Pagan Blog Project Week 3: B is for Beltane

(I am two weeks behind on this.  How did I not know about the Pagan Blog Project?!?!  So, I start right now! PBP is found here.)

Beltane is a long way off right now.  There's still snow on the ground, freezing temperatures and bare trees.  However, Beltane is easily one of my favorite of the holidays.  It is also, from my not-so-distant travels, seemingly one of the most misunderstood.  It is the big fertility holiday and there are so many misconceptions that surround many of our Beltane practices.

I have heard initiates of non-hedonistic traditions say, "Beltane is all about sex, drugs, and rock and roll."  What?!?  Beltane is about getting shitfaced and being promiscuous?  Really?!?  (I've actually asked that question and taken some with that stance off guard.)  I've heard other, non-initiates, say things like, "I hope I'm single during Beltane."  When I asked them why they hoped to be single, their response was, "Well... because... You know, it's a fertility holiday."

Beltane is not about getting smashed on mead and having sex with whomever you please in the name of fertility.  It is not our hedonist holiday.  So many people want to point out that in antiquity people danced around Bale fires naked and paired up to go and do their thing in the woods, and that is why Beltane is about sex, drugs, and rock and roll.

They don't think about the fact that those people didn't have modern conveniences like central heat in their homes.  For nearly half of the year, these people hunkered down in their huts around the hearth to keep warm.  They bundled up in furs to keep warm.  They hoped like hell there was enough food to get through to spring and they didn't starve to death.

Come Beltane these people had just really begun to get out of their homes to plant the crops and let the livestock out to graze.  It had only been a couple of months since the worst was passed and the light was back.  The days got longer and warmer.  Beltane is the first Sabbat where you can even think about running around half clothed, much less naked.  It is the first Sabbat where the threat of frost is past and the warmth of summer is evident.

Our ancestors celebrated this fact because Beltane meant that they had survived the winter, the darkness, the unknown.  They thanked their gods for giving them another growing season, another year.  In their thanks for making it through the darkness, they drove their livestock between Bale fires to have them blessed in the hopes that they mated and had lots of babies for slaughter come the fall so, once again, they wouldn't starve.  They jumped the bale fires themselves for luck and prosperity and fertility of the fields and animals.  Even more importantly than that, people used this holiday to handfast for a year and a day or to confirm their handfasting from the year before (or alternately, dissolve it).  That's also a forgotten bit of lore in our let's-get-drunk-and-screw society.

So, if there is a difference between fertility rites and promiscuity and there is a way to celebrate this holiday with reverence, what is it?  Well, that depends upon your tradition.  In my eclectic tradition (because I really can't speak for other traditions), we spent Yule hailing the birth of the young Sun God, Imbolg celebrating his childhood and waxing strength and the young, Maiden Goddess.  At Ostara, we wake the earth from Her deep slumber and at Beltane, we celebrate the union of the Mother and Father.

Everything is in bloom.  There are young birds and baby animals everywhere.  We work magic toward fertility in our lives, sometimes a continuation of the magic done at Ostara.  Fertility isn't about just sexual union.  Fertility is about putting energy toward the things in our life that will make us better people, things that will help us to grow.  It is a celebration of the Sun God's rise to power and coming into his strength.  He who warms our skin after a long, dark winter.  He who makes the crops grow and fruit so that we may live through yet another dark half of the year.  For it is He who is born, lives, and sacrifices himself year after year to ensure that we can keep living.  We celebrate his life and strength at this time of the year because of his selfless nature.

From this stance, is there a place for the Great Rite at Beltane?  There is, in my tradition, always a place for the Great Rite in ritual, though it is performed symbolically.  There is no need for the literal performance of the Great Rite, unless it is specified within your own tradition or unless it is done specifically for the health and growth of the community.  It is a sacred thing to be done with reverence, not something to be done willy-nilly with anyone and everyone just because it's Beltane.

