Every now and then I like to take pictures of my altar space, so I have a record of how it’s shifted and changed over the years. I took some today, after a FB friend asked for altar snapshots, and I thought they’d be fun to share here.
Posts Tagged ‘Druidry’
Some Altar Pictures
Posted in General Things, tagged ADF, altar, cosmos sigil, Druidry, fire well and tree, paganism, shrine on January 18, 2021| 2 Comments »
November 3 – Democracy
Posted in Prayer, tagged ADF, columbia, democracy, Druidry, election 2020, libertas, polytheist prayers, prayer a day, prayeraday, themis, voting on November 3, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Today, I will make my voice heard.
Today, I will let my vote be counted.
Today, I participate in Democracy.
Hear me Columbia. Hear me Libertas. Hear me Themis.
Image from Pixabay.
Spiritual Snacks
Posted in ADF, priesthood, tagged adf priest, community, Druidry, facebook, facebook live, nourishment, prayer, priesthood, priesting, religion, runes, solitary priest, spiritual snack, spirituality, video on September 12, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I’d like to invite you to join me over on Facebook, where I’ve started a series of FB Live videos called Spiritual Snacks. These not-quite-daily (but hopefully frequent) little videos are 2-4 minutes long, and feature me talking about an aspect of spirituality and religious life that is relevant to my life and hopefully to yours as well.
You’re welcome to add me as a friend (though if we don’t have friends in common, please send me a message with who you are), or to just follow my profile, as the videos will be publicly shareable.
I have three done so far, and I’m enjoying getting to speak to the challenges and joys of my spiritual life right now.
I hope you’ll listen in, and I hope you find them nourishing – like any good snack should be.
A Solitary Priest
Posted in ADF, priesthood, tagged ADF, adf priest, cosmos sigil, Druidry, online festival, solitary priest, stole, summerlands, world tree on July 5, 2020| Leave a Comment »
Rev. Jan Avende is working on a Unity Rite for Summerlands Online Festival this year (where I am doing a presentation slot called And Now What: Exploring Pagan Discernment). For that, she’s requested that all of the solitaries of ADF who wish to be included to take a photo of themselves that represents them and their spiritual journey, and to send it to her for compilation.
Here’s mine:
Because of camera angles, you could see the flame, or you could see the World Tree, and I chose to have the cosmos sigil there represented, since it’s such a profound symbol for me as an ADF Priest.
Also, this is the first picture I’ve taken of me in my stole that has my Nine Waves pin on it. It makes me a lot sad to not be part of that group anymore, so I’m glad to have a pin to mark my time having founded and built the group over the last eight years.
Whooo-ooh, we’re halfway there…
Posted in Initiate's Path, tagged ADF, ancestral healing, divination, Druidry, Initiate Path, initiate program, initiation, journaling, liturgy practicum, magic, trance on June 29, 2020| Leave a Comment »
I just wrote a bunch of journaling for last week (the week beginning 6/22) and that’s week 12 of my 25 weeks of journaling for Initiates Lit Prac 1, Div 2, Magic, and Trance 2.
I did a TON of magic last week, and I am tentatively encouraged that it is working, so that’s exciting too. Also my Divination is turning up a TON of Eolh runes – a rune of protection, but it’s literally a really spiky plant that lives on the edge of the swamp. It protects you from the swamp… but it also protects the swamp from you, and I can’t help but think it’s a massively significant “social distancing” symbol.
I’m doing a lot of trancework, especially with the Ancestral Healing work that I’ve been doing and will continue to be doing as I go into the Animism and Ancestral Lineage courses this summer, as well as the Magic course I’m doing from John Beckett.
As far as Liturgy Practicum goes, my daily/weekly practices are… pretty daily/weekly at this point? I light the lamp, I do my 3 minute COOR (with no omen usually, just a rite of offering), I do a weekly fuller ritual on Fridays. I do divination whenever I think about it, and it all goes into my journal as well as into a spreadsheet. I don’t need huge paragraphs of reflection on a really well established daily practice at this point. (I clarified this with my mentor to make sure, and they say it’s fine – you reflect on the things that are important, and document that you are doing the work.)
I do need to document my Midsummer observance, but that’s pretty easy. The only thing I find challenging is that I don’t really ever use scripts for my rituals, so I have to say “it looked kind of like this, but not exactly”.
