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A Blessed Imbolc, and a New Book Club!

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Blessed Imbolc to all!

In case you missed it, I published an Imbolc post on HuffPost Religion called A Faith Made of Fire. Check it out, and feel free to leave a comment there if you feel so inspired.

After a wonderful round of comments on my last post, I’m happy to announce that we’re moving forward with the Bishop In The Grove Book Club!

 

BITG Book Club Big

As you can see in the image above, we will take February to acquire the book and read it. Then, we will start our discussion on March 1st!

Click on that image, and you’ll be taken to an Amazon.com page where you can purchase this book. Buy it through this link, and you’ll send a few pennies my way.

Thanks to all who expressed interest in doing this. I’m excited to read what people think of the book, and I may even be able to get Chris involved in a Twitter chat. I’m thinking I’ll use #TeosBookClub as a hashtag. Seems memorable, no? I mean, if Oprah can have a book club, certainly this Druid can.

To share this photo on Facebook, visit the Bishop In The Grove Facebook page. Like the page, find the post with image, and then click “Share.”

Happy reading everybody, and a blessed February Cross Quarter to you. May you be inspired to ignite the fire within, and may that fire illuminate the world around you!

Keeping Vigil to the Fire, Again

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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!]

A Daily Practice Matters

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This morning we slept in until 7:30. That may not seem incredibly early to some (it isn’t all that early for my husband and I), but it’s a vacation compared to the day of surgery and the first day of recovery.

We woke to discover that my kid was experiencing some sharp pain, a common experience after top surgery. My husband and my kid’s mom stepped into action, assessing where the pain was and how it rated on a scale from 1 to 10. They administered a bit more pain medication, and then called the hospital to speak with a nurse.

Meanwhile, I started to feel myself getting tense.

I came into the living room of our extended-stay hotel room, where my husband and I sleep (pullout beds are an assault to one’s back, so we’ve resorted to pulling the 4 inch mattress onto the floor). I sat on the couch and thought of my shrine. I miss my home, more so even than on normal business trips. I miss the accessories of my daily practice, the smell of my incense, and the sanctity of my space.

I clutched the small pouch I wear around my neck. Inside is a piece of wood which was collected at the place where Isaac Bonewits’s ashes were spread, a gift to me from a big-hearted ADF Druid. On the outside is Brighid’s cross.

I held this little pouch and thought about my patron and about Isaac, and I prayed. I prayed that my kid would be spared the pain, that the Goddess would be near, and that She would provide a sense of peace. I didn’t have much time to pray, or to do any sort of elaborate ritual, but neither were necessary.

You can open the heart with just a few simple words.

Why a daily practice matters

It becomes clear in moments of great stress why a consistent daily practice is so important.

When I’m home, I do ritual every morning. My ritual, as I’ve written about before, is built around an ADF liturgy. There are short forms of this liturgy and very long forms. But the length or structure of one’s personal liturgy isn’t as important (in my opinion) as is the ease with which that the liturgy can become internalized.

My daily practice has carved a groove deep into my consciousness. It has created an awareness of the presence of the Kindred — the Divine as I recognize Them — that I can call upon in a moment’s notice. I may not engage in the same sort of ritual working, but I can connect with Them nonetheless.

And that is why a daily practice matters.

Allowing my practice to be rooted in liturgical language is useful to me because it provides me with phrases that can be memorized and called upon when needed. My liturgical phrases are cues for the heart to soften, for the mind to quicken, or for the body to release whatever tension it’s been holding.

For example, when I light Brighid’s candle at home I say or speak internally these words:

“From land to land, from hand to hand, from flame to flame.”

This reminds me that the fire in my little Zippo lighter was given to be from a Druid who visited Kildare, and who brought back with her the flame of the Goddess. Using those words gives me a sense of connection to both my tradition and to a sacred place.

When I extinguish the flame I say,

“The fire of Brighid is the flame in my heart.”

This reminds me that, although the external fire may go out, the internal fire remains.

By speaking these words daily, I’m able to create a deep, meaningful practice. Then, when I’m sitting in some drab room in a corporate hotel, I can recall those words, say them under my breath or in my mind, and remember that feeling of reverence and sanctity.

