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Archive for the ‘Liturgy Journal 1’ Category

Liturgy Practicum, Week of July 14, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , on July 28, 2014| Leave a Comment »

(Sorry this is so late in posting. I hadn’t re-emailed my document to myself last week, so you’re going to get two of these this week. I’ve been writing them at home in my course document and then posting them when I remember to do so!)

This week was really boring, ritual wise. Did my daily practice 4 weekdays in a row and then left for vacation, where I promptly forgot all about anything to do with daily practices in the flurry of seeing my friends. This is an annual trip to Seattle that I make with 40 friends from my gaming group, and it’s a TON of stuff crammed into three days, so I’m lucky to get any sleep, let alone free time to do daily practice. I did, however, make time to say hello to the amazing trees that I encountered. Old growth forest just isn’t something you run into in Texas, so the huge conifers were fun and new. I love being around them whenever I visit. I waved hello at Mt.s Raineir, St. Helens, and Hood on my flight as well. Also, I got to see otters!

Normally I’d feel bad for taking a “break” from my Druidry, but to be honest, it was a refreshing change of pace to just let it be something I “am” rather than something I “do”, even if just for a weekend. We’ll see if I can get back into the swing of regular practice next week.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of July 7, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , , on July 16, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Fairly normal week. Missed my morning practice 2 days this week because apparently I need to get more sleep. I did it when I remembered, which is, I suppose, what counts.

Also did a bunch of canning this week (pickles, jalapenos, blueberry jam), which always makes me feel close to my prairie godmothers. Their candle burned near my stove all day while I jarred and processed the various things (it couldn’t sit ON the stove since I needed all the burners).  I don’t rely on the food I put up to keep us fed through the winter, but it is an inexpensive way to make food that is in season into something delicious that we’ll enjoy all year long. Both my husband and I love pickles too! It’s weird to think of cooking as a spiritual activity, but it really can be.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 30, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , on July 11, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Independence day this week. I wasn’t really sure what to do with it, as it’s a secular holiday, but it seemed somehow right to mark the day as part of *something*, so I baked some cornbread (which seems both very American and very tolerable to my celiac disease) and made an offering to my local spirits. It also rained, so the fireworks weren’t bad this year, which meant the day felt very much like just an extra Saturday in the week.

I’m still having trouble getting my act together with daily practice on non-work days, I think because I haven’t truly established it as a waking practice, and because my husband likes us to do together things when we don’t have to get up and go places. Plus I have a small shrine at work, so if I’m running late or forget at home, it’s easy to just make my offerings there.

This is my work shrine:

photo

So far nobody has commented on it, except someone who asked me if the Tree of Life image was actually an alien (which I can kind of see, if you don’t look closely, it does kinda look like a round face with two big eyes).

Since it’s July now, and the Study Group is doing a Scandinavian ritual to Thor and Sif for Lammas, I need to start thinking about how I’m going to celebrate the day, and whether I want to try another ritual to Ing Frea. Last year’s attempt didn’t go very well, but for some reason I feel like there were other things going on then, and that it’s an appropriate time to make offerings to him.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 23, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , , , on July 3, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Pretty boring week, actually. I managed my morning devotions Monday-Friday, but I’m having trouble establishing them on weekends, I think because I don’t have a defined morning routine on the weekends. Depending on the weekend I can be very busy, and it seems like the lack of structure is making it hard to do morning devotions in that atmosphere. (I am a creature of habit, and I like routines.)

Attempts to add in a meal blessing have fallen totally flat. I love the idea, but in execution it just hasn’t been working. I’m not remembering to do it even after I eat. It’s just kind of an afterthought at the end of the week when I do my journal entry. This is the meal blessing I settled on using:

By the mysteries of the High Ones,
Through the knowledge of the Old Ones,
From the bounty of the Green Ones,With the grace of the Earth Mother,
May this meal be blessed.

It’s simple enough, but I just don’t seem to have the focus to do it.

Also, problematically, I’m way over-committed on my weekends. It’s hard to set aside time for a weekly devotional practice when I spend pretty much all weekend running from one thing to the next. Weekends are my only “free” time (I go to bed really early, because I get up really early, so it’s not possible to do social things on weeknights), so I like to cram in as much social time as possible. The ADF DP Study Group I’m leading is, of course, good to keep doing, but I may have to make some hard decisions about the rest of it, especially since I also have to clean house on the weekends.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 16, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , on June 23, 2014| Leave a Comment »

This week was challenging. I did my morning practice every day, which went well. Also, as per “Murphy’s Law of Wells”, I now have a NEW well for my altar. This one is a sage green, blue, and brown glazed clay bowl, and it’s both pretty and won’t crack from having water in it all week. Which, yay, no more panicked mornings with water all over the place.

