Meeting the Gods

One of the many things that I need to mention in an update is that Jeff and I have been working through a book on ritual and magic together for the past couple weeks. We realized that we tended to want to just hang out and relax together in the evenings, but our primary way of doing that was watching television, which wasn't great. Since he and I are so similar in our hobbies, most of which are solitary pursuits like writing, we spent some time brainstorming what we might do together in the evenings when we just wanted to relax a bit. When we first began dating, we did regular meditative work together (following along with Emma Restall Orr's Living Druidry course), spending time hillwalking in the local park and then sitting in meditation on a particular theme, with discussion afterwards. I have fond memories of that work, and I've been feeling a revitalizing interest in more formal ritual practice now that my mundane life has calmed somewhat and we're fairly well grounded and established out here in Seattle. So we thought returning to that kind of work might be fruitful.

So we're working through Penczak's book, The Outer Temple of Witchcraft, which was one of the early books I bought years ago when I was first looking into ritual and magic in a Pagan context. I remembered this book as being a lot about the creative, aesthetic work of crafting personal rituals.... but it's definitely interesting revisiting it now that I have nearly a decade of Pagan practice under my belt (the tenth anniversary of my first Pagan ritual is coming up this summer solstice, if you can believe it!). For one thing, I don't remember the book being nearly as logically inconsistent as it actually is. Or, I should say, maybe just poorly articulated. Many of the theological ideas mentioned in the book are simplistic, but then it is meant to be a kind of "Pagan 101" type of book. On the other hand, it's been so long since I read this kind of book that it gives me a new appreciation of the hard polytheists' complaints about "soft polytheism." It also gives me new ire at being lumped in with so-called "soft polytheism," since the polytheism as it appears in Peczack's book isn't very different from my own theology. The biggest thing the book has going for it is that it includes lots of practical exercises. Maybe that's ironic, considering the usual defense of somewhat sloppy theology in modern Paganism is that it's more focused on praxis than doctrine. Many of the practices seem to be helpful and to at least have the potential to lead to real spiritual authenticity and insight. I suspect half the problem is that Chris might just not be very good at articulating some of the deeper complexities involved in a nuanced polytheistic view. It might be that on the whole, he's not even all that interested in the theological aspect, but holds lightly to just enough belief to explain why his practices are meaningful. I've always been the kind of person who needs more, who needs to engage intellectually with my practices and beliefs as well as emotionally and physically through ritual. On the other hand, I feel kind of laissez-faire about Penczak. He was obviously articulate enough to give me a viable way into a new religion back when I needed it (even though he is also probably a big reason why Wicca/Witchcraft never really resonated with me), and on the whole his sloppiness might be relatively harmless so long as it doesn't become dogmatic sloppiness used to abuse or manipulate or exploit.

After working through the introduction and doing a few basic exercises in meditation and visualization just to "get back to basics," Jeff and I moved onto the chapter on the gods (or, in the Wiccan approach, the God and Goddess and their many different manifestations). This chapter wasn't of much value in terms of its content, since Penczak spends a lot of time discussing how the various deities from different cultures fit into a broader scheme of archetypes. It might be of some interest if done carefully with a mind to comparative religion or mythology (I'm not ready to just throw my hands up and declare that there aren't any meaningful patterns among the deities of different cultures), but Penczak doesn't have the expertise to do that and in any case that would have been a book all its own. Instead, he gives a list-like run down of a bunch of different gods and goddesses, each with a paragraph or two explaining their associations within their respective culture. Much of this is perfectly fine, if a bit simplified; but there are also enough examples of him getting specifics wrong or applying his system of categorization in ways that obscure the particularities of a given deity in cultural context that, in general, it's not exactly a resource I would turn to for reliable information.

What it was valuable for, though, was prompting me to think more about how we get to know deities in general. As sloppy as Penczak's approach seems, there's something to be said for diving in and getting to know a deity personally before (or along with) doing the academic research. I realized that I tend to be a bit of a god-stalker. To use the metaphor of personal relationships with people, there's something to be said for first impressions, even if they're incomplete and maybe even false in some ways. Imagine if someone is intrigued by a new acquaintance, and so obsessively tries to memorize all of their personal and family history, scouring public records to find out their likes and dislikes and plumping the local community gossip for details.... And then tries to interact with that person in terms of all of this compiled information, as if that person were a collection of facts instead of an individual. That someone would probably be considered a creepy stalker. And one reason for that would be because they were trying to have complete control over the relationship and dictate its terms, instead of building a relationship as a mutual project with the other person. The point I'm getting at is that, if we take seriously the idea that gods are real (in whatever sense) and individual (again, not necessarily as hard polytheism defines that concept, but at least in a meaningful way) -- then we should trust that building a relationship with deity is a partnership, not a research project, and that it might proceed in an authentic and meaningful way even if we don't know "all" the facts. Knowledge and intimacy are built up between two people over years and years, and aren't necessarily things that can be gleaned from a book on ancient history. We might just have to respect that the gods are going to interact with us on their own terms, and that only aspects of their much deeper and broader realities will ever be shown to us.

This might sound obvious -- and in fact, it sounds very similar to what I've heard some hard polytheists themselves say -- and yet, I don't often see this attitude being upheld through actual behavior, especially when it comes to how people actually talk about and treat their relationships with the gods. This might be yet another place where the term "UPG" does a big disservice to the whole conversation, relegating personal relationship and personal meaning-making to the same category as "fluffy bunny" I-saw-it-in-a-dream kind of stuff and setting it in distinction to (or even in opposition with) scholarly research into "legitimate" primary sources. (The whole issue of what gets counted as legitimate and the fact that the academic world is in no way free of socio-political and personal biases is something I'm not even going to get into now.)

In any case, I'm pretty sure that I god-stalked Brigid, and this was one of the reasons our relationship got a bit stilted for a while. It'd be like getting hung up on whether your new boyfriend likes yams or not, and obsessing about the "deeper meaning" of these types of trivial details instead of focusing on aspects of your relationship that were directly relevant to both of you in the here and now. (Sure, maybe later you come to understand how that boyfriend grew up in the south as a nerdy Buddhist outsider and his dislike of yams maybe gives you some insight into that in some weird way... but without that kind of context, which is only built over time, you could totally ruin a relationship by obsessing over it and trying to "figure him out." Believe me, I know. I once dated an engineer.) I was so busy trying to make all the trivia I could find about her fit into some coherent picture, that I neglected nurturing a real relationship with her more directly.

The irony is that when Artemis showed up, it blew my desire for a Celtic-specific practice out of the water and forced me to deal with the issue of relating to a deity on her own terms. I disliked Ancient Greek culture so much for being misogynistic and patriarchal, that I refused to do the normal obsessive research that I might do otherwise. I didn't really want to totally rework my practice (and my life) in order to make my work with Artemis be culturally contextual. So what ended up happening was that over the last half a year plus, I've spent much more time connecting with her more directly (and supplementing my understanding of her and my relationship with her with research here and there when it's appropriate). And that approach has also influenced my relationship with Brigid, so that it too is getting stronger again. (Though, as I think I've mentioned, stress from the marriage and the move also probably had something to do with that.)

So now that I'm in relationship with not one, but two of the most stereotypically popular goddesses among modern Pagans... I guess the only thing left for me to do is start worshipping the Morrigan, or maybe Odin or Cernnunous, and we'll be all set to hit the fluff bunny trifecta.

~
So it was in that general spirit that I approached last night's ritual/meditative work, an exercise meant to help a new Pagan meet a couple of gods. The guided meditation involved traveling along the World Tree first to the underworld and then to the upperworld, where you would presumably meet a face of the Goddess and the God, respectively (though Penczak does say that you might encounter two goddesses or two gods, since there are deities of both genders associated with both realms). Since Jeff and I work more with the three realms of Land, Sea and Sky than with an underworld/upperworld dualism, we adapted the meditation somewhat to suit our own purposes. But I went into the ritual with the attitude of seeing whatever or whoever might show up, not trying to force any expectation or assume any definitive answers about the identity of the gods or guides or whoever if any did appear. I wanted to hold the work loosely. I also wanted to set aside my general unease with people who want to rush into relationships with as many gods as they can find, as though they were action figures to be collected. Since I tend to be somewhat introverted in my human relationships, I tend to lean towards henotheism in my spiritual life; but lately I've been noticing how I can tend to be a bit one-sided in my life at times, and so I wanted to see this as an opportunity to meet some guides or companions who would be willing to work with me towards a better balance and more "inner" diversity.

The meditation was actually kind of amazing. By the end of it, I felt like I couldn't keep a stupid grin off my face.

To begin, Jeff and I did a simple centering meditation and verbally "cast the circle" as a way of establishing sacred space. Again, I don't agree with all of the theological aspects of Penczak's approach, but in my work I've found it very useful to establish sacred space through ritual and visualization, especially when working in what is normally a mundane space like the den. (I don't do this as thoroughly when we're doing our rituals outside in the woods, and I probably wouldn't feel like it was as necessary in an indoor space established for that purpose either. But I digress because I feel the need to justify why I don't agree with the ADF Core Ritual and I'm still solidly in the Revival Druidry tradition.) Then Jeff and I spent half an hour in silent meditation, with a gentle bell going off every ten minutes so give us some indication of when we should move on to the next of the Three Realms.

I should mention that I am out of practice with visualization during meditation, so even though I'm writing this out as a narrative, the experience was somewhat more jumbled, with images and sensations sometimes repeating themselves while at other times feeling like they were just outside my peripheral vision. I seemed to improve as the meditation went on, but in general I've never been fantastic at visualizing and so when I describe things that the gods said or showed me, it's more like these were things that I was sort of made to understand, and not an experience of actually hearing words or anything.

I began by standing in front of a massive western red cedar as the "World Tree" -- it's a tree I've been to in meditation before, so old that at its base there is a hollow that goes completely through the tree, creating a kind of archway or doorway, with a small space within. I placed my hands on the bark and spoke my intent of traveling to the Three Realms to meet a god or guide to help me in my spiritual work. Then I entered the tree through the archway. To the left was an opening in the inner heartwood of the tree that led down in a spiraling staircase. I traveled down and down until eventually I emerged on a beach.