It helps.

The Fire Burns On

After a few phone calls, we learned that the pain is normal, and that there’s nothing to worry about. The morning went on as planned, with the kid reclining in bed and the rest of us trying to keep on top of our other responsibilities.

But there was a fire burning in my heart again. All it took was a few words to remind me of that.

Do you have simple phrases that connect you to a regular practice? Is your tradition liturgical, or do you incorporate some kind of steady ritual language or form into your daily practice?

What words come to you in moments of worry?

[After you’ve posted your comment, be sure to check out the new feature on Bishop In The Grove — Letters!]

My Friend Got Stuck in the Winter

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We’re searching for new beginnings, my friend and I.

Yesterday, we took to driving along open roads, through fields turned yellow from the heat, with music playing loud enough to drown out all else, and we let the sound paint a picture of how much we’d changed.

A year ago, my friend and I let go of summer.

For me, the transition to autumn was swift and certain, and I gave myself no time to mourn the loss of light. For him, it was different. The slow draining of color from the maple leaves allowed for a deep, lasting sorrow to set in. And when the winter came, it stayed. There was little in the way of spring blossoms, and the summer heat has only felt oppressive.

The cold persists in defiance of the sun.

I’ve encouraged my friend, as I find I’m doing with many people these days, to try and root himself in a daily practice. When we get stuck in a season, and we feel unable to be fully present, I advocate that we make some new ritual to place us firmly in the season of the moment. It needn’t be complicated, only sincere.

For me, my personal practice is influenced by a variety of sources, some of which are quite complicated. I was born and bred an Episcopalian, and as such, my individual religiosity tends to be more structured and formal. I favor liturgy over improvisation (that is, unless I’m singing), and my daily rituals, when spoken aloud, are delivered in a tone that would be familiar to many an Anglican. But it doesn’t have to be that way for my friend, or for anyone who is searching for a method to feel present and connected again.

If I were to proselytize anything, it would be for everyone to develop their own personal religion; to make their heart into a hearth for lighting their own, distinct, sacred fire. How this is done is not of great importance to me, so long as it is done with intention, and done regularly enough to create a deep and lasting groove in your consciousness.

Ice on Fire, by Eugenijus Radlinskas

For me, I need to turn my little room into a sanctuary. I need to light my incense, prepare my offerings, speak with reverence and clarity to the gods in my heart, to all that is seen and unseen. I need the drama, because that’s a part of who I am.

For you, it could be as simple as standing in the morning sun, eyes open or eyes closed, and placing your awareness on your center, or your edges, or the feeling of the dirt, the tile, the carpet underneath your feet.

Whatever method feels right for you, the important thing is that the fire in your heart remain lit, and that you honor that fire regularly. As I wrote on Imbolc earlier this year, I keep vigil to the fire in my heart, for the fire is a birthright, an inheritance, and the fire will keep me warm as the summer turns to fall, and the fall to winter. The fire will sustain me through the cold, and prepare me once again for the return of the sun. I light this fire, and I experience a new beginning.

This is what I want for my friend, and this is what I want for you, as well.

So I ask you, my insightful readers:

If you were me, and you found yourself in dialogue with a friend or family member who felt disconnected from the fire in their heart — their feeling of passion, their sense of purpose, and their connection to divinity – how would you advise them to get reconnected? What words or rituals might you share in order to help someone discover that fire again? Is there is a part of your personal practice that would be helpful?

How would you help get someone unstuck from their perpetual winter?

Where is the Source of Your Inspiration?

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This morning I woke, picked up the pen and paper on the hotel nightstand, and wrote down these words:

What is it to write from sleeping?

To write without ceasing. To hold back the need to edit, the impulse to correct. The penmanship is awful, but that does not matter. The only impulse is to write. The chance to create from a place of great stillness; the greatest stillness next to eternal sleep.

Write because there is a fire of great color burning in your heart. The heat is your cousin, your lover, your friend. The heat is a birthright, but the heat is disloyal. It vanishes if ignored. It will return, but you must coax it with kindness, and ritual, and sex. You must invite the fire back by making love to the essence of pleasure, pain, fear, and ecstasy.

