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Excerpt from Trance 2 Journal – on Animism, Eating, and Killing

Posted in journal, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 2, 2020| Leave a Comment »

Image by annca from Pixabay

30 minute trance practice as part of a course I’m doing for the next 16 weeks called Practical Animism – today’s exercise was around meeting a person/relative that I consume on a regular basis, and exploring that relationship as one that acknowledges the personhood of the plants and animals that I eat.

I actually had some trouble deciding on a food-source that I wanted to reach out to, not because I wanted to pick the “right” one but because so many came to mind that I wanted to approach. I ultimately ended up settling on Rooster and Hen, because I do eat a lot of chicken, and I was pleased with the interaction. I’ve never been particularly distanced from my food – I was raised to thank the food (despite being Christian!) and to thank the Gods (or God) for my food, and so it felt very natural to enter into a conversation with Rooster and Hen about the fact that they sacrifice their lives for me to continue living. I ended up feeling very much called to raise my own chickens, which is not possible right now (community code violation unfortunately) but I think will be something that I do as soon as I’m in a place to legally do so.

Also, I explored the nature of the relationship of Humanity to Chickens – as the domesticator and domesticated relationship progressed, which I didn’t connect to as strongly as I did just to the animals themselves.

I did go back and repeat the exercise with corn – especially as I’m cooking corn this afternoon (charring it on the cob to make Elotes Pasta Salad for a dinner tomorrow). I eat a lot of corn, and it’s a plant with a long and sacred history that I’ve tried to respect. It was easier to talk to Rooster than it was to talk to Corn, probably because Rooster has body language I understand better than Plant Language. But I did get a sense that Corn was, at least at one point in time, honored by its connection to humans – and is now very troubled by mass monocrop farming. Cornfields used to be sacred places, and now they are sterile, machine-driven ones, and that’s maybe not actually a step in the right direction.

I have attempted (unsuccessfully) to grow corn in the past, and could not grow it now even if I had room for it – my yard is in the shade of three huge pecan trees, and so I cannot grow vegetables here. But I feel like I can honor the spirit of that plant, which is so sacred to the land on which I live, even if I don’t grow it myself.

All in all, a very thought provoking set of trance journeys today, and ones I think I will repeat as I go deeper into my practice of Animism. I’m noticing as I sit with this, and am processing the work I did, that I feel almost unsettled – not because I did something wrong or feel guilty about eating plants and animals, but because I feel like I *should* have strong feelings about the fact that I eat plants and animals. I’ve often grown my own food, though never as my main food source, and as much as those plants were persons that I treasured, they were still there to make sure I continued to exist. I kinda wonder if folks in subsistence farming environments, or in hunter-gatherer ones, feel that way – I know many indigenous groups sacralize the harvest (of both plants and animals) and a great deal of paganism is about the sacredness of the harvest cycle at least as it was celebrated in northwest Europe. It feels as though I’m cheating, I guess, for how easy it is for me to get the food I need, and how disconnected I can be from the process of life-giving that happens for me to go to the grocery store and buy six ears of corn to roast for dinner.

(I do not go into or explain the background of this in my journal, and think that it stands well without a lot of filler. If you are interested in animism as a spiritual practice that complements polytheism, let me know and I’ll speak more to that in a more expository post. This is simply a reflection and a direct excerpt from my journaling.)

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Recreating the Cosmos

Posted in Initiate's Path, Ritual, tagged , , , , , , , , 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.

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Sacrificing: LP1, Week 11 (24 July 2017)

Posted in Clergy Training Program, Liturgy Journal 1, Runes, Seasonal Things, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , on July 27, 2017| Leave a Comment »

Sometimes the universe just hits you with a clue-by-four. I’ll save that for another day, but suffice to say that I’m about to get a lot busier with my spiritual practice.

As a check in, my current practice includes:

  • Full COoR ritual once a week (usually Tuesday nights, sometimes Fridays too), which includes divination
  • “Crowdsourced” Full Moon rituals with my grove
  • Weekly study meetings with my grove
  • Daily practice even if it’s just 3 minutes at my altar to light some incense
  • Regular offerings to the Gatekeeper, Earthmother, my three primary deities (Ingwe Frea, Frige, Hela), and to my house spirits
  • High day rituals with my grove (which I write and coordinate)

Which is honestly a pretty full slate of ritual practices, now that I look at it. I’ve come a long way in the last almost three months, and it’s kind of startling to think that I’ve been rebuilding this fast (and at the same time it feels almost painfully slow).

If I can keep up this level of enthusiasm and motivation, I will be thrilled, but I do know that some of what is coming will be a slog. But that’s okay.

On the celebratory front, this weekend is Lammas! This is my favorite high day, I think, which is funny as there’s been a number of posts around the pagan blogosphere about how Lammas is one of the “forgotten” high days. I guess because I’ve never associated it with Lugh at all, and instead celebrate the first harvest, and the sacrifice of that harvest, it’s always been a different thing for me.

My very first Lammas celebration included my having to “make a sacrifice” – both monetary (the destruction of something of monetary value – in that case, a silver mercury dime) and metaphysical – as part of the coven I was working with, and I have kept to that practice every year, using the harvest season as a time of “giving up” something. I know what I need to give up this year, but it will be challenging. But if that’s not what spiritual disciplines are for, I don’t know what would be. I will be keeping this “sacrifice” from Lammas through Samhain.