The shore was rocky, covered with tumbled stones about the size of my fist and all different colors, and the waves were washing up and down the shore, the water trickling down through the rocks here and there. The wind was strong and smelled like the sea, and gulls wheeled in the air, crying out their piercing calls. For a while, there didn't seem to be anyone there at all and I wasn't sure I was going to meet anyone after all. But then, eventually, I seemed to see the figure of a woman out in the water, sort of forming and dissolving again out of the waves and sea foam. She seemed very far away, out on the water, and I wondered if maybe the tide was at an ebb and I would have to wait for it to rise again before she would come closer. But then I got the distinct impression that I was supposed to walk out to see her. So I walked out onto the water, walking across it until I was far out from shore, at which point I kind of sunk down beneath the waves to an underwater city. Even though I was beneath the water, the city itself did not appear to be under water (in other words, it was just a normal city, not like something you'd see in the Little Mermaid or something), and I walked and breathed normally as if I were still on land. I found myself wandering around a great palace full of large rooms, with the female figure always just out of sight but still present and keeping me company. In one room, I came across a hand mirror -- it's surface was silvery and liquid almost like water, and its rim was white and glistening like pearl. It seemed to me to be connected with the moon, especially with the full moon. I couldn't see the female figure, but she was there, and I tried to ask her who she was, which goddess she might be, but I could get no answer from her. Instead, she encouraged me to pay attention to my sensations while I was in that realm and to think about other times that it reminded me of. It felt as though everything was current and flow, and that my boundaries were porous -- as if, because my body was mostly water and my surroundings were mostly water, that my own edges were blurred and in flux. When there was movement in the distance, I felt that movement ripple towards me like a current within my own body, as if everything was connected. The goddess suggested to me that this was what the deep past and the realm of the ancestors and memory was like, all things fluid and moving together, influenced and shaped by that connection; and that it was also like the realm of death, when the body dissolves back into the earth and the sense of self expands to embrace and include within it all things.

At that point, the bell rang and it was time to move on to the next realm, so I thanked the goddess and asked her to show me the way to the next realm, the Sky. She showed me a spiraling staircase that I followed, up and up, climbing a long way. At first the stair case seemed to be made of rough stone and coral, then it turned to smooth stone, then eventually to crystal and then finally, in the upper reaches, to blazing light and air itself. I came to a doorway and stepped through to find myself in a beautiful, sunlit meadow.

The landscape was idyllic, a perfect blend of spring and summer -- flowers were blooming everywhere and the breeze was fresh, but it was warm (not like how it can be a bit chilly still sometimes in the spring) and the grass was lush and the trees, too, had put out young leaves. I noticed that the leaves, and in fact everything, seemed half translucent with light penetrating them like living stained glass. In the meadow were a myriad colorful butterflies and birds flitting everywhere, the birds filling the air with birdsong, and the sky seemed huge, bright blue with huge, puffy clouds drifting through it. High above, I saw the silhouette of a hawk circling and spiraling, and it grew closer and closer to where I was walking through the meadow. Then suddenly, before me was a man with wings -- looking very much like your typical angel -- great huge wings with white feathers sprouting from his shoulder blades behind him, his whole being radiant with sunlight. I was a bit confused, and asked him if he wasn't just an expression of my animus (also feeling a bit miffed at myself for my meditation conforming so neatly to the gender dualism that I'd been trying to avoid when adapting the meditation). He seemed to shake off the question, sort of ignoring it but in a way that seemed to almost suggest that, on the contrary, my animus was more like an expression of him. His wings seemed to fade or be there only intermittently, and the hawk -- a very large hawk with feathers that shimmered golden and bronze in the sunlight -- landed on his shoulder and from then on seemed inseparable from him, so that sometimes it seemed that just the hawk alone was there. Again, I kept trying to ask him who he was, what his name was, which deity he might be, but he seemed to shrug off the questions as somewhat unimportant or besides the point. He encouraged me, like the sea goddess had, to pay close attention to my sensations as I walked through the Sky realm. It seemed like, just as in the realm of the sea, everything were connected, but in a very different way. Instead of feeling submerged and porous in a fluid world of currents, I felt everything with a certain immediacy, as if these connections moved as fast as thought -- I could see a bird in the distance, and as quickly as I spotted it, my understanding was there with it, even within it experiencing the world as it experienced it. Instead of the world being thick with connection, it seemed like the world -- space and time -- were especially thin, sort of (though I don't think that's the best way to describe it). The sky god put it into words for me by making me to understand that, in the Realm of the Sea, all things penetrated you; whereas in the Realm of the Sky, you penetrated all things. Just as the blood in my body moves in currents that I can feel in every part of me, but when I breathe, the air penetrates me, a cool breath that goes deep into my lungs. As quickly as you could recognize your ignorance or your limitations, you could master them or navigate them with ease, so that he was associated with skill and mastery and the height of civilization, as well as insight and wisdom. This reminded me of Lugh of the Long Arm, and I asked him if that was who he was -- I did not get a straight answer from him, but he did present me with a long, bright spear that seemed to be a symbol in the same way that the mirror had. Just as I experienced the movement reflected in the mirror as my own movement, currents within myself and penetrating me, so I experienced the flight of the spear as my own flight, quick and piercing through the air.

Then, the bell rang again and it was time to visit the third realm, so I asked him to show me the way to the realm of the Land. He pointed me to a place that looked at first like a bit of underbrush on the edge of the meadow, but I saw then that it was a cliff and the underbrush was in fact the canopy of a great tree. I began to climb down the tree, branch by branch, until I was back at the base of the same cedar. I walked through the archway created by its trunk, this time passing straight through as if it were a threshold.

On the other side was a lush, wild forest, thick with undergrowth, huge trees, everything teeming with life and covered with a carpet of green in mosses and ferns and mushrooms and the like. I had the sudden, overwhelming sense of movement, and I was running through the forest, bounding past trees, jumping over rocks and fallen logs, with my heart pounding in my chest. I realized at one point that I was running with a pack of hounds, like hunting dogs, though they didn't appear to be hunting but just running in a pack. I thought that maybe here I would meet Artemis, and just as I was wondering this, up ahead, there she was. She wore antlers on her head, though only small ones with one or two prongs, and she was clad in a short leather tunic. She was amazingly slender and quick, and in every way seemed to embody the energy of a deer as she bounded through the forest, her dark hair flying out behind her. For a while, I just ran with her and the dogs, but eventually I felt like if we kept up this running I wouldn't have a chance to really talk to her at all, so I called out to ask if maybe we might pause for a rest for a little while. She stopped so abruptly that I was caught up short, and her whole body was tense and listening, very much like a deer that has heard a sound and freezes, waiting to hear it again. Eventually, she relaxed and turned towards a clearing, where a pool of fresh spring water bubbled up from the earth and babbled away off into the woods as a small stream. She sat by the pool, leaning to sip some of the fresh water, and I swear it was like a Disney movie, with a bunch of animals coming out of the forest to join her. Birds flitted about in the trees, and the hounds lazed about, with a couple of deer only a few yards away leaning down their slender necks to drink. I also saw a bear, like a dark shadow moving among the trees, and this made me think of Artemis' connection with the bear and how, just then, she seemed so different from that aspect, much more like a deer. As if in response to this thought, she got up from where she was sitting, and now instead of the small antlers, she was wearing a kind of cloak made of bearskin, with the head of the bear like a hood pulled up over her hair. She began to dance in the clearing -- at first, putting her hands up like claws and doing a move that looked like it was right out of Michael Jackson's music video for "The Thriller." When I scoffed in surprise and incredulity, she got down on all fours and started dancing and scampering around -- not on hands and knees, but with her hands and feet, so that her backside stuck up ridiculously in the air as she trundled around. The joy and silliness seemed to radiate off of her and she seemed very much to embody a kind of child-like state of wonder and excitement (but in a way that was deeply wise and knowing at the same time). Then I thought of her possible connection with the moon, as well, and I asked her about that, since the sea goddess I had met seemed to be connected more directly to the moon through the silver-and-pearl mirror. Suddenly, I saw the image of the new crescent moon, just past a sliver, when you can just barely see the still-dark sphere of the rest of the moon outlined against the evening sky and the sliver of light seems less like the moon itself than like a crack between two worlds. She snatched up her bow and pulled it taut with an arrow notched, and the bow seemed to be illuminated in the same way -- which, she made me to understand, was why sometimes her bow and arrows were described as silver and sometimes as gold. She said that the realm of the sacred land was a place of liminality and edges, much more so than the other two realms. She said that we tended to think of the physical, material world as the most mundane and easy to comprehend, but it was in fact the most liminal and enchanted of all. She said that the physical world was a world of surfaces -- that we could only know the surface of things in this way, and never the inside of anything, since if we tried to break it open to get at the "inside," what was internal would withdraw and we would find ourself with nothing but just another surface. To demonstrate, she picked up a rock, and then broke it open so that instead of being a smooth, rounded stone, it was now a kind of rough geode along the broken side -- but this, too, was just a new surface now newly exposed to the world and it was still impossible to see the "inner-ness" of the thing. I understood that she was not just talking about the strange mystery of the physical, material world of nature, but also my sense of her playfulness (and pop culture references to Disney and Michael Jackson) as threatening to be somehow shallow or superficial. She was challenging me on this view, intentionally provoking me to see this realm not as superficial, but as liminal and mysterious, interconnected through those very surfaces and the way they rubbed up against all the other surfaces (and yet also withheld something far more intimate than what penetrated or was penetrating in the other two realms).

By the time the final bell rang, her joy and playfulness had become somewhat infectious, and when I thanked her and returned to the World Tree to end my meditation, I found that I couldn't wipe a somewhat goofy grin off my face.

So that experience went very well, and I am intrigued by these two new deities that I seem to have met. I'm looking forward to continuing this work and exploring these new relationships to see where they lead.