Call back the fire like a lost child. Scream into the subdivision for your baby. She will come running to you. She will blaze through your manicured lawn and be a beacon of transformation.

Set fire to your heart!

I like the intangible. I try to hold onto it. I like the formless, and I too often try to pin it down. I ask a lot of questions. I always have. I asked about our concept of compassion, and it led to a follow-up piece by fellow Patheos writer, Steven T Abell. I asked questions about the point of our religions, and it led to some of the most amazing comments yet on Bishop in the Grove. These questions I ask of religion and spirituality are useful. Or they can be, at least. The first thought I put to paper this morning was a question: What is it to write from sleeping? I ask questions in order that I might begin to approach an answer. I don’t know the answers, but I can move toward them. This is how my mind works.

I admit that I have experienced the feeling of being sidetracked by my own inquiry. Questions can also be a tool for distraction. They can take the focus away from the doing of my something. In point of fact, after sitting down at my computer today and writing whatever flowed out of my mind for a solid five minutes, I began to deconstruct all of it and try to make it make sense. No longer was I writing; I was thinking about writing. There’s a tremendous difference between those two things…. just ask a Creative Writing major.

I see a parallel here with my practice of religion. I often take myself out of the routine of my spiritual work, whatever that may look like at the time, and start to think about it. Reflection is useful, yes, but dissection can be quite violent. I may pick apart what I’m doing to the point where I’m no longer sure of what’s in front of me. My spirituality looks like a series of disparate paragraphs on the screen, with no cohesion, no order, and certainly no “flow.”

But then there are moments when I exhale, release this obsessive need for understanding, and experience the memory of a time when I did not care much about religion, its purpose, or its relevance. I did not seek out the divisions between us so that I might examine them, or deconstruct them. In that memory-me, I was an imaginative person; a man who was a child who was playful, and who sang melodies that had never been written. I remember the feeling — the location — of that inspiration, and then, all of a sudden, I step into a creative space. My mind is freed up from the inquiry, and something begins to flow through me again.

I like to think of inspiration occurring in a particular “place,” physically and bodily. I try to locate it, or to remember where I’d felt it last, if I feel uninspired. I try to remember where it was inside of me that an idea first showed itself. Was it behind my eyes? In my stomach? Or, did I hold it in my hand? Certainly, our inspirations can come from the physical world. Nature is a generous patron, and we are provided with all that we need to be inspired if we open our eyes wide enough. But, I’m talking about something else. I’m talking about charting a map of your insides, and looking for treasure. I’m talking about inspiration that originates somewhere inside of you, and that even feels like it may have originated from somewhere else altogether.

Have you felt that kind of inspiration?

I ask you – where is the source of your inspiration? Where do you find it? Have you every closed your eyes and been flooded by the imagines of the divine, the sacred, the profane, or the magical? Have you seen, in the stillness of your own being, a clear vision, and then brought that vision into the world?

If you are inclined to answer that you are “not a creative person,” I say hogwash. You are. We all are. We create in every moment of our lives. Put any dismissive thought aside for a moment, cock your head, and listen to the question again, sideways.

Where is the source of your inspiration?

 

The Action of Worship

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My religion is experienced in the doing.

This became clear to me as I entered the sacred space of our ADF ritual at Pantheacon, lifted my voice to invoke the spirit of Inspiration, and, for a moment, left my mind behind.

When I stepped in front of the altar and began to sing, I was performing a religious and magickal act. It was spontaneous and improvisational, and it originated from within my heart. It was the purest offering I could make.

In that moment, I was not thinking about what it meant to be a Druid. I was not weighing the strengths and weaknesses of the various Druid traditions, or squabbling over the definition of a word or title. No – I was invoking. I was calling down, stirring up, igniting the fire of inspiration in my own heart and in the hearts of all those present.

There was nothing intellectual about it.

“Worship requires action – it is not an intellectual task.”

These words came from Jean “Drum” Pagano, a man I met during my weekend in San Jose. Drum has been involved with ADF since the earliest days, and he serves in various leadership positions within the organization. Drum’s voice, in the few conversations we had in person and through his written word, resonates deeply with me.

Have you ever met someone and felt instantly as though you understood something about them, as though something inside them was very similar to something inside you?

