Imbolc Celebration and Life Balance Work

This past week I spent some time working on some discernment when it comes to my life goals and finding balance. I had a bit of a rough week, with major writer's block for several of my projects (including my columns for SageWoman and Aontacht coming up) — and on top of typical health stuff, I was left feeling restless, frustrated and somewhat directionless. I was also disappointed that my Imbolc detox diet seemed to have the opposite effect as usual. Usually when I switch to a raw vegan diet for a couple weeks, I feel more energetic and kind of "cleared out." This time, I just spent most of the time feeling rather weak and stuck, and my self-discipline gave out somewhat earlier than usual. That, of course, just frustrated me even more. It was, all told, a pretty shitty couple weeks, with the exception of Sunday itself, when we spent the day in the woods hiking and celebrated Imbolc with a very simple ritual.


I'd originally hoped to do a steampunk-inspired ritual for Imbolc, but the more I planned it, the more I realized there were certain ritual tools and such that we didn't have that we'd need to get first (like, of course, a dedicated ceremonial cast iron teapot — the water, tealight warmer and the loose herbal tea symbolizing the three Druidic elements and the three realms, with the teapot itself a symbolic reinterpretation of the Cauldron of inspiration and transformation.... except that we don't have an appropriate teapot that we could use). We tend to do very minimalist, simple rituals, since almost always we do them outside in the woods after a day of hiking, so usually all of our ritual tools and altar objects are practical and easily transportable. But the steampunk aesthetic is much more Victorian and elaborate in a lot of ways, and seems more suited to high/ceremonial magic (think: Golden Dawn and theosophy, both of which have their roots in the spiritualism of Victorian times).... So a steampunk ritual is really, by necessity, the exact opposite of minimalist. Jeff and I have been talking about slowly collecting items to create a specifically steampunk altar, and here and there we've made some progress (like the steampunk pacific tree frog I made recently, which is currently sitting on my naturalist/deep ecology altar), but by and large we still don't have the kind of tools necessary to pull off a steampunk ritual in style.

In any case, the ritual itself was lovely (and I wrote about it a bit here), but for the most part the past couple weeks have been less than stellar. In general, I felt that kind of listless feeling that leaves you dissatisfied but without being able to put your finger on exactly what's wrong. I felt bored and stuck, but no particular project or activity struck me as interesting enough to shake me out of it. So I decided to spend some time in discernment trying to figure out what it is that I actually want, to give me a clearer picture of where this sense of lack and ennui was coming from. I was inspired by Plotkin and his idea of the soul as our "ultimate place" in the world to look back at the placemaking diagram from PPS, which provides a kind of visual formula that helps to pinpoint weakness and areas of improvement when trying to craft a public or shared community space.

I thought it might be useful to tweak this diagram so that it would be more relevant to "soul-making." I liked the basic structure, with key attributes in the center and concentric circles beyond those for intangible qualities and tangible expressions or outcomes. I'm not sure how PPS determined the four quadrants for their placemaking diagram, but I decided to go ahead and use the four classic elements of earth, air, fire and water for mine, representing (respectively) the physical, mental, energetic and emotional aspects of my life. I rotated the quadrants somewhat so that each quadrant aligned with a cardinal direction.

I began by trying to imagine an ideal life in which I felt fulfilled and balanced in all of these different aspects — and I asked myself, what were the tangible, outward signs of this ideal life (or, ideal self)? This process of trying to articulate my goals and desires was itself incredibly helpful, since I found some goals much easier to identify than others. For instance, when it came to the physical aspects of my ideal life, it was easier for me to note right away that I wanted a healthy body, a good diet of food that was healthy for both me and the environment, access to nature and the outdoors, a beautiful and comfortable home, etc. When it came to the mental or intellectual aspects of my ideal life, though, I suddenly found that my goals were much less concrete — they were more abstract and intangible. That sent up a warning flag for me, since part of my frustration I think comes from feeling bored, not challenged or stimulated intellectually. Unfortunately, I tend to sublimate this boredom by doing things like eating or watching television... which only serves to undermine some of my other goals (like health and exercise). So simply by trying to organize my goals and my idea about what an ideal life/self would look like, I was able to identify areas where I was undermining myself without realizing it. I spent a few hours drawing up lists of intangible qualities that I wanted to invite into my life, and the tangible results or expressions of those qualities, or the kind of work or activity that would help me embody them. After doing these for all four quadrants, I turned my attention to the "key attributes" and tried to distill all of the different aspects of these four areas into a single word that seemed to encapsulate the attitude or attribute from which both the intangibles and tangibles arose. Below is the diagram that I eventually came up with:


Since the writing may be difficult to read (I wanted to make this a hands-on activity, so I used colored pencils instead of just making the diagram on the computer), here's a typed out list for each of the quadrants.

