Ár nDraíocht Féin: A Druid Fellowship

I should be sleeping, but I wanted to blog about this briefly.

Several friends of mine (online and off) are part of this organization, so I’ve known about it for several months now, however tangentially. I’ve used the website as a resource when it came to aspects of forging my own NeoCeltic path. I didn’t think I would join the organization; organized anything doesn’t appeal to me.

That has changed. For whatever reason, I have come to the decision to join ADF and take the Dedicant’s study program. Well, for several reasons, despite my misgivings.

My misgivings are thus:

  1. I’m a WITCH, not a DRUID!
  2. But I JUST got stuff figured out with my path! Now I’m thinking of doing something different? What’s wrong with me?

My reasons for joining are thus:

  1. I can be a Witch and a Druid. Morgan le Fay was. According to the Mists of Avalon, which is fiction I know. But that’s completely the same because shut up. (I know, I’m stretching here, but…well, fiction is a type of truth.)
  2. All knowledge is worth having.
  3. I wish to take formal clergy training someday, but not necessarily Wiccan clergy training. ADF offers clergy training after doing the dedicant’s path.
  4. Fucking guilds, man. If you’ve been reading me, or if you know me well enough, I bet you could find at least 3 that I’d be very, very interested in joining. At least.
  5. I’m getting the feeling that this is the nebulous “next step” that I’ve known about for a while, but not know what it is. Wish They were more straightforward, but alas.
  6. ADF will give me a better framework for working with my Gods, and as I have 4 of them now…that’s important to me.
  7. Community. What I’m always stretching, searching for. I’m a wounded iconoclast. I long for a home. (This is a really deep wound with me; I don’t want to get into detail right now because it would turn this into a huge post, but I will write about it at a later date.)

Of course. The difficult part will be finding a way to balance my ADF and my Feri/Reclaiming stuff. Or maybe it won’t be so difficult; I suppose I won’t really know until I’m deep in the sweetwater.

I guess we’ll see. Now I have to find 25 dollars to pay for the membership (and yes, my finances are so bad that that’s an issue).

Lughnasadh

Lughnasadh has never before mattered to me as first a NeoWiccan, and later just a Celtic Witch. I’ve never felt the need to celebrate it — much like Imbolc, it just occupied a fire festival slot and I sort of went “Eh, whatever,” when it came and went each year. My favored holidays have long been the solstices, Samhain, and Beltaine (wooo sex and death! big surprise, eh?), and the equinoxes, Lughnasadh, and Imbolc have sort of been outside my radar.

Well, the Gods have other ideas, it seems. Usually it seems that way. I’m beginning to think that free will may largely be an illusion.

Anyway, this year was the first I celebrated Imbolc, as Brighid claimed me shortly beforehand. Something sort of similar has happened with Lughnasadh, though I’m not sure if it was Lugh arranging things or just a bunch of events falling into place.

Lughnasadh weekend is also a long weekend here in B.C., because it’s B.C. Day — our province’s birthday. So  a bunch of my Pagany-Witchy friends decided to hold a camp-out. At first I wasn’t able to go, but then I lost my job and my time was freed up. Upon hearing that I was coming, I was asked to write and priestess the Lughnasadh evening ritual.

Umkaywhat.

I mean, I’ve priestessed before…once. And I didn’t write the ritual there, it was a spur of the moment thing (I was unanimously elected to be HPs at a coven meeting one night, because our regular HPs couldn’t make it). This…this was something else entirely.

So I was nervous. Most of that nervousness stemmed from the fact that I’d never really celebrated Lughnasadh before and had no idea what the fuck the holiday was about. So I did some research.

And in researching Lugh, He sort of…showed up.

Before the ritual, I spent some time praying. I prayed to Morrigan and Brighid, for strength and in gratitude, and i sent out a prayer to Lugh, saying I’d felt His nudges and would like to get to know Him better.

That was dumb.

He’s a trickster deity, for Someone’s sake. It was like painting a target on my forehead and screaming to the Universe “HEY THERE — DESTROY MY SHIT NOW PLEASE!”

