Month: February 2011

A few notes…on what Paganism is NOT…

On By PaxIn Chop Wood, Creativity, Food for Thought, My Florida Sabbats, Notes on the Journey2 Comments

Dear friends,

A few useful notes, based on some rampant misconceptions I have seen carried abroad in my local Pagan community.  Please take the following to heart.

Paganism is NOT a substitute for the psycho-therapeutic process.

Paganism is NOT a fandom.

Paganism is NOT an excuse for religious or racial bigotry, not even when it involves Christianity or a black actor portraying a comic-book interdimensional being named Heimdal.

Given that Religion and Spirituality are synonyms, Paganism is NOT an excuse for long angry diatribes against “Religion” and in favor of “Spirituality”; especially when your anger and fear of “Religion” is rooted in anger at and fear related to your religion of origin.

Paganism is NOT a justification of your own personal lack or responsibility or maturity; NOR is Paganism or “tolerance” to be used as an excuse for others irresponsibility or maturity.

Paganism is NOT an excuse to engage in addictive or self-destructive behavior.

Paganism is NOT a synonym for Wiccan or Neo-Wiccan.

Paganism is NOT a synonym for practicing Magick, nor does a Pagan rite require an act of spell-casting.

Thank you,

Pax

PS – you may be wondering what Paganism IS, well I am struggling towards my own definition over here….

PPS- feel free to riff off any of the above points into a posting of your own, I will probably be expanding several of the above into paragraphs at some point in the future myself….

When the Spirits take you for a walk…

On By PaxIn everyday3 Comments

Dear Friends,

So I had just gotten home from work, and was indulging in a cigar.   It has been an exhausting few days… busy at work and with a lot of scheduling changes and exciting new projects coming up…. and so I allowed myself an indulgence…

I stood outside before taking my things in, smoking and just being open to the moment and I felt a pull to the area I walked through a couple of weeks ago… so I started walking.  It was a subtle pull, sometimes a nudging push, leading me on a walk past the here-there-be-alligators pond, but not around it.  I stood for a while at a t-shaped not-quite-cross-roads part of the path and stood for a moment greeting the Spirits.

I tried to ask them what they wanted.  Did they want something from me?  Water?  Offerings?  Witness?  Caretaking?  I felt nudged to walk along, and pick up some of the paper trash lying by the path I walked.  There were a few pieces of paper trash that were close to the water, and underneath some tree branches, that were to be left alone… I thought about and was willing to pick them up but got the sense that they had been …. claimed?

Along the way there were some empty apartment units that seemed to call for occupancy, a message to find a place of my own rather than rooms with a roommate?  Get closer to land maybe?

So I continued along, pushed and pulled by the Spirits and found myself walking past a recycling dumpster, and along through the complex grounds…  and then back to my car and the door to my place.  The whole message of recycling is of course obvious, but it doesn’t feel like that was THE message.

The vexing thing was that there was no clear-cut message, but a sense of being watched and tentatively welcomed?  I don’t know maybe a sense of the Spirits seeing if I am capable of listening and being respectful?

I hope I was a good guest.

Peace,

Pax

The Lady

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Bouncing off the Gods, My life with (some of) The Holy Powers and The Spirits, remembering, The Goddess, witchery3 Comments

I Call upon and Invoke Thee

Oh Triple Goddess of the Witches

Mighty Mother Celestial

Black Robed and Silver Clad Queen of the Mysteries

Lady of Spirit and Inspiration and Magick

Ever-changing Goddess of the moon

Lady of the Groves and Gardens

Bride of the Sun

You who is at once, The Maiden of Creativity,

The Mother of Possibilities, and The Secret Wielding Crone,

I Invoke Thee by Perfect Love and Perfect Trust

Please be present in this rite in Thy Honor and Praise

Share with me Your Love and Lore and Law

That Thy Servant and Friend may be Fulfilled

Hail & Well Met

~Invocation, (c) 2010 Pax/Geoffrey Stewart

Dear Friends,

This, which I was determined would be the first entry in this little series, has been a tough post to write for all its brevity.  It is strange to note that I don’t have many dramatic or deep encounters with The Witches Goddess, the Three-fold Lady who is Maiden and Mother and Crone… a couple stand out… but Her presence in my life is a largely subtle one compared to some of my other encounters with Divinities.

