You can feel it, can’t you? The approach of the next of the Great Eight festivals, the holy tide of Samhain. Or across the hemispheres, the advent of Brighid’s day of Imbolc. Fire festivals, both of them. Opportunities for a “deep dive” inward, if you so choose.
Or maybe your inner senses just aren’t tuned to such things. Not a problem. Imagine what it feels like, the energies swirling and eddying around this time. Or if you have a photo of a beloved ancestor, or an object which that ancestor once held, you’ve got a different kind of connection.
Suggestions for where I can purchase an altar? posted a new Druid on a Druid forum. The responses tended toward the repurposed and well-loved piece of furniture. Discarded, scratched and refurbished, that tabletop, desk, nightstand, shelf. One commenter noted, “Half my house is now an altar” with niches and corners lovingly adorned with figures, stones, feathers, driftwood, sacred objects. The cast-off, hand-me-down, yard sale. And out of doors, the sawn-flat stump in the woods, or the stone the septic company excavated while locating your tank, or the natural crook or niche where a tree-trunk meets the ground.
Those blessed with outdoor space in a yard may have room for a permanent circle, or simply an open patch of grass, or a small corner walled on two sides by fencing, where a small figure peeps through the foliage.
The full moon last night and tonight can be a potent altar, as can the human heart, open and listening. Each ritual we do erects an altar in spirit, leaving an imprint in consciousness we can strengthen and reaffirm each time we bring it to mind, or repeat the ritual, each time we gather again in a beloved circle of Others, whether they have their skins on or not.
So much of the genius of Druidry grounds itself in the here and now. Its metaphors concern growing things, the seasons, the changes and encounters and opportunities shaped by living in time and space. (The physical world is the ultimate spiritual metaphor.) Our communion is with life lived with other beings, including some without their skins on. But no one asks me to believe in them, or at least no more than I ask them to believe in me. Which can be lots, or not at all.
And so it is that the awen isn’t something to pray to (though I could), but to say and sing and listen to, in a group or alone. The crowded sapling I replanted last autumn doesn’t require my belief (though I’m free to believe my belief will help) but rather the space to grow, and regular watering until its root system re-establishes itself. The birds or beasts I share my life with need food and shelter and care. I may consider them dear companions, or manifestations of deity, but when they wake me asking for a meal, or to nudge me for a caress, no incense is required.
Some may choose to explore further, to part the veils that exist everywhere, that make physical things more and more transparent for Spirit, or that also can preserve a reassuring earthly solidity a little longer, if we need it. Face-to-face with a local part of the world I encounter just a few paces from here, a part I can paint and ponder, photograph and feel, I know enough of divinity to take another step, if I choose.
I’ve had trouble for a few years now with a frequent sense of constriction just before waking. Traditional medicine points to things like sleep apnea, poor diet, sleep paralysis, and similar physical causes. But I’ve eliminated these things as primary, though some may be effects of a more underlying cause. If ever I doubted that I leave my body every night, here’s proof, when proof’s no longer needed: I’m definitely outside, and frequently reluctant to return. Often in near-to-waking dreams I’m entering a tunnel, climbing a narrowing stairway, pushing myself into a corner, sliding into a tight, confining and claustrophobic space. Ah, said a friend proficient at getting out of the body, when I shared some details of this experience, I know that feeling. I came to realize a part of me was too large to fit comfortably inside a human form. Sometimes you need to make inner adjustments with what you try to bring back with you. Hmm.
“I was more independent than any farmer in Concord,” remarks Henry David Thoreau, in the “Economy” chapter of Walden, “for I was not anchored to a house or farm, but could follow the bent of my genius, which is a very crooked one, every moment. Beside being better off than they already, if my house had been burned or my crops had failed, I should have been nearly as well off as before”. Unlike Henry, I have a house, but my genius is as bent as any, and perhaps the curvature makes following it into a bone-house, if not back out again, more difficult than it need be. I hear the word shapeshift echo behind my hearing, like something spoken in the next room, though no one else is home — and I ponder new ways to explore this dream-waking challenge. What shape might better fit, if a human one proves too narrow? A new practice to explore.
Grounded in the here and now, I have a center from which to explore. Maybe that’s both aid and obstacle. Hermes Trismegistus, Thrice-Greatest Hermes, is said to have remarked, “God is an infinite sphere, the center of which is everywhere, the circumference nowhere.” So I reflect that creation as deity sees it is happening wherever the center is, and finishes at the circumference. Whatever that means, it may mean that it begins where I sense a center. I needn’t go looking for it anywhere else.
