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Will you walk with me?

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aloha_75 - Walk with me

In yesterday’s post on The Wild Hunt I talked about Awen and about my creative process. It wasn’t standard fare for that site, and not the most widely read and shared post that I’ve written, but it was a very natural thing for me to write about.

A song is little more than a conversation between the songwriter and the listener. The more honest the songwriter can be about her truth, the more deeply the words will connect with the listener. A song can be a testimonial, a sermon, a proclamation, a confession, or a plea, but a song is never a monologue. There is always the listener, and though the listener may not be able to communicate directly with the songwriter she is processing what she hears; translating it, transmuting it, absorbing it, becoming it or rejecting it. As the songwriter has undergone a personal transformation in the process of writing the song, so, too, will the listener undergo a similar process when she hears the final work. The more raw the former, the more impactful the latter.

I write songs. It’s my gig. For about 1/3 of every month I’m in Los Angeles writing, doing work in the ever-evolving Music Industry, and I really enjoy it.

When I started this blog I was of the mindset that there needed to be a separate space for me to do my spiritual work. I couldn’t allow overlap with the promotional work I was doing around the release of my album. That could get messy. Too many people were invested in the success of the project for me to put that in jeopardy by being transparent, I though. But what I’m coming to discover is that there is really is no way to avoid overlap.

You don’t have your “spiritual life” in a vacuum. You are all of the things that you are, pretty much all the time.

At least, that’s my experience.

For me, my creative process opens up spiritual understanding. And many times my spiritual explorations lead to creative inspiration. It’s interesting to me that I was so desperate to compartmentalize my life when I started this blog considering that many of my songs are directly influenced by different periods of my religious life. You can’t extract my spirituality from my music. Just ain’t gunna happen.

So why keep the music apart from my spiritual work?

That’s a question I’m asking myself as I think about the future of Bishop in the Grove.

Over the past few months my life has been reshaped in very interesting ways. I’m no longer affiliated with any particular tradition, although I am opening myself up to the Bardic Grade studies of the Order of Bards, Ovates and Druids (OBOD). I’m living in a new city, meeting new people, and finding that just around every corner of this luscious, green place there is some perfectly ordinary, yet totally pagan joy to be experienced. I mean, there is street-side composting here! People know where their food comes from (see Portlandia episode 1 for proof). It’s almost as though this entire town is kind of pagan in practice, even if it isn’t Pagan in identity.

So there’s all of this newness in my life, which includes a newfound sense of presence in my creative work. When I go to LA to write I feel like I am doing exactly what I should be doing with my life. My writing feels certain. Solid. I feel in total alignment as a person when I’m in that creative space, and I won’t accept that that sense of alignment isn’t also connected to my Druidry.

It was the emphasis on creativity that first led me to OBOD. They start you on the Druid path by encouraging you to invest more in your creativity; to find the Awen and come to better know how it can move though your life; to help you become a bard.

And if there was anything I think I was made for, it’s that. I mean, I am already a bard, in a modern sense. This is what I do. This is what I have always done. I’m curious if there’s a way to re-contextualize the songwriting work as “bardic expression”; to sort of reverse-engineer my perspective about the spiritual nature of creativity.

I think this is a good way to move forward. I think this is the direction the Awen is moving, if you will. It moves toward greater integration. It moves toward a deepening of practice by way of investing in the practices that encourage feelings of love and wholeness.

This will be the direction I walk, friends. I hope you will walk with me.

Photo by Sam Howzit

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!]

What Do Pagans Want To Read In Their Blogs, Magazines And Books?

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Writing is a bitch sometimes.

This is one angry bitch.

I’ve given myself a number of writing projects, some religious in nature and some more scholastic. Some are a blending of the both. I’ve also begun to explore what it would be like to take my writing to print.

All of these things are squeezed into my calendar and shuffled onto my desk throughout the week, and on some days — like the last four — it feels as thought the weight of these papers, ideas, self-directed critiques, and a few outside-constructive criticisms are simply too much to bear.

Well, HE’s not too much to bear.

Yesterday, I tried to write about the return of my dreams, something which has begun since the start of October, after abandoning a post about how grumpy I was. When that post didn’t work, I tried to write about Samhain, but started to sound very Pagan 101 textbook-y, so I tossed it.