That’s how it felt when I met Drum.

Drum says that worship requires action, and I heard that very message echoed by other Pagan leaders during the conference. So much of what we do in our day-to-day lives is mind work. We blog about our ideas, we argue about our differences, we share memes on Facebook ad nauseam (which, in my opinion, is very low mind work), and we allow this to consume great portions of our day.

What happens, then, when we spend our lives in our mind, on our screens, and even in the pages of our books, but we do not practice the action of worship?

It is no surprise that during November and December of last year, a time when I felt most conflicted about my religious path, that my altar was a wasteland; vacant, and unused. I did not approach it because I was uncertain if I believed in the words that I was saying each morning. I thought about it, and thought about it, and when I couldn’t decide how to think about it, I did nothing.

(If you were reading my blog during that time, you might remember a change in my tone. If you weren’t, you’ll find evidence of the change in the Archives.)

The result of my lack of doing was a period of spiritual stasis. In the absence of regular worship I became a bit more cynical, a little jaded even, and there was no sign of the fire in my heart which I speak of so often. I sing from this fire. I write from this fire. I make love from this fire. Worship keeps the fire burning, even as worship is an extension of this fire.

But then, after I became tired of the cold, dim reality of a life without reverence, I began my daily practice again. When I did, something changed.

I lit a candle, prepared a chalice of water, and laid out a wand made of wood. I gave thanks to the Mother. I called upon the God who had aided me before in the creation of sacred space, and was happy to discover that I could feel His presence again. I made offerings to the Gods and Goddesses, known and unknown, to the Ancestors, and to the Spirits of the Land. I lit a fire for Brighid, and gave thanks to Her. I did all of these things, stumbling from time to time, but reverent as I could muster, and my consciousness began to shift back toward the fire.

Worship requires action. You cannot think yourself into a state of transpersonal awareness. You must do something.

I wonder (more of an imaginative act than an intellection one) if you’ve experienced something similar. Have you been through periods when you thought more than you felt? And, if so, did that throw you off? Perhaps you have a different relationship to the intellect altogether. Perhaps it is a starting point for your experience of worship.

I always love to know what my readers think, but this time I’m going ask:

What do you do?

I Keep Vigil to the Fire: Imbolc Poetry for a Goddess

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Today, pious Pagans around the globe are posting poetry online in honor of the Goddess, Brighid (otherwise known as Brigid, Brigit, or simply, “exalted one”).

I join them here on Bishop In The Grove.

Imbolc, as I wrote about yesterday, may have milky origins, but the day and the season speak to something much deeper than a single agricultural marker can convey. On Imbolc, we recognize the primal fire within us, and when we speak from that place with a clear, honest voice, beautiful transformation can occur.

Poetry is born. It is our gift from the Goddess, and it, in turn, is our gift to the Goddess. Poetry creates change. It is alchemical. It is magick, in the traditional sense. But, it is also available to each of us, regardless of our training, our initiations, or identifiers. We need not be professional poets to be poets. We can be poets simply by speaking truly of what we know, of what we feel, and of what passions move us to act, or be still.

We are poets because we each have words on our tongues, in our hearts, and on our flesh. When we release these words into our bloodstream, through our sweat, into the air and onto the page, we participate in the re-enchantment of the world.

So, I share this poem with you. It came to me in the darkness of the night, and I pray that it be a light in honor of the Goddess, Brighid. It is my offering.

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.

 

Please share with me in keeping vigil. Copy the three lines:

I keep vigil
to the fire
in my heart.

Post them into the comment box below, and then paint a portrait of how you keep vigil to the fire. Where does it find you, and in what situations do you seek it? Let the words rise into your consciousness like incense on the altar, and then let the poem tell the story. Once you feel like you’ve described your experience of this personal, internal vigil to the Sacred Fire, copy those three lines again, closing out the poem.

Share with us your inspiration here on Bishop In The Grove as an offering to Brighid, and then share this post with anyone who might be touched by this intentional movement of inspiration.

We keep the fire lit, and we share the fire. The fire is out birthright, our inheritance, and the fire will prepare us for our collective rebirth.

