Messages from the Muses

I mentioned yesterday that I had a tarot reading on Saturday night. I went into the first half of the reading in that post, and what it told me; as that post was 1000 words already I decided to talk about the second half of the reading in a separate post.

Also, this has an M title, so it counts for Pagan Blog Project. (I’m so sneaky.)

As you know, I’ve recently started to worship the Hellenic gods alongside my already primarily-Celtic-based practice. I am planning on doing this within a loosely ADF structure, though after I finish the Dedicant’s Path how closely I adhere to ADF ritual structure remains to be seen.

One set of deities I hadn’t thought too carefully about was the Mousai, or Muses.

Seems rather ridiculous, as I’m a writer, but I’d always envisioned my Muse as slightly more personal, mayhap a spirit guide — I didn’t think any of the Mousai would have any real interest in me.

Apparently I was wrong!

During the tarot reading it was revealed that there are three Muses interested in me, to the point of apparently sort of…fighting over me? At which point I confessed I did a little bit of a Jack Harkness bit: “Ladies…there’s enough of Morag to go around. *wink*”

I have no idea which Muses, but I’ll probably find out at some point. I can be patient; I’m not new to working with gods, after all.

At any rate, They told me that I need to keep writing, to “keep those skilled hands working” and “that fascinating brain” active. It was very clear that I’m on the right path with regards to writing as a career choice, and that whatever inspiration hits me in the coming months I need to take and fucking sprint with.

Which I wholeheartedly plan on doing.

I also plan on giving Them offerings, which I’ll be researching at some point soon. I read a hymn to Them when I was working on my Skira ritual that I liked quite a bit, so I may use that. Not sure if the offerings are going to be daily, or weekly, or monthly, or just whenever inspiration hits (which may be appropriate); I’m still working on an offerings schedule in general.

I’m pretty happy I got confirmation that my writing career is the right one from the Goddesses of inspiration Themselves. That’s pretty cool.

Onwards. And possibly upwards, but more likely sideways.

Expelling the Venom

A lesson I have yet to learn: other people’s advice is never as good as my own intuition. 

On Saturday night I went with some friends to their belated Full Moon ritual. They’re just starting their ATC practice, so it was the first time they were doing an ATC Full Moon ritual. It was pretty damn powerful, and inclusive — when I corrected someone’s assessment of me as female, the high priest said “Thou art Goddess and God” when greeting me at the the entrance to circle, and the high priestess also greeted me. Count that as the first time I’ve actually felt welcome at a Neo-Wiccan-esque circle.

The high priestess brought, on a whim, her tarot cards, and it was decided she’d do a reading for each of us and that would be the working. There were only 6 of us including her, so that was actually quite feasible.

Spooky. Spooky how damn accurate her reading was for me.

“You have suffered a betrayal; this person was Brutus to your Caesar, and it went exactly like that.”

“This betrayal is poisoning you; if you don’t let it out somehow — whether that’s through blogging, or actual communication with this person, or primal scream therapy — it will continue to wreak havoc with your physical health until you cannot take it anymore.”

“Someone — a woman older than you, who thinks she knows more than you do about this — has been giving you very bad advice.”

I mentioned briefly this betrayal on this very blog, back in April.  I wasn’t entirely clear; this person was not just a friend. She was a romantic, non-sexual partner, and for all intents and purposes it was a poly relationship I was in.

She attacked my mom professionally. 

If you know me at all you know that an attack on my mom I consider an attack on myself; if you know me at all then you know that that sort of betrayal I would see exactly like a Brutus/Caesar situation, and that would not be an exaggeration in the least.

Yet I’ve been miserable since this happened. I thought it was because I missed her so much. I even tried to reconcile with her this past week, going so far as to apologize to her for ‘being a bitch’. I haven’t heard back from her, and so my question to the cards was “Will I ever reconcile with [this person]?”

Their answer was an emphatic no, and that furthermore — this was a good thing.