There is a lot of UPG floating around about how Freyr (Ingwe Frea) is the lord of the first harvest, the golden grain god who is cut down as a sacrifice. While I don’t know what I think about that as UPG, the general idea of him being at his height – and then cut down – at this time of year appeals to me. The story of John Barleycorn is old – possibly all the way back to Anglo-Saxon paganism and the myth surrounding Beowa (Barley, with some association with Frey). And so it is with both joy and sorrow that I see the first harvest, the sacrifice of the grain, which then blesses and feeds us throughout the year.

My personal celebration of this high day is similar to the one the Anglo-Saxons would have done. I bake a loaf (in my celiac-disease-having state, a loaf of cornbread), bless it, and sacrifice it to the earth at the four corners of my home as protection throughout the coming winter. Since I live in an apartment now, that means depositing cornbread outside, but my neighbors already think I’m odd.

So as we move into August, let’s remember the sacrifice of the grain, of John Barleycorn, and perhaps consider making a sacrifice of our own, to ensure a good harvest and the continuation of our communities.

 

This week’s divination is as follows:

  • Ior – the eel (or beaver) – flexibility/adaptability
  • Rad – the journey – a journey or path, something that might seem easy from the outside but is a challenge to do
  • Gyfu – the gift – reciprocity, hospitality (and the rune I have consistently drawn regarding my path to the priesthood)

I know that, on some level, rune drawing is random – I’m pulling random symbols out of a bag. But sometimes they speak so strongly.

Be flexible, adapt to your situation and to those around you; you’re on a long journey to priesthood, but this is the journey you need to take. 

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Liturgy 1, Questions 10, 11, 12

Posted in Clergy Training Program, tagged , , , , on May 13, 2016| Leave a Comment »

10.    Describe other possible models for the “Filling Out the Cosmic Picture” sections. (minimum 100 words)

Filling out the cosmic picture is the way in which we call the various beings into our ritual center to take place in our rite. Most typically, this is done in three invocations to the three kindreds. This could also be done as three invocations to the beings of Land, Sea, and Sky (particularly if the ritual was of a Celtic bent) (Corrigan “Worlds”), or by invocations to the beings of the Underworld, Middleworld, and Upperworld (Dangler), since depending on the cosmology, there are deities in all three places, and ancestors can go to various homes, such as going to Folkvangr/Valhalla instead of to Helheim (in the underworld). If the ritual is to be Germanic/Norse in hearth, there might be nine worlds that are opened/called upon, instead of the usual three, or an Irish ritual might call upon the five provinces. The ritual could also use pictures or representations of the three kindred instead of (or in addition to) doing called/vocal invocations, especially for a ritual that included large groups of people, as this would connect with different senses than just sound and imagination.

11.    Discuss how one would choose the focus (or focuses) for the Key Offerings. (minimum 100 words)

Generally speaking, the focus of the key offerings should match the beings of the occasion, the purpose of the ritual, or both (Newburg). For the 8 high days, there is commonly attributed lore for what kind of deities and offerings would be appropriate (calling upon fertility deities and offering seeds and flowers at Beltane, for example). For magical workings, there are myriad lists of magical correspondences that would fit into the general paradigm of the working itself, or the previously listed lore for what certain deities might like as offerings. There is also the opportunity to do meditative work on the various beings to think of ways that you might please the spirits who are the focus of the ritual. Though this would generally be classified as unverified personal gnosis, it may also fall under the “common sense” category, depending on what you come up with (healing herbs as an offering in a healing ritual, for example). In general, though, it’s best to match your key offerings either to the occasion or to the beings that are central to the ritual in a way that makes sense for the purpose of your ritual, and go from there.

12.    Discuss your understanding of Sacrifice, and its place in ADF liturgy. (minimum 100 words)

Sacrifice means “to do/make sacred” and is the process by which things are set apart for the spirits that we are making sacrifices to/for. I typically see this represented as Gebo/Gyfu – as the Havamal says, “a gift calls for a gift” – where we are entering into a relationship with these spirits that is categorized by gift-giving on both sides. We make sacrifices and offerings; they give us blessings in return. It is a relationship of reciprocity, though not in a “tit for tat” sort of way, but in the manner of a cultivated friendship. When you are close friends or family with someone, you don’t keep a tally of the things you do for each other, but you reciprocate good things with other good things, perhaps taking turns covering a dinner bill, or paying for a friend’s dinner so you can use their washing machine because yours is broken. It’s not a direct one for one relationship of equality, but a relationship where each gives according to their own measure. This relationship is central to ADF’s liturgy, and forms the backbone of our ritual structure. We create the sacred center, invite in the various spirits and powers, and then create a space for sacrifice, where we give of ourselves (whether physical items or gifts of time and energy (like dance, poetry or song)) and they, in return, offer blessings. These sacrifices should have meaning, either to us or to the spirits they are offered to, or both, though they may not come at great monetary cost (Newburg).

Sacrifice is also the act that creates the cosmos, as in the lore when “twin” is portioned out to create the world. The sacrifices we make in our rituals mirror this act of creation and help to reinforce the right order of the cosmos (Thomas). Each act of sacrifice is distributed among the cosmos, reinforcing and re-energizing it with order.

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