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How Do We Begin?

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Photo by YAT OP

Photo by YAT OP

Sometimes I find myself out of balance.

Today, for example, I came into my room — the place where I light my incense, still my mind, perform acts of reverence and celebration — and I found myself uncertain about how to begin.

My mind was a repository for too many things. There was clutter everywhere.

Thoughts about music…

Thoughts about leadership…

Thoughts about love and relationship…

Thoughts about the responsibilities I’ve taken on…

These things clouded my mind, and made it very difficult to listen.

Listening, I’ve come to learn, has to happen first before any meaningful creation can occur. (This is why I prefer a silent space in which to write.)

I find that I don’t often know what to do when I’m in these moments of crowded-headedness. My first impulse is to try to organize the mess. (Not eliminate it, mind you, but organize it.) This rarely leads to resolution; instead, I feel little more than a mild sense of productiveness. I feel like:

Well, at least I’m doing something.

Other times I open up a browser window and find something to read. I scan Facebook, or I look at the comments on a post or a status update. I engage with others and allow the dozens of freeze-frame conversations to be my focus. I chat about someone else’s writing, someone else’s ideas, something mildly stimulating or (at times) completely engaging. Doing this feels like:

Well, at least I have something to say.

There are other ways I distract and occupy myself, but none of them seem to address what’s really going on.

And just what is really going on?

I think — and it’s a hunch more than anything — that in these foggy-brain moments I have forgotten, however briefly, what it is that brings me into alignment with my deepest, greatest sense of happiness and purpose.

(a.k.a. My True Will.)

I don’t know how to take that first step into the labyrinth because I have forgotten why taking that step is meaningful.

This morning I wrote the following update on Facebook; writing it was an attempt to kick-start my creativity after the first draft of this post petered into self-pity:

Each day we begin again. Each day we must make decisions about how to live, how to connect, how to release, how to create. Living is an art, even if at times it feels like little more than a struggle.

Being present with our own creative nature — the place where our humanity comes to look very much like something divine — helps us to be artful in our living.

How do you begin each day?

I wrote these words and realized that by reaching out to others, I care for myself. There is a connection between outreach and inreach (that should be a word), between service to others and service to myself, between the compassion I show for my community and the compassion I offer to myself.

These things are connected.

My mother used to tell me that when I felt sorry for myself I should do something for someone else. For the longest time I thought that her advice would have the negative side affect of fostering denial about what was really troubling me, but I think I was wrong. Turning my focus to the well being of others reminds me of what “well being” feels like. That act of turning outward has a profound and amazing affect on my own inner reality.

This isn’t to say that I shouldn’t sort some things out in my own head, away from the view of others. I certainly have my own work to do. But it’s a reminder that in moments of frustration or confusion, or when there is a lack of space in one’s mind, there is a great benefit in becoming a servant to others.

Turning outward in service is — I promise you — a service to yourself.

Each day we begin again. I begin with a mind and heart of service, and by showing love and compassion for others I receive the benefits of love and compassion in my own heart. I encourage creativity, and in the process I experience creativity. I remind others of the artful nature of living, and I am graced with a glimpse of the art in my own life.

This is how I began today.

How will you begin?

You Can Take a Druid Out of the Woods…

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In the morning, after (almost) sleeping through a night of 28 degree weather, I headed to the edge of the water to make my offerings. Pumpkin seeds were what I had to give, for they were what I had to eat. I proceeded through the same ritual I outlined in my post last week, only this time I did it while standing in the morning sun.

When I’m in the city, I sometimes lift my hands up toward the ceiling of my bedroom, my office, or whatever sacred space I’ve constructed, and imagine that I’m feeling the warmth of the sun. I also imagine that my feet become roots and extend deep into the earth, deep into the coolness of the underground waters. This practice is a part of the Two Powers meditation, a grounding and centering meditation used by ADF.

Standing beside the reservoir, I thought perhaps I should do the Two Powers meditation now. So I lifted my hands up to the sky, and when I felt the warmth of the sun — the actual warmth, and not the imagined warmth — I was taken aback.

I opened my eyes and I saw the water. The actual water.

The Two Powers meditation felt a little silly to do at that point, ’cause I was in the sun and I could almost feel the water on my skin. I didn’t need to imagine anything.