The Charge

The Charge, or rather, Valiente’s Charge of The Goddess is the first time I can specifically remember encountering Her.  After all these years I can’t recall which version in which book or where I was when I first read it…. I want to say it was in the back of either Complete Art of White Witchcraft or Diary of A Witch, both by Sybil Leek.

I remember it was an older book.   Anchorage is blessed with some world class used bookstores because it can be ridiculously expensive to move to and from Alaska thus a lot of folks jettison stuff on their way out, I remember the worn pages of a paperback in my hand,the sensation of that light almost feathery quality of the page edges that old paperback books have.  I remember the old paperback/used book scent overlaying that slightest hint of Metaphysical/Occult bookstore.  I remember the slightly old fashioned type against the sepia kissed creme of the page.

I remember the words, as I read them, seeming to flow off the page, up my arms deep into my head and heart.  I remember how filled to bursting I was with Spirit and Love and Hope and Power as I first experienced a sense of Her deep and abiding love.

I remember the sense of the rest of the world receding and the sense of the words speaking directly to the deepest part of my soul.  Drinking down the words of the Charge, I can remember feeling changed.  Touched and Transformed by Her words, sent through Doreen, so many years before I was born.  She was there, and although Her presence in my life has been an often subtle one, She has been with me ever since.

A Voice in The Rec Room

This was one of the few, dramatic, moments in my experiences of the Triple Goddess.  An acquaintance of mine who was claiming to suffer from Multiple Personalities (Dissociative Identity Disorder) had had, or decided to have (which I say looking back on the episode with the perspective of many years experience of the ways people seek to suck up attention and specialness in dysfunctional ways) an episode.

I wasn’t entirely sold on the MPD, had some inkling it might just be attention seeking, but also felt that it was possible that there WAS some mental illness going on or at least some emotional troubles… so I did what any self-respecting Witch would do; I decided to turn it over to the Gods… or in this case The Witches Goddess.  This was early enough in my journey and practice as a Solitary Witch that She was in the spotlight of my practice at the time.

I had decided to try something different, and instead of putting the tools on an altar table or cloth, I arrayed them and the various notions and lotions and potions that inhabited my early altars around me in a circle, and Cast Circle through and upon them.  I did the usual Cirlce rites and then after The Rite, in symbol, I began praying to Her.  I asked Her what I could do for my friend and lay the situation out before here as I understood it at the time and prayed for Her guidance.

“Love him.” She said.

I.  Heard.  The.  Words. Aloud.  Not in the conversation-in-my-head-but-not-my-words style, which is the usual way I get impressions from The Holy Powers, but aloud.  Out, friggin’, Loud!

I spun around, startled, and knocked over the lit Candle for Fire… which luckily went out and did NOT ignite the synthetic orange shag of  daylight basement rec-room.  After a moment of processing this, one of my earliest this-shit-is-real experiences, I uprighted and relit the Candle for Fire and continued to pray for a time.  She, of course, was maddeningly silent after this, but I tried to remain content knowing She was and is there and will put a hand or word in if needed.

Reflection

Mostly I am aware of her on Full Moon nights, or nearly full nights.  The familiar embracing Presence.  The sense of settling in as I begin Invoking Her in Circle, the passionate thread that runs through me as the Blade and Chalice meet.  While I haven’t had a lot of woo-woo experiences involving Her, I have almost never really doubted She is there.

I’d love to be able to say that I have NEVER doubted Them or The Craft, but I am as human as anyone else and sometimes I wrestle with fear and doubt and confusion.  Always though, I return.  I return to Them and to Her.

Lately my relationship with Her has taken a bit of a turn as I encountered the Feri Trad way of addressing Her as “Holy Mother in Whom we live move and have our being”… this has resonated strongly for me and for my practice and I have incorporated that phrase into some of my own Craft.

Peace,

Pax

…

Intro

Libertas (whilst written before this series was conceived of, it fits a little too perfectly into the theme to be ignored…)

The Witches Goddess (this post)

The WitchFather

The Morrigan

Hecate

Dionysus

The Honored and Beloved Dead

Spirits of the World Around Us

Approaching the Cards and Coins and Cross-Roads Once more…

On By PaxIn everydayLeave a comment

Hello Dear Friends,

So, I picked up the tarot cards again recently…

I’ve done a few halfhearted readings over the last few years, but I haven’t really opened myself to them… really approached the idea of divination/Tarot as a part of my regular spiritual practice ….  since January of 2009.  Which is when some new room-mates who were friends of my ex The Big Guy were moving in…. I was doing a reading after having cleaned house and I got the Tower and 10 of Swords and a lot of other doom-filled cards and I did the wrong thing.