It took this reading to realize that I didn’t miss her. I was miserable because I’d been betrayed by someone I let so far into my inner circle; I was miserable because I missed having someone so close to me who fulfilled relationship needs that my boyfriend can’t (and that I don’t want him to). It wasn’t her I missed; it was the belief that I’d finally found this person and I didn’t have to search any longer.

This misery has been poisoning me, which is no doubt what led to my experience at Mysteries with Hera:

In my dream I stood in front of the Shrine, and Hera came out and looked right at me. “You have poison in your skin,” She said, “and it will seep into your bones and kill you if you do not expel it.”

The high priestess’s words about the poison mirrored what dream-Hera said to me so well that it was eerie.

This misery has been poisoning me so much, and has been so apparent to others around me, that other people appeared in the reading. A friend who has been giving me advice to try and reconcile with the ex — I’m sure she meant well, and maybe I needed to attempt to reconcile to even figure out that I really shouldn’t and it would be a very bad idea, so I hold no animosity towards her — and my boyfriend.

My boyfriend, the Ogre, doesn’t express emotions well. So it took a tarot reading to tell me how worried he is about me, and how he has no idea what to do about my spiral into self-destruction, and how he’s trying to fix it but nothing he does helps.

It was apparent to my mom, too, who was the person who first asked me to reconcile with the ex.

I guess people seem to believe that reconciliation is always the best solution. Sometimes it’s not.

My ex is a dead branch, filled with disease and rot. If I do not cut her off my trunk, my core will become poisoned, and I will die. 

And because of this reading, I know now what I have to do.

  1. Blog about this. Be brutally honest.

    2. Check.

  2. Continue to write, all the time. Let writing fuel my life. (There was more to the reading that I’m going to talk about in a separate post.)
  3. Search for renewal from Gaia. 

 

This is a multi-faceted approach to healing. Seeking renewal from Gaia means not only going out into the wilds and letting myself become one with the dirt and soil, it also means putting good things of the earth into my body — tea, fruit, salad, high-quality chocolate, good meat — and in moderation. It means letting my skin soak up the sun; it means letting my body be cradled by the love of my Lord, Manannan, by swimming in the ocean and trusting in its might; it means gardening, and watching my plants grow and bloom, and taking joy in the dirt under my nails; it means slippery, celebratory sex with the man I love more than life itself; it means reading books and thanking the trees that gave their lives to give me knowledge; it means drinking a lot of water; it means going to physiotherapy, getting myself healed, and losing some weight so I’m not in pain all the time; it means doing divination.

It means being honest.

The earth is not a liar. It does not deceive. It is cruel, and it is loving. It is paradox.  It is always brutally honest.

If I am to heal myself, if I am to expel this venom, I must be honest. I must be like Gaia Herself — the primal One, who binds all Others together, and who Herself is held by the vast, holy sky.

And now I know why I blog things. To tell myself what I already know; to keep myself pure and clean; to affirm that I am always right about my own shit, and that my intuition is worth the advice of a thousand gurus.

Flamekeeping: July 7th to 8th

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For shift today and last night I’ve written a few blog posts, attended a full moon ritual, cleaned my writing space, healed a part of myself, did dishes, did laundry, and talked about Brighid with Danny.

We concluded She’s the Goddess of Cheese  and thus eating cheese was appropriate worship of Her.

That’s our story and we’re sticking to it.

All in all a productive shift. As it winds down I find myself feeling very satisfied.

Nature Journalling

I ordered a copy of Keeping a Nature Journal: Discover a Whole New Way of Seeing the World Around You by Clare Walker Leslie and Charles E. Roth a while ago, and it arrived this week. I’m only about 31 pages into it, but skimming through the rest of it to see what it contains I can see it’s going to be very helpful.

