Annotated Notes from the Wild Goose Festival, Day 2

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

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


9 AM | Christine Sine | Spirituality & Gardening

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

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

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

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

12 PM | Richard Rohr | Falling Upward

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

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


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

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

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

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


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


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


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

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


8 PM | Doug Pagitt | The Inventive Age

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

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

Annotated Notes from the Wild Goose Festival, Day 1

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

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

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

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

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

Diary - Spirit Animal

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


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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diary - Summer Solstice

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diary - Birthday

Days of Note: My birthday

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

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


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

This is why I haven't journaled recently.

Goodnight!

Follow-Up Letter to Mentor

B--,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Blessings,
Ali

End of Month Letter to Mentor

B--,

So I figured I should be a bit of a better Aspirant and actually send my mentor updates every once in a while, so I thought end-of-the-month wrap-ups might be good.

I'm currently working through Lesson 4: Air, and nearing the end. My approach to the next four lessons (for the four elements) is likely to be haphazard and jumbled because of my various personal studies and also scheduling. For instance, this month for Jeff's birthday we made a trip down to South Carolina to visit the Angel Oak and spend an afternoon at the beach — so I had an opportunity to do some fairly intense meditative work with the elements of Earth and Water (and, thanks to the sun, the heat and my Flamekeeping shift with the Brigidine Cill I belong to, Fire as well) in addition to my Air work. I'm also still working through my understanding of the Three Realms and the three Druidic elements/principles on my own and developing a more in-depth regular meditative practice around them.

That's something I actually wanted to ask you about. I'm finding, the more I work with the Three Realms meditation, the more I'm feeling a need to diverge from the current way it's laid out by DOTR. Connecting to the Land below and the Sky above, with Sea in the middle, isn't jiving for me. Though I understand the reasoning behind it, I find that I am much more drawn to placing the Sea below, with the Sky above, and the Land as the "bridge" connecting the two, symbolized especially by the Tree, the bilé or axis mundi, which reaches its roots down seeking water and reaches its branches up seeking air and light.

This layout resonates for me on a lot of levels. Mystically or mytho-poetically, the Sky and Sea are both realms of vastness, interconnection and blurred boundaries, realms in which the self can be "swept up" into an experience of union with something beyond and bigger — while the Land is the realm of matter and form and individuality, where the two realms of Sea and Sky, which are in many ways opposites, are brought into relationship which each other and made manifest in a concrete way unique to each being and place. While the Sea has symbolic associations with depths, memory, the past and the Underworld/Otherworld of the ancestors, the Sky has associations with heights, aspiration, the future and the celestial Heaven/Otherworld of the gods — while the Land is the concrete, experiential world of the present, with all the particular spirits of the land that dwell between Sea and Sky. There's even some echoes in psychology — the Sea of emotions and the Sky of the intellect both expressed through the physical body (Land), or the Sea as the unconscious or id and the Sky as the "higher" consciousness or superego being navigated and kept in balance by the mundane consciousness of the ego (Land). All of these examples are not exactly done justice by trying to fit them into a linear model of below, above and center... but generally, if that's roughly what you're going for, the Sea below and Sky above is making more sense to me.

In addition, the two gods I work with most closely and who I feel have "claimed" me to some extent are Brigid, particularly in her solar/stellar aspect, and Manannan, son of the sea, so that the Three Realms working with the Sea below and the Sky above also feels like a rightful way of acknowledging and inviting the blessings of my gods into my life (the Land or bridge that connects them, and through which I express their influence and energies in a concrete way for those around me).

So I was hoping for your feedback on this issue of changing the DOTR practice. I'm worried it'll put me out of sync with others in the Order, so I wanted to seek some clarification from you about just how central or essential it is to work with the Three Realms in the way specified in the Aspirant Lessons. I also would like to write up my version of the Three Realms working along with an explanation (in a more coherent form than this letter!) to share on the DOTR group blog eventually.

Other than that, here's a brief run-down of what else I've been doing over the last month:

- Astrology : I've been working through some texts on astrology and have started a process of in-depth, holistic analysis of my own natal chart (you can read the results so far here, here and here). I plan to continue that work in months to come, including picking up Arroyo's book on astrology and the four elements, as I think I mentioned to you already.

- Ogam : I read through Erynn Rowan Laurie's book on the ogam and plan to start working through the aicme again using flash cards to reacquaint myself with them (since it's been years since I tried working with them, and my experience with Tarot in the meantime has given me a lot more practice and grounding in the basics of divination). Erynn's writing about the three "currents" of ogam gave me a lot to think about in relation to the issue of the Three Realms.

- Work with Manannan : I've been doing some meditation and dream-work to cultivate my relationship with Manannan, which I talk about a little bit in my DOTR Aspirant blog. I've also been discussing ideas with a few others on a Pagan forum I visit who work with both Brigid and Manannan on developing some spiritual practices to understand the relationship between them.

