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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!]

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 Lactating Ewes of Imbolc

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I don’t know much about cows.

Or sheep.

Lollie-Pop from Cape Town, South Africa

By "Lollie-Pop" on Wikimedia

 

I know that cows tip (not from personal experience, though). I know that sheep are cute, and I love their hair. I was just working with some last night.

I also, on occasion, like to eat a bit of both.

I’m a city boy, born and bred. I don’t really pattern my day-to-day life around the ways of farm animals. A few of my more hipster friends are keeping bees and chickens. They have a different relationship to animals than I do, because they care for them. But me? I have 3 dogs and a teenager (who is a bit of a farm animal), but they all fall into the same patterns of city life as do my husband and I.

And yet somehow I find myself — an urbanite, a man with no direct connection to the ways of the farm — pondering the significance of a lactating ewe.

Thank you, Paganism.

Imbolc is upon us. Some have already celebrated the holiday, and many Pagans across the land are making preparations for their grove gatherings, their circle circlings, and their solitary rituals. For some, Imbolc is celebrated with the same fervor and devotion that many reserve for Yule. All eight are equal, right? But for others, Imbolc is somewhat of an obscure spoke on the Wheel of the Year, and I think that may have something to do with the whole livestock thing.

It is said that for the ancient Celts, Imbolc (Óimelc in Middle Irish or Ouimelko in Old Irish) was celebrated when the ewes began to produce milk…or something to that effect. Their lactation was a sign of new life returning to the world. Google “imbolc, cows, sheep” and you can preview a number of sites which will tell you some variation of that story, and I’ve got a half a dozen books on my shelf that say as much.

While I feel a kind of Pagan obligation to accept the lactation of ewes in ancient Celtic culture as deeply relevant, I’m having a little difficulty doing so. I live in a culture that has put a concrete chasm between the pasture and the dinner table, and I participate in that culture. I’m very much a part of it. I’m not growing my own food, or keeping sheep, or doing anything remotely agricultural.

Should I be, though? I mean, as a Pagan, should I be taking steps in that direction?

Sometimes I think the greatest gift that Neopagan traditions offer modern city dwellers, like myself, is a blueprint for what life was like before the Industrial Age so that we (or our descendants) might be better prepared for what life will be like after our industries, grids and interwebs have all come apart. It’s a little Thunderdome–y, I know, but it may not be that far off from the truth.

Our way of life — MY way of life — is not sustainable. Not for generations, at least, and arguably not even for the duration of my lifetime. I consume more than my fair share, globally speaking. Most Americans do. Even Pagans.

It is conceivable that in two or three generations time, all of the conveniences that we enjoy now — the readily available food, power, and imported resources — will be little more than a page from the history books… presuming we still have books.

My beekeeping friends, along with their pickle canning counterparts in Brooklyn, the rooftop gardeners in Chicago, and the urban homesteaders in warehouses across the country may have a leg up on the rest of us. They’re preparing themselves for a time when there will be no Safeways, Krogers, King Soopers, or Wal-Marts. They’re reconnecting with the rhythms of life in a way that Pagans, like myself, sometimes only talk about.

(I feel like I’m having some sort of reckoning here.)

Imbolc is as a fire celebration, and fire is much easier for me to wrap my mind around. Fire represents inspiration to me, and passion. I honor Brighid every time I approach my altar, and this is Her holiday; Her fire.

Perhaps, though, there can be a connection between the fire of inspiration — the fire of new ideas, new patterns, new creation — and this inquiry into my food, my lifestyle, and how those things intersect with being a Pagan in the modern world. Perhaps on this Imbolc, Brighid will ignite some fire in me that will illuminate ways in which I can better align myself with the rhythms of the earth. Perhaps I will see in the mind of my heart some memory of a simpler time; an ancient world that my spirit belonged to, and still belongs to. Perhaps when that happens I will think of the ewe, and the newborn sheep, and I will see in them something true about the world, about myself, and about the Great Mystery to which we all belong.

That would be something.

Until then, I’m going to go knit my wool shawl and think about what to make for lunch.

Slow down, Teo. Slow down.

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I’ve been moving too fast. Ever since Imbolc, and the completion of my deep Winter creative project, I’ve been rushing forward without a clear sense of direction. Movement for movement’s sake, really. Last week, just before I was set to undergo another intense creative project, my body gave out under the pressure.

Illness struck hard. My temperature rose to 102 degrees with little warning, and my corners and edges began to ache. Sweat to chill and back to sweat again; this would be my pattern for days. There would be no working; no business. I was down for the count.