Thought Scatterlings - On Prosperity and Opportunity

Yesterday I ran headlong into writer's block when I sat down to work on my upcoming column for SageWoman (I think I wrote about two and a half sentences, literally). Last week was an intense week of writing for me, with more than 10,000 words of spiritual journaling on top of the blog posts for Meadowsweet that I was working on. So it's probably natural that this week all I want to do is sit around and window shop online for pretty things. Because, did I mention, Jeff is officially out of debt!

Okay, not exactly. His last payment to the debt consolidation folks for the joint debt from his previous marriage was this month. He's still paying off the debt for the time-share (plus the idiotic monthly maintenance fee), so our next project is to start on the legal paperwork to get rid of that white elephant. And of course, I'm still paying off my student loans. But still, it's a huge weight off. I actually had a bit of a breakdown last night, for the first time crying about money because I felt good about our financial situation. I'd spent much of the afternoon daydreaming about someday being able to build a Tumbleweed Tiny House, and looking at the cost and realizing that, yes, it actually is in the realm of possibility to someday be able to do that. Not for a good five to ten years, but the way things are going right now... I might actually be a homeowner by the time I'm forty. The thought boggles the mind. I know the American Dream/Promise/Lie is that everyone can get a great job and become a homeowner with a little suburban spot with a yard and a white picket fence, but that's never been my goal and part of me never really believed that I would ever get there. (When you grow up wanting to be a poet, you kind of reconcile yourself to poverty and obscurity right from the start.)

The suburban home is not my dream now, either, but what is my dream is to have a small cottage (like, if we took our current apartment and squished it to make it two floors instead of one, but with the same basic square footage) with an outdoor deck and small garden (with maybe a fire pit and small stone circle) and, beyond that, some forested land that is part of a larger green belt or park. I imagine myself sitting in that cottage with the windows open, drinking tea and working on my writing while listening to the sounds of the natural world outside, or going out onto the deck at dawn to do some yoga in the fresh morning air, or taking a walk in the forest in the late afternoon... And I'm noticing that not many of these daydreams involve Jeff, so I guess he'd still be going in to the office to work! Or, another thing we talked about, was having a kind of "community" of tiny houses, so that he could work from home but still go out to his "office," a separate little shed furnished as a study and/or library. Because, you know, I still need my solitude, and I think I'd get restless always having him hanging around the house... (Also, having a separate office space would be better for tax purposes, since then you could count that as a business expense; we can't do that now, even though I work from home, because all the rooms I use for my work are technically "multi-purpose".) And maybe I could have my own little "study" too, and they could then serve as guest rooms for when we have family visiting, so the kids have somewhere to stay and, once they're grown up, could even come and bring their partners. That way, we could reduce our carbon footprint by only heating those spaces when they're in use, or only using them during warmer weather when we don't need heat, instead of having a sprawling house with all the rooms always being heated whether or not we're using them. Since it never gets all that cold out here, we wouldn't even have to worry about pipes freezing or anything, like Melanie does with the farmhouse up in New Hampshire when it's not in use during the winter. The point is, we could start small and then slowly add on one tiny house/shed at a time -- and when we're older and retired, if we don't need them anymore, we could even end up renting them out like B&B rooms (or like that yurt that we stayed in this past summer).

But all of that is way down the road. The point is, there is a road and we're on it. We're not pulled over stuck in a ditch anymore. And if we save money and get a little bit of land where I can garden and a little house that we own, then no matter how old and poor we get, at least we'll have a roof over our heads and a place to grow some food.

Because I do get a little worried about what it will be like to be old. I plan on living a long time, and so does Jeff, but he is ten years older than I am to begin with and women tend to live longer than men in any case. And as much as his kids are awesome, it's not like I expect them to take care of me when I'm old once he's gone. And I don't really think my own family, like my brother or cousins, would feel like it was their responsibility to do that, either. And in any case, I'd feel a bit bad about being a burden on them. (The one exception being if Dan goes on to be a millionaire fancy-pants and never does end up having kids, in which case, hello, Mr. Millionaire, it's your big sis, who always loved and supported you... ;)

Speaking of Dan, he emailed me this morning to brag about this really cool course he's taking this coming semester, the Sociology of Consumerism. It looks fascinating! In his email, he said, "You'd be proud," and damn it, I am. Super proud! When he was little, he always wanted to be rich and he was always fascinated with money.... but as he's grown up, that part of him has really matured into a thoughtful, conscientious person who wants to understand other people and their aspirations and how they define and conceive of wealth and success... I get a little bit teary-eyed at how awesome he is, and how much I admire him for leaving a crazy-well-paying job to go back to grad school to study this stuff.

And of course, I'm also jealous. I would love to go back to school. But I think during those seven long years of always being broke, something in me got broken. I feel such resistance against and disdain for academia and how they fleece people, even though I love the atmosphere of those kinds of centers of learning and the opportunity to devote my time to reading and discussing with other people who are also there to learn and think. Every time I think about going back to school, I immediately shut that idea down because it would be insane to take out more loans to finance my education, especially when I'm mostly just interested in learning, not necessarily how a higher degree could help me get a better paying job. Case in point: there's an amazing ecological and wilderness awareness program at a school only about forty minutes away; the program is a year-long study of various aspects of wilderness survival training, hands-on naturalist training and a study of the philosophy and spirituality of nature-centered indigenous and modern cultures. It's pretty much perfect (and the school is accredited, unlike some of these Pagan-based programs). But my immediate reaction is: well, I could never do that, because I can't afford it.

There are a lot of things that I have that reaction to, and I wonder when I started to respond to life that way. I know that living below the poverty line for so long was, in many ways, very good for me and helped me to ground in who I really am beneath all the "stuff" of modern consumerist culture, helped me to ground in simplicity and see the beauty of the world just as it was. I lived a very happy but monkish life for quite a while (that should qualify me for something or give me some street cred, shouldn't it?). But at the same time, I look at my brother and I see how he's getting to pursue his dreams because he put money first when it mattered, and now he has the luxury and resources to do what he wants with it. (Granted, as a grad student who is now deeper in debt than I ever was, I have a feeling he'll be getting a good dose of the simple, monkish life himself.) But I'm not even talking about the money, so much as the attitude. There's an attitude that anything is possible, that you can take risks and it won't be that bad, because you'll always have a support system, something to fall back on. Except, I've never had that. (Moving back into an abusive home where people treat you as a burden and a failure even if you're just visiting for more than a few days... that's a no.)

Maybe it also has to do with the fact that I don't drive, so I never had this sense of freedom that, no matter how bad things got, I could just break away from it all and go do something else, even if only for a little while. I never got to go to any parks or "escape into wilderness" all those years when I was poor, even though it would have only cost me a tank of gas to get into the mountains. Instead, I had to take every opportunity to go when others would be willing to take me along -- like family vacations -- and hope that I would get a chance to spend some alone time in nature. So in some ways, I guess I trained myself to put other people's needs ahead of mine, or at least to put their dreams ahead of my own and be practical about what I could or couldn't do. I got used to being treated like I couldn't really take care of myself or be independent if I didn't drive or didn't have a lot of money. There was no point in trying to make plans for myself, beyond very modest plans, because I didn't have the means to act on them in any case.

The more I think about it, the more it seems like the choice not to drive -- which was largely because I couldn't afford a car or the insurance, and my parents weren't willing to give me a car and pay for my insurance like they did with my brother -- played a very large role in whether or not other people saw me as an "adult"... And the only time that wasn't true was when I was waitressing, since a lot of the people I worked with either used public transportation or couldn't afford a car. But then, a requirement of being promoted to a management position was having a car, and I was once offered a promotion only to have it taken back because I didn't.

And this brings me back to those thoughts I've had before about living a hunter-gatherer lifestyle in a settled, consumer culture. Between waitressing for tips and having to rely on the chance opportunities that came my way, I very much had to learn how to see bounty and prosperity where others might have seen scarcity or restriction, and to find ways to embody generosity precisely because I knew how much I relied on the generosity of others. But I also got used to seeing restrictions where other people saw potential because I couldn't afford to plant seeds and sit and wait for them to grow so I could harvest them later... because in the meantime, I'd starve. (This is a convoluted metaphor.)

I wonder to what extent our online lives are pushing us in this direction, too. It seems like the people who do manage to make a living being "online content creators" do it in a kind of hunter-gatherer fashion, relying on viral memes and the chance that people will buy their t-shirts or donate on their webpage or share their links to earn them ad-sense royalties... It's a much different model than someone who goes into the office everyday, works normal hours and gets a reliable paycheck as a result. Sometimes I feel like a hunter-gatherer who married into an agricultural family — Jeff with his 9-to-5 and the kids he has to support whether he has a job or not — and so I find myself sometimes feeling oddly restless and wanting to just move and do whatever inspiration urges me to do, and other times feeling somewhat panicked because I don't know how to settle down, focus on regular consistent work and trust the harvest to come in, because part of me doesn't think I'm very good at it.

Maybe I should find a harvest goddess or god to help me out with these issues. Maybe this is why my relationship with Brigid has been weird over the past few years (because I think she is much more a settled, harvest kind of goddess than a wild goddess like Artemis). While I trust in the fecundity of the earth to provide me what I need, I don't necessarily trust the other people I'm in community with to portion out something that is fair, because I've almost never been in a familial relationship where that was the case. I've always been the runt who gets the leftovers, and while as a kid I could get used to it and make do on what little I did have, as an adult who is now supposed to take those leftovers and hand them over to the stepkids because, you know, children are the future or whatever... It's the worst of both societies, in which scarcity is forced on some so that others may prosper, but with no expectation that those who are prosperous will also be generous in their turn.

So, I think a goal for 2013 for me should be: re-learn how to drive. I'm on Jeff's insurance already, anyway, and during the week his car just sits in the garage while he bikes or takes the bus to work. I'm not a huge fan of driving for lots of reason (many of them ecological), but maybe as a symbol of independence and freedom within this particular society I need to prove to myself and to others that I don't always have to put everyone else's plans and needs before my own, that I can go after the things that I want in my life and I have the means to get there. (And that goes for biking more around the city, too, though I was starting to do that a lot more last fall anyway and now I'm just waiting for the weather to get a bit better again so I'm not driving around in the dark and/or cold.)

Okay then.