- "Sapling" Work with Savanah : Jeff and I have continued to work with Savanah, Jeff's oldest daughter, on her year-long "Druidry for Teens" study course that we developed for her. This month, we were focusing on poetry, story and mythology as ways of connecting to our ancestors and the past (as well as preserving memory for the future), and exploring dreams and divination as ways of connecting to the gods and to our own subconscious mind through the use of symbolism and imagination.

- Justice, Nature and Identity : I've written about issues of justice and peacemaking on my personal website as well as over on Pagan+Politics, and I've been tangentially involved in the on-going debate about Pagan identity through my post on Pagan Coming Out Day and my essay on Religious Branding. I also wrote a piece on the importance of connecting to the natural world and the sacred land in this "Digital Age," and shared some of my nature photography on my website.

Wow! I'm kind of impressed at how much I got done this month! Needless to say, my wedding is coming up soon, so it's unlikely I'll have as much to report at the end of June. :)

I'd love to hear your feedback on this letter or any of the posts on my DOTR Aspirant blog.

Many blessings,
Ali

Pilgrimage to the Angel Oak (and Folly Beach)

I didn't have my camera out very much during this trip (except for this first one, a photograph of the Angel Oak I took before we left), but there were a few occasions when Jeff snuck a few quick shots of me.



The Angel Oak







Me in meditation beneath the Angel Oak, performing the DOTR Three Realms Working (my version, with the Tree as bridge).







At the beach on Jeff's birthday — a few pictures of me enjoying a rare chance to swim in the ocean. (I couldn't see anything because I couldn't wear my glasses!) Apparently, I was out in the water for more than an hour.

Diary - Pilgrimage

Days of Note: Flamekeeping, Pilgrimage to the Angel Oak

Sun: gemini (mutable air), 6:15am - 8:19pm (Summerville, SC)
Moon: waning crescent, pisces (mutable water), VOC (through tomorrow evening)
Earth: another hot, sunny day down in South Carolina, with the air thick and muggy and a possible thunderstorm this afternoon (we can only hope); even when the sun is high, the sunlight is not the clear, bright sunlight of farther north, but a damper, heavier, somehow darker kind of light through which everything seems hazy - or perhaps it's only that even in the shade the heat dominates, so that nowhere is safe from the sunlight


Brigid always has a trick up her sleeve for me, it seems. I now have a Brigid's Cross burned between my breasts… or to be more precise, a pale uneven-cross of skin surrounded by the red-pink of sunburn. Last night at sundown when I began my Flamekeeping shift, I asked her to accept the gold Brigid's Cross pendant I always wear as a symbol of her flame because I could not keep a physical flame for her during this shift (even lighting a candle at all in our B&B room was technically not allowed, though I risked it for half an hour for my opening rite). The handmade flame pendant I usually wear is back home, embedded in wax where my usual Flamekeeping candle spilled over into the offering dish without my noticing. I'm not sure if I'll be able to get it out again without ruining it, since it didn't have any kind of protective finish on it, but in any case it was too late to try to salvage it just then when I was packing. I'm not sure if the sunburn is a sign of acceptance or a light slap on the wrist for not being better prepared to travel-while-Keeping. In any case, it wasn't entirely unexpected, considering we were out on the beach without sunscreen during the most intense part of the day….

I'm feeling slightly scatter-brained at the moment, which I expect is mostly from the heat and general late-afternoon fatigue. Both mornings we've been here now, we've been up at dawn to do some yoga and then gone running in the surrounding neighborhood, coming back to the B&B to shower and have a delicious breakfast downstairs. We're the only people in the house right now, though there's a man in the cottage apartment out in the backyard (we haven't seen him yet, but we've seen his car in the drive). We basically have this entire gorgeous French-style southern mansion to ourselves, and it's absolutely lovely. Getting out early in the morning to go running while it's still relatively cool (in the 70s) has me feeling so completely energized and fantastic, I'm hoping I can hold on to that habit when we get back home. Yesterday morning after a shower and breakfast, I spent some time in the lush, steamy garden in the back of the house while Jeff got some work done on the computer inside. I spent time in meditation sitting on a stone bench by one of the small fountains (guarded by a small moss-covered frog and a statue of the Amitabha Buddha).

This morning, though I was technically on Flamekeeping shift, I held off on my morning meditation because right after breakfast we made the hour-long drive to John's Island to see the Angel Oak tree. Last year we visited the tree on Earth Day in April, in the early evening just as the sun was in its golden hour (and the trip also happened to be during a Flamekeeping shift!). This year, we made it to the oak by mid-morning and again the sunlight was all golden and soft through the branches. There was hardly anyone around, and so Jeff and I split up and found spots to sit near the tree to do some meditation. The same feeling I had last year — of immensity and power and life-force emanating from the tree enough to make my heart quicken — was there again this morning. I noticed that the other tourists who wandered up to see the tree during our time there all had a tendency to lower their voices to a whisper, as if out of respect, and there was a natural hush about the place. Even though it's a tourist attraction now, it's hard for me to believe that it's not also a sacred place of power in spite of that. Even the way people arrived, a couple at a time but in a steady stream so that there was almost always at least one person around, a new person arriving just as the other was leaving, though you couldn't ever say the place was busy, and always it had that same hush and quiet and presence to it…. it almost seemed as though the tree were drawing people to it, few by few, like pilgrims attending to it, murmuring appreciative prayers of awe and praise. To sit under the tree for any length of time and watch this process was amazing, and just as it did last year, it left me with this strange sense that the tree was a sacred center or power or axis mundi around which the rest of the world turned, with us little humans coming to stand tiny at its feet and arrange our lives like love-worn dolls….