I swept it aside and ignored it and was all like “oh sometimes you just get all the bad cards” or made some similar excuse… and I gave up on the idea of divination/Tarot as a regular part of my practices…. and ran into a lot of trouble and misfortune I might have avoided… or at least may have been able to soften the break-up if I had taken their counsel.  We human’s have SUCH a gift for denial and finding distractions from what we don’t want to hear.

The thing is, though, that part of the whole point of divination is to hear or see the things we don’t want to hear as well as the things we are curious about, it helps us gain perspective on our situation and sometimes perspective means not liking some of what you see and finding ways to work with or change it.

For Example…

This Morning I have done a simple 3 card spread… past-present-future …. and got The Hanged Man, The 3 of Pentacles, and The 4 of Cups.  (Cards kept upright, even in shuffling, because I am still relearning the meanings and admittedly still tentative in my approach to Divination.)

So we have time spent in suspension and contemplation,

We have financial gain and completion.

And, we have the potential for a period of distraction from the important things of the material and spiritual.

Not so bad so far…  Feels fairly spot on given my financial and career related concerns, not entirely related to the social occasion I have later this morning that I was inquiring about… but keep your mind on your money and don’t let things distract you from the things you need to me taking care of to succeed.  I can live with that message.

Now, lets see if I can find a way to face and read and work with the message the next time it’s one of the doom-filled portents and not some basic background info…
Peace,

Pax

Automotive Misadventures, The Fabulous Jonathan, and Spiritual Practice, Oh My!

On By PaxIn Blame Sannion, Carry Water, Chop Wood, everyday, Notes on the Journey, spiritual practice, The Fabulous Jonathan4 Comments

Dear Friends,

So as you may remember I have been working at building my array and regularity of Spiritual Practices in my Pagan journey for a while now…. Meditation, both silent and focused, and Conscious Breathing and Grounding and Centering and work with my Chakra’s and (for those of us on the New Aquarian Frontier who are of the Witchy persuasion) of course Magick…. and loging them all daily along with my daily diet and writing I’ve done that day and any Professional development and physical excercise…

And my practice has been growing and becoming a regular part of my life.  So of course as I grew it eventually became time for a test.

My old car, the Late Great Volvo, had already had 170,000 miles on it when I bought it used for $1,700 a few years ago.  I had already spent more on it in repairs than I bought it for, almost double.  I have been reading and researching replacement vehicles and pulling together money and otherwise talking about getting a newer car.  However my A.D.D. blessed brain kept getting distracted by more immediate things… duties and commitments and exhaustion from a wildly varying schedule and all sorts of other life stuff… or so I told myself.

So when I stopped at a fast food place for some breakfast this last Sunday, and the car didn’t want to start, I shouldn’t have been so surprised.

Turn the key, nothing.  The lights came on but the engine did not turn over.   I figured it was the battery, and after some harsh lessons in the road readiness and charitable nature of many of my fellow human beings…. I called my boyfriend The Fabulous Jonathan.  He made the 45-minute to hour drive to where I was and we tried jumping the battery.  Repeatedly.   No go.   After a while the ugly truth dawned that it wasn’t the battery, it was the transmission.

For those who are even more automotive repair/maintenance challenged than myself (and I hope you live somewhere either blessed with fabulous public transit or which is very pedestrian friendly) that is both ridiculously expensive and the automotive kiss of death.

The Fabulous Jonathan set aside his own duties and chores for the Week-end and helped ferry me around town for a few days and look at cars and figure out how to invest my modest nest egg into a new vehicle.  I am now the proud debtor of a slightly used 2010 Kia Rio!!!

