Devotional Polytheist Meme Question No. 6

What does it feel like when one receives inspiration from the gods?

 Ecstasy just is not a strong enough word for it. It feels as though I am drowning in light. It feels as though I am caught in a roaring river and getting carried away by the irresistible force. It is like listening to the most perfect strain of music ever fashioned played flawlessly by the greatest of performers to have ever lived.

I am failing to express this sensation. It is like looking into the Sun, though curiously painless and you do not come away injured. When moved to speak, I feel it heavy on my tongue like honey and it pours out my mouth like water. It is like when you encounter something so beautiful and awe-full that you are moved to weep before it.

The description of the 'touch' of the gods as being like fire is also adequate. It burns away everything else from your senses leaving only that sensation there for you to focus on. And you can not help but focus on it because it is utterly entrancing. Paradoxical descriptions and heavy poetry are all weak ways to describe it. Unfortunately, feeble words are all we have for this because nothing in this world is like it. There are moments that begin to echo something of the qualities it has but they're nothing more then an echo of it.

Devotional Polytheist Meme Question No. 5

If you could travel anywhere on pilgrimage, where would it be and why?

This is a question that I honestly have no idea how to answer. A part of me says I would be delighted to go to Uppsala and to walk that sacred ground. Another part of me says I should visit the modern shrine to Freyr that I read about a few years ago where they keep horses in his honor. (It is odd that I clearly recall reading about this place and now I can not find their webpage. I hope that they are still about that business as the world needs more holy places recognized for the various religions in it.)

And then there are the countless holy sites associated with the various manifestations of Dea. The idea of visiting places like Lourdes where the Blessed Mother has been seen sounds very tempting to me as well. A part of me fancies that it would be a lovely thing to catch even an echo of that glorious moment. The idea of going to these places and walking the ground, getting some kind of attachment to the place sounds quite pleasing to me.

More likely, however, I would go visit the places where my family came from. I feel a deep sense of importance to knowing where I come from. Part of this comes out of the fact that I was raised with a good deal of pride in my heritage. Part of this also comes from the fact that I walk with one foot in this world and one foot in the other. Going to places that allow me to learn more of those who came before me makes it easier for me to work with the dead.

Devotional Polytheist Meme Question No. 4

What are some ways you communicate with the gods?

This is an interesting question. As Rumi wrote, There are a thousand ways to kneel and kiss the ground; there are a thousand ways to go home again. The essence of this quote is that there are many, many ways to pray and establish your relationship with the Divine. As an amateur artist, I use my artwork as a vehicle to communicate with the gods. More often, I pray while I am doing crochet, but I have made devotional paintings as well. As I am working on a piece, I meditate upon what I wish to communicate to the gods and work to incorporate the essence of the prayer into what I am crafting.

I will speak or write down my prayers as well. Some of this comes out in prose, like what I pen in my prayer journals. (I keep three. One for Freyr, one for Loki, and one for Dea. Loki is the one who got me started writing in the journals on a daily basis.) The tone of my prose prayers come out more like letters to the gods. Usually, they are expressions of gratitude and what things are presently on my mind. Frequently, my prayer journals read like letters to dear friends where I share things that I feel are important and of strong emotional influence on my life.

There are times, however, where my prayers come out in more poetic language. The prayers to Dea are most frequently in blank verse poetry. It was from these prayers that I assembled my little book. My spontaneous spoken prayers tend to be blank verse couplets, though there have been times where I accidentally used some complicated rhyming schemes. (It's made things a wee bit frustrating to later record when I can't recall exactly what I said at the time.)

I also do my best to make my daily activities prayerful ones. I was inspired to do this upon reading the autobiographical writings of St. Thérèse of Lisieux where she spoke of her Little Way. I strive to take even the least of my actions and dedicate them to the gods. Some days, this is very difficult to do. Distractions and emotional tumult that comes with bipolar disorder makes it very hard to remain so focused on the Divine. The hardest of all the tasks that I attempt in honor of the gods is forgiving myself of my all to human flaws and resisting the effects of my illnesses.

When I am not actively engaged in prayer, I find a measure of comfort and communion with the gods by way of reading and listening to the works of others. I am especially moved by those of the Beguines and St. Hildegarde of Bingen. It seems odd that the works of medieval Christian women are what speak strongest to me, but their comprehension of divine love rings so very true for me. It becomes a passive means by which I might open myself to the gods and align myself with their will.