It’s got examples of several different journalling styles, information on what to record when you’re doing a nature journal and exactly what the difference is between reflective journalling and observational journalling (which had never really been explained to me before, though it’s sort of obvious: reflective journalling is one’s own journey, own reactions, beliefs, ideas, etc; observational journalling, such as nature journalling, is recording your observations of people, animals, plants, seasons, weather, etc), an entire chapter on how to draw — yay for unartistic Morag! — a ton of samples from the authors’ own nature journals, an entire section on journalling through the seasons with a chapter for each one, and even a section on how to teach nature journalling to others.

Continue reading “Nature Journalling”

Hearing the Gods: self-deception is the enemy

How can I tell what the gods are saying?

I’m in a relatively small camp of people who are ‘god-bothered’. We’ve usually been thwapped by gods and have really intimate relationships with Them, and many of us have conversations with those gods that are pretty distinct.

(If you’re going to get jealous or upset because you’re not god-bothered, please don’t. Yes, there are benefits to having an intimate relationship with a god, or even two or three, but there’s a reason the phrase “May you live in interesting times” is considered a curse — a three-part curse, including “May you come to the attention of important people/authority,” which could well include the gods and probably does. Their intimate attention makes life very interesting, let me tell you. It’s not always all it’s cracked up to be; it’s a lot of work, honestly.)

I’m not saying that it’s impossible to have a distinct conversation with a god if you’re not god-bothered — just that it may not happen on a daily basis. You may have to go into trance or meditation to have a conversation like that with a god, and that’s fine.

You may be wondering how you can tell whether or not the gods like or your offerings or your rituals if you’re not in trance and you’re not in the habit of having very distinct conversations with Them.

I’ll tell you how I can tell. 

It’s true that I’m god-bothered by my Sacred Triad and Hecate (still exploring that relationship; more to come about it later). But I’m also called to worship the Hellenic pantheon and I’m not god-bothered by most of Them. Hecate did sort of sink Her claws into me at Spring Mysteries Fest, and I do feel stronger replies from some of Them than others — but I haven’t had a single distinct conversation with any of Them (outside Spring Mysteries Fest, where you can talk to priests who have drawn down the gods — kind of a different thing from everyday communication).

How do I know They even want me?

I haven’t gotten any feelings of “Ugh, go away” or foreboding or KILLYOUANDEATYOU (while that article is aimed more at a relationship between a Celtic Reconstructionist and local land spirits, it’s well worth a read). When I did my Dionysos ritual on the new moon, I got a pleasant tingling feeling and the sensation that He was smiling smugly.

Yes, these are all feelings that I must navigate, which will automatically render them as invalid to many of you, I’m sure. But when it comes to relationships with beings that are non-corporeal feelings is all you really have to go on.

Which is why self-deception is an enemy to true communion with the gods or any other spirit. If you are in the habit of deceiving yourself, in the habit of telling yourself what you want to hear and only believing what you want to hear — if you cannot listen to hard truths, then you cannot listen to the gods.

Because not all gods will like you. Some will downright dislike you.

When I attempted to do a ritual for Nut as an incarnation of the Lady of the Stars, I got a very clear rebuff of “Sorry kid, but you are NOT one of mine,” followed by an immediate, intense silence. Years and years ago, when I attempted to make contact with the Christian god in a sort of “Hey, no hard feelings, it’s really some of Your followers I don’t like like, nothing against You,” I got a very clear “FUCK OFF YOU HEATHEN”. (Jesus, on the other hand, is totally a cool dude.)

Self-deception would tell me that all the gods like me. That I’d be welcome to converse with any of Them. That most of Them downright love me and that I can go to Them about everything that worries my pretty little head.

Hard truth: not all the gods love me. I’m really really lucky, actually, because I have at least three gods who love the hells out of me, and at least one that I could go to with anything that bothered me. (Manannan is like god-form of loving uncle for me.) That’s a frigging amazing number — that at least three of these amazing, huge beings that literally keep the universe moving care about me. Yes, I’m a tool of the gods — and that means They love me. (You’d be lying if you said you didn’t really love your favourite tool, whether it’s a laptop or a good drill or some amazing kitchen implement that allows you to make really great meals or a cane that helps you walk. Tools are important and being able to be a tool for my Sacred Triad is a source of much pride for me.)  They put time and energy into me, and They love me.