Hermes Thrice-Greatest, in Latin Mercurius ter Maximus — MtM for someone like me in love with acronyms — is simply another doorway, a mask spirit wears, as we all are to each other, another chance to ponder all the ways and plays of spirit peeking out from everything. The more closely I explore this blessed physical world of metaphorical and very real earth, air, fire and water, the more carefully it explores me. Thoreau knows what I’m sensing; a few lines of his became one of my mantras, long ago:
Time is but the stream I go a-fishing in. I drink at it; but while I drink I see the sandy bottom and detect how shallow it is. Its thin current slides away, but eternity remains. I would drink deeper; fish in the sky, whose bottom is pebbly with stars — Walden.
The Wikipedia entry for genius offers a useful etymology for extended meditation:
In ancient Rome, the genius (plural in Latin genii) was the guiding spirit or tutelary deity of a person, family (gens) or place (genius loci). The noun is related to the Latin verbs “gignere” (to beget, to give birth to) and “generare” (to beget, to generate, to procreate), and derives directly from the Indo-European stem thereof: “ǵenh” (to produce, to beget, to give birth). Because the achievements of exceptional individuals seemed to indicate the presence of a particularly powerful genius, by the time of [Caesar] Augustus, the word began to acquire its secondary meaning of “inspiration, talent”. The term genius acquired its modern sense in the eighteenth century, and is a conflation of two Latin terms: genius, as above, and ingenium [cf. ingenious], a related noun referring to our innate dispositions, talents, and inborn nature. Beginning to blend the concepts of the divine and the talented, the Encyclopédie [an 18th-century French encyclopedia]article on genius (génie) describes such a person as “he whose soul is more expansive and struck by the feelings of all others; interested by all that is in nature never to receive an idea unless it evokes a feeling; everything excites him and on which nothing is lost”.
Again and again I return to earth, to the physical, this first and last mystery, vessel for otherwise intangible spirit, which still looks at me even as I gaze at it. And I consider a genius of my locus, a spirit of place — an altar, if I see it so — the stone in our front yard, mantled with snow and lichen on this November day.
May all that you meet talk to you, teach you, comfort you, challenge you, guide you, prepare you.
“Winter doesn’t mean Summer has failed”, says one of my teachers. It’s not a competition, though sometimes our seasonal myths and stories can make it seem like winter and summer take turns through time in “winning” and “losing” and grudgingly parcelling out the year between them. (It’s more a tussle between lovers.)
North, early morning, October
And if the world follows its cycles of manifestation, so do humans who live and grow and die and are born here. After all, we’re one of the things the universe does. That mountain ash is as well, and this solitary bee sunning itself on the east wall of our house this October morning, and taking flight in a sudden thrum of wings as I walk past, lugging the laundry.
I’m stingy enough (if you’re kind you can call it thrifty) that I pause under the clothesline a moment, savoring the October calm and light. Sorting through clothespins for the large ones, I calculate how much I’m paying myself per hour to air-and-sun-dry the laundry, rather than spend money for electricity to do the job.
Either it’s the clothesline in good weather, or the drying rack indoors, with a fire in the stove. Labor-intensive, but easy on the wallet. The day’s weather forecast, rather than traffic and distance to the laundromat and spare quarters on hand, is my guide. As a builder-acquaintance of mine likes to say, you have to earn so damn much just to save so damn little. If I can remove one more homely task from that cycle, it’s a victory. In the process, I recover simple pleasures like the scent of laundry the sun has loved all day long.
Could we find a guide as useful for whenever we plunge into any particular cycle of manifestation? After all, I don’t want to pour more energy into working the ground, if the time for planting is already here. Or plant, if it’s harvest-time and a frost looks imminent. More and more I’m starting to see where to focus. Which signals from the universe deserve my attention? What guides me to alertness about these cycles and my part in them, and what distracts and diverts and wastes my energy?
Ah, you know the feeling as well as I do. How did it happen last week that I squandered what looked like a crest of inspiration and passion, a peak where I knew I could do what I longed to do, and managed to throw myself into the depths of a trough instead? Was it noise rather than wisdom that tugged on my attention from the outside, and drew me aside from my goal? Some samples — the voices we all hear, that seduce us from our best interests: “You should W. Or X is so terrible that you must Y. Or you can’t Z”, and so on, and on. I wake up enough from time to time to ask myself, “Since when have strangers known better than my own inner guidance what’s in my best interests?!”
So I have a map for manifestation. Is that enough? Can I locate more guidance?