Beltane is such a misunderstood holiday.  In today's society, people assume that Beltane should be celebrated in a hedonistic way suited for adults only.  That is simply not the case.  When the reverence of our Gods is removed from our high holy days and replaced with lustful, physical satisfaction, we are forgetting the reason for celebrating.  When our intent is focused on partaking of mind altering substances and promiscuity, we leave the Gods out of our celebration.  Our Sabbats are a celebration and remembrance of Them, not for the satisfaction of our own physical nature.  So, next Beltane when you are celebrating naked, or mostly naked, remember to be thankful to the Sun God for warming your skin.  Thank the Goddess for the fruits grown to produce whatever cold drink may wet your lips.  Remember that we are here because they allow us to be here.


Brightest blessings my friends!

**A caveat should be noted here that these opinions expressed do not come from a tradition that is hedonistic.  Every tradition is different and every tradition expresses itself differently.  No matter how you may celebrate Beltane, the thing to remember is to do it with reverence.  We can not celebrate our high holy days without including our Gods and I have, unfortunately, seen this particular holiday celebrated in a very irreverent way.**

A Life of Service

When one walks the path of clergy, one walks the path of service.  Accepting that path can often be a very difficult thing.  Surrendering to it, even harder.  I have spent the past year with the knowledge that, regardless of what I want, my Gods want me to walk the path of clergy.  When I think about that life, I think of Papa Terry's famous words, "I did not sign up for this shit!"

I still fight with this knowledge.  I know that I could stop and turn around and go the other way.  I know that I could stop and throw my hands up in the air.  I also know that if I did that, my Gods would gleefully drag me by my hair over the rocks and through the brambles of life.  Why?  Firstly, because they are like that when I don't listen.  Secondly, because I'd deserve it for not listening.  So, while I didn't ask for a life of service, I do my best to live the one I have.

The thing is, a life of service is different than a life of servitude.  That is where I was wrong about this path.  That is what I was resisting.  This realization hit me today.  I surrendered a long, long time ago to a life of service.  This life of service spills into my mundane life regularly and I didn't understand why until today.  All of my life, people have come to me to 'fix' things.  People looked to me to lead them in whatever we happened to be doing.  They looked to me for reasons still unknown to me (but I suspect it has something to do with my personality type).

I work with some highly educated people.  I mean RN, BSN's and MD's.  Not only are these people highly educated, but they are extremely intelligent.  Here I am, just a lowly float rooming patients, cleaning instruments, and other menial tasks that need to be done, and I do this job with joy in my heart.

This afternoon one of the nurses called me to the front from cleaning instruments to help out.  They were swamped, snowed under, and it was urgent that I come up front to help.  They, honestly, had a cluster fuck. When we have lots of doctors on the floor seeing the patients, we usually do.  It's not unusual.  So, I looked at what we had.  Then, I looked at what was needed.  After that, I took off doing what it is that I do, 'fixing' things.  In about a quarter of an hour, I had all of the rooms filled with patients and as a nurse finished one task, I directed her on to another.

At one point, one of the doctors came out of the room needing a tray and the paperwork for a biopsy.  I started on that because there wasn't a nurse available.  I started on the paperwork just about the time one of the nurses finished what she was doing and I asked her if she would get me a biopsy tray ready for the paperwork I was doing.

It was, pretty much, non-stop busy for an hour.  Thing is, I had my own tasks to take care of in the back.  So, when things slowed down, I went back to my little utility room and finished cleaning instruments.  It's in the quiet moments in my back rooms that I think.  I ponder why things happen in the manner that they do and why I am usually the 'go to' person when things get clogged, bogged down, or out and out weird.  I've been doing this pretty much every day for a week, now.  You see, last Tuesday was much the same story as above.  The nurses were struggling and they called upon me to help.  It was the same thing, clearing out the bottleneck and getting the flow going again.  I didn't slow down, so they couldn't, either.

I don't know what it is that I do differently than most people.  I don't question it, either.  When my help is requested, whether I want to do it or not, I do my best to help.  This, it seems to me, is living a life of service.  I put aside my wants and try my best to make it better for whoever needs my help.

I live a life of service: service to my Gods and service to my community.

Brightest blessings my friends!