In many ways, that is the goal of my prayer life. While I do not seek to renounce the world, for it is filled with wonders and I firmly believe that only a small population of the world is called to renounce it for purely spiritual pursuits. I seek, however, to bring myself into greater alignment with the gods because in every instance I have attempted to do so, good things have come into my life. In my effort to clarify my place with the gods and my role in the world, I depend heavily upon prayer and meditation. I suppose one could say that this is the fruit of my fascination with medieval European culture. What ever the cause of it, these things form the core of my spiritual life and are the means by which I express myself to the gods.

New revision published.

The newest revision of Rose Petals has gone to press. This version has more prayers for the janyati (angelic beings) and the three faces of Dea. It also has instruction on how to set up your shrine and maintain it. There is also now a forward that introduces the reader to Dea and the janyati.

For the print edition, follow this link. For the electronic version, follow this link.

It is my hope to continue to refine my little book and make it useful to my readers. Please, share any comments or concerns that you have with me at my e-mail address.

Currently, I am working on a companion book. It is going to be a day-book of meditations and prayers to take one through the sacred calendar of the Filianic/Déanic faith. The tentative release date for this is the Spring Equinox of 2015. I will be posting more details as it gets closer to the release date.

Spiritual Cleansing: Places

From Here

In previous posts, I discussed how to spiritually cleanse oneself and items. The same principles applied for these purposes are used in how to spiritually cleanse a place. There are, however, some differences in the techniques used.

Different spiritual traditions have different methods for how to cleanse a location. The examples that I will give in this article come from my own background. They are easily adaptable to other spiritual traditions. The basic format of these rituals have much in common with the rituals of other faiths. One element that these rituals have in common is the use of blessed elements (holy water, incense, and candles). They also incorporate basic spell craft (prayers being considered a form of spell craft) whereby the ritual participants impose their will upon the situation or invoke a spiritual being to take action on their behalf.

The most basic form of spiritual cleansing is to focus your will upon cleansing a location of unwanted influences as you physically clean there. In Wicca, there is a tradition of using a besom (ritual broom) to sweep the circle area before establishing sacred space. The circle area is swept in a counter clockwise spiral that starts in the center and moves outward. This is because the counter clockwise direction (known as widdershins by many pagans) is considered to be a direction of banishment. Some incorporate a chant that they use to the rhythm of their sweeping gestures. A quick google search find many chants that you could incorporate into your cleaning.

You can incorporate other elements into your cleansing to make it easier to align your will to the task. Prayers and visualization are helpful for this task. Calling upon one's preferred deity to bless and sanctify a location works to cleanse the location upon a spiritual level. This, however, must be maintained with some effort by the person calling upon the deity. Failure to do so runs the risk of irritating the deity. It would be like you calling upon a friend to clean up a messy room. If you do not put any effort into keeping the room clean afterwards and continually call on them to do it, they will become upset with you for not doing your part.

Walking the boundary of the location to be spiritually cleansed with incense and waft it into the location while envisioning the incense chasing away undesired entities and spiritual energies is a common technique used in the pagan community. It is also done with holy water. The Catholic Christian belief system has several beautiful rituals to consecrate and cleanse locations. These rituals combine the elements of prayer, incense, and holy water. If I recall correctly, there is one that incorporates candles as well.

Which ever method of spiritual cleansing you choose, it is always useful to revisit them on a regular basis when maintaining a location as a permanent sacred space. The act of spiritual maintenance of permanent sacred space helps make ritual work that happens there more effective because the location is prepared for it already. It is also a gesture honoring the spirits of the location and the spiritual beings that were involved in the establishment of sacred space.

Devotional Polytheist Meme Question # 3

How have the gods helped you in times of violent upheaval and adversity?

In many ways, this question is an expansion upon what I have previously written. I wish I could say that the adversity that I describe in that post was the extent of what I could relate as to how the gods have helped me but my life is not blessed in that fashion. As I look back over the years, I find myself at something of a loss for where to start the list of incidents that the gods have helped me. I think it is better to give the common themes of how their help has manifested in my life.

During times of psychological illness, the gods have been the constant source of hope and encouragement. Loki has been especially helpful to me over the last five years. He arranges happy accidents where I have just the right thing land in my lap, even in the darkest of times. Flamehair has also been very active in my dreams and via psychic activity, giving me advice and encouragement when I am at my best or worst. When things are especially bad, he has gone so far as to giving me direct messages by way of chance encounters, which looking back I realize they weren't as 'chance' as I thought they were.

A good example of this was during one of my recent depressive episodes. In the grips of powerful despair, I found myself seriously considering giving up my dream of making a living as an author. I even found myself considering giving up on my blogs and journal writing. Not three days after I was considering this, I was out washing laundry. I stopped in the store next door to purchase a beverage when I very nearly ran into a man wearing a shirt that struck me like a blow to the gut. The text on his black shirt was in white and a very large font, something that I could not possibly miss. It read "Are you really thinking about giving up on your dreams?" It was a powerful reminder that the depressive episode was temporary and that letting it drive me away from my life long dreams and passion for writing was a terrible decision to make.

