Month 3, Week 4, Sun Path Reflections

"For this month's final reflection, craft a Druid ritual and celebrate it.  [snip]  After participating in the ritual celebration, write a brief (500 words or less) essay on what this was like for you. Focus on the following questions:
-Was this your first celebration of a High Day?
-If you have attended other Pagan celebrations, how was this similar?
-How was this different?
-What will celebrating the High Days add to your growth in body, mind, emotion and spirit?"

As the seidbearer of my kinsmen, I keep our calendar and write our rites.  Aside from those I share for the benefit of my true friends, I engage many private moments, sacred rites both on high tides and low, and at times noteworthy to myself.

The first days of Yule was in a Yurt at Yargo.  There, the winds howled a constant 17mph with gusts up to 20.  Eighty foot trees bent to touch earth, waves crashed against shore, as clouds rushed overhead in fury, and I - laden with winter's cold - walked the darkened paths with staff in hand.

As so many times before, as I strove along the woodland path into the eponymous wind, my steps took up the cadence and my voice whispered:

I have and will know thee, Unknown One.

You who plumbs the depths of my soul,

And blows like this storm to unroot that

Which has no root.

I have and will know thee, Chaser of Clouds.

You who sweeps the skies and my being.

We are first-fruits you and I,

That inner eye that stairs back at me.

I have and will know thee, Lover of Solitude.

You who is the burning ember of my heart,

You who none who look for shall find,

Ungraspable yet my kinsman.

Such moments I do not share with others for this is an intimate relationship.


Arriving at a place as invited without foreknowledge, I stepped to where waves drove against stone and wind cut my cold ridden body bitterly.  Yet, shelter was far from mind as I struggled with cold fingers to draw the runes that already begged to be released. 

Freeing them, they tumbled to earth and pulled the wind and water, gray chill and bitter cold to them, so that all became still.  In silence I looked upon them as orange-red flame colored their edges, their warmth rising to my being as a bird's soft trill filled the now calm.

Leaf of Great Tree

Trial by Fire

Pleasure of Will

Visions filled mind with each; meaning from decades of experience and contemplative knowing - the fierce stillness and meditative madness - as currents gathered, undulating, entwining, jostling about as, watching, their meaning wove before where I stood.

No words can convey the ineffable; and its impact, ever an undercurrent, becomes constant companion. 

Then the eye's calm was burst.  Harsh winds exploded into what was once warm stillness.  Bird's claws locked about branch as trees bent low about me.  Retrieving the runes from water's lap, their edges still warm, I returned them to their pouch and felt again body's frailty.  Walking the way I came, another song came to me:

And the trees awoke and knew him,

The wild things gather to him,

As he sang amongst the broken glen,

His music manifold ..

  

Month 3, Week 3 Sun Path Meditations, and Reflections

The Meditation aspect here is that of: Petition, Vigil, Omens and Interpretation.  The Reflections portion has three questions.

What was this process like for you?

**Turning the Inside Out.

What did you learn about yourself in the process?

**What I truly am.

In what ways do you hope that your God/Goddess will help you grow in mind, body, emotion, and spirit?

**All is reciprocity ..

Month 3, Week 2, Reflections on Sun Path Celebrations

Was this framework helpful to you in understanding Druid celebrations? How?

**Yes, because it outlines a template within the BMDO.

Which elements would you be most likely to include in your ritual practice? Why?

**When leading a rite for a group, I use many of these elements.  I use them based on my research of PIE and IE rites.  However, my personal rites are far removed from this template.

Which elements, if any, would you probably not use? Why?

**I do not "dismiss" (or necessarily "invoke") the quarters so much as indicate my readiness to receive a particular energy at that moment.

Month 3, Week 1, Sun Path Foundations

What energies would you like to call into your life?

**The same ones I have been naturally inclined towards for several decades: wild woods, animals and plants, strong women, female warriors, and healing.

Which Gods and Goddesses offer those energies?

**Medb and Flidais.

Did you select a Patron God or a Matron Goddess?