Instead, my mediation would be to open my eyes, open my heart, and feel with all of my being what was around me; to recognize that all of this was the Earth Mother.

This weekend in the mountains gave me some perspective on my religious practice.

Druidism will be a living religion so long as it continues to focus on the living earth. As bookish as we Druids may be, the soil is our truest scripture. The work we do at home, the practice we develop in solitude, should — perhaps even must — inform our experience of the living earth, not simply the metaphoric earth.

One can make the sun into a symbol, or the water into a symbol, or just about any tree, bird, and plant into a representation of some human experience, but concordances which seek to place all of nature within a human framework (this tree represents this emotion, or that god is good for this human activity) are little different than a Catholic concordance of saints. Plus, they can trick the city-dwelling Pagan into thinking that the natural world is only metaphor for the inner human world.

It’s more than that.

The tree doesn’t always need to represent something. It can simply be alive, and beautiful.

I came back to the city with a real desire to return to the mountains; to be outside. I spend a lot of time in my head each day, but not near enough time in the dirt.

I need to find a way to bring an awareness of the living earth into my daily life.

The question is, how? (My husband says, “Weeding, sweetie. There is weeding.”)

So, I turn to you, friends. You showed up in droves to share your intense nature experiences, and I’m going to ask that you join in the dialogue again.

How do you do it? How do you bring an awareness of the living earth into your daily life? Do you do it by getting out into your neighborhood? By gardening? Do you volunteer with the park service? What do you do?

Or, if you’ve found yourself in a state where you don’t do this, what could you imagine doing to bring this awareness into your life?

Do Not Speak, and You Will Be Heard

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Today I approached my altar in silence. Speaking the words out loud, my standard approach to a daily ritual, felt unnecessary. In my mind, in my heart, the words rang out with perfect clarity, and I trusted that whomever needed to hear them would.

The effort I put into my daily practice waxes and wanes, and it is influenced a great deal by my emotional state. Some days I don’t feel I have it in me to make offerings of gratitude and thanks to the Kindred. There are financial concerns, piles of paperwork on the desk, and sticky-notes of errands that have been neglected. When I wake up with a busy brain I have a very difficult time making space for piety.

But today in my ritual, rather than using my voice to will the space into stillness, I went inward. I turned my gaze into the depths and found that there was already plenty of space for reverence. Caverns of it, really. And the stillness came.

To my delight, I found that the richness of my meditative, magickal work increased in this state of silent dialogue. My small candle flame transformed into the great, Sacred Fire with a force that it hadn’t before. The chalice became the Well, and reached deep into the center of the earth, effortlessly. In between the two stood the Great Tree, broad and majestic, and full of life.

All of this happened in a silent room, and it was only possible – I think – because I’ve been faithful to my daily practice to the point where the words I speak out loud could finally be internalized. The Kindred listen in ways that are beyond my imagination. The spirits of the land and of our ancestors are sentient, I believe, but I’m not sure how. I think that I was persistent in speaking out loud because I thought there was a connection between the sound of my voice and their ability to hear. This may have even been a lesson I was taught.

But I don’t believe it’s true. I don’t believe we need to approach the Kindred — the Gods of our heart — with the idea that their limitations are easily conceivable. They may not, as many Pagans have presumed, be omni-anything, but the exact shape of their being remains a mystery.

Sometimes I think the Pagan Humanists have it right in their approach to their practice. They see the Gods as archetypes, but they also see the archetypes as our entry into deeper engagement with the greatness, the expansiveness, the mystery of the Gods. In a way, I’d rather suspend my need to affirm some definite conception of the Gods if it allowed me to approach Them with greater reverence and wonder.

Does that make sense?

Before today, I spoke out loud in my room because I thought I needed to do so in order to be heard, in order for my ritual to be successful. But I’ve discovered that I can have the experience of being heard without speaking at all. It feels like there are greater ramifications to this discovery that I can’t yet see.

Does this inspire something in you?

April Tumult & the Birth of New Myth

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April was a month of great change and upheaval. Perhaps I’ve been holding on to Winter, and all that it represents, and the Gods would have no more of it. Or, it could be the result of cosmic forces; a planet gone retrograde, or some other unseen spirit. I cannot say. All I know is that in the past few days I’ve felt a shift back into a familiar rhythm, and the world I walk through has not come apart completely. Not just yet.

