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.
Showing posts with label sun. Show all posts
Showing posts with label sun. Show all posts
Monday, January 14, 2013
Monday, December 26, 2011
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):
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!
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!
Thursday, December 15, 2011
Saturday, August 20, 2011
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:
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
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Diary - Summer Solstice
Days of Note: Alban Heruin ("Light of the Shore") / Summer Solstice
Sun: gemini (mutable air), 5:50 AM - 8:54 PM, solstice at 1:16 PM (local time)
Moon: waning gibbous, pisces (mutable water)
Earth: thunderstorms and rain this morning before dawn, cloudy much of the morning clearing to hot, sunny, muggy day
Jeff and I had the pleasure of celebrating the summer solstice this year with Sassafras Grove, the local Pittsburgh ADF group. Up at 3:30 AM, we drove out to Fairview Park to participate in a sunrise rite that, ideally, would have involved climbing the Tor which offers a view of southwestern Allegheny County and a magnificent view of the sun rising over the city…. except that it was pouring rain and thundering. We debated not going, but decided to head out anyway (since we missed Beltaine because of rain and we had been so looking forward to this one!) — the rain continued on and off, so they ended up holding the ritual under a pavilion at the bottom of the hill instead. Other than the two of us, only seven other people were in attendance (four of them grove members and three of them visitors); apparently, this was the first time in years that anyone other than grove members showed up for the rite. It was also the first time in about ten years that they didn't have a clear morning.
The rite itself was wonderful — focused on veneration of the sun and including deities from several different Indo-European hearth cultures. (I could go into detail about the structure of the ritual and all of that, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit "spacey" after the lack of sleep, mid-morning nap and long, hot afternoon, so I'll skip it for now. (Outlines for their Summer Solstice rituals from past years can be found here. I mostly wanted to note that we did attend, so that I wouldn't forget to write about it in here.) Jeff really enjoyed the rite and said afterward that it was the first time that a group ritual really "did anything for him." It was definitely a much more makeshift rite than the Imbolc rite I attended back in February — mostly because they weren't anticipating very many people showing up, so there was a little less preparation and a little more ad lib. One of the grove members was telling us over breakfast that the Imbolc ritual was actually one of the first regular rituals the group ever did and had started even before the grove was associated with ADF, so a great deal of tradition and such has grown up around it and accrued more and more because no one wants to let go of any. Compared to that ritual (which had between thirty and forty people attending, plus nine acting priests), this summer solstice ritual was simple and more relaxed. But again, the structure of the ritual worked very well so that by the end I was definitely "feeling it" and jiving with the energies raised. I have to admit, though on paper I think the ADF ritual structure tends to be a bit overly complicated, they're starting to win me over by being able to pull it off so well.
That said, I do feel a bit out of sync with the sheer number of deities often involved in rituals. I tend to be more of a "devotee" type, I guess, really focused on just a few and interested in making my own rites very much All About Them. This summer solstice ritual, even though it was mostly focused on veneration and praise for the actual sun itself, still involved calling on triads of deities from different ancient cultures for each major step in the liturgy (warding the space, opening the gates, making offerings to the Kindred, etc.). In fact, I'm pretty sure there were more gods in attendance at this ritual than there were people! Not that this is a bad thing — clearly it works pretty well for them. But it's the difference between a big party and an intimate date. I'm an intimate date kind of person when it comes to my relationship with the gods. During this ritual, the invocation of Brighid as patron goddess of the grove and of Manannan as one of the Gatekeepers was kind of like seeing really good friends at a large gathering, but only being able to wave briefly to them in passing before being swept along again.
Again, not necessarily a bad thing. A big, public ritual like that once every six weeks or so might be just fine. But I'm not sure I'd be up for getting deeply involved in ADF and spending a lot of time planning such rituals and having them be my main focus. Honestly, there are a lot of other things I'm interested in focusing on, and I'm starting to realize that I lean much more towards the mystic-poet type than the minister-priest type. This is what happens when you're an introvert, I guess.
Still, it was excellent to be able to come and participate, and Jeff and I got to have breakfast with two of the grove members after the ritual was over. We got Eric (also spelled Earrach) talking about his history and involvement with ADF and Sassafras Grove, and that was just awesome. I always worry about being a bit too awkward and saying the wrong thing in those kinds of situations, especially when people start talking about topics that I'm pretty familiar with (at least academically) but haven't necessarily had much hands-on or community experience with. But overall, I think it went very well, and I know Jeff and I are both eager to participate in future events of theirs.
After returning home around 9:30 AM, I ended up falling asleep again until 11:30 AM… We eventually made our way to lunch, and then this afternoon I spent working on designing my next tattoo (which I'll be getting in a week, at the beginning of July). I was working on a sun design to match or compliment my Celtic wave armband design and also to somewhat cover the old and faded tattoo on my right shoulder…. But the design I ended up creating is so complex and so pretty that, frankly, I think I'd like to make it larger and put it somewhere else, more prominent, possibly even in the center of my back (similar to the placement of Jen's large henna-like crop circle tattoo). Below is a black-and-white and a color version of the tattoo.
For my birthday, Jeff got me a book on Celtic shamanism "for everyday life" and I'm really interested in trying out some of the techniques, so I also wanted to make some time very soon to do some journey-work, especially since I haven't done any in a while. But we're about to head out to dinner and hang out with Arthur, and then we're leaving Thursday morning for the Wild Goose Festival, so I really have no idea when I'll have a chance to do that. I guess we'll see!
Sun: gemini (mutable air), 5:50 AM - 8:54 PM, solstice at 1:16 PM (local time)
Moon: waning gibbous, pisces (mutable water)
Earth: thunderstorms and rain this morning before dawn, cloudy much of the morning clearing to hot, sunny, muggy day
Jeff and I had the pleasure of celebrating the summer solstice this year with Sassafras Grove, the local Pittsburgh ADF group. Up at 3:30 AM, we drove out to Fairview Park to participate in a sunrise rite that, ideally, would have involved climbing the Tor which offers a view of southwestern Allegheny County and a magnificent view of the sun rising over the city…. except that it was pouring rain and thundering. We debated not going, but decided to head out anyway (since we missed Beltaine because of rain and we had been so looking forward to this one!) — the rain continued on and off, so they ended up holding the ritual under a pavilion at the bottom of the hill instead. Other than the two of us, only seven other people were in attendance (four of them grove members and three of them visitors); apparently, this was the first time in years that anyone other than grove members showed up for the rite. It was also the first time in about ten years that they didn't have a clear morning.