Well. The ritual went well — I adapted from a standard NeoWiccan ritual format, and added and embellished as I saw fit. (You can read the ritual here.) I could have done better in controlling the energy and keeping us on task, but I also could have done a whole lot worse. I think I did remarkably well, considering we had some assholes walking past and making loud, rude joking sounds at us (public campsite — yay). I managed to get everyone to make corn dollies out of raffia, teaching them on the spot. That’s difficult. The corn dollies were to bless our trades and ask for continued bounty and abundance.

I made my corn dolly and visualized my passion of writing when I made it, hoping to be a more prolific writer for the coming year.

Apparently, Lugh thinks it’s funny when my cat destroys said corn dolly. She has done so twice, so I have now soaked the thing in orange oil, which seems to work in repelling her.

This is not the only thing that has gone wrong in the “SO YOU SAID YOU WANTED TO KNOW ME BETTER HMMMM??” trickster deity sort of way since I’ve come home.

I’m starting to wonder what I’ve gotten myself into.

Lugh’s fuckery aside. Good things that came out of the weekend:

  • Beginning to see myself as a priestess. Not just a priestess to myself, as I believe we are all our own spiritual authorities, but a priestess to the community at large — our pagan community is not a Reclaiming one, so people who believe in being their own spiritual authority are thin on the ground. There is a need for priests and priestesses. I may look into taking some formal training.
  • Camping. is. fucking. amazing.
  • A good time was had by all, even if tensions were running high (many strong personalities + stress of camping + existing fault lines in the friendships = powder keg waiting for a match). Whatever, we played a great drinking game (that I did not participate in fully — I got to beat people
  • I sat down and made myself do some actual religious work — I was keeping the flame for Brighid all weekend (as I am doing right now, actually), so I decided it would be a good time to make a set of prayer beads for Her. I also made a set for Morrigan. Manannan’s will come later, when I have the materials. Below you can see pictures of the prayer beads I made; the red ones are garnet, for Morrigan, and the green ones are glass, with a gold four-armed cross-like symbol on it, for Brighid (the symbol is not a Brighid’s cross, but it’s close enough).

And I cannot get those to center no matter how hard I try. Oh well.

Well, I managed to finish this post on my shift, despite WordPress having a lot of trouble last night. Awesome.

-Morag

So Manannan’s a fun guy.

What I posted yesterday was not what I had set out to post. I’d set out to post about Manannan, originally, and I ended up talking about the BP oil spill and rambling about how depressed I get with the state of the world.

Well, I guess that is fitting.

Anyway, what I had wanted to say was this.

1) After my first little trip to the beach, I was hanging out with a friend and he informed me that the beach I’d gone to was on the edge of a lake.

I felt really stupid. But then I looked at a map and saw the lake connected to the ocean via a river, so it still counted. I think Manannan/Manawyddan was/were amused.

2) I went to the real beach the other day and went and stood barefoot in the water (got some really weird looks from some people, because it was rainy and who does that in BC I mean honestly it’s not even July when summer actually starts and goes for 2 weeks). Talked to Him/Them for a little bit. Asked why His voice was so muffled, and He responded “Well, I’m underwater — there’s going to be interference!” I laughed.

But then I got to thinking. I realized that my interactions with Brighid and Manannan/Manawyddan have been far more muffled with regards to hearing Their actual voices than my interactions with Morrigan. Morrigan is the only deity Whose voice I’ve heard in my head Loud and Clear. And I wondered in my head about this, and heard a sort of “Of course — She’s claimed you. Her voice would be the loudest,” from Him/Them.

And I went away thinking the Gods must think I’m fairly slow on the uptake, but I think They like me anyway.