Three of Them do, at least. Possibly more, but honestly — I’m happy with three.

Because I am simply a mortal. And expecting all of the gods to love me or to welcome me is childish self-delusion. Just like I shouldn’t expect every rock to want to come home with me; that’s not animism, it’s narcissism.

Step one of learning how to hear the gods: get rid of your self-deception. Start being really honest with yourself. Only when you’re honest with yourself can you begin to honestly interpret the signs They send. This is everything from feelings to omens, whether taken in a ritual setting, from a divinatory tool, or seen in animals and weather.

Omens is another way of getting answers from the gods, but not one I’m talking about here because I haven’t done it that often. When I read tarot I’m generally asking the deck itself for answers; occasionally I’ll see a crow and know it’s a sign from the Morrigan, but again — it doesn’t happen very often.

Regardless, the same advice applies: get rid of self-deception, and you’ll be able to understand what They’re saying.

Self-deception leads to delusion, and delusion leads to believing either everything is a sign from the gods, or nothing is, or some signs mean one thing when they really mean another, or signs are from the gods when they’re really from some other spirit who’s playing silly buggers with you.

First things first: be honest about yourself. Are you truly the greatest dancer who’s ever lived, or are you merely adequate? Are you really the worst cook in the world, or are you actually pretty good and just suffering from low self-esteem? Both low self-esteem and unwonted arrogance are self-deception, and both are harmful. Start with knowing thyself.

Next, be honest about others and how they relate to you. Chances are you didn’t miss out on that audition because of some vast conspiracy on the part of the director and all the theatre people in your town. Chances are the car behind you isn’t following you home; it’s probably just going the same route (I admit I suffer from this bit of self-deception). Chances are your partner literally meant “Ok, fine,” and you don’t have to over-analyze, unless your partner has a history of passive-aggressivity, in which case, get thee to a couples’ counselor. Chances are when your partner says nothing’s wrong but you know something is wrong that something has nothing to do with you and that’s why they don’t want to talk about it. Chances are your friend’s offhand comment about how they hate it when people do such and such had nothing to do with you and your tendency to do such and such. Chances are most things have nothing to do with you. 

Now, be honest about the earth and its relation to you. Storms don’t happen because you bring bad weather. Earthquakes don’t happen because you showed off your tits. Volcanoes don’t happen because the world has turned away from the Christian god. We live on a big planet that likes to stretch her muscles and shrug her shoulders and get rid of cricks from time to time. Hurricane Katrina didn’t happen because the gods were angry with the pagans in New Orleans.

While sometimes the gods may use Their awesome power to show you Their displeasure, it’s very unlikely They’d let so many innocent bystanders get caught up in the fall0ut, generally speaking. Besides, I think it would be a much more impressive display of godly power to have a storm happen within 15 square feet, affecting only one person, than to wipe out several hundred miles of human civilization. Like a bolt of lightning out of the blue.

Once you start working on getting rid of self-deception it becomes a lot easier to filter out wishful thinking from what’s really going on, and at that point understanding what the gods are telling you becomes a lot easier.

Menstruation

Why would I ever choose an easy topic?

Every once in a while a post comes up on some forum or another about menstrual blood in magic or offering to the gods, etc. The posts invariably essentialize menstruation with the gender identification of woman, effectively alienating all the women who don’t menstruate, whether cis or trans, men who menstruate, and genderqueer folk like myself who menstruate. I really shouldn’t be surprised at this point, but I still kind of am.

I wrote a post about blood sacrifice yesterday, but didn’t touch on menstruation. Here I will talk about menstruation as offering to the gods, menstruation as magical use, and how I feel when I menstruate as a genderqueer person.