Many thanks to T. Thorn Coyle and the creators of the 7th Annual Brigid Poetry Festival for the inspiration to write this poem and encourage the creation of devotional poetry. Please visit the Festival’s Facebook page and share with them your inspired creation!

Blessings be to you.

The Fire Of A Solitary Druid

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We are all solitary. Even those of us who practice with a group, or who gather at festivals to dance around fires, or stand in circles under full moons. We are all solitary, still.

There are politics in Groves and Covens, just as in Churches and Temples. There are people who seek to shape things in their image, and to bend the will of the universe to their liking. And, there are people who just long to be loved, and respected, and made to feel important, regardless of the size of their theological vocabulary or their experience as a ritualist.

They are solitary, too.

There’s been an ongoing conversation in my solitary world with other solitaries, with Pagan politicians and with my husband about the idea of ministry, and what it means to me, personally, and to me as a member of the greater, if somewhat formless, Pagan community.

Words like ministry, or worship, or even prayer have been met with a certain degree of hesitation from my fellow paganus; an unwillingness to even consider how these words, rooted as they seem to be in Christian culture, might be aplicable to our spiritual tradition and experience.

That’s fine. I’m not here to evangelize, especially not for the sake of vocabulary.

But, I’m still feeling drawn to the resonance of certain words; ministry, most of all.

Ablaze In The Water

When I think of ministry, I think of fire. Fire, for me, is a symbol for transformation, for the exercising of one’s True Will, for both the stream of thoughts on the page and also the explosion those thoughts make as they are born into experience. 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.

Viewing ministry in this way allows me, and people of many varying traditions – monotheistic, polytheistic, agnostic, atheist – to develop a craft of caring for the hearts of other people. Ministry, in this light, is more an art form than an extension of any sort of dogmatic imperative.

I brought up ministry to my ADF mentor, and told him about this fire in the heart. He suggested that it may also be good to imagine a fire in the head. The “Imbas“, or quite literally, “fire in the head” in Gaelic, is the inspiration from the Gods which drives us to create. It is also the substance, metaphysically speaking, which connects the Heavens, the Underworld, and this place we live in, often called the Mid Earth.

I like the idea that something inside me, something which connects my heart, my mind, and all of my creative parts is also the thing which connects me to my Ancestors, to my Gods, to this Earth and all of its inhabitants. There’s got to be a word for it in English… in every language. If not, there should be.

A Question Of Vocation

I grew up in a tradition of priests, not ministers. Now I’m in a world of priest and priestesses, and all I can think about is ministry. For a time, I thought I should be a priest. Recently, I considered that maybe I’m cut out for ministry.

Perhaps I could be both.

Priesthood, as I understood it then and as I’ve seen it played out now in ADF Druidry, is mainly a function of serving the community through leading ritual and through keeping the sacred days sacred.

I could do that as a solitary practitioner.

Ministry, as I’ve defined it above, is really about keeping the fire burning. I can make a practice of keeping watch of my fire, making sure it is lit, well fueled, tended to. Then I can reach out to those closest to me – as an act of compassion as well as one of piety – to care for them; to keep their fire burning.

This, perhaps, makes being solitary less solitary.

But I will always be a solitary. So will you. Even if we develop community around ourselves, there is an aspect of our journey that will always be done alone. I say this not to sound morose, or to suggest that we be pitied. This is just the truth.

There is cause for gladness, though.

The fire connects us. The fire, which led me to these words, leads you to creation, to re-creation, to transformation and new growth. In the fire, we are never truly alone. Through the fire, we are connected to all that has been before us and all that will ever be; we are one with the Ancestors, and we become the Ancestors of those to come; we glean insight into the nature of Divine Reality, and we discover the magic in the ordinary world we live and work in.

The fire brings light, and the fire destroys, and the fire prepares the ground for new beginnings; be they in your heart, in your head, or on the furthest edge of your imagination. The fire reaches that place, and the fire is that place.

 

A Blessing On You

May your heart and head be lit ablaze with the fire of Imbas, of transformative creativity, and may the awareness of this fire be with you, always.

May you be a Priest, a Priestess, and one who ministers to the fire.