It also brought up these ideas in my head, which have been there for a while, but I finally articulated them (to my mom, natch). To me, the Celtic deities are more primal and wild — less anthropomorphic than, say, the Greek pantheon. Brighid and Manannan do not appear in human form to me — not anything clear, at least. If you asked me to describe Their features, I would not be able to. I could only tell you what I feel.  Brighid is fire and hearth and sun and sparkling life force and the strength of the forge’s heat and the deep still coolness of the spring. She is fresh spring days and endless green and love and heat and warmth and love. Manannan is deep blue and sea creatures and mystery and mist and longing and warm the way a swim on a summer’s day is warm and gentle rain cleansing pain and lament and laughter and love and relaxation and safety and fatherly yet sensual and not in a creepy incestuous way but more a He’s got my back way, and I can see the sensual side of Him even if it’s not directed at me, it’s like what I can’t do with my parents which is to acknowledge that they may have sex at some point with people. I can accept that with Manannan.

Morrigan, however, appears as a woman — well, a Queen, a Warrior — to me, or She sends an animal messenger. I do sense Her attributes, but not in the raw, primal way I sense them from Brighid and Manannan. I think this has something to do with the dynamic of O/our relationship. And I also feel it’s because She feels I’m not ready to deal with Her in a non-anthropomorphized way. Which…may be accurate. I’m highly unstable right now.

I know what I’ll feel when I connect with Morrigan’s primalness. I can articulate that now — it’s sex and death and blood and ownership and dirt and a dagger and dark flight and claws and pain. And so much more. And I’ve felt it…a bit. But not on the same scale.

Not yet. I have work to do before I can feel that, before I’m ready.

So I better get on it.

Mayday. M’aidez. HELP. Oil in the water. Oil in the marsh. SOS. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO DIE. (via The Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse)

Mayday. M'aidez. HELP. Oil in the water. Oil in the marsh. SOS. EVERYTHING IS GOING TO DIE. I just got home from Point-Aux-Chenes again. I’ve been there four days now, tagging along for various things. This video below is one of them. Which is huge f-in news for the Little People, the hoi polloi, the regular folk who don’t know their voice is so much stronger than the corporation which is currently telling everybody what to do while they clean up the mess they made in our back yards. The corporation with shills in the government which i … Read More

via The Ladies’ Guide to the Apocalypse

I’ve been reading and following the disaster in the Gulf and it’s absolutely heartbreaking. If I had the capability — namely, if I had the money and the ability to just up and and leave my life, I would. I would go down there and do whatever it took to help clean up the oil spill — even if that meant deploying hair booms and getting arrested by BP and fined 5000 dollars and sent to prison. I’d do it anyway.

No compromise in defense of the planet.

No compromise in keeping the oceans alive — if we even can anymore.

I sit here in Powell River, another coastal community, and I feel absolutely helpless. My warrior spirit is champing at the bit, bloody flecks of foam as it screams DO SOMETHING.

I cannot. I am at home for a good reason. Tomorrow is my mom’s surgery and I must be here — in my own worldview, my own set of values and morals, it’s duty to family above all else.

But doesn’t that include the earth? Doesn’t it include the wolf packs being shot down from helicopters, the birds and fish and marine mammals drowning in the black sludge in the bayou, the trees being murdered by Island Timberlands, the insects, once so plentiful in summer, now you hardly see a stain on your windshield as you drive down the long freeway. Doesn’t family mean them too? Don’t I have a duty to them?

Yes. I do. And for what it’s worth, if it’s worth anything, I do what I can in my hometown. I am going to be organizing a hair and nylons drive for Matter of Trust to help with the oil spill, and here at home I recycle and compost and garden organically and eat organically and local as possible, though since certain events we no longer appear at the farmer’s market because of certain slandering individuals whom I may have strong words with if I see them again and so that makes local organic rather difficult, but we try.

We try hard. My dam and I, members of a wolf-pack short one member since May 16th, we do everything we can.

And I look at the news and think it’s not enough, it’s never going to be enough, and my children are going to grow up in a world poisoned by our greed and selfishness, and my daughter will look at me with reproach in her eyes, asking “Why didn’t you do more?”

I’m sorry, baby. I tried.

Finding Answers (and coming away with more questions)

So in my last post I talked about going down to the beach to see if the God Who’d been nudging me really was Manannan Mac Lir.  (I probably didn’t say that in so many words; at any rate that’s why I was going down to the beach.)

