estara_adf

So...now what?

I'm still in the process of figuring out the relationships between what I am capable of, and what I am and what I can be <i>in the ADF context.</i>  I know I'm theoretically capable of being a bard, liturgist, seer, warrior, presiding priest, scholar - but do I want to wear all of those hats in ADF, or only some?  Which ones?  So far, the only level on which I've really had much chance to strut my stuff in Awen's Breath is bardic - in a setting where people chant a lot, they'll eventually notice if you can actually sing.  :D  But there aren't such automatic opportunities to show that you know how to read the omens, or carry in the energy, or protect the space.  And I'm less sure of how to create opportunities in the setting of public rituals - it seems pushy.  Maybe this is a disadvantage of not living particularly close to one's Grovemates - less chances to see each other on other than the ritual days themselves, and learn about each other.

Anyway - pursuant to bardic being where I've been able to put myself out there thus far - I wrote two liturgical songs that I've given to Illious.  I may post the lyrics here at some point soon.

From Update on the Aryan Invasion Debate, by Koenraad Elst.  Am I selectively posting articles that support my views?  Absolutely!  :D

http://www.bharatvani.org/books/ait/ch47.htm

I shall write Vedic rituals one day, oh friends.  And I shall worship Indra.

Okay, I'm pretty sure that my paper against Swinburne (for Philosophy of Religion) can, with a proper bibliography tacked on, cover the "argument" half of the Research and Composition requirement for the GP.  I'd just need an expository paper.  If at some point I were to get past the DP, I could make pretty quick work of that.  :D  I think I could do likewise with Mythology and Divination - but not, interestingly, General Bardic or Magic, necessarily.  (The focus is on history rather than practice in those, and a particular kind of history.)

My DP edits are turned in, so I'm back to waiting to hear back about whether they now make the cut.  (I'm hoping that I was only asked for several because of my request to Raven that it be judged with an eye toward going for IP or CTP somewhere down the line, since I didn't want to have to do a whole assignment over again at some vague future date.  I'm still not sure what my goal is in the long term, but I do know I will want those options to be open to me.)

So...yesh.  Chewing on this a lot.  Sadly, a lot of portions of interest consist mostly of references to other works.  Of course, that at least gives one an idea of other works to look for...but a lot of them are old.  And/or in German.

Another big long quote (it's okay, really - the whole book is online at   http://www.people.fas.harvard.edu/%7Ewitzel/VedicHinduism.htm  ), in its entirety in a separate post because it's especially important to a main sticking point for me, the nature of the transition from Vedism to Hinduism and all that implies for modern recon. 

...since I'm learning potentially useful bits like how to sing Agni's mantra from the Rig Veda anyway, and since it passes the time while I'm waiting to hear back about my DP tweaks.  Behind the cut for lengthiness. 

I've finally heard back something about my DP.  Although my reader likes it a lot on the whole, she wants several things tweaked.  (None of them the one I was a little nervous about based on how it went over here, and one of them something I'd also been asked to consider for Oak Leaves.  Much depends on the specific reader, as always.)  Nothing major, but a good little handful of nips and tucks.

So be it, at least on a day when my head is feeling clear.  (Um, it's January.  Yeah.)  I've been running into enough strife on the teacher end of this equation not to be too quick to pull at the reins as the student.  Give 'em what they want, that's what I say.

Haven't heard back about the DP yet.  No background for knowing whether this is a good, bad, or indifferent sign.  Hmm hmm hmm.

I have, however - lest you think I am doing nothing - written a snazzy paper for Philosophy of Religion, defending polytheism against its dismissal by Swinburne.  Got an A, it did.  Maybe I could use it for the Critical Thinking bit in the GP, or something.  And, you know, I go to Holy Days and do my meditations and all.

Hmm hmm hmm.

I have no idea how long to expect it to take before I hear back about my DP.  Mailed it, um, the 5th I think.

Bardics are saying "We're about to change the training (as, indeed, we have been for the entire time you've known about us, but now we REALLY MEAN IT!) so you might want to do the Bardic class in the GP first."  I do not know whether I am cleared for takeoff for the GP.  Hmm hmm hmm.

