I did my ritual this morning, right after I woke up, like I said I’d try to do last week. It worked much better — put me in a better state for the day. (Relative; my tooth pain has been catastrophic for 2 days and I haven’t slept much, so I’m really only functioning at about 50% — which is an improvement over yesterdays’ 35%-if-we’re-being-generous!)
The breakdown:
- Before casting the circle, I created sacred space. I’d never done that in this apartment and it made the ritual feel a lot better. Made some holy water; flicked salt and water in the corners of the room, and then took the incense and fire around too.
- I didn’t light any sage, and likely won’t be for a while — we’re probably moving in the next few weeks and burning sage smells enough like burning pot (especially to folks not overly familiar with either) that there would likely be awkward questions. The incense stood in as sage, and is light and airy enough that I should be able to use it in the new place.
- I cast my sphere without messing it the hell up!
- The Chenrezig meditation is getting better/easier. I’m starting to rock back and forth naturally when I do it, which, if I recall correctly, is a good sign, and I barely noticed when I finished my second round. It’s getting easier to focus on the meditation and let distracting thoughts float through me.
- While praying with my prayer beads, I did my standard prayers and then…just talked to the Three. I thanked Brighid and Manannan for helping us find a place, and asked Brighid for Her blessing in the new house. I talked to my Father about my nervousness and trepidations — not so much about living with Ogre but about me fucking everything up. I don’t have a good history with landlords; the only great one I had was my last one. So it’s nerve-wracking. And when I spoke to the Morrigan I…solidified some boundaries that I hadn’t, previously, and the fact I hadn’t solidified them had been bugging me. (It’s not something I really want to go into detail on here on the blog; sorry.)
- After chatting with the gods I felt pretty good, like I’d gotten stuff off my chest I can’t via journalling or just chatting with mortals. So I think I’m going to have this be a regular prayer practice for me: chatting with Them. Also, I kissed my prayer beads after reach prayer, which felt good and natural, so I’ll be continuing that as well.
- I took down the sphere and blew out the candles and extinguished the incense, and then I went to go eat breakfast.
- Ritual today helped solidify some thinky-thoughts I’d been having about syncretism, and I blogged a bit about syncretizing Aphrodite and Naamah on the shrine blog I keep for Her. I might talk more about that and the other Companions of Elua here (or there, or both), later.
(Oh noes, pop culture paganism! Hide your kids, hide your dog! So say we all, motherfrakkers!)
Weekly ritual seems to be shaping up pretty well for me. I may actually have a workable practice by the time the year ends; go figure.
Side note: yes, we found a place, and you may notice some minor changes to the blog here and my other presences on the web as I further compartmentalize myself. These things are related, but I’m not going into detail. You can probably guess, though.
I’m going to try and blog again before next week’s ritual. Imbolc is this weekend and I feel I should probably, oh, you know, do something for it? Just a thought.
-Morag
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