On Samhain, Drawing Down and The Morrigan, Namely Nemain

Maybe it's just gone out of fashion, but no one seems to talk about Drawing Down anymore. Is it too touchy-feely? Too difficult to validate? Not a srs magikal practice? I think it's actually a strange middle place - it's something that requires a lot of time and energy and attention and will kick your ass, which makes it difficult for your average kitchen witch to do, as s/he has enough to deal with in working, keeping house and keeping the children from getting too Lord of the Flies-ish. I think there's a certain sheen of Reclaimist that makes a lot of srs practitioners turn their noses up and/or they've got better things to do like meditate towards enlightenment instead of basically wandering around god-drunk, which is frowned up.

Luckily for you, (I have no problem looking completely batshit crazy to you, darling readers AND I'm in some weird holding pattern between frantic kitchen witch (I have no children and don't work for a big corporation or anything) and srs practitioner (we all know how I feel about meditation).

An ADF druidic ritual is celebatory, at least the way GoG does it. There's a basic frame work that all ADF rituals need to follow, but there's a lot of room to turn it on its head. My grove is one of the largest in the country and our rituals tend to be . . .different than most ADF rits. We're sort of the backwater snake handlers of the group. We're called Grove of the Other Gods for a reason, after all.

So we've now laid the ground work: this is a celebratory ritual where we are honoring our kindred and a guest of honor (in this case, The Morrigan) and no targeted magic is done. I like a good beer buzz early in the morning as Sheryl would say and have enough time and energy to prepare for a drawing down while also having no shame or filter to keep me from sharing my experiences with you. It's the perfect storm really.

I demurred about the likeliness of drawing down to Jow, but I think in the back of my head I knew that as soon as I got close to the other two chicks (which was strange for GoG, we don't gender police by any stretch, but that's who was interested in the other two aspects) at the rit, it was going to be on.

Jow wrote up his experience with GoG Samhain as a congregant.

Before getting there, I was more . . .lightly shadowed. Usually I'd be a completely anxious mess beforehand for a variety of reasons, but when I would start to get nervous, she had a calm answer (Oh! My pumpkin is v. roasted! It may fall apart! *fret* She: You're worried that your food looks like food?). She understood the need to look just so and was fine with things like makeup (woade correspondence), bra (armour correspondence), etc. but everything needed to be useful, everything needed to have a purpose. And I was at first confused about her OCD like need for cleanliness (clothes constantly lint brushed, washing my hands as much as Lady MacBeth, etc.) because I was like, ummm warrior Goddess? Blood, gore, etc? And then I remembered Her main job - washing the blood out of the clothes of people who were about to die in battle. Right then.

The cats were really confusing and slightly disgusting to Her as they seemed to serve no purpose- they don't catch mice, they live inside and all they seemed to do was shed and vomit. She was somewhat mollified when She was told that they were both gifts at one point and while she was confused that someone would be given something that was a lot of work and served no purpose to show appreciation, a gift was a gift after all.

Once we got there, K., who was invoking Macha came shortly after. I had intentionally put the aspects of The Morrigan as v. separate entities in my head, and the slidy thing that some deities that aren't quite separate from each other was a v. intellectual vague concept in my head. Until we slowly and unconsciously sliding energy between each other. K. and I are friendly, but not close friends, so it was a v. strange experience. Stranger still that I felt literally sick without P. who would be invoking Badb. I like P., she's cool people too, but I am no where anywhere *near* being close enough to her to feel sick without her. But I was. In my head was a constant fret of, When will P. get here, when will P. get here?

I knew K. and I were getting really slidy when I tried to walk through the door with her at the same time and nearly busted ass in the process. She did my makeup in the picture above while we waited for P. I've always wanted really hardcore gothity eyes but whenever I would try to do it myself for a club night, I would fuck it up. Luckily, K. is an artist so she had a v. good hand.

Finally P. got there and K. and I slowly started to synch up with her too. We were literally laughing and braiding each other's hair which seemed to creep everyone else out. In fact, most people gave us a wide berth and would not make eye contact with us.