The Manifestation of Gifts

Many people are drawn to the Craft because of the manifestation of certain gifts.  Maybe she is sensitive to spirits or can hear them.  Maybe she can leave her body and travel in the astral realms.  Regardless of the gift, walking the path of the witch is one way we can learn to manifest them at will.  As with any new 'thing', learning to use ones gift is a process, especially if this gift is not something one has had all of her life.

One gift I grew up with is sensing the spirit world and another, which manifested during my teen years, is walking between the worlds and being both here and there at the same time, literally treading with one foot on either side of that boundary.  I rarely speak of the latter of my gifts and, ironically, it is the one which I accepted most easily. Acceptance of a gift is the very first step in learning to manifest them at will.

From a personal standpoint, the appearance of my gifts is often a difficult thing to talk about.  When something new happens to me, I accept it for what it is, even if I do not necessarily have a label for it.  However, speaking or asking about it takes courage beyond measure.  I have this strange internal dialogue as to whether or not this gift is supposed to manifest at this particular time.  I argue with myself that I am not a weirdo among the strange.  I have to remind myself that the time the gift manifested is the exact right time and that there is no set time frame to which these things happen.  I have to remind myself that no student on this path is a 'typical' student.  The biggest irony of them all, in my reluctance to speak of these gifts, is that I wonder just how much more responsibility will be handed to me if I do speak of them.  (Because I haven't already accepted responsibilities that may or may not be beyond my skill level and, you know, thoughts are not things. . .)

I write these things because of certain manifestations in my life recently and the struggles I have with appearing 'normal' among the muggles while these gifts randomly turn themselves on and off throughout my day.  For the most part, I can hit the 'off' switch to my gifts because I have worked with them long enough to be able to do that.  However, when new ones manifest, sometimes it takes more work and focus.  A good example, from just last week, is that I was talking to my supervisor and two other people when a blast of energy hit my crown chakra.  It hit so hard my head and face began to tingle, physically.  My third eye opened completely and my physical vision dimmed to nothing.  All of this happened while I was in the middle of a sentence.  For about two seconds (the longest two of my life!) my body was on autopilot, trying to form coherent thought while 'I' was pure spirit.

In that brief time, I had to push that energy back out from my third eye and crown and close those chakras as I came back to myself, and I had to do this while I was still talking.  The experience was kind of scary, but I knew that I couldn't panic. Had I been alone, I would have let the energy pass through and do what it was going to do.  I have come to terms with my gifts and the strange manifestations which surround them.

As I said, acceptance is the first step to learning our gifts.  The second is not being afraid of them, allowing them to happen as they will.  The third step is paying attention.  We have to pay attention to the things that trigger our gifts, how they feel physically, and how it feels once the experience is over, as well as our reactions to these stimuli.  As this 'opening up' was occurring, my head felt tingly, like I'd just received a big electric shock.  My vision dimmed to nothing, and my train of thought derailed (thankfully, there were survivors).  Afterward, I felt dizzy and overloaded mentally, but I think part of that overload is because I was not in an appropriate place to allow this. . . whatever it was, to fully manifest.  I don't have a label for it as of yet, but I also haven't asked others if they have had similar experiences.

So after paying attention to the event and after effects, I usually find myself in the element of air trying to intellectualize what happened.  (Because we all know that ripping apart the unexplainable spiritual happenings in our lives is the best way to understand them. . . not.)  I do not necessarily look for a rhyme or reason to the event, but I do examine the physical and finite effects of the actual event.  I've given up asking why.  I've given up pondering what it is exactly.  I just accept that weird things happen to me and that someone I know, a teacher or elder, will be able to point me in a direction to discovery or give me a label to the strange event, so I can go on to discover more about it from other people's perspectives.

Be aware of your gifts as they begin to manifest.  Do not fear them, no matter how disorienting the manifestation may be.  Allow them to happen, if and when you can and pay attention.  These gifts are given to us for a reason.  We should not run away from or hide them.  It is an imperative thing for us to learn to use them for the greater good.  After all, why are we on this magical path if not to create change for the better?

