[Edited 5 June 2019]
This post is a step away for an interval from the ongoing Major Arcana series. As I let the energies of that series percolate a little before moving on with it, I wanted to acknowledge two things.
Raven Grimassi, 1951-2019
First, a death. Pagan scholar and author Raven Grimassi passed on March 10 at 67. With some 20 books to his credit, Grimassi’s influence spread through his writings, but also through his many animated workshops. An enlivened teacher, he held on to a love of learning and growing throughout his life, as I witnessed firsthand while attending one of his workshops (shortly after publication of his Cauldron of Memory: Retrieving Ancestral Knowledge and Wisdom) which continues to contribute to my own path.
In particular, his work with sound as an “access technique” to other realms inspired me and many others. My own experiences with the potency of what I’ve called the “Cauldron Sound” feature in my workshops at MAGUS and in blogposts here.
Raven, may the next spiral of the Long Journey bring you joy, wonder and more growth.
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Second is John Beckett’s post earlier today on joy.
In this era of unsettling change, raw emotion, and anxious uncertainty, we deeply need reminders to return again and again to what sustains and feeds us, and helps us live more richly and fully. Future historians might call our time an “Age of Distraction”, so susceptible are we to the incessant clamor all around for our attention, time and energy. The whole world is now Spinal Tap — turned up to 11 all the time.
Because such voices no longer cease of their own accord, even for brief intervals, in our endlessly wired-and-tired day, it’s on us to choose to turn them off from time to time, if we value our own spiritual integrity or wholeness. For we don’t get the “whole story” if we listen to the loudest voices, though it’s natural to pick them out first from all the shouting. Long ago the Wise alerted us to the “still small voice” that greets us at the borders of our own inner spaces, and points us toward things of much greater value and benefit to us than most of the outer rumor, that old word that once meant “noise”, but has become an unsubstantiated report or story.
The older meaning of “noise”, however, still fits — fits more than ever. Any practice that carves out quiet for us, that encourages reflection, that lets the small inward voice reach us to warm and heal and advise us, is one to hold on to and cherish. Indeed, if we don’t assert our own reality, to turn a phrase only a little, then “rumor has it”. We abdicate when we listen unprepared, unequipped. We start to doubt ourselves, an often much worse doubt than suspicion of anything or anyone else. We no longer trust what we know to be valid and true and constructive. We close our eyes to the dawn, then stumble in the dark.
Instead, in the words of OBOD ritual (insert your own to taste):
Let the four directions be honored, and let the gateways of the Quarters be opened, that power and radiance might enter our circle for the good of all beings.
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Image: Wikipedia — fair use.
A Druid Way 
