Restart

It's nearing a year since I began doing a year and a day's worth of study. Of course that journey was derailed by the simultaneous journey of welcoming the Jelly Bean into our lives. For whatever reason the Bean was conceived in the same week that I started my studies and as the pregnancy went on with the morning sickness and tiredness and then the uncomfortableness of carrying a lot of extra weight and the aches and pains on top of all the extra appointments with doctors and specialists and personal emotional and family dramas; study took a backseat and then just exited the car all together.

While I'm not looking to take a year and a day (more like as long as it takes to get it done) I'm going to restart the journey. Fortunately for me there are a few more online resources to help out and I'm going to take full advantage of them. My goals are still the same, I'm looking to incorporate creativity into my practice and with my hands full of Peanut and Bean things I can't be doing things with hard and fast deadlines. I'm just looking to get it done in my own time.

Now, working without a specific deadline will be a challenge. I'm hoping that sharing my journey here will help spur me on.

So here's to a new beginning and many more posts to come. Soon.

So now you know

what's put a little bump in the road I've been taking on my journey. And the bump is getting a little on the big side.

I haven't been completely idle over the last few weeks, I've been reading and learning here and there. Luckily for me, my fabulous second Mom (read Ma-in Law) has similar interests; and I like to pick up knowledge wherever I can. So when I noticed that she had a few books by James Van Praagh in her library stack I picked them up and started to do a little reading.

I often find that Pagan concepts are sometimes interchangeable with the concepts of other spiritual practices. Up to and including some Christian practices; although in the case of Christian and specifically some Catholic practices and rituals I know that this is because these religions picked up Pagan practices as a way to bring more people into their fold (the celebrations of Eostara and Easter for example.) What I found with Mr Van Praagh's books was that some of the things he does to get ready to practice his talents are interchangeable with what is standard practice for getting oneself ready for ritual; these things have just been fit into a shape that is more acceptable to someone who has been brought up within an environment that frowns upon (and sometimes even more than frowns upon depending on how open and loving a mind is) those things that fall outside of the norm.

Mr Van Praagh's background is based in Catholicism, (at one point in his youth he was training to become a priest) but when he gets ready to speak to the spirits he follows the steps of cleansing, grounding (imagining energy filling his body and spreading out beyond himself) and calling in his spiritual guides and Deity to protect himself and to bless his work thorough prayer and meditation.

When I get ready to do ritual I go through the same steps of cleansing, grounding where the earth's energy is drawn up from the core until is cascades out my fingers, toes and top of my head. I cast a circle by calling in the quarters and Deity as I cast a circle to help me with the work I wish to do. Looking at the two practices side by side they are very similar; almost interchangeable if you take out specifics regarding spirit and religion.

I suppose what I'm getting at is that once more my thoughts about Deity (whether Deity be a singular God or Goddess or a whole pantheon) and spiritual practice (whether it be Pagan or a more mainstream religious practice) are all about the same thing.

All things

This post is going to sound fairly quantum (as far as I understand quantum based on certain aspects of Terry Pratchett's Disc World and other popular media that I've gleaned here and there)

This week I went back to Starhawk again, and put my focus on the idea of patterns and relationships in respect to the idea of magical workings; which if we're going to be honest, is probably what draws most people to the craft to begin with. Casting spells by the light of the full moon and candle or firelight is a romantic notion that was (and is) one that drew my attention, when I first started investigating Wicca and Paganism as a spiritual path.

Ultimately creating magic is all about sending your will, your intentions, your wishes out into the universe. It is about changing your consciousness at will. It is about seeing the world in respect to patterns of energy, of cause and effect, light and dark... Looking at the world with a heightened awareness. This way of looking at the world is one that artists often find themselves using; which sets them apart from mainstream society; and is another connection between creativity and the divine.

It's about sending what you want out into the universe so that the universe will toss it right back to you; because; with sending out the intention, you are also working towards that goal as well.

I'm not quite finished the chapter I've been reading. There are some exercises in this chapter that I want to do in addition to the exercises in another book I am reading that I feel will be a great introduction to Starhawk's activities. My next post will be about those as well as any other thoughts that come up as I finish the chapter.

