Autumn

Blessings Darlings!

Fall is an insanely busy time around here.  The Chubby Hubby has caught up on work after the summer conference he teaches at and is involved in new projects, for one thing.  For another, the weather has finally cooled off so I'm doing more things.  Meanwhile, the garden hasn't really slowed down yet. 

The first thing I did with the cooler weather was do the sewing I'd put off all summer.  In late spring I'd taken all the clothes that needed patches and other repairs and gotten them ready to be worked on.  Mostly that meant that I'd ironed or fabric-glued patches in place, intending to sew the the patches on more securely.  Since the clothes were all long-sleeved shirts and long pants, they didn't need to be done immediately.  But I discovered that during the 100 degree days of summer I was .... disinclined .... to sit with material covering me, doing the sewing in my lap (knee and elbow patches have to be sewn by hand here, I don't have a sewing machine with an long narrow plate to slip them over). So suddenly it was 'patch or die!'  or at least "patch or everyone will have to wear their GOOD STUFF around the house, leading to them wearing out into no longer being the good stuff".

It took a few weeks, but the winter stuff is now caught up on.  Which means I'm identifying summer stuff that needs work.  Why do the underarms get holes in them?  I understand the holes in the front of the shirts - we have cats. Cats have claws. Cats poke holes in things.  Those holes I'm going to do some embroidery over.  I'm thinking of doing protective runes.

I've also started the fall round of carpet shampooing, and all the rest of the fall cleaning.  It's a constant battle against cobwebs here! 

And I'm working on harvesting every wild herb that I can.  I'm sure that this is embarrassing the Spawn, who is often with me when I suddenly stop and grab, say, a nice mullein plant, or cut some grape vines, or dig up some chickory roots.    And then I have to clean them, dry them, store them. 

And, as I type this, tomorrow in October 1.  Which means Samhain is coming.  With my 9-day personal prep for that (see this post), and coven ritual, and maybe Audience with the Ancestors with the larger tradition .... busy.

What's on your plate for Autumn? Are you preparing for the Cold Times, for Samhain? Clearing the way for introspection or study?

Frondly, Fern

Superficial Conversions

Blessings Darlings!

The Wild Hunt recently featured a story about a woman who had been a Pagan artist, who has now gone back to Christianity and is calling her Pagan time as being demon possessed.  Which brings up the whole topic of folks who, having converted, then go back to their original religion.

Do you ever get that gut-feeling, when interacting with a 'convert' of one or another type, that they are going to end up going back to their original religion/philosophy/system?  I've run into that rather a few times.

Like, WAY back in the day when I was running the Off Brands Religions  Icons and Iconoclasts BB on Prodigy.  One woman there had a screen name of "X-Mormon".  She posted a lot (as in, as much as I did) and most of her posts were about how she was, yes, an EX-Mormon.  Not that much about what she was now, so much as 'debunking' her old Mormonism, which by this time she had left 5 or more years before.  But, as you might have guessed, well before Prodigy.com became Prodigy.net, let alone before MSN bought it, she was back in the fold of Mormonism. It wasn't a surprise to me, since so much of her time was still being spent with her in relationship, negative tho' it may have been, to Mormonism.

Now, I'm not saying that when a person converts that they lose their ethnic heritage.  Only the original High Priestess of the coven I'm now in didn't pick up on me having been raised Jewish - and that's likely because she was so focused on my more-recent 10 years in Ar nDraiocht Fein Druidism. OTOH, I'm neither at war with Judaism nor trying to make over my Paganism into the same form as the Judaism I grew up in.

But sometimes you get to know folks, and you just have a gut feeling that they are going to go back to their milk-religion eventually. I can't even put my finger on the reasons I feel some folks I know are going to do it. Often it involves having to analyze everything from that original worldview in some way, but not always.

I'm going to have to puzzle this one some more, I think.

Frondly, Fern

Covens vs Paleopagan practice

Blessings Darlings!

Many Pagans operate within covens or other small groups.  Such groups can be intimate.  But are they 'traditional'? I suppose it depends on what part of paleopaganism you look at.