The rite itself was wonderful — focused on veneration of the sun and including deities from several different Indo-European hearth cultures. (I could go into detail about the structure of the ritual and all of that, but honestly, I'm feeling a bit "spacey" after the lack of sleep, mid-morning nap and long, hot afternoon, so I'll skip it for now. (Outlines for their Summer Solstice rituals from past years can be found here. I mostly wanted to note that we did attend, so that I wouldn't forget to write about it in here.) Jeff really enjoyed the rite and said afterward that it was the first time that a group ritual really "did anything for him." It was definitely a much more makeshift rite than the Imbolc rite I attended back in February — mostly because they weren't anticipating very many people showing up, so there was a little less preparation and a little more ad lib. One of the grove members was telling us over breakfast that the Imbolc ritual was actually one of the first regular rituals the group ever did and had started even before the grove was associated with ADF, so a great deal of tradition and such has grown up around it and accrued more and more because no one wants to let go of any. Compared to that ritual (which had between thirty and forty people attending, plus nine acting priests), this summer solstice ritual was simple and more relaxed. But again, the structure of the ritual worked very well so that by the end I was definitely "feeling it" and jiving with the energies raised. I have to admit, though on paper I think the ADF ritual structure tends to be a bit overly complicated, they're starting to win me over by being able to pull it off so well.
That said, I do feel a bit out of sync with the sheer number of deities often involved in rituals. I tend to be more of a "devotee" type, I guess, really focused on just a few and interested in making my own rites very much All About Them. This summer solstice ritual, even though it was mostly focused on veneration and praise for the actual sun itself, still involved calling on triads of deities from different ancient cultures for each major step in the liturgy (warding the space, opening the gates, making offerings to the Kindred, etc.). In fact, I'm pretty sure there were more gods in attendance at this ritual than there were people! Not that this is a bad thing — clearly it works pretty well for them. But it's the difference between a big party and an intimate date. I'm an intimate date kind of person when it comes to my relationship with the gods. During this ritual, the invocation of Brighid as patron goddess of the grove and of Manannan as one of the Gatekeepers was kind of like seeing really good friends at a large gathering, but only being able to wave briefly to them in passing before being swept along again.
Again, not necessarily a bad thing. A big, public ritual like that once every six weeks or so might be just fine. But I'm not sure I'd be up for getting deeply involved in ADF and spending a lot of time planning such rituals and having them be my main focus. Honestly, there are a lot of other things I'm interested in focusing on, and I'm starting to realize that I lean much more towards the mystic-poet type than the minister-priest type. This is what happens when you're an introvert, I guess.
Still, it was excellent to be able to come and participate, and Jeff and I got to have breakfast with two of the grove members after the ritual was over. We got Eric (also spelled Earrach) talking about his history and involvement with ADF and Sassafras Grove, and that was just awesome. I always worry about being a bit too awkward and saying the wrong thing in those kinds of situations, especially when people start talking about topics that I'm pretty familiar with (at least academically) but haven't necessarily had much hands-on or community experience with. But overall, I think it went very well, and I know Jeff and I are both eager to participate in future events of theirs.
After returning home around 9:30 AM, I ended up falling asleep again until 11:30 AM… We eventually made our way to lunch, and then this afternoon I spent working on designing my next tattoo (which I'll be getting in a week, at the beginning of July). I was working on a sun design to match or compliment my Celtic wave armband design and also to somewhat cover the old and faded tattoo on my right shoulder…. But the design I ended up creating is so complex and so pretty that, frankly, I think I'd like to make it larger and put it somewhere else, more prominent, possibly even in the center of my back (similar to the placement of Jen's large henna-like crop circle tattoo). Below is a black-and-white and a color version of the tattoo.
For my birthday, Jeff got me a book on Celtic shamanism "for everyday life" and I'm really interested in trying out some of the techniques, so I also wanted to make some time very soon to do some journey-work, especially since I haven't done any in a while. But we're about to head out to dinner and hang out with Arthur, and then we're leaving Thursday morning for the Wild Goose Festival, so I really have no idea when I'll have a chance to do that. I guess we'll see!
Saturday, March 5, 2011
Flamekeeping Meditation and Divination
Days of Note: Flamekeeping (begins at sundown), New Wind Tossed Moon
Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 6:48am - 6:16pm
Moon: new moon, pisces (water/mutable)
Earth: warmer and raining all day, with some winds rustling the trees
For a while, I sat quietly in darkness, eyes closed, waiting. For a while, nothing came. I felt my body relax as deeper trance took me and, after wandering in obscurity for a time, I found myself back on the cliffs of my inner landscape, looking east out over the long, silent waters of blue ocean. To my left, along the cliffs edge, the rocks raised to a peak where the huge, ancient Shrine of the Ashless Flame burns, stone bowl carved of the rock of the land, covered with lichen, filled with dew and rain water, over which the ashless flame flickers, a mirror to the sun, a fiery arrow pointing ever upwards.
This was where I first met Brigid in my meditations, here on the edge of the forest that led into my grove, on the highest point, a pinnacle over the sea and woods, reaching towards the sky. I laid offerings and poured libations and sat before the impersonal, eternal flame as it danced in the wind. It was months before I made the connection to Brigid as a goddess — she was, first and always, a primal force, surging upwards from the earth, rising like wellspring and steam and the scent of stone and soil as it rises with the midday sun's heat as the twilight settles in.
All at once, I was hearing her voice again, unprompted, speaking in low, steady, vibrating tones. She spoke of that power, that I have forgotten perhaps too often recently in imagining her as a goddess with body and human shape, a human face. She is, above all, the exaltation, the rising energy and force. She is not a human, but a Person of glory and light and brightness, and also of underground water and sacred sources of healing working in the dark and the mystery.
I felt a resistance to my left, the west, where the edge of the forest seemed to loom dark and thick in my peripheral vision. I turned towards the woods, saw the shadows lurking beneath the tangled branches despite the bright sun overhead. That was the place I must turn to and enter, what had been dwelling on my mind — she seemed to say, and yet, the forest was thick and dark with growth, that green sprawling and spreading and climbing over itself to reach the light that poured out upon them, each leaf finding its place. The darkness was not apart from the light, but an aspect of it, a response to it; the shadows of the forest existed because of it, not in spite of it. It was not Brigid who gifted me the Sword of Light, though she may have had a hand in forging it, nor was it in the light of day that the Sword of Light is used, but in the darkness and the night, in the mysteries and the depths. I know now whose gift the Sword of Light is to give, she told me, and turning I saw again the ocean stretching wide beneath me. Though the sun was intimate and close in its self-giving, impersonal in its distance and brilliance and illumination, the oceans wrap the earth in a surrounding embrace, so very close, dark and deep and intimate and passionate.