Menstrual blood as offering

It depends, I think, on one’s relationship with the deity and that deity’s purview. I’m not going to automatically discount it as gross and unwanted because menstrual blood is bodily waste; that’s lazy thinking. But before you can even sort out the appropriateness of menstrual blood as an offering, you have to determine what menstrual blood means to you.

If menstruation is something you cherish as a symbol of your own fertility and possibly womanhood, then using it as an offering to gods whose alignments are within those areas would probably be appropriate.

If menstruation is something you view as a coming of age and nothing more, then using it in a coming of age ceremony — whether that involves gods or not — would be appropriate.

If menstruation is something you view as painful, gross, and not connected to how you feel about your gender or fertility at all — if it’s an inconvenience, then using it as an offering is probably not appropriate.

If menstruation is something that causes severe dysphoria for you, it could be appropriate to offer it as a symbolic gesture of throwing it away — asking for the gods’ help in disposing of that part of your life, in helping you cut away what doesn’t help you be who you truly are.

There are many other ways menstruation could make you feel; I’m just touching on these four.

Once you’ve determined the importance of menstruation to yourself, then you have to determine which gods would appreciate an offering of it and which wouldn’t. If menstrual blood is a symbol of sovereignty, the earth, or fertility to you, then offering it to a deity in charge of those things could be appropriate. If it’s a symbol of body dysphoria and you want to get rid of it, an offering to a deity who takes things away could work.

Generally speaking, it’s my opinion that deities who are chthonic and more connected to physical being are going to be more open to receiving menstrual blood as an offering. Gaia, Persephone, Morrigan, Demeter, Lilith are names that come to mind off the top of my head; I’m sure y’all can come up with other gods. In the end, you’ll need to do some research if you want to offer menstrual blood to deities. And probably ask the deity in question if it would be appreciated.

When I asked Morrigan, I got a shrug that amounted to “If you want to offer it, it’s fine by me.” Other deities may go “Ugh. No.” Others still may say “Awesome!”

Personally I’m not likely to use menstrual blood as an offering to the gods. As I said in my post about blood sacrifice, part of the sacrifice is knowing when and where to cut, and when to stop cutting. Using menstrual blood, that comes no matter what I do (save getting pregnant or taking hormonal birth control to stop my period), is lazy. And impractical, considering my cycle is whenever the hell I want so have fun trying to predict me.

Menstrual blood as magic ingredient

I’ve often heard about using menstrual blood in spells to “make friends with your womb” or reconnect with the “divine feminine”. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with the first one, but the second one is pretty cissexist in my opinion.

If you view menstrual blood as a fundamental part of being a woman, then using it in spells to reconnect with your womanhood is appropriate. If you view it that way and you’re a woman who doesn’t menstruate, an option is to simulate menstruation by drawing blood from somewhere else on your body and use that in the spell.

If you view it as something that denies you your gender identity, then you could use it in a spell to cast away things that cause dysphoria.

Again, before you can use menstrual blood as a magic ingredient you have to determine what it means to you — unless you’ve found a folk magic recipe that calls for it, in which case it doesn’t matter what any of the ingredients mean to you because folk magic is ingredient-specific, intent-negligible.

If I ever do use menstrual blood in a spell, I think what I may use it for would be to become pregnant (getting my period again after trying to conceive would be pretty depressing, so I’d offer it up as away of symbolically casting it aside for a bit; the spell would probably include the number 9 somehow to show that I only want it gone for 9 months, etc), to connect myself to my land — ie, doing a spell to increase the output of my garden and make myself connected with the land (this could double as an offering to land spirits), to make my periods less painful, to regularize my cycle, to bring about menopause, to get rid of dysphoria…there are many possibilities. Not sure if I’ll ever use it for any of these, but I might.

How menstruation feels for this genderqueer witch

My genderqueer-ness manifests as a pendulum swing on a spectrum. I’m always femme, but somedays I’m more male than female, somedays I’m more female than male, somedays I sort of feel right down the middle, making me a third, unnamed gender that’s a blend of the two binary ones.