I don’t do textbook on this blog, and I’m not sure I really subscribe to the textbook approach to religion in general. I’m more a Socratic method kind of guy.

But some people want simple, effective recipes for how to make their spirituality come to life, how to become creative again, how to do the perfect spell to take their blues away. They want a spirituality instruction manual. And if that works for them, cool.

For me, though, nothing ever seems that paint-by-the-numbers. A spiritual practice, just like a good education, is always much messier and achier than that.

When you write a blog (and I know that many of my readers do, and some are considering starting up their own), you have to make some decisions about your audience. Do you want to engage with them? Do you want to preach to them? Do you want to show them how much you know?

What are you presuming about them? Are they less informed than you about your given topic (i.e. Druidry, Paganism, needlework — whatever you’re writing about), or are you going to treat them like peers?

Peer down this peir, peer.

These are questions that one doesn’t ask just once, either. Recently, as I’ve dipped my toes into the drafting of columns for print, I’ve come face to face with a different audience, one which may not engage with my writing in the same way that you do here on the blog. Print is not as immediately interactive as digital writing; your audience doesn’t post a response to what you’ve written, and you have to operate with this understanding that your writing is going to sit somewhere on a shelf, bound within the covers, static.

It’s weird.

So I feel now, after having considered this new kind of writing and this new audience, that I’ve forgotten how to write here. I’ve forgotten what we talk about, or what you want to read about. I’ve been asking this question, what do they want to read about?, and the question has solidified around the mushiness of my writing muscles, like some calcified shell.

It’s like a cast, except I can’t write my well-wishes on it with a Sharpie, because I left all my pens at home.

(Or something like that.)

Writing about Pagan religiosity, in all of its divergent and differently-named forms, to an audience of Pagans can be tricky. You can write to explain some archaic history that might be relevant to a fraction of your readership, if that’s your thing. Or you can write directly from your tradition’s perspective, but that can become kind of insular and inside joke-ish. If you pass on those two approaches, you seem left with the Pagan 101/Recipe/Textbook/How-to pieces.

I try to write about what I know, or at least what I’m questioning. I find that writing about my experiences is much easier than answering the question, what do they want to read?

But I still have to ask…

What do you want to read?

When you visit this blog — any blog — what are you looking for? Do you want testimonials about lived experiences? Accounts of ritual, whether they be successful or fall-on-your-face-like? Do you want to read about the nuts and bolts of someone’s practice?

Now, take a second and consider what you want to read when you pick up a Pagan magazine or book. Does it differ from what you look for in a blog? If so, how? Do you read words differently off the page, and do you have different standards for inky writers?

Please, enlighten me. Shine a little light on the inside of your reader’s brain. Throw this writer a digital bone.

THE DRUIDS ARE COMING! Plant a tree.

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Open yourself to the movement of creativity in your life, and there is no telling what will happen.

I have a tradition of rearranging plastic, magnetic letters on the back of my local coffee shop’s espresso machine to make ridiculous phrases. While waiting for my chai (much lower in caffeine than the triple espresso I used to drink), I make my silliness all over the silver, Italian shininess.

A few examples of my literary genius:

(Many will testify to the truth about Dave)

(This one inspired many a sour expression from behind the bar)

And, this heartfelt confession:

(MD, that is.)

This tradition bring me great happiness. I cannot tell you how giddy I become as shuffle through the available letters. My imagination goes wild. It’s childlike, and rather amusing to my friends at Kaladi Coffee.

Yesterday, in a particularly inspired moment, I assembled a rather large phrase. Rarely have I brought elements of Paganism or Druidry onto the magnetic board, but I was inspired to make an exception.

Where it all began.

I couldn’t stop giggling. I giggled all the way home, like a This Little Piggy. This one made me so happy.

Once home, I opened up my computer to discover that it had made a lot of other people happy, too. There was a tremendous response on Facebook to the phrase. In less than a few minutes, over 35 people had liked the picture, and a few had even shared it.

This may be something, I thought.

So, I thew it out there:

Again, the response was tremendous.

Yes, yes, yes, I heard. I would buy that. I love that. That’s awesome.

The giggling, it appears, was contagious.

I’m not sure what happened next. The subsequent four hours were a bit of a blur.