What, then, should I do about these flamekeeping shifts? I thought I was meant to know her more personally, but it seemed that she would always be, to some extent, the great fiery arrow, the blaze and glory, the guide and inspiration but also the drive and power — not tame, not ever so intimate or quiet as I had hoped. Should I turn my attention and energy, then, to cultivating that personal relationship with Manannan? Should I stop my flamekeeping shifts and leave the Cill? No, for the perspective and illumination of these moments of seeking her to honor her in her power and impersonal wholeness are also important. Hold these flamekeeping shifts still, but do not expect too much of them. Hold them because you honor that Light, that Flame, not because you expect personal attention or intimacy in return. It is important to remember that not all gods are tame.
What does Brigid ask of me for this Flamekeeping shift?
© Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, The Shadowscape Tarot
(a) Page of Cups - She holds the golden chalice up to gaze within at the stray sunbeams and lost treasures that have sunk into the deep, shining even deep beneath these waters with the warmth and radiance from a far off sun. She is the true romantic, the dreamer of dreams, listening to her intuition and her depth of feeling with all the enraptured attention of a child. Here, there is peace and simplicity, and dreams of sunlight kissing the rocking surface of the waves.
(b) Page of Pentacles - Perched high upon the molded stone, above the curling, sleeping figure of the dragon green and verdant, powers of the earth, its lush fecundity — she holds in her hand the glimmer of invitation and initiative, of opportunities for prosperity and, more importantly, for growth. It is her gift, with her practical nature and her concerns for earthly, earthy matters lightened by her joy in the physical bounty around her. Diligence and rootedness, giving rise to the blossom, the fruit and the seed.
(c) King of Cups - Calm, patient, guardian of the deeps, strength of the sea in both its storm and the slow erosion of its caress, breaking open the rocky shores, opening and smoothing, gently claiming them over eons of murmuring and the dance of the tides. He is a protector and guide, and the quiet strength of mystery and compassion well up from within him like the waters of the ocean from the unimaginable depths, yet as close and intimate as the blood, that private sea, we carry within our own bodies and hearts.
The Story: Each card of Cups faces in towards the center, the Page of Pentacles, which gazes ahead, reaching out her gift before her in offering. This is the Central Destination story, and suggest the ways in which these energies, patterns or people may converge and meet, and what that meeting might lead to. It seems, perhaps, that I am represented by the Page of Cups, who holds a sacred chalice close, gazing deeply into the shining golden light within. I seek to know that sunlight and that warmth — and, as with the Page of Cups, perhaps this gazing and dreaming is an aspect of a romantic longing, a listening to the lessons of my intuition and subconscious. Yet, the Page faces towards the King of Cups, who faces her in return. He, too, holds a chalice, though it seems to be made of silver and does not glow with golden light — it is as if he is offering up the very essence of himself, the depths that are the seas and their dark waters. In some ways, then, it seems this story is one of mutual offering and exchange between myself and the God of the Sea, Manannan, a marriage of patience and strength of ancient seas with the liveliness and voyage-dreams of sun-gilded surface of waves. As a result of this meeting or relationship, the Page of Pentacles offers a gift of initiative and opportunity for growth, a place in which both practicality and levity have their place, or perhaps a chance to bring these gifts to manifestation beyond the realm of emotion and intuition and into the physical world as part of the earth's fertility and creativity.
It seems, then, that Brigid's advice is clear: to give myself over to this relationship with Manannan, to embrace that new meeting, and to carry my own light into that relationship, a light I have received from and learned from her. Doing this will lead not only to a relationship of mutual exchange, but fruitful, concrete results of productivity and initiative as well.
Sun: pisces (water/mutable), 6:48am - 6:16pm
Moon: new moon, pisces (water/mutable)
Earth: warmer and raining all day, with some winds rustling the trees
Meditation
For a while, I sat quietly in darkness, eyes closed, waiting. For a while, nothing came. I felt my body relax as deeper trance took me and, after wandering in obscurity for a time, I found myself back on the cliffs of my inner landscape, looking east out over the long, silent waters of blue ocean. To my left, along the cliffs edge, the rocks raised to a peak where the huge, ancient Shrine of the Ashless Flame burns, stone bowl carved of the rock of the land, covered with lichen, filled with dew and rain water, over which the ashless flame flickers, a mirror to the sun, a fiery arrow pointing ever upwards.
This was where I first met Brigid in my meditations, here on the edge of the forest that led into my grove, on the highest point, a pinnacle over the sea and woods, reaching towards the sky. I laid offerings and poured libations and sat before the impersonal, eternal flame as it danced in the wind. It was months before I made the connection to Brigid as a goddess — she was, first and always, a primal force, surging upwards from the earth, rising like wellspring and steam and the scent of stone and soil as it rises with the midday sun's heat as the twilight settles in.
All at once, I was hearing her voice again, unprompted, speaking in low, steady, vibrating tones. She spoke of that power, that I have forgotten perhaps too often recently in imagining her as a goddess with body and human shape, a human face. She is, above all, the exaltation, the rising energy and force. She is not a human, but a Person of glory and light and brightness, and also of underground water and sacred sources of healing working in the dark and the mystery.
I felt a resistance to my left, the west, where the edge of the forest seemed to loom dark and thick in my peripheral vision. I turned towards the woods, saw the shadows lurking beneath the tangled branches despite the bright sun overhead. That was the place I must turn to and enter, what had been dwelling on my mind — she seemed to say, and yet, the forest was thick and dark with growth, that green sprawling and spreading and climbing over itself to reach the light that poured out upon them, each leaf finding its place. The darkness was not apart from the light, but an aspect of it, a response to it; the shadows of the forest existed because of it, not in spite of it. It was not Brigid who gifted me the Sword of Light, though she may have had a hand in forging it, nor was it in the light of day that the Sword of Light is used, but in the darkness and the night, in the mysteries and the depths. I know now whose gift the Sword of Light is to give, she told me, and turning I saw again the ocean stretching wide beneath me. Though the sun was intimate and close in its self-giving, impersonal in its distance and brilliance and illumination, the oceans wrap the earth in a surrounding embrace, so very close, dark and deep and intimate and passionate.
