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About Breakups

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Puzzle Piece Heart
Puzzle Piece Heart

Photo by Horia Varlan

The thing about breakups is that you’re never really out of each other’s life. It’s an illusion to think that you can just sever ties (if that’s what you were hoping for) and then… Poof! No more connection.

It never happens like that.

When I made the decision, and then the subsequent announcement that I was leaving ADF and handing over the work of the Fellowship, I knew well and good that this wasn’t (nor did I want it to be) a clear, clean break. It was the beginning of a transition; one that may have begun a little suddenly and unexpectedly, but still simply a movement from one thing to another.

I’m not quite sure what I’m moving to in my own life. I don’t suppose it’s time to know that yet. But I do know that there are several people within ADF who, as I write this post, are working to make the transition go smoothly for the solitaries of the Fellowship. A priest is writing a new liturgy, a priest-in-training is considering the role of Organizer, and a number of thoughtful, considerate people have stepped forward to offer their talents to the cause.

This thing is going to live on.

And my work with the Fellowship will continue until the transition is complete. There are file folders, user-names and passwords that will need to be given to someone else. I’ve got document templates and drafts, all of which will have to be passed over, too. Perhaps most importantly, I’ve got to let go of that sense of ownership or authorship.

This was never mine, the Fellowship. It was never a thing to be possessed. It was an idea; a new way of thinking about service to solitaries. And the idea is out there now. It lives. And, with an inspired group of people behind it, it will grow in new and unexpected ways.

Last night I wrote what I think might be my last post on the SDF website. I needed to speak directly to the solitaries of the Fellowship and put this transition into a broader context — one that felt relevant to me, but that also might inspire them into reflection about their own lives.

I wrote,

Our religious lives may revolve around a liturgical calendar (the cycle of the seasons, the Wheel of the Year), but my experience has shown me that matters of the spirit and matters of the heart do not happen in a patterned, convenient fashion. They happen abruptly, and they demand that we readjust our thinking in the spur of the moment. In the process of doing so, while we try to reclaim our sense of balance as the ground still tremors beneath our feet, we do the real work of a spiritual life.

We experience a good and meaningful labor.

So, my charge to all of you — all of you who have shown up to speak or who have shown up in silence — is to continue your own good and meaningful labor in my absence. Take the tools which have been provided to you and fashion something relevant for your solitary observance of the Solstice. Or, use these words to get you started:

My heart is forged of good metal.
My spirit strong, unbroken.
I lift my hands and celebrate
This season of good labor.

May all my work be done with love;
Love for myself and for my kin,
And for my Kindred, known to me
Inside my heart and in the world.

This is the day of breaking forth
Into the future, arms outstretched.
I greet Unfolding Mystery
Rejoicing in this life I live!

I cannot begin to explain how grateful I am to have had the opportunity, again and again, to contextualize my own life in this way, season after season, for the benefit of a broader community. I had no idea it would be so meaningful to serve, or that baring one’s soul could act, in and of itself, as a kind of service.

It isn’t always pretty, what goes on inside of us. It isn’t always virtuous, or noble, or respectable, or admirable. But if it’s honest, it’s worth something.

It’s worth a lot.

It’s worth living for.

On Leaving

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The Fool

The Fool

Something broke today: a levee on the inside. My heart, tight and clenched for days, softened.

And when it did, I knew…

I have to leave ADF.

I spoke the words out loud, and they sounded right. They didn’t sound easy, or pretty, or anything remotely uncomplicated.

They just sounded right.

I’m not leaving because it’s convenient. Quite the contrary. Leaving ADF means, by extension, stopping my work for the Solitary Druid Fellowship.

That kind of terrifies me.

I have built this thing, virtually all by myself, and I don’t know what will happen to it. I don’t plan to take it away from ADF and have it be my own Druidic group. ADF leadership always feared I’d do something like that, and I assured them I wouldn’t. But more than that, I don’t really feel called to keep doing the work.

I’m in the middle of a 7-day series called “Shared Gnosis” that was supposed to wrap up with the release of a new liturgy. The High Day — Summer Solstice, the Feast of Labor — is in less than a week. But this series was a desperate attempt to re-inspire myself into doing this work at all. For the better part of the past month or two I’ve felt almost completely disconnected from the work of the Fellowship. I’ve been trying to encourage others to dive into a liturgical practice when I, myself, have begun to question the relevance of liturgy. I’ve been talking about hearth cultures and High Days, and I have felt almost no connection whatsoever to any of those things.