When we first arrived, a couple with a young toddler were just leaving and for a time we had the place all to ourselves. I sat at the base of the tree while Jeff wandered off somewhere else, and I sat in meditation for twenty minutes or so. First just breathing my awens and allowing myself to relax into the energy and presence of the place, then reaching out to perform (my version of) the DOTR Three Realms workings. The Tree as center and bridge between the watery depths of soul and the celestial heights of spirit was especially effective when I could feel the vast trunk of the Angel Oak behind me, lending support to my spine. During this meditation, my sense of grounding was so powerful, I felt as though I could sit there forever, still and unmoving, so solidly was I rooted in the earth. It's one of the most effective grounding experiences I've had in recent memory. I also experimented with Erynn Rowan Laurie's take on the Three Cauldrons meditation - though I used different hand gestures adapted from the "peace sign" meditation I'd been working on (with both hands placed on the ground to either side, then raised to the center in a namaste/prayer position, then raised up again — in this way, the gestures not only mimic a transformation of the peace sign from despair to rejoicing, but they also echo the Awen symbol in both invoking and evoking form).

A side note: part of me feels bad that I feel such an urge to adapt and change the practices I learn from others. Often the people teaching these techniques will say that they can be adapted or changed to suit personal approaches… but I often feel like this is more an attempt to be tolerant of diversity, and not really a whole-hearted encouragement to actually go about changing things. I do want to trust that certain ritual techniques have stood the test of time and have something to teach me… but it was easier to trust this way in Catholic rituals which really were hundreds, even thousands of years old. Druidry (and Paganism generally) is still so new, and there's a lot of variation in technique. I see similarities between different types of meditations and energy work that I can't overlook, and so these end up blending together in my practice to create rites and gestures that make sense to me. The way I perform a Three Realm Working is derived in part from Orion Foxwood's exercising in connecting to the local land (I forget its name at the moment), in which the "streams" from below and above are joined in the heart. It seems the Three Realms working is also similar to the ADF Two Powers meditation…. except in the Three Realms (both in the DOTR version and my adaptation) there is a blending of the two energies to create or express a third. I never quite understood why a tradition like ADF, with such emphasis on the three realms, the three hallows and other triads, would have a fundamentally dualistic meditative practice as a core technique…. connecting Earth and Sky, but where is Sea in this? This is the same trouble I had with the three Druidic elements in their relation to the four classical elements. If you can arbitrarily drop or add an aspect to a system, then it wasn't a stable or complete system to begin with. In the Three Realms, Land, Sea and Sky seem all to be of equal importance and significance…. and simply dropping Sea and connecting only to the other two doesn't make much sense to me. Similarly, dropping (or combining) Fire and Air from the four classical elements to get the three Druidic elements — as though they were nearly interchangeable otherwise — is deeply dissatisfying to me. So I have to figure out a way to make that change.

On the other hand, Erynn Rowan Laurie's Three Cauldron's meditation makes a lot of sense to me, with the Cauldron of Warming (being associated with the realm of land/earth and the Druidic element/principle of calas) the lowest of the three, the Cauldron of Motion (sea/gwyar) near the heart, and the Cauldron of Wisdom (sky/nwyfre) near the head/crown/third eye. This makes intuitive sense to me, and aligns pretty well with both T. Thorn Coyle's "three souls" meditation and with my Peace of the Three Realms meditation that I developed a few years ago (in which each of the… let's call them "cauldrons," though I originally called them simply "centers," are infused specifically with energies from the Three Realms in a kind of rippling out/up of energy). I don't have any struggle in figuring out why, during the Three Realms working, gwyar/sea is "below" and calas/land/tree in the center, while in the Three Cauldrons working this is reversed. It just… makes sense to me that way. Perhaps because the Three Realms working is a kind of orientation, connecting us with the Tree as axis mundi and bridge of soul and spirit… while the Three Cauldrons/Peace of the Realms practices are more about activating our own ("internal") energy centers. With this inner work, we naturally start from a "base line" of calas, the realm of land that we're so used to and probably most immediately connected to through our physical senses. From there, we kind of "drop" into the gwyar/emotional center of movement and exchange — that is, our experience of form and limit naturally gives rise to an urge to connect, and this is a kind of deepening at the same time that it's a rising up…. almost as though our heart calls our attention to it precisely at that moment when it is spilling over — we are called inward at the same time that we feel the ache of going outward. The final center of nwyfre/wisdom is an ascent to pure force and initiative, as well as breath. Both boundaries and the interweaving or connection of those boundaries are overcome or swept up in the unity of "oneness," to some extent.