Well, how about my reasons, my motive, my intention? Whom does the Grail serve? one such teaching asks us. Druid koan, a question the universe is always asking. Who benefits? If we serve only the self, we’re cutting off half the flow that’s possible for us. As distributors, as channels, as manifesters of awen-inspiration and life and energy, we can always open to a greater flow. Isn’t that our deepest desire, to feel life pass through us on its way to a worthy purpose? To have participated fully in the marvel of existence? I don’t know about you, but that’s the richest and most thrilling experience I know.
What do I need in order to work with the entire cycle?
It’s for the good of the whole. That doesn’t mean cutting myself out of the cycle of manifestation, out of some misguided understanding that I must sacrifice my own happiness or well-being to realize what I desire. I’m also part of the cycle, which is incomplete without me. I am one of the means by which the universe achieves manifestation. Rather than the tired, old (and often untrue) “A chain is only as strong as its weakest link”, how about “Each of us is part of the Spiral, and also reflects the magical whole in our uniqueness and creativity”?
Altar of the South, ECG ’17
And because we can peer across and around and occasionally beyond Time, and get glimpses of the Pattern or the Web, we can work from a larger vision of any goal, from full participation in the cycle. Do our best, and then release it, trusting the intelligence of the universe, as it manifests in our teachers and guides, in bird and beast, beech and bug, and the shapes and fortunes of our own lives, to help us tweak and revision and adapt as manifestation cycles through.
One of the groups I gather with to observe at least some of the “Great Eight” festivals has been searching for a meeting place for our upcoming Lunasa/Lughnasadh celebration.
So, I ask myself, what does my teacher of Daily Druidry have on hand to show me this time?
Turns out, a lot. One member of our group whom I’ll call V has generously hosted our past three festivals in her spacious back yard. From the Spring Equinox to Midsummer, she provided cooking space as well as an altar. And plates, cups, and tableware.
And, on more than one occasion, burgers and sausage to contribute to our potluck meals, and a bottle of wine, too. So it’s well past time for a change of host and venue, if only not to impose any more on V’s hospitality. Even though she was willing to offer her home yet again, this time for Lunasa. Until her life rearranged and changes blew through it — good ones! — and now she can’t host us after all (or attend).
So I pour a double libation to Mundana and Mundanus, twin deities of this world where we launch so many spiritual vessels, never noticing how our “ordinary” realities matter at least as much as any other.
As a for-instance: the day of ritual dawns on all-day rain, and we scramble to move indoors, or reschedule.
Or the quiet fellow who agreed at the last gathering to take on writing the ritual script for this one falls sick the day before, with just a skeleton outline he was waiting to complete with the adrenalin/awen inspiration of last-minute-ness, and so we scurry to come up with an alternative ritual, offer up energies to aid him in dealing with his physical reality, and ponder again the key role of those twin gods of the mundane.
Need a hull or anchor, a current or shore to set out from, wind in your sails, fire in your belly, water in your canteens or buoying you up, tide and moon and sun? Hail, gods of the Mundane! We honor and salute you, without whom this world cannot shape the Spiral, playing its part in manifesting anything at all in the world of form. Right and Left Hands of Spirit, we offer these gifts and salutations.
It’s fitting that Lugh whose festival is upon us bears the epithet Samildanach: “equally skilled in many arts”. The god stands out not for any particular excellence but for all of them.
And that includes — fully, rightfully, honorably, deservedly — the forms that Spirit takes in its guise as the “mundane”: the gifts of welcome, an open hearth, food and laughter and good company.
“mundane” altar: stone (N), feather (E), candle (S), shell
/|\ /|\ /|\
Images: ancient three-headed image of Lugh found in Paris in 1800s.
Yesterday our local group celebrated an early Solstice. The forecast rain held off — Blessing of the Sun! — and at the very end of the rite as we uncast the circle, a couple of birds landed in the branches of the tree above the altar, just a few feet overhead. As many of you have also witnessed, the natural world acknowledges the energies of ritual respectfully performed.
Several members of our group are Wiccans — note the brooms to sweep away negative energy as needed. They’re not only working tools but useful working symbols as well. By that I mean a symbol to carry into meditation and deploy in visualization, as well as a physical object. Catch myself in less-than-desirable states of consciousness? Out comes the “inner broom”. My particularly stubborn inner trash gets swept into heaps, dumped in a bucket and cast into an inner river which dissolves it and washes it away, reintegrating it into the cosmos. (Repeat as needed.)