Problem solved, writer's block? Can we get back to work now?


~
ETA: Obviously this whole "feeling good about money" thing wasn't meant to last... Figures today we'd get a bunch of bat-shit-crazy emails from the EW stamping her foot and demanding impotently that Jeff spend his money according to her whims. ::eyeroll::

TC and LotS Synchronicities - Bear and Star

During this past week, I've done my best to avoid a lot of the identity-angst in the online Pagan community, mostly by writing here instead of replying to blog posts and social media comment threads where I might become food for trolls. But there has also been a strong current of energy going on that has led me to write a number of in-depth blog posts for Meadowsweet & Myrrh, which will be going up over the next few weeks.

I'm not even sure what prompted it, but today I wandered over to TC to check in and see how things were going (in part because it's my flamekeeping shift)... and I found that this had been going on. Another amazing riot of UGP and SPG centering on the Lady of the Stars/Brighid. It is so awesome to see such a vibrant and open conversation going on about the nature of the gods.

Part of me wants to chime in, but part of me feels like I've been away too long and I don't know if I could really get a foothold anyway. I've never really felt like I "fit in" with the TC folks, and I kinda feel like the reason the LotS group fell apart before was partly my fault (though maybe that's just ego-centric guilt talking). I know that Finn and Aster (and I think Tana) have continued to work together on exploring Brighid/LotS, and when we first got out here to Seattle, I did briefly mention it to Finn, but her response was one that seemed to suggest that it was something they were working on — like, it was "their thing" — and I would be welcome to learn about it when they were ready to share, but they weren't interested in me being involved in that work. I didn't want to intrude, so I just let it go. But part of me did feel a little sad, because I did so very much want to be able to practice with others. Sometimes I worry that I come across as too... keen, and it makes other people feel like I'm shutting them down or they just don't want to share because I'm in the middle of my swirling knife dance and they don't want to stick a limb out and get nicked. ("Keen" like the new young cop on the beat whose overly eager and going to get himself into trouble, so nobody wants to hang around him and the old-timers just shake their heads and brace against the eager energy and wait for the new guy to get some smarts knocked into him. But in the meantime, there's a lot of patient eye-rolling that goes on behind his back.)

Anyway, as a result, I think I struggled a lot with my relationship with Brighid over the past couple years because I didn't really have a community who was willing to support me and work with me in my relationship with her, and so like a lot of other things that I try to do on my own, I start to get really hard on myself and things kind of fall apart and collapse into a pile of frustration and guilt over it. Bless his heart, Jeff is pretty awful when it comes to shared practice and worship, because his gods are very much his personal posse and he always seems to talk about them like they're primarily concerned with him and his life, and there's not really much room in his approach to them that calls for group or community worship. I've really enjoyed our solstice rituals in part because it's my only real chance to have some kind of group practice, and I don't think it's a coincidence that for the past two years, these solstice rituals have mostly focused on stars and such. For last year's ritual, we specifically invoked Brighid in her aspect as Lady of the Stars, the guiding star on the darkest night though also closely related to the rebirth of the new sun. This year, we focused on the bear and her associations with the winter and the darkness of the cave as a place of rest and rebirth.

It's going on half a year since I suddenly stumbled upon a relationship with Artemis, and though she is very much the maiden hunter and moon goddess to me, she is also connected with the fresh wellsprings of cleansing waters, the wild forested mountains, and the bear. In fact, during this time of the year, her bear aspect seems especially pronounced and she even seems to have a bit of a "motherly" aspect to her -- though maybe it's more the midwife vibe, since she is definitely not the "mama bear" personality that is so readily evoked by people like, say, Sarah Palin (ugh). Anyway, the point is, I have this sense of her as a bear goddess, deeply connected both with the fresh waters of springs and rivers (and with the salmon of wisdom, to do a little cross-cultural myth mixing), and also with the stars, since the bear as a sacred animal has always for me been connected with the Great Bear constellation and the starry night sky (in fact, I've often called on the bear in ritual as the "starry bear of midnight").

So this thread over on TC about the Lady of the Stars seems interesting to me, especially since it began with some opening comments about Sulis and other "water related" goddesses. Artemis is, for me, very strongly connected with water, more than Brighid ever was for me, really. And she is very strongly connected with the stars as well.

Yet Brighid, who is still lingering and hasn't gone away, also has a strong connection to the stars. In both cases, there is a wildness there, a primordial feeling... but whereas with Artemis the wildness is quiet, rippling and dark (sometimes sleek like a deer or wolf, sometimes much more bear-like and somewhat lumbering, but swiftly), with Brighid the wildness is roaring like a furnace, dark but fiery like the heart of an intense flame, hot and active. I think of Artemis like the sweat of ecstatic dance or the wild chase of the hunt; whereas Brighid is the sweat of labor, the sweat of the forge and creation. Artemis sings like a bowstring, Brighid sings like a hammer on an anvil.

After writing the post on the bear that will be going up on Meadowsweet this coming Friday, I asked Jeff to read it. I wonder if maybe part of the reason I'm feeling more connected to Artemis, especially in her bear aspect, is because in some ways the bear is a totem for our family. Jeff has always felt very strongly connected to the bear, and his UPG connected it with Apollo but also somewhat with Odin. I have never really had any spark of connection with either Apollo or Odin, and there wasn't much of one with the bear, either, at least not for a long time. But now, it seems like the bear is becoming a powerful presence in our household.

Of course, when I asked Jeff to read my post, his response was that he liked it but that wasn't really what he associated with the bear.

So... still by myself in my worship, I guess. I read about other people getting together to talk about the gods and maybe practice together, even if only informally, and I wonder why I'm always on the wrong side of the UPG/SPG. Like in that meditative journeywork I did a while back, always having to linger just outside the bonfire's circle of light, listening to other people sharing stories but always having to dance to my gods on my own.

Happy Ali Is Happy

I have nothing of deep spiritual insight to add at the moment, but I did want to follow up with a post noting that, for the most part, I am exceedingly happy with my life right now. Like, not just "I realize intellectually that I should be happy because things are going well, but mostly I feel tired" kind of happy. Actually happy, the solid kind of happiness that can become a foundation, the kind of happiness that you can build on.

Partly I think this is due to my writing. NaNoWriMo has given me a legitimate excuse to spends hours every day writing creatively, something I haven't done in a very long time. I find that the energy it gives me spills over into my other work — on the podcast, on the blog — and so that work is also becoming easier, getting more "flow" to it.

Another part of this is that, because I start every writing session with a tarot reading and ten minute meditation, I have somehow tricked myself into re-establishing a daily practice. Because the meditation is not all that long, I have far fewer excuses for not doing it; and because it's main purpose is to quiet my mind in order to help me transition into "creative writing mode," I don't concern myself with making progress or accomplishing anything by it as a result. This is, of course, the best way to approach a daily meditative practice — at least, so I've heard over and over — releasing attachments to outcome and providing yourself with a pause in which to embrace silence as a path to the divine. But I am such a perfectionistic workaholic that I have always bent my whole intensely-wound will on being really awesome at non-attachment... which, obviously, somewhat defeats the purpose. (Gods, please do not let me jinx this practice by writing about it here and making myself aware of the trick I've played on my perfectionism!)

Likewise, the tarot reading is not a reading for myself, but for the next scene that I'm working on in the book. So I avoid the kind of spiraling navel-gazing self-obsession that my attempts at daily tarot reading has led me to in the past. In other words, I'm practicing non-attachment with my divination as well, and the only records of my readings are (instead of an obsessively kept journal) the creative writing that results, which is shaped not just by the divination but by the plot outline I'm working from and the characters who want to have their own say. (There is one character in particular who dominates every scene she's in and just will not shut up and let others talk... I will have to find something to do with her. Jeff suggests giving her a yappy dog to keep her busy and distracted.)

I am so deeply proud of the work we're doing with the podcast, engaging in topics that really interest me and giving me lots of opportunities to explore new ideas. I feel somewhat liberated from the pressures that blogging had brought with it, which means that when I do blog (on my own personal website), I enjoy it more.

Also, it's beautiful here. The weather is finally getting chilly, but it continues to be sunny on and off most days, and the same flock of pigeons hangs out on the roof of the condo across the street, and the same crow surfs the power line above the smoke tree, and I am finally (weirdly enough) feeling at home here. I am not sure when this started to happen, but I noticed it when the kids came to visit us in October — I finally feel grounded and centered in this place, I finally feel like I'm starting to understand the patterns and moods of the landscape here. I still spend far too much time inside during the week, between the writing and the podcast research and editing, but weekends are wonderful chances to go out exploring, and Jeff and I are still volunteering as naturalists, which is another of the reasons I feel grounded and connected and happy.

I feel too often this blog becomes a place for me to rant about the things that bother me when they're bothering me, and it can seem like they dominate my days when really they are passing concerns. I feel deeply happy and fulfilled in my life right now. Oddly enough, I am exactly where I wanted and hoped to be by this time in my life (child-free by choice, with an awesome man who loves me and just got an adorable new haircut, living in a beautiful city that doesn't dry my skin till it bleeds in the winter, doing creative work that I love and find meaningful...). I am so full of gratitude and amazement that this is my life. Sometimes I wonder if my minor freak-outs are largely due to the fact that, damn it, I want everyone to have such an awesome and fulfilling life and so many times it seems like instead people are engaged in senseless self-sabotage. Non-attachment, Alison, non-attachment. Lift them up into the light and let them work their own way out, since that is really the only way it works anyway.

My remaining goal is to finish this book manuscript by the winter solstice. Perhaps an arbitrary date, but it's a pretty big astronomical alignment that kind of nicely wraps up my Saturn Return years. It would be nice to go in to the dawning of a new year and its lengthening days knowing that a major life goal of mine (to write a novel) has been crossed off the list.

I guess that means I better get started, then...

**

Edited to add: Duh! Then there's my relationship with the gods, specifically Artemis (yeah, that's right, I said it!) and Brigid (yeah, that's right, I'm not so deity-dumped as I thought). Turns out that when Brigid suggested we see other people, she meant some sort of kinky holy threesome, and I feel a roundness and wildness to my relationships with deity now that astounds me and fills me with energy, inspiration and gratitude. So... rock on!