The beach by my house is at a bay park — there’s a playground, a boat launch, a swimming area, and a forest trail that leads to someone’s property. Dogs aren’t allowed there between May 1st and September 15th, which means the city thinks that either dog owners suddenly become considerate human beings in the winter and pick up their dogs’ crap, or that the city doesn’t give a crap about dog poop on the beach when no one important is going to be there.

It’s a bit of a hike to the beach, and all downhill — meaning I have to walk uphill on the way back home (uphill and my back don’t get along — after walking uphill for a while I start getting spasms in my spine). Well, that’s fine — nothing is going to deter me today. I’ve been putting this off for two days already.

Before walking down there I shower and get dressed in some fairly sensible clothing; I pull a poncho over my hoody to keep the rain off. I pack my purse with my notebook and pen in case I want to do some writing, and shove in a plastic bag so I can sit down outside without getting my butt soaked. I cut some long grass from the backyard and braid it as an offering; I read somewhere that in midsummer rituals people would offer grass and reeds to Manannan.

It’s raining, and as I walk down there I can see mist moving through the trees in the mountains. The sky looks like someone painted a huge bowl all white and slapped it down over the world. It’s mostly quiet as I walk — occasionally a car goes by, but by and large all I hear are birds chirping and the rain falling. It’s a peaceful sound.

As I get closer to the beach the rain intensifies, falling a bit harder. Either I’m crazy, or Manannan is welcoming me. Or both. That’s also very likely.

I make my way down across the grass, and opt for the forest, where I can get closer to the water but stay out of sight. I see a lot of litter as I walk by and remind myself to pick it up on the way back.

I hit the part of the woods that has a “PRIVATE PROPERTY — NO TRESPASSING” sign, and think, rather sourly, If you cared about your property you’d pick up some of this fracking garbage, right before I trespass to get to the water. I put my plastic bag down on a log and sit, staring out into the water. I calm myself. Become peaceful. Say hi.

Communicating with this God is not like communicating with Morrigan. When She speaks, She speaks loudly. Manannan…I could barely hear Him. It was like listening to the waves, or the rain falling. I had to really concentrate to hear what He was saying. But the answers were all clear.

Well, mostly.

I offered Him the grass, and that went over well; He seemed to like it. I told him I was surprised that a God of the sea would call to me, as I’m terrified of water and drowning…and then I realized that since sitting there all I wanted to do was dive under the surface of the water, because I felt absolutely safe. I was still feeling surprised, however. I’m a creature of earth of fire — water and air have never been strong elements with me. Certainly not water. I am quite emotional and passionate — I lack clarity and control. I suspect that’s what I need to learn next, and that there’s a very good reason for Him coming into my life now, when I’m on the verge of spiraling out of what little control I have.

And then I ask Him if He’s Manannan Mac Lir, the Irish God of the sea, or Manawyddan fab Llyr, the Welsh God of the Isle of Man — the two are very close, culturally and mythologically, and I wanted to make sure I knew Whom I was talking to. And that’s where things get muddy.

I’m a hard polytheist. To me, Morrigan is Morrigan is Morrigan is NOT Badb or Nemain. That got a little blurred when I met Brighid, Whose mythology is so tied up with that of Saint Brighid that it’s really hard to get to know Her without blurring those lines a little bit.

Now those lines are squiggles.

I asked if He was Manannan. I got a yes. I asked if He was Manawyddan. I got a yes.

I said “I’m sorry if this is offensive, but I’m trying to wrap my head around this and the closest I can come is that You’re a God with Multiple Personality Disorder.” I got a chuckle, and a sort of, but…sort of not.

It’s like…They’re separate gods — that much is obvious from the mythology — but They’re not. Like They join and separate at different times. I got the distinct impression that for the most part, I’ll be dealing with Manannan, but sometimes He’ll be both Manannan and Manawyddan.

I told Him/Them that the idea would take a bit of time for me to get used to, but that I was going to try.