I’ve been doing ADF drag.

Leaving isn’t convenient, and it isn’t pretty. This doesn’t make me look good. In fact, this looks very much like a repeat of what is becoming a trope of Pagan culture:

• Person finds Paganism.

• Person finds tradition.

• Person is inspired by tradition, and moves into leadership position.

• Person has a crisis of — what? – faith? (I thought we didn’t have faith.)

• Person leaves tradition.

• Everybody rolls eyes and says they saw this coming.

• Repeat.

I’ve been around for only a few years, and I’ve already seen the cycle more than once.

And now here I am.

Leaving.

Shutting down the thing that I created.

Starting the cycle all over again.

…

The thing is, this is my life. This is me, right here, trying to be human.

And I think my biggest challenge in being a part of ADF was that I didn’t feel like there was anyone really speaking to the challenges of being human. In a devotional religion, the emphasis is placed over there, not in here. The things that cut deeply for me, that are real and sometimes really difficult for me — things like compassion, despair, forgiveness, hope, kindness, patience, honesty — I don’t feel like we spend any time talking about these things. I think we experience these things, but they always feel secondary to “right relationship.”

Frankly, I don’t care about right relationship. Or right action, for that matter.

I think those concepts are distraction from the messy, mucky, complicated, beautiful acts of being human that have nothing to do with how virtuous or pious we are.

I didn’t think I could earn my way into Heaven when I was a Christian, and I don’t think I can, through my own actions, earn my way into good standing with the Gods.

It’s the same thing to me. It’s a repeat, and it just feels wrong.

I can try to do well and I often fall short, but — amazingly enough — when that happens I experience a deep, profound, spiritual understanding that, in spite of what any ancient person said…

I am not at the center of the cosmos.

I cannot will things into happening exactly as I would like. My life, at times, feels really broken, and I don’t know how to proceed, and I need to own up to that.

But all of these things, these inner conflicts that I will mostly likely continue to process through here on this blog, are extremely personal and contextual to my own life. I can believe that ADF needs to place a greater emphasis on matters of the heart, matters of the psyche, the soul, with the same level of rigor and intensity that they’ve been looking at academic texts about Celts and Norseman for twenty years, but that’s not what the organization is all about. I can think, “who cares what the ancients did?!” every time it comes up in an ADF e-mail list or Facebook group, but the truth of the matter is that some people do. Very much. That’s very, very important to them.

And I respect that. I don’t want to try and dismantle that, simply because it doesn’t hold much (or any) importance to me.

So I’m choosing to step aside.

I don’t know what’s going to happen with the Fellowship. There are a number of people who have contributed to the life of this project, including some ADF members on the path to the clergy, and I’d gladly let them take the helm in they feel inspired to do so. If this project — this idea of uniting solitaries of a variety of traditions around a liturgical practice — is something that has a place in the world apart from me, then it will continue to live on.

If not, then it has done its work.

But…

I have different work to do.

Bishop In The Grove on Temporary Hiatus

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Juggler

Juggler

Bishop In The Grove needs to go on a temporary hiatus.

These are the words that popped into my head yesterday. As soon as I heard them, I knew they were true.

Blame it on the New Moon.

I’ve had the feeling for a little while that something needed to give. I’m a decent juggler (3 oranges, no more), but the message was clear:

DO LESS.

My schedule has been quite full lately. Between my contributions to The Wild Hunt, my seasonal entries to HuffPost, my work for the Solitary Druid Fellowship, and the small pile of books that have come my way via Witches and Pagans to review (not to mention Thorn’s book that we’re tweeting about on a daily basis), I’ve been stretched pretty thin.

Then yesterday hits. I take a meeting, and during the meeting I realize that a dream project is staring me straight in the face. A quiet voice inside says,

This opportunity is yours, if you’re willing to do the work.

And I’m willing. I knew that instantly. I want to do this. I’m uniquely qualified for the work, and excited at the challenge.

So, the blog needs a break because I need to be less divided.