Dark Moon Vigil: Nights 2 and 3

I realize I never wrote up about the last two nights of my three night vigil.

Night Two (Friday night, August 17) was a quick and somewhat impromptu meditation quite late (it may have even been technically Saturday morning by the time I got to it, after hanging out with Leah reading Pratchett and watching a couple episodes of the IT Crowd). I didn't do a full formal ritual circle as I'd done the night before, but simply lit Sorta*'s candle and spent some time in silent meditation before drawing a card from the Oracle deck and then spending a bit longer meditating on its meaning.

The card I drew was the Hunter of Gifts — and my half-sober meditations seemed to revolve mostly around the subtle paradox of being a "hunter" of gifts, how this phrase seems to capture the paradox of our relationship with the gods, the delicate blending and balance of work and grace (to put it in more Catholic theological terms), or action and receptivity, effort and acceptance. I have never gone hunting in a literal sense, but I've heard stories about the long hours spent waiting quietly in the woods, moving gently through the trees trying to be unobtrusive as possible, how our ancestors sometimes had to stalk prey for days.... And the sudden appearance of the animal, when it finally arrived, could seem like a gift. A gift is a gift precisely because it is not earned or deserved or exchanged tit-for-tat... it is simply given, freely.

I found this particularly poignant because on this night, I had another object on the altar besides the Oracle deck, the candle and the water (which I drank, as before, to honor and bring into myself the energies of the divination and meditation).... a pendant that is an abstract depiction of a bow and arrow. It seemed a powerful omen that I would draw a card depicting a hunter on this night. (The night before, when I'd drawn the Shaman of Courage card, I'd had a piece of ritual wear that I plan to consecrate to Sorta* for shamanic/journey work on the altar, one that has ties to the deer/stag, which I always invite into the circle with an invocation of its strength and courage.)

Night Three (Saturday, August 18), once again I did a full clearing and blessing of the space while burning incense, lighting the candle with a prayer to Sorta* after some time in meditation. This time, along with the deck, candle, water and incense on the altar, I had another pendant, this one of a bear's paw print, along with Jeff's bear fetish that he allowed me to use. The card I drew during divination was the Shaman of Stars. Using the recorded drumming, I did some journeywork on the meaning of this energy (again, a good synchronicity that on the night I work with the bear's energy, which I've often invoked as "great starry bear" associated with the constellations of Ursa Major and Minor in the northern sky, I would draw a shaman card of the stars)...

Again, I entered into the hollowed cedar and found myself following a spiraling stairwell deep down into the earth. The stairwell itself had close, cool walls of bluish stone studded with "stars" that shone white and gold in the dark and which, on closer look, were various gems and diamonds. At the bottom of the spiral stairwell was a rounded, wooden door on which the image of the Shaman of Stars appeared. I reached out to touch the image, and at my touch the door swung open, giving way to a night scene of green, rolling hills under a star-studded and moonlit sky. I recognized this place as the same hillside I'd seen in meditation more than a year ago when seeking insight from Brigid about her role in my life and my role in hers. The image I'd received then was of me dancing beneath the moon and starlight off alone in ecstasy, while others gathered around a bonfire off in the distance sharing stories and laughing together. I remember feeling a protest in me about how this personal worship, away from the eyes of others, did not seem to me to be what being a "priestess" to the gods was about (I thought instead it was about serving the community and being in the public eye) and how I was chided for that attitude, reminded that tapping into my own deep relationship with the gods was the source of any "priestessing" I would be doing and that I needed to let go of my worry about others' expectations and opinions when it came to that work. This time, there was no one else on the hilltop beneath the starlight.... at least at first. Then I saw a movement, almost like a disturbance in the air, and there was the Shaman of Stars on the hillside, reaching up to pick stars out of the sky like fruit and bringing them down to the earth. He was tall, huge really, and his head seemed to be of an animal nature, with a snout, and he seemed to have antlers, though they were invisible, in which the net of stars would sometimes snag and shiver with the movement of his head so that the stars themselves glimmered. I approached him hesitantly, watching him awhile as he plucked the stars. Then he handed me one — it was cool and light, not heavy, though it was about the size of my fist, with many gleaming facets. I wasn't sure what to do with it, but had the impulse to eat it, so I put it to my mouth. Some rational part of my mind must have objected to eating something hard as a diamond, for I found that I had to crunch it with my teeth, and it shattered into a million tiny shards, like glitter, that I swallowed down with some degree of trepidation and even horror. But as I swallowed, I could feel the shards embedding themselves within me all along my throat and in my chest, sinking into my flesh, passing into my bloodstream and being passed throughout my body until I was shining and glistening on the inside. The heat of my body seemed to melt them somewhat, so that they were wet and almost like liquid. At the drumming call back, I thanked the Shaman of Stars and turned to return through the door and back up the spiral stairwell.

Of all the nights' meditations, this is the one I'm least sure of — the journey work on courage seemed to have some clear and obvious symbolism, the red-mud paint and the dancing naked by the bonfire.... This seemed to be the counterbalance to that night's work, all darkness and starlight and a kind of being anointed on the inside, by eating the star, rather than on the outside with bodypaint like blood. There are also obvious ties back to my work with Brigid, so that I feel that this is also about bringing the gifts of my past relationship with her into this new work that I'm doing. (The Libra-ascendant in me is all ready to be giddy: oooh! a sun goddess and a moon goddess! how balanced! ::headdesk::)

I had intended to complete these vigils with a ritual of integration on the new moon night (Sunday), but decided it wasn't quite the right time. Jeff and I did go out again to Tiger Mountain, where I spent some time in meditation in a small cave among the Talus Rocks, surrounded by rock and root, soil and sky. Obviously, since then, I've had a couple of rough days with inexplicable crankiness — today, though, I'm feeling more enthusiastic and energetic. I'm thinking perhaps that I'll do some work tomorrow night, on the sixth night of the moon, which is also a day of importance to this goddess.

Random discovery yesterday while surfing online: the western (or Pacific) red cedar is not a true cedar, but is actually a member of the cypress family. This is also pretty intriguing, since I've had an intuitive sense of connection with the western red cedar ever since arriving here in Seattle, and it turns out that the cypress is a tree considered sacred to the goddess I am calling Sorta*. Interesting....

Diary - Flamekeeping

Inspired by my post about steampunk shamanism, Jeff decided he wanted to do another one of his multi-day spiritual projects that involve regular meditation and divination over a predefined length of time, focusing on different issues and problems that need to be worked on. I thought I'd join him, and we just happen to be starting tonight, which is the Sunday after the first full moon after the equinox (also known as Easter) and my Flamekeeping shift.

The project is a twelve-day process this time - a day of prep work, ten days of doing a daily reading along the "story" spread inspired by Joseph Campbell's hero's journey, and then a final day of wrap-up and a ritual to integrate and manifest the results. Jeff is going to be using his new steampunk tarot deck and concentrating on different issues that he wants to be able to move forward on, such as his work, his health, the obstacles involving the child custody, etc. I don't have as much structure to mine, so I'll kind of be meandering along on this journey and letting it lead me where it will.

So this morning, I drew a card to represent guidance for the day. The card I drew was the Eight of Wands, which in the Shadowscape deck I'm using is a lovely image of a woman releasing eight seed tufts to the wind, which will carry them to new ground where they will be able to put down roots. My understanding of this card is that it is full of action and energy, but not necessarily very directed energy. In fact, trying to direct the energy might end up working against you and lead to frustration - this card indicates a time to trust to the greater forces that surround you, the winds of chance that move through the universe, to carry your efforts beyond even what you can imagine. To release your activities and efforts to the larger world to work out their effects in whatever way they will. But it is also a card that suggests that such trust and trusting efforts will be fruitful in the end - mighty trees will grow from those scattered seeds - with a powerful balance of the active energy of the suit of wands with the stabilizing influence and fruition of the number eight, which is both stable and embodies a dynamic polarity (4 X 2) which sends the world singing.

This evening, when I started my Flamekeeping shift (using the oil lamp that I discovered when packing up our old apartment - the thing might need a new wick, but otherwise it seems to be working splendidly), I drew three more cards specifically seeking guidance about the coming work of the next twelve days. The cards I drew were, from left to right, the Two of Swords, the Queen of Cups, and the Sun (XIX). The energy of this three-card spread seems to expand out from the center card - the Queen walks forward, her arms outstretched to either side - but her face is turned towards the right (her left) and she seems to be gazing directly into the face of the young man haloed by golden light and riding the King of Birds in the Sun card, who gazes back at her. The figure in the Two of Swords card, on the other hand, faces away from the center card, a dark hood draped over her head, her swords crossed barring the path and the energy flowing in from the left. I take this spread to be somewhat a past-present-future spread, with the Two of Swords representing the blockage and frustration that I have felt in the past. These days, I am feeling balanced and deeply in touch with the underlying current of change in my life - my emotions seem to be less volatile or, when they are intense, I feel better able to ride them and harness that energy. I'm also feeling very enthusiastic and confident about my future endeavors, with my face firmly turned towards a bright future. The spread seems to bear this out to some extent, with the Sun card in the final position not only being a wonderful card in its own right, but the figure facing the center Queen and returning her gaze in a way that seems to indicate a receptivity and eagerness in its own right. As though this sunny future is just as eagerly waiting for my arrival as I am. The echoes of royalty in the Queen of Cups and the Sun card (which, in this deck, does not show a child, but a young man riding on a crowned kingly bird as his mount) seem to emphasize the sovereignty and potential power of this work as I move into the future. All in all, I take this to be a very positive reading - keeping in mind that the Queen of Cups, though she looks towards the future, does not entirely turn her back on the past but keeps one arm outstretched towards it as well, as though anchoring her in memory that gives her stability and poise as she moves forward. A good thing to keep in mind - not to get too swept away - the Two of Swords is, like all two's, a card of balance and polarity, and it may be important to remember the helpful role that frustrations and blockages can play in shaping and refining the work we undertake.