I share this journey of gift manifestation with the hope that someone, somewhere will benefit from my own struggle.  If you are that person, you aren't alone.  You aren't as weird as you think.  We all struggle with something spiritually.  We all fight with ourselves.  We all ponder just why we have to be the one to be 'different.'

Until next time, brightest of blessings on your journey, friends.  May the return of the light illuminate your life and bless you in the coming year.

What Do YOU Plan for 2013?

It is the beginning of the second week of the new year.  We all have resolutions, plans, and things we would like to accomplish in the next 51 weeks.  How, though, do we plan these things out and then stick to them?

For me it's really a case of taking everything one day at a time.  Sure, I plan ahead, but I also do my best to stay fluid with these plans and allow them to evolve into what they are supposed to be, as opposed to what I want them to be.  I want my new seeker class to have a dozen or more students in it.  I want them to be as excited about the craft as I am.  I want them to be open to learning a new way of being.  Those things said, I have two committed students and a third that might join.  The commitments I have are excited, but only going through the classes will we know if they are open to a new way.

Not only do I want those things for my students, but I want to be able to learn from them and be able to evolve the lessons in a way that we all learn something.  I view teaching as a way to learn from my students. I want them to express their own views and perceptions of the world and the lessons so that I can see things differently, too.

Another plan I have for myself in 2013 is to be able to finish my second degree classes and initiate.  This is another thing that I am simply going to allow to happen in its own time.  These things can not be forced.  They always happen precisely when they should and I keep reminding myself of that.  I plan to put together a couple of sabbat celebrations (maybe more) and host them because I am being called to do this and because I can.  Does it mean that it will happen?  I hope it does.  I hope I can manifest these things.  If I don't, well, I just don't this go around.

So, are you planning any major changes this year?  Have you thought about how you are going to make them happen?  Have you thought about how rigid you are going to be with them?  Have you pondered if that rigidity is necessary?  This year is still new.  We can make of it what we wish.

Blessings for a fruitful year ahead, my friends!

On Peace

Yesterday was an incredibly chaotic day in my world.  Despite the tragedy in Connecticut, I found the chaos in my own world a more immediate thing to be able of effect.  One of my co-workers has been having a difficult time within the past few months finding her equilibrium in her changing work environment.  She is a lady in her 50's and she's been with the company for close to two decades and, though she won't admit it, she loves drama above all else.

So, she and I were sitting in the break room at lunch, just the two of us and she was fussing about the other people in the office. This is a normal thing for her.  She uses her lunch break to decompress from the morning drama.  However, yesterday, she was especially agitated.  So, I opened myself up and began grounding her and asked her what was wrong.  At this, she began a full on play-by-play of how there was a conspiracy to get her fired or moved from our office.  It was everyone else's fault and they were all out to get her.  The usual stuff.  Then, I asked her, what had her so agitated.  Once again, she started talking about everyone else.

At this point, I stopped her.  With a gentle smile, I said, "You aren't answering my question.  What's got YOU so upset?"  This caused her to pause for a moment before she went on projecting her feelings on to everyone else again.  I let her get these things out for a few more moments and I stopped her again.

We talked about perception and how we can see the exact same thing and take away from it something completely different because of our unique perception of this world.  We talked about how our patients, sometimes, report that we aren't nice to them because we don't cave to their demands.  We talked about not putting stock in others opinions of us.  We talked about how to disengage ourselves from the negativity (or perceived negativity) of our environment.

Then, we began talking about peace, inner peace manifesting in our outward world.  I asked her, "Do you know why everyone around here loves me and thinks I'm the most wonderful thing to walk into this office?" (This opinion seems to be the general consensus at the office and in administration and I find it quite silly, honestly.)  She had no answer and was puzzled, I think, by my question.  I smiled at this, because even she is among the people who think this. 

I told her that people thought this of me, not because I work so hard and not because I am so wonderful.  I said, "They think this because I come to work and put my chin on my chest and I do my job.  I'm not here to impress anyone.  I'm not here to make friends.  I'm not here to engage in politics and take sides.  I'm here to do a job for which I was hired.  Others opinions of me don't matter, unless it is directly related to the job I'm doing and the job I'm doing is less than expected of me and then I need to be told, so that I can correct the mistakes.  I come in and simply do what I do."