I did not meditate or practice my morning devotional for the first 3 days I had the flu. It was the only time since I began my discipline that I’ve taken this long away from my altar. I put that work aside, trusting that there would be no severe spiritual repercussions from taking a few down days (I don’t think The Kindred work that way). When I returned to it, I felt weak. Lost. Uncertain of what this setback meant. I was upset that I’d been unable to keep up my pace. And, as it turns out, keeping up the pace may be the problem.

My great grandmother showed up again yesterday. She came with the message that if I don’t slow down – if I don’t rest even more than I think I am – I will miss an opportunity. I won’t be prepared for it. This isn’t unlike her last communication, so apparently I haven’t gotten the message yet.

The idea of releasing the need to make everything move forward is a bit scary. I think I’m motivated to action – in my spiritual work and in my career – by the fear that if I stand still everything will fall apart. Then I get the message from an Ancestor – stand still. I’m not sure I know how to do that.

I call out to all of my friends in the blogosphere with this inquiry:

How do you do it? How do you slow down? Any tips for a movement-addict?

Prose or Poetry?

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A question for all my fellow ADF’ers:

What if I prepared my Dedicant Path submissions on the High Days as poems instead of the traditional prose/academic model? I could still site references (which could be kinda cool, actually – my poems would have footnotes!), and it would allow me to engage with the assigned writing in a way that is familiar to me.

The idea occurred to me after writing my Imbolc post. While personally relevant and totally valid as a journal entry, I’m not sure it served as the type of High Day piece that’s required for the DP.

I could write the verses and post them shortly after each High Day (with the exception of Samhain and Yule, which I’ve already celebrated as an ADF member and could write in advance), like maybe within a week or so after.

Thoughts? Would you be more interested in a prose or poetry description of the High Days?

(If you’re in ADF and have some insight into what is an acceptable submission, please share your wisdom!)

My Heart Is Your Hearth: Imbolc 2011

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My heart is your hearth.

– A prayer offered to Brighid during my morning devotional

I began preparing for Imbolc long before the first snow. I knew Winter would be a season of great creative work for me, and I decided that the way I would make it through that work successfully was to consider all of it one big offering to Brighid. I would lift the work up in her honor, and remember her fire as I made my way through the ups and downs of the creative process.

My music would be my offering at Imbolc.

On the evening of February 2nd, I attended an Imbolc ritual at the Jefferson Unitarian Universalist Church in Golden, Colorado, performed in traditional ADF style by Tony and Jorja from the Golden Branch Silver Horn Grove. The ritual itself was simple, but very pleasant. The environment was beautiful, and while this wasn’t an “official” ADF gathering (the UU’s are open to people of all traditions, including Pagans), I was glad that the rite was in a format I was familiar with.

There were two altars. On the larger of the two sat a statue of Brighid, in triple-goddess form, surrounded by yellow candles, in front of which was a large bowl for liquid offerings and a plate for dry offerings. The smaller altar was a place where attendants could leave items to be blessed, like their jewelry or tools. I brough several items, including two writing tools, a few musical tools, a wall plaque of Brighid and a Brighid’s cross I wear around my neck.

We were led through a basic mediation, which was designed to bring to our awareness the first moment of realization that Spring is on its way. The second was the Two Powers meditation, and this was the first time that I’d ever been led through it by someone else. If I could have changed anything about the meditation, I would have chosen to spend more time in the moment where the Two Powers meet. That is, to me, where the true magic comes from.

Once Manannan Mac Lir was called and the Gates opened, offerings were made to the Kindred. Then, we were invited to make our offering to Brighid. Interestingly, I found myself a little nervous at this point. I’d brought a small vial of oil to give as a public offering, but I knew that my true offering was something I couldn’t place in a bowl or on a dish. I hadn’t figured out how I would express what I’d done in this public setting.

So, I approached the altar and poured the oil into the ritual bowl. I closed my eyes and lifted up my heart to Brighid, as I have done every morning since I began my creative project. Then, I walked back to my chair, hoping that this public expression would be sufficient; that my private work would be pleasing to Her, and that She would understand all of what I had done in honor of Her. I completed my creative project by Imbolc, and offered it to Her and to the world during my trip to Los Angeles, just as I said I would do.

Imbolc is a High Day where we acknowledge and honor Brighid, yes. But, I think it is also an opportunity to acknowledge and honor all of the qualities which She represents in us. By being creative, by forging transformation in our personal or professional life, by deepening our sense of belonging in the world, we honor Brighid. We embody Her in our lives.

That may be the most meaningful offering we can make.