I'm not at all convinced this makes much sense… I'll have to keep playing with these ideas. In any case, I'd like to find a way to integrate the Peace Prayer practice with the Three Realms working (and the Three Cauldrons practice as well, perhaps) in a way that leads naturally from one into the other without having to drastically altar the energies I'm working with for each one. ADF describes the Two Powers practice as like to "grounding and centering." I'm not sure which one people traditionally do first among other Wiccan/Pagan groups… but I always understood that centering was the first step (a kind of inward turning and cultivation of stillness and attention that was the prerequisite for any meditative work) and grounding was the second step, a moving outward again from that established center to "ground" that center in the living earth, as though planting a seed, or the moment when that seed germinates and sends out roots. In any case, it always seemed to me an inward/outward movement of focus, rather than an up/down focus the way the Earth/Sky approach suggests. In my own practice, I've gotten so used to centering and grounding that I hardly notice it as an initial step before my other meditation work. I center through some meditative breathing, cultivating a stillness between breaths (which the awen breath can be particularly helpful for), and then reach out to ground myself in the earth and further open myself to the living presences around me. In this sense, then, centering/grounding is a first step, and the natural next step after grounding (reaching out to the earth surrounding me — for we do not only live "on" the earth, but more precisely we live in it, surrounded by its landscapes and climates) is to begin (my version of) the DOTR Three Realms working. When we ground, like a tree putting down roots and sending up shoots, we are not seeking merely earth beneath us… we are seeking the water and the exchange of nutrients below, and the sunlight and air that fuels us from above. These we transform into the living matter of our bodies. So the Three Realms working is a natural follow-up to the centering/grounding opening work.

In that case, then, the Peace of the Realms and the Three Cauldrons meditations are not so much about who we are or where we locate/orient ourselves in the currents of the world… but more about what we do in the world, how we approach our activity. Once we center and ground ourselves in our enspirited-bodies, then what is it we do with those bodies? Finding our foundation, cultivating our work and releasing our love-guided efforts into the world (or warming, motion and wisdom) are the three processes or activities we undertake. They may have affinities with the Three Realms… but they are not merely equivalent. Which is why the Peace of the Three Realms actually "activates" each of the three realms or their currents/elements/principles in each of the three activity centers. So if this is the case.. then a natural order to the practices would be: starting with centering and grounding, then the Three Realms working to orient and establish our selves within the three realms of the world, then the Three Cauldrons meditation to "activate" or energize the three "centers" or cauldrons within the self, then the Peace of the Three Realms prayer to articulate and express the purpose towards which those three center of activity might be directed.

I'll have to experiment with this order to see how it works in practice as well as in theory… but I'm actually quite pleased with this approach. It makes some gut-level sense to me, and incorporates at least some sources of legitimate ancient Celtic culture. I would want to read more about the Cauldron of Poesy text that Erynn Rowan Laurie mentions, if only to seek out some confirmation of this approach.

It seems to be almost 8 PM now and I've been writing for at least two hours…. I had more to talk about, but my shift is coming to an end, so I should probably wrap things up. I'm feeling especially tired and I should probably be sure to drink some more water and apply some more aloe gel to my burn so I'm not regretting my silliness in the morning.

It occurs to me that I forget to explain how I got the sunburn! After staying by the Angel Oak for an hour or two, we thought we would try to find the nearest public beach access, which ended up being Folly Beach. We spent about an hour strolling along the shore, feet in the warmest ocean water lapping up around our calves. Before finally returning to the car, I waded out deeper until I was standing in waters mid-thigh and waves were getting the hem of my sundress damp. By that point, though, I'd already been out long enough to get a burn on my shoulders and chest. We're thinking of going back to the beach tomorrow, after spending a morning in Charleston looking at all the ancient homes built right up on the shoreline by slave labor (Jeff's love of this beautiful human tragedy reminds me of that Doctor Who episode, Blink: "Sad is like happy for deep people.")

We'll see. Tomorrow we're taking a day off from running, though we're hoping to still do some sun salutations to great the new day. It's Jeff's birthday, so we'll have an official day off to do whatever we want before heading back to Pittsburgh on Friday. I may or may not have a chance to write again before we get back home. We'll see.

Astrology of Me: Natal Chart Analysis (Part 2)

Days of Note: Flamekeeping (begins at sundown), pilgrimage to the Angel Oak

Sun: gemini (mutable air), 6:16am - 8:18pm
Moon: last quarter, pisces (mutable water)
Earth: hot and sunny, we're down in Summerville, South Carolina (near Charleston) staying in a lovely French B&B to visit the old Angel Oak; everything here lush and green and muggy

Based on Stephen Arroyo's Outline of Chart Interpretation

II. The Main Components of the Chart Structure

§A Patterns Using the Astrological Alphabet

Using the 12-letter "Astrological Alphabet" (p.176) to examine the signs and houses of each of the planets as well as the important aspects (5º orb) among the planets, three themes emerge as having particular emphasis.