My daily meditation and devotion throughout April was consistent, and at times quite affected by the circumstances of my life. Then, there were moments when I realized just how grounding and important my daily practice has become.

I wrote on April 11th:

For some time now I have felt a weight upon me. The uncertainties of my life, specifically in my work, leave me confused about what choice to make. Often, the result is a static state; a refusal to choose anything at all. The creative flow becomes blocked, and depression sets in. I ask not with a sincere heart how I might move past this sense of bewilderment, but rather I counter every offer of help with a negative, pessimistic response. It wears me out.

My time in devotion is different. While there are some days that start smoother than others, and my devotionals may be more or less affected by the other circumstances of my life, this is a sacred time. It is made sacred, and the weight is lifted. If only I could continue this feeling and carry this space out into the rest of my life.

Several inspired works came during devotional this month. In time, I’ll post them here on the blog. I’m also considering, with great sincerity, how I might take my writing and shape it into a publishable book. I feel that there is a great need for new myths in our community – new stories we tell to explain our experience of this modern, crumbling, beautiful world – and I feel that there may be a calling for me to write such myths, as well as songs of praise (a book, perhaps, to accompany the great works of Ceisiwr Serith).

I wonder what my readers might think of new myths being written… Would you find use in reading and telling stories of a totally modern, but utterly re-enchanted world? Could the creation of such works become a vibrant, relevant component of our modern Pagan and Druid path?

I Think I Saw A Goddess

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From Ian Corrigan’s blog, Into the Mound:

1: The Cosmos is holographic – the whole is repeated within the parts. Especially, the human microcosm reflects the macrocosm.

2: The Gods exist in the macrocosm.

3: Therefor, their reflections exist in each individual human microcosm. These reflections are what Jung perceived as the ‘archetypes’.

4: Thus, when we invoke the Gods, and they draw near to us, their reflection draws near to our conscious awareness. Often it is only these internal daemons of the Gods that we actually perceive in our invocations, and that can be sufficient. The Gods act as and in those reflections just as they do as and through an idol of gold. Sometimes we are able to expand our awareness outside of our microcosmic bubble, and perceive the God more directly… Those are the big events…

 

Eyes closed, offerings made and a candle was lit for Brighid. My breath grew long and slow. The blackness of my mind became illuminated with color, and image. Before me was a green pasture stretching out towards the other edge of darkness. In front of me stood a large tree, next to which was a stone well (not unlike the one I’d seen at the holy site in County Kildare). Between these two sat a third.

She was radiant, and soft. She sat on the ground, and there was food in front of her. Her hair was golden, and he face pale. She emanated light.

I approached her and sat down. I could not see the details of her face, but I sensed that if I could I would see a gentle smile. She seemed at once very young and unfathomably old. She was beautiful.

I stayed only for a moment, and then I stood and backed away in the direction that I’d come. She maintained her focus on me until it all dissolved into the blackness again.

 

I gazed on this scene for only a moment, but what I saw, however brief, was unique to my experiences in meditation. There seemed to be an interaction between my imagination (a key component in meditative work) and something else; something other. It did not make me tremble, as did my first interaction with Arawn. Instead, it brought a feeling of peace and tranquility.

I take it as a blessing.

 

Praise be to the Bright One, who is, Herself, the Fire! She rests beside the Tree and the Well, and her radiance is a blessing to behold!


On Meditation and Devotion: Weeks 10, 11, & 12

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March has been quite productive. Spring is definitely upon us!

Week 10

I’ve been working away from home for over half of the month, relying heavily on my portable altar for morning worship. I did not bring my tarot cards with me on my travels, which opened up space in my morning devotional that would normally be spent shuffling and reading. This allowed me to re-connect with the stillness, and place more of an emphasis on reaching out to the Kindreds.

On March 9th I wrote in my journal:

I spent more time in silence and stillness after making my offerings to the Kindreds. It felt good. For a moment, as I was trying to sense their presence, I thought I heard a bit of Irish music playing. I listened for a moment before my mind drifted….