I have always had a love-hate relationship with my period, even before I discovered I was genderqueer. The cycle was whacko, the flow was really heavy, and the cramps were incredibly painful. On the plus side, when it came it was always for five days exactly, and I did see it as a coming of age thing — I was finally a woman.

And then came all the other shit of being a teenager and suddenly I wanted to go back to being 12 years old.

Since getting the IUD, my period cycle has become more whacko, but the flow became light. The cramps started coming earlier and randomly, and it started lasting for random days at a time: 14, 3, 7, 2. Sometimes I’d have 14 days of really light flow, followed by 4 days off, followed by another week of bleeding. Cramps happen up to a week before, during, and up to a week after the period. Sometimes I have 2 months without a period; sometimes I have four in one month.

When I discovered I was genderqueer, I realized what those days of feeling completely uncomfortable in my own body were: my male-days. Those were the days when I was clumsy and depressed and wore baggy clothing to cover the fact that I had breasts and didn’t want to go anywhere, because I felt so ugly. If I had my period on those days they were even worse.

Now that I know what’s going on on those days, I know what I feel when I have my period on them.

It worsens the dysphoria. My body feels so wrong. I want to rip out my uterus with my bare hands.

If I get my period on my female-days, then it’s just a day of discomfort and bloating and constant anxiety over whether or not I have blood on my jeans, and no dysphoria. To keep myself optimistic during my period on my female-days, I can say to myself “Well, at least I know I can have kids. Theoretically.”

So menstruation is a complicated bag of spiky hammers for me. I’ve often tried to just feel better about my period, as so many women have urged me to do because all my discomfort is obviously just patriarchal programming — but that doesn’t work. Periods can really suck for some people. On top of physical discomfort, a lot of period-sufferers have to deal with body dysphoria too, and I’m not an exception.

Bottom-line, I’d feel a lot better about my period and periods in general if people stopped assuming that a) every woman gets periods, b) every person who gets periods is a woman. Cause, you know, being reduced to one’s reproductive organs or bodily functions is kind of dehumanizing. Just like women aren’t walking baby-factories, I’m not a woman just because I have the potential to grow a parasite child in my womb.

Genderqueerly yours,

-Morag.

Blood Sacrifice

Finally doing that B post that I was missing!

Trigger warning for discussion of cutting. Warning for discussion of blood and blood sacrifice.

On June 23rd, at sunset, I had a Landbinding shift. This is one of the once-every-20-days shift that I’ve come up with to complement my Flamekeeping shifts with Brighid — Landbinding is for Morrigan, Seaseeking is for Manannan.

I decided to try doing something that I’d being thinking of doing for Her for a while — sacrificing some blood.

I used a very sharp blade to cut myself at two points — forehead and chin, because they hurt the least and head wounds produce more blood than elsewhere — and proceeded to get as much blood as possible into a vial. My cuts didn’t bleed as much as I  wanted to, and the blood coagulated quickly. Next time I’ll be putting some sort of anti-coagulant into the vial before collecting the blood, if I can find any.

Regardless, I took what little I had collected and — after bandaging my face — went to my altar, where I proceeded to light a candle and sacrifice the blood to the flame. I may have said a prayer; I can’t remember, exactly.

It was appreciated.

Part of blood sacrifice is re-asserting control over my body. I can’t control a lot of things about my body, but controlling when I give blood to the gods and how much is something I can do. As well, I’m a recovering cutter — so blood sacrifice in this fashion is a test of my will, my discipline. While it felt good to release, it only did when I was giving the blood to Morrigan. I tried cutting again a few days after the sacrifice and it no longer gave me any release. It gave me nothing.

So there’s an example of how religion can make you stronger.

Anyway.