Kind of a shame I can't just do the old reqs.  I could probably do half of them right now.  Well, I'll just wait.

Waitwaitwait.

I hate waiting.

I could give you my word as a Spaniard...?

My Dedicant Oath was fraught with peril.  First of all, I count no fewer than seven Gods as my Patrons:  Morgan/the Morrigan; Woden; Frigg; Freya; Loki; Shiva; and Kali.  Moreover, I know that the last two are potentially controversial as inclusions into ADF ritual, based on conversation I have had with a couple of our Vedics.  Fortunately, being the most transcendental, Shiva and Kali also tend to be the most understanding about not having Their names spoken at any particular ritual, as long as They’re getting due consideration from me at home.  That problem aside, I still figured that seven or even five Patrons were a lot to make the whole Grove watch me perform for, so in my initial plan, I referred to an arrangement that They and I often use:  if I am only going to name one of Them aloud, and there is no particular reason for it to be one of the others, I name the Morrigan.  And as it happened, She had already put in a request for me to sing Isaac’s “Hymn to the Morrigan” as a praise offering to Her.  I would do that, and the others would get quiet offerings during the general call for offerings.

 

Also in my original plan, my Oath was to take place at Lughnasadh.  The date I had thought Awen’s Breath was holding this ritual was on the weekend before I was to leave on a trip.  As it turned out, however, I was off by a week…meaning I would be gone when the ritual was held.  I considered the Equinox, but I already knew that was a long shot, since it also happens to be my son’s birthday, and as I’d suspected, it turned out he didn’t want to share billing with some Druid thing in Pasadena.  Of course, as it turned out, September was mostly about Pagan Pride Day events for Awen’s Breath anyway.  I didn’t even think to suggest doing my Oath at our private, very late, Equinox ritual early in October.  Once there, though, I mentioned these problems, and was encouraged to go forward for Samhain.  Great, I thought:  that would be a lovely time for the Hymn anyway.

 

Then, Southern California caught fire, and stayed for better than a week.  Smoke drenched my voice, and for a while I didn’t know whether things would even be under control in time for the ritual not to be postponed.

 

At this point I started to wonder if I should be taking all these things as a sign.  I pulled a rune, asking what the outlook was for me doing this Oath at all.  The answer was Ing.  A seed:  a good beginning.  I calmed myself down and went back to my plans.

 

As the date closed in, I realized two things:  one, that the Hymn was rather long, and two, that I wasn’t sure I was in good enough voice to do it the way I wanted it done.  My lead Patron kindly agreed that I didn’t have to sing it at this ritual, with the proviso that I was absolutely to sing it at the next ritual either specific to Her, or including a bardic circle.  Now, though, my Senior Druid was encouraging me to go ahead and say a little something for each of my Patrons – even the controversial ones.  “Please!  We’re Awen’s Breath!”

 

I also had a little fit about Woden’s offering, which I kept changing my mind about, sometimes into extreme and preposterous things.  (Burning or giving away every Tarot deck I have ever had was one example.)  I started doing rune readings for clarity, and got mush.  Finally, I thought to ask, “Was my original idea actually the good one?”  Tir.  Yes, it was absolutely right.  “I’m overthinking these things, aren’t I?”  Man.  It’s only human, darling.

 

The night finally arrived for the Samhain ritual, which we were to hold indoors…which meant no dramatic tossing of my offerings into the fire.  Instead I would be placing them next to the triple candle to be burned later on my behalf.

 

“Om namaha Shivaya.  Shiva, accept my offering.”  (place white carnation)

“Om krim Kalyai namaha.  Kali, accept my offering.”  (place red carnation)

“Frigg, frithweaver, accept my offering.”  (place roving wool)

“Freya, golden one, accept my offering.”  (place string of red and gold beads)

 

(Now, for the most prominent three, I say a little more.)