The first is a triple emphasis on the relationship between Letter 1 and Letter 8 — Mars in the 8th house trine Pluto in the 1st house. Here Mars (1) is in close aspect with Pluto (8), with Mars (1) in the 8th house (8) and Pluto (8) in the 1st house (1). I'm not exactly sure what this theme means, but it's actually the example he uses in the book, where he explains that "the expression of Mars energy will be powerfully characterized by Plutonian qualities." Mars is characterized generally as desire, will-power or will to action, initiative and physical energy, and describes what kinds of energy we use to assert ourselves and what will drive us and give us energy. Pluto is characterized by transformation, transmutation, rebirth and intense focus. Both planets have strong associations with courage, desire and the way we exert our will. The "toning" of Mars with Plutonian energy suggests that I seek to assert myself and my will by turning my focus inward to bring about personal transformation (rather than directing it outwards against others, perhaps?) and that I also feel energized physically by intense, transformative experiences (maybe this relates to my approach to physical exercise as well?).

Tompkins describes the Mars-Pluto aspect as being about a "fight for survival" that can express itself as an intense (but sometimes hidden) competitive nature, either directed outwards in competition with others or turned inwards in competition with the self. There is also some suggestion of associations with both buried rage and buried sexuality (Pluto having a "burying" effect on the aggressive and/or sexual energies of Mars), which can express itself either in repressed anger or passion sublimated as passive aggressiveness or manipulation, or a focus on the "darker" aspects of self and society that others would rather be buried and denied. Tompkins focuses mostly on hard/challenging aspects between the two; the fact that Mars trines Pluto in my chart may indicate that I have an easier time facing the "dark side" of passion and aggression, that I am better able to accept and acknowledge the violence, competitiveness and sexuality in my nature than someone with a challenging aspect. (On the other hand, this might mean that I will tend to take for granted that aggression or sexuality will be "buried" — which might explain why, to some extent, I am prudishly uncomfortable with public flaunting of sexuality or socially condoned forms of violence, expecting them to be reined in or restrained even while acknowledging those forces as inherent aspects of ourselves. A trine might suggest that I take for granted this kind of "burying" or sublimating of aggressive/sexual passions because it comes fairly easily to me.)(N.B. On this last parenthetical bit: Jeff doesn't think so. Maybe he will leave a comment explaining his take in detail… hint hint.)

There is also a double emphasis on the relationship between Letter 1 and Letter 10 (Saturn in the 1st house trine Mars), which is no real surprise since Saturn and Pluto are in such close conjunction in my chart that they tend to act almost as a single influence. In this case, Saturn (10) is in close trine aspect with Mars (1), and Saturn (10) is also in the 1st house (1). In this case, then, the Mars energies of desire, will-power, activity and physical energy will be toned or influenced by the Saturnian characteristics of effort, integrity, authority, (self-)discipline, responsibilities and patience. Both planets have connections to how we assert ourselves and our will — Mars through passion and initiative, Saturn through concentrated effort and diligence over time. This theme may suggest that I seek to assert myself through disciplined effort and that I connect this effort with my sense of personal integrity, taking on responsibilities and expecting my work to earn me a certain amount of authority. In turn, it may suggest that I feel energized and spurred to action when I am put into situations that demand patience, diligence and the shouldering of responsibilities.

Tompkins, as usual, says so much about the Mars-Saturn aspect that it's hard to distill and clarify the main thrust of the relationship. There are some influences echoing those of Mars-Pluto (likely to be especially important considering Saturn's close conjunction with Pluto in my chart), in particular a certain ambivalent attitude towards both violence/rage and passion/sexuality — in this case, these energies are not "buried" as with Pluto, so much as brought under tighter control. (Arroyo suggests that Saturn can cause blocks precisely because these areas are of particular importance or weight to a person, like trying to force too much water through too tight an opening.) The Mars-Saturn relationship also suggests conflicts concerned with or about authority, either fighting on behalf of authority or struggling against authority. As with Pluto, however, the Mars-Saturn aspect can indicate the ability to bring great passion, energy and courage and direct them towards a particular aim — rather than the transformation of Pluto, in this case Saturn's urges towards integrity, responsibility and discipline — and in doing so, accomplish great things. Again, because the Mars-Saturn aspect is a trine in my chart, there's an indication that this kind of concerted effort and discipline may come naturally to me, that I am able to deftly handle the balance between impulse and discipline, assertiveness and control, fear and courage. (This may also reflect my tendency to "go overboard" when I set myself a particular task, channeling a great deal of energy and activity into the chosen are of hard work — for instance, I'm starting to think I may be overdoing it a bit with this chart analysis!) Interestingly, Tompkins connects the Mars-Saturn aspect with tasks that require a lot of discipline and control along with physical strength and effort — among these, she mentions blacksmithing, one of the three skills ruled over by Brigid. The connection between smithcraft and transmutation/transformation found in Her nature may reflect to some extent Mars trine Saturn-Pluto in my chart. (I want to come back later to this issue of what insights astrology might be able to give us into our gods.)