Then I asked if He knew if Major had moved onto the afterlife or not. The answer wasn’t very clear, but I think part of Major’s consciousness has begun the process of reincarnation, and the other part is staying with his body and this property. So long as he’s happy, I’m okay with that.

And I realized that it made sense, for Manannan to call me, because of His connection with death. And the water thing doesn’t bug me so much anymore.

Then I felt a sadness so deep, for what we’ve done to the oceans. The oil spills. The islands of garbage. It’s amazing the Gods will have anything to do with us at all.

I thanked Him and told Him I was going home to get warm and eat, because I was starving, and then I left. My leg had gotten soaked despite the plastic bag I’d put down. I used the bag to carry the garbage I picked up on my way out of the park.

I’m still feeling a little confused, but I’m glad I got the answers I did. I’m hoping I’ll be able to make sense of this the more I get to know Him/Them.

Manannan?

So up till now my NeoCeltic practice (er, what little I have of one) has revolved around Brighid and Morrigan. I’d thought about branching out to other gods in the Celtic pantheon, but didn’t really have an idea where to begin.

Well, I was at my dad’s this weekend, and while I was working on the farm I found an oyster shell in the dirt. Weird, but I figured it had just been dropped there by a bird or something. I picked it up and brushed the dirt off, and saw it was the perfect shape to leave offerings in, so I decided to take it back to the house and wash it off.

But then I got to thinking…offerings to whom? Brighid is associated with fresh water, and I can’t imagine leaving anything for Morrigan in a shell. The name Manannan came to my head, and it felt right. I think this is a small nudge from Him.

Funny thing is, I remember reading that He likes to be everyone’s foster-father…and I found the shell when I was fighting with my dad.

I think there may be something to this. I’m going to explore this more fully.

Kink and Spirituality (Post #1)

This is a rather big topic, so I’m going to be doing a series of posts on it, as I am able to speak about some of this stuff. Obviously I can’t share everything, but I’m going to try and be as frank and honest about this as I can. This is difficult, because it deals with some very sensitive stuff for me. I’m going to ask for your patience as I work this stuff out and try to find the words.

I’m also going to ask that if you are offended by things like BDSM, if it is a trigger for you to read about dominance, submission, pain, or anything else that goes under the heading of BDSM, that you avoid these posts. All will be in the same category of Kink and Spirituality. It will be easy to avoid them.

I will also be talking a bit about abuse. So, trigger warning.

Final note, before I get to the good stuff: this is very difficult for me to express. This blog is one of my safe spaces. If you can’t be respectful of the subject matter of these posts, then don’t comment. There are plenty of vanilla spaces on the web. This is not a space where I’m trying to build bridges with vanilla society; this is a place where I get to tell my story.

Thank you.

The Beginning

I started becoming involved in BDSM with my first real boyfriend. He and I started dating shortly after I’d lost my virginity in a one night stand involving lots of alcohol, weed, and a tent in some dude’s front yard. I never would have had the courage to ask Victor* out had I not lost my virginity beforehand. To this day I have no regrets about the circumstances under which I lost my vcard, but if I could have a do-over, things probably would be different.

Anyway, Victor and I started out as friends-with-benefits. I never intended for us to get serious. Then that stupid organ in my chest interfered, and we started dating. This presented a problem, because I’d already made up my mind to move back to Canada, my home and native land. I was packed. I was ready to go. My flight was bought.

So I went — for two months, and then came back to the States. When I fall in love, I fall hard, and I make really stupid decisions when under the influence of the headiest drug of all (hug me till you drug me, put me in a coma, hug me till you drug me, love’s as good as Soma).

Victor and I were together for two years. In that time I could not make up my mind whether I wanted to be in the States or Canada — I flitted between the two like an indecisive hummingbird. Half of our relationship was long-distance.

From the beginning of our relationship, there was a definite aspect of kink. It started slow — I had never done anything like that, never had consciously thought I may be into that — but gradually we picked up steam. Towards the end we were talking about going full-bore, master/slave, 24/7, official collaring ceremony and everything. And then, you know, he dumped me, so that didn’t happen.