The Morrigan’s presence in my life continues to reveal itself.

(What will you fight for? When will you take up your sword? When will you lay it down?) 

I’m not giving up everything, though. That doesn’t feel right to do.

Here’s what I’m imagining:

  • I give myself as long a break as I need from writing on BITG. During this time, when I feel the impulse to write about my thoughts on practice, Paganism, or anything that might fit naturally in the archive, I’ll write about it in a document entitled, “Book.”
  • I keep writing liturgies and devotionals for the Solitary Druid Fellowship. The next will be up in a week or so. Doing service work is soul food, really.
  • I continue as a contributor to The Wild Hunt and HuffPost.
  • I read books when they move me, and not accept any more for review. It’s so hard to turn down a book, but I need to get better at it.
  • I love on my family, celebrate my soon-to-be 18 year old kid, and spend time doing things that make us feel strong and happy.
  • I make music happen.

As plans go, I think this is a good one.

While I’m away, make sure you’re following the Bishop In The Grove feed. If you choose to get your posts by email, you’ll receive my next post directly in your inbox. I highly recommend doing that.

And please know how much I appreciate you. This community of readers has helped me gain clarity in so many ways. I look forward to more conversations with you.

See you real soon.

Teo

P.S. You can also follow me on Facebook, Twitter or Google+. Sometimes I post pictures of me in kilts. You won’t want to miss that.

 

Photo by Markus Lütkemeyer

The Stuff of Posts, The Stuff of Songs.

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writing

writing

I keep three blogs now.

Three.

This means that I’m either always writing or always thinking about writing. My life becomes the stuff of posts, sometimes the stuff of songs. The medium, with its requirements of regularity and consistency, force me to see stories in my life and lay those stories down in text.

When I started this blog, it was my experiences with Druidry that were the meat of my writing. Discovering Druidry was the focus, and unpacking the questions provided countless opportunities to write. What does it mean? How is it relevant? Why? Why?

If I didn’t have anything to write, I probably wasn’t investing enough in my own spiritual work. That’s how I saw it. Writer’s block? Do ritual, read something, dig deeper.

But now with these three blogs — BITG, the Solitary Druid Fellowship blog, and the newest, #allofthesongs — my writing is broken into very different themes.

The SDF blog is an extension of service. I write there, or I organize the writing of others, in order to provide solitaries the opportunity to reflect on the meaning of solitude in their lives. A deeper engagement with solitude is a primary goal of the Fellowship, and this blog encourages that with each new post.

#allofthesongs is my foray back into music. It is the blog I created to give me a place to write about music — my music — and to process what it means to be a songwriter and performer. Many of the readers of this new blog come with the hopes of hearing about famous people, but the fans who’ve been following my career for the longest seem to appreciate the candidness with which I write about my creative process. Transparency is rare in the entertainment world.

But this blog, my First and Foremost, has alluded me lately. This was the place I created to ask questions about my spiritual path, and I’m not sure how to ask those questions right now. My journey into leadership with SDF and the Solitary SIG (a sub-group of ADF for solitaries) has made the asking of questions seem less timely or appropriate. Inquiry for inquiry’s sake might seem confusing to those who are looking to me for direction.

At least, that’s how it feels at times.

Inquiry is so important, though. Asking ourselves why we’re doing the things we’re doing opens up the possibility for new awareness. Our growth is dependent upon our occasional disassembling of our preconceptions and our assumptions. We have to keep asking questions or things get stale. The soil gets hard. Nothing can penetrate it.

Perhaps this is a natural thing to be thinking as we inch closer to the spring. There are eight High Days in my tradition, but sometimes I think it would be better if we recognized the seasons between them instead. These are the days we’re living. These are the days that require context. This season of Imbolc could be filled with inquiries into what it means to me making our way to a place of planting. This time could become a time of closer inspection of what is in our pantry (the one inside) to see what remains after the winter. We could use this time to reevaluate where we are, and to make plans about where we’d like to be when the sun returns.

I think I’d like to bring some synchronicity to these three blogs I keep. The post I wrote on #allofthesongs today is one that could have easily been on this blog, and this a post could have — with a little more focus on practice and solitude — been on SolitaryDruid.org. Maybe that’s the key to managing all of this creative work; to see how the various parts of myself are not actually so separate, and to allow them to become more integrated.