The last theme is a double emphasis on the relationship between Letter 9 and Letter 11 — Uranus in Sagittarius conjunct Jupiter. Here, Jupiter (9) is in close aspect with Uranus (11), while Uranus (11) is in Sagittarius (9). This suggests that Jupiter will be influenced by the energies of Uranus, while Uranus is also tempered and toned by the energies of Jupiter (ruler of Sagittarius). Jupiter is characterized by grace, expansion/expansiveness, trust and faith in a larger order or meaning, and its influence describes how we strive to grow, improve ourselves and where we seek confidence and our sense of grace. Uranus is characterized by freedom, independence, experimentation, originality and creativity, and describes how we differentiate ourselves from others and establish our uniqueness and individuality. The Jupiter-Uranus relationship suggests that my faith and experience of grace will be charged with a sense of freedom and affirmation of my individuality, and I may express this faith in unconventional or experimental ways. There is also a sense that the urge towards originality and creativity will be expansive and pervasive in my life.

Tompkins suggests that the Jupiter-Uranus aspect is defined largely by its tendency towards radical, fringe or unorthodox religious and/or political traditions and beliefs. This results from the relationship between faith, associated with Jupiter, and Uranus's association with truth. In this aspect, there is an urge to bring faith and the search for meaning into closer alignment or attunement with truth (as opposed to allowing the need for faith to overrule truth, as in fundamentalism, or the search for truth to undermine faith, as in nihilism/cynicism, I guess?). This aspect also reflects the importance of seeking faith in "personal truths" and often involved resisting or leaving a mainstream or orthodox religious or political tradition. There's not much more to elaborate on here, since this pretty much nails it. My choice to leave Catholicism (with its emphasis on tradition and the authority of the Church) and my involvement in Paganism (with its emphasis on plurality, diversity, freedom and creativity, especially creative ritual) reflect this theme strongly.

Further notes: What's especially interesting to me is that among these three themes emphasized in my chart, the last and arguably least emphasized is the one that is easiest for me to recognize and identify in my own life. This may have something to do with the fact that the aspect is a conjunction that falls within the sign ruled by one of the planets — and that this entire configuration is in the most important, exact and powerful opposition in my entire chart (with Mercury)… perhaps setting up a situation in which these energies are strong and obvious to me as something I have had to grapple with and articulate. The themes expressed in Saturn's and Pluto's trines with Mars are more difficult to pin down, their expressions in my life not so obvious… and this might have to do with the nature of the trine aspect as "soft" or easy, something that does not present a particular challenge and so can be to some extent taken for granted. Since these involve Saturn, however, I do want to examine these themes in more depth, especially as I approach my Saturn Return.


§B Dominant Aspects and Major Configurations

Much of this I already covered in the first part of my analysis, looking at the overall pattern of the chart as a whole. I noted the emphasis on the Gemini-Sagittarius opposition (strengthened by both Mercury and Jupiter falling within their ruling signs, as well as Mercury's exact opposition Uranus and the Sun's near-exact opposition Neptune). There is also a less powerful emphasis on the trine relationship between Gemini and Libra.

I do not have any dominant aspects (such as Grand Trines or T-Squares) in my chart, but I do have three different "groupings" of planets that could arguably be stelliums (depending on the orb). The first and probably most powerful falls within Gemini and involves the conjunction of my Sun and Mars with Mercury close by within the same sign. The second involves the conjunction of Saturn and Pluto with my Ascendent (with the Moon nearby in the same sign) in Libra. The third is Jupiter conjunct Uranus with Neptune nearby in the sign of Sagittarius. The Gemini stellium falls (very) roughly in my 8th house, while the Sagittarius stellium falls (again, very) roughly in my 2nd house; the stellium involving my Ascendent falls primarily within my 1st house but seems to kind of rope in my Moon in the 12th house.

Jeff described the 8th house to me once as the house of "sex, death and initiation" — all things that deal with power and transformation. Arroyo describes this house (a water house) as one of yearning and seeking after security for the soul, possibly through discovering the deepest laws of life (sex and death being two of the most powerful and most essential) as a stable foundation upon which to build a sense of inner peace. Occult studies are also considered to be related tot his house for similar reasons. A stellium in my 8th house (especially one that involves my Sun, though it's right on the cusp and technically in my 9th house) suggests a deep involvement in grappling with issues of power, passion and transformation, coming to terms with and finding peace through right relationship (or release from) desires and compulsions.

The 2nd house (an earth house) is one of material stability and security and might be characterized by a drive for an abundance of resources. This influence can expression itself through financial or material wealth, but is just as likely to involve an essential and deeply meaningful attunement with and appreciation of the natural world as a source of abundance, sustenance and support. A stellium involving a Jupiter-Uranus conjunction in my 2nd house goes even further to clarify my draw towards earth-centered spirituality, as my urge for stability and peace in the physical world is tied up with my sense of grace and trust in a deeper spiritual reality (as well as the desire for individuality and freedom).

I've already spent some time in-depth exploring the implications of Saturn and Pluto influenced by the Martian energies of the 1st house, and later in the analysis will be a particular focus on the Ascendent and any planets in close conjunction, so I'll forgo that analysis for now.