Which is very good. Even though the break-up nearly destroyed me (I cried for 4 days and could not do anything else except occasionally put more fluid in or out of my body) and led me to get into a worse, more destructive relationship on the rebound that I am still rebounding from, two years later**, I learned a lot about myself, myself in relationships, and was finally able to see exactly why my family did not approve of Victor, and why things would have ended even more horribly than they did. (And they didn’t end horribly; I was just a basket-case because that’s what I do.)

The rebound led me into another relationship which ended in 6 months; after that I had to do some healing and learn to be okay being by myself. I actually reached that point last summer.

Then, I met someone. And fell in love.

Mark and I were together officially from November to February. He never loved me. We were clear about this from the start. I was foolish enough to believe that would change.

Instead, he fell for someone else, and now they’re happily together. He and I are still friends, but I confess to murderous, hateful thoughts about his new girlfriend.

Mark is kinky, but not to a level that gives me what I need. (Or he hasn’t gotten there yet; I was his first kinky girlfriend.) He was a very good boyfriend, and helped me through a lot of stuff.

It was when I was with him that I realized that my d/s extended to my religious life, and that Morrigan had collared me.

Morrigan made Herself known to me in 2007. The term is “thwapping”, but I should note that 2007 was not the beginning of my relationship with Her — just the beginning of my knowledge of it. She informed me that She’d chosen me years ago — before my birth, even. I wondered if I may have been having delusions of grandeur, but She quickly disabused me of that notion.

Our relationship has gone in stops and starts in the past three years, because I have been bumbling around, trying to figure myself out. She has been very patient with me on that front. I think I may have finally figured some things out, now.

During my relationship with Mark I joined a local coven, and I’m still a member of it. We’re not strictly traditional, as we’re a group of people interested in forming a new tradition based on the members’ beliefs and respect for local spirits and beliefs. The members of my coven are also all members of the kinky world here (though I don’t think their kink blends with their spirituality the way mine does, but I obviously can’t speak for them), and our rituals or time together often are filled with kinky jokes.

In the past I’ve been clear with them about my stance on collaring. I am a submissive in the kink world (though I publicly identify as a switch), but I refuse to ever be collared by a mortal. My stance is “No, not ever, not under any circumstances.” There are good reasons for that, which I’m not going to go into now, but that is the way it stands still.

During a ritual one night, our HPs couldn’t make it and they unanimously voted me into the position for the night. I asked for their permission to call down the Morrigan instead of our usual goddess, and was met with agreement. I then made a quip about how even though I’d never be collared by a human, I was collared by Her.

And heard a “Yes, you are,” in my head.

It was a strange feeling. I felt dizzy and the room spun for a moment, and then I pushed aside my feelings and did the ritual.

(Quick aside: drawing down the Morrigan is an intense experience, especially if it’s your first experience drawing down a deity, which it was for me. Afterwards the HP had to help me  to a chair, where I shakily said, “That wasn’t me.” Anyway.)

When I got home I knew I had to wear something indicative of the new dynamic in O/our relationship (for the record, I hate slashy speak in the BDSM world, but find it appropriate when discussing the dynamics of this particular relationship because She is actually a deity — when it’s used on humans it squicks me out) — some sort of collar that I could always wear.

Well, my leather collar with the metal rings was definitely out — way too conspicuous for the ‘nilla world or the kink world. Besides, that was my “fun” collar — the one I wore for fashion or play. Didn’t want to imbue it with such seriousness.

After searching for about an hour, I found the chainmail wallet chain that a friend of mine had made for me years before. It had a clip like on the end of a dogleash, for easy removal and attachment to a belt loop. It no longer was attached to a wallet, and it was just the right length to go around my neck. Plus — chainmail; collared by a warrior Goddess. Perfect.

I found the red ribbon I’d left out on Imbolc for Brighid to bless and wove it through the chainmail to give it an accent, and so I could always be wearing something for my two Ladies (my relationship with Brighid is not a collared one, but it is also within the realm of d/s — I’ll elaborate on it more in a later post). And I put it on, and haven’t taken it off since (well, I do to shower because I don’t want it to rust, and sometimes I ask Her permission to take it off for the night or so, if my neck is sore, and usually She’ll let me — but otherwise it stays on).