So often we look half-aware for something to replace negativity, and lacking a viable replacement we can get sucked back into it, because its tug draws the emotions. Symbols stand ready to our need, charged with their own emotional electricity. When I find it may not be enough merely to purify, whether with prayer, salt, incense, ritual or some combo of them, a symbol can help rally inner resources. Some unwanted stuff has a way of creeping back in, and the situation may call for an ongoing cleanse. Broom, en garde!
If it makes you feel better, because you “grasp” or “understand” such things, to call them “psychological”, by all means do so. What matters more to me, though, at least in the moment, is whether they work. One member couldn’t join us yesterday who played a specific role in the rite-as-written, so after a quick exchange of PMs with the ritual writer, I stepped in, among other things to cast the circle. This gave me a splendid excuse to de-rust a sword for the purpose and, not-so-incidentally, help me confront why I love and seek out ritual, but shy from consecrating objects I already possess as ritual aids. I’ve touched on this in previous posts [among others, here].
Fire comes to our ritual and bodily need (why separate them, after all?), its heat, light and hue all central to the season and a ritual working: nearby fire-pit shedding warmth on our skin, or candles flickering on the altar. But the sword is a fine tool of power, a weapon, a strong and ancient symbol, forged in flame and often enough incorporating a cross where hilt meets blade. So it gathers up a whole complex of symbolic vectors of energy.
The replica sword I cleaned up yesterday morning before the ritual is an older design than the more familiar Medieval ones with the exaggerated hilt. Its edges are very dull — no risk to anyone of injury — so it’s also ideal to transport. If by chance the police should stop me for any reason, it’s much easier to explain a stage sword than one like my other sword, much rustier, but with a wicked edge still. Seeing how well the white vinegar cleaned off the rust from the smaller sword, though, I’ll be tackling that more extensive cleaning job tomorrow.
I mention all this at some length because the curious resistance I felt at bringing a ritual tool along to the ritual told me something curious is afoot. Two swords (a promising name for a novel, or magical order!) put me in mind of the two ancient Indo-European words for elemental fire, *ogni the active, and *pur the static. Is there something at play in my conception of ritual, or my ritual purposes, that I’m missing or blocking? The smaller, less impressive (and very dull-edged) blade has the fancy scabbard. The other, larger and deadly weapon has a simple leather sheath, all practicality, but no tooled design. Surface and deeper meaning, keenness and showiness, purpose and pretension? I’m still listening.
After uncasting the circle yesterday, I drove the point of the blade into the soft earth by the altar, saying, “The circle open, but unbroken”, or some variation on those words.
And the ritual circle in my mind, open and unbroken, interrogates me still. If I gain any insight, I’ll pick this up again in a subsequent post.
/|\ /|\ /|\
“Where can I celebrate the Solstice?” You can find some version of this question online. Best, I’d answer, is your own celebration. Yes, there are plenty of group events around the world, but the shortest night of the year offers you your pick of how to observe the festival. An all-night party (a lively Scandinavian tradition) or a vigil (some Druid traditions) are two popular options. Or some unique combination of the two.
I plan to stay up Tuesday evening for a “second Solstice” and greet the Sun Wednesday morning, June 21st, on what will be the longest day in the eastern U.S. Where I live, daylight on the 21st is 15 hours and 21 minutes long, making the night just a little over 8 and a half hours.
The “third Solstice” is Friday 23 June, whether I attend a group celebration just outside of Boston (a drive of 3 hours in Friday evening traffic) or do a ritual solo at home.
This last weekend marks the 5th East Coast Gathering I’ve attended, the 6th since its launch in 2010, and another gift of Spirit and mortal effort.
You can read my accounts of three of the previous years: 2012 | 2013 | 2014. A special thank-you to John Beckett, several of whose professional photographs illustrate this post. You can visit John’s own articulate and insightful blog “Under the Ancient Oaks: Musings of a Pagan Druid and Unitarian Universalist” over at Patheos here.
Camp Netimus — site of the ECG. Photo courtesy Krista Carter
Registration for the weekend filled within 20 hours of opening this last spring. Gatherings like this answer an obvious need in the Druid and Pagan community, and more are in the works in other locations. It’s on us to help make them happen. A dedicated team can bring the same joy, support, inspiration and community to other regions.
Yes, we’re all solitaries some or much of the time, but every solitary benefits from celebrating and learning in the company of others. That chance conversation, ritual insight, day- or night-dream, word or phrase that lights up just for you, the hugs you give and receive, the opportunities to serve the community through offering a workshop, cooking, cleaning, organizing, driving — these make Gatherings like this such richly rewarding experiences. The dark and light halves of each year are real, and we need all the help and laughter we can find to thread our way through the labyrinth of time.