North - Physical

Tangibles:

• healthy body
• good diet
• regular exercise
• beautiful, comfortable home
• access to the outdoors/natural world
• financial security

Intangibles:

• stability
• balance
• strength
• endurance
• comfort
• rest
• health
• sensuality
• physical pleasure and enjoyment

Keyword:

• Enchantment

East - Mental

Tangibles:

• opportunities to teach
• opportunities to learn new things
• time to read carefully and think deeply
• conversations with people who respect and challenge me

Intangibles:

• perspective
• clarity
• challenge
• engagement
• growth
• patience
• persistence
• understanding and wisdom
• respect
• acknowledgement

Keyword:

• Insight

South - Energetic

Tangibles:

• regular creative writing (fiction, poetry, creative nonfic, spiritual/nature writing)
• expression through visual arts (drawing, photography)
• enjoyment in playing music (guitar, flute)
• time to relax and have fun
• crafting projects (beading, wood burning, clay)

Intangibles:

• energy
• motivation
• creativity
• self-discipline
• exploration
• freedom
• experimentation
• consistency

Keyword:

• Inspiration

West - Emotional

Tangibles:

• supportive community of smart, creative friends
• romance and surprise in marriage with Jeff
• regular get-togethers for fun and relaxation
• solitude in nature
• awareness and appreciation of beauty

Intangibles:

• sense of humor
• fun
• support
• engagement
• respect
• encouragement
• appreciation
• peace
• gratitude
• generosity

Keyword:

• Intimacy

I intentionally left out "spiritual" as one of the quadrants, for a couple of reasons. First, because I tend to associate the south and fire with energy, passion and creative activity, and although that can be very spiritual, I think the belief that it is somehow inherently more spiritual than any of the other quadrants is a kind of bias against the many other ways that spirit can manifest. The other reason was that I wanted to kind of "build up" my spiritual goals from the key attributes and attitudes of the other four quadrants, so that they were supported and shaped by those attributes. So that's what I ended up doing, including the keywords from the first four quadrants as "intangibles" (along with some others that are more specifically "spiritual") and then imagining what kinds of tangible outcomes or expressions would naturally follow from them in the area of religious or spiritual work in my life. From there, I then sought for what keyword or key attribute might speak to all of those things. This was what I came up with:

Center - Spiritual

Tangibles:

• regular meditation
• regular ritual as poetry/creative expression
• shared ritual with community
• simple daily rituals of routine, sacred in the ordinary
• opportunities for deepening theology
• crafting altar/shrines as aesthetic space
• connection with the gods through prayer
• sense of place/deep ecology (sense of belonging in and to the world)
• sharing sense of wonder/gratitude with others through spiritual work

Intangibles:

• enchantment
• insight
• inspiration
• intimacy
• groundedness and centeredness
• connection
• mystery
• love
• joy
• gratitude
• peace
• belonging
• balance

Keyword:

• Love
• Wonder

Since I have been doing more work with the tarot and delving back into some more "witchy" and ceremonial aspects of magic, I've been playing more recently with the pentagram as a symbol. I've always been intrigued by the Feri Tradition's use of the Iron and Pearl Pentacle meditations, though I haven't actually practiced them myself, not being Feri. I'm pretty sure that the basic concept of embodying the pentagram physically in yourself, with points corresponding to your crown and four limbs, is found in many different traditions, though the Feri Tradition's use of this technique is the one I'm most familiar with. In any case, I'm playing with the idea of using this Life Balance/Soul-Centric Self work to craft a personal pentacle meditation that will help me ground in these key attributes and invite them more deliberately into my life. So I spent some time drawing a simple pentacle diagram with the keywords at each of the points.


Needless to say, this plunged me into the complex issue of which elements/aspects correspond to which points, and why. Turns out, this question is weirdly complicated. I don't feel like I know enough about it at the moment, and it may take some experimentation on my part to figure out which version I like best. But for now, I just went with the most common correspondences (which I'm pretty sure derive originally from the Golden Dawn).

So that's where I'm at.

Sacred Poetry Workshop

Jeff is on his way home from the airport (he should be home any minute!), and I find myself too excited to settle down to read or do anything even remotely productive. Plus, it's gorgeous and sunny outside, and FF&C's last episode of the season is up. So in general, I am a very happy Ali.

