Dedication to Brighid: ritual debrief

I do a few things quite well.

One is writing. I’m a good writer.

I also make really excellent hashbrowns.

And I do a good ritual (with some — ok, half, but with edits — of the parts borrowed from this one here).

I was distracted and scattered before the ritual. I wasn’t paying attention, or tending to my shift very well. Or doing homework or anything productive. I couldn’t even write in my journal (that means I’m really distracted).

Then I decided it was now or never, because hells 9:30 had rolled around and I had to get to sleep at some point. So I set up things and drew a bath and added some colorful sparkly things to it. I don’t know what they are except that they’re from Little India in Vancouver and are meant to go with henna tattoos, I think. They’re gold and silver and green and magenta and indigo and really pretty. And they can be added to water.

So I added them to my bath-water, to the water I used in the ritual, to water for tomorrow’s ritual (sitting in the bowl I use for LotS rituals). I put on the skillet and some hashbrowns to cook while I bathed. As the bath water filled I lit candles and sang the Lady of the Starfire chant by Ali, over and over and over until it sank into me. I lay back in the bath and sang some more, and had a mild epiphany: fire in the water. Fire is represented by reds and oranges and yellows, but mainly red is associated with it (to us Westerners at any rate). Red water. Blood. Blood in the body is fire in the water. (Or, well, blood cells in plasma are the fire in the water — little stars swimming in the space within our bodies.)

Blood is our life force, it holds the most abundance of energy. The hot springs rising from the heart is the fire in the water, the blood being pumped through our bodies and bringing Her light directly to every part of us.

I don’t know, feel free to disagree with me. But it came to me and felt right in every fibre, every vein of my being. So I share it here with you.

After I’d reached a state of centered calm I took out the plug and let the water and all negative thoughts, all the “old me” parts I didn’t want anymore leave down the drain, down down down, back to the earth where the energy can be reabsorbed and cleansed, put to work elsewhere. I saved the hashbrowns from a near-burn experience. I put them and the other libations by the altar, and put on my ritual dress (simple black — I’m a Witch; duh).

And then…ritual. I stumbled once or twice. Mainly kept to the script and did things right. I wasn’t able to afford a sterile piercing needle and decided to dedicate an earring tonight and get the piercing done later, either by my best friend or a professional. (I then thought I’d just put the earring in my current ear hole until I could get the second one, but after straining to gauge my current ear holes from 19 to 14 for several minutes I gave it up as a lost cause.) I also dedicated the necklace I posted pictures of a little while ago, with the caveat that I may take it off from time to time.

During the meditation part I started to cry. I can’t say why. I think it was gratitude that She wants me to serve Her, gratitude to Her and to myself — to myself because I’ve healed enough to consider myself worthy of the Gods. Gratitude to Her for facilitating that healing. Gratitude to Her for coming into my life a year ago and not taking No for an answer.

Gratitude, and the tears that signal that last wound is being sewn shut, that the last pieces are coming together and solidifying. I’m finally a whole being, and I could feel it happen tonight.

But the fact of the ritual didn’t hit me until right afterwards. After I’d poured green tea-root beer (it’s green tea, which is healthy for your body, and root beer, which is a substitute for alcoholic beer — and She said She wanted some) for Her and dished out some hashbrowns and nuts (walnuts and almonds, and She likes potatoes), and eaten myself (to symbolize that I now walk with Her as Her priestess, I shared a meal with Her), after I’d blown out the candles and said hych’qa* to All who bore witness, I felt like I got slammed into a wall. (A good slamming into a wall.)

Holy shit. I just dedicated myself to Brighid. For life. I’m Hers. I’m Her priestess. With or without clergy training, I’m a priestess now. My entire life is now lived for Her.

My heart fluttered like it does when I think about my boyfriend. I let out a little laugh. And felt like crying again — tears of joy. Life is going to be so different from now on. Oh, I’m sure I’ll be back to my grumpy self most days, and I’ll continue walking to class with my best friend or having the same sorts of conversations with people — outwardly nothing has changed. But inwardly….

A spiral galaxy has been born in my soul. It spins outwards and touches others, even if they can’t see. I keep those stars safe. The stars in my blood. Be noble for you are made of stars, be humble for you are made of earth. I’ve never felt that so much as now.

And these stars will leave, one by one, when they’re ready, to bring light to the dark places, to bring light to others, to start their own little spiral galaxies.** This is okay, for there’s a never ending supply of them. I will never run out of stars to give.

Hych’qa.

(The not-quite-full text of my ritual can be read here. I’ve edited the part where I say all my names and my lineage, for safety and privacy’s sake.)

~~~

*”Hych’qa” is Coast Salish and means “Thank you.” It is pronounced “HAITCH-kah”.

**I realize this is not how astronomy works. Bear with me. It’s a metaphor.