(brief pause whilst Pax does some calming breathing about his very first Car financing experience, which is really different from a Student Loan because you can’t really defer payments…. banks are a LOT less accomodating or flexible on Car Loans than Student Loans as I understand it)

So we exchanged Valentine cards on the 13th, and spent most of the next 3 days together.  He helped me get to work on Monday night, after I switched shifts around to have Tuesday off to go Car hunting.   We talked, a lot and laughed and shared stories from our pasts and he made a scary crazy making experience a lot less painful!  He is wonderful, and smart and cute and funny, although I am admittedly biased on the matter.  It was nice to know that we are capable of weathering storms together.

I am truly blessed to have found you Jonathan!

So sometime on day 2, even though I wasn’t doing my usual Journal / Log-booking of my practices, I noticed I was still breathing consciously, I was grounding and centering, and otherwise trying to engage the practices that help keep me on an even keel; even in the midst of maddening times.  That is why we do them, they help us to grow and be stronger and better people; being stronger and better people we are more aware and engaged in our lives and our relationships with ourselves, our friends and families, our Gods, and our Sweet Sacred Universe.

Jonathan was even patient with me as I got very snarly and with him at the Dealership as I sat with him waiting for some of the paperwork to go through as I wrestled with this tremendous wave of doubt and fear that washed over me.  He kept trying to reassure me and I kept getting mad at him… which I knew was bs and driven by the fearful and hateful parts of my self that have been hurt so often over the years – and sometimes allowed myself to be hurt rather than risk failing at not being a failure or a screw-up-… finally I just told him that this was my fear and I needed to face it.

Although I was more than a little bastardly about it, sorry my dear.

Sometimes you have to face your fears instead of running from them, which is of course one of the big reasons I had waited to buy the car or seriously scope out my financing options.   But I found a good finance rate and payments I can afford and even as I go scared further into the world or being a Real Adult ™, I am blessed by good friends and good fortune and the love of a wonderful guy!

I also find myself contemplating how small and limited I’ve let my life get in the last year or so as I faced the impending death of the Volvo and of how I avoided dealing with the situation.  I have many friends whom I could be sharing my journey with in a more personal face to face manner, and even with the hovering cloud of automotive doom I have been trying to do just that lately… spending time with Tracie the Red this last week-end…. and making it to various 1U events.

I have had a lot of “Once I have a newer car and a better job I can ______ and _____ and ____.”  Conversations/prayers/whatever’s with the Gods and the Universe in general lately….  Projects I could be involved in, events I could attend, activities I could take up…. not a new thing these conversations, but my sense of being actually able to tackle the various projects and promises is newer to me.   Its grown with my dive into Practice and Study in the last couple of years.

I can also see, based on that not-quite crushing wave of fear and doubt at the Dealership, that I have more work and Practice to do…

Now it’s back to the daily routine of work at the motel, and on my writing, and on my Practices, and in another couple of days it will be time to Circle again.   Then there are events at Church to volunteer on…   Opportunities to spend times with Tracie the Red, and my gaming buddy and proto-Heathen friend Aarnvast, and others….  More work to do polishing the resume and getting my ducks in a row to try for promotions at work….  More work to do around the apartment getting things in order there…

The adventure continues…

Peace,

Pax

Happy Lover’s Day!

On By PaxIn everydayLeave a comment

Dear Friends

I hope you are all having a wonderful Valentines, or Lupercallia, or Parentalia, (thanks Jason) or whatever occassions you celebrate on this cultural holiday set aside to honor and celebrate Love, especially romantic Love!

While your celebrating, take some time to consider the implications of our Values and Virtues and Ethics as they apply to your relationships.  As Unitarian Universalists (who while they are not all Pagan, are Pagan friendly and a number of us bridge these two worlds) remind us our Religious Values  can be a useful relationship guide if you keep them in mind.

Speaking of Unitarian Universalism, I was pleasantly reminded today in my Internet wanderings that Love can take many forms, and standing up for it and celebrating it can also take many forms.

Peace,

Pax

PS-

A Witches Walk during the Waxing Tides

On By PaxIn everyday4 Comments

Dear Friends,
So this week-end I celebrated Imbolc.

I also went to my U.U. Church service and then spent a delightful afternoon in conversation with Tracie the Red.  Monday I was ill, headaches at the back of my skull where the neck meets the back of the skull… a friend of mine says that’s where the sinuses are.  Not sure of that but I was light-sensitive and not in the best of moods until after dark.