CELTS

Yeah, the Celts had Druids.  They had their own training and such.  We don't know much about how that worked out.  But after training, they were out in the communities 'Druiding' - doing legal stuff, mediating between the people and the Gods, teaching history and other lore, etc.  The villagers would have their own tales, shared by elders.  They'd do their own folk magic, interpret drops of cream in water, etc.

No small group structure - everything was pretty much village wide or individual.  No 'cities', no group cultus.

GREEK

Here we have cities, and with cities we can have Temples for different Gods and Goddesses.  But even with different temples ... people poured their libations to Hestia in their home, and the entire city went out to the temple for the high day of the specific God/dess. 

Again, no small group structure.  Not even a 'coven full' of priestesses at the average temple. 

Were there some groups?  Yes.  Lupercalia had some group in charge of the sacrifice, and they weren't 'full time' priests (some were politicians as I recall).  And the Elusinian Mysteries were not done by everyone, but the experience was totally individual.

WITCHES

Were there some folks who did magic outside of the bounds of the Druids/temples/dominant paradigm?  Sure.  The Greek and the Celts did not look positively upon them.  They were VERY much on their own, no structure, no group worship - they were probably magic only, not a different religion. 

WHERE DID THE COVEN IDEA COME FROM?

As near as I can tell ... it was invented by Christianity.  Maybe they got 13 members as a 'bad reflection' of the Last Supper, just like the Black Mass is a 'bad reflection' of the Mass.  I don't see it anywhere before being mentioned in the Malleus Malificarum, tho' I admit I've not looked that hard.  Certainly that's where the phrase "You cannot be a witch alone" comes from, which so many witches/pagans take as 'law' now.

SO WHAT?

So nothing.  Just a train of thought about what the ancients did vs what we look to do today.  They did it all alone or with the entire area.  We focus on small groups (okay, except for ADF which was formed specifically to provide entire area public ritual ... and even their groves tend to 'choose' who gets to be a full member of the grove, tho' not the denomination).

Frondly, Fern

Pagan Conferences

Blessings Darlings!

Let me state this, again, up front:  If Z Budapest trashed "Niggers" and "Kikes" as she does "trannies" - do you really think she'd be invited to any conferences? If she banned Jewitches, and said "Kikes are just animals in human clothes, so they can't come to my rituals. Oh, that's hurtful? They still aren't coming, but I'm sorry THE TRUTH hurts" ....

Anyway ...

I'm now going to talk about what the roles of Pagan Conferences are or should be in the US.


I'm not talking about conferences by any one particular religious group for its members or people who want to participate in that particular religion.  I'm talking about a conference open to everyone in the Pagan community who can and will pay the admission price.  Many of them will come from far away, many won't be affiliated with a local pagan group or local pagan community.  Those that come who are involved in a local group aren't at the conference to learn more about their home group even if members ARE giving classes - they can get those at home, after all.  They traveled to the conference to get stuff that is NOT available at home.


Let's look at the "about" statements of several conferences/festivals on my side of the country:


"The Sacred Space Conference is a place and time of respectful sharing and thoughtful learning among the many rich and varied traditions, beliefs, paths and organizations found in the DC/Baltimore metropolitan region, the surrounding Mid-Atlantic area, and the world.  It is our hope that through this conference we will increase understanding and religious tolerance between the many traditions within the esoteric community, as well as within the public at large."

"Between The Worlds is an interfaith esoteric conference sponsored by the Assembly of the Sacred Wheel, a Wiccan non-profit religious organization. This conference is an opportunity to experience learning and rituals from a wide range of esoteric Paths."

"The Free Spirit Alliance is a spiritual networking organization serving the Pagan and Pantheist religious communities. Founded in 1985, our focus is and has been on presenting national, regional, and local events where people from all backgrounds can learn and share ideas. "


Learning and sharing, among a wide-range of folks.   Nothing less than that.  

Learning. Sharing.  Being exposed to the thoughts and rituals of many different groups.   Rituals to experience how those groups worship and work with energy.

That's what I say Pagan Conferences are for.

That said .....

*****************************************************************************

AND THERE ARE SOMETHINGS THAT PAGAN CONFERENCES ARE NOT (IMNHO)

None of those descriptions have anything about deliberately life changing rituals.  No promises of healing. No offer of spiritual breakthroughs.  