What, then, should I do about these flamekeeping shifts? I thought I was meant to know her more personally, but it seemed that she would always be, to some extent, the great fiery arrow, the blaze and glory, the guide and inspiration but also the drive and power — not tame, not ever so intimate or quiet as I had hoped. Should I turn my attention and energy, then, to cultivating that personal relationship with Manannan? Should I stop my flamekeeping shifts and leave the Cill? No, for the perspective and illumination of these moments of seeking her to honor her in her power and impersonal wholeness are also important. Hold these flamekeeping shifts still, but do not expect too much of them. Hold them because you honor that Light, that Flame, not because you expect personal attention or intimacy in return. It is important to remember that not all gods are tame.
Flamekeeping Divination
What does Brigid ask of me for this Flamekeeping shift?
© Stephanie Pui-Mun Law, The Shadowscape Tarot
(a) Page of Cups - She holds the golden chalice up to gaze within at the stray sunbeams and lost treasures that have sunk into the deep, shining even deep beneath these waters with the warmth and radiance from a far off sun. She is the true romantic, the dreamer of dreams, listening to her intuition and her depth of feeling with all the enraptured attention of a child. Here, there is peace and simplicity, and dreams of sunlight kissing the rocking surface of the waves.
(b) Page of Pentacles - Perched high upon the molded stone, above the curling, sleeping figure of the dragon green and verdant, powers of the earth, its lush fecundity — she holds in her hand the glimmer of invitation and initiative, of opportunities for prosperity and, more importantly, for growth. It is her gift, with her practical nature and her concerns for earthly, earthy matters lightened by her joy in the physical bounty around her. Diligence and rootedness, giving rise to the blossom, the fruit and the seed.
(c) King of Cups - Calm, patient, guardian of the deeps, strength of the sea in both its storm and the slow erosion of its caress, breaking open the rocky shores, opening and smoothing, gently claiming them over eons of murmuring and the dance of the tides. He is a protector and guide, and the quiet strength of mystery and compassion well up from within him like the waters of the ocean from the unimaginable depths, yet as close and intimate as the blood, that private sea, we carry within our own bodies and hearts.
The Story: Each card of Cups faces in towards the center, the Page of Pentacles, which gazes ahead, reaching out her gift before her in offering. This is the Central Destination story, and suggest the ways in which these energies, patterns or people may converge and meet, and what that meeting might lead to. It seems, perhaps, that I am represented by the Page of Cups, who holds a sacred chalice close, gazing deeply into the shining golden light within. I seek to know that sunlight and that warmth — and, as with the Page of Cups, perhaps this gazing and dreaming is an aspect of a romantic longing, a listening to the lessons of my intuition and subconscious. Yet, the Page faces towards the King of Cups, who faces her in return. He, too, holds a chalice, though it seems to be made of silver and does not glow with golden light — it is as if he is offering up the very essence of himself, the depths that are the seas and their dark waters. In some ways, then, it seems this story is one of mutual offering and exchange between myself and the God of the Sea, Manannan, a marriage of patience and strength of ancient seas with the liveliness and voyage-dreams of sun-gilded surface of waves. As a result of this meeting or relationship, the Page of Pentacles offers a gift of initiative and opportunity for growth, a place in which both practicality and levity have their place, or perhaps a chance to bring these gifts to manifestation beyond the realm of emotion and intuition and into the physical world as part of the earth's fertility and creativity.
It seems, then, that Brigid's advice is clear: to give myself over to this relationship with Manannan, to embrace that new meeting, and to carry my own light into that relationship, a light I have received from and learned from her. Doing this will lead not only to a relationship of mutual exchange, but fruitful, concrete results of productivity and initiative as well.
Wednesday, February 2, 2011
Brigid Star Fire, An Imbolc Meditation
I began in a field, a green expanse full of flowers and bright sunlight unrolling on all sides. A figure danced in green and gold rippling, barely distinguishable at first from the wind shifting and dancing through the long grasses — yet as she moved closer, I was able to make her out. Eyes that flashed black and full of stars, a glimpse here and there in her turning and spiraling of a darkness, glinting cold and dark, then slipping, spinning back into green and gold. The mantle she wore spun out around her as she turned and danced, the colors of its threads flung out like sparks from a fire, leaping, or like flower petals of purple crocuses and myriad colored wildflowers — some falling to the ground to spring up as blossoms from scattered seeds, while others fluttered, took flight as a thousand butterflies flirting with the warm breeze.
So unlikely a scene, in the midst of this cold and bitterly long winter, that it took me a moment to adjust, to sink more deeply into the sense of place and allow myself to enter, to engage, the awakened land. The candle on my altar — the golden fire-in-the-water afloat among golden flecks of glitter in the blue bowl, the flame of transformation and forge fire that marked the opened center way — hissed and sparked as it consumed the offering of butter. On either side, the red candle of fire, poetry and inspiration and the blue candle of water, healing and integration burned steadily in their holders. But my eyes were closed, as I sunk deeper into trance. The green, gold meadow grew more intense in my mind's eye as I slipped down into my true center.
What is this dancing? I asked her, running to keep up as she laughed and twirled. What do you have to teach me, Brigid? Is spring here already? It seems so cold still. She seemed to ignore my half-frantic questions, challenging me with her movements to stay on my toes. Suddenly, she flopped down in the grass like a small girl, giggling, laying on her stomach propped up on her elbows, running her fingers through the grasses and flower blossoms. Her gold-flamed auburn hair fell around her face in braids, and the soles of her bare feet were slightly darkened with the dirt of the earth. I looked more closely at where her fingers were playing and dancing through the rich flora of the meadow. She plucked a white-fuzzed sphere of a dandelion and sat up, cross-legged, and held it up between us for me to examine. "Funny," she mused, "How the same flower that can be so golden and bright as the sun — turns to white, soft fluff carried on the wind when it goes to seed...." She took a deep breath and blew, closing her eyes for a moment as if making a wish. The we both watched as the seeds one by one let loose and drifted like snow across the wide field — some snagging in the nearby grasses and trembling there, others carried far and high until they were lost to our sight against the bright sky. "How much they look like tiny stars!" Brigid exclaimed, and she was on her feet again, running and dancing among the flowers. The field seemed suddenly full of dandelions, most of them golden yellow and bristling with sunshine. When Brigid found one ready to seed, a crystal fuzz-ball of intricate webbing in white, she'd flick it with her toe as she danced past, sending the seeds scattering to the wind.