I spend the day listening to some podcasts and cleaning my rooms a bit, more work to be done on that front but it has begun.  I unpacked the bag with the gear from the ritual and set my altar in order.  I burned some incense and cleaned a few bottles that had collected over the last several that I am sure I will be using soon… I have that urge to spellcraft and cunning some worts and all that jazz.

So in part inspired by some of the Witchy podcasts I’d listened too, and in part by the Imbolc rite, and by the pulls of magick and tides of life, I went for a walk.  I took a small red paper gift bag I had handy and put a few things into it…

1. Athame

2. An old hip-flask rum bottle filled with Pomegranate Juice

3. A whole Pomegranate

4. A small glass jar with a cork top, full of Black Tea leaves

5. An Apple, which had been sitting on my altar in offering to the Gods, and some Barley in the same situation as said Apple.

I walked into the night.  At various places throughout my late night walking, I cast out handfuls of Black Tea in offering to the Spirits of the Land.

I walked until I found a place where three paths could reasonably be said to meet, by a lake, near a boat ramp so the trees of the Earth framed the Sky and Waters nicely.  There I poured out the Pomegranate Juice to the Morrighan, an offering of gratitude for not smiting me some years ago.

I walked until I found a place where the Live Oaks were covered with Spanish Moss and it felt as if any offering left would be left to its own devices.  I took my Witches Blade and cut the Pomegranate in half and made offerings to the Spirits of the Land.

I walked until I found a part of the walking path where it felt right to leave out the offerings to the Gods.  To toss the Apple into the woods and to cast forth the Barley.

I walked, and realized as I did so that I had walked Widdershins round the pond with the signs the warn against swimming for here-there-be-Alligators.  I walked and felt power behind me, a sense of being pushed or warned away from where I had left my offerings.  I completed my circuit and walked back towards my apartment rooms and the everyday holy world, musing as I did so that sometimes in the early stages of these sorts of relationships discretion is the better part of valor.

 

Peace,

Pax

Imbolc

On By PaxIn everyday, Imbolc, Imbolc Blogging, My Florida Sabbats5 Comments

Imbolc 2011: Rekindling
(C) Geoffrey Stewart / Pax

“Good Evening,

We are gathered here tonight to celebrate Imbolc, one of the Four High Holy Days of Ancient Celts according to history and folklore, and the especial Holy Day of the Goddess Brighid.

This is a Neo-Pagan ritual inspired in part by the Druidic Revival and Celtic Reconstructionist forms of Paganism.; as well as our beliefs as members and friends of this Unitarian Universalist congregation. In crafting this rite I have tried to balance the influences of historical and magical scholarship, folklore, polytheology, and theurgy.

Our rite this evening focuses on honoring- and engaging in active relationships with- the Gods, Ancestors, and Spirits…whatever we may conceive Their true natures to be. We will be honoring and invoking the 3 elements of the natural world as viewed through the worldview of Celtic spirituality, we will be honoring the Spirits of the World Around us, The Ancestors, and The Gods, and we will be coming to peaceful terms with some potentially hostile Spirits. Then we will be calling upon and honoring the local Earth Mother of Florida and making offering of gratitude and of our hopes for Her health and well being. Then we will be invoking and honoring Brighid. Then we will celebrate our feast.

Before we share breath and come together in community, there are some pieces of paper that have been handed around with parts of the invocation to our local Earth Mother where the portion in regular print is to be enthusiastically read by whoever has it, and the portion in BOLD print is to be spoken by everyone… lets try it once…

“We _____________________________ invite you,
Hear us, and be here with us.”

“We who live on and within your sacred land and love you, invite you,
Hear us, and be here with us.”

“Now, if any of you can think of a way of referencing your personal relationship to our regional Earth Mother with a short and more personal reference, modeled on the examples that have been handed out you are welcome to take a few moments to write it down… a short sentence or two, would be ideal to the flow of invocation…”

(insert flexibility time here)

It is also important to note, that we will be doing a similar call and response in the invocation of Brighid. I will read a portion of the invocation, and then all of us will join together in calling upon Her to…

“Hear us, and be here with us.”

(At the end of each of the invocations, we will chant this phrase for a time, and upon the signal of the opening of the arms in welcome the final phrase will be…

“Hear us, and be here with us, and be welcome here amongst us.”