Week 11

The first half of Week 11 was spent away from home, but I had acclimated to my hotel room. I rose each morning in complete darkness and went straight to the small coffee table I used to set up my altar. I started each devotional by atoning the AWEN and reading a series of prayers from the Pagan Ritual Prayer Book. These new additions to my practice felt very natural; a kind or re-connection to the religious tradition of my youth.

On March 12th, I was blessed with a deep experience of worship. I wrote:

This is the first morning in the last 3 that my meditation and worship was fully centered – fully heart-felt, and I attribute that to being done with my work for this trip. The last two days were fine; I made offerings and I held the space, but my mind drifted often, and I didn’t spend time in stillness or reflection. The offerings I made were sincere, though, as there has been an abundance of evidence of blessings in my life. The Kindreds are owed their due.

Today was special. My breath was deeper in, and my mind clear. I took my time speaking my words, paying close attention to direct them to each of the Kindred & to Brighid. I paused after each offering and thought, “Hail ___!”

Once my offerings had been made, I acknowledged how tremendous a week this has been. I spoke of the myriad of experiences and gave thanks that in all of them there was the presence of the Kindreds.

Filled with praise, I lifted up my hands and said, “HAIL” to each, recognizing them and their qualities and attributes. I also praised Arawn. Really praised Him.

Closing, I felt peace. Still do.

My religious tradition brings me so many good things. I am blessed. I am a warrior, and a seeker; a hope-filled bard who sees the world in vibrant color. My pen is my want and my voice is my Sacred Fire!

Week 12

This was a challenging week for me on account of a last minute trip, and a serious shortage of time spent with my husband. In addition, I had a rather poor experience at the Ostara ritual (which I wrote about here).

All this time I’ve been hoping that group ritual would satisfy a longing I had for religion and worship, but it was my solitary practice that brought me back into balance.

The following is a journal excerpt that elaborates on my my post-Ostara ritual experience :

Yesterday’s group ritual was a bust.

But today, alone in my sacred space, surrounded by the warmth and presence of the Great Kindreds, I experienced true worship. Heart open, mind centered, intention clear, I spoke words with sincerity, and in doing so I was welcomed into a great place – a place that felt both intensely close and eternally expansive. My mind’s eye saw the glow, and with my hands uplifted my entire self was whole in Their presence. I spoke a liturgy from the heart; the truest prayer. I spoke in my true voice.

 

I’m experiencing a true deepening of my personal, solitary practice. If it is ever meant to be matched with a rich, deep, group dynamic then so be it. If not, I feel enriched and strengthened by the power of worship and prayer… just me and the Three.

On Meditation and Devotion: Weeks 5 & 6

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For the first part of Week 5, I was out of town. I managed to keep up my daily discipline, altering it slightly to fit a hotel environment. The Portable Altar was a much cherished tool. I managed to set aside about 30 minutes each morning to worship.

On January 28th, after making my offerings to the Kindred, giving praise and thanksgiving for their blessings, I wrote/discovered the following words. Each line was spoken during, or just before I shuffled the cards:

By the Fire

By the Water

By the Tree

In the Heavens

In the Otherworld

In the Middleworld

With the Shining Ones

With the Ancestors

With the Spirits of the Land

I believe I’ve started a new tradition for myself. I’ve used this prayer over my shuffling each day since.

My morning devotional was an anchor during my time away from home. I used this time with the Kindred to re-connect with my center, to remind myself of my creative gifts, and to recalibrate my spirit, if you will.

Week 6 was not my most meditative week, but I kept up with my devotionals. As things in my life get busy, and my mind is flooded with thoughts, meditation becomes challenging. Somehow, though, I find it easier to still my mind in service to the Kindred. Worship – prayerful action – is something I can do even when I feel unable to meditate.

There are times, however, where my mind is immediately calm; so much so that I feel a direct connection to the source of inspiration. Just yesterday, for example, I performed my devotional, made my offerings, invited the Kindred into my space, and I sat down to my table to draw an Omen. I drifted into a place of quite, dark stillness. An image appeared in my mind, as clear as a photograph, and the image spoke, I thought, to a creative project I’m working on.