All in all, I'm looking forward to this project - we have a lot going on during this next week and a half (including our end-of-semester test for the Volunteer Naturalist spring training), so hopefully this meditative work will help me stay balanced and energized moving forward. I'm feeling very enthusiastic and excited about what's to come.

Shared Insights into Brighid's Stellar Aspects

Something I shared just now over on TC's LotS group:

In November 2010, a bunch of us over on the old Cauldron forum had a moment of what might be called "unverified shared gnosis" about the stellar aspects of Brighid - when our individual UPGs seemed to converge on a shared understanding that, though common among us, was not necessarily reflected in the traditional lore and mythology about Brighid.

I've been thinking more about this phenomenon recently, and how it might be part the evolution of the gods in mutual relationship with our own growing scientific and technological understanding of the natural world. I'm no expert on comparative mythology, but I don't really know of any ancient deities that were both solar and stellar in nature, or any ancient cultures that believed that the stars were actually suns like ours that were small because they were so far away (if there were any, I think they were probably pretty rare at least). Now with our scientific understanding of the relationship between our sun and the stars in the night sky, it makes sense to me that a solar/fire goddess like Brighid would have a latent stellar aspect that might be coming to the surface in light (pun intended!) of our expanding knowledge.

So I like to keep my eyes open for other examples of this emerging understanding of Brighid as a stellar goddess. And I thought here might be a good place to for all of us to share any examples that we come across.

One that I found just today, in fact, was in the book The Salmon in the Spring: The Ecology of Celtic Spirituality by Jason Kirkey. In one section, he's telling a story about a time in his life when he was "apprenticed to winter" and struggling with a certain spiritual aimlessness, when he decided to go out walking among the hills of Ireland. Lost in a thick mist, he felt the spiritual winter melting away and Brighid's warm presence prompting him to joyous laughter. As he began to make for home, he realized he'd been completely turned around and didn't know which direction to head in to get back to the harbor village where he was staying - when suddenly, despite it being three in the afternoon, a single star appeared in the mist as a guiding light. He set off in that direction, making his way down the hill - and the star grew brighter and brighter as he neared. He writes (emphasis mine):

The impossibility of the moment was weighing on me. How could there be a single star shining so bright through the mist in the afternoon? At any moment, I expected to reach the star, now a vaginal opening of light through the mist, and be born back into the world. A wind blew suddenly. The mist thinned. Briefly I glimpsed a world which was foreign to me, inhabited by streets, cars, and fishing boats. In Ireland people tell stories of glimpsing the faery people and their paradisiacal world. I felt like running back to the stones to tell them my tale of glimpsing a human world full of both beauty and confusion. My star was the sun reflecting off the harbor. So disoriented, my perception within the mist had dissolved all heights and depths within each other; externally and internally. Here there was unity between Heaven and Earth.

He describes this event as occurring in early February right around Imbolc, but of having a feel about it that reminded him strongly of a solstice, so much so that he intuitively thought of the star leading the wise men in the Christian story of Jesus' birth.

This passage struck me so strongly for a couple of reasons:

- First, only a few days ago, I led a Druidic solstice ritual for my family (husband, stepkids, parents and brother, nine of us in total) in which we honored both Jesus as a deity of the newborn sun and Brighid as a stellar goddess. In Irish folklore, St. Brigid is known as the "midwife of Christ" and during our meditation and candle-lighting ceremony I used the story of the star guiding the wise men to tie into the idea of Brighid as a stellar goddess and creatrix helping to "give birth" to our most intimate star, the sun. That only a few days later I should read a passage in a book linking Brighid the goddess not just to Imbolc but to the winter solstice through exactly the same story was pretty powerful.

- Second, the very fact that after describing his sense of Brighid's presence, Kirkey goes on to describe a profound experience of being guided by a star.... a star that, in fact, turns out to be the sun! And not just the sun, but the sun reflected in water! Ummm..... Fire In Water anyone? This experience of disorientation where distance blends "up" and "down" until they are indistinguishable and a reflection below can seem like a star from above is something I myself experienced earlier this fall while on my honeymoon - traveling through the flat desert of Utah at sunset, gazing westward it seemed to me that I was not looking up into a rose-gold sky, but looking down from a great height out onto a strange sea whose waters were illuminated by the golden light of the setting sun, with the dark shapes of clouds scattered like islands in that water. So again, there's this blending of fire and water in connection with the sun. In my case, this was just before our first night of camping out beneath the stars in a national park that's considered one of the best star-gazing sites in the country.

What's interesting is that, even though he mentions Brighid only a paragraph earlier and in the context of this same story, Kirkey doesn't himself make any explicit connection between her presence and the sudden appearance of the sun-[i]qua[/i]-star. It's not as though he's intentionally trying to make that connection with his story - but the relationship seems almost inescapably obvious considering some of the Unverified Shared Gnosis of this group.

I'd love to hear people's thoughts on this, or if anyone else has come across examples of this kind of unexpected shared gnosis in other places!

Brighid and Otherworld Goddesses

Soliwo left a message in the Meadowsweet Commons asking a bit more about Brighid in her dark aspect, and possible connections with Persephone. Below is what I wrote in response:

Soliwo, It's good to hear from you!

And what a wonderful synchronicity that you've shared about Persephone! A couple weeks ago, I received a new DSLR camera as an early solstice present, and one of my first projects with it was experimenting in low light conditions to test the limits of its settings and sensor quality. Inspired by some of photographs I'd seen recently and an impulse purchase of a pomegranate at Whole Foods - I decided to do a series inspired by Persephone's story! I've shared the results here if you want to see them. :)

It's interesting, because I don't really have a relationship with Persephone at all. Maybe it's because of being woefully over-educated in the Greek myths when I was younger, but for me the Greek deities have that same "abstract" feeling as you describe feeling towards the Celtic gods. For a long time, I felt that abstraction about the Celtic gods, too, and it was only after shifting my perspective that I realized maybe there was a different way of approaching Celtic gods than Greek ones.... if that makes any sense. I'm still exploring, so I'm not sure I can go into detail about what that difference might be, but in my experience the Celtic deities are much more like complex, multi-faceted people with overlapping roles and relationships (and all of them very closely tied into the natural world), whereas the Greek deities seem more like personifications of cultural movements, forces or aspects (and more "civilized" or urban than wild or connected to the wilderness).

I think the gods, like ordinary people, are influenced by the cultures they belong to and the landscapes they inhabit. And like people, they can also change and adapt over time. It's good to be wary of cultural (mis)appropriation, but I wouldn't worry too much about eclecticism and syncretism. We have lots of evidence that this kind of cultural blending and exchange was going on all the time in the ancient world. Heck, half of the archeological evidence we have for the Celtic deities comes from the Romano-Celtic period when the Romans began writing things down and carving human-looking statues of gods that had once resided only in abstract designs and natural earth formations. (And the other half comes from the lingering folk traditions and reinterpretations of Celtic Christianity!) In my experience, striving too hard for some kind of purity in adhering to the "original" beliefs and practices of our ancestors can be unhelpful and even stifling for our spiritual relationships.

So I guess part of my advice at this point - if you're looking for advice! - would be to explore widely and pay attention to how you feel when you're trying to connect with the gods. You're bringing your own modern cultural assumptions and patterns to whatever relationship you have with them, and they have their own cultural foundations as well. How those cultural patterns interact will shape your relationship with them. And some of it will be on an intuitive or subconscious level. When I first started studying Celtic mythology and culture, I felt like I was drowning in a sea of unfamiliar, unpronounceable names and nonsensical stories. It felt like I was dialing an old phone number given to me by a friend of a friend, and only getting the dial tone of a disconnected line. But I kept reading and exploring, and letting my subconscious work its way through all the information and start making those connections. I paid close attention to when I felt closest to the gods, and could see how important ritual and physical interactions were for me. (F'ex, physically cutting into and handling a pomegranate down in the dank atmosphere of the basement brought home to me the personality of Persephone more than any story about her I'd ever heard.) After years of that kind of exploration, slowly the Celtic culture began to feel more and more like a natural place to be. Instead of drowning in unfamiliar waters, I was swimming like a fish! :) That's when the gods stopped being abstractions for me - though there are still times when I feel distant or disconnected from them.

So.... you asked about Brighid as a possible Underworld goddess. This is one of those times when the answer is a bit complicated because Greek and Celtic cultures are different. The Celts didn't exactly have an idea of an "Underworld" in the same way the Greeks did. For one thing, the Celts believed firmly in reincarnation - either into this same world, or into a paradisiacal otherworld often referred to as a Land of Summer, Land of Youth or Island of Apples. There were gods associated with this Summerland, but the ones I know of are male (for instance, Manannan mac Lir, god of the sea). Also, the Celts didn't just have one Otherworld, though you can generally refer to all of the other worlds collectively by the singular term. The Otherworld for the Celts wasn't above (like a heaven) or below (like an Underworld) but right here, just on the other side of our reality, separated only by a thin veil or mist. It was the realm of the Sidhe or the Faery folk - but who they are is also a complicated thing: some think of them as gods, some as the beloved dead, some as (fallen) angels (a Celtic Christian concept). My impression is that the Celts weren't very keen on clear-cut hierarchies, so trying to delineate deities from Sidhe from the dead isn't always easy.

Okay, so - could Brighid be associated with the Underworld/Otherworld? Yes and no. She is definitely a goddess of the threshold and the liminal spaces, like you said, and she has that connection (through marriage to Bres) with the "darker" forces of chaos and wilderness. As a member of the Tuatha de Danann, she is also one of those who withdrew into the Sidhe (burial) mounds when the Milesians came and conquered Ireland. On the other hand, she has tended to be associated more with the light, order and structures of culture and civilization (for instance, through her ties to poetry, healing and smithcraft, which all held important cultural significance in Celtic society), rather than with the wilder, darker aspects of death and dying. In my relationship with her, even in her darker aspect she has a deep connection with the stars, points of light in the darkness that give guidance and direction, and that spin through the emptiness of space in a fairly orderly fashion. ;) So I think that Brighid could definitely help you work with Underworld/Otherworld relationships and aspects of your spirituality - but she'll bring a particular perspective and energy to that work that will be different from Persephone or some of the other Celtic deities. Does that make sense?