~~

Flowers are being handed around, take one as you will be carrying it with you and making an offering of it to Brighid later today.

Imbolc and Brighid a basic overview

For us here in Florida as 21st Century Pagans Imbolc is many things. Imbolc is one of the four ancient Celtic Holy Days, one of the Sabbats or Holy Days of Religious Withchraft, and one of the 8 Holy Days of Neo-Paganism. It is a celebration of the returning light of the Sun, and of the stirrings and movement of life as we shift from the time of the Citrus Harvest to the Strawberry Festival. In the Neo-Pagan Wheel of The Year, celebrated my many contemporary Pagans, we turn from Celebrating and Honoring the Honored and Beloved Dead at Samhain, to the Honored and Beloved Living at Yule, and between Yule and Imbolc we turn inward. We take some time to rest and renew after the mad rush of days of the many spiritual and Calendrical new years that start at Samhain and leaves us rushing busilly through our many cultural and religious Autumn and Winter Holidays. Imbolc is a time for rest and renewal, for rekindling ourselves spiritually and for new beginings.

Imbolc is also the especial Feast Day and Celebration or the Goddess Brighid.

Brighid is either One the Goddesses of Ancient Ireland, or three Sister Goddesses, depending on which of the schollarly sources you are reading. Brighid is a patroness of Poetry, Healing, and Smithcraft, who over time has also come to be seen as the Masterstroke of all Women and also as a Goddess of the Hearth and Home. Ideas of Brighid flowed into Saint Bridget at the dawning of the Christian Era, and back into Brighid as Goddess at the dawning of the Pagan Revival in the early to middle part of the 20th Century.

Affirming Community & Entrainment

“Now since Brighid is, among other things, a Goddess of Inspiration, and since Inspire means both to breathe in and to fill with Spirit, and since we are seeking as Pagans and as members and friends of the Congregation here at 1st Unitarian, to come together in beloved community; I would like us to take a few moments to breath together.in meditation, really becoming aware of your breathing, please, close your eyes and to consider the following”

“Take these deep breaths and feel your muscles relax, let yourself relax and turn your attention simply on your breaths for a few moments. Air and Inspiration and Life Energy flowing into you, and as you breath our you are touching your connection to all life around you.”…

“Breathing in, taking in oxygen and life energy, air fuels our fire.”

“Air connects us with one another and with all of life around us, it fuels our bodies and enlivens our minds and stirs our souls; awareness and control of breath can work wonders in ourselves and through us in the world around us.”

“With breath we can raise power, call Spirit, connect with The Gods, and embrace the Numinous All That Is.”

“Our lives, our actions, all of our works of Spirit, all of our acts of Will, and all Magick begins with a breath.”

“When you feel deeply centered and full of vitality and life energy open your eyes and we will begin…”

The Rite

In ancient times nearly every major rite or festival began with a procession.  Perhaps you were starting out from your farmstead and traveling down the road, meeting up with others along the way.  Perhaps in the cities like Rome or Athens you would start from your home and meat at an appointed spot in the city.  They might be dancers and musicians, there might be stops along the way to gather items or individuals key to the rite, there might have been stops to bath in a river or the ocean… don’t worry we won’t be going to that extreme, but we will be walking from the feast-hall to our altar.  As we do so, remember we are journeying from the every day to the sacred and we are on our way to encounter the Gods and Spirits and to take part in the holy tides of the world.

(Procession makes its way from feast hall to altar circling clockwise around it, and once the procession come to a circle around the altar…)

“We find ourselves, despite the lengthening days, in darkness,
And So…

“Three Candles we kindle,
For the Three Rays of Light that shone forth at the dawning of all days,
Bringing with them Spirit and Inspiration and Illumination,
Bringing forth All Knowledge that ever was, is, or ever will be,
Bringing and shining with that which the Druids call Awen.

Gwron (“goo-RON”): The Knowledge of Awen
Plennydd (“PLEN-nyth”): The Power of Awen
Alawn (“AH-lon”): The Peace of Awen”

~~

We find ourselves,
Gathered together on a Holy Day
Wishing to Honor and Celebrate
The Holy Powers and our Highest Ideals,

And so…

“We cast forth three handfuls of grain,
To the Spirits of the Wide World Around Us,
To Guiding and Guardian Spirits of this Holy Place,
To the Earth, and to all that Supports and Nourishes us.”

