On the Sundering of Feri: The stars/ the moon/ all have been blown out . . .

So, I'm on the fringe of Feri. Just in deeply enough to have a friend basically say holy shit there is so much going on right now it's *crazy* and people are acting *super crazy* to each other. I neatly filed it away in my gossip folder but didn't really venture further in until just now when I read T. Thorne Coyle's article The Sundering of Feri. While I don't really feel much more confident on the specifics of what happened and was surprised to learn Thorne isn't teaching Feri anymore ( . . .again, see fringe), this part was really meaningful for me:

It has been said that we are moving from the Piscean to the Aquarian Age. Pisces wants to hold things close and in reclusion, within existing structures, striving for a beautiful purity. Aquarius wants to open up the windows of the Witch's hut—or sometimes bust down the walls - and let in some fresh air, while figuring out how to build something new. While I have great sympathy for the Pisceans, and think that likely there will always be those needed to hold that polarity, my work is firmly on the side of the non-conforming Aquarians, even when we vehemently disagree. The world needs us.

This, this, a thousand times this. If ever there was a full mission statement on my feelings about Paganism and Witchery, it would be this. As an actual Aquarian, I am always doing that, sometimes to the chagrin of those around me. I always want to bust down the walls and see the inside of your hut, I want to show you mine. I want us to build something together and when it doesn't work anymore, go down to the river and throw it in and start again.

It's also my deepest fear. That I'm not . . .whatever enough to be an expert in my own right as a hearth witch. That I lack children and a full time job with no duties of a traditional soccer mom, that I'm not witch in the woods enough as I only have a vague connection to the land and don't take awesome midnight journeys for wood and roadkill. And there are women I admire greatly who fit reasonably in either of those categories and sometimes I start to feel lost because I'm in this weird in between place. I feel sometimes not enough like anyone else I know in this blogosphere until Jow reminds me of my darling PEH, Gordon who keeps me grouned by just being him across the pond, thinking some of the same random stuff I do about magic and other things, putting things together in a way that makes sense and travels and drinks too much wine and I think, there is still a place for me. (Sister will you follow me/Sister will you dance with me/ like a flame you must be wild . . .)

I'm always going to want to bust down the walls, even models have limits, as Jason reminds us. So whenever a tradition breaks, I can't help but be excited in a weird way. Because . . .then the walls are busted down, we can rethink *everything* and *anything* and what really works and what doesn't work and when we can put aside our egos enough and show each other our soft squishy bits, our broken bits, the bits that made mistakes, that's when shit gets real in the best possible sense. We're not united in one shaky illusion, we're a dozen nations, strong in our sense of self and our vision. At the end of the day, more than anything, that's what we are as hearth witches, dozens of tiny nations threaded together by our hearths however big or small, permentant and temporary and we get to be woven together here on the world wide web, whispering our secrets and magic and joys and sorrows to each other here in the ether. And I'm honored to be part of that, our bouquet of nations that florish here. When I am restless and fretful, I forget about that, the beauty in being bound together by words. I'm honored by all of you who visit here and there will always be a place for you in my nation. Always.

IP Meditation Week Two

09 December 2009 @ 11:36 am

I was curious to see what it would feel like doing the IPM the second time. I was feeling v. relaxed as I was having a nice date with Jow and this time I suggested he slow down at my difficult point (power) when he reads the meditation.

So when I was to sink down in myself, I did it super fast and super hard (Jow was like, it made a *whomp* noise when you did it!). Sex, self, and pride lit up just fine. Power was much better, though still a bit weak. Also I was fucking up what went where, so that was a little distracting (i.e. power is left hand? right hand?), but even with that, I was still way more into it this time. Passion was hesitant to light up which is no surprise as I'm trying to figure out what that is for me. Power, I was just basically hissing at myself to gather all my power bits that went away and they're starting to consolidate better. Sex bits got called back faster than you call a dog's name. Self was pretty easy too still. Pride, hesitated for a beat this time but still pretty solid.

I was drawing the circle around myself and I was just, like, vibrating with the power buzzing inside me to the point that for a second I went out of body and saw myself meditating on the floor (which like never happens to me) and all the energy was buzzing and blue with Feri light (the IP starts as red to me but inevitably becomes blue which is commonly used in Feri so it's not too surprising) and then my sister knocked on the door, unannounced. So I had to sit up real quick and ground pretty fucking fast. But I was pleased that I was able to do so.