If you want to explore some Celtic gods and goddesses that might have more obvious ties to the Underworld/Otherworld, there are a couple I can recommend.

- Caer Ibormeith. She is a Sidhe who transforms from a
maiden into a swan every other Samhain and back again on the next. The swan - as a water fowl - has connections to the three realms of land, sea and sky and is thus considered a particularly powerful Otherworld animal who can pass between the worlds. Caer Ibormeith's name means "yew berry." The yew tree has many associations with death and resurrection, and the seed of the yew berry is poisonous to human beings (another connection between death (poison) and new life (the seed)). Samhain, obviously, has connections with death and the beloved dead, and as a Sidhe Caer Ibormeith occupies that ambiguous place between the gods and the dead. I worked with her for a while several years ago, and through my relationship with her eventually came to my relationship with Brighid. (Some of the shared UPG of some folks I've talked with online point to the possibility that the swan is also a sacred animal of Brighid's, and so Caer Ibormeith and Brighid might share a closer relationship or even be two aspects of a single goddess.)

- Rhiannon. In Welsh mythology, Rhiannon is a Sidhe Queen who marries Pwyll (and later, after Pwyll's death, remarries with Manawydan fab Llyr, the Welsh deity who is similar to and/or the same as Manannan mac Lir). Before meeting Rhiannon, Pwyll has his own adventures, including switching places with Arawn, the King of Annwn, in order to defeat Arawn's enemy. Annwn is the closest you'll probably get in Welsh mythology to the concept of an Underworld - it is characterized as a land of the dead, though a paradisiacal one of eternal summer and youth. By switching places with Arawn and defeating his enemy, Pwyll earns the title "King of Annwn" for himself. One of his trials during this adventure is to resist the seduction of Arawn's wife (who mistakenly believes Pwyll is Arawn) - there is some suggestion in the mythology that Rhiannon is actually this same Sidhe Queen who was married to Arawn, though it's not clear. In either case, when she weds Pwyll, Rhiannon is effectively marrying the King of the Dead, as well as having connections to the Otherworld in her own right through her lineage as a Sidhe. Later as a widow, she marries Manawydan who is the only one to return from a war with the Irish - Manawydan, like his Irish counterpart Manannan, also has ties to the Land of Eternal Youth and so can also be thought of as an Otherworld "King of the Dead" type of figure. Rhiannon herself also has connections to death and rebirth/renewal, f'ex in the story of how her son is stolen from her as a baby and she is framed for his death.


I mention both of these because I've worked with both of them (though not as closely as with Brighid), and they both seem to me to have that same kind of quality as Persephone - being maidens or queens who are in relationship with "the dark" and death, but who are also able to cross the thresholds between the worlds. If you want to know more about Caer Ibormeith, I've written a short story inspired by her, and you might also want to explore a bit into the story of Aengus Og and his relationship with her. For Rhiannon, you might really enjoy reading the novel by Evangeline Walton based on the Welsh myth: it's called Prince of Annwn and it's the first book of her quartet based on the Mabinogion.

I hope some of this has been helpful and isn't too overwhelming! Make sure to come back and let me know how you're doing and what you're exploring - I'd love to hear!

Diary - Brighid, Lady of the Stars

Sun: leo (fixed fire), 6:35 AM - 8:11 PM
Moon: waning gibbous, taurus (fixed earth)
Earth: cool and bright this morning, though the air is thick with mist lying low in the grassy valleys of the park

A reader of my website asked me to elaborate on my relationship with Brighid as a stellar goddess. This is what I wrote in response:

S--,

That is a great question - in both senses of the word! It's a really good one, and it's also a really BIG one! :) I'll do my best to answer it briefly here, and I also have an "about the gods" post coming up in my 30 Days of Druidry meme where I'll probably touch on it a bit more.

My relationship with Brighid is very mutable and seems to always be in flux, but one thing that has remained consistent is my connection with her "darker" aspect. Lady Gregory described the goddess as having a face that was one half fair and beautiful, and one half dark and ugly. Up until then, I'd only ever read about her "light" aspect, her connection with fertility and inspiration and the sacred fire in all its various manifestations. When I read that line by Lady Gregory, though, suddenly something "clicked" for me, and Brighid as a goddess became suddenly much more complex and compelling to me. This relationship between light and dark mingling and rubbing up against one another creates that liminal space that is so much associated with Brighid - especially the saint, who was born at dawn on the threshold of the doorway, a daughter of a Druid chief and a Christian slave who grew up to become the most powerful saint in Ireland, even more than St. Patrick, as well as the first and only female bishop (so the legends go).

The goddess, too, has these liminal light-and-dark aspects in her lore. As one of the Tuatha dé Danann, she was a goddess of light, order and civilization. Yet in the wake of the war between the Tuatha dé and the Fomorians, she marries Bres, King of the Fomorians (and half-Tuatha dé himself) in an attempt to make peace and forge an alliance between the warring sides. Together, they have a son, who is later killed in battle as a result of a betrayal, and Brighid wails for him in grief - the first keening that was ever heard in Ireland. So here you have these deep connections between light and dark, joy and sorrow, peace and war, in the mythology surrounding her, and over and over she occupies a liminal position or place between the two. I think this is what Lady Gregory meant by saying her face was half light and half dark. As for the saint, it was said that St. Brighid was amazingly beautiful, but she was committed to becoming a nun with the church and did not want to marry, so to avoid a suitor she gouged out one of her eyes in order to make herself ugly, so that her face became literally half beautiful and half grotesque (afterwards, she restored her own eye in an act of miraculous healing). I think this story from the saint, as well as some of the lore surrounding Brighid as a goddess, shows her willingness to "go dark" when a higher purpose calls for it. It reminds me of a poem by Wendell Berry:

To go in the dark with a light is to know the light.
To know the dark, go dark. Go without sight,
and find that the dark, too, blooms and sings,
and is traveled by dark feet and dark wings.

So all of that is the basis of my view of Brighid in the lore, which you probably already mostly knew already! My personal relationship with her, beginning with that realization of her darker aspect, has consistently included an understanding of her as sometimes swinging between these light and dark sides. My first most powerful direct experience of her presence was during a time when I was traveling, feeling ungrounded and lonely and cut off - I was sitting in a hotel room alone at night watching the rain fall steadily in an unfamiliar city, and I saw the lights of the city reflected in the water and had an overwhelming sense of her presence as this vast, deep awareness that was so.... big that she passed over me like I was a speck of dust caught up on the hem of her mantle. She wasn't just "represented" by the light in the water, she was the light in the water, and so in that way she was absolutely everywhere, she was a natural force that was utterly enduring and changeable, no matter what came and went she would be there in some form or another.

For a while, then, my relationship with her involved the more common light-focused aspects of sacred fire and solar energies. I began keeping her flame with a Brighidine Cill and working with her creative energies as poet. But I was rarely able to connect with her other two traditional roles - the healer, and the smith. Then late last fall, I was in conversation with some others in the Cill about her various aspects, and someone brought up the work of smithcraft and the forge as a place of creation and transformation. I forget exactly how it happened, but through the conversation and the "lobbing of lightbulbs" back and forth, we began to collectively come to an understanding of Brighid as a kind of primordial creatrix figure.

I guess one way to think about it is that her aspect as a solar deity kind of "withdrew" into a far distance and her darker aspect once again asserted itself. "To know the dark, go dark" - associations with the dark heat of the forge, with its noise and steam and sweat and dull ember glow, out of which springs suddenly the spark of light as the hammer strikes the metal on the anvil.... all these were images we came to understand were an aspect of her connection with the stars, those far distant suns that were only pinpricks of light, but that stemmed from a "big bang" in the primordial past, the same that gave birth to our own sun. The metaphor of "fire in the water" has some deep connections in the Celtic worldview with the basic stuff of creation and creativity - and this was not only reflected in the creative process of poetry (the spark of inspiration in the "watery" realm of emotions), but also the hot springs of healing and the blacksmith's process of tempering metal using both fire and water to achieve the sharpest edge. The stars themselves are like sparks of light in the vast ocean of night. They are inconceivably far away, and yet their light reaches us steadily, so reliably that they have shaped our understanding of the very structure of the universe (through both astrology and modern astronomy) and have been used for centuries as guides for sailors navigating on the sea with no stable landmark to follow. In this way, stars are themselves in a kind of liminal space and they draw us into that space as well when we gaze on them. Unlike the moon (which can sometimes seem so big that it's almost right on top of you!), the stars on a moonless night seem to exert their own kind of gravity. I've spent nights star-gazing on top of Mount Cadillac, the tallest mountain on the eastern seaboard, and more than once have felt that giddy vertigo of suddenly feeling the earth as a tiny speck of dust in the vastness of space, a speck too small to hold me down. Because the stars are so far away, and yet so present to us through their endless, self-giving light, they seem to pull us into this place suspended between intimacy and mystery.

So when I talk about Brighid's "stellar" aspect, this is a little bit of what I mean. I see Brighid primarily as a celestial deity - a Shining One, a being of the heavens, of sky and space. As a celestial deity, her "light" aspect is expressed through her role as a solar goddess, a goddess of the sun and the fires here on earth that we have the most connection and relationship with. But she is also a stellar goddess in her "dark" aspect, in which the light itself retreats into the surrounding darkness and becomes hardly more than the pinpricks of the stars, yet still with all the same power and mystery about it. In both senses, she has this liminal quality to her, and there is often overlap. (As a goddess of the dawn, she strides between night and day, with not only the rising sun but also the "morning star" of Venus as companions!)

So I hope that answers your question at least a little bit. :) This is still a relationship that I'm exploring, and like I said, it swings between light and dark for me quite a bit. Over the winter, her stellar aspect was especially strong for me, whereas in spring and early summer her solar/fire aspect was much more powerful and present to me. Now I seem to be in a place of balance in my relationship with her (and this is partly due, I think, to my evolving relationship with Manannan, Son of the Sea).... So, we'll see. :)

--Ali

Brighid and Poetry

A post I made on TC in the Cauldron Cill SIG, where folks were discussing Brighid's connections to poetry in response to this quote:

I'm with Juni in interpreting the concept of poetry to include all learning, education, wisdom, and arts. From what we know about the ancient Celts, poetry was mostly the domain of the druids, and so much of their learning and teaching was wrapped up in poetry.