I need to know when to cut, and where to cut, and when to stop cutting. Figuratively and literally. So when I sacrifice my blood — when I set it aside as sacred — I’m also learning when and where to cut. The face, because head wounds bleed more and it’s an easier collection spot — I’m also less likely to cut too deep and hit a vein. On my shifts for Morrigan, because giving Her blood is binding myself to the land — the blooded earth and I become one. Other times of sacrifice.

Not outside of religion, and not places that are too dangerous to my health. Danger can be healthy, in certain cases, but having to call 911 and then being branded an attempted suicide and possibly given medication that may fuck with my mental health even more — this doesn’t help me in my quest for bodily autonomy.

Blood sacrifice is helping me learn control over myself, and I think that’s the bigger picture Morrigan is pushing, here.

Disclaimer: I’m not endorsing willy-nilly blood sacrifice with this post. It took a lot of consideration and time before I decided to do this; it was not a lightly-made decision. Do your research, think hard about it, always make sure your tools are sterile, and cut in a place that’s safe. 

Being Brutally Honest

I made a commitment to myself at some point this year. Not a new year’s resolution, because I don’t believe in those and it’s a stupid time to make resolutions, anyway, but a commitment.

I committed to being brutally honest.

You weren’t already? you all exclaim, shocked and horrified.

No, I wasn’t. I didn’t talk about a lot of things, I edited myself all the time, I made sure to be nice and non-offensive. Or whatever. I walked on eggshells made of glass.

And then I realized that that sort of attitude serves no one, least of all myself. The revolution will not be nice. I am not doing greater good by tiptoeing around the hard subjects, by lying about myself and my past. I am doing greater bad. The more lies I heap onto my life, the less I am living the attitude of the knife. I have to be ready to cut.

So I will always be brutally honest here, at Innocence and Immanence. About myself, my practice, my family past. If I cannot be brutally honest about a subject, I won’t write about it. As simple as that.

And if you find there are long hiatuses in between posts, it is because I am having trouble finding the words with which I can be brutally honest, and I do not want to post half-honestly.

And if ever I find that I have been lying to myself unawares, and therefore to you all, I will come clean.

Dionysos, the Liberator

Purple candle in His candle holder that Erin gave me; glass of wine. Both set on rabbit fur.
Purple candle in His candle holder that Erin gave me; glass of wine. Both set on rabbit fur.

Things I Learned the Night of the New Moon

  • Flying ointment + wine combo makes you think that nothing much is happening while you’re dancing and worshipping at the altar of the Liberator; it’s the hangover that brings clarity.
  • Said hangover will consist of feeling like someone beat all your muscles with hard sticks for several hours, a headache, and the feeling that you woke up in a field covered in blood even when you didn’t.
  • Dionysos is God of the Mind-Fuck.
  • My playlist for Him needs to include way more dance-y songs so I don’t feel like an idiot trying to maenad-dance to slow sensual rock.
  • Ritual is better when naked. At least, solitary ritual is.
  • I’ve fallen in love. Again.
  • I am really a maenad (or I have the potential to be); it’s not just wishful thinking anymore.
  • I cannot do anything except sleep the day after I do ritual for Him.

Wish I could give y’all a more poetic recount of the ritual, but my mind is still kind of blown. It was very simple, too — bottle of wine, flying ointment, I said one of the hymns for Him, and danced like a madwoman in my bedroom. I also drank the entire bottle of wine except what you see in His glass in the picture. Dancing makes you thirstay.

Solstice ritual has been postponed on account of my recovering.

Holiday Reorganization (PBP catch-up)

Holidays are something I’ve not quite got a handle on yet. I’ve got ideas and thoughts about most of them, but actually getting down to celebrating them…eghh. That doesn’t happen as often as it should.

And now that I’m back to making a real, solid attempt at the Dedicant’s Path for ADF, I really should figure out what my ADF holidays are going to be.

Shouldn’t that be simple? you ask. Don’t they give you a list?

