Monday, January 28, 2008
Brigit's Day Poem Fest (Sat. Feb. 2)
Branches up, Roots Down is holding her third annual Birgid Poem Fest. So click on over, sign up, and post some poetry.
Monday, January 7, 2008
Some complaints about ADF*
I’ve been straying from the more ADF style personal rituals to something a bit more nebulous. Some elements from the ADF ritual stay – giving offerings to the Three Kins, for example – but I’ve left the most clunky aspects of it behind.
I just have never, ever liked the cosmos ADF proposed. I’ve been working with them for almost two years now and I’ve finally given up. They’re supposed to be something that works across Indo-European cultures, but instead it ends up not meaning much to any of them. I don’t mind made up, I think it can be very moving, but framing a cosmos on what is basically a very bland, watered-down Celtic/Norse mash-up and then saying because it’s Indo-European based it should fit for everyone from Celtic to Baltic to Grecian only means it won’t really work for anyone. It’s in stuff like this where I really like AODA because they know it’s all made up and say, “we don’t mind, it works for us, who cares?”
In fact, I find that ADF ritual structure is awkward in general for my personal practice. I’m finding that I like the CR approach of coming up with what works for you from the lore and the research. Back it up and work with it. Other people can do very different things and back it up with their own interpretations and everything is cool. None of that infighting about how we can hammer research into an ADF framework, which is already about 25 to 30 years out of date academically. Not that CR doesn’t have infighting; it’s just different in nature.
I still think that ADF-style ritual would work for a medium to large group at high days. But I’ve not found a grove or protogrove to join, and so I’m a reluctant solitary within ADF. I joined to work with a grove and further my studies. I’m sufficiently started in my studies to go on my own now, and the grove thing never panned out. I don’t think that it’s worth my membership money any more. And maybe in a few years it will be. But right now it’s not.
I don’t mind being a solitary. If I want a group of like-minded worshippers, I could always go to the local UU church. But what attracted me to ADF in the first place was that I might find other polytheists to worship with. I don’t regret my time with ADF, in fact I think it’s been incredibly formative for me. Certainly, it got me off my butt and actually worshipping, doing ritual, meditating, studying, and thinking about these subjects with other people. It got me out of what I would consider my interest phase (that lasted over 10 years!) and into an actual practice. I might still be a beginner, but I’m moving at lightening speed, maybe I’m catching up for those stagnant 10 years.
*There are some good things about having a blog no one reads. This won't produce flame war for one.
I just have never, ever liked the cosmos ADF proposed. I’ve been working with them for almost two years now and I’ve finally given up. They’re supposed to be something that works across Indo-European cultures, but instead it ends up not meaning much to any of them. I don’t mind made up, I think it can be very moving, but framing a cosmos on what is basically a very bland, watered-down Celtic/Norse mash-up and then saying because it’s Indo-European based it should fit for everyone from Celtic to Baltic to Grecian only means it won’t really work for anyone. It’s in stuff like this where I really like AODA because they know it’s all made up and say, “we don’t mind, it works for us, who cares?”
In fact, I find that ADF ritual structure is awkward in general for my personal practice. I’m finding that I like the CR approach of coming up with what works for you from the lore and the research. Back it up and work with it. Other people can do very different things and back it up with their own interpretations and everything is cool. None of that infighting about how we can hammer research into an ADF framework, which is already about 25 to 30 years out of date academically. Not that CR doesn’t have infighting; it’s just different in nature.
I still think that ADF-style ritual would work for a medium to large group at high days. But I’ve not found a grove or protogrove to join, and so I’m a reluctant solitary within ADF. I joined to work with a grove and further my studies. I’m sufficiently started in my studies to go on my own now, and the grove thing never panned out. I don’t think that it’s worth my membership money any more. And maybe in a few years it will be. But right now it’s not.
I don’t mind being a solitary. If I want a group of like-minded worshippers, I could always go to the local UU church. But what attracted me to ADF in the first place was that I might find other polytheists to worship with. I don’t regret my time with ADF, in fact I think it’s been incredibly formative for me. Certainly, it got me off my butt and actually worshipping, doing ritual, meditating, studying, and thinking about these subjects with other people. It got me out of what I would consider my interest phase (that lasted over 10 years!) and into an actual practice. I might still be a beginner, but I’m moving at lightening speed, maybe I’m catching up for those stagnant 10 years.