/|\ /|\ /|\
I arrived Thursday afternoon early enough to check in and unpack before the opening ritual. My cabin mates had already hoisted a banner, which also made the building easier to distinguish from the others in the dark, when the “9” on the door was no longer readily visible.
Cabin banner. Photo by A Druid Way
Equinox marks the shifting energies of days and nights, rebalancing the world. A lovely moon bore witness, waxing each evening through wonderfully clear skies, lighting the path to evening events like the Ovate initiation ritual and illuminating the short uphill walk from the cafeteria to the nightly fire circle.
Crescent moon in a twilit sky. Photo courtesy John Beckett
The theme this year was ritual, and the whole weekend focused our attention on its magical possibilities through a dozen workshops, demonstrations and ceremonies. You can get a sense of the range of approaches from the list of workshops here. We also welcomed returning U. K. guests Damh the Bard, Cerri Lee, and Kristoffer Hughes.
Cerri Lee, Damh the Bard and Kris Hughes. Photo courtesy John Beckett
/|\ /|\ /|\
Damh’s workshop on “The Bardic Voice” underscored the centrality of the Bard in Druidry. Like many Druid groups, OBOD orders its teaching in the sequence of Bard, Ovate and Druid. But they do not form a linear progress or erect a hierarchy of achievement. They spiral. In an Ovate breakout group a day later, several people mentioned how they often return to the Bardic coursework, its insights deepening through their Ovate practice. And likewise with the work of the Druid grade.
Damh is a fine teacher, an animated storyteller and ritualist of deep experience. With his wife Cerri he leads Anderida Grove. [For an audio inspiration, listen to his hour-long recording for inner journeying here.]
Damh in teaching mode. Photo courtesy John Beckett
/|\ /|\ /|\
Reminders of ritual possibility filled the weekend. Below is a picture of a labyrinth, another gift of the weekend, lovingly constructed by Cat Hughes and friends.
Labyrinth by day — entrance. Photo by A Druid Way.
Volunteers switched on each light every evening, then turned them off again when everyone else had gone to bed.
Labyrinth by night. Photo courtesy Damh the Bard.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Kris’s workshop, “Laudanum, Literature and Liturgy — the Ritual Legacy of Iolo Morganwg,” featured the ritual — in Welsh — that Morganwg first performed on the Summer Solstice on Primrose Hill (London) in 1792, launching the Druid Revival and establishing the Welsh Gorsedd of Bards. Morganwg is also the author of the Druid’s Prayer, still used in many modern Druid groups including OBOD, and a major influence on generations of Druids from his time to the present. Kris’s Celtic eloquence in praise of Morganwg and his passion for Druidry took him off script and left many of us with tears in our eyes.
Kris during his workshop on Iolo Morganwg. Photo courtesy of Dana Wiyninger.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Bill Streeter from the Delaware Valley Raptor Center, the charity designated for this year’s Gathering donation, brought six birds and made a fine presentation on raptors, their abilities, the dangers (mostly human) facing them, and the challenges of rehabilitating injured birds.
Bill Streeter of the DVRC with a golden eagle. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
These magnificent birds have often suffered neurological injuries that worsen over time. Though both the eagle above and the owl below look normal, both are blind in one or both eyes, or suffer other injuries like crippled wings, and thus could not survive in the wild. But the birds help save the lives of their kin through their appearances in info sessions like this one.
Great Horned Owl. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
/|\ /|\ /|\
The Alban Elfed ritual celebrating the Equinox includes gifts from children, guests and each of the three grades of Bards, Ovates and Druids. Here are Chris and I holding bowls of acorns, part of the Ovates’ ritual gift, just before the ritual procession into the Circle.
Chris (r) and I (l) just before Alban Elfed ritual. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
The evening eisteddfod (music and poetry circle) one night featured a splendid duet from Kris and Damh — see the image below.
Kris and Damh singing at the fire circle. Photo courtesy Hex Nottingham.
Below is another pic of the fire circle one night. Our enthusiastic and skilful fire-makers Derek and Brom love large, carefully-constructed bonfires.
Evening bonfire. Photo courtesy John Beckett.
Once again Dana set up her meditation tent on the campground for all to visit and enjoy.
Approaching the tent. Photo courtesy Dana Wiyninger
Altar in Dana’s meditation tent on the camping field. Photo courtesy Hex Nottingham.