Yesterday, I attended a two-hour workshop put on by the OBOD seed-group in the area, the Circle of Coll. It was a very small group, just the workshop leader, M., one other member, R., and me (several other who'd been planning on attending had to cancel at the last minute). The workshop was a variation of the one M. presented at Pantheacon this past year, along the theme of "unity in diversity." It focused on crafting sacred poetry to be used in ritual context, and explored how poetry might be used in a non-tradition-specific way.

The discussion during the first part of the workshop was fascinating, as I got to learn a little bit more about how this particular group approaches ritual and the discussions that go on within the group. It was great to be able to have a conversation with other Druids in person in this way, though I think my enthusiasm made me a bit inarticulate and bubbly when I tried to share some of my own thoughts. One thing that was interesting was how clearly M.'s approach to ritual as a general structure is shaped by Isaac Bonewits' approach — I felt a bit awkward in following along to some of the conclusions he reached about just how "universal" this basic structure was, based on my own research working on my thesis. But it's been years since I was immersed in that research in any case, and that's a more complicated discussion for another time.

What struck me most about the workshop was just how differently M.'s approach was to what he called sacred poetry (i.e. poetry to be used in a ritual context) compared to, for lack of a better word, "secular" poetry. I'm not sure I agree with this distinction, but let's go with it for now and consider what he said. His most striking claim about sacred poetry was that it was deliberately designed to transcend itself. This flies in the face of how I usually think of poetry and other forms of art more generally, which to me are most successful when they are most whole, when they do not seek to point outside of themselves to something external but instead embody fully what they are.This is according to some philosophies of aesthetics, I think, the difference between a sign (which points at something external to itself) and a symbol (which embodies something which it both is and is not). To me, the symbol is the more powerful and potent of the two. So I'm not sure how I feel about treating sacred poetry as sign rather than symbol, and to make the goal of writing such poems to be explicitly transcendent. (And I don't think I agree with M. when he says that a "secular" poem that manages to express something sacred is an accidental miracle. To me, that is simply the mark of a truly great poem, or any other work of art.)

The approach to writing sacred poetry for a ritual context does not seem to me to be all that different from writing poetry in general. I liked his emphasis on two key aspects: synchronicity, and constraint. The poetic form, even in free verse, is a masterpiece of constraint, even just in the concrete, concise language and the use of metaphor and juxtaposition. And synchronicity plays a big part in the process of crafting a poem and the choice of juxtaposition and metaphor, even for folks who don't sit with a Tarot deck or ogham on hand. I've always found that observations of the natural world will play off of my own mental or emotional state in a way that allows for surprising synchronicities.

On the other hand, I don't exactly agree with the impression M. left that in order for sacred poetry to be truly transcendent, you should avoid revision. The idea of "getting yourself out of the way" and using techniques to help loosen up your creativity and your willingness to make leaps and take risks in your work — that's all very helpful, but I don't think poetry (unless you're very lucky and "in the groove") can stop at that stage in the process, even sacred poetry. Sacred poetry, as part of embodied ritual, is bound to be just as much a kind of self-expression, since the purpose of ritual is to bring us into the greater patterns and allow us to embody those sacred patterns within our lives. You could argue that ritual is quintessentially about self-expression, and if rituals can be practiced and polished and their forms refined over time, then I don't see why sacred poetry to be used in ritual shouldn't also be revised and refined.

That said, learning to more freely enter a state of mind (and spirit) that allows for inspired automatic writing (even if it is not always polished) is definitely a good skill to cultivate, and one that I probably can benefit from working on, especially since I tend to be a perfectionist and move at a painstaking pace when I write. (I do find it easier to get into the swing of things when I'm typing and when I'm writing in poetic prose, though.) M. is obviously very skilled at this, since his piece that he shared at the end of the workshop (after we'd each had half an hour to craft a poem to be used in a culminating ritual at the end) was very good and very effective. I took quite a while, and I don't know if mine was all that good, at least at what it was meant for (raising power at the peak of the ritual).

I've included the poem I wrote below. We were each assigned one of the three sections of the ritual, which we'd decided would be about welcoming prosperity and success into our lives. The task was to draw a tarot card and use it as inspiration for the poem, and to use some kind of structure or form as a constraint to help us "get out of our own way" and step aside from our own voice. The card I drew (from a random deck I selected) had an image thick with ferns, which immediately put me in mind of a fern growing from tiny, invisible spore into tender fiddlehead and then unfolding completely as full-grown plant. The number of the card was 2, so I decided to go for rhyming couplets in the structure where the last word of the previous line repeats at the beginning of the following line. Here's what I wrote:

Rooted in the lush earth, we feel ourselves secure
Secure in our potential, small hopeful seed
Seed of our skill, knowledge and power, responding to the sun's touch
Touch of rain, warmth of earth, nurturing our need

Our need opens us to new possibilities,
Possibilities call us beyond ourselves, open to the new
New in strength, we feel the power of sky and earth,
Earth and sky lend power to the work we do.