I’m still figuring things out, but I have a few wisps of thought in my brain as to where to go from here. There’s very little material out there for those of us who blend d/s with our religion, so a lot of this is me stumbling in the dark. That’s part of the reason I’m doing these posts — I’m hoping to add to the pool of resources for kinky pagans who like their kink mixed with their paganism.

In balance,

-Morag

*Names changed to protect the innocent.**I’m not going to talk about that relationship right now. It’s a bit of a story, and I’m not ready to really talk about it.

The Suddenness of Loss

His portrait. This really captures his spirit.

This morning my dog, Major, died. He was 11. We’d had him for 4 years; an SPCA rescue. Some part of me knew that this was his last summer, but for some reason I thought he’d be around longer — that I’d have a few months with him, instead of two weeks. (I came back to live with my mom at the beginning of May.)

We think we’re so prepared for death, and it happens and we’re not. Not emotionally, not practically.

He fell down the stairs and was on the landing, underneath mom’s altar to Kwan Yin. We tried to move him down the second set of stairs, but we just couldn’t. In twenty minutes, he died.

While mom looked in the back yard for a place to bury him, I wandered around like a lost ghost, unsure of what to do with my life. Neither of us even thought to move him into a better position for rigor mortis to set in.

We finally got him down the stairs, with the help of some stronger friends, three hours later. We set him on his cushion, his ears still in the alert position, three of his four legs resting outwards from his body, his stomach bloated with the gases now needing to escape. One of those friends started the digging of the grave; later on I would go out and help him finish.

While this is happening I’m wandering, wondering Where is my copy of The Pagan Book of Living and Dying? Wouldn’t this be useful to have right now? I want something personal, but spiritual as well.

The book, of course, is packed away in some box somewhere. I have no hope of finding it in time to find something, some sort of ritual. It scares me, the thought of winging things. In times of grief and sorrow my soul craves familiarity — a ritual that I can easily fall into.

But I have no daily practice. I have no preparation for this, because there is not even a daily devotional ritual that I can adapt. For so long I have been unsure of what I believe; now that I’ve started to figure it out, I haven’t actually sat down and done the work. That has to change. Today taught me that.

Eventually the grave is dug. Major is loaded into a wheelbarrow, wrapped in mom’s cotton sheets. They are multicolored and striped. Perfect fit for so regal a dog. I go to the garage to grab some of my sacred items, and see that some things have broken in the move. I would cry if I had any  moisture left in me. I avoid getting cut on the broken glass and gather my things.

Friends are in the backyard now. Major has already been taken up to the gravesite, his body waiting for us, still. We take a glass of wine each, flowers, and I carry my sacred items, a lit black candle in my hand, and bring up the rear of the procession.

We end up winging the ceremony. There was no way to plan. No time. No ability. My brain can barely wrap itself around the standard routines of feeding, bathing, or clothing myself today — how could I be High Priestess as well?

First, Major is lowered into the grave. Despite our not digging it to fit his legs, forgetting that rigor mortis takes 36 hours to disappear, he fits, accommodating to the last. I read a poem, one that I’d written for my first dog Blue, when she’d passed. I cannot keep myself from crying while I read the poem.

Then mom gives him his favorite toy — well, a squeaky toy that he could never get the hang of; he growled whenever we squeaked it at him — his breakfast from this morning, that he never got to eat (it was a sausage), some treats, his collar tag. I give him black coral to pay the animal ferry man (this is an UPG inspiration that hit me as we walked to the gravesite), black feathers so other spirits know he’s Morrigan’s and cannot be bothered, some of my hair so he won’t forget me in his next life, and the black candle (extinguished), so he’ll have light on his way.

We drink a toast of white wine, and I pour in some of mine into the grave. We tell stories about him; there are some good ones. He loved to howl at the sirens — once I was watching a movie, and there was a car chase avec sirens in the film. He started howling so loud that I couldn’t hear what was being said in the film. In honor of this, we all have a good howl for him.