I know that Photoshop was involved, and a furious hunting through fonts. I pulled a public domain graphic of an acorn (appropriate for Druids), and arranged a few different designs of the phrase. I set up a Cafe Press store (which was much easier than I imagined), played with some HTML, registered a domain name (TheDruidsAreComing.com), and set up a Facebook page and Twitter account (because branding makes sense to me).

Seriously, I was a little manic.

Then, without giving it much more though, I let my new creation loose into the world.

THE DRUIDS ARE COMING!!

Yes. I went to town.

I share this story not simply to hawk my wares. I think the story illustrates an important lesson we often forget.

Magick exists, it is real, and it isn’t necessarily the bi-product of complicated ritual. It’s much more immediate than you might think. You can create change, even a small one, with the directed, focused use of your own will. You can do it with a humorous flavor (i.e. farting unicorns), or in ways that draw attention to important matters, like planting trees. But it’s right there at your fingertips, waiting for your giggle to unleash it.

This TDAC venture isn’t me trying to save the world. It’s just an example of how a person can bring something into being which was not there before, and how the process can be so much fun.

To do my part, though, I’m donating 10% of my humble TDAC profits to ADF and 10% PlantABillion.org. Seems like the right thing to do, considering that one grows Druids and the other grows trees. I might end up giving away more. This could end up leading to something much bigger. Who knows?

At the very least, I hope that my TDAC experiment will raise some awareness about Druids, about the need for more trees, and about the amazing, abundant, ever-present creativity that exists in each of us.

So tell me —

Have you ever had a burst of creativity that led to an unexpected project? Have you discovered ways to support your religious and spiritual communities that seemed to come out of thin air?

Share them!

Then, plant a tree.

Want To Make The Gods Laugh?

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Make a plan, the gods say.

I dare you.

Photo by Fuschia Foot, on Flickr

Ok, ready? You’re me:

You put on your denim kilt, blue button up shirt, and patchwork hat. Your beard is tidy and trim, and your socks pulled up. You load up the car with your husband, a tupperware container of crayons, and a bag of chocolates.

Drive.

After a half hour, you’re at a little Unitarian Universalist church near the foothills.

You unload, begin to arrange chairs in a big, circular meeting room, and you wait. When you can’t wait any longer, you step outside. If you’re going to be nervous, you might as well do so in private.

While outside, you write down your plan (that one I dared you to make) another couple times to make sure you remember it. Your plan isn’t a script; it’s an outline. The plan involves no more than 5 steps, and now you’re beginning to wonder if you can make 5 steps stretch into an hour and a half.

That damn cricket won’t stop chirping.

Your husband comes out, gives you a pep-talk, and you realize you’ve got to go to the bathroom. Of course you do.

You make a dash for the john, then check your watch.

It’s time.

The workshop begins when you step in front of the group. It isn’t ceremonious. You’ve chosen not to be introduced. The first thing you do is invite the group of grownups to make abstract representations of themselves using crayons and glitter paint.

Right way they’re giggling, and drawing, and a couple look very serious about their coloring.

You’re coloring, too. You’re a big tree.

Stragglers come in. (Not according to plan.) You catch them up to speed and check your watch.

You tell everyone to write a word — one word — on their page which represents themselves.

Brows furrow, and people write.

More stragglers enter.

You collect the papers, and start to wonder if everyone thinks you’re crazy.

Once collected, you redistribute the artwork in a different order so that everyone has someone else’s drawing.

Then, introductions. You ask everyone to introduce themselves by describing the picture in front of them. You show them,

“I am a swirly, complicated movement of energy, that is both soft on the edges and pointy in some spots.”

You then tell everyone how creativity is a part of your life, and you invite everyone to do the same.

It’s about that time you realize how much you’re sweating.

It’s also around this time that you realize that people are saying some really interesting things. They’re bringing to the space ideas and concerns that you didn’t anticipate. They’re lighting up the room in ways that had nothing to do with your plan.

It gets back to you, and you freeze for a second.

Plan…plan…what was that damn plan…

You stumble through a story about a Druid festival, and then you invite people to sing.

Then something changes.

You think to yourself,

Singing. Music. That’s right. That’s what I do. That’s what this is about.