‘We pour three offerings of water,
To the Honored and Beloved Dead, without whom we and this congregation could not be,
To the Guiding and Guardian Spirits of This Holy Place,
To the Waters, and to All that Surrounds and Sustains us.”

“We light three offerings of incense,
To The Holy Gods and Goddesses of All of Creation,
To the Guiding and Guardian Spirits of this Holy Place,
To The Air, and to All that Embraces and Inspires us.”

~~

“We find ourselves,
Within the Witness of the Earth, the Sky, and the Sea,
Within the Presence of the Spirits, The Gods, and our Ancestors,
Within the Knowledge and Power and Peace of Awen,

And thus we rekindle our sacred flame
In the light of truth,
And in the warmth of love,
We gather to seek, to sustain, and to share.”

~~
“We are now gathered in beloved community, in sacred community, but there is one more host of Spirits we must acknowledge and attend to before the Rites may move forward. The assembled members of our community are asked to hold hands around the altar while I attend to the Spirits of the Others, The Outsiders, Those who would bring us harm”

“Hear me, oh Outsiders!

You of The Fomorians and Fir Bolg,
You of The Angry and Unquiet Dead,
You of The Spirits bearing Malice and Mischief for the Sons and Daughters of Humankind

So Long as you come bearing
Malice and Mischief and Anger and Hateful ways,

We ask you to keep away from our Friends and Members,
We ask you to keep away from our Sacred Rites,
We ask you to keep away from our Holy Grounds,

In service of our asking,
We make an offering of our Respects and Watchfulness,
We make an offering of Bread and Cream,
We make an offering of Peace between us.

Before departing, please know,
Should you ever be able to set aside,
Malice and Mischief and Anger and Hateful ways,
IF you can set such things aside,
Then we would also make you an offering of Welcome.

Hail and Farewell!”

~~

Now Imbolc is the Feast and Celebration of Brighid, and we will honor Her in due time; however there is a Goddess already amongst us… or rather below and all around us, Whom we will honor first, for without Her and Her blessings, we could not be here to celebrate this Holy Day and the Holy Tides of All Creation without our own beloved local Earth Mother, The Goddes we know as Florida….

“We Call to You oh, Holy Florida.
We Call to a Granddaughter of Gaia, Goddess of the Earth,
We Call to a Daughter of Columbia, Goddess of the Americas
We Call to You oh, Holy Florida, Our Lady of the Feast of Flowers

We Call to You, oh Holy Florida,
Who was born amidst the fertile plains of Pangaea, many millions of years ago,
Who has swum through the oceans, and seen them ebb and flow over ages,
Who is the Earth Mother of this land we live in, and on, and love, in the present day.

We Call to You, oh Holy Florida
Glorious and Enduring, Rain-bathed and Windswept Lady
Green-clad and Flower bejeweled Goddess,
Whose cornucopia, over-flows with food and flowers
Hear us, and Be Here With Us.”

(personal invocation call and responses)

Oh, Holy Florida,
By All Your Names, Known and Unknown, oh Feast of Flowers
By All the Ways in which we have come to know You, oh our own beloved Earth Mother
Hear Us, and Be Here With us, and Be Welcome Here Amongst Us!
…

We Welcome you with Water,
That your thirst may be abated, your aquifers replenished, and
Your bountiful and flowering mantle be renewed!

We Welcome you with Rum,
That you may be warmed, that the killing frosts may flee from You, and,
Your great cornucopia may be ever full!

We Welcome you with open arms and grateful hearts,
¡Hola! , Hail and Well Met, and Blessed Be!
…

And Now we come to the Guest of Honor, Brighid, whose Holy Tide of Imbolc we are gathered here to celebrate. We have rekindled our beloved communities sacred flame, let us now call out together to She Who Is the Sacred Fires…

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Beloved Brilliant Brighid,
Holy High Flying Arrow,
You who was Born at Daylights Dawning

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Delightful Daughter of the Daghda,
Mother of Midwifery
You who Welcomes every child into the World

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Beautiful Bountiful Brighid,
Green Mantled, Spear Wielding,
You who is the Sacred Flame

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Exalted Fire of Inspiration,
Who kindles eloquence and understanding,
Within the hearts and minds of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Transformative Fire of the Forge
Who kindles Craft and Creativity
Within the clever hands of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Invigorating Fire of the Spark of Life,
Who kindles Health and Vitality
Within every indrawn breath of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Mighty Masterstroke of Women!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Best Beloved of All The Immortal Host!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Sweet Sacred Flame of Ireland!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!
(repeated, and after a time, at the sign of the open arms)

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us, and Be Welcome Here Amongst Us!