A small group made a side excursion to nearby Raymondskill Falls. Here’s a view of one of the waterfalls.
And for those of us who can’t wait an entire year, the Gulf Coast Gathering will celebrate its second year in March 2016. Blessings of the Equinox to all!
Our bodies already know the Goddess – this is our oldest magic.
I relied on this insight in planning for the workshop at this year’s East Coast Gathering, whose theme was “Connecting with the Goddess.”
/|\ /|\ /|\
Goals and plans I had for the workshop:
The heart of the workshop is a hands-on look at various ways to make a physical book/scroll/altar object that explores/invites/incorporates ritual, ogham/runes, art, prayer, poems, questions, magic and daydreaming into a concrete “link” to the Goddess as we experience Her — or desire to experience Her. Think “book” as “portable paginated/folding/roll-up ongoing altar-in-process.” I’ll talk about inspiration, nudges, hints and ways to listen, inviting and hoping for participant sharing and input! The seed for the workshop comes out of the fact that I’m a prime example of somebody who doesn’t have a consistent Goddess practice (though She’s seeing to it that’s shifting, too), but when She wants my attention, She gets it, like with this book, and workshop.
It’s probably a good thing we don’t always hear how ambitious we sound. Young or old, you eventually learn to deal with the inevitable gap between vision and manifestation. If you’ve managed to hold on to any of that original and wonderful idealism of youth, you also realize that the gap isn’t a reason to despair, or to dispensewith vision, but rather a sign of just how important vision is.
The physical world, so important for manifestation, by its nature tends to lag behind the swiftness with which vision can appear. But that lag is precisely part of this world’s immense value: its inertia and density allow for greater permanency and resistance to change, so that we can experience the results of vision over time — and fine-tune it if we choose. Unlike in dream, where the subtle stuff of vision or imagination can wisp away so quickly, physical manifestation tries to linger.
/|\ /|\ /|\
The Goddess is generous. Or alternatively, if you prefer the cynical version, I belong to the OCD Order of Druids. Creativity, as the saying goes, is messy. I over-planned for the workshop, ending up with far more material than any mortal could begin to do justice to in a mere hour, and this post is my penance, or confession. Or further indulgence. And maybe — in the way it often arrives when we’re not paying attention, even in spite of ourselves — a spark of awen.
/|\ /|\ /|\
“Creating A Goddess Book,” with focus on “book” in order to free it from the psychological shrine many Druids, and Pagans generally, tend to put books in. Instead of paper, a book of leather, or metal, or cloth — individual sheets, or a single longer scroll. A nudge to try out the qualities of other substances than paper, than the admittedly inviting blank books on sale in chain bookstores, or even Ye Friendlie Lokal Paygan Shoppe.
Each workshop participant received a packet to practice with, consisting of a rectangle (approx. 3″ x 4″) of vegetable-cured leather and a similar-sized rectangle of .019″ aluminum, wrapped in a larger swath of canvas cut from a shop drop-cloth from Home Depot. A wood- and leather-burning tool, a few screwdrivers, some markers of various kinds, a few words about inspiration and the importance of working to manifest things on the physical plane as one powerful way to connect with the Goddess. Suggestions for inscribing/writing/ incising a short prayer, vow, magical name, etc. Reference tables of Ogham and runes for those who wanted to inscribe words with some privacy, as a personal meditation. I pointed out that you could cut all three materials with kitchen scissors. Besides the wood-burner, no fancy tools required. Then I shut up and let participants have at the materials. Done!
Hex Nottingham’s leather and metal “pages” — photo courtesy Hex Nottingham
Except for the next flash of inspiration in the planning process, which would not let go: a “Nine-Fold Star of the Goddess” you can try out here at one of several websites that illustrate the steps.
/|\ /|\ /|\
A sampling, with some commentary and additions, from the workshop handout:
“Spirit must express itself in the world of matter or it accomplishes nothing. Insights of meditation and ceremony gain their full power and meaning when reflected in the details of everyday life.” — J. M. Greer, The Druidry Handbook, p. 138.
This world, here, is the realm of mystery. Spirit is simple — it’s this world that’s so surprising and complex in its changes and ripples, its folds and spirals and timings. Make something, I tell myself, labor with the body, and then I can often approach the Goddess more easily, dirt under my fingernails, sweat on my face. She likesbodies. I’m the one who keeps forgetting this, not her.
“Work with a Goddess long enough and you learn to hear Her call. You learn to pick her voice out above the noise of contemporary society, above the words of teachers and friends, and even above your own thoughts and feelings. Sometimes what you hear is not what you expect.” — John Beckett, “A Rite of Sacrifice,” Mar. 4, 2014.