I’m finding, though, that daily practice has changed how I view ADF and my responsibilities to it. This week was also the week of the Solstice, which was the first ritual I’ve written for our Protogrove, and that was challenging as well. I didn’t get a lot of direction on what kind of rituals they usually do, but then when I sent the ritual around, they had a good bit of input on what traditions they typically did. Fortunately the ritual itself went very well. The Study Group ritual went brilliantly as well, and was perhaps our best ritual to date. The omens were appropriately fantastic at both rituals too, which was nice.

For my own practice, I made cornbread and left some out as an offering on the Solstice, but with two group rituals to run in two days (the 20th and 21st) one of which I drove almost 2 hours for (the PG ritual was on a beach some distance from here), I didn’t do much in the way of a home practice for the actual day of. I see the sunrise every day right now, which is nice, but it didn’t make the actual solstice feel very different than any other morning.

I talked to my husband about seeing if he wanted to do any of these practices with me, and he said no. He is still marginally Christian (though he has no interest in going to church), but he’s supportive of my work with ADF. He does get frustrated on these busy weeks though, when I spend more time on ADF stuff (ritual rehearsals, study group, gone all day on the Solstice for ritual) than I do on spending time with him.

Overall I’m finding that this week felt like there was “too much” ADF going on – between daily practices, working on meal blessings (more on that in another entry), working on my prairie godmothers practice, ritual practices, study group ritual, and protogrove ritual, ADF consumed my entire week. I think in the future I’ll need to give myself more space on weeks where there are lots of ADF responsibilities.

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Blessings before Meals

Posted in General Things, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on June 17, 2014| Leave a Comment »

Since I’m *STILL* getting hits from a post I did almost two years ago on non-denominational/non-religious grace for meals (specifically Thanksgiving, but also applicable elsewhere), I thought I’d give a little update with two more that I’ve worked on or found recently.

These are both pagan friendly, and use ADF’s cosmology (in that they invoke the Three Kindreds), but they’re simple enough to work for everyday mealtimes.

I’m working on memorizing one or the other (I vacillate between the two day to day) to add to my Liturgy Practicum journal.

This one comes from Jackson Kelly Cole, and is called Kindreds Grace:

By the mysteries of the High Ones,
Through the knowledge of the Old Ones,
From the bounty of the Green Ones,
This is our Feast.
May it keep hale and hearty all who eat it.
May it sustain and nourish all who share it.
May all who gather here feel welcome and wanted.

And this second one is modified from a pagan (read: Wiccan) grace from the November 1964 issue of Pentagram Magazine. It has the advantage of being in rhyme, which makes it somewhat easier to memorize. I have modified it to include references to the Three Kindred and the Earth Mother and be a bit less duotheistic (though I still balk a little at “chiefs of all creation”, I haven’t found a good replacement for that line). If people want, I can republish the original as well.

Answer us, O Ancient Ones;
Provender and power are Thine!
Hear and answer, joyous Green Ones;
Grant us laughter, wit, and wine.
Descend on us, O Thou of blessings,
Come among us, make us glad;
Since Thou art chiefs of all creation,
Why, oh why should we be sad?
Beam on us, O Shining Ones,
Banish heavy hearted hate!
Accept our gifts, O Greatest Mother;
Let cheerful brightness be our fate.
So be it!

So there you have it. Two more mealtime blessings for people to use in their home devotional practices that are pagan friendly. I’ll have to work on some more that are truly non-religious (these are clearly Neopagan), but I am sure there are some good, shorter, everyday meal blessings out there.

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 9, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , on June 14, 2014| 4 Comments »

I fleshed out my morning devotional this week to be something like a miniature core order. I have used a prayer that Rev. Mike Dangler shared on Facebook (it’s actually a song, but I am using it without music for now), as well as some of the bits from Ceisiwr Serith’s A Simplified Version of ADF Ritual. This ritual is clearly designed to be done at my home altar, but I have a copy of it saved on my phone for use at work. I am working on getting a tiny hallows (mint-tin altar setup) that I can use for these situations. I am not sure how I’d do the offerings when I’m not at my altar, but ideally I’ll be dragging my butt out of bed 5 minutes earlier in order to do this ritual before I leave the house. That happened most mornings this week.

It only takes about 3 minutes, which is perfect for me for a morning ritual.