Then, you chuck the plan. You start to talk from your heart. When you do, you remember that the whole point of the night was to connect people to that creative fire — that fire in their heart. This seems possible now, because you’ve connected with yours.

Time has flown. People have shared their limitations, their creative outlets, and their doubts. They’ve laughed, and they’ve even given a collective “Hmm” once or twice.

With your heart open, and the fire lit, you lead people to the creation of a song.

The one man with a drum begins to play. You start to sing, and people join you. It’s call and response.

“We are…”

“We are…”

“We are…”

“We are…”

“Eclectic…”

“Eclectic…” 

“Steady…”

“Steady…”

You work your way through all of the words, changing the melody up with each one. People are singing. The drum is playing. You’ve created a song out of people’s words, and they’re singing it back to you.

You realize that this has all been a kind of ritual, one which began with child-like chaos and ended with a group song. You created something from nothing, and got everyone to sing.

It worked.

Today I’ll submit the workshop to Pantheacon. I’ll call it: The Songcrafting Workshop: Creating Ritual Song.

It will likely be quite different at the conference. There will be different activities, different people, and of course…

…a new plan.

The Awen Moves: An Offering in the Morning

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There is an intrinsic connection between creativity and spirituality, I think. The impuse to create feels very much to me like the impulse to worship, to do ritual, or to pray.

Perhaps this is why my heart sang out so loundly when I first found the Order of Bards, Ovates, and Druids. OBOD asserts that the spirit of creativity and inspiration, the Awen, flows through me and through all things, and by learning to nurture my relationship to the Awen I can develop the foundation for a living, thriving, vibrant spiritual tradition.

I write a lot about religion here on Patheos (understandibly), and I think that in doing so I sometimes forget that it was creativity which first led me to Druidry. To be a Bard, I learned through OBOD, is to be connected to a great, cosmic, creative force, and to be expressive with one’s voice is to be in service to your tribe, your people, your planet. Cultivating creativity allows the Bard to become her own Creator, a maker of enchanting beauty, a living source of inspiration. While I’ve found that the religiosity of ADF Druidism speaks to me, and the voice of the Reconstructionist fascinates me, it continues to be this connection between creativity and spirit that nourishes me.

To sing is to expose the dark richness of the soil (the soul), to turn it over, and expose it to the light. Strip away all of the adorments of our spiritual traditions, remove any of our religious or cultural markers, and we are left with our breath, our song, our creative fire. Stand naked in the forest, breathe in the air of life which permeates this planet, and your voice can become something truly magical.

With that, I make an offering today — a sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving, and a testiment to the power and movement of the Awen — by lifting up my voice in the presence of the living earth, our Great Mother.

Peace be with you on this glorious day.

Follow and support the Sacred Electric Grove Indiegogo Campaign.

New Pagan Music: Join Me in the Sacred Electric Grove

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In modern times, a Bard is one who sees their creativity as an innate spiritual ability, and who chooses to nurture that ability partly or wholly with Druidism.

– From Druidy.org, OBOD

For well over a year my voice has been heard by my readership only as text. You’ve come to know me by reading me, by engaging in dialogue in the comments, by reaching out with encouragement, insight, and support. This has been an amazing journey for me, and I’m grateful to have shared it with you.

Today, I offer up another voice of mine; a voice used in ritual to invoke, to inspire, to conjure up emotion and passion.

This is the voice I used before I had language, or before I was fascinated by religion. This is the voice that preceded my Pagan identity (or any identity for that matter), and this is the voice which has come to inform so much of who I am. This is the voice of my soul, and I share it with you when the Moon is most full.

Here, friends, is the voice of me singing in the Sacred Electric Grove.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wMGw-Vyy9_8[/youtube]

The Sacred Electric Grove EP will be a collection of songs with themes that speak to contemporary Pagans, or to anyone who ponders the imminent presence of the Divine, who connects to the land for inspiration, or who simply loves to dance.

– from my Indiegogo Campaign Page

 

 

A lyric from my song, “Offering“:

[soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/47325058″ iframe=”true” /]

 

 

 

There is a place that I go to dance.

Rough draft of EP cover

It is dark and there is no sound.

Nothing but the Moon shining in the sky

Giving life to the Spirits of the Land…

 

These are the days to find the light,

Kiss the sun, draw down the moon.

