REBLOG; love this
Month: February 2015
The Pagan Experience; Feb., wk 4; calling the Work into the world
Wk 4- Feb. 23- Any writing for the letters C or D – I am keeping this familiar format on week 4 for those who have joined me from the Pagan Blog Project.
C: Calling
I attended Winter Witchcamp this year. It is held on a magical isle on a frozen lake in Wisconsin. I am not a fan of winter, but this place was beautiful.
One night for ritual we called a bind rune into being. Actually called it, rune piece by rune piece, with intent, purpose, and ecstatic voices. We called across the camp, 3 layers, 3 runes, over and over and over again, until its magic was formed, its energy as clear and bold as the brisk night air.
The ritual started in 3 separate places: on the frozen lake, on the deck of the ritual hall with a fire blazing, and inside the ritual room. It was so cold that evening and my back ached with the frigid temperatures, but the frozen lake siren-sang my name so I bundled and wrapped and layered, and chose it, as much as it chose me, to start the ritual.
I arrived at the lake, walking on its icy hardness, to a straight line of coloured faerie lights stuck deep into the ice. Our group split on either side of this rainbow rendition of Isa in the ice, raised our voices, and began. “Eeeesaah” we chanted, just slowly enough to feel the vowels fully in our throats before we took a breath. The deck group immediately followed with “Naaauuthiiiz”, and right after we could hear the faint whisper through the air of “Laaayguuz”.
Over and over, timed and methodical like music, emotion-filled and full-bodied like prayer. Eeeesaah …….Naaauthiiz …….Laaayguuz. Over and over, then faster and faster, our frost nipped faces turned upwards to a brilliantly clear starry heaven, chant-calling our bind rune into existence.
Once the island was swollen with our conviction we fell silent.
The three groups gathered in the ritual room and we completed the working.
Isa/Nauthiz/Laguz; the energy bound that evening is carried within all of us who were there, stretching out in our world as we move forward with this Work.
Hail.
The Pagan Experience, Feb. wk 3, work smart, don’t work everywhere
Wk 3- Feb. 16- Deity and the Divine– This will be the third week’s topic every month and an opportunity for you to share with everyone those who guide, inspire and inform you.
Some sort of shenanigans happened on my blog (I’m looking at you, Loki of the missing socks) when a draft managed to published itself with only the description of the prompt and the word “Hel”. I find this hilarious. But here’s my late post anyway.
I’m pretty tapped out ATM with SJ conversations that feel like they have never moved beyond the 101 level in spiritual spaces where I hold a high expectation of awareness + openness + growth. But, I am in the trad that I am for a reason. That said, while I understand how this can be a call to arms for some, for me it’s like someone nicked my jugular and I’m not gonna bleed out to create a fountain for the racists to quench their thirst.
This sentiment is prompted by incidents at this year’s Pantheacon, but P-Con is far from the only offender. (Oh if it were!) My Gods however like to take long term views of the humans and their flaws. And They’re pretty brilliant at that. Along with all the other directives and instructions and “Hey, why don’t you do this now!!”s there has always been an emphasis on work hard, but work smart. This has come in messages since I was a kid and the onus has been on me to work diligently in my corner of the world because the “It’s not fair!!” that rises in me at global injustice overwhelms to paralysis. This if course does not mean I get to stick my head in the sand, or ignore injustices elsewhere, but when it comes to parsing my energy and finances, do the most good often translates to places that don’t me a couple of grand to get to. (If I ever get to a place of financial security where a couple grand every month is doable – go me! – I’ll reassess.)
And right now I’m bone tired of my spiritual community having not progressed farther in the fight against privileges and abuse issues than society at large. Really? FuckThatShit. (“Really”, whisper the Gods.) They remain steadfast in their insistence that “work hard, but work smart, go where you’ll do the most good” is an oath I should continue to hold. They all deeply value self care, too. Hel, Poseidon, Yemaya, Kuan Yin, Papa Legba, and Cerridwen -so say all. So I shall.