All our SOs made grumbling noises about what pains in the ass we were that day, and commiserated together which they seemed to enjoy.

We sat down for the ritual, and poor K. got stuck on the other side of the room (after rit, she beelined for P. and I because she was getting nauseous without us). P. sat next to me and had her iPod in her ear, full of awesome Celtic music. Like school girls, we listened together through the other ritual invocations, one headphone in each of our ears, as we swayed in time to the music as we watched the ritual.

Jow said when I invoked, it was somehow less scary then when I was sitting quietly. When I was sitting quietly, apparently I had a v. feral air about me, my eyes were constantly darting all over, taking in the room. When I was invoking, I read what I had written and focused on that.

I had never been to a GoG Samhain like that. Even on the not sad years, it seems impossible to not slide into the river of sadness, at least for a moment. It's the first Samhain where . . .we didn't slide. Not for a moment. After the ritual, when we read the Book of (our) Dead, there were tears which was natural. Our senior druid was what we call "DiC'ing" (Druid in Charging) which means she acts as the priestess of the rit and keeps it going and steers it. She said when there were points where it could have gone to sad, we all collectively would say, No! That happened, goddamnit! Which has become my unofficial motto, btw. All of the invocations came from a place of power and it was amazing and beautiful and gorgeous and there was not one dud among them. When we could have gotten sad, we reached down and pulled up our power and drew from that. It was punk rock and amazing.

As for, P., K. and me, our invocations slide together just so and it was perfect, in my v. biased opinion.

In our rituals, we try to keep the pathway of communication two way. We speak by giving the ritual and then we ask for the gods to speak back by giving us an omen. Did They like it? Is there anything they need to tell us for the upcoming future? We used The Celtic Book of the Dead: A Guide for Your Voyage to the Celtic Otherworld deck and apparently, there are some really really nasty cards in there. We got one of the most positive possible readings from it. Judging by the cards, it meant one (or more of the following)

a) Hey! Good job! We dug it!
b) Hey little boys and girls, don't be afraid of us, we can give you nice things. Come inside, we have cookies . . .
c) Liked this rit? Perhaps you would like to join grove in honoring another one of our fam, Mananon next week!

Even though we aren't really super close, after rit, P., K. and I started speaking in unison and laughing at things that were only funny to us. We went outside and opened the bottle of Warrior's Port with a Bean Sidhe cry between the three of us and started slugging straight from the bottle, laughing and doing that thing that only a group of three sisters/best friends can do - when you're teasing the hell out of each other, two ganging up on one and then flipping the table and ganging up on the other. Mostly bawdy stuff, mostly sister teasing. A little friendly sisterly pushing and shoving. Again, no one wanted to get close to us and one gentleman who we're all friendly with, flinched when we noticed him and called him to stand by us. He would not make eye contact. Jow tried to feed me. My reaction: Ew! Food! Gross! P&K: Ew! A boy! Gross! He scurried back inside as quickly as possible.

P's gf, T. was the only one who wanted to put up with us and found much of what we said hilarious (K: More yelling! Me/Nemain: No! Norma, the woman who lives here will be v. cross with us! It's already been thirteen years since we've been invited back! T. (amused): Norma, who lives here? Me/Nemain: It's true, she does.)

Norma lured us back to the group in the backyard by showing the lamb she got for The Morrigan which was put in the fire as a burnt offering.

Usually, Norma is trying to lure me out for the midnight pumpkin parade (we . . .do what we do, it's a college town) but this year, P. and I were not allowed out, K. was only going to be allowed out without us. K. didn't want to be too far from us, so she stayed. We made sure to tell that loudly and indigently to anyone who would listen that we were not allowed out to play because they kept thinking we'd start *fights*. A few people stayed behind to mind us and we had a super fun time throwing cream puffs into cleavage.

After that, it was sorrowfully decided that we needed to eat. Food tasted awful, I really wanted a bloody piece of meat but there wasn't any to be had at grove, but pork was good enough. We complained that there was only one bottle of wine to be had between the three of us for SOME reason.

And we all slowly slid back, K. whispering in my ear you're on your own now as she squeezed my arm.