“Shaper, you have made and shaped me. Honor and serenity are yours. I am your garment, you the indwelling spirit. Work with me in everything I do, that all may know you. Energizer, quicken me. Measurer, clear my path. Protector, guard me safely. Initiator, take my hand. Challenger, transform me. Savior, be my help. Weaver, make my pattern bright. Preserver, heal me. Empowerer, make me wise.” — adapted from Caitlin Matthews, Elements of the Goddess, p. 118.
Rilke’s fragment, a whole meditation in itself, or a daily morning prayer.
Oh, I who long to grow,
I look outside myself, and the tree
inside me grows.
— Rainer Maria Rilke
And Larkin’s poem “Water”:
Water
If I were called in
To construct a religion
I should make use of water.
Going to church
Would entail a fording
To dry, different clothes;
My liturgy would employ
Images of sousing,
A furious devout drench,
And I should raise in the east
A glass of water
Where any-angled light
Would congregate endlessly.
— Philip Larkin
After delighting in this poem, make an exercise of it. Choose one of the elements. It can be water, as in the poem, or one of the others. Finish the sentence: “If I were called in to construct a _____, I should make use of [element].” Keep going: a series of statements, a meditation on the one you just wrote, a free association. Whatever gets you putting words down. You can try this over several days with all the elements, or at a different pace, if you’re working with the elements on your own.
The ECG schedule this year put the Goddess Book workshop immediately after Thursday’s Opening Ritual, so people arrived still bubbling from the ceremonial jump-start for the weekend.
“In every world, in every form, in every way, I am near you, I uphold you, I comfort you, I guide you, I deliver you from each limitation until my freedom is yours. Your body is my chalice, your heart my echo, your form my shadow, your pulse my footstep, your breath my passing.” — from my own Goddess book.
/|\ /|\ /|\
1. Once you hold the Star of the Goddess in your hand, write the names of the four elements and Spirit, one near each of the points. Complete this step before reading further.
2. Which elements sit on either side of Spirit? Contemplate on their positions there. Are they elements that help support your spiritual life? Are they especially active? Are these the elements that need extra attention and balance?
3. Consider a section in your Goddess book for vows: experiment with them, not as harsh, unyielding obligations, but as tools for studying resolve, testing experience, practicing manifestation of your intent, and so on. They need not be “public” – write them in ogham, runes, etc. Start small and easily achievable.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Dedicating a Goddess Book: Blood, sweat, tears, spit, etc. can mark our books with our earthiness: a commitment to be honest with the Goddess about our path, its ups and downs, to remember her presence with us, and to acknowledge what we need, what we doubt, what we’re willing to work for – whatever feels right to include. Make a ritual of it. Do it quietly, simply, without fanfare, with silence making its own ritual. Or call out all the stops, bells and whistles. Then dance, feast and celebrate.
/|\ /|\ /|\
Allow a Goddess book — it could be a single sheet or “page” specifically intended for this purpose — to return slowly to the elements on an outdoor altar. Or bury it in the Mother’s good earth. Thus is the vow fulfilled that the Mother takes into Herself, as She will take all things back in time, and return them again.
“All things are holy to you. This book like all things lies among the faces you show to me; may I learn from you daily, drink deep from your well, and body you forth as your child.” — from my Goddess book.
/|\ /|\ /|\
A small ritual. Take a few deep breaths. Sing the awen, or other name or word that grounds and focuses you. Holding your cupped hands in front of you, say: “I make this altar for the Goddess, a space where she may act in my life.”
Holding the Star, or your journal, or other ritual object meaningful to you, or nothing else at all, ask yourself: What specific space or doorway exists in my life for the Goddess to manifest or to act in? Pay attention to hints, images and answers as they come.
/|\ /|\ /|\
And again: Our bodies already know the Goddess – this is our oldest magic.
[The following rite is freely adapted from Ceisiwr Serith‘s Deep Ancestors.* In particular, the Proto-Indo-European (in bold) differs in conception from Serith’s reconstructions. Serith knows both his PIE and his ritual; the changes here match my esthetics and inner sensibility, which I trust — for me. Your mileage may differ. I repeat the words I speak to close my own rites: Solwom wesutai syet! [sohl-WOHM WEH-soo-tie syeht] May it be for the good of all!]
Gumete gurtibos solwom deiwom.
[GOO-meh-teh goor-TEE-bohs sohl-WOHM day-WOHM]
Come to praise all the gods.