Hold your heart like an offering…

Hold your heart like an offering of love.

You’re heart is an offering

To the heavens above.

 

I ask for your support today, because I believe that there is a place in the world for this music. I believe, after lifting up my voice in ritual–both at Pantheacon and during a High Day celebration at my local grove–that there is a connection between the creative work I do on Bishop In The Grove and the creative work yet to be done through this music.

If I ever felt a calling, I feel it now.

This is not a time to throw our money away, clearly, but it can still be a time to invest in something that stirs our heart. If your heart has been moved by the words on this blog, or if you listen to these sounds and they stir something in you, please consider contributing to my Indiegogo Campaign.

There are incentives, which include:

  • The Music (download or hard-copy), available at every giving level over $10
  • Custom blended ritual oil
  • Custom blended incense, made under the guidance of Karen Harrison, Weiser Books author of the best-selling book, Herbal Alchemists Handbook.
  • Long distance tarot readings
  • Live performances —  online or in person

The goal is to raise this money in one moon cycle: the campaign runs from full moon, to full moon.

I’m feeling a bit like The Fool. I’m taking a leap into something new; something unknown. I’m bridging worlds in a way I never expected I would, and I’m sharing my voice — my truest voice — with the people who have supported the growth of my literary, contemplative voice. I’m baring more than I have before, and it feels like the only right thing to do.

So please give. Please share this post, the YouTube video, the Indiegogo Campaign page, the Soundcloud clip — ALL of it! Share them on Facebook, on Twitter, Google+, or any of your social sites.

And then, join me in the Sacred Electric Grove!



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?

 

Responding to the Religious Impulse of a Star

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I’ve been in the throws of a creative trip for the past two weeks, one that took me away from my home, my husband, and my regular routine. I’ve been up into the wee hours of the morning, surrounded by creative people and business people, technicians and office workers, trying my best to tap into the source of my creativity — the Awen — and to discover how to give my voice a place to live in the world.

In addition to the late night work, I’ve been using NaNoWriMo to speed up the process of writing my book. Currently, I’m about 5,000 words behind.

Oh – I’m taking a correspondence class though Cherry Hill Seminary.

I’m strapped. A little crazy, perhaps, for taking on so much in one month. Do I feel worn out? Yes – it feels that way sometimes. More than once in the past week I’ve sat in front of my blank computer screen, juggling in my mind the perspectives of a blogger, an author, a lyricist and a businessman, and I’ve wondered —

Why do I do this? Why do I write?

Star Foster posted a moving essay on the Patheos Pagan Portal today which asks the same question. From her perspective, as a staff writer and editor for Patheos.com, and as a respected voice in the Pagan community, writing has become somewhat of a burden, and she’s having a hard time remembering the way it feels to write from the heart; to write without fear of judgment.

For a blogger, writing is not simply expressing your ideas and opinions; it’s engaging the entire world in a conversation. And if you’ve spent any time reading through the comments of blogs across the web, you know that people can be pretty insensitive in comment threads. They engage with the text as though there isn’t a person standing behind it, and their criticisms can hurt. Sometimes they miss the text altogether and go straight for the writer, which hurts even more.

I’ve been fortunate on my blog, and have been spared much of the vitriol that exists out there in hyperspace. The comments from my readership have been, by and large, enriching and not destructive.

But the bigger issue at hand is not the way a blogger engages with their audience; it is how the writer engages with her heart, her mind and her life.

More Than The Sum Of Her Words

“I write because I have a religious impulse to do so. Everyone has their own gift, and unfortunately this is the only one I have. Writing is all I’ve got to give. I am not a brilliant teacher, nor a gifted ritualist. I’m not an inspiring and dedicated activist. I’m not a wise elder, nor even a good student. I’m no enchanting musician, talented visual artist or helpful mentor. I’m not even a supportive lover, or raising up the next generation of Pagans. I’m someone who chews through words and ideas, who worries a concept until it makes sense to her and whose tool is the written word. In the larger picture, it’s not a very useful gift.“

To the bolded text I say — hooey.

Star’s gift is a tremendous gift. To write is no small thing. To write is to help facilitate others to think. It is to draw connections between seemingly disparate ideas, and to show the ways in which the world, with all of its tragedies and sorrows, is undeniably magical. Writing can be, as I feel it is for me at times, a form of ministry (and you read here about what that word means to me).