But, I called out, what about my work? What work should I be doing? I have been so tired, it's so hard for me to work up the energy to stick to a discipline. You are the Goddess of the Forge, of the steady and unglamorous work of transformation! Don't you have any advice for me? She laughed with that laugh that always seems to mean, "You just don't get it, darling!" She continued dancing through the green, sun-bathed fields, calling out behind her, "The dandelion is not always sunny. Sometimes it must go to seed to survive, sometimes it must put down deep roots! Not every season is the season of discipline and work! Things change! I am not just a goddess of transformation — I am also the goddess of inspiration!" As if in response to these words, on my altar the red candle sparked and hissed, and its flame danced in its holder. "Now it's time for you to indulge in some joy, my darling!" Brigid announced, catching me up with her hands and swinging me around trying to urge me to dance. "Now is a time for the joy of inspiration — do what brings you joy, find again the playfulness in yourself. Now is not a time for work — I am sick of work — now is the time to play! As the spring comes and the days warm, play and be joyful! These are your duties now, to dance the spring in, to welcome it as it deserves!"
Her words kept coming, urging me to seek again the source of my joy, to sing my soul-song in playful notes, and set aside my worries about obligation and progress. Moved by her words, I joined her dancing, and together we spiraled and swirled and skipped through the grasses, singing and laughing beneath a high, bright sky. After a time, I asked her, Should I — I mean, you are my goddess. Should I take an oath to you, a formal vow? She scoffed kindly at my question. But others in our group have done so — and I have no doubt in my heart that I am devoted to you... Her dance slowed beside me so that she could gaze more deeply into my eyes. "For others," she said, "An oath is like the spiderweb that connects and weaves them together in my service — and it is on those strands that the jewels of transformation, devotion and inspiration collect like dew. But you — you are already too full of duties and responsibilities, shouldering too much of the world as an obligation. No, you do not need to make any more promises to me that you have not already made. What you need to learn.... is a little bit of joy and freedom!" And with that, we were spinning again, dancing. The red candle on the altar sparked and danced along.
And as the trance deepened, as I slipped in and out of the rhythm of the spiraling dance across the meadow, it seemed that suddenly she caught me up in an embrace full of passion and joy, kissing me deep on the mouth — her breath becoming my breath, sweet and warm with the scent of flowers and greenery in springtime. I opened my arms to embrace her, and found I was embracing nothing but breeze and sunlight, as my body shivered, transfused with a sudden warmth tingling in every cell. She had entered into my body, or merged, or blended — I found myself to now be wearing the lush green robe and mantle hemmed with golden knotwork ribbon weaving its patterns along each edge, and as I spun, it rippled out around me in long undulating waves that seemed the very expression of joy and creativity rooted deep within the earth. The dandelion seeds drifted white around me, and soon the field was full of them, wafting as thick as snow but warm and soft. I found the meadow had grown dark and the seeds drifted upwards to mingle with the stars against the darkness of the night sky. I seemed to hear her voice from within — yet from a great distance — "What you need to learn, child, is how to plant the seeds of joy in your heart and nurture them as they crave. What grows of these — leave that to me...."
Then slipping quickly back, the trance came to an end and I was sitting before my altar again, watching the three flames burning steady and silent in the still air. Dipping my finger in the butter again, I consecrated a fourth candle, a large white pillar in a red-and-orange stained glass hurricane jar. This was to be my flamekeeping candle for the coming year, lit and tended every twenty days during my shift. What promises you have from me are already enough, Brigid? I pray this is so, and that I may keep them dear....
So unlikely a scene, in the midst of this cold and bitterly long winter, that it took me a moment to adjust, to sink more deeply into the sense of place and allow myself to enter, to engage, the awakened land. The candle on my altar — the golden fire-in-the-water afloat among golden flecks of glitter in the blue bowl, the flame of transformation and forge fire that marked the opened center way — hissed and sparked as it consumed the offering of butter. On either side, the red candle of fire, poetry and inspiration and the blue candle of water, healing and integration burned steadily in their holders. But my eyes were closed, as I sunk deeper into trance. The green, gold meadow grew more intense in my mind's eye as I slipped down into my true center.
What is this dancing? I asked her, running to keep up as she laughed and twirled. What do you have to teach me, Brigid? Is spring here already? It seems so cold still. She seemed to ignore my half-frantic questions, challenging me with her movements to stay on my toes. Suddenly, she flopped down in the grass like a small girl, giggling, laying on her stomach propped up on her elbows, running her fingers through the grasses and flower blossoms. Her gold-flamed auburn hair fell around her face in braids, and the soles of her bare feet were slightly darkened with the dirt of the earth. I looked more closely at where her fingers were playing and dancing through the rich flora of the meadow. She plucked a white-fuzzed sphere of a dandelion and sat up, cross-legged, and held it up between us for me to examine. "Funny," she mused, "How the same flower that can be so golden and bright as the sun — turns to white, soft fluff carried on the wind when it goes to seed...." She took a deep breath and blew, closing her eyes for a moment as if making a wish. The we both watched as the seeds one by one let loose and drifted like snow across the wide field — some snagging in the nearby grasses and trembling there, others carried far and high until they were lost to our sight against the bright sky. "How much they look like tiny stars!" Brigid exclaimed, and she was on her feet again, running and dancing among the flowers. The field seemed suddenly full of dandelions, most of them golden yellow and bristling with sunshine. When Brigid found one ready to seed, a crystal fuzz-ball of intricate webbing in white, she'd flick it with her toe as she danced past, sending the seeds scattering to the wind.
But, I called out, what about my work? What work should I be doing? I have been so tired, it's so hard for me to work up the energy to stick to a discipline. You are the Goddess of the Forge, of the steady and unglamorous work of transformation! Don't you have any advice for me? She laughed with that laugh that always seems to mean, "You just don't get it, darling!" She continued dancing through the green, sun-bathed fields, calling out behind her, "The dandelion is not always sunny. Sometimes it must go to seed to survive, sometimes it must put down deep roots! Not every season is the season of discipline and work! Things change! I am not just a goddess of transformation — I am also the goddess of inspiration!" As if in response to these words, on my altar the red candle sparked and hissed, and its flame danced in its holder. "Now it's time for you to indulge in some joy, my darling!" Brigid announced, catching me up with her hands and swinging me around trying to urge me to dance. "Now is a time for the joy of inspiration — do what brings you joy, find again the playfulness in yourself. Now is not a time for work — I am sick of work — now is the time to play! As the spring comes and the days warm, play and be joyful! These are your duties now, to dance the spring in, to welcome it as it deserves!"