Jow wants to start a triple self meditation daily, but I'm trying to just get used to doing this first. Maybe in another week or two.

I will try hard/ to be a spark of power/ I will, I'll never be your iron flower . . .

I took L's advice regarding trying out T. Thorne Coyle's Iron Pentacle meditation from her book Evolutionary Witchcraft (she's Feri/Reclaiming). I had been feeling like I lost my sexy like one loses one's keys and I only had nebulous ideas on how to get it back.

Now, in terms of my magical practice, I (mostly) make circle and/or grove for most of the wheel of the year, I do little charms and spells when I need something, I try to remember to light up my altars at least somewhat regularly to give thanks, I do some vision questing/meditation before bed on occasion . . .in other words, I'm like a half assed Catholic in the pagan world.

I've been reading more. Thorne's book is full of careful book marks of exercises I should give a go. But once I was almost done with the book and realized I would now need to actually do said exercises, I stalled out. Needless to say, I stopped reading it and conveniently picked up another book to avoid doing any bothersome work.

Now that I'm moved into my condo, I knew I needed to start fulfilling all of those promises I made to myself about being a better magical practitioner, treadmilling, writing, etc. because frankly there's no excuse anymore.

So Jow and I got home a bit earlier than expected yesterday and we had thought to maybe do one of Thorne's exercises. We brought our stuff in and I flipped open her book to find the Iron Pentacle meditation. Jow protested of course because he's v. methodical about doing each exercise in order. I pointed out that the IPM doesn't build on anything from her previous lessons (which I'd read) and it's what I need to work on in myself so let's start there. He also was unenthused at the time about doing magical work as we had eaten at cracker barrel and couldn't go for walkies because rain looked eminant. I pointed out if we didn't do the exercise right then, as soon as the laptop came on and the tv came on, there was no way our lazy asses were going to do anything because that is how we are.

So I then nominated him to go first while I read the exercise 'cause I'm gracious like that. So you know the layout of the IP, it looks like this. So, Jow can tell you his experiences in his blog or lj, I will tell you mine. First off, Bella (the cat) wanted to crawl all over us when each of us laid on the floor. Max (the other cat) who is no stranger to magic, disapproved strongly of this and shooed her off every time she tried. So you lay on the floor, arms and legs out stretched like a star(fish) and each limb represents one of the aspects as laid out in the diagram and the meditation goes through calling each piece back to yourself (sort of Soul Retrieval style) and then you meditate on feeling each bit connecting to each other in a star pattern.

So, I have crap spacial reasoning skills. As I was reading it to Jow, I was thinking, huh. I have no idea how this all connects in an orderly fashion. But when I was on the floor doing it myself while he read it, I felt the lines of the pentacle connecting in an orderly fashion. Now I had assumed (ass out of . . .) that the sex energy itself was going to be problematic and this was going to be like pulling teeth the whole way. But funnily, the sex energy came just fine in my forehead, my self came just fine in my hand (also surprisingly to me). When I got to Pride in my foot it felt painful, but it came (which is interesting, because I have dreams where huge hermit crabs attach themselves painfully to my Pride foot, I'm still trying to figure that mess out) and when I ran the circuit between the three, it went just fine. So I started to think, yeah! Maybe I just needed to remind myself.

No. When I got to power, it fizzled so much it was ridiculous. It felt like the alternator in my body just gave out (come on, come on, I see you turning! Please!). Passion flared up slightly better but it was like trying to light a candle that was mostly gutted. Once I started trying to run power through, well, power it was faint at best.

It was really interesting to me because I assumed that my lack of feeling sexy came from issues with my sex aspect, but it seems to be stemming from my power issues (it's hard to feel power*full after the last year I had) and I'm so worn out from everything, my passion has taken a beating. So those are things for me to think about.

What I really liked about this exercise was: (1) It was short, like my attention span. (2) I really liked doing it with Jow because we can compare notes and read the exercise for each other. (3) It's something I can incorporate into my shamanic practice. (4) I feel like I respond really well to reclaimist stuff. I need to stop being a snob about it, Thorne doesn't make any wonky anthropoloy claims, there's no need to not use something that works for me. (5) I feel like this is something I can do for a while and see where it takes me. I'm going to try to do it with Jow whenever we can and really work on this chapter. When I'm ready to move on from it, I'll move on from it and pick something else directly relevant to my life.