I felt bereft after, like I was missing 2/3 of myself, edgy and unhappy. It was difficult, making the transition, losing not just Nemain, but Macha and Badb too. I took some pictures and washed the make up off my face and got into comfy clothes. I went to sleep.

The next day I felt more myself again, we went to Skylark for brunch and I thanked Nemain by cleaning my house thoroughly. I was myself again, though perhaps missing two (small) pieces of me I haven't seen.

God drunk is awesome, the hangover is awful, but still, once in a while, it's empowering to remember what it's like to fly so close to the sun.

Bean Nighe

This Samhain is particularly significant to my grove as it will be the last one our Senior Druid is heading. She's headed the last 13 and is ready for a break from that part of Senior Druid'ing at least. She started with The Morrigan her first Samhain that she led and is ending with The Morrigan. In addition to bringing my usual stuffed pumpkin, I have been asked to invoke Nemain, the bean nighe warrior maiden aspect of The Morrigan.

The Morrigan has been explained to me as being similiar to Cernunnos in so far as it's not that The Morrigan is one deity/person or even a triple aspected deity/person, it's a job title. So it's more like a bunch of women who work for MorriganCo. which is a little difficult for me to wrap my head around but makes sense.

There's been a poem/invocation in my head for the last few weeks for the Nemain. Going with the idea of MorriganCo, all of the things "she said" were said to me by different "shes", and the last three paragraphs are what my Nemain faction has said to me. I will be doing a small altar for her as well, she's requested the picture I like of her and warrior port which is simple enough.

Nemain

She appeared to me in a dream
She said
Her face a canvas of wode
She handed me a feather
and told me to give it to you
She said you'd know what it meant

Whenever there is a battlefield
She is there
She said
When you are able to put your hands
into the river of black oozing sorrow
and not fall in
Instead grow a pair of wings
like hers
that will hold you up
when you can't stand
and make your spine a thing
of steel
that's when you've won

I know you said this is the
worst day of your life
since daddy died
She said
But
It got better

Each day a little at a time
She said
Moment by moment
Breath by breath
She said

I'm proud of you
She said

It's impressive
How much you've
Metamorphosized
Became you
But better
Unfettered
She said

Stand your ground
Dig your heels into
the mud slick with blood
and battle
Whispered words do more than
swords most days

Never give up your power
Steal it back
Eat it whole

But don't mistake your power
as freedom from the river
Your wailing and tears
Crimson soaked cloth in hand
Some things can't be forgotten.

Rabbit Hearts and Revelation

So, I've watched Florence + The Machine's Rabbit Heart (Raise It Up) about um five billion times this week.

Revelations:

* Why am I never invited to parties like this? RO, could we combine our Big Blogosphere Meetup Jamboree for this to be the day portion? Formal fae attire will be required, dancing and human sacrifice optional.

* I have wanted a chemise a la reine for quite some time because I have a secret Marie Antoinette fetish (really, that shouldn't be surprising), so I'm going to have one made for me on Etsy because I'm going to two fairy events this year I can wear it to and I hold out hope for our Jamboree.

* I don't want to call this video, like, a guaranteed ecstatic trance experience or anything mostly because I don't want to be bothered by whiners, but for me, five times in a row in and . . .I'm out like a trout.

* Despite this promising information, Jow is totally trance resistant, even though I came to this revelation at work under the influence of no drugs, alcohol or even a fun environment.

* I think it says a lot about us that I'm mediation resistant (Oh man! Rules! I have to fucking schedule this in! I'm supposed to just, like empty my brain even though I've taken a lot of time and energy to fill it with important information about who's banging who and who's mad at who both in real life and on telly, uck! I don't even think I want to be enlightened. Boring. I've banged my head against this for like a full year in the ADF dedicants program to find that hey! You know how you have a generalized anxiety disorder and you take meds for it? Remember all those terrible things that you've been through that you went to therapy for an extended time to work through to continue to function on a daily basis so you can go to work and be a working member of society? Remember how you don't really care about being enlightened or Getting to the Next Level? Hey, maybe you should leave that shit alone and not stir it all up again for a v. nebulous to you purpose as you can do magic just fine without an extended meditation practice) but pro-trance/ecstatic experience and Jow is exactly the opposite (what! I have to depend solely on my own experience? There's no empirical data to give me an exact blue print? It just happens? I have to do any number of things like dance, drink, drum, sweat lodge, use kava, go to a festival or listen to Florence + the Machine until I want to bang my head against the keyboard repeatedly? I said good day, Sir!).