Her words kept coming, urging me to seek again the source of my joy, to sing my soul-song in playful notes, and set aside my worries about obligation and progress. Moved by her words, I joined her dancing, and together we spiraled and swirled and skipped through the grasses, singing and laughing beneath a high, bright sky. After a time, I asked her, Should I — I mean, you are my goddess. Should I take an oath to you, a formal vow? She scoffed kindly at my question. But others in our group have done so — and I have no doubt in my heart that I am devoted to you... Her dance slowed beside me so that she could gaze more deeply into my eyes. "For others," she said, "An oath is like the spiderweb that connects and weaves them together in my service — and it is on those strands that the jewels of transformation, devotion and inspiration collect like dew. But you — you are already too full of duties and responsibilities, shouldering too much of the world as an obligation. No, you do not need to make any more promises to me that you have not already made. What you need to learn.... is a little bit of joy and freedom!" And with that, we were spinning again, dancing. The red candle on the altar sparked and danced along.
And as the trance deepened, as I slipped in and out of the rhythm of the spiraling dance across the meadow, it seemed that suddenly she caught me up in an embrace full of passion and joy, kissing me deep on the mouth — her breath becoming my breath, sweet and warm with the scent of flowers and greenery in springtime. I opened my arms to embrace her, and found I was embracing nothing but breeze and sunlight, as my body shivered, transfused with a sudden warmth tingling in every cell. She had entered into my body, or merged, or blended — I found myself to now be wearing the lush green robe and mantle hemmed with golden knotwork ribbon weaving its patterns along each edge, and as I spun, it rippled out around me in long undulating waves that seemed the very expression of joy and creativity rooted deep within the earth. The dandelion seeds drifted white around me, and soon the field was full of them, wafting as thick as snow but warm and soft. I found the meadow had grown dark and the seeds drifted upwards to mingle with the stars against the darkness of the night sky. I seemed to hear her voice from within — yet from a great distance — "What you need to learn, child, is how to plant the seeds of joy in your heart and nurture them as they crave. What grows of these — leave that to me...."
Then slipping quickly back, the trance came to an end and I was sitting before my altar again, watching the three flames burning steady and silent in the still air. Dipping my finger in the butter again, I consecrated a fourth candle, a large white pillar in a red-and-orange stained glass hurricane jar. This was to be my flamekeeping candle for the coming year, lit and tended every twenty days during my shift. What promises you have from me are already enough, Brigid? I pray this is so, and that I may keep them dear....
Monday, December 13, 2010
Brigid, Lady of the Stars: The Astrology of Me
Sun Sign (influences one's self-perception and sense of selfhood)
Moon Sign (influences one's subconscious and emotional center)
Ascendant (influences first impressions and indicates a starting point)
- Gemini (air/mutable) — The sign of the twins, Gemini sun signs tend to be quick, changeable, mercurial in nature. Their curiosity is powerful, and they often seek out those who will stimulate them intellectually while also being able to keep up with their quick wit and sense of the absurd. Because of their ability to detach from themselves and see both sides of the situation, they can often be quite objective in their analysis of a situation. Gemini sun signs tend to be communicative and bright, enjoying the companionship that arises from good conversation and lively debate.
- Sun in the Ninth House — The basic drive when the sun is in the ninth house is for understanding and self-expansion, which can express itself in a concern for global or world affairs, a love of travel, an interest in higher education, and a desire to study religion, philosophy and mysticism.
Moon Sign (influences one's subconscious and emotional center)
- Libra (air/cardinal) — The light, airy quality of a Libran Moon can be refreshing and enjoyable. Libran Moons place a strong value on relationship and partnership, and also carry with them a deep sense of fairness, balance and justice. They also possess an artistic side and high aesthetic standards.
- Moon in the Twelfth House — Moon in the twelfth house indicates a private person with a love of introspection and a compassionate, charitable side, yet someone who sometimes requires withdrawal or retreat from the busyness of the world in order to refresh.
Ascendant (influences first impressions and indicates a starting point)
- Libra (air/cardinal) — Libra Rising gives a first impression of being a natural "people person," someone who is nice, pleasant, fair-minded, charming and well-liked. Aesthetics plays an important role, as does a heightened sensitivity to the arts and music, and this may express itself also in seeking a sense of harmony rather than discord, and civility and respect rather than vulgarity or rudeness.
- Saturn Conjunct Ascendant — Conservative and self-disciplined, someone with Saturn conjunct their ascendant is likely to be reserved and cautious, perhaps due to anxieties about their self-worth (especially earlier in life). The seriousness and maturity of Saturn shines through even at an early age, despite lingering self-doubts, and with deepening maturity may bring a sense of agelessness that has the authority of truth and wisdom behind it.
- Pluto Conjunct Ascendant — Pluto conjunct the Ascendant tends to express itself through a powerful, insightful and intense personality, deeply private and reserved in some ways while also able to grasp some of the deeper secrets of others. The intensity of this conjunction indicates a person willing to go all-out (or all-in) in their commitments and endeavors.
Thursday, November 25, 2010
Flamekeeping Meditation
Fire and Water in the Earth of my body,
I honor you, Brigid, Bright Goddess of Flame,
I honor you, Lady of Wellspring and Starlight,
And inscribe in my heart your thrice-holy name.
The candle is the center way, open between the worlds. I hold my hands as though in prayer, then slowly bring them apart to rest, palms upturned, on my knees. Above the soft sound of my breath as it rocks back and forth, ebb and flow within my body — the rustle of the wind in tree branches.
I am in a forest, rich and thick with the scent of evergreen. Tall pines stand all about me like the buttresses and columns of a great cathedral, shivering and shifting in a breeze. I feel as though I can sense every thin, green needle spread like whiskers, scenting the wind, turning this way and that. I stand in awe for a moment, unsure where to go or what to do. I place my hand against the rough, red trunk of one of the trees. Sticky sap seeps beneath my fingers, clinging to my skin.
A figure behind me — it is She, the Bright Goddess, this time draped in subtle, shifting green like the pine trees, her hair in radiant, auburn braids plaited thick and draped about her shoulders like a luxuriant fringe. "Taste," she seems to say with a small gesture, "the sap is sweet." Like the amber was once, I find myself thinking as I raise my fingertips to my lips and lick the sap from my hands. "The amber that once flowed through the veins of ancient trees," she agrees. "What is it that makes the sap sweet?" I do not know how to answer her. "It is the connection between earth and sky, the roots seeking deep for water, the limbs reaching, striving towards sunlight." She watches me as my gaze drifts beyond her back to the great trees of the forest. They seem to dwarf both of us, and I'm struck again by how small her form is. "It is the movement between the realms, the connection that flows through living veins, that makes the sap sweet."