Savanah's Year: Nwyfre of Earth, Calas and Gwyar of Water

I thought my neglect of keeping notes on our lessons with Savanah was bad back in January, and it's been months since I last updated about our progress! Granted, partly that's because we haven't been able to have regular lessons with her for some of these weeks because of scheduling, work conferences, kids' recitals and so on. But for the past two weeks (last Sunday and today) we've been able to get back into it.

Our final week of Gwyar of Earth work, we focused on the seasonal cycle of the year and the relationship between the sun and the earth in creating the seasons. We spent quite a bit of time talking about the difference between the Fire Festivals and the Solar Festivals and how they embody different ways of relating to the sun, as well as comparing these holy days to the Wiccan sabbats and exploring the differences and similarities. We talked about the cycle of the seasons as a metaphor for birth, growth, maturity, death and rebirth both in the human life cycle and also in how we approach our goals and dreams, taking time to plan and prepare for each stage and doing work that reflects the needs and energies of that stage. For her journal, we asked her to label a diagram of the wheel of the year with the different holidays and write a little blurb about each of them. We also had her pick out two more objects for her altar: one representing the sun itself, and one representing the current season. (To be honest, it was so long ago that I can't remember which objects she chose. I do remember being very impressed by the intuitive nature of the object she chose for the sun, but can't for the life of me remember what it was.) For that week's activity, we asked her to do a creative project to symbolize the wheel of the year and the cycle of the seasons. She used a new Christmas gift to make a woven bracelet with different colored beads representing the four seasons.

During February, we moved on to Nwyfre of Earth and introduced Savanah to the basic practices of breath meditation, centering and grounding. We began by learning about the physical breath and how it connects us to the world around us in the most intimate and immediate way. We began to connect the idea of the physical breath with the sense of life-force and spirit expressed through the elemental principle of nwyfre, and discussed how the way we breathe (fast or slow, heavy or shallow, etc.) can give us insight into how we are feeling, and help us to calm down and feel better when we're feeling upset. We asked her to journal answers to some simple questions about the relationship between breath and self-awareness (the directed questions that provide a review of our conversations during the lesson are turning out to work really well), and for her activity we taught her the simple breath meditation of bringing focus to the physical sensations of your own breathing (as a first step towards more complex practices). The following week, we moved on to the practice of centering. We discussed the idea of our "spiritual center" as similar to your "center of balance" and talked about different techniques to use to help find your center, that "still place of peace" between breaths. Her activity for the week was to practice the centering meditation and answer some questions in her journal about what the practice was like, how it helped her or what made it seem difficult, etc. The following week, we moved on to grounding, with a brief meditation I wrote using a stone from her altar (as well as some Awen chanting — I feel a bit bad because we didn't take much time to actually talk about Awen itself, since she was already familiar with it from participating in Druid rituals in the past). We discussed how grounding provides us with a connection to both the realm of the gods and the "underworld" realm below us, like a try reaching our limbs into the sky seeking sunlight as well as reaching our roots down into the earth to find stability and nourishment. We talked about the idea of energy exchange, and how grounding can help us release anxiety or anger that is hindering or hurting us, as well as draw energy and support from the earth when we are feeling weak or tired. The grounding exercise was her activity for the week, with some more questions for journaling about the experience and how she felt about it.

Throughout March and April, for the most part we took a break from lessons. The stellium in Aries meant both Jeff and I were kind of going nuts with energy, and work and other commitments dominated our time so that weekends left us pretty wiped. We did have a chance towards the beginning to get into the next month of work, Calas of Water, which was dedicated to learning about communication, connection and emotion in different practices and beliefs of Druidry, specifically through the forms and structures of storytelling, mythology, poetry and music. The first week, we talked about ancient myths and fairytales and how they were used to pass on important ideas and information about the people and the land. We talked a little bit about how stories don't just give us information, but actually give us insight into a whole perspective or worldview. To demonstrate this, we asked Savanah for her weekly activity to choose a myth or fairytale she knew and rewrite it from the point of view of one of the minor characters. The next week, we didn't have time for a full lesson, but we did go over her work — her story was excellent, a retelling of the story about the boy who has to face a giant (I forget the name of it) told from the point of view of the bird he caught. Very creatively done!

Last week, we finally got back on track and combined the last two weeks of Calas of Water work to talk about poetry and music together. This worked out well and tied back into the work on mythology that we'd done previously (so it provided a good refresher) — we told the story of Amergin and the Milesians coming to Ireland and winning the land from the Tuatha de, and read her a (translated) version of the Song of Amergin where he sings to the land to praise and honor her. This provided an excellent example of the blurred lines between myth, poetry and music, and we talked about using "concrete sensory details" in power to give our language power and to evoke feelings and ideas without explaining them in the abstract. We then played her the song, "I Am," by the group Beltaine's Fire, which is a song both praising poetry and rhyme as tools for learning and memory, and also drawing on and re-imagines the Song of Amergin, providing another connection. I spent a lot of time talking about how the vibration of music in our bodies — especially when we sing together or dance to and play music — connects us in a very physical, literal way, making our bodies vibrate in harmony. (This idea seemed to impress Savanah quite a bit, because she asked me if I had memorized my "speech" or just knew it off the top of my head!)