**No.

What in particular attracted you to him/her?

**My energies resonate with their energies.

Month 2, Week 4, Earth Path Reflections

This lesson is a series of questions which - from personal experience - are based on bioregional questionnaires.  Where does your drinking water come from? **The Hard Labor Creek Regional Reservoir.  The water here is heavily chlorinated and fluoridated.  I buy reverse osmosis water (kept in three, five gallon jugs). Where do you get most of your food? **Two local farmer’s markets (year round), and two grocery stores.  At the grocer I try to choose local produce first, then that grown in States close to my own. How far is it shipped to your local market? **The farmer’s markets are no more than 20 miles from where I live.  At the grocer I try not to purchase items further than NC, FL and AL. Are there alternative local options for your food? **Yes. Where do your clothes come from? **Mostly thrift stores.  Otherwise, I favor organic cotton and linen fabrics grown and sewn in the USA. Are your clothes made of natural or synthetic fibers? **Mostly natural, with a mix of synthetic. Think about the home in which you live. Are there any changes you could make to reduce your home's  carbon footprint'? **Yes, and it is an ever ongoing endeavor. How many other ways can you live more ecologically and more sustainably? **In every house we have ever lived in, we had a garden.  Not this one.  It is 1 acre, heavily wooded, creek on two sides, and a minimal sun spot.  I miss my garden. Are there any environmental groups in your area?  If so, how could you become involved?  If not, what would it take to start one (it could be as simple as planting trees once a year)? **Several.  However, I choose to be individually proactive.

Month 2, Week 3, Earth Path Meditations

This lesson is mostly commentary and observation, and though there are two assigned questions, there are also two musings and an additional question I would like to address.

Musing 1-Yet I wonder what we may have sacrificed when we retreated from the forests and fields and into our air-conditioned fortresses?

**I think we sacrificed our Being Animal.  We separated the reality that we are creatures of e/Earth.  Today we live without looking at the stars, and so have lost the Great Dance of Heaven and how He affects Her Great Dance.

We no longer feel Her pulse through our soles/soul, no longer feel Her rivers coursing through our veins, no longer tremble to the drumbeat of thunder, no longer know the song of frogs or the language of birds.  We have become human and in so doing forgot Being Animal.

Musing 2-If we could make a paradigm shift to a lifestyle that makes room for nature, what would that do to our sense of wellbeing?

**I think a paradigm shift is precisely what one needs to live in accord to Nature.  I do not see any accord without questioning preconceived assumptions – which are but ‘layers’ that have been laid upon our understanding. 

For virtually every action we take we must ask: “Why did I do that?  Why did I choose this route?  Where did that idea come from?  Is that how I really wanted to act / express myself?”

Many feel remorse or regret at saying and doing things, ruminating for days, months and years over woulda’, shoulda’, coulda’.  Far better to plumb one’s depths for how to act rather than be in a situation where one has to re-act.  Best to know your own mind than that of another.

Question:  Make mental notes on how you experience meditation indoors vs. how you experience meditation outdoors. Is there a difference?

**A few decades back, while meditating indoors, I perceived the wall in front of me as being torn asunder – from roof to foundation.  I then found myself peering into a vast forest with primordial trees, accosted by new scents and sounds so profound that when I rose from my meditation, some six hours had passed.  In short, I no longer let walls confine me, though prefer, at every turn, to mediate outside. 

Assigned questions:

1-In what ways does the experience of nature change your mental and emotional states?

**Nature is my home.  Or at least, when in nature I feel ‘at home’ .. more relaxed, calm, centered, focused, at ease.  Nature is my natural state of being.

2-When you are in a natural environment, what changes do you notice in your mind?  In your body?  In your spirit?  In your emotions?

**Not so much ‘changes’ as ‘release’ of conditions of being that have subtly accumulated over the course of daily dealings.  For example, the body becomes more relaxed (akin to when doing Hatha Yoga); the emotions, like ripples on water, became still; and the spirit finds its natural home.