I kneel down at her feet as she speaks these words. But she raises me up again with a gesture or a glance, or simply by her refusal to be an object of groveling or subordination. What do I need, what can you give me as guidance and aid? I try to ask her. But she says, almost sharply, "You already have everything you need." The amber sun — "Yes, the drop of liquid fire, the sweet sap of life-blood connecting the three realms. And the spiral shell? She smiles and looks to the new amulet I now where around my neck, the blue goldstone surrounding the glistening spiral forged of silver. "The dark waters of space, the depths of source and creation — do you think this amulet is so different from the spiral shell you were given at the wellspring?" And the sword? The missing piece, the gift I could not yet quite see — is it the sword of starlight? The simple athame? In answer, I find the small knife in my hands, lengthening into a sword glistening, pulsing with a light of its own, starlight or moonlight in the twilight beneath the trees.
I swing the sword, as though to test its sharpness and my strength. It slices through the image of the lady standing before me, slices it in half as though a flimsy veil, and the reality of the woods flap loose like a rip in space itself. Through the tear, a glimpse of dark night scattered brilliant with endless stars. I peer through, and seem to hear her voice coming from that beyond-place, reassuring me that I have not hurt her, only cut down the image of her to a larger reality. I wonder if this is the threshold between my inner landscape and the deep places of the realms beyond, the collective unconscious, the place of Spirit and soul. I remember the card I drew this morning, the image of the wanderer stepping out onto the thin earth-bridge made by the very act of stepping, a bridge created by the journey. I step through the tear and into the gulf of space.
Below my feet, it seems a thin foot bridge solidifies, bearing up my weight. I step again, moving farther out into space, and farther. The bridge, which at first seemed made of earth and brown stone, starts to sweat star-stuff like condensation, drips of night sky gathering like dew along its edges, running down the slope back towards the rip in space that leads back into the pine forest. The droplets of star-fire space sparkle darkly like pieces of tumbled blue goldstone, and I gather a few as amulets and charms, thinking somehow to bring them back for others. The bridge beneath my feet is soon coated completely with the shimmering dark surface, lit from within and glittering with stars, so that the bridge itself seems made of night and starlight instead of earth. All about me, the black abyss of space yawns open, the distance and nothingness sending a brief sense of thrilling vertigo through my body. Still, I keep walking — ahead of me, She is there again, her hair loose and flickering upwards like a flame, her form now draped in dark blue velvet robes that catch what little light there is in this place.
I can go no further, but far in the distance I seem to see the faint flickering of orange forge fire. I ask her if she can take me there, to the place where the stars are forged. She takes both my hands in hers and lifts me gently from the bridge, waltzing me across the distances, our feet trailing rippling mists like the tails of comets. When we reach the forge, it glows warm and pulsing like an ember nestled in a cave-like nook of nighttime. The hiss of steam and the noise of the bellows surround us, the ringing sting of the hammer against the anvil — and I see the forms being created there, tiny round discs of silver with curling rays, like miniature suns. They look quite like my own sun charm, except that their centers are empty. I ask this goddess of the Star Forge where is the amber, why the charms are incomplete. "Don't you see?" she seems to say. "These are only tools and symbols, but the amber is the life-blood, upwelling from the source — it must arise from you, from your life and your work. Only then will the sun become complete."
My mind wanders to the prayer beads I have crafted, and how I might make more to use as a tool for prayer. She laughs at me as though indulging the amusing obsessions of her child, chiding me a little for always wanting so much to make things, instead of allowing my work to be the upwelling of my life to fill in and complete what I have made. As I ponder this thought, I seem to hear the ocean waves in rhythm on the shore. In time with my breathing, they seem to draw me back to my inner landscape, and I find myself wandering down out of the tall pine forest to the pebbly beach, the ocean stretching out deep blue and etched with rising star light as, on the western horizon over the mountain, the sky blazes orange and red with the sunset. I sit for a little while, watching the dusk fade to blues and purples, holding a small memory of that fiery sunset within me as I prepare to keep the flame from this sunset to the next.
Bring my hands together again, I bow my head in gratitude for the wisdom shared. I slip the small flamekeeping pendant over my head, and breathe deeply as I sing my awen and promise to carry Brigid's Fire and Water in the Earth of my body. The meditation has ended, and I speak the words of peace as my breath moves through me like the tides beneath a night sky.
I honor you, Brigid, Bright Goddess of Flame,
I honor you, Lady of Wellspring and Starlight,
And inscribe in my heart your thrice-holy name.
The candle is the center way, open between the worlds. I hold my hands as though in prayer, then slowly bring them apart to rest, palms upturned, on my knees. Above the soft sound of my breath as it rocks back and forth, ebb and flow within my body — the rustle of the wind in tree branches.
I am in a forest, rich and thick with the scent of evergreen. Tall pines stand all about me like the buttresses and columns of a great cathedral, shivering and shifting in a breeze. I feel as though I can sense every thin, green needle spread like whiskers, scenting the wind, turning this way and that. I stand in awe for a moment, unsure where to go or what to do. I place my hand against the rough, red trunk of one of the trees. Sticky sap seeps beneath my fingers, clinging to my skin.
A figure behind me — it is She, the Bright Goddess, this time draped in subtle, shifting green like the pine trees, her hair in radiant, auburn braids plaited thick and draped about her shoulders like a luxuriant fringe. "Taste," she seems to say with a small gesture, "the sap is sweet." Like the amber was once, I find myself thinking as I raise my fingertips to my lips and lick the sap from my hands. "The amber that once flowed through the veins of ancient trees," she agrees. "What is it that makes the sap sweet?" I do not know how to answer her. "It is the connection between earth and sky, the roots seeking deep for water, the limbs reaching, striving towards sunlight." She watches me as my gaze drifts beyond her back to the great trees of the forest. They seem to dwarf both of us, and I'm struck again by how small her form is. "It is the movement between the realms, the connection that flows through living veins, that makes the sap sweet."
I kneel down at her feet as she speaks these words. But she raises me up again with a gesture or a glance, or simply by her refusal to be an object of groveling or subordination. What do I need, what can you give me as guidance and aid? I try to ask her. But she says, almost sharply, "You already have everything you need." The amber sun — "Yes, the drop of liquid fire, the sweet sap of life-blood connecting the three realms. And the spiral shell? She smiles and looks to the new amulet I now where around my neck, the blue goldstone surrounding the glistening spiral forged of silver. "The dark waters of space, the depths of source and creation — do you think this amulet is so different from the spiral shell you were given at the wellspring?" And the sword? The missing piece, the gift I could not yet quite see — is it the sword of starlight? The simple athame? In answer, I find the small knife in my hands, lengthening into a sword glistening, pulsing with a light of its own, starlight or moonlight in the twilight beneath the trees.