*There are some good things about having a blog no one reads. This won't produce flame war for one.
Friday, January 4, 2008
Happy New Year!
I read 68 books this past year. Not bad, I always try for at least 52 and have the dream goal of reading 104 books or more in a year. Who knows, maybe 2008 will be that year. If you want to check out a more complex breakdown of what I’ve read this year, not religious in nature, check out my LiveJournal here.
I thought I should break down my pagan books read here, as well as pimp the Pagan Online Book Club that I am now modding.
Here are the religious-related books I’ve read this year:
Drawing down the moon : witches, druids, goddess-worshippers, and other pagans in America today / Margot Adler
Not your mama's tree ogam : a guide to Celtic ogam and alternatives to tree ogam / Erynn Rowan Laurie
American Gods / Neil Gaiman
A brief history of the druids / Peter Berresford Ellis
The Mabinogi and other Welsh tales / trans. Patrick K. Ford
Ogam : weaving words of wisdom / Erynn Rowan Laurie
21 ways to read a tarot card / Mary K. Greer
Keeping a nature journal / discover a whole new way of seeing the world around you / Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth
The earth path : grounding your spirit in the rhythms of nature / Starhawk
The druids / Ronald Hutton
These represent about 14% of my reading this year. Not bad. I plan on reading much more by working my way through some of the books recommended on the CR FAQ as well as continuing to read along with my Pagan Book Club. I also plan on exploring other works that spark my interest like some on Shinto practice, to examine a modern indigenous polytheistic/animistic religious practice.
I thought I should break down my pagan books read here, as well as pimp the Pagan Online Book Club that I am now modding.
Here are the religious-related books I’ve read this year:
Drawing down the moon : witches, druids, goddess-worshippers, and other pagans in America today / Margot Adler
Not your mama's tree ogam : a guide to Celtic ogam and alternatives to tree ogam / Erynn Rowan Laurie
American Gods / Neil Gaiman
A brief history of the druids / Peter Berresford Ellis
The Mabinogi and other Welsh tales / trans. Patrick K. Ford
Ogam : weaving words of wisdom / Erynn Rowan Laurie
21 ways to read a tarot card / Mary K. Greer
Keeping a nature journal / discover a whole new way of seeing the world around you / Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth
The earth path : grounding your spirit in the rhythms of nature / Starhawk
The druids / Ronald Hutton
These represent about 14% of my reading this year. Not bad. I plan on reading much more by working my way through some of the books recommended on the CR FAQ as well as continuing to read along with my Pagan Book Club. I also plan on exploring other works that spark my interest like some on Shinto practice, to examine a modern indigenous polytheistic/animistic religious practice.
Tuesday, December 11, 2007
Integrity
Another in my continuing series of posts on my 13 virtues. For more information see the beginning of my wisdom post here.
Dictionary Definition. Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: the quality or state of being complete or undivided.
Dedicant Handbook Definition. Honor; being trustworthy to oneself
and to others, involving oath-keeping, honesty, fairness, respect, self-confidence.
I’ve meditated on this virtue for months and I keep coming back to the concept of wholeness. I’m not sure if I like either definition I’ve used here. My favorite discussion of integrity was on a podcast that featured Thorn Coyle, a Feri Priestess. She said that to her, integrity was really integration of the disparate parts of the soul to form an undivided personal divinity. While much of what she said referred to specific Feri theology – the tripartite soul and its division – what struck me most was the idea of integrity being action which comes from an un-divided self. This implies that we have to be able to know ourselves well enough to know when we are acting from a divided sense of self. For example, how can we be honest – a quality the dedicant handbook attributes to integrity – if we do not understand when and why we are lying to others or ourselves?
The only problem with this approach is that someone can be undividedly bad, having integrity according to this definition by knowing why they are lying and doing it with their whole consciousness. So, I also see integrity as meaning that one must connect that whole self with one’s gods and the other virtues to form a whole of how one’s actions interact with the rest of the world. To have integrity, therefore, is to be able and willing to act from a grounded sense of self and one’s place in the world.