Perhaps this is a season of bringing things together.

Keeping Vigil to the Fire, Again

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Photo by Professor Bob (CC)
Photo by Professor Bob (CC)

Photo by Professor Bob (CC)

In a week I will publish the next Solitary Druid Fellowship liturgy. This morning, I spent some time going over the previous one, seeing where small adjustments might be made and looking for places where supplemental material would be useful.

It’s been interesting to take on this position, which is a little like leadership, but not in a traditional sense. I do not lead a group of people in a regimented, orderly way, but rather I seek to provide them with what they need in order to lead themselves. To me, this is more a position of service and empowerment rather than leadership.

Still, I receive e-mails now asking for guidance and aid, which is new for me. I try to respond with kindness, with compassion, and with objectivity. I’m not a trained counselor, nor am I clergy, and yet people come to me. So I do my best to be honest with them, and to be encouraging.

In the midst of all this, I’ve found myself a little disconnected from my own practice. I suppose this is common for people to take on any kind of leadership role, but it isn’t something I anticipated. It used to be that I performed a full rite each morning, complete with offerings and omens. But then I wrote the morning devotional for SDF and began to do that as an act of solidarity with the Fellowship. The devotional is short and simple, and while effective for what it is, I still feel myself wanting more.

One thought would be to write a lengthier devotional. This is a liturgy I’ve promised to the Fellowship, and it’s on my list of things to write (which keeps getting longer and longer). But in a way, I’d like to find something of my own to do, something that is unique to me.

Last Imbolc, I posted a poem on the blog which went like this:

Vigil

I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.

I keep vigil
down the sidewalk,
through the door,
between the empty lines
of chit-chat talk on
threaded screens,
in middle days
of winter nights,
where no one sees
except the Bride
for whom the flame is lit.

I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.

The poem came to me in a flash, and when I shared it I encouraged my readership to contribute their own verses. I asked that people keep the first three lines and the last three lines, but do whatever they wanted to in the middle.

The result was a stream of interesting, thoughtful, inspiring poems. The writing and sharing of the poems was a kind of crowdsourced offering to Brighid, and the act of doing something like this with others really moved me.

Hmm….

Perhaps I already have what I’m looking for. Perhaps I need to take a step back and see that the service work the Fellowship provides to me is very much like this collective creativity. It may begin with something I create, something that I offer up without concern for compensation or recognition, and the result is a complex, diverse, beautiful display of creative expression from an ocean of unknown people.

Maybe it isn’t so much about needing to create something that is unique to me as it is needing to create something that keeps that internal fire lit; something that is deliberate, and relevant, and fresh. Perhaps these words will be my own, or they might come from someone else. But either way it seems important as I approach this High Day — not as the organizer of a fellowship, but as a solitary Druid — that I set aside time to find what lights that fire in me.

This is what I think we are all called to do.

Maybe I’ll open up a Google Doc on SolitaryDruid.org, and invite the Fellowship to rehash this poetry exercise in anticipation of the coming High Day. It can be a way for us to collectively prepare creative offerings for our individual observances. The results can be a slew of original poems that each of us offer up to one another for use during our solitary observances.

Doesn’t that sound cool?

Would you join in?

[UPDATE: The post is now live on SolitaryDruid.org!]

Top of the Week at BITG

On By
Star Foster

Top of the week to you!

BW Teo Bishop square

This week is starting off with a whole bunch of Internet happenings.

First, it seems that my RSS Email subscribers haven’t been receiving my blog posts since mid-December. Sorry everyone.

Here’s what you missed:

Star says goodbye to “Pagan”

Star Foster

Star Foster

Star Foster is no longer identifying as Pagan.

For some, this news may hold little relevance. People identify as they choose, right? But Star has held a rather prominent position in the Pagan media, and she’s done a lot to champion the voices of many Pagan writers (including myself). She’s done much to initiate conversation (sometimes heated) within the Pagan community, and she’s continuing that tradition with this announcement.

I posted a link to Star’s coming out on Facebook, and now there is a HUGE discussion going on around the post. I encourage you to pop over and read through the comments and respond there. I would summarize them here, but as of writing this post there are nearly 100 comments. It’s tremendous.