Usme keidont — klute tos. [OOS-meh KAY-dohnt — KLOO-teh tohs]
They are calling you — hear them.
Gumete ognim,
[GOO-meh-teh OHG-neem]
Come to the fire,
gumete spondetekwe!
[GOO-meh-teh spohn-deh-TEH-kweh]
come and worship!
Tusyomes, tusyomes, tusyomes! [toos-YOH-mehs, toos-YOH-mehs, toos-YOH-mehs!]
[Let us hush, hush, hush!]
May we all maintain a holy silence.
May we be pure
that we might cross through the sacred.
May we cross through the sacred
that we might attain the holy.
May we attain the holy
that we might be blessed in all things.
Goddess who burns on the hearth, in our homes,
we call you to join us here
bringing our prayers to the gods
forming the means by which we sacrifice.
May the holy arise in our midst, the pure and the blessing.
Shining Lady, unite us all,
for by worshiping at a common hearth
we are made one family, one people.
Asapotya**, Lady of the Hearth, your household is here.
Our soapstone stove, alight with Brigid’s blessing.
/|\ /|\ /|\
A blessed solstice to all!
/|\ /|\ /|\
*Serith, Ceisiwr. Deep Ancestors. Tucson, AZ: ADF Publishing, 2007. Pp. 122-124. Serith is a long-time and respected member of ADF who maintains the Nemos Ognios grove north of Boston.
**A possible reconstructed name of my own devising. The Proto-Indo-European (PIE) word *asa becomes (among other words) Latin ara “altar.”
The * indicates that the word is reconstructed — we have no written record of it — from actual words in one or more of the descendant or “daughter” languages. In general, the more extant “descendant” words deriving from a PIE “ancestor” word, the better the evidence for that particular PIE ancestor. Historical linguists have worked on PIE for over 200 years: we have a few thousand “restored” words that most agree on. One advantage Indo-Europeanists have in making such reconstructions is the large number of documents in older forms of languages like Greek, Sanskrit, Latin, Gothic, Avestan and Old Church Slavonic.
Image: fire on shore. Be sure to visit Richard Gingras’ fabulous images of fires at the URL indicated for the image.
Compassion has no religion. Silence is not always indifference. O great, listening, witnessing world, you too have something to say, something you always are saying, without words. What comfort we can offer, miles and lives away from the families of the Sandy Hook school victims, and from other, newer sufferers since then, may consist of not filling the airwaves and spiritual spaces further, with our own shock or anger or sadness or dismay, or whatever other responses events may next provoke in us. Even if we do not know the families or victims or any of those touched by an event, we may send sympathy, because we are not stones. This is prayer, too. But every turn of the world changes us because we’re in it together. A great service is to love those who need love, and not merely to feel, to emote. We can do more than relive pain, especially another’s pain, or make it ours. Suffering needs no extra rehearsals, no practice. There’s always more than enough to go around.
We’re not stones, but we may raise them into a cairn, a act that by its solidity and palpable weight can lift suffering even a little, if it may, stone by stone. Let earth bear a portion of the weight. Allow this elemental power of Earth to transmute, to compost and transform, as it does all else that comes to it. The turning of the year again toward light in the middle of winter, the planet doing again what the planet does each year, can be solace too, earth re-establishing its balance. Soothing motion of the familiar, wordless touch with its animal comfort. Moon growing again towards fullness, light on the world in the middle of darkness.
But sometimes we hate comfort. Too often solace can reek of appeasement. We stiffen. One more easing is too many. Intolerable. Like words — already more than enough. With no ready target we seek out whatever will serve, anything to shut up the noise, the roar of raw nerves jangling. Anodyne. Oblivion, even, at least for a while.
Grief is too steady a companion. It knows us, it seems, deeper than a lover. OK, we get it. Pain too has something to say that will not be denied. We make a place for it, and it moves in, gets comfortable, settles down for too long. (How long is memory? Is recollection what we consist of? Do we relive, instead of living new? Does this become our only, instead of our also?)
When words do not do, I bring silence to the altar. When I cannot pray, then that is my prayer, just the act of moving toward the altar, a center, a focus.
/|\ /|\ /|\
The house has cooled overnight when I get up to write this. In between the last two paragraphs, I open the door of the woodstove to put in another two logs. In a turtleneck and sweats, I sit on the floor, feet toward the fire, with my laptop where its name says. Warmth, says the body, unrepentant in loving what it loves. Warmth too, radiating from the electrical current flowing through the machine I write with. So little, but a little. A start.
A Druid Way 