* I do trance experiences before bed most nights before going to bed to go to my internal hearth. When I am super sick and cannot clean my actual house, I clean my internal hearth. When I don't have much money (which is always), I can make elaborate offerings to my gods on my beach and hang with them.

* I like trance because . . .sometimes I get performance anxiety pressure about random things, like I can't feel feelings on command, which was an issue about my wedding which was to be THE HAPPIEST DAY OF MY LIFE OR ELSE!!!11!!! If I am dying for a trance experience and want one on command, I can do one of two things:
a) Attend a sweat lodge because for me, it's going to happen there as . . .that's what it's designed to do.
b) Go to a goth club, drink three shots of tequila or goldschlagger and start dancing. I will feel the booze burning in my blood and if I dance until I get to the woozy is this a good idea or bad idea, who cares keep dancing, it will happen.

* Otherwise, it happens for me when it happens for me. I don't have to plan for it, it's usually when I push myself as far as I can go and then push myself just a little further. This tends to happen for me when: massively housefraus'ing, dancing, parties at my house, drinking just slightly past my comfort zone, cons, and festivals. I enjoy the happy surprise aspect of it.

* Look. I know I'm supposed to be, like, above the buzz but while while I do agree with Jason that if your goal is target driven, the less buzz, the better. However, if it's just celebratory, game on, in my opinion. My practice is distinctly Hollow One, my life tends more towards Cultist of X/mermaid/nymph. So, This was really difficult as I was leaving my maidenhood which was more conducive to such practices. As a mother (not literal), I figured out:
a) It's a party when I say it's a party, bitch. Meaning, anything can be with the right attitude
b) I channeled some of the energy into creating a hearth, fashion, cooking, a magical practice, writing and crafting
c) I throw a lot of parties
d) The booze at my house is always top shelf which is a big plus
e) I need to get my buzzy ya-yas out at least quarterly or I start to get antsy and then I start looking for trouble. This is easy enough to head off. Arisia con gets my kitchen witch yayas out *and* the after parties get my CoX bits out. The Fairy Festival is all about soaking in the glamour during the day and making poor drinking (and sometimes otherwise) decisions with friends in a field in a farm in the middle of nowhere with a big bonfire.

* When I am tranced out, I can generally see into the squishy insides of people and because I'm tranced out and my filter is zero, I NEED to make these observations OUT LOUD to the person. It's a dice roll as to how that's received. It's also why I'm not tranced out for like 90% of my life.

* But generally I try to keep my trance revelations introspective so as to not alienate everyone around me (well, for that reason at least). Rabbit Heart, both the lyrics and the video describe exactly how I feel inside right now.

This is a gift, it comes with a price
Who is the lamb and who is the knife?
Midas is king and he holds me so tight
And turns me to gold in the sunlight

I must become a lion hearted girl
Ready for a fight
Before I make the final sacrifice

We raise it up, this offering
We raise it up

I'm getting exactly what I wanted in my life and I'm becoming the person I've worked really hard to be my whole adult life, but it doesn't come for free all of these things. In the video, she's the guest of honor at this wild fairy party but, like so many of our myths, she's the one who's sacrificed at the end (v. prettily of course, which is what I too would demand, if you're going to out, go out like homegirl Ophelia) which I've sort of interpreted for my own life that yeah, I've got all the things I've wanted - home ownership, a hearth, good relationships, lots of loved ones, a blooming writing and crafting career, a blooming kitchen witch practice, love for my body, forgiveness for my past, comfort in my own skin. But it won't always be easy, I'll be plagued as I always am with self doubt, I'll have to work really hard, I'll have to make sure I can *keep* these things and I will have to fight like hell to be the person I want to be and have the life I want to life, I need to not get too bogged down by material things and be fierce with all my heart.