 

If these words have spoken to you, and if you’d like to speak to my understanding of the fire, or more importantly, to your understanding of the fire, please leave me a comment. I’d love to hear from you. And, let the blaze illuminate the computer screens of all your friends by sharing the post on Facebook, Twitter and Google+!

On Meditation and Devotion: Weeks 1 through 3

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Ideally, this series of posts, “On Meditation and Devotion” will come weekly, and serve to summarize the daily entries I keep in my hand-written journal.

Week 1

On December 27th, 2010, I performed my first ADF style daily devotional. I read, near verbatum, the ritual that Skip Ellison shared in his book, Solitary Druid. I proceeded through the ritual, not sure if my words would be heard. I called on Arawn – the Welsh God of the Underworld, who first made his presence known to me in a dream I had last summer (an experience worth unpacking in a future blog post) – and asked for him to open the Gates. I made offerings of lavender to the Spirits of the Land, oats to the Ancestors, and olive oil to the Shining Ones.

After making offerings, I sat as my desk and, honestly, didn’t know what to do next. The book calls for meditation, and my intention, before I decided to perform a more formal devotional, was to write. But, I was unclear if writing would serve as a “meditative” act. So, I did little else during this first ritual. I closed it out according to the book, and documented my experience in my journal.

I arrived at my altar every day during this next week and did much of the same things as on the first day. Once I got off the page, I discovered that performing this ritual, especially when centered around expressing to the Kindred my praise, thanksgiving, gratitude, honor and respect, was a very natural experience for me. I know how to do this. Liturgy just makes sense to me.

Week 2

Starting on January 4th, 2011, I began exploring meditation more deliberately in my daily devotionals. There was, to be fair, a meditative spirit to the liturgy during the first week, and I worked to slow my breath, center myself and free my mind of distraction. But, during Week 2, things changed and my meditation became more focussed.

On the morning of the 4th, as described in my journal,

“I traveled…to a place where the Land, Water and Sky met. I heard my breathing, and the sound became the crashing of the ocean on the shore. Each inhalation was the pulling back of the water, and each exhale was the water slamming on the sand.”

The thought occurred to me (a thought I was having in that place and not before my altar, if that makes sense) that I should be doing some sort of ritual there. I imagined an altar, but it seemed out of place. No symbols I imagined seemed to fit, and it occurred to me that enacting the ritual I used to open the Gates may not be the one I was feeling called to perform in this new, mystical space.

I didn’t know what to do, so I raised my arms and said “Thank you. I’d like to come back.”

I brought my awareness back to my body and closed out the ritual, profoundly grateful for this experience and a little mystified as to what it meant.

I continued to visit this place throughout the week, exploring a bit further the landscape, but never straying far from where I first appeared (a cave near the point where the Land meets the Water and Sky). Once I smelled a flower, which I think may have been a calendula. Another time, a memory surfaced, along with an insight into the relevance of that memory in my current life. Each day brought a new experience; a new mystery.

Week 3

In my post, Turning Over A Good Omen, I wrote of a sign I received from the Kindred. During Week 3, starting on January 10th, 2011, I brought the tarot into my daily devotional. Read this post for a glimpse into how this change of routine brought with it a profound experience of connectedness to the Great Ones.

I did not visit the Sacred Place in my meditations this week, but I did have a revelatory experience that I believe was a precursor to incorporating the Two Powers Meditation into my daily devotional.

From my journal entry of January 14th, 2011:

“A more centered mediation/ritual this morning. The Hallows are still open as I write this. When I look through my mind’s eye, the Fire is raging, the Water deep and moving, and the Tree wide and surrounded by a mist. It occurred to me as I sat down to shuffle, after perhaps the 5th or 6th turn, that when I stand with the Flame overhead and the Waters reaching up into my feet from the earth that I am the tree which holds the Middle Earth.”

For anyone who is aware of the Two Powers Meditation, you will recognize this vision.

The following evening, while reading through Our Druidry, I decided that I was ready to explore the Two Powers Meditation for the first time. When I read through the descriptions of the Earth Power and the Sky Power, and how the energy is circulated through the body, I was flabbergasted! I saw this! This came to me! What a blessing!

Perhaps the Two Powers Meditation is the ritual I felt called to do in the place where the Land meets the Sky and the Water!