 

“Uncle Lucky!  When I was trapped in ice, You brought me fire.  I made You Odin’s oath, that I would not stay where You were unwelcome.  Here I stay…and I bring You these.  Loki, accept my offering.”  (place horn-carved dice)

 

“Woden!  You who prodded me back out onto the road when I thought I was comfortable!  You who gave me the runes and took away my Tarot cards!  I have brought a few for You.  Woden, accept my offering.”  (place Magician and Hermit cards)

 

“Morgan, my first and foremost:  feathers for Your cloak.  I owe You a song, which we have spoken about already.  Morgan, accept my offering.”  (place black feathers bound in blue cord)

 

“Before all of You – and before all of you, I swear this oath:  that I will honor the three Kindreds and their holy Realms; that I will strive to fill myself with Their virtues; and that I will keep Their holy days.  As it happens, I have been a Pagan for some time, so I have said these words before, or words very like them.  So to seal this oath, I have had to up the anty to ink.”  (reveal tattoo on left shoulder, to numerous appreciative noises)

 
 

“This is a triskele.  For me, this symbol has always represented my relationship with Morgan:  as a triple sign it also represents the Kindreds and their Realms.  So:  I will keep this oath for as long as I keep this skin.”

The gathering was very supportive, and a number of people wanted to see the tattoo again up close after the ritual was over.  (Druid Jack thought it was amusing to give me congratulatory hugs and slaps right on top of the very fresh and stingy tattoo.  Because I am ignorant of these things, another friend had to tell me afterward that this was a popular form of tattoo hazing comedy.  Ha ha, Druid Jack!)  The whole evening was very high-energy, and I felt that this was a good sign.

Our omens for the ritual as a whole were Holly (balance), Ash (the world-tree), and Poplar (“fear not”).  Now:  for me, I am practicing ADF-style Druidry as a balance for the other spiritual work I do.  Because I had offered to Woden and felt He was present, I was especially happy to see Ash among the signs.  Poplar relates to Aspen, a tree of personal significance to me, and the “fear not” sign (especially from Gods Who look a bit scary on the surface) resonates for me as well – so on a purely self-absorbed level, I took the omens as good.

 

***

And that's it, ladies and gentlemen.  That's my Dedicant work.  All that remains is to format and send.  Then what?  First Circle of Bardic, maybe.  :D

Oh, and let's add this wrinkle.  For excellence (read, if you will recall, "good enough for later programs without doing a rewrite") one of the standards listed is that you use bits of language from "the hearth culture."  Well, okay...here's the thing.  Some people don't choose one hearth culture.  What do they do?  Me, I usually play the bit that my hearth culture is Saxon, because that's sort of a default position for me.  But my main Patron is the Morrigan (it's not Her fault the majority of my top tier is Norse rather than more Celts), and here lately the Vedics (by my slightly controversial definition) and Hellenes are making a push again.  I'm pan-IE at heart, I think.

And anyway, the rite I'm invading is going to be Celtic, I believe.  If so, the Grove already has some canned phrases I'll be able to use in choice spots, but in that case does it really deserve to count in my favor that I use them?

I'm thinking Bardic next.  In theory I could make pretty quick work of the first circle, at least.  Probably not going to start worrying about Initiate vs. Clergy Program for a while, since I have "mundane" school to worry about for that kind of work.  I'm hoping (after seeing one of my lj friends have to have a freakout about this) that most of my Ded work will be up to par for those anyway, though, so that I won't have to go back and do any of those assignments over again later, since I am probably going to want to end up in either Initiate or Clergy eventually.  I'm just a training junkie.

So!  I made it to a Grove ritual again for the first time since I joined it, and now I'm scheduled to do my Dedicant Oath at Samhain.  (This is way appropriate for me for any number of reasons, including the fact that I've been "poked" to sing Ian's "Hymn to the Morrigan" as my offering to Mum before I do the Oath.) 

Now...we're back to the problem of writing the text of the Oath itself.  I'm spared writing the whole ritual, which is nice.  (Do I need to include the rest of the ritual in the report anyway?  Or just the Oath part?)  I do kind of keep coming back to the question of "What exactly am I promising that I haven't already promised years ago?"  And how important is it to have some sort of emblem to put on and wear or whatever?  Is that "law" or "custom," that?  (And how serious are my Peeps about this recurring suggestion of a triskele tattoo to fulfill this bit?)