During times of physical illness, the gods have mitigated the extent of my illness and in one instance, I honestly believe prevented me from dying. I was pregnant with my eldest son and I had been having what I thought was problems with bad gas pains from shortly before the pregnancy test came back positive. Assuming that these 'gas pains' were just a symptom of pregnancy like the nausea of morning sickness, I didn't pay it any mind. Then, one day before I went into work I was in terrible pain to the point where I couldn't stand upright. We rushed to the doctor who then sent me on to the hospital. It was determined that I had appendicitis. Things happened in such a fashion that I had surgery to take my appendix out. It was highly inflamed and signs indicated that I had been dealing with appendicitis for months before it reached a crisis point.

When my husband and I faced difficulties that threatened the integrity of our family, the gods helped to mitigate the impact of the events. I also firmly believe that it was by way of the gods that the positive things that came out of that period of time came in to our lives. While much can be said for the support systems we had in place from our extended family, a good deal of the situation was in the hands of others who could have just as easily made decisions that would have devastated my household. It is my belief that the gods swayed those people to make decisions in our favor.

In all three varieties of adversity, the gods have provided us with opportunities to make good of the situation, endure the difficulties, and aid to lessen the severity of the troubles we face. I think that they prevent a good deal of trouble from coming to our doorstep as well. From narrowly escaping disastrous car accidents to having just the emergency funds arrive when we need them, I believe that the gods take an active part in helping us avoid just as much trouble as they help us endure it. 

The Frosts, Marion Zimmer Bradley, and Accounting.

I have held my piece with regards to the issues surrounding Marion Zimmer Bradley because I felt that others who were far more knowledgeable and eloquent had addressed them better then I could have. Then, just today, I learned something about the Frosts that made me feel chagrined to have considered their work useful and daring to recommend it to students I had in the past.

It has come to my attention that the Frosts had written an initiation ritual intended for family covens that involved sexual activity for pubescent children in their highly influential work The Witch's Bible. Their supporters insist that the ritual is misprinted and that the Frosts did not intend for the ritual to include children. In all kindess, I cry bullshit on that argument. This is a book that has been reprinted many, many times. Not once of those reprints had been amended to correct the supposed mistake. The Frosts have had ample time to see and correct this 'error' and have not done so.

Indeed, their failure to correct the 'error' and their arguments that said work should be allowed to persist in its original form and be considered within the merits of 'tradition' lends one to believe that ritualized sexual abuse is condoned by the Frosts and that they believe such should be perpetuated within the Wiccan community.

This is absolutely not ok. Sexual abuse is one of the most heinous and insidious of crimes perpetrated against children. Abusers force children to participate in sex acts by ways of creating situations where the child sees no other choice. The children are not free agents in this activity but doing so under duress. Additionally, abusers who choose sex crimes as their method of abuse have the great impetuous of the social stigma that is attached to sexual abuse to force their victims to be quiet. This is in addition to what ever threats might be made or what mind games are played to coerce the victim to keep silent.

The use of initiatory rituals to force sexual activity of any sort upon another person is a direct violation of one of the most central tenants of Wicca, perfect love and perfect trust. The initiate trusts the initiator with their welfare as they prepare to undergo the rite. They trust the coven they are joining with their safety as well. Forcing them into sexual activity is repulsive and a violation of that trust. It also makes a mockery of that claimed 'perfect love' that the coven would say they extend towards the initiate.

Some people will claim that I am a 'lapsed' witch and that my positions on this 'traditional' initiation are a reflection of how far I have 'fallen' from the craft. I name those people fools and supporters of this kind of abusive behavior. It is possible to initiate someone into the craft with out forcing any form of sexual behavior upon them. If we look into the history of modern Wicca, we find that old Gerald Gardner was initiated by having a basin of water poured over him.

We have a responsibility to the younger generations of witches who are being raised within the Wiccan tradition (and all other pagan faiths) to secure their safety and create an environment that promotes their well being. The intersection of that which is holy, magical, and mundane should be a place of safety from the beginning. Only when the initiate has reached the age of consent and agreed to it, should sexual activity become part of magical or religious ritual.

If this position makes people declare me some sort of apostate or otherwise have forgotten my faith, then I wish them the luck of it. I will continue to maintain a position that the safety of children is more important then the pretty rituals you would devise. I don't care what your arguments are in favor of this. I reject them all and declare them to be anathema.

Originally Published on One Witch's Theological Musings