Bunny-chasing — Major loved bunnies. He was such a gentle giant, I think if he actually caught one he wouldn’t know what to do with it. Probably cuddle it till it passed out. So he’d chase the bunnies on campus at VIU, or up here in town, and one would go one way, the other the opposite, and Major would have a nervous break-down, trying to figure out which one to chase, whimpering the whole time. He was never fast enough, anyway.

Then, the stories die down, and we throw lilacs on top of him. Each of us helps pile the dirt on top, and soon he’s covered. We then pile rocks on top of the grave, both for practicality and tradition. A jar of fresh flowers from our down the street neighbor’s house is placed in the rocks. And we all walk back down to the house, not a dry eye among us.

The very last photo I ever took of him.

Our friend, the one who helped me dig the grave, called Major a bodhisattva dog. Another friend of ours, a psychic, said he was her greatest teacher — the true enlightened master.

I don’t know if they’re right. All I know is that the four years Major was in our lives, and especially in my mom’s life, he made us the happiest humans on the face of the planet. He healed our wounds, made us smile when we were down, and was infinitely patient and gentle. He was an ambassador of inter-species peace, showing people that wolf-dogs really are the best dogs. And he was the best wolf-dog.

And I know that I will miss him very, very much, because he was one in a million, and we were incredibly lucky to have him for the short time that we did.

Doing what’s necessary

In my post about activism and the path of the Warrior, I said that to be a Warrior means to realize that something needs to be done, and then going out and doing it.

I’d like to elaborate further on that. In my last post it seems I’m saying that some sort of action is always preferable, in every situation. I’m not saying that at all. Sometimes inaction is the best response to something. The key is learning to differentiate between the times when inaction is the best response, and when I’m just feeling too damn burnt out to deal with one more damn thing.

Making that call can be hard. Sometimes it’s a clear sign from Them that I worship, but other times my mental voice is just doing a good acting job. And a lot of times, I’m wrong. That’s when I need to own my frack-up, shut up, and not do anything on that particular issue for a while. I have two ears, and one mouth, so I should use the former.

When it comes to anti-oppression work, there is the push in me to do some great big great thing. It was suggested by someone I know that this may be a function of privilege itself, and that makes a great deal of sense. As a member of the oppressor class (European descent, cisgendered, fairly well-off though technically below the poverty line, probably some other privilege I haven’t examined yet) I am constantly told that I must go and do Great Things with my life. This is a huge, pressing factor: go to school, go to college, make Something of yourself. In activism, this translates to “doing this and this and this and this and this and this and this so that my Activism Membership Card is all filled out and valid yesiree, no slacking here, I’m a True Activist(TM)” and when it becomes apparent that I’m doing more harm than good by doing this, it hurts. Because it goes against what I’ve been taught since the cradle (and what I’ve been taught is wrong, but it’s still ingrained in my noggin and entwined with my emotional responses and my own feelings of self-worth, so, you know, anti-oppression work can be really fucking hard in this respect, because there’s so much detangling to do).

So there are times when I have to consciously tell myself to shut up and listen, don’t just do something stand there, because whatever identity is speaking, it’s not mine, and it’s not my experience, and I must consider for just one second that I don’t know what the frack I’m talking about.

In those moments, I am choosing inaction. I am listening. Actually, as listening is an action, maybe instead of choosing inaction I am choosing passive action: I am acting by not acting actively.

I apologize if that gave you a headache. I’m still unravelling and detangling this huge clusterfrack mess that is my identity and privilege, and trying to find words to talk about what I do, when I do it, or what I don’t do and when I don’t do it.

Regardless: a big part of being a warrior is learning when it’s not your time to act. A battle is not won by one person — we are poisoned with this idea that our names must go down in history, like Ajax or Boudicca, that we must do something big. But sometimes it’s more useful to be a warrior by healing the wounded. Or serving the food. Or even just recording the battle. The history books may not remember your name, but that doesn’t matter, because history is written by the oppressor, anyway.