The timing of Star’s announcement, and the subsequent dialogue popping up on my FB post, is rather interesting. Heather Greene has posted the first in a two-part series on The Wild Hunt about “Pagan solidarity,” asking whether or not Pagans can support one another as a community, and if it is important to be a united body. In her second post she’ll be unpacking whether or not this kind of unity leads to religious institutionalism.

I wonder if the idea of “Pagan solidarity” is even approachable if the identity of “Pagan” is becoming less tenable. I may blog about this in the coming days on The Wild Hunt, but first I’d like to see how this conversation continues to evolve.

The Solitary Druid Fellowship, and Devotionals

SDF Square LogoLastly, the work at the Solitary Druid Fellowship is going splendidly. The first High Day ritual was a great success, with about 450 people receiving the first SDF liturgy, and many joining in a dialogue about their experiences.

You can read about people’s experiences with the liturgy, and see the group interpretations of the SDF omen in our crowd-sourced Google doc.

There is also a new service provided by SDF – daily devotionals. The first morning devotional was published over the weekend, and more are coming soon. One solitary participant in SDF has already used the devotional and written about it on her blog.

I’m happy to see that people are using this shared liturgical practice to enrich their personal religious lives!

That’s all for today. Happy reading, everyone!

The Road Ahead: Being Matt Morris Again

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Matt Morris in Austin

As many of you know, I have two names. There is the name you know me by, Teo Bishop; a name which I chose for myself several years back, and one that I took as my legal name last year. There is also the name which I’ve performed under for most of my life, Matt Morris.

I wrote the following post on my Matt Morris fan page a few days before New Year’s:

Matt Morris in Austin

This year, I got to write with Sarah McLachlan, Greyson Chance, Michael Franti, Joe King, & a whole host of amazing producers. Mary J. Blige cut one of my songs, and so did Cher.

All in all, I’d say that makes for a pretty good year of songwriting.

But being in [Ryan] Tedder’s studio did something to me. There was a moment today when I could see myself writing and recording for *me* again. It was the first time that’s happened in while.

I’m not one for New Year’s resolutions in any strict sense. But I do think that music – my music – may end up playing a more central role in my life in 2013.

This was a revelation. I’m going to do music in 2013, I realized.

Honestly, just writing these words makes my stomach knot up a bit.

Making music was all I did for the longest time. All of my 20′s were devoted to it. Only in the past few years have I allowed myself to explore another creative avenue, blogging, and that has led to wonderful growth and exploration in my personal life.

For one, I managed to get the Solitary Druid Fellowship up and running, and that project is moving forward wonderfully. I’m writing liturgies, crafting prayers and devotionals (which will be up on the site very soon), and I’m living out the kind of ministry that I wrote about so long ago:

Fire, in my imagination, resides primarily in the heart.

Ministry, as I understand it, is the act of nurturing that fire, both in yourself and in others. One who ministers is one who keeps the fire burning, or who teaches others the skills needed for this internal fire tending.

This blog has also been a commitment to my spiritual growth. Bishop In The Grove started out in 2010 as the blog of a student, and it continues to be that on a much bigger scale. Now my religious tradition, my life experience, and my readership are my teachers.

These spiritual projects mean so much to me, and I see them continuing to grow and evolve throughout 2013.

But music? How will making music – my music – fit into that picture? Should it be a “spiritual project” as well?

I’m not totally sure how to answer that question.

The Path, by Cornelia Kopp

The Path, by Cornelia Kopp

Someone suggested I make “Pagan music.” I tried that last year, and I’m not sure it’s the right way for me to go. I never felt right about making “Christian music” when I was a Christian, after all. I think it’s because I think of music, when it’s done well, as a vehicle for uniting people. It’s bigger than any one tradition, any one religion. And (pointing to my own proclivity for Universalism), I respond to music that approches something true about the human condition.

The music I make, or perhaps the music I’d like to make, is music that can be listened to by people of many different backgrounds. I’d like to write – to sing – beyond the boundaries of my current identity, my chosen tradition. I’d like to be bigger than I think I’m capable, and by doing so expand the reach of the sound into new, unexpected corners of the world.

(I haven’t thought these kinds of thoughts in a long time.)