Her surprise was quite evident.  She asked a few questions and I answered her as best I could.  She wanted to know HOW I could simply disengage as I do.  That is the moment we began speaking of finding inner peace.

I explained to her that I don't put stock in many people's opinion of me.  I know that I have friends who are in my life forever.  Their opinions matter.  It's not my co-workers opinions because I may or may not be around them for years and years to come.  They may or may not cement a place in my circle and become people who truly matter to me.  I take them as they are, flaws and all.  I don't make it my personal quest to change them because no one can change you but yourself.  I take nothing personally.  If I screw up, take acknowledge it and take my ass chewing like a champ and then make the appropriate changes and move forward.

I told her that I know who I am and I am, mostly, at peace with that.  I confessed to her that I have more days than I'm willing to admit that I'd rather stay in bed and cry than be around people.  I have to make myself smile because we all have days where it's either laugh or cry and laughing is so much better for us.  She understood that statement.  I also said that finding that inner peace and that equilibrium wasn't about a specific religion or practice, and that I'd found it to be more about what works best for the individual person, so what works for me, might not work for everyone else.

I also let her know that it had taken me years, literally, to find my own peace and ability to disengage.  And, when we find and practice that inner peace and disengaging, sometimes we find our compassion.  When we aren't personally invested in another person's problems, we can see more sides of the issue than simply their own.  We can be compassionate toward their plight, their feelings, and their perspective without feeling their own feelings of injustice and negativity.

So much of this world is about putting other people down to raise our own self esteem.  It is about using their problems against them instead of being compassionate toward their perspective on things.  It's about shunning those who are different, grouchy, or who appear unlovable.  Often we forget that there are times we are all unlovable.  We forget that we all get grouchy.  Because of this trend toward the negative, toward kicking someone when they are down, we live in a world that is intimately connected and yet vastly lonely.  We hear without listening.  We speak without compassion.  We feel without truly feeling.

Change begins on the inside.  It begins by accepting ourselves for who we are, seeing our own flaws and being okay with them, but acknowledging we have to work toward changing them.  When we are compassionate with ourselves, when we love ourselves, that caring overflows and manifests outwardly.  When we find peace within our own being, we find peace outside and in our world.  How will you begin manifesting change within your own world?  Will you begin today?

May the light of a thousand suns shine in your soul and may a thousand years of peace fall upon your heart.  Brightest blessings my friends!

Challenge Accepted!

As some of you know, I am currently studying Wicca and working toward my Second degree initiation.  My lesson and homework this week has been a challenge to me, as well as reigniting my enthusiasm for learning, teaching, and the Craft.  I have been given the task of writing my own seeker course or Wicca 101 class.

For me, the challenge has been to wade through all of the years of general Craft/Wicca knowledge I have gathered and determine what of it is basic enough to be taught in a 101 setting.  I know that may sound strange to some, but I'm one of those weird people who didn't grow up in the Craft, but still managed to grow up with it.  (If that makes sense...)

When I first stepped upon this Wiccan path consciously, I discovered that I already knew many of the basic elements that so many new people are ignorant of.  I had a firm grasp on the elements, mythology, and color correspondence, as well as, basic energy work, ancient history, and even a very basic understanding of the human condition.  I instinctively understood that what works for me might not work for anyone else.  I understood that Deity is greater than anything our finite minds could possibly comprehend, unless we compartmentalize it and break it in to small, finite pieces.  I understood the feeling of the ebb and flow of the energies of this life and that everything has a soul.

The challenge of creating this class has come from the fact that I don't know what it's like to be truly 101.  I firmly and readily admit that I am ignorant to many, many things in this world and to even more things within the Craft, and likely will be for many years to come.  All that said, it's the basics, the foundation, which challenge me so.