I believe this would mean most people would try to actively live in accordance with their own virtues and values and enact them in the world. So a hypothetical woman, who was unaware of her lies because she was coming from an internally divided place, would try to become whole through self-observation – like meditation – and discussions with trusted friends and her gods. When she started to have a sense of her own wholeness and her place in the world she would then begin to act with integrity, seeing her lies as not helpful to herself or the people she told them to. She would be more willing to see the hurt and confusion they caused, instead of being willingly or unwillingly blind to them because she was not acting with integrity. This awareness would then lead to acting in a truthful manner, because she had come to it from a sense of wholeness.
Others in this series:
Wisdom
Piety
Vision
Courage
Dictionary Definition. Firm adherence to a code of especially moral or artistic values: the quality or state of being complete or undivided.
Dedicant Handbook Definition. Honor; being trustworthy to oneself
and to others, involving oath-keeping, honesty, fairness, respect, self-confidence.
I’ve meditated on this virtue for months and I keep coming back to the concept of wholeness. I’m not sure if I like either definition I’ve used here. My favorite discussion of integrity was on a podcast that featured Thorn Coyle, a Feri Priestess. She said that to her, integrity was really integration of the disparate parts of the soul to form an undivided personal divinity. While much of what she said referred to specific Feri theology – the tripartite soul and its division – what struck me most was the idea of integrity being action which comes from an un-divided self. This implies that we have to be able to know ourselves well enough to know when we are acting from a divided sense of self. For example, how can we be honest – a quality the dedicant handbook attributes to integrity – if we do not understand when and why we are lying to others or ourselves?
The only problem with this approach is that someone can be undividedly bad, having integrity according to this definition by knowing why they are lying and doing it with their whole consciousness. So, I also see integrity as meaning that one must connect that whole self with one’s gods and the other virtues to form a whole of how one’s actions interact with the rest of the world. To have integrity, therefore, is to be able and willing to act from a grounded sense of self and one’s place in the world.
I believe this would mean most people would try to actively live in accordance with their own virtues and values and enact them in the world. So a hypothetical woman, who was unaware of her lies because she was coming from an internally divided place, would try to become whole through self-observation – like meditation – and discussions with trusted friends and her gods. When she started to have a sense of her own wholeness and her place in the world she would then begin to act with integrity, seeing her lies as not helpful to herself or the people she told them to. She would be more willing to see the hurt and confusion they caused, instead of being willingly or unwillingly blind to them because she was not acting with integrity. This awareness would then lead to acting in a truthful manner, because she had come to it from a sense of wholeness.
Others in this series:
Wisdom
Piety
Vision
Courage
Monday, December 10, 2007
The Dark Time of the Year
The weather is cold and rainy. The hills are turning green. I haven’t seen an insect in awhile. It’s truly the dark time of the year.
Friday, December 7, 2007
Winter Solstice Musings
“The deepest gifts of this season, I think, are the twin companions of Solitude and Community.” - Joanna Colbert from the Gaian Tarot blog.
I loved this line and thought I’d share it with readers. For me, who is in the process of creating her own personal tradition, the solstices have always been meaningful days to me. They are not traditional in any way we can tell to the insular Celts*, but seem to have been important to the people’s on the islands before the Celts arrived – with evidence stemming from many lasting stone age monuments that have features which correspond to the solstices (and some correspond to the equinoxes as well?).
That being said I do not try to apply any “traditional” meaning to them. Instead, I read and contemplate what these days mean to me. Generally, I stay away from any Wiccan theology about the dying or reborn God as I am not Wiccan and do not like much of its theology. Instead I like to celebrate my solstices as peaks of their season. So, as the quote above alludes to, the Winter Solstice seems to be about sleep, hibernation, solitude but also about human-made light and warmth (including the warmth of social connections) to stave off the cold and the specter of death.
This, of course, conveniently lets me celebrate in much the same way Christians celebrate Christmas – with lights (and maybe a tree), candles, songs, parties, presents and the like. I may have different reasons for the trappings, but the trappings can remain the same. I would have a Yule log, as we did growing up, if I had a fireplace. As it is I dress my apartment in candles, lights, and hang holiday cards as reminders of all types of warmth. I also decorate with visual reminders of the cold and winter usually snowflake garlands and faux icicles. Also, I have a tree. The tree is the only non-solstice-y item there – that’s just because I grew up with one, love the smell, and love decorating it.
*Expect for the traditions of celebrating and honoring Manannan Mac Lir on the island of Man during the summer solstice.