I swing the sword, as though to test its sharpness and my strength. It slices through the image of the lady standing before me, slices it in half as though a flimsy veil, and the reality of the woods flap loose like a rip in space itself. Through the tear, a glimpse of dark night scattered brilliant with endless stars. I peer through, and seem to hear her voice coming from that beyond-place, reassuring me that I have not hurt her, only cut down the image of her to a larger reality. I wonder if this is the threshold between my inner landscape and the deep places of the realms beyond, the collective unconscious, the place of Spirit and soul. I remember the card I drew this morning, the image of the wanderer stepping out onto the thin earth-bridge made by the very act of stepping, a bridge created by the journey. I step through the tear and into the gulf of space.
Below my feet, it seems a thin foot bridge solidifies, bearing up my weight. I step again, moving farther out into space, and farther. The bridge, which at first seemed made of earth and brown stone, starts to sweat star-stuff like condensation, drips of night sky gathering like dew along its edges, running down the slope back towards the rip in space that leads back into the pine forest. The droplets of star-fire space sparkle darkly like pieces of tumbled blue goldstone, and I gather a few as amulets and charms, thinking somehow to bring them back for others. The bridge beneath my feet is soon coated completely with the shimmering dark surface, lit from within and glittering with stars, so that the bridge itself seems made of night and starlight instead of earth. All about me, the black abyss of space yawns open, the distance and nothingness sending a brief sense of thrilling vertigo through my body. Still, I keep walking — ahead of me, She is there again, her hair loose and flickering upwards like a flame, her form now draped in dark blue velvet robes that catch what little light there is in this place.
I can go no further, but far in the distance I seem to see the faint flickering of orange forge fire. I ask her if she can take me there, to the place where the stars are forged. She takes both my hands in hers and lifts me gently from the bridge, waltzing me across the distances, our feet trailing rippling mists like the tails of comets. When we reach the forge, it glows warm and pulsing like an ember nestled in a cave-like nook of nighttime. The hiss of steam and the noise of the bellows surround us, the ringing sting of the hammer against the anvil — and I see the forms being created there, tiny round discs of silver with curling rays, like miniature suns. They look quite like my own sun charm, except that their centers are empty. I ask this goddess of the Star Forge where is the amber, why the charms are incomplete. "Don't you see?" she seems to say. "These are only tools and symbols, but the amber is the life-blood, upwelling from the source — it must arise from you, from your life and your work. Only then will the sun become complete."
My mind wanders to the prayer beads I have crafted, and how I might make more to use as a tool for prayer. She laughs at me as though indulging the amusing obsessions of her child, chiding me a little for always wanting so much to make things, instead of allowing my work to be the upwelling of my life to fill in and complete what I have made. As I ponder this thought, I seem to hear the ocean waves in rhythm on the shore. In time with my breathing, they seem to draw me back to my inner landscape, and I find myself wandering down out of the tall pine forest to the pebbly beach, the ocean stretching out deep blue and etched with rising star light as, on the western horizon over the mountain, the sky blazes orange and red with the sunset. I sit for a little while, watching the dusk fade to blues and purples, holding a small memory of that fiery sunset within me as I prepare to keep the flame from this sunset to the next.
Bring my hands together again, I bow my head in gratitude for the wisdom shared. I slip the small flamekeeping pendant over my head, and breathe deeply as I sing my awen and promise to carry Brigid's Fire and Water in the Earth of my body. The meditation has ended, and I speak the words of peace as my breath moves through me like the tides beneath a night sky.
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
DOTR Lesson 2: Earth
Do not be selfish with your life.
Do not waste your days
inventing ways to change the world
to suit your small ideas.
Do this:
Go out under the open, cloudless sky
and listen to the silence of autumn.
Sit on the rock where once someone carved
a serpent and a star, worn now
by the rain and half-covered
with fallen leaves.
In the sun, your skin is hot
with the pulse of your blood.
In the shade, your skin is cool
with the tides of your breath.
And you are made of this,
flux and form, shifting
in the sunlight of the silent afternoon.
Do this:
Sit on the rock and watch
as the low sun moves
without moving
between the dark
columns of the trees.
Let the fly alight
on your upturned hand
and nuzzle your thumb
where it shimmers, the ridges
of your fingerprints rippling
under its furry, iridescent paws.
An eye studded with diamonds.
Wings translucent, opalescent,
like the cells of your body
woven through with black veins.
There is nothing that moves
in this world but this fly,
who comes and goes despite
the nearness of winter
and thinks nothing
but that the flesh of your body
is soft and sweet-smelling
and sturdy enough, and good.
Do this one thing:
do not be selfish with your life.
Do not imagine that this moment
is somehow less than the dreams
you carry with you, or the silence
into which the fly eventually
wanders, unafraid.
The sun slips behind another tree.
Look up and see, illuminated in
webs of twigs and tree limbs
against the shadowed hills beyond,
the same iridescent pattern
of the fly's wing
in the forest.
Bright twining world,
you do not owe us anything
but this.
Do not waste your days
inventing ways to change the world
to suit your small ideas.
Do this:
Go out under the open, cloudless sky
and listen to the silence of autumn.
Sit on the rock where once someone carved
a serpent and a star, worn now
by the rain and half-covered
with fallen leaves.
In the sun, your skin is hot
with the pulse of your blood.
In the shade, your skin is cool
with the tides of your breath.
And you are made of this,
flux and form, shifting
in the sunlight of the silent afternoon.
Do this:
Sit on the rock and watch
as the low sun moves
without moving
between the dark
columns of the trees.
Let the fly alight
on your upturned hand
and nuzzle your thumb
where it shimmers, the ridges
of your fingerprints rippling
under its furry, iridescent paws.
An eye studded with diamonds.
Wings translucent, opalescent,
like the cells of your body
woven through with black veins.
There is nothing that moves
in this world but this fly,
who comes and goes despite
the nearness of winter
and thinks nothing
but that the flesh of your body
is soft and sweet-smelling
and sturdy enough, and good.
Do this one thing:
do not be selfish with your life.
Do not imagine that this moment
is somehow less than the dreams
you carry with you, or the silence
into which the fly eventually
wanders, unafraid.
The sun slips behind another tree.
Look up and see, illuminated in
webs of twigs and tree limbs
against the shadowed hills beyond,
the same iridescent pattern
of the fly's wing
in the forest.
Bright twining world,
you do not owe us anything
but this.
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