Before I too am floated out to sea.

I don't know what he meant to me/ I just know he affected me/ an affect not unlike his art/ I believe . . .

ADF has confirmed that Isaac Bonewits has passed this morning. I didn't know him well, but I did know him a little. I attended his lectures, etc. Years ago, when I was a much more nubile young pagan, my grove decided it would be fun to have him sign bits of us like a rock star at a pagan picnic. He signed my side. I think that picture will be resurfacing shortly, at my grove's Lammas if nothing else.

I have been away a lot in the last couple weeks, I need to catch up on the blogosphere. I've been dealing with a lot of stressful life stuff, I will likely blog about the magic aspects of it here in a separate post.

I'm leading Lammas for GoG which is part of ADF. In January, the idea was to do something fun, a carnival theme, it was before things started going awry. When speaking about it again a month or two ago, the senior druid (SD) and I started talking about the theme being A Carnival of Sacrifice with the tagline being, Sacrifice, hooray! As it got closer and Isaac got worse and the general weather in many of the grove's heads got cloudier, we quietly packed up the carnival idea.

I started getting instruction from a deity I didn't recognize. Usually deities show themselves in a dream or I get enough cues that I could put it together. He (I was at the time pretty sure he was a he) had specific requests: lots of bread, cheese, branston pickle, and sacrifice. I was like, um, that's not a ritual per se with a v. small hot kitchen. ::radio silence:: Hoooooooookay.

I started researching sacrifice from an ADF standpoint and while it was informative from a historical standpoint and why we're not supposed to do public blood sacrifice/juggle hedgehogs, it wasn't helping me until I got to the wicker man part.

I started thinking how lots about how festivals do huge wicker men (like Burning Man) and I started thinking about how we could maybe do tiny handsized wicker poppets symbolizing the sacrifices we each made through the year and then ask for something back from our gods.

I wasn't sure if my SD would go for it. I insisted on Jamaican food for our pre-planning meeting because I felt we needed to eat at a place that serves goat for this rit. We talked, we figured out that the god in my head was Cernunnos which she found pretty funny on a lot of levels:

1. My Wiccan experience is strictly *not* dickly - Dianic. So we really always glossed over the whole Great God aspect as in, we ignored Him. So I've always expressed curiosity about the whole Great Rite/Stick in Cup/Co-ed Circle thing, but have never managed to make it one. My Dianic circle's crone and my SD think it's funny that it's honestly a product of being third wave/never having to fight The Man in a Wiccan context that I only have the vaguest idea about all of that, so it makes me a pretty blank slate when it comes to Cernunnos.

2. I'm vague at best when it comes to Celtic stuff. I can't keep who's who straight in my head, how to say the names, what story is what. The only thing that has stuck at all is The Morrigan and it's still a pretty foreign concept, this idea that Cernunnos and The Morrigan isn't (1) deity per se, it's more like a job title and it's a bunch of horned deities and battle chicks who work for Cernunnos, Inc. and The Morrigan-Co.

But, I got a similar signal as Buffy did in the original movie, when Cernunnos' name came up as a possible deity to work with, everything inside me heaved. I don't typically feel a damn thing or see anything magically, it's not where I excel. I wanted to be more visceral in my magical pursuits, I guess He figured it doesn't get more visceral than that. I felt the light bulb click on as I felt the oxtail move in my stomach, so victory I guess. We decided on the likely course of action for the rit would be to make a traditional bread man with a hole inside him for all of us to put joss paper in for the holiday/sacrifice/asking something of the gods/etc and then burning the breadman vessel. It will be much less time intensive than making a bunch of small wicker people and safer for the fire.

I found it interesting that the SD shied away from the idea of sacrifice some, probably due to a lot of unpleasant mandatory connotations in a bunch of religious context. I don't want to make anyone do anything they don't want to and I am a *huge* fan of the "pass" option in a religious context but I also don't want to water down what the intent here is. I'm not going to make anyone do anything, at the same time "sacrifice" is a very large concept. You sacrifice just to show up, you know? I'm not going to make this a druidic holy roller drag of a rit but sacrifice *is* part of the ADF rit and we've been downplaying it in my grove for a long time. It will be interesting and there will be a group planning meeting for the rit this Sunday, so that will help get a stronger grasp on everything and where the larger group's collective head is. If you don't care enough to show up for the planning meeting then don't bitch about the rit is our grove's unofficial motto.