I loved this line and thought I’d share it with readers. For me, who is in the process of creating her own personal tradition, the solstices have always been meaningful days to me. They are not traditional in any way we can tell to the insular Celts*, but seem to have been important to the people’s on the islands before the Celts arrived – with evidence stemming from many lasting stone age monuments that have features which correspond to the solstices (and some correspond to the equinoxes as well?).
That being said I do not try to apply any “traditional” meaning to them. Instead, I read and contemplate what these days mean to me. Generally, I stay away from any Wiccan theology about the dying or reborn God as I am not Wiccan and do not like much of its theology. Instead I like to celebrate my solstices as peaks of their season. So, as the quote above alludes to, the Winter Solstice seems to be about sleep, hibernation, solitude but also about human-made light and warmth (including the warmth of social connections) to stave off the cold and the specter of death.
This, of course, conveniently lets me celebrate in much the same way Christians celebrate Christmas – with lights (and maybe a tree), candles, songs, parties, presents and the like. I may have different reasons for the trappings, but the trappings can remain the same. I would have a Yule log, as we did growing up, if I had a fireplace. As it is I dress my apartment in candles, lights, and hang holiday cards as reminders of all types of warmth. I also decorate with visual reminders of the cold and winter usually snowflake garlands and faux icicles. Also, I have a tree. The tree is the only non-solstice-y item there – that’s just because I grew up with one, love the smell, and love decorating it.
*Expect for the traditions of celebrating and honoring Manannan Mac Lir on the island of Man during the summer solstice.
Monday, October 29, 2007
One word to sum up a religion
First off, I would recommend that everyone go and read this discussion on the Academic Pagans LiveJournal Community. It’s my jumping off point.
Some of my favorite one word descriptors were*:
Feri: Ecstasy (Alternately, paradox)
Reclaiming: Immanence
CR: Justice
CR: Truth
CR: Honor, Inspiration, Justice, Connection, Communion
CR: Truth, Honor, and Duty
Modern Paganism: Re-sacralisation
Wicca: Balance
I think these are all virtues and qualities that I aspire to, and it’s not surprising that these religions have inspired my own spiritual path. But I had a gut punch reaction to the discussion about Truth. It may describe why I’ve noticed myself leaning more and more towards CR as a spiritual path. Which has been surprising me. But that’s a discussion for another day.
My absolute favorite one word summary, the gut-puncher, is CR’s as Truth. Truth is honor, imbas, duty and justice. It also aides true community and hospitality. And these are all ideas I find are the core of my own growing sense of self and religious identity. What’s amusing to me is how hard I find many of these virtues. I am not comfortable and easy with truth, honor, or duty. And I find, at least, the gift for a gift idea of hospitality to be a little odd and limiting. But the more I work with them, the more I realize how good they are. How magical and freeing they can be.
I’m feeling the need to really think and meditate about Truth as the central idea of CR. It may not end up being the ultimate core summary of my own spirituality, but I think right now it’s a lesson I need to be working on and can easily see myself working on it for years.
*I took these from many different users, to give credit where it’s due read the entry and all the comments.
Some of my favorite one word descriptors were*:
Feri: Ecstasy (Alternately, paradox)
Reclaiming: Immanence
CR: Justice
CR: Truth
CR: Honor, Inspiration, Justice, Connection, Communion
CR: Truth, Honor, and Duty
Modern Paganism: Re-sacralisation
Wicca: Balance
I think these are all virtues and qualities that I aspire to, and it’s not surprising that these religions have inspired my own spiritual path. But I had a gut punch reaction to the discussion about Truth. It may describe why I’ve noticed myself leaning more and more towards CR as a spiritual path. Which has been surprising me. But that’s a discussion for another day.
My absolute favorite one word summary, the gut-puncher, is CR’s as Truth. Truth is honor, imbas, duty and justice. It also aides true community and hospitality. And these are all ideas I find are the core of my own growing sense of self and religious identity. What’s amusing to me is how hard I find many of these virtues. I am not comfortable and easy with truth, honor, or duty. And I find, at least, the gift for a gift idea of hospitality to be a little odd and limiting. But the more I work with them, the more I realize how good they are. How magical and freeing they can be.
I’m feeling the need to really think and meditate about Truth as the central idea of CR. It may not end up being the ultimate core summary of my own spirituality, but I think right now it’s a lesson I need to be working on and can easily see myself working on it for years.
*I took these from many different users, to give credit where it’s due read the entry and all the comments.
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