This week we moved ahead into Gwyar of Water and our exploration of dreams, divination and visualization meditations as ways that we can communicate and connect with our subconscious mind, the gods, ancestors and spirits of the land. We'd asked Savanah to keep a dream journal for the past week, so we spent some time going over the dreams she remembered and what they might mean, how they made her feel, etc. We talked about dream interpretation more generally and how the subconscious mind often uses symbols, images and emotions to communicate indirectly, instead of spelling everything out for us logically and rationally. We talked a bit about how dreaming helps us to integrate our waking experiences more deeply into who we are (like water churned up by activity slowly settling and becoming clear again during a period of rest), and that's why we might have dreams about activities that are either new to us or dominated the time we were awake on a particular day.

We also discussed divination techniques and how they worked, using very similar images and symbolic associations as dreams do. (This was originally going to be week two for this month's lessons, but we won't be seeing them next weekend and we're still trying to play catch up, so in order to give her enough work to do during that extra week we decided to introduce the idea of divination now and continue to expand on it when we see her again). Savanah is still struggling to believe that she is capable of doing the work we ask her to do, and will panic (or exaggerate her anxiety) whenever we suggest something that might be a challenge — to overcome this during this lesson, I asked her to try to think of five different divination techniques that she knew of just from reading books and seeing movies and talking to people. Sure enough, she was quickly and easily able to list off five: tarot, runes, palm reading, tea leaves and crystal balls. We talked about how each of these techniques worked, what you did, and why that approach was able to put you in touch with your nonrational/subconscious mind (or the gods — I think when we return to this subject, we'll focus more on how the gods come into it). We also talked about the larger categories that these specific divination techniques fell into and what other types would be included (for instance, looking for shapes in clouds, entrails or even ugly wallpaper is similar to tea leaf reading; gazing into water or a black mirror or even a thumb nail is similar to using a crystal ball, ogham is similar to using runes, etc.).

For her activities for the next two weeks, we've made recordings of the centering/grounding exercise from the Nwyfre of Earth lessons for her to listen to, so that she can practice these meditation techniques each morning. Jeff also gave her a longer relaxation/visualization guided meditation to do next week before she goes to bed in the evening, to get her used to the technique of visualizing before we move on to the third week of this month's lesson. In addition, we've asked her to do three tarot readings using her tarot deck (asking whatever questions she wants and coming up with her interpretations of the cards before looking in the book for their "official" meanings). And lastly, we've asked her to keep on recording her dreams in her journal as well, and to answer a few journaling questions next week on any kinds of patterns that she notices about her dreams.

So the work is going well, really. Every time I go back over the general outline, I'm excited by how much cool stuff we're going to cover over the coming months. I also worry a little bit that it won't all sink in (for instance, discussions we have months ago about using grounding to help siphon off nervous energy are obviously not helping Savanah very much in controlling her panic at times!)… and I wonder if we're trying to do too much too fast. But I think in general it's important to give an overview so that she has some sense of how it all fits together and can go back and explore more in-depth on her own if she chooses to. Since it really is all connected and intertwined, any little bit that "sticks" can eventually lead her back to the rest… and since Jeff and I are pretty well-versed and deep in our practice, there are some lessons that we manage to impart over and over, themes that keep reappearing no matter what specific topic we're talking about. I think those themes are also influenced by Savanah's particular needs — for instance, listening continues to be a lesson we come back to again and again, noting how important it is to listen in order to connect, learn, show respect, calm ourselves and find our centers, and listen to the messages of our own bodies, emotions and minds. I don't think that Jerilynn, for instance, will need as much reminding about the importance of listening as her sister, who is incredibly talkative and active while Jerilynn tends to be quiet and inquisitive. But we may face other challenges with Jerilynn that we didn't with Savanah… it's hard to guess almost two years in advance. I really am looking forward to continuing this work with all the kids, and eventually working this material into a book (or two or three?) at some later point. And it's very good to spend this time one-on-one with Savanah — it's made a big difference in how both Jeff and I relate to her, and her readiness to confide in and connect with us. For that alone, I think it's definitely worth it.

A note on the structure of the course itself… I think overall, it's working well. Now that I'm investigating astrology more and exploring the overlap between the three Druidic elements and the cardinal, fixed and mutable aspects of the four elements in the zodiac… I'm wondering if it might be interesting to experiment with a year-long study similar to the kind TDN has set up with their Perennial Course in Living Druidry. Setting things up so that, for instance, the lessons of Nwyfre of Earth correspond with the cardinal earth zodiac sign of Capricorn (Dec. 21 - Jan. 21) and Gwyar of Water correspond with the mutable water sign of Pisces (Feb. 21 - March 21). It might be interesting to play with the order in this way… though the order and structure I have it set up in right now feels very natural, building on what came before. Mixing things up might make it more difficult… but, on the other hand, it would also "personalize" the year-long study course according to each person's birthday, which might be particularly good for young people. It might force me to simplify the lessons as well, in the same way TDN's course lessons are fairly simple but still profound. I'll explore this possibility as I learn more about astrology and keep it in mind, at least.