Here is the current format:

(Three breaths to center self)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The flame lights the way! (Light candle)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The well flows within! (Fill/touch well)

The earth is below me, the heavens above me,
The tree spans the world! (Bless tree)

Let us pray with a good fire! (Light incense)

I make offering to the gods.
May their power be with me this day. (Make offering)

I make offering to the ancestors.
May their wisdom be with me this day. (Make offering)

I make offering to the nature spirits.
May their blessing be with me this day. (Make offering)

The waters support and surround us
The land extends about us
The sky stretches out above us
At the center burns a living flame
May all the kindreds bless us.
May our worship be true
May our actions be just
May our love be pure
Blessings and honor and worship to the holy ones.

(Three breaths to center self)
(Extinguish candle)

I feel like it’s still unfinished at this point in time. I’m not sure what I need to add, but it feels like there needs to be one more closing statement, perhaps something to mirror the Fire/Well/Tree imagery from the opening. It certainly works as a mini-ritual though, and I like all the various parts.

I need to be careful and remember that this practice has to be built over time. I can easily see myself letting this morning ritual get longer and longer, until it’s no longer really something I can fit into my weekday mornings. Which defeats the purpose of having a regular devotional practice. It has to be doable/attainable to become habit. It’s really easy for me to throw myself into 40 new practices all at once, and then burn out and stop doing all of them. I’m trying with this to start slowly, with just a morning devotional/ritual, and we’ll see where I feel like I can add other bits of ritual practice into my day/week.

I should also mention that I do a regular devotional practice to my female ancestors, particularly when I clean the kitchen (which happens every few days). It feels right to honor them then, at my “hearth” (stove), so I light a candle or some incense and say a small impromptu prayer. Perhaps eventually I’ll write up a set prayer for this specific practice.

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Murphy’s Law of Wells

Posted in General Things, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , on June 12, 2014| Leave a Comment »

If:

  • You are already close to running late
  • Your well didn’t get water in it yesterday because you forgot to fill the cup
  • You do your devotional at 5:30 am before caffeine
  • You are trying to establish a regular practice but still get to work on time
  • Your well is a beautiful wooden bowl made of pieced woods in different colors that was a gift you can never replace

Then:

  • Your wooden well will have cracked along a seam in the bottom from having water left in it the last time you did ritual
  • You will not notice this until half the well has emptied out the crack in the bottom, soaking the entire top of your altar
  • You will be out of paper towels in your altar room, and will have to make a mad dash to the kitchen to get some
  • Your old ceramic well will be full of wine corks, which have no other place to go, so you will have to leave them in a pile on the counter
  • When you empty your old well, it will be full of cork dust, so you will need to wash it

And then:

  • By the time you finally get back to your devotional, you will have forgotten what steps you did and have to start over
  • Making you at least 10 minutes late getting out the door

 

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Liturgy Practicum: Week of June 2, 2014

Posted in Initiate's Path, Liturgy Journal 1, tagged , , , , , , on June 10, 2014| Leave a Comment »

My first week of this practice went fairly slowly. I am experimenting with how I want to set up my daily practice. Since I’m not in a position where I can do sunrise and sunset devotionals (I am in the car during the sunrise, and I am in bed before the sun sets right now), I am going to start a morning devotional that I can do either before I leave for work or once I get to my desk. Since I’m in the office at 6:45, and my nearest coworker doesn’t arrive until 7:30, I have a little time there where I can do the work.

Obviously I can’t light candles or incense at my desk, so the ideal place for something like this will be at home before I leave, but my brain is fighting getting up any earlier than I already do (5:15 is pretty darn early).

For this week, all I have been doing is saying Ceisiwr Serith’s prayer (start small and build, right?):

The waters support and surround us
The land extends about us
The sky stretches out above us
At the center burns a living flame
May all the kindreds bless us
May our worship be true
May our actions be just
May our love be pure
Blessings and honor and worship to the holy ones

It’s nothing fancy, but it at least gets me taking some deep, centering breaths and placing myself in a good mindset to start the day. (I’ve tried saying this in the car at sunrise, but since I can’t see the sun actually rising it didn’t work too well.)

This week I also participated in the Druid Moon Cast, a monthly ADF ritual that takes place via Google Hangouts. While I don’t participate in these every month, I do them fairly regularly, and really enjoy doing them. They are a take on the idea that the 6th night of the moon was sacred to the Druids, so it is fairly fitting that we do ritual at that time. This ritual was done using Nick Egelhoff’s Telepresence Liturgy Script, which makes several references to the (quite outstanding) technology that we’re using to do these rituals. This script is customizable to different hearth cultures (or an open hearth), and this month we honored the various bodies of water that are in our different locations.

(Also, since I’m writing this as an overview of what I did LAST week, I can say that I’ve already found a prayer to add to this for Fire/Well/Tree that Rev. Mike Dangler shared on Facebook this morning. I’ll write more about that next week.)

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