I sketched the image, and then, in an attempt to get a better sense of the meaning or message behind the vision, I drew a 3 card spread. I was amazed to see that the image I drew in my journal – a picture of me in full Druid robe, standing before an altar – bore an uncanny likeness to the center card of my spread: The Hanged Man (which in this deck represents Pryderi, son of Rhiannon, and his assumption into a world between worlds). I may not have thought I was meditating, but my mind was primed and ready to receive this vision.

My daily devotional and my periodic, but often powerful meditative work, have become a central part of my life. For this reason, I feel blessed.

On Meditation and Devotion: Week 4

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Week 4 of my daily meditation and devotion was Omen-centered. My creative work was consuming much of my time, and I sought guidance daily. I wrote on January 19th:

Throughout this two week period [referring to a 2 week creative project I was in the middle of], I’ve been given guidance from the Kindred. The Omens, or as I understand them, the Points of Focus, have been quite useful reminders and guiding posts throughout the work days.

Examples of the questions or statements I have posed to the Kindred and the Omens I have received are:

1/19/11

Q: What is my challenge?

A. The Tower.

Meaning: You are blessed with Awen. Fury may preceded grace, destruction may precede creation. The work of liberation, deepening and illumination progress.

1/20/11

Q. Why change decks? [A question I posed when I felt that I needed to switch from using the DruidCraft Tarot Deck to the Llewellyn Tarot Deck, a Welsh centered deck]

A. 10 of Wands, The Moon, Three of Cups.

Meaning: You are coming home. Home to the place where your intuition is a force, and where magic is born. These cards will aid you in your learning. Enjoy the experience.

Mid-week, I had an unexpected brush with an Ancestor, which I wrote about in this post. It gave me pause to consider whether or not I was moving faster than I should in my daily work. After approaching the Kindred, as well as communicating with a few ADF members, I found that there is nothing wrong with a daily practice — “slowing down” doesn’t mean changing the routine, or abandoning it altogether. It may simply mean, “lighten up”. There isn’t a need for every devotional to be performed with the intensity of a High Day ritual. After all, that’s what High Day rituals are for, right?

On January 24th, I made an intuitive decision to use the Ogham Card deck for an Omen. The card was Nuin (Ash). The book read:

Your deeds are part of a far greater, even endless, chain of events, and your own inner pathways have their reaction in the outer world.

This message was deeply connected to my meditation for that morning, and proved a very useful reminder throughout the day.

I’m not sure that the Celtic Tree Oracle would stand up to ADF’s academic standards, and I know there are some who outright dismiss the idea of a Tree Calendar (including ADF’s founder, Issac Bonewitz – read this). But, this feels like a good introduction to the Ogham, even if the historicity is questionable. At some point soon I would like to acquire, or better yet fashion my own set out of wood.

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!

My Altar: A First View

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My altar is my Cathedral.

It is the place where I go each morning to worship, to pray, to meditate.

I make my altar new with each ritual I perform, infuse it with more of my essence, my intention, my magic.

There is fire on my altar.

There is water on my altar.

There is wood on my altar.

There is a place to make offerings to the Three Kindred, and there is special recognition of Brigid, my patroness.

Atop my altar is The Awen, and Brigid’s Cross.

I placed The Awen above all else because, to me, The Awen represents the Source of All Things. It is, in my understanding, the First Inspiration, the Eternal Fire, The Essence of us all.

The Brigid’s cross is a sacred symbol that I acquired during a pilgrimage I made to Ireland almost 10 years ago. I journeyed as a Christian, along with a group of other pilgrims. On this trip, I first encountered Brigid, visited her sacred well, and established my first, conscious connection to the Irish land.

I have placed a statue of Brigid on my altar. She stands, serene and prayerful, at the edge of a well. At her feet are two young sheep. Her head is framed by the rays of the sun.

I grew up in a tradition that accepted statues as useful tools for focus, but not physical embodiments, necessarily, of the Divine.

I chose to have a statue on my altar because I value the reminder of the Personhood of Brigid. She is a real, active force, and seeing a physical representation of a person helps to keep that understanding forefront in my mind during worship.

In front of Brigid, I have placed the candle, the wand, and the chalice.

I stand before this altar in the morning and make my offerings. I give thanks. I pray. I meditate. I am filled with wonder at just how close the Kindred are.

They are no more than a deep breath away.