Eep!

So that just leaves us with the Dedicant Oath.  Just the freakin' Dedicant Oath, man!  Why is it now impossible for me to make it to anything with the Grove I finally joined and get this one last thing done!?  Huh??  (Okay, technically, I could make it to the next thing, probably, if it wasn't private.  I don't drive.  Yes, shameful in this day and age.  But it makes it hard to make it to things that your normal "homeys" aren't part of if they're not public.  I'm going to be working on it soon, since I also need to have a license by the time I start graduate school proper, so I can, you know, get there in a timely manner for classes.  Little things like that.  Meanwhile, though, it's an issue.)

Just the Dedicant Oath, and then I could turn all this stuff in.  Just that one last thing.  Sheesh.

Does it need anything else?  Do I look covered?

Meditation Essay

 

I must say, to begin, that I’d already had meditative and devotional routines in place when I began this assignment.  The most consistent of these are a morning anointing and recitation of short prayers to my Patron Deities (since joining ADF I have added a general for the Kindreds:  “Hail to the great Gods and Goddesses; Hail to my ancestors and the spirits of this place”), and a second short series of evening prayers.

 

To these routines I added a rather ambitious formal meditation, which was essentially most of the Core Order of Ritual played out in the context of meditating.  I would get out all my ritual tools, do the Two Powers, make my various announcements and offerings, and then actually get down to the business of meditating.  Usually this would be some time spent chanting “Alu,” which is a traditional formula in Germanic magical tradition, followed by a recitation of an ADF rosary I made with beads representing the Kindreds and the Nine Virtues.  After this was finished I would take a runic omen, and then go through all the normal ritual-closing gestures.

 

After I had been doing this for a while, I also brought in yet another element that I had learned from work with a Tantric teacher, that of blessing the meditation seat before I begin.  The blessing I was taught was easy to transform into something ADF-compatible by exchanging certain abstractions for the Kindreds:  so now, drawing a triangle or triskele on my cushion, I say, “I seat myself in the wisdom of my ancestors; I seat myself in the wisdom of the Nature Spirits; I seat myself in the wisdom of the Shining Ones.”  This has been nice for setting the tone at the beginning of the session.

 

I have found that this process taken all together makes for a very powerful and mind-altering session.  Having fully established connection to the other Worlds and to the Kindreds at the beginning of meditating really adds a depth and intensity to the experience that one doesn’t necessarily reach simply by breathing or chanting alone (at least not so quickly).  But, for example, once I have done a full ritual opening to begin the session, the chanting portion has led me into experiences such as a fairly vivid encounter with an antlered god.  By the time I draw the runes I am normally able not only to read them but to make direct contact with allies in each of the Kindreds in order to get more clarification on their meaning.  So this has also developed into a useful tool for improving my communication with the Kindreds.  Going through this full, formal meditation is always a pleasant and deepening journey, to which I cheerfully look forward.  It also actually served as a useful tool for learning the Core Order of Ritual, because I had incorporated so many elements of it into the meditation.

 

However – and perhaps this will be obvious from the outside, as it is obvious in retrospect – all of this taken together makes for a very long and intense experience.  It is certainly not something I could manage every day, unless perhaps I was able to devote the time to become a full-time mystic, which while sometimes tempting just isn’t possible for me now.  It takes a bit of doing to manage it even on a weekly basis, simply because I have invested it with so much ritual and so many parts.  For my regular practice, therefore, I have taken to breaking out smaller bits for more frequent use.

 

For example, I will practice the Two Powers by itself when I want to feel connected to the Three Worlds in preparation for any sort of working.  There is a style of pranic breathing – the cycle of breathing in through one nostril and out through the other – that I will do for a few minutes at any time that I need to come back to myself and be more grounded.   Since this breath works on the concept of “solar” and “lunar” currents through the body, I have sometimes combined this breathing with the Two Powers, using the “lunar” current to carry me to the Well and the “solar” current to carry me up toward the celestial Fire: this has been good for energy-raising and shifting toward ritual consciousness as well.  I am trying to perform at least the pranic breathing on a daily basis now, which makes it the piece I most frequently use as of right now.  The Two Powers I will use before teaching a class or before magical workings, which means that on average I use it once or twice a week.