I’m also thinking that I’d like to have my music be simpler than it’s been in the past. I’d like to make it accessible, and beautiful. I’d like it to be singable, and memorable. I’d like to write songs that I enjoy singing, that are comfortable and also challenging.

And, I should probably find a way to incorporate this music making into my daily practice. (Hmm… *twirls mustache*)

I’ve learned a lot about my readership over the past few years, but we haven’t talked much about music. Perhaps that should change.

As I look at being Matt Morris again, I wonder:

What does music mean to you? How is it a part of your life? Are you a connoisseur, or an occasional listener? Do you create music yourself, or have you always wanted to?

Is music a part of your spiritual practice? If so, how?

Tell me –

How do you do music?

How Does Divination Work?

On By
Lightbulb Idea

I pulled three ogham out of the leather pouch and laid them, one by one, onto the surface of my shrine. This divination would be the omen for all of the Solitary Druid Fellowship, a broad swatch of Pagandom that joined one another in a shared practice for the first time on the Winter Solstice. These three ogham would be the message for the whole lot.

Winter Solstice Omen

The ogham is a system of divination that still challenges me. I continue to rely on ogham experts to tell me what these little piece of wood mean. I don’t know them all by heart, either.

I’ll wait until the ritual is done to see what they mean, I thought. This felt like the right choice at the time, and I continued on with my personal observance of the High Day.

When the ritual was done, I sat at my desk. I opened my copy of The Solitary Druid to the page with the ogham chart. I got out the journal I use for my divination practice, and turned to a blank page.

There were three pre-written questions used in the SDF liturgy, and I copied them into the journal:

  1. How were my offerings received?
  2. How shall the Kindred respond?
  3. What more would you have me learn?

I found the ogham meanings on the chart, and copied them down as well.

  1. Fern (Alder):   Guidance
  2. Straif (Blackthorn): Trouble and Negativity    
  3. Ur (Heather): Healing & Homelands

 Oh, no.

Trouble and negativity? Really? Trouble and negativity?

I stood up from my desk. I looked at my shrine and the still-burning candles.

Perhaps I should do the ritual again, make more offerings, see if there’s a different omen.

But no, that wouldn’t make sense. The omen is for all of the group. What would one person’s extra offerings do to change the omen. And anyway, do I really believe that a few extra oats can change the minds of the gods? For that matter, do I believe their minds work like that? Do I think that the Kindred are that offering-hungry, or offering-dependent, or offering-influenced? Is that really how it works?

And why am I being so one-dimensional about “trouble and negativity?!”

All of these thoughts are racing in my head as I pace in front of my altar.

Then it hits me.

Photo by Danny Akright

This isn’t my omen to read.

These ogham were drawn for the entire group, and it’s up to the group to interpret it.

So yesterday, after all of the Fellowship had a change to observe the Solstice and share about their experiences on the SDF blog, I put up a new post. Imbedded within it was a Google Doc, and the solitaries of the Fellowship were all invited to help crowdsource the SDF omen.

The results have been pretty amazing. People who have no real connection to the ogham, or who don’t even see themselves as being skilled with divination, are offering their interpretations. And thanks to the cool tech that Google provides, some of this collaboration has been happening between multiple contributors in real time.

It’s super cool.

All of this has got me thinking about divination, though. When I read the tarot, a practice that is much more comfortable to me, I rarely (if ever) look at anyone else’s concordance of card meanings. I go with my gut, trusting my knowledge of the traditional meanings while holding that up against my impressions. It feels like a very natural, very organic way of reading.

I’m also not normally reading the cards as “the message of the Kinded,” or something like that. It’s my impression, my intuitive take. Sometimes the reading feels inspired, and the messages that come feel as thought they are not completely my own. But I never think of myself as a mouthpiece for the gods.

That would be kind of Pope-ish, wouldn’t it?

And yet, I approached the draw of the ogham with this sense of obligation to communicate the message of the Kindred to the Fellowship. That implies that there is one message, or that there is one correct answer, and I don’t believe that.

I wonder…

What if the questions we ask during a divinatory practice are simply designed to point our focus toward the divine, but the answers we receive have nothing to do with the questions? If we work from the idea that the Kindred, the divine in its multiplicity, are communicating with us, isn’t it possible – likely, even – that the messages we receive are designed to re-direct our focus away from the questions, away even from our preconceptions of the divine, toward….what? Ourselves? Each other? The world? Some holy task of being human?

