with my restlessness at not being close to the woods.
Just yesterday was the new Claim Song Moon. I'll be journaling some about the various topics for contemplation included in this month's lesson.
So I think that about covers it.
I really miss Pittsburgh. I miss hanging out with Arthur. I miss Frick Park. I miss hot summers (though not as hot as they've been having this year!). I am still not really settled here. I still don't know what the seasons are like, little things like that. When I think about how long we've been here already and how it still doesn't quite feel like home — and yet when we were back in Pittsburgh and Lancaster briefly, that didn't feel like home either, really — I start to feel a little bit panicked, like... what if I'll never really feel at home again? What if this is what it's going to be like from now on, just one issue after another, one stress-ball after another, always something new, always a new project, always a new controversy, a new issue to deal with, a new way in which I'm discovering how inherently limited my perspective is and yet surrounded always by people who aren't forgiving or patient but full of self-righteous anger.....
It's not that I'm not happy. I have been very happy and feeling energized and optimistic recently, and having good work that I love doing is a big part of that. But happiness and joy... they're different. And I do sometimes still feel homesick.
The neighbors are having quite a party across the street. I'm going to bed to read some and snuggle with my Cu.
Updates? We haz them.
The new podcast project has been an amazing success, and we're nearing the end of our first season with hundreds of listeners. I'm working regularly, perhaps a bit too much... there were times throughout the past three months, because of the rush to keep ahead of schedule with this summer's craziness, that I was close to burn out — August will be a nice break. My hope is that we will hit a stride that will let me work consistently but not obsessively (they say the first few months of a new job are always the hardest). I also feel as though some of the more subtler transformative effects are starting to work their way in, as well. Hard to articulate exactly, but I feel as though I have a new focus to my work and a vision for this project that I'm following, and it's become much easier to tune out the online social media noise that used to feel so overwhelming and drag me so far off center. In general I feel more confident about my work and happier doing it, instead of feeling like it's pulling teeth. The down side: I am not writing as much, either for my personal blog or No Unsacred Place. But I'm writing just as consistently for both as I would during my times of writer's block back when that was all I was doing, so maybe it just feels like slacking off compared to the huge amount of work I put into the podcast regularly.
On the writing front, though, I do have a new writing gig: a column for SageWoman Magazine. On top of my column with Aontacht Magazine, I'm feeling pretty happy about my writing. I think I actually prefer writing magazine columns to blog posts, the format lends itself to more thoughtful writing with more time for reflection (and revision!) in between each.
The child custody issue culminated when Emily took Jeff to court (because a father wanting to see his kids is a punishable offense, now? she asked for a "relief hearing" because, in her bizarre world, Jeff was the one being stubborn). Anyway, the judge was buddy-buddy with Emily's lawyer and sang Emily's praises for being a noble homeschooling stay-at-home mom (without ever asking for any evidence of Emily's assertions that this way of homeschooling, on a schedule that just would not allow the kids to be away from her for more than a couple weeks at a time, was absolutely necessary and "best for the kids"). So Jeff, who had no lawyer, didn't really get a fair hearing at all, and the judge left him alone in the room with Emily and her lawyer acting as mediator, clearly not impartial or fair. Even so, in the end, they agreed to all of Jeff's requests except Emily refused to allow more than four weeks with the kids. Still, four weeks is better than the two she was originally demanding. Still, the illogic and injustice of it galls me, and when I'm stressed I do still find myself back in that courtroom, playing out all the things I could have said or done, ways that I could have humiliated Emily for being a controlling, selfish bitch. As it is, it seems they found me intimidating enough (her lawyer had a minor freak-out and accused me of "making fun of her," like we were back in middle school, and in response to nothing more than me smiling across the court room at my husband). But before we went into court, Jeff and I agreed that we'd done everything we could and it was in the gods' hands, and I trust that everything will work out for the best. All along, what we've wanted most is some kind of reasonable resolution instead of this endless game of Emily saying no but never giving us her own terms, or when she did, terms that were so vague that they were clearly an excuse to whittle away at Jeff's time with the kids after the fact. Now at least he has firm dates set, and she can kiss our asses. (I won't even go into the ridiculous song-and-dance they did about Christmas, and how panicked they looked when I pointed out that none of the kids four parents, nor the kids themselves, are Christian.... like I was just about to spoil Emily's whole good-suburban-Christian-mom routine.)
So Jeff is with the kids up in New Hampshire now, along with Melanie, and they've been having a great time, except for all the other stuff going on (like Melanie not feeling well, and Biff potentially needing to go back into the hospital while she's away, and the summer being unusually hot up in New England). I miss him a lot, but it's been good to have the place to myself for a little while. Well, me and Cu.