So, for me, when I think about poetry in the context of Brighid, I think of learning, education, and wisdom, as well as written poems and other kinds of creative writing. And even performing arts. (Dance = "poetry in motion")

I tend to take a broad view like this of all of Brighid's traditional associations. Healing is so much more than curing an individual's physical illness or injury. Smithcraft can encompass many kinds of shaping, creating, joining together, etc. That's how I arrived at the idea of Brighid as a "patron" of social justice and advocacy. Advocates look at the parts of society that are broken and work to fix them through joining with other groups, forming coalitions, and developing better policies and laws. That process includes -- in a metaphorical sense -- healing (fixing society problems), smithcraft (building coalitions and creating policy), and poetry (learning about problems, educating the public and policy-makers about issues and solutions, crafting legislation and supporting material).

I couldn't figure out what to quote from your post, Aster, because all of it seems to relate really well to what I was going to write!

I've been thinking a lot about Brighid's triple character. (Cosmological tangent: So, for me, Brighid has different... levels (eh, I don't like that word but it's the best I can do right now). At one level, she embodies a kind of polarity or duality, fire and water, light and dark intermingling. At another level, she has this triple aspect or character, that for me is related somewhat to the three Druidic elements (nwyfre, gwyar and calas, which I think of as force, flow and form) and the three realms (land, sea, sky). These aspects find expression in the "ten thousand things" of the natural world, human culture and experience, etc., but they also lead back to or are a part of an original Mystery of creativity or unity as well, giving her a kind of primordial/cosmic nature. Sorry if this doesn't make any sense... I'm only just beginning to articulate it.) So - where was I? Oh yeah! In thinking about Brighid's triple character, I see poetry, healing and smithcraft as kind of metaphors or symbols of three broader aspects: inspiration, integration and transformation.

For me, poetry is a symbol of inspiration. Inspiration is like the sudden spark of insight or vision, the in-breath of spirit or deity into our lives. It can be completely disruptive and transgressive, coming in and tearing down our assumptions about how the world works and how things fit together. I think the best poems are the ones that juxtapose radically different ideas or images, that play with the sound and meanings of words in ways that allow us to see and hear them in completely new ways. In modern poetry (in a literate society like ours), another defining feature of a poem is often its structure or format on the page - it's set off in verses and stanzas, so that the white, empty space of the page makes a kind of frame around it and sets it off as something special, not just ordinary prose. Oral performances of poetry are a kind of performance art themselves, in which the voice of the poet weaves a vision out of surrounding silence for those who are listening. This is like inspiration - it can come unexpectedly out of an empty sky!

So when I think about Brighid's aspect as patron of poetry, I think of it in this broader sense - whatever is inspiring and allows us to see things in radically new ways. Music, art, storytelling, education and learning all fall under that aspect to a certain extent.

But I also see inspiration - because it is something radically different, something that can seem to come from "outside" ourselves - as being part of a process, and integration and transformation are the two other aspects of that process. With the in-breath of divine inspiration, we're left with a rift in our old worldview that requires us to seek healing (even if only metaphorically), so that we can establish a new sense of wholeness or completeness that now includes the insight or vision we've gained from inspiration. When we find that new wholeness or integration for ourselves, we can then bring that vision out into the world around us - we become active participants in transformation, changing and shaping others. When we do this, though, we are actually creating new opportunities for inspiration - we bring something new and unique to others that might become a spark for them, and we also will face new challenges that will be new sources of inspiration for ourselves, so there's a cycle or process there that feeds itself.

Inspiration that isn't followed by healing and integration, on the other hand, can lead to madness. I think that's why there's such a strong link between poetry and madness in Celtic mythology, with divinely inspired poets and seers being driven mad and fleeing society to live in the wilderness among the wild beasts. It's almost as though the vision and insight of divine inspiration breaks open the ordinary human mind.... and maybe spending time in solitude out in the wilds is actually one way of coping with the necessary process of healing and becoming whole again (especially if you're seeking a wholeness which remains open and doesn't require you to shut back down, which I think sometimes living in "civilized society" with its laws and restrictions and social boundaries can cause people to do).

Anyway, so that's my rambling. :) I don't know if it was helpful or not... I tend to think that anything that helps us break open our expectations of the world and inspire new insights into how things are and how we fit into it all is an expression of Brighid's "poetic" side. :)

Diary - Flamekeeping

Days of Note: Flamekeeping starts at sundown, Full Claim Song Moon

Sun: leo (fixed fire), 6:28 AM - 8:22 PM
Moon: *full moon, aquarius (fixed air)
Earth: perfect day of nearly cloudless clear skies and gentle sunlight, a relief from the heat and humidity of recent weeks, almost a hint of the autumn weather to come next month and later


At around 4:30 PM this afternoon, Jeff ended work early to go for an extended walk through the woods. The last couple days have been blissfully gorgeous weather, the sunlight golden and the air gentle and cool, lightened from the heat and humidity that have been weighing it down so much in recent weeks. Unfortunately, pain in my legs due to stress (and possibly low vitamins) have kept me sleepless for about three or four nights running now, and this morning I was overwhelmed with worries about the wedding next month and was awake at 5 AM sobbing and angry, so the day began roughly and I was still feeling utterly drained and unfocused even by the afternoon.

Our walk seemed to help that a great deal. We went for a very long walk through Frick Park, down the Upper Riverview Trail, then the Falls Ravine Trail, then left up what I think is called Biddle Trail that passes underneath Forbes and comes out at the far northern end of the park. We went all this way, then turned and followed the wide road that wound down again into the cemetery. Just as we were entering the cemetery - towards the back end, where huge fields of military graves marked with small, sun- and rain-faded flags and sometimes flowers meet up with the edge of the woods - we were stopped in our tracks by four, and then five young bucks moving cautiously out of the underbrush of the wood and into the open fields among the graves to graze in the shade of a large oak tree. They were only twenty or thirty yards from us, and we approached cautiously and sat down in the grass by the side of the road to watch. We must have sat there for a good half-hour as they grazed, every once in a while looking up at us with curiosity, sometimes one or two of them even approaching a bit closer, as though they were trying to figure us out. Jeff and I sat there quietly watching them, trying not to move too much. I thought of how the people in those graves, their bodies were decomposing and going back into the soil, and that soil nourished the grasses that now these deer were feeding on - and the deer so young, five young bucks moving together, there antlers still growing and soft with the sensitive velvet full of blood vessels and nerve endings that make them too fragile and delicate the spar with just yet. There must be something poetic in that.... but it was enough to sit there and watch, and to feel myself making eye contact with those graceful golden animals in the later afternoon sun as they gazed back at me.

Eventually, one of them came close enough that he must have gotten a whiff of our human smell, because suddenly he snorted and stalked back away a bit. The others perked up their ears and all gazed directly at us for a few minutes. Then the same buck snorted again, and then a third time, and haphazardly all five danced off together farther back away from the path and towards the woods again. Not in a rush, but just moving on. One turned back and came towards us several yards again in evident curiosity, but the buck who'd snorted came up behind him as though to watch or warn, and after both of them gazing at us for a minute longer to see if we would follow, both turned back and bounded after the others.

After that, we stood up again and walked on through the rest of the huge cemetery, where it felt so peaceful and empty and quiet. I guess not many people come through there - it's not like it's a park or anything, really, though it backs up to the park. I always imagined cemeteries to be gloomy and sad, but this one was peaceful and lovely, all the graves tended to, families grouped together and occasionally some large monument or beautiful statue or column among the scattered trees. We headed to dinner, then home again, at which point I started my Flamekeeping shift right around sundown.

Though I was still feeling tired (or maybe because I was feeling tired), I decided to do a full circle casting to open and close my ritual tonight. I declared peace to the four directions, then wove the circle with the three elements, then afterwards invited in the energies of the four elements and directions. I spoke the Bond of Druids or Gorsedd prayer, and then did a Three Realms working to connect to the energies of sea, sky and land. By this time, I felt deeply grounded and awake to the current running through me, and I directed that energy into my small pitcher of water, which I charged and then poured as a libation into the blue star fire bowl with the small gold floating candle in it (already lit), marking the center of the rite and opening the gateway. When I parted my hands during the last verse of the prayer to open the gateway, I could feel them buzzing with energy, and from then on during the ritual I felt this deep-pitched ringing or humming in my ears and a profound sense of presence that I haven't often felt in ritual recently. After opening the gateway, I sang my Lady of Star Fire chant as an invitation to Brighid, then hummed the other traditional folk song to her that I know (though I forget the name and can't pronounce the words in Irish Gaelic) while lighting the main Flamekeeping candle and charging up my Brighid's Cross pendant to wear.

After that, I sat in silent prayer for a while, thanking Brighid for her presence in my life and simply sitting with my gratitude. I let her know that I was stressed about the wedding, but so utterly grateful to her for her role in bringing Jeff and I together. I thanked her for all the blessings she's bestowed on me and promised to heed her lessons and do my best to work in her service, even during times when I felt cut off from her. This whole time while in prayer, I felt so close to her, as though surrounded by her embrace or protected all around by her mantle. Finally, I ended my prayers and used my Shadowscape Tarot deck to draw three cards in response to the question, "What lessons do you have for me that I might serve you better?" The cards I drew were, from left to right: Four of Cups, Six of Pentacles, Ace of Swords. (I have some initial impressions on what they might mean, but I want to ponder them more and write a bit about them tomorrow.) To end my ritual, I performed my peace meditation using the Druid Prayer for Peace, and then thanked the four directions and elements, un-wove the circle and ended the rite.

Tomorrow I plan to do some wedding related work along with Jeff - mostly, finishing writing the ceremony, weaving the handfasting cord and then blessing the cord and rings. I'll probably want to do a full ritual with cast circle for that process. I'm hoping I'll get a sounder sleep tonight, especially after such a long walk today. But right now it's getting late, so I'll wrap this up.