NOTHING THAT IS GOING TO SHATTER THE LIFE YOU LEFT.

I really worry for folks who seek spiritual breakthroughs at Pagan conferences, especially those who go back to being without group and community back home.  

Because 'breaking' and 'breaking through' is relatively easy.  Putting things back together in a new order - that is hard.  And is best done with the support of groups and community, not alone.  


Non-magical example:  I lived in the middle of Illinois for years.  One local therapist loved to help women separate out all their different parts.  Like ... dissociation/multiple personalities.  She honestly felt that doing this lead women to emotional breakthroughs.  But she never put them back into a cohesive whole.  Breaking the old without putting a new framework in place - simple destruction - left a trail of less functional, more broken, individuals.

Magical breakthroughs are very similar.  Looking at the coven I'm now in .... The coven was created (at the auspicious time) and we all became members.  And even that energy - no initiations, no elevations, just forming a coven and becoming members! - manifested in chaos in members lives.  Divorces and marital issues, unemployment and financial problems, internal communication issues, etc.  

Or even an encounter with the sweet, healing Goddess Bridget as Crone - where She announced She was going to work me over like she works a sword on Her forge - left me physically ill for months. Worked over, indeed!


Change SOUNDS great.  Change INVOLVES chaos.  We had each other, the group, the tradition and it's other members/HPs/HPSSs/Elders to rely on, and it was still chaotic.  


An actual spiritual breakthrough, at a conference, away from home, and you have to deal with travel after it ... and then being alone to deal with the chaos if you aren't part of a group.

And it doesn't matter if the breakthrough is 'healing'.  Healing is equally chaotic, especially if you are healing from long-standing issues.  You've build structure in your life around being broken.  Yes, you've shattered the Tower.  But you are now in mid-air, with debris around you and on every place you would land. NOW the real work starts.  And the ritual leader/healer doesn't stay in your life.  You are on your own.  Who is back home to even talk with about what is good to keep and what must be junked in your life?  Who can see magically what is going on that you might not be aware of, now brought to the surface?   


Because healing one area is going to bring up other areas that need healing, or areas you overcompensated in.  There will be fallout.  It was be ... yes ... chaos.


And if you do not have group/community back home, you will be alone.  With new chaos. 

Which is why life changing rituals, healings, etc, are to be done in your area, with people who are going to be around afterwards finishing the job - helping you clear up the chaos.

Let me summarize:

Pagan conferences are for sharing.
Pagan conferences are not for breakthroughs unless you seek a break-down.

Frondly, Fern 





 

Coven Rituals

Blessings Darlings!

As you  may know, for my PERSONAL practice I use my local climate/watershed/landmass for my cues.  So it's still a few weeks from Imbolc for my personal practice.

However, last night I celebrated Imbolc with my coven.  Because we set dates for celebrating High Days all at one time, once a year, so we are better able to arrange everyone's schedule.  And because the group members are spread over such a large geographical area that, say, hawthorn leaves are the size of a squirrel's ear at vastly different dates for some of us. 

If we were all in the same neighborhood, rather than spread across 3 states, we might better be able to see the local signs and then celebrate as a group 3 days later. But that's not our reality.  And even with everyone knowing the date in advance - had the celebration been on a night the Spawn was called in to work I'd not have been able to make it, and one coven member had to miss the ritual as it was.

That's life.

Frondly, Fern

These Dreams

I was in the desert southwest.  Most or all of the coven was there, too, tho' I only remember Monica, Daniel, and Jen.  Petroglyphs, all sorts of 'big stuff' to see. But then ... looking closely and quietly, there were these small things, about an inch in diameter and two inches tall.  They were shaped sort of like the Capitol Dome, out of wicker or grass.  With an opening/doorway and .... I'm sure that there was another opening, but I can't really say where.  On the 'floor' of each was a stone or other .... item.  Were the woven things offerings, or were they altars and the item inside was an offering, or a symbol of the Divine?  I'm not clear. I do know that Wakan Tanka was referred to in the dream, but I've NO idea if Wakan Tanka is from that area.

I do know that I'll be working on making some, and seeing what info comes to me then.