Dew of morning on green leaves unfurling
Unfurling into mid-day's energy
Engery we need for our success surrounds us
Surrounds us as the earth's fecundity

Fecundity of field and forest through season's turning
Turning seed to sprout to blossom, then to fruit
Fruit ripens now, we celebrate our harvest
Harvest and prosperity take root

Rooted in the lush earth, we build the power to its peak
Peak of power, by land, sky and sea
We welcome in prosperity, so may it be.

Notes from "Disturbing Gentleness" by Timothy Morton

A fantastic talk about ontological nonviolence and its ties to Buddhism. The .mp3 plus PowerPoint slides are available here.

- no primordial substance or ultimate being, no world or environment as middle object

- existence is anarchy, reality is "deeply pointless"

- "It's not simply that nonviolence is a good idea. Nonviolence is existence. Existence is nonviolence."

- irreducible rift between essence and appearance - radical and fundamental - a thing IS self-contradiction

- past is appearance, essence is future, past and future coincide (?) without touching one another, like two beams of light interpenetrating - present is an illusion

- "being in the now" is a kind of materialism - what's meant by this meditative now-ness is a deep awareness of the rift - no such thing as "empty space"

- "What is the difference between a duck? One of its legs are both the same."

- thinking can become brittle with too rigorous metalanguage, rigid consistency - should be like a willow, accept that some contradictions are true

- much of philosophy is an intellectual defense against the threatening intimacy of things

- alien (nonhuman) phenomenology - "Things can dream one another because they are always already not themselves. Not even the thing itself can objectify itself."

- "Causality happens because of a dance of nonidentity taking place on the ontological inside of a thing."

- I v. me

- movement -> P and not-P

- movement is not something a thing does occasionally, motion is a deep ontological x (10:30ish) of a thing; motion arises from a rift between I and me

- Kant's discovery about human beings - that part of their nature is sealed from imperical access - is also true of objects

- hidden property of any entity - something in the beautiful experience is hidden, this unique thing is the beauty

- experience of beauty is essential part of democracy

- Kantian theory of beauty presupposes a being that can be wounded by colors, sounds, smells, textures, tastes, affected by them - attuning process of beauty can commence - (not mere appetite)

- "aesthetic distance" is misnomer for a non-conceptual aesthetic intimacy - aesthetic distance is not between a thing and another object, but lies within the thing itself

- why trauma is traumatic - it strips the world bare of the illusion that it isn't an illusion (15:45ish)

- things are co-existence in their being, interlinked, enmeshed

- "There very attempt to tear myself away enmeshes me further. Conscious co-existence with the mesh involves a form of nonviolence."

- the beauty experience in me shows that I am not my ego, the beauty experience proves to me that there are others

- experience of beauty - suddenly losing a sense of boundary, resonance with the other (opera singer and wine glass)

- "The knife of beauty is able to insert itself into the slit between an objects essence and appearance."

- death - shatters like a vase and the space inside the vase merges with the space outside it

- "Beauty is a nonviolent experience of near-death, a warning that one is fragile like everything else in the universe."

- thinking needs to risk its sanity a bit, put itself in some danger

- "The inner fragility of a thing is why a thing can exist at all."

- "Things are the rubble of other things. Nonviolence means to co-exist nonviolently with this rubble, to let the rubble be rubble rather than trying to build a nice smooth golf-course over it." - "A reduction of an object to its appearance is a reduction of an object to consistency. An object is internally riven, it is fundamentally inconsistent. Thus the imposition of consistency is simply violence on the most profound level at which violence can manifest. Nonviolence, at this level of being, is allowing an object to remain inconsistent."

- "What the #Occupy movements get right is that sheer coexistence of people, not an agenda - the media are hungry for a topic, but the #Occupy movements have simply transcended this demand - this sheer coexistence is a very powerful thing. Why? Because it is a living symbol of coexisting with coexistence as such, in all its inconsistency and fragility."

- meditation - a commitment to non-adjustment, allowing things to remain as they are, inconsistent

- "Humans must get used to the depth of nonviolence in their being." -> meditation, contemplation