To write about a spiritual life is especially valuable, and this is where Star’s work is connected to something truly great. Star, and all those blogging on matters of the heart, the spirit, the powerful invisible force that connects me to you, you to me, us to the dirt and the sky and the water, we’re preparing each other for moments of transformation. We’re preparing each other for living with deep presence, deep awareness, and a willingness to be authentic. This is big work. This is meaningful.

This is what Star does. This is what I seek to do. This is why I write. I write because I am alive, and because I believe that life is a mystery, and an explosion, and a song. I understand Star’s “religious impulse,” because I share it. It is scary and overwhelming at times, but it serves a real purpose.

To All The Stars Out There

Writers write about what they know — the good ones, at least — and if you’re a writer who has discovered that her well is running dry, then you need to dig another well! You need to get out there and live some.

Cultivate the parts of yourself that are less than brilliant. Polish them. Sit with them. Then, write about that experience. Be flawed, and write about it. Be funny, and write about it. Be willing to take risk of living a full, bold, bright pink life, and write about it.

Let your religious impulse to write be transformed into a religious impulse to live.

I strongly encourage you to read Star’s post in full. Then, feel free to share it, as well as this post, with your friends on Facebook and Twitter.

Then, do some writing of your own.

I Got Religion During #NaNoWriMo

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For thirty days in a row I shall wake up every morning, brew a batch of French press coffee, sit down at my solid, cluttered desk (or a reasonable substitute) and write at least one thousand, six hundred and sixty-seven words until, on November 30th, I reach the final 50,000 word mark.

You see, I, along with thousands of other professional and amateur writers, am participating in the 2011 NaNoWriMo Writing Challenge. If you have any chutzpah at all you’ll join me. As of the publication of this post you’re only 1 day behind. You could totally catch up.

Is it lunacy? Yes. Undoubtably. But is it pointless? Absolutely not.

Yesterday evening, in response to my first online proclamation of my writing progress (a proud 1712 words), a friend of mine responded by saying,

It’s a trivial matter to write 50,000 words in thirty days. The challenge is to make them worth reading.

This statement is only partly true, and I told him as much. It is a challenge to write words that are worth reading, no matter how many you’re putting down on the page. I won’t deny that. Blogging at Patheos for the past few months has given me a great many opportunity to reflect on the economy and efficacy of my writing, and to seek to do good work in every post. These posts average between 800 and 1000 words, a manageable amount for both writer and reader, but not so many that I lose sight of myself.

But, in longer form work — say, in the writing of a book — the Inner Editor has many more opportunities to barge in and halt the process. The Inner Editor becomes the Inner Critic, picking apart the lines, finding reasons why none of it makes sense. The Inner Critic, left unchecked, can easily become the Inner Hater. Once that happens, you might as well close your laptop and go do the dishes.

There is nothing trivial about writing 50,000 words in 30 days. In thirty days there are dozens upon dozens of moments where one must resist the inclination to doubt one’s self, where one must move forward in spite of her uncertainty, and trust that there will be a time and place to make sense of all the details, and that that time isn’t in between every single line.

I’d liked to suggest that NaNoWriMo is more than just a writing exercise. As a Druid, I will be bold and say that writing 50,000 words in 30 days can and should be understood as a sacred, spiritual rite; a holy ritual deserving much respect and great honor.

(And I ain’t just saying that to get the kudos.)

Respect the Awen. Tame the Hater.

Modern Druids, particularly those of us who trace some part of our spiritual lineage back to the Revivalist moment of the 17th and 18th centuries, place a great value on creativity and the inner creative spirit. We have a word for it, in fact: Awen.

The Awen, which can be translated from Welsh to mean, “inspiration,” is a mysterious force. Any creative person — a writer, a musician, a poet — understands that the true nature of their own creativity is always somewhat illusive to them. One is never solely responsible for their own creations, and we are all subject to “getting in the way of the flow,” if you will.

Awen is the flow. Awen is also the source of the flow. Awen is the experience of being in perfect harmony with your own creative voice. And, Awen is located in between the words and breaths of that creative voice.

Awen is not the correct usage of words. Awen is the expressive, creative, perhaps even chaotic use of words. Change out “words” for “sounds,” “images,” “movements” — it all fits. It all makes sense. Any of those statements will ring true.