 

I will also do the ADF rosary by itself – and this is the one tool I will carry with me when I travel, to represent my ADF hallows and serve as a focal point for this style of work when I’m not home with all my normal toys.  The rosary has a bead for each of the three Kindreds, each followed by its own set of nine for the virtues:  three white, three red, and three black.  The “home” bead is a tree pendant.  How often I do the rosary seems to vary over time:  I use it more during times when my other ways of accessing the Kindreds are limited for some reason.  Right now I am not using it as often as the pranic work or the Two Powers, but I would actually like to change that, because of the way that the rosary encapsulates my connections to the Kindreds, the Worlds, and the virtues.  I am going to aim for restoring it to at least a weekly practice on its own.

I suppose I should have the decency of updating here, since not all of you read my other lj.  School's going well, and I'm in conversation with Cal State Long Beach to create an interdisciplinary Master's degree out of classes from Religious Studies and Classics (and maybe an occasional visit to Philosophy, we'll see).  I'm really excited about the possibility that they'll actually let me do this - what I'm creating is essentially a Religious Studies Master's with an emphasis on Greek Polytheism.  Hee!

In ADF news, I haven't seen my grove lately because September is always the month of a thousand obligations for me, so I still have to figure out how/when I'm going to get my oath ritual performed.  And write my @#$% meditation essay.  That's it.  It's all waiting on those two things.  It seems silly to me to be stalled out this close to being done, but you know...gotta actually do the ritual.  And knowing that I don't have a date for that seems to stall me out on writing the last essay, because I know there's no rush to do that when there's still something else keeping me from turning in my work.  :P

Well, I'm back from vacation, but some things have changed.  Originally when I finished the DP, I was going to jump right in with some work on other ADF courses, but what actually happened was that reading Real Books for that (with the addition of "A World Full of Gods" by Greer, which convinced me that I didn't hate philosophy as much as I'd always assumed I did) got me all worked up again about going to graduate school, and I started looking around at what I would have to do to get there.

So, long story short, I'm taking a couple of classes at a nearby community college to start laying the groundwork for going back for my Master's in either ancient history or (slightly more likely at this point) religious studies.  So that's where the bulk of my academic energy is going.  It's still with the ultimate purpose of improving me as a priestess and, dare I say it, a Druid, but it's gone in a slightly different direction for the moment.

For my ADF Lammas ritual, I had planned to attend with Awen’s Breath, thinking it was going to take place the weekend before I left for vacation:  instead, unfortunately, it turned out to be scheduled for the next weekend, while I would be away.  Because of this, I ended up doing a fairly quiet solitary version.  The thing about ADF Core is, and I haven’t decided whether this is ultimately good or bad, that having already adopted so much of it into my meditation practice in a stripped-down form, it is possible to do a full solitary ritual that feels essentially like an unusually formal meditation session.  This was particularly true because, lacking the group and thus the impetus to do something like games or baking, I ended up making my solitary Lammas essentially a prolonged set of praise offerings to my main set of Patrons (which has grown to seven – convenient, at least, in terms of giving everyone Their own day of the week).  The core order is becoming comfortable and familiar now, easy to flow with without looking up what comes next too often.  I turned to Woden as my Gatekeeper, as will probably be my habit, and that worked well.  With the full-scale ritual in place I could feel the energies moving through more strongly than I have before.

The runes I pulled were Othala, Sowilo, and Raidho.  I took these not only as good signs in themselves but also, hopefully, a good set for blessings on the family trip we will be embarking on the day after this ritual – safety both for the home and for those of us leaving it for a while.

...And with that, I'm done with Holy Day reports.  :D  Now it'll just be writing up the meditation paper and finding a new date for the Oath when I come home from vacation.  Yay!