Queen of Swords

I am very, very pleased to be able to report that I did everything I intended to yesterday to prepare for and carry though on the Beltane instructions I received. I didn't make it to the workshop, but that was only because it was cancelled.

I spent *hours* cleaning my temple room and re-doing my altars, and it was very satisfying.

The observance itself was quite powerful, a combination of affirming and seeking integration with returning parts of myself and burning out things within me that were not of me and not serving me. We started with LM and I journeying to see Freyja, and she took a very active part in what followed. I'm not sure if what I experienced qualified as "aspecting" or not, but I definitely felt her spirit and presence within me, guiding some of my actions. I was still in control, but she was there too. I think it might qualify as the "me in the driver's seat, her in the front passenger seat" model of sharing.

Evidently the working generated some less-than-welcome attention, which I was able to handle with Ereshkigal's help.

The weather is absolutely gorgeous this morning. I need to clean the kitchen, but after that I am definitely going to head out to the island.

I will be cleaning up my "temple room" (which, unfortunately, is not a totally dedicated space) and refreshing my altars.

I will overcome my inertia and introversion and attend an afternoon workshop on looking and feeling sexy.

I will be buying new cloths and candles for my altars.
(And maybe something sexy for myself -- if I can find the right item.)

I will be spending time in ritual with LM and Freyja.

I will be inviting back into my heart and soul pieces of myself that I dishonored and sundered years ago.

What I've been realizing over the past week or so is that it's not enough to intellectually say "I want to take [this] back." It has to go far deeper. My recovery of a part of myself last weekend was enabled by a new intellectual and emotional understanding that cleared away the inner resistance to the reclaiming. Something similar happened last night. It's not enough to want; I have to be truly ready to welcome and cherish these parts of myself on an emotional and soul level.

I rely so much on thinking and reasoning -- and yes, my mind is a powerful and important tool. But sometimes I forget to go beyond my brain.

Blessed and joyous Beltane to all!

I woke up this morning to read that one of my best friends is sitting in a hospital lobby because her husband and father-in-law were in a car accident on the way home from Christmas Eve service. Her father-in-law is facing surgery asap.

Next entry I saw here told about someone's kids possibly having food poisoning.

I got back to yesterday's posts and was reminded that another friend's partner had been hospitalized with migraines.

Last night, my own family's Christmas Eve celebration was cut short because my sister has had the flu and is under incredible stress at work, and she ended up in the bathroom throwing up after dinner, despite having eaten very lightly.

I was up late last night in some distress and afraid that I was about to experience serious signs of food poisoning. Fortunately that turned out not to be the case, but it wasn't much fun.

Y'all be careful out there today, okay. . . . ?

For all that I'm good at abstract thinking, I crave story. Among other things, I crave stories which provide context for understanding. I crave stories that give meaning to action, especially in the area of the spiritual.

For more than a year now, I've been thinking about creating a personal sacred calendar, establishing holidays that are meaningful to me, to provide points of emphasis and celebration in my personal spiritual life, to give me a way to share my beliefs with my daughter, and perhaps to provide opportunities for community. So far, none of this has happened. It's easy enough to write dates on a calendar, but unless I have an emotional connection to a why beyond "it's a good idea" it's not going to happen. I'm not a ritually-oriented person any more than I'm an extroverted social person. If I'm going to make the effort to do something, it has to motivated by more than "should" or "good idea."

One of the realizations I had in the week following the breakthrough mentioned in my previous post is that I always found the Jesus story compelling -- especially as I got older and began to study it as a graduate student and seminarian. I realized then that one of the problems I've had with the 'usual' Pagan holidays is that they are far too generic for me -- and I haven't ever connected the seasonal observances to a more personally compelling story, nor tried to take the stories which do move me and create observances from them in a deliberate manner.

The one exception to this would be the Hades-Perseophone story. That's an Equinox story I can feel and relate to in my blood and guts. And it's about sex and loss and transformation, which are major elements of my path.

If I'm going to create a sacred calendar and use it as the basis for ritual-making and celebration, it will have to be formed from stories which move me. And then I'm going to need to feel free to celebrate on my own terms, not according to an inherited sense of "how it's done."

One of my ideas is to have a minor feast honoring Enheduanna, a priestess of Inanna who is the first writer whose name we know. I want to hold a salon in her honor where people bring and share sacred poetry and literature.

I've spoken with Wolfling about creating a calendar, and need to engage her again. I want to be sure we have a household calendar which includes the powers with whom she works and the cycles which are important to her.

There is something unsettling about being awakened at dawn on Memorial Day by the raucous sounds of a large murder of crows that goes on and on and on. . . .

My apartment windows and balcony open onto a forested area, and it's not unusual for me to be awakened at sunrise by birdsong. This is the first time I've heard crows at dawn. And they've been going at it for almost an hour now.

I went out onto the balcony to try to see what has them all riled up, but they're too far back into the trees.

There's probably a perfectly reasonable mundane explanation for their excitement and noise, but there's a part of me that prefers to think of it as a chorus for the slain.



Remembering all those who gave their lives in the name of something greater than themselves. . . .

This is unseasonal, and some of you may have seen it before, but I can't find it in the entries/tags for this journal, and I've been feeling the urge to post it. Maybe it's because, despite the actual season, I'm feeling like my own life-force has been returning more and more strongly over the past several weeks.


( A mythic episode, with erotic overtones, on the theme of the return of spring and the price some have to pay. )

I'm 43 years old.

You would think that after all this time I would realize just how quickly December follows Thanksgiving. But no. . .

I think that a big part of it is not being part of a Christian community and thus not celebrating Advent, and because of that not having spent the last couple of weeks preparing for the preparation that the season is about.

Some of my Christian friends have been posting about Advent, and it's reminded me that I have no spiritual stake in the season anymore. "Yule" has never been meaningful to me in the way that Christmas was. My current theology and mythology don't include the coming of an avatar, and I have become so accustomed to walking in darkness that even the symbolism of the return of the light/Light doesn't feel particularly meaningful to me.

And yet, I want to observe. I want this to be a holy season again.

Maybe that's what my next journey should be about: finding my own "reason for the season" and/or discovering how the old celebrations can take on new meaning for me.

During last night's meditation I asked Ereshkigal what She would like me to do for Samhain. As has happened a couple of times recently, the first response I got seemed too quick and pat, so I "recalibrated" myself, took more time to relax and focus more deeply inward, and went into a more yin state.

So far, Ereshkigal hasn't been particularly demanding. There are a few things She has made it clear that She wants, especially around the discipline of daily practice, but She's not the type to poke me all the time with "Do this!" and "Do that!" (Maybe because She has a strong interest in watching what decisions I make and poking me to become ever more self-reliant and self-starting?)

Last night, however, I got some extensive and clear instructions about how She would like me to observe Samhain -- and the distinct impression that She wants me to come to Her about every holiday this year.

I'm not sure yet how much I'm going to talk about it -- and I don't have much time this morning as I need to get ready for work. For the moment, I'll just say that the observance is called The Feast of The Bitch Goddess, and it's going to be about honoring and empowering those aspects of Her and myself. I'll also be observing a celebration of her hieros gamos with Nergal -- something I haven't done before.

I'm really looking forward to it.

Dear Friends List:

In your experience, is the veil between the worlds thinner around Samhain?