Freestyle rappers connect to the Awen. Beat poets, and improvisational comedians connect to the Awen. Every time you’ve ever been caught up in a melody, and it took you to a place that you hadn’t expected, and you find yourself singing a song that no one has ever sung before — that’s you being embraced, enriched, enlivened by the Awen.

Every one of us is given a voice at birth, and every one of us – at some point – forgets how to use it. We are all given messages that we are not worthy to share our opinion, our perspective, our view on the world. We are told that we are stupid, or that we aren’t as good as our siblings, our parents, the celebrities on the television. There are entire factions of culture which exist for the sole purpose of subjugating your voice in order to replace it with the voice of someone else. There is always a wall being built somewhere to damn up the Awen, to block the creative flow from our heart to our head to our mouth to the world.

But for the next 29 days I’ll be breaking down that wall. There will be no room in my body for it. There will be no room on my desk, or on my computer screen, or even in the column of this blog.

No Walls in November.

This month, while I open myself to the creative flow of the Awen, writing will become, for me, a religious act. I will seek the source of my creativity, and through opening myself to it I will redefine worship to mean writing without ceasing. Writing without ceasing, in some ways, is not unlike praying without ceasing. It’s accessible to anyone with the time, commitment and patience, and the rewards are many.

So, join me if you will. Write without ceasing. Connect to the source of your own creativity and challenge yourself in new and unexpected ways. Let the connecting to your own creativity become an extension of your spiritual practice.

Write reverently. Write irreverently.

Write!!!

[And, if you want to spread the word about NaNoWriMo, my writing challenge, or this exploration of how creativity is a sacred aspect of any spiritual tradition, please share this post with your friends on Facebook, Twitter, or your social network of choice!]

Turning Over A Good Omen

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I started a new creative project today. It’s one I’ve been preparing for since November of last year, and one that will influence much of what is to come throughout the rest of the Winter. It’s kind of a big deal.

I decided that it would be right and good to make special requests to the Kindred during my morning devotional for their guidance, wisdom and presence as I start down this new path. I put my essence into the offerings, opening myself as much as I could.

Once my offerings had been made, and it seemed like I was finished, I started to close the Hallows. I called on Arawn to transform the Fire, and then the Well, and as I was about to move on to the Tree my hand brushed up against the candle – something that has never happened before during ritual – and hot wax splashed onto my palm.

This didn’t seem like clumsiness. It seemed like a message. It seemed like a call to keep the sacred space open. I sensed that I should return to a place where I could be receptive to communication, and listen. It did not seem like they were done with me just yet.

So, I stopped what I was doing. Recalling what I’ve learned through reading about ADF ritual, and what I’ve experienced first had in full, High Day ritual with Silver Branch Golden Horn, I decided that it would be appropriate and useful to take an Omen. This isn’t something I’d incorporated into my daily practice before, but today it seemed right. If the Kindred wanted this space to remain open, then perhaps they wanted to convey something to me, and the taking of an Omen might help that message come through.

I sat down at the round table I use for tarot readings, lit a small, mostly melted candle, and shuffled my deck. I laid the deck down, asked out loud if my offerings would be accepted, and then I turned over a single card.

It was the Princess of Wands.

She stood in the middle of a road, clearly moving forward. She was fiery, focussed, and she seemed beautifully self possessed. These were, of course, my first impressions. I pulled the DruidCraft book from my shelf and found the page corresponding to this card. At times, I find it useful to see what the artists intended for this card to represent, and to hold that meaning up against my initial, intuitive reading.

The book read this:

When not signifying a person, this card may represent the initial spark of interest in a project or a relationship, or it can indicate a message or communication, particularly one conveying news about the beginning of a venture. It may also indicate a general quickening of the pace of life – a new phase of activity just starting.

Could this have been any clearer that my words had been heard?!

I asked for a sign that my sacrifices were acceptable to the Kindred, and I received a clear and resounding message back – YES! They would be with me! It felt like communication. Real communication.

Today was brilliant. I felt the presence of the Kindred as I began my creative work, and I’m profoundly grateful.

Make your offerings with sincerity.

Open your heart fully and without reservation.

Be transparent and the light will shine through you.