On a more personal level, there's been a lot of stuff going on in my personal life that has brought up a lot of personal baggage for me, mostly stuff to do with being comfortable in the body I'm in. Since the divorce, my self confidence and my self image have plummeted a lot and I haven't fully recovered.

I didn't really need to get into a whole post-divorce slutting around phase, it wasn't anything particularly new or interesting to me. So I didn't get a lot of sudden stranger validation like a lot of new divorcees get (Jow said my reaction was to hiss and basically be like, YOU'RE ONLY INTERESTED BECAUSE YOU THINK I'M VURNERABLE AND LIABLE TO MAKE BAD CHOICES RIGHT NOW BY SLEEPING WITH YOU! BACK OFF!),

Also, I'm trying to get rid of my post-divorce baggage hardcore. Because, I still have a version of myself that's keeping me down - The Bad Wife Who Did Everything Wrong and Drove My Wasband to Madness and Divorce. And fuck a whole lot of that. I took responsibility for the things I did wrong in the marriage and how to become a better person, as the always lovely Sars said, just because someone hands you a bag of rocks doesn't mean you have to carry it. And I've been carrying that bag of rocks for almost two years now. I'm going to make a small wickergirl dressed as The Bad Wife Who Did Everything Wrong and Drove My Wasband to Madness and Divorce. Then I am going to mother. fucking. burn her in my cauldron and keep moving. I'm too fabulous for this shit.

On Blood and Sacrifice

As we know, I can't be bothered to read a lot of heavily theory based books because I get bored and tap out. So don't expect a well referenced article here, just my personal experience.

Starting out as a Dianic Wiccan, the blood of choice to focus on was of course menstrual. While myself and the younger prissier witches among us turned our noses up at the idea of doing rituals involving menstrual blood, we were regaled nonetheless about the ye olde 70's by the older witches and their menstrual blood rituals.

As I aged some, I was less prissy about it and invested in a diva cup which I use on the regular, to the dismay of the triumverte. The cup was handy in also being able to neatly pour menstrual blood into my watering can into my garden. When I had my little container garden (I do have plans to resume that next year), I did feel a closer connection to the land. It made me feel like I was doing something sacred, something important by tending to my tiny pots (complete with tiny garden gnome) in my bare feet on my balcony. Watering them with my blood strengthened that bond too I suppose. It didn't feel all rrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrgh POWERFUL!!!!!!!1111!!! It felt nice. I don't know how else to describe it. Nice. Peaceful. I suppose theoretically, I could have used my garden to bind everyone who stepped foot in my house to me in some kind of crazy Sicilian Marinara Vaulderie Ritae, but that wasn't really my intent. I liked feeling like something that came from me could grow something else, it made me feel linked to the land strongly and it felt, I dunno, v. circle of life somehow.

Of course, let's be real here. We all went through a phase where we wanted to be taken supersrsly in the magical community and to prove how badass we were. What's more bad ass to someone likely under the age of 25? Blood magic. Menstrual blood is a good starting place if you're a lady-type, but really it's not like you have to work for it, it just happens. No, there needs to be stabbity and teeth gnashing, and I don't know, whatever other tough poses you undergo when you get your finger pricked at the doctor's office. Because! It's not like it's all that easy for many of us to get serious needles. Lancets, sure. Needles, not so much. And if you're cutting yourself with a knife, well, that's a problem in most cases that many people seek help for. So, you know, once you realize that finger pricking is likely to be the extent of your practice and that your super manly six year old cousin Andy can handle it with a Hello Kitty bandaid and a lollipop, you need to stop and ask yourself what you're hoping to get out of it.