How am I supposed to teach something I have simply always known?  (Always isn't exactly the right word, however, many things I'll be teaching I discovered when I was no older than 9 and other things I discovered around 14, so I've still known these things for more than half of my life.)  How do I teach the basics of something which I have layered with more knowledge and experience through the years?  How do I strip away all of the complications, the meat of my knowledge, back down to the bare-bones structure?

These are my challenges.  Don't overwhelm the new students!  Don't scare them.  Don't freak them out to the point they do not want to continue with their craft knowledge.  Make.  It.  Fun.  Of course, then all of the other questions and self doubt creep in.  Then, I laugh nervously and tell myself I can do this.  There is a part of me, a part somewhere deep within my chest, that knows I'm doing what I'm supposed to do and when that doubt creeps in, this part of me glows blue-white and chases those shadows away.

That part, deep within me, is also the part of me that whispers I'll be learning from my students.  It reminds me that I will make mistakes, but I'm only human.  It reminds me that even teachers never stop learning.  It reminds me to let go and simply let my gods.  It is this part of me that is excited and enthusiastic about this possibility.  It is this part of me that also reminds me to tread slowly and deliberately.  It wants to be as The Fool, but knows that it's not quite the appropriate time.

I have accepted this challenge and I have resolved to muddle through it and take any direction I may get from my own teachers.  I realize, now, that this is the direction I have been needing to go for months.  I can only thank the Gods for being patient with me as I have figured this out.  I can only thank my Elders for setting such good examples for me to emulate.  I am thankful for this challenge, despite the scary implications for me (more personal challenges and such that I really don't want to accept) and I am thankful to have all of this coming just as I am emerging from my own darkness and getting ready to plant the seeds for growth within this new year.

Brightest of Blessings my friends!!

December 21, 2012: It's the End of the World as We Know it (And I Feel Fine)

Today's date hit me this morning over coffee.  In 20 days the Mayan long count calendar ends, heralding the end of the fourth age.  Do I believe that the world is going to end in 20 days?  No.  I believe that the end of the world as we know it is going to begin, though.

Somewhere long about 1988 or 1989, in the summer, I discovered this prophecy.  Imagine the excitement of  an 8 or 9 year old child discovering a thousands of years old prophecy, especially one that no one was talking about.  I remember that day.  I was at the library doing research (as much as an 8 or 9 year old child can, anyway), and that particular day I was reading about ancient Central America.  I'd devoured what I could from the old encyclopedias (there were 3 different sets, none newer than about 1975) on the Incas and Aztecs and had begun reading about the Mayans.  I was fascinated by these cultures advanced mathematics and astronomy, their art, and their mythology.  Then there was a tiny paragraph about the long count calendar ending on the winter solstice of 2012 with nothing after.

My imagination ran wild.  I had to go and tell my best friend Michael.  He had to know this because I knew that it would excite him, too.  It did.  For days we looked into our own futures.  We could not fathom being in our 30's.  We wondered where we would be, what we would be doing.

The truth is stranger than any fiction we could come up with, just as this 'Mayan Apocalypse' has taken on a much bigger life of its own that, I'm sure, the Mayan culture ever realized.  I don't believe that this is going to be the doomsday.  I believe that it is going to be the beginning of a kind of doomsday, though.  I believe that those who see our mother as disposable are going to find themselves in a shrinking minority.  The slash-and-burners are going to find themselves hitting walls, not just finding pockets of resistance.  The wastefulness of our rampant consumerism and big business is going to fade.  Climate change is going to be recognized as actually happening.

This things have already begun.  They have begun all over, small pockets of local people refusing big business, refusing consumerism and wastefulness.  This refusal is going to spread in the coming years and decades.  More people are going to turn toward sustainability and growing their own crops for food.  Things are going to start going back to the way they were in our grandparents time.  There will be things which are kept, like the internet, but we understand that working toward a goal of a healthier planet doesn't necessarily mean giving up all of our modern amenities.  How better to be able to come up with new and more efficient ideas for conserving what we have than by being connected to the greater community?

So, there's no reason to hoard away food, water, fuel, and ammunition.  We are simply cycling back toward a simpler time.  We will make of the 'end of the world' what we choose.  What do YOU choose?