Well, yes, they do. But I’m following the Hellenic Hearth Culture and I don’t want to use the “standard Neo-Pagan Wheel of the Year” because three of the four fire festivals are reserved for my Sacred Triad, and it just feels wrong. ADF does tell me which Hellenic festivals can be used for each of the 8 main feasts required for the DP’s documentation, but I’m having some issues.

According to their list Skira is celebrated at the Summer Solstice, and it’s also considered to be the time when Kore descends to the Underworld. Apparently now is the barren time in Greece, and therefore when Kore is in the Underworld.

The ADF list of Hellenic Holidays:

  • August Feast: The Panathenaia.
  • Autumn Equinox: The Eleusinian Mysteries.
  • November Feast: The Thesmophoria.
  • Winter Solstice: The Oreibasia.
  • February Feast: The Anthesteria. 
  • Spring Equinox: The City or Greater Dionysia. 
  • May Feast: Thargelia.
  • Summer Solstice: Skira. 

This does not work for me. At all. I’m sure it worked just fine in Greece, but I live in British Columbia. Our barren time starts around the Autumnal Equinox and goes to about the Spring Equinox (plant growth varies every year, but it’s friggin cold during those months regardless). And I cannot follow a holiday schedule that says that Kore is in the Underworld when it’s sunny and there are plants everywhere and I’m sneezing.

So I’m flipping some stuff around. I have to, or I’ll go nuts. (Nuttier than before, anyway.)

Here’s my tentative plans for Hellenic ADF holidays for the next year:

Summer Solstice: Greater Dionysia. Ish. Obviously I can’t recreate the civic holiday, but I can do something. As the new moon is tonight and I’d planned on having summer new moons being ritual time for Dionysos, I may just have the solstice be His time and maybe do a Noumenia for the new moon. Ugh, I’m so confused.

August feast: the Panathenaia. This is in honor of Athena, and it’s from August 10th-18th this year (this one is still in the ‘right’ place).

Autumn Equinox: Skira and/or Kore’s descent. I’ve been having trouble finding corroboration to ADF’s claim that Skira is actually when Kore descends, so this is subject to change. Skira is also considered the new year time, but I won’t be celebrating that aspect of it. For me, new year is on August 14th (my birthday) and that’s not subject to change anytime soon. (I also celebrate the secular new year’s, because my friends do and it’s a party with booze.)

November-ish feast: Thesmophoria. This is also in the right place, for some odd reason (this is where ADF put it). Thesmophoria is a festival for Demeter celebrating the time when She abstains from Her duties as grain goddess and the world starves. According to HMEPA, it’s from October 26th-29th this year.

Winter Solstice: the Oreibasia? This is how it’s listed in the ADF dedicant’s manual but I can’t find any reference to it elsewhere. I can find reference to a Lenaia, which sounds…exactly the same, honestly, and that is supposed to be from January 23rd-27th in 2013. Soooo I may just wing a maenad-ish celebration in honor of Dionysos for Winter Solstice.

February feast: Anthesteria, again in the right place. I sort of celebrated this earlier this year; it was short notice so I didn’t do much. But next year I’ll do a proper shindig. It’s listed as occurring from February 21st to 24th, 2013.

Spring Equinox: Eleusinian Mysteries/Kore returns. This actually works quite well with the placement of Spring Mysteries Fest, so.

May feast: Thargelia. In honor of Apollo and Artemis; falls on May 15-17th, 2013.

I’m stressing a lot about this and probably way more than I should. I’ve always had issues with the standard “Wheel of the Year” though, and this looks like a calendar I could really…get into. So long as I celebrate Kore’s ascent and descent at the right times, of course.

I don’t know. Does anyone with a better grasp of the Hellenic holidays have any comments? Am I totally fucking everything up with my reorganization? Is Skira associated with Kore’s descent at all, or could I conceivably just have it at the right time? Should I just celebrate the holidays as they list them and add in my own things about Kore’s descent and return?

Augh I’m so confused and Summer Solstice is tomorrow what am I going to doooooo. *flails*