At the time when I first started investigating, the general view of the more . . .god, is White Lighter a nice term? I mean it nicely, I don't know why people get all bitchy to them, they make all of us in the occult community look at least relatable to non-Pagan/Occultist/Whatever kind of special snowflake you are, most of us at least started there. When Mothra is feeling benevolent, she calls me a Wiccan instead of a godless atheist so I pretty much take it and like it. Anyway! WL'ers tended to see using blood magic as an atom bomb. Which. . . .I suppose if you're sacrificing maidens in your backyard, it would be.

If animals are killed in ritual, it's kinder and more gentle than the American meat industry and the animal is eaten and its parts are used, so I have no qualm there. I have not as yet participated in any kind of animal sacrifice rite, but I would like to fish and hunt my way up the food chain. I figure it's the least I can do with a quasi-Shamanic background. It's all well and good to eat meat that comes wrapped all nice and neat, it's another to do the work. I want to make sure I can handle the process, if I can't I should be a vegetarian in my opinion. Luckily, my gf grew up on a farm so we have plans eventually in that general direction.

But what about the finger prick of blood? Well, ADF at one point STRONGLY discouraged it. My grove being the backwater snake handlers of the tradition of course rushed to make pamphlets discussing how we are strongly discouraged (but not forbidden) to do blood sacrifice or juggle porcupines (the genesis there is a little fuzzy). Now it seems we're forbidden to do it in ritual setting at least.

So when to use it? Okay, so it's not the toughest expression of sacrifice, and there are other expressions of sacrifice (hard work, things made from your hands, wine, etc.) but it is still an expression of sacrifice. You still have to take that little tack like needle and jam it into your finger. It still hurts. It's still a tiny piece of your life force, something that is uniquely you. It's still one of the preferred personal concerns in hoodoo. If you can manage to contain yourself from using it for everythang and keep it as a sometimes food (like cursing), that keeps it as a special kind of sacrifice. For me, I only use it when I really, really want something. I got my wasband housing many many many moons ago, and I got myself the perfect rabbit burrow condo using it. I can count on one handish the amount of times I've used it, I only use it when I am v. serious about something or making a v. serious offering to the land or a deity.

Some deities do like it, but if you make that an every day food for them, be prepared to go through a lot of needles and be prepared for them to not like the idea of you breaking up with them and taking away your delicious delicious life essence. Some deities really don't like it at all, so do your homework before starting a teeny dollhouse sized CSI blood spatter for your gods.

Discuss amongst yourselves.

She said, I don't know what She meant to me/ I just knew She affected me. . . .

15 July 2009 @ 12:10 pm

Usually by this point when I'm running a rit, everything is kicked into High Woo by now.

It's different, for this rit. I feel mostly tired. Exhausted, really. I feel worn out by other people and find myself wanting a lot of time to lie on the couch and be left alone. It's . . .a dispiriting headspace for running a rit.

But . . .there have been meetings. The walk has been walked several times now. Key issues resolved, as best as possible. Cookies to bake.

Greek gods in my head have had a tendency to . . .not be the way I expected them. I expect them to be solemn and serious and instead they tend to be impish. They tend to love a good joke, a good smoke (offering), they want to feel things to the hilt - to love, fight, fuck, and cry.

I keep doing meditations before bed and I have strange fractured dreams. What I seem to be picking up is . . .Be awake, be aware, be conscious about the moments in your life. I'm constantly afraid of forgetting something important about . . .everything - prepping for this rit, doing this rit, etc., etc., etc.

I feel like things that are being transmitted to me are things I should already know or do already know . . .but don't do.

When I try to explain the ritual, I talk about being in the fullness of one's life. What I think I'm trying to say is that . . .there are mortgages and papers to drown in, bosses who are in a bad mood, ssdd problems with friends, family, and lovers, everything I want to accomplish in a day never happens, I may or may not ever loose the weight I want . . .

But that's not all there is. Those bits aren't even the important bits to being an adult, a grown up, a Mother. Yes, it's important to know how to cook, clean, pay your bills, do your laundry, show up to work more or less on time and you need those things, but that's not the point.