Exalted One, We Welcome You!

We Welcome You with Flowers
We Welcome You with Milk,
We Welcome You with Blackberry Wine,

We Welcome You With Open Arms and Gratitude,
We Welcome Your Blessings,
The Ever-flowing Tides of Life,
The Happiness of Hearth and Home,
The Gifts of New Beginnings,
The Transformative Fires of Change and Creativity and Renewal

Thank You, Thank You, Ten Thousand Thank Yous!
…

“We find ourselves, and our Beloved Community, Blessed
Within the Witness of the Earth, the Sky, and the Sea,
Within the Presence of the Spirits, The Gods, and our Ancestors,
Within the Knowledge and Power and Peace of Awen,
Blessed by our own Earth Mother Sweet Sacred Florida,
Blessed and Inpired by Brighid.

Let us always carry with us Their Power and Presence and Blessings,
Wherever we may go within the wider world may we carry them in our hearts.
May They be welcome in our Feasting this night,
As They are always welcome in our hearts and hearths,

We extinguish the flame but not the light of truth,
The warmth of community, or the fires of commitment.
These we carry in our hearts until we are together again.

And now let us feast!

Brighid

On By PaxIn Brigid, Imbolc Poetry Blogging2 Comments

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Beloved Brilliant Brighid,
Holy High Flying Arrow,
You who was Born at Daylights Dawning

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Delightful Daughter of the Daghda,
Mother of Midwifery
You who Welcomes every child into the World

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh, Beautiful Bountiful Brighid,
Green Mantled, Spear Wielding,
You who is the Sacred Flame

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Exaulted Fire of Inspiration,
Who kindles eloquence and understanding,
Within the hearts and minds of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Transformative Fire of the Forge
Who kindles Craft and Creativity
Within the clever hands of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Oh Invigorating Fire of the Spark of Life,
Who kindles Health and Vitality
Within every indrawn breath of humankind

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Mighty Masterstroke of Women!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Best Beloved of All The Immortal Host!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!

Sweet Saced Flame of Ireland!

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us!
(repeated, and after a time, at the sign of the open arms)

Hear Us, and Be Here With Us, and Be Welcome Here Amongst Us!

Exalted One, We Welcome You!

We Welcome You with Flowers
We Welcome You with Milk
We Welcome You with Blackberry Wine

We Welcome You With Open Arms and Gratitude,
We Welcome Your Blessings,
The Ever-flowing Tides of Life,
The Happiness of Hearth and Home,
The Gifts of New Beginning,
The Transformative Fires of Change and Creativity and Renewal

Thank You, Thank You, Ten Thousand Thank Yous!

A few Choice Words for the People of Egypt, and their critics…

On By PaxIn Activist Alert, An Important Message..., Religio-AmericanaLeave a comment

Dear People of Egypt, and President Barack Obama

For over 234 years, We of the United States of America have struggled and worked and fought and prayed and agitated and protested for the ideas and ideals and principles and values outlined in our founding documents the Declaration of Independence, the U.S. Constitution, and The Bill of Rights.

They are Aspirational documents. We have not always lived up to their ideals.  We have gone through a lot of pain and toil and even a Civil War, as a people and a nation trying to live up to them, struggling  and striving towards that “more perfect Union”.

I hope and I pray for the most peaceful, and just, resolution to the current protests and turmoil in Egypt.

As a tax paying, voting, U.S. citizen I hope that the United States Government, which is supposed to support and uphold the U.S. Ideals, will find a way to support the People of Egypt in their struggle for true democratic change in their nation.

Thank you,

Geoffrey D. Stewart

(From the U.S. Declaration of Independence)

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.–That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, –That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.

~~~~

(From the U.S. Constitution)

We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,

~~~

So I posted this to my facebook as a note, and tagged, among others. The U.S. President, Vice President, Secretary of State, and the leaders of both Party Caucuses in the Congress….