One of the cool things about being in this space is that I am at a point where I can seriously start thinking about who I want my initiators to be. I have some ideas, especially as I’m also Clergy (so I’m going to request at least some of my initiators be Clergy as well). I’m expecting to finish the IP by the end of the year, so hopefully my initiation will be able to be completed next spring, since generally I think at least part of it happens outdoors.
Things are moving along though. Hopefully I’m in my last month of furlough and will return to work on August 1, which will make some of this more difficult, but that’s why I started working on the IP as soon as I got furloughed – I have the time, and it’s been really good to dig into my spiritual work right now.
Recreating the Cosmos
Posted in Initiate's Path, Ritual, tagged ADF, audhumla, Druidry, fire well and tree, recreating the cosmos, recreating the worlds, sacrifice, yggdrasil, ymir on May 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »
In the beginning, there was distance. The distance between South and North. The distance between Fire and Ice. The distance existed before the many worlds were born, and in it there was, licked from the ice by the great cow Audhumla, a giant. Ymir he was, and he was the progenitor of all of the Jotun. There in the great between, he drank the milk of the great cow Audhumla, until he was slain. Odin, Villi, and Ve slew him, there in the gap between, and from him they fashioned all of the worlds. They fashioned the earth from his flesh, the seas from his blood, the mountains from his bones, the stones from his teeth, the sky from his skull, and the clouds from his brain. Four dwarfs held up his skull, one in each of the four cardinal directions. His eyelashes became the fence surrounding Midgard, or Middle Earth, the home of mankind.
Today we stand within those eyelashes, on the earth that was once the great sacrifice that brought the many worlds into being, and below it, we find that there are three wells. These three wells are the Well of Fate, the Well of Roaring, and the Well of Mimir – from them we seek wisdom, and we hallow this well that it may connect with the sacred Wells beneath Yggdrasil, that we may speak with the worlds below.
Above these three wells, we find a great tree – Yggdrasil – the steed upon which messages are transmitted from world to world. The dragon gnaws at its roots, the stag forages on its leaves, and the eagle soars in its branches, and around it spin the nine worlds of all of creation. We hallow this tree, that it may be Yggdrasil for us, that we may be the axis of the many worlds, the sacred center of all things.
And between these many worlds, up from the wells below, riding upon the tree, we find the bridge of Bifrost – shining and bright, the fiery way that leads from Midgard, where we now stand, to Asgard, the home of the Gods. We hallow this fire, that it may be the sacred fire that transmits our messages to the upperworld, that we may speak to the worlds above.
By all the mighty kindreds three
By fire and well and sacred tree
By land and sky and flowing sea
I recreate our cosmos.
Initiate Indo European Mythology 1
Posted in Initiate's Path, tagged ADF, comparative mythology, Druidry, indo-european, initiate program, mythology on May 14, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This course will prepare the student for their work as an Initiate by examining the myths both within their primary hearth culture as well across Indo-European cultures. The student will also reflect on how mythology affects their personal practice, and how it can be applied to ADF ritual structure.
For this course, in all cases where you are to use your primary hearth culture, if you have not chosen one, please choose one that you would like to learn more about and use it for all the questions.
Initiate Divination 1
Posted in Initiate's Path, Runes, tagged ADF, anglo saxon rune poem, anglo-saxon runes, divination, Druidry, fortune telling, initiate program, rune readings, runes on May 6, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This course will prepare the student for being an Initiate by giving them basic instruction in divinatory work, as well as an introduction to doing divination for ritual and others.
Initiate Trance 1
Posted in Initiate's Path, tagged ADF, altered states, Druidry, how to trance, hypnosis, initiate program, initiate trance 1, learn to trance, meditation, NLP, trance, trance journal on April 27, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This course will prepare the student for part of the Initiatory Tests by giving them basic instruction in trance work.
Initiate Liturgy 1
Posted in Initiate's Path, tagged ADF, Druidry, initiate liturgy 1, initiate program, initiation, liturgy, Liturgy 1, study program, trials on April 15, 2020| Leave a Comment »
This course will prepare the student for part of the Initiatory Tests by informing how they perform ritual and why.
Little Druid on the Prairie 