What do you think divination really does? How would you describe its function and purpose? Is it a part of your practice? And if so, what do you think is going on during your divination? If it isn’t a part of your practice, why not?

Tell me –

How does divination work?

Yule on HuffPost and the Question of Decentralization

On By
Reflections, by Camil Tulcan
Reflections, by Camil Tulcan

Reflections, by Camil Tulcan

What a week this has been.

The SDF liturgy is live, and the response has been tremendous. I don’t have any way of knowing what the perspective is from every person participating, and I kind of prefer that for the moment. It may seem that I’m coordinating some massively social endeavor, but there is still a need to preserve and make space for the solitude in my own personal practice, as well as in the practices of the SDF participants. The not knowing how everyone else thinks requires us to focus on our own experiences for the time being. I like that.

In addition to the SDF liturgy launch, I’ve done a ton of writing. The Wild Hunt piece went up on Tuesday, and today I published a piece about Yule at HuffPost Religion titled, “Yule: Be The Light Of The Returning Sun“.

I hope that the Yule piece inspires some discussion and dialogue. As I write in the post, I’ve really had a challenging time preparing for the High Day, even with all of the work I’m doing for SDF. I hope that the messages offered in the post, as well as in the forthcoming discussion, lead to some deeper understanding.

And, as if this flurry of writing weren’t enough to keep me busy, I’m going to be serving as the Bard in the Yule ritual for a local ADF Grove, Silver Branch Golden Horn. My friend, William Ashton, who is the Grove Organizer for the upcoming Mountain Ancestors Protogrove (more details to come), has been asked to lead this Norse observance of the Solstice, and William asked me to sing. It’s been an interesting experience to hold the space between a very solitary-centered work and a group ritual. The two have been living beside one another, and I can’t tell if they are discordant or not.

There’s also been a good bit of talk on Twitter and Facebook about how the Solitary Druid Fellowship is somewhat peculiar because its website is missing the hallmarks of Internet interactivity (i.e. the forum, the open comment thread, etc.). I’ve heard people’s thoughts, and tried to hold them up against my original intention behind this choice: I believe that there should be moments in a congregation – even a congregation that exists in the form of an unseen bond created through shared practice – when we should be silent; when we should withhold our opinions, and even our questions, or at least allow for them to live in our minds for a while before airing them to the world.

I believe this is valuable, because my experience has shown me that allowing ideas to gestate in solitude can lead to unexpected revelation.

True, online forums can invite a great deal of dialogue, and this dialogue can inspire to new ways of thinking as well. But my intention has always been for the Solitary Druid Fellowship to use the time we commit to dialogue and discussion for a very focussed and clear purpose.

At first, this purpose will be for those who use the liturgy in their practice to come to the SDF blog and share what that experience was like for them. This, I hope, will be a space where people feel safe to express what worked and what didn’t, and to try and unpack why. In time, there be more moments where it makes clear sense to open up spaces for dialogue, and I’d like to do that deliberately and with intention.

(For those who want more consistent conversation with solitaries, there is the ADF Solitaries SIG (Special Interest Group). It’s open to ADF members, and I’ve recently been nominated to be the SIG Coordinator. I’d like to see some synergy between the SIG and the Fellowship, while at the same time allowing certain spaces to remain silent, still, and free of active discussion.)

Perhaps it won’t be long before my not knowing takes a turn. I’ll start to know more about who the SDF is, what they appreciate, what they long for. I know I can’t please everyone, but I am certainly open to understanding the minds and hearts of the solitaries who wish to open up on the SDF blog.

What do you think?

Have you found that the decentralization of the SDF communication (i.e. the talk that takes place on Twitter and Facebook) to be a good way of keeping the SDF site as a clean resource (which is a term I’m just trying out)? Bishop In The Grove has clearly been a place where dialogue has thrived, but do you see there being a valuable reason to keep some spaces comment-free?

If those questions don’t get your brain churching, why don’t you pop over to my HuffPost piece and see if there are ideas there that resonate with you.

And, from my heart, may you have a blessed Solstice and a Happy Yule!