The point is, you learn to own yourself. You learn to not be everybody else's girl. You decide your goals, your hopes, your dreams. You're responsible for how they happen or not happen. You get to decide if you want to work 9-5, party 9-5, and then work 9-5 all over again. You decide what's important - marriage, children, career, art, music, love, whatever. You decide if you want to eat cannoli for lunch. You are yours and no one can take that away from you unless you let them. And if you do by chance, as we all tend to give ourselves away, you can take yourself back.

I have snapshots in my mind about what's been important in the last few weeks: the goldfinch who came to my balcony to talk to me, singing kirtan to Shiva, lying in a patch of sunlight in my underthings, straightening my room so it feels like mine, the way ricotta ice cream tastes, the smell of Water (BPAL) massage oil, the story about the rabbit in the moon who makes mochi, the memory of her with ivy painted on her face and me sobbing on my knees in her lap asking for absolution and being granted it and the ritual where we both called Her in, a bridge between us and now I will try to call Her, wishing she was there to help.

I just want this rit to be right. And I don't know what that means yet. And I won't until it's over. Fireflies. Bunnies. Fat Squirrel's cousin. The tower of longing. The smell of greasetrucks. The arbor where we all come together.

I try to open my heart. That's what She wants from me, to open my heart and to allow myself to feel everything I can feel that day. And I will try. Lady Demeter, oh how I will try for You.

Goddesses & Ritual Planning

01 July 2009 @ 02:56 pm

Sometimes at the beginning of planning a ritual, I feel like Cher from Clueless. I don't have a huge formal education background and apparently the language the gods feel I can understand best is music and fashion. I . . .feel sort of dumb about this but they're not wrong.

However! Since this rit will be about being in the fullness of one's life, the summer of one's life if you will, I have endeavored to try to be a grown up and read some source material instead of relying on being a reclaimist. I've been reading Mysteries of Demeter: Rebirth of the Pagan Way. I tend to trust authors more when they say what bits are sketchy, why there's conflicting information, and when they won't even attempt reconstructing something. Her rits . . .make me go blahblahblah because there's no way I use anything as formal as she does (though there's some v. small bits that are interesting) and there's double no way that it would fly in any of my religious groups.

Apparently, there was some kind of special drink involved with Demeter's rituals. What it is seems v. sketchy (and the author didn't try to recreate it which I dug. Sooo many authors would be like, oh it's this, I know it! Or, I have no idea so we'll just use mugwort-lime peel-milk!), but it's speculated that it's hallucinogenic. Also, I didn't know that there were many aspects of Demeter, though it does make sense.

So, I haven't felt like I have been totally in ritual planning headspace. It could be because I haven't had my pre-planning meeting meeting yet. So I've been thinking about it today and of course, the big questions is, but what will you wear? I had initially thought to do a chiton as it wouldn't be too difficult to make. But Demeter (at least the way I see her) seemed to turn her nose up at it. It's not modern. So, I thought, hoooookay. But I do see where she's coming from; this is a great season for modern interpretations of traditional greek fashions. Serena on GG is constantly wearing Grecian dresses, the Maxi dress is super popular . . .she doesn't want me to be her priestess for the holiday looking like a home ec project. She was thinking a green organic maxi dress. Well, those are $80 and while I would love to support small business and feel super posh-eco, there's no way I have $80 for a ritual dress right now. This seems to be a good compromise. Hair color will be Ruby Fusion. I can easily add laces to my ballet flat, etc.

She seems v. big on showtunes too. I . . .don't know.

But when I really started thinking about what she represents, I realized I *have* been in the headspace - getting my apartment in order, trying to buy property, planning my financial future, learning better spending habits . . .being a grown up. But, it's also about the quote that inspired me about her:

"In Terre d'Ange, one would say she was in the full summer of her beauty--past spring's fresh charms, not yet touched by the sere frost of autumn." - Kushiel's Scion, Jacqueline Carey

It . . .seems from the little bits I'm getting, that I'm supposed to have fun and play and be . . .more optimistic. Which for those of you who know me is going to be nothing if not challenging. I apparently (from what I'm getting) have the other bits down - the tenacity, the strength, the determination, etc. I need to work on the other bits. The next few weeks should be a trip.