The Wiccan Rede

One of the first things I learned when I began to research Goddess Religion was the Wiccan Rede. Essentially the one common law that all Wiccans follow:

An ye harm none; do as thou wilt.

I've said before that my belief is that all Deities are part of a whole. Each Goddess and God a separate aspect of that powerful energy that includes all living things, and all forces. We are one with the Goddess, one with the God, one with where we live, one with our environment, with our neighbors. It only makes sense that we should consider each of our actions and how they will affect ourselves, those around us, our Earth.

Will something as simple as which apple I buy at the market cause any harm? If so, picking up an organically grown apple; instead of the first one I pass by, or even growing my own would be that much better. If I need new clothes do I buy the super inexpensive clothes that may have been created in a sweat shop or do I purchase from a consignment store, or better yet a consignment store where the proceeds go to a worthy charity?

There are a million choices like this that need to be made each day, each hour. It kind of makes living life, just going from minute to minute a spiritual act.

Of course the easiest choices are not always those that will cause the least amount of harm. Sometimes things like cash flow or not knowing that there is another choice can get in the way.

Changing our habits towards lowering our carbon foot print can be done by making one small change and then another and another and another; following the Rede can be done the same way a single step at a time.

I've been working on a page in my Book Of Shadows for the Rede. The whole poem which contains so much information about the wheel of the year, the moon phases, the rule of three... I can't imagine a better addition early in the book.

Once it's done I'll include some images.

In other news: It's my Grandma's 91st birthday next week so we'll be off celebrating with her. My posts may be few and far between until we return, I'm taking my new book with me and my sketchbook to jot down ideas and thoughts.

Witchcraft as Goddess Religion Part 2

I'm reading and re-reading and wanted to follow up on the last post. One of the side effects of doing all the reading is that I'm starting to think critically about what I'm reading and about this whole journey. Ideally a year and a day is just the beginning of the journey, the whole point is that I'm not following blindly the path that is set out but that I am creating my own road, sometimes or most of the time it will run parallel to other paths but it will be cleared by me. It's hard work but good work.

I'm not wanting to get preachy with posts based on what I've been reading. Writing down my thoughts about what is in a book is the best way for me to absorb it. Some of the ideas are new insights for me; others build upon how I think already. In the end what I'm getting from my reading of this chapter is a framework for what a Goddess religion is and how it differs from a patriarchal framework.

Thoughts on the chapter:

The inquisition: the degeneration of early Christian Asceticism (turning it's back on the world of the flesh in order to become closer to God) into misogyny. Those who were/are identified with the flesh, with sexuality (women) were/are equated with evil. Ultimately the Inquisition was a power play. A way to take away the power perceived to be held by Witches (midwives, herbalists, mothers) and put it into the hands of men. In today's world, to come out of the Broom closet is to reclaim the right for women to be as powerful as men. to accept and honour the feminine within all of us (men and women) as a part of the divine.

Like the feminist movement, the Goddess religions seek to bring equality of power. The main thing to recognize about equality of power is that giving equal power to minorities (and by minorities I include anyone who feels that they are not a part of the majority due to religious, cultural, sex, sexual orientation...) does not take power away. It's a tough one to wrap your (my) head around because most people consider power as a way to control.

The Symbolism of the Goddess is not equal to that of the symbolism of God the Father: An extension to my last thoughts, the male God rules from the outside; legitimizing male control of social institutions and over others. The God rules the world in a Patriarch. The Goddess is the world.

In Witchcraft each of s must reveal our own truth, Deity is in our own forms, whether female or male, because the Goddess has her male aspect... Religion is a matter of relinking, with the divine within and with her outer manifestations in all of the human and natural world - Starhawk The Spiral Dance.

The Goddess symbolizes the egos creativity which is the definition of the Divine Feminine

The Divine Feminine uses Goddess symbolism to describe the ego's creativity; an ever changing energy. She is inspiration, She sparks creativity. She creates fertility of both mind and spirit. The balanced harmony of all of the things that make up our world, plant/animal/people/divine is not automatic it needs to be constantly renewed which is what Craft rituals are for. The guiding principle of practicing the Craft is Honour, through realizing oneself. To love and honour yourself is to love and honour the Goddess, To love and honour our planet, the animals, our neighbors... the list could go on and on... is to love and honour the Goddess.