The Pagan Experience; Feb., wk 2
Wk 2- Feb. 9- Earth– The word “earth” has multiple meanings. What does it mean to you? How do you use its definitions to support your work?
This is a tough one. I don’t center the earth in my practice or on my path. I center beings, of all kinds. I admire and am grateful for the earth. I enjoy its steady support, its unemotional destructive forces, its beauty, and its mayhem. I can hear the trees whisper and the sea sing the songs of my soul. I adore its bright colours, birds, and animals. And still I do and feel and reference all of this from the place of human, through my filters.
I can go days without thinking of it or appreciating it still being under my feet. I can fold in on myself and ignore all outside my home. I try not to, because keeping connected to the earth is part of connecting to All That Is. When I become too internalized in focus and open back up to the world I always notice how very much I have missed it.
This earth may be nothing more than our collective co-created illusion, but what a beautiful illusion it is.
My Books (sacred fiction)
REBLOG – Hey Norse inclined folks! Particularly the one-eyed inclined ones!
REBLOG – Oppression doesn’t go both ways
Oppression Doesn’t Go Both Ways
By Phoenix Calida
The problem with reverse -isms (racism, sexism, etc) is that they imply everyone is starting from an equal place. Of course, members of marginalized groups can be bigoted or prejudiced. But marginalized groups don’t have the same structural ability to behave oppressively.
Saying “racism goes both ways” or “women can be sexist too” etc. etc. actively ignores existing power dynamics. It also leads to victim blaming because structural oppression should be able to be overcome *if* the victims are actually societal equals to the person being an asshole.
If racism was truly a mutual 2 way thing, there would be equal incidents of oppression. The consequences of bigotry would go both ways.
Eleven.
REBLOG
The Pagan Experience Blog Project; Feb. wk 1
WK 1- Feb. 2- Humanity– How do you define “humanity”? What is your contribution to the collective space of humanity? How does your spiritual path support this definition and contributions?
I define humanity as all of the humans, collectively, and all of the sparks of spirit within the humans, that create “us as a whole” in theory and in practice. In this way I can become discouraged with “the humans”, but still hold humanity with hope. I see “we as a whole” with potential for great good and love. I see we as individuals humans sometimes achieving that and other times falling so far short I grieve deeply. Holding both of these perspectives allows me to not fall into despair while keeping grounded in the reality.
My contribution? A drop in an ocean. Important to the drops around it, I suppose, and necessary to the whole in a way, but easily removed without notice.
My path allows this to be so without resentment, by acknowledging the necessity of all the humans to create humanity as a whole, while not being filled with so much ego that I find myself to be the only, or one of the few important ones. So, the rituals, practices, and collective non-hierarchal nature of my path keep the tendency of humans to feel self-important and indispensable in check. It allows space for everyone’s experience, while not diminishing one’s own. My path also has ideas of self responsibility around it that hold folks accountable for their actions while also encouraging people to be free to call someone on their behaviour if they are being inauthentic or damaging to those around them. This is a form of community (humanity as community) Love that may be hard to grasp for those not walking this path. Sometimes it is hard even for those that are. And my words may not be explaining it well since many books have been written addressing this topic and I am writing a blog post. Ah well, this is as coherent as I can be this Monday morning.
Brigid (silent) Poetry Slam, 2015, 10th annual
The Gifts (Hail Brigid)
When I sit near Your well,
I do not sit for stillness,
But for the ever swirling oeuvre
that rises, and mists my dreams
into realities woven,
Over and through my world and
The In-between world,
Over and through the In-between world
and the world that waits
for creation to catch up.
~Pamela V Jones (Boneweaver) ©Feb. 1, 2015
This is my 6th year contributing to the Silent Poetry Festival which has been going on since 2006, and has become a wonderful, international event, with people posting poems in honor of Brigid on their blogs, Facebook, Twitters, Tumblrs, and other such devices.
LEAN IN TO JOY with BONEWEAVER 