I've pretty well trained Cu not to bite, finally, after Leah let us know (she cat-sat while we were away back east for the court hearing and visiting my parents) that he was biting her when she came to check on him. Playful nips, nothing mean-spirited, but that's not acceptable. I was being too lenient with him anyway, and it's been easier to break him of the habit with just the two of us, since he can't just turn to daddy for affection and ignore me ignoring him for being naughty.
What else? I did finally unpack some of our sacred objects and set up and rededicate the indoor and outdoor altars like I'd planned to when we first moved in. I'm doing daily devotionals at the indoor altars now, which is good. I'll take a picture or two to post here eventually, at some point. The indoor altar isn't quite complete, as we still need to incorporate certain symbols for Jeff's deities and mine and decide if any other items need to be included. The outdoor altar is very simple, as usual, just a candle, a vase of cut flowers, te wind chimes and a bowl of sea shells.
I bought a treadmill and a standing desk / drafting table so that, eventually, I can walk while I work. My work on the computer doing research and writing has started to take up a lot of my time, and I haven't been as good about exercising as I want to be, so getting a treadmill seemed like a good solution. I've had it two days, and I'm enjoying being able to move while I work — it helps my concentration and lets me work up a good sweat. I just need to find a more comfortable way to type while I walk, and I'll be good to go.
I've started doing Tai Chi in the mornings. It rocks.
I got an iPad. Forgot to mention that — it was a (somewhat early) birthday present from my parents, and I have to admit, it's even better than I was expecting. I'm using it regularly for ebook reading and researching articles for the podcast, plus there are some really useful nature apps, like flora and fauna guides and moon calendars and such. And productivity apps that are useful. And some pretty nifty drawing apps that I've played around with some (though I haven't been as good about keeping up with my naturalist journal as I'd been hoping). So, yes, I'm very pleased with it. It will work as a good replacement when this laptop finally goes (it's on its last legs now) and I get a desktop family computer for Jeff and I to use so he doesn't have to use his work laptop when we're at home.
I think the hardest thing about getting used to Seattle has been not living near any parks. The SVN training and teaching is fantastic, but it's not exactly "alone time" in the woods like I used to have with Frick just a block away. As much as I love our place, it's very hard for me to not be near a park I can walk to — much harder than I expected, actually. I realized that it's the first time in my life that I haven't had some sort of wooded park within a few blocks.... which means, until now, I've been very, very lucky. It also means I need to work on finding alternatives and ways to cope. It's been hard.
Setting up the altars again has helped somewhat. It also helped when, for my flamekeeping shift the other night, I went whole-hog and performed a full ritual, complete with circle casting and calling the quarters and the traditional prayers and such. I attended a summer solstice event with Jeff and Leah put on by the local OBOD group, and it was really fantastic (in the community sense, if not an amazing, elaborate ritual or anything), and it made me realize just how much I've fought against being too "revivalist" in my Druidry, especially with pressure from people online who all seem to be taking the hard line towards reconstructionist polytheism. Being Wiccan now is almost taboo to hear people talk, and yet.... it's startling to me to discover that in many ways, I'm closer to that spirituality than I will ever be to a reconstructionist. Trying to embrace that has been part of this growing confidence I have about my own path, and moving away from being so reactionary and governed by the opinions of others online (even when I didn't realize that's what was happening).
It's led me to rededicate myself to the Living Druidry work that Jeff and I were doing together when we first began dating several years ago, and that turned out to be so fruitful for me at the time. Once Jeff is home, he's agreed that we'll make weekly trips to the local woods (probably Carkeek) to do our meditations and rituals in the evenings the way we were doing back then, and I hope that will help some with my restlessness at not being close to the woods.
Just yesterday was the new Claim Song Moon. I'll be journaling some about the various topics for contemplation included in this month's lesson.
So I think that about covers it.
I really miss Pittsburgh. I miss hanging out with Arthur. I miss Frick Park. I miss hot summers (though not as hot as they've been having this year!). I am still not really settled here. I still don't know what the seasons are like, little things like that. When I think about how long we've been here already and how it still doesn't quite feel like home — and yet when we were back in Pittsburgh and Lancaster briefly, that didn't feel like home either, really — I start to feel a little bit panicked, like... what if I'll never really feel at home again? What if this is what it's going to be like from now on, just one issue after another, one stress-ball after another, always something new, always a new project, always a new controversy, a new issue to deal with, a new way in which I'm discovering how inherently limited my perspective is and yet surrounded always by people who aren't forgiving or patient but full of self-righteous anger.....
It's not that I'm not happy. I have been very happy and feeling energized and optimistic recently, and having good work that I love doing is a big part of that. But happiness and joy... they're different. And I do sometimes still feel homesick.
The neighbors are having quite a party across the street. I'm going to bed to read some and snuggle with my Cu.
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