Living the Path of Mist

Yesterday was Brighid’s feast day; unfortunately, due to coming down with the flu, it didn’t quite go as planned.

On Saturday I picked up all the ingredients for the lamb stew I intended to make on Sunday, as the recipe says that it’s even better the next day. Sunday was going to be a busy day, but I had made time to make the stew. Unfortunately, I had to wait until after our new dishwasher was installed, and he didn’t end up coming until the end of the possible time window, and it took longer than normal because we had such old hookups. I was feeling run down and tired afterward, so I decided I would just make the stew on Monday, the actual feast day.

Until I woke up feeling like I’d been hit by a truck and backed over a few times. I spent most of the day sleeping, though I did get some writing and plotting done. I still feel sick, so I won’t be cooking today, either- I don’t want to risk getting anyone else sick, since several people volunteered to try the stew (brave, brave souls.)

Yesterday morning started my year-long commitment to keep Brighid’s flame every day; I made a mini-shrine on my desk for her. It’s on a Guinness tray, which I thought would amuse her, and I have three candles on it- one for my daily flame, one for my TC cill shift, and one for when I actively do her work. I have one of my favorite pens on it for when I write, as well as the beautiful cross/brat that Finn crocheted for me for the TC cill swap. (I still have to get Mattie’s back in the mail- it was returned to me the first time, and then I wanted to leave it out for Imbolc for her, and now I’m too sick to get up the stairs without a lot of effort, much less getting to the post office.)

As soon as I’m feeling better I will make the stew, and hopefully she will understand why it’s late!

I hope everyone that celebrates it had a lovely Imbolc!

Juni // Kat

Between Finn’s comments on my last post, and Darkhawk’s comment on the LJ crosspost, I think I may have figured out a) why this decision is coming up and b) a third option.

I think Darkhawk made an important distinction; keeping the flame at Brighid’s home- be it a monastery, retreat, temple, whatever- is priest work, but keeping it at my own might not be. It can be, if I choose to make it, but it isn’t inherent. After all, the only priestess of Brighid that I know at TC’s Cill is Mattie, who keeps every night anyway; there are others who keep every night and aren’t priests, and there are many more who only keep on their shifts and aren’t priests either.

As I said to Finn in a comment, I think this is a kick in the pants. I have let my keeping become my only real avenue to Brighid, and I pay less attention to it than I used to. I fulfill my duty, but I do not make an effort to go above or beyond it. So, the two options I was thinking of (becoming a priestess, or leaving the cill) are a way to strengthen my commitment to her- either make a more formal dedication or find a new route to her.

I had a dream last night that both solidified in my mind that this is a necessary action to take, and gave me a third option (along with other things): make a commitment to keep every night for a year. So from Brighid’s Feast this year (which falls on Imbolc, actually) to her feast next year (which will fall on Feb. 7th) I will keep every night. I woke up with an idea for a small shrine just for her on my desk (which is where I spend most of my time) and dedicating a ring to cill work, to be worn when I cannot keep a physical flame, as jewelry is my best method of mobile mindfulness.

I’m both relieved at this decision- because as soon as I woke, I knew that this was what I was going to do- but also really nervous. There is a churning in my gut, because I know it’s going to be hard, and I am generally one who takes the easy way out, but also because I know that I need to do this.

I feel like I was going to say something else, but the mind has gone empty for the moment.

Juni // Kat

I am not a priestess. I never have been; I have always considered myself laity. Some would argue that of course I am a priestess, as I do the work of my gods, but to me that is simply being a follower, a worshiper, a devotee, a myriad of other possible names. A priest is a butler in the house of a god. It’s the reason, I think, that formal daily ritual does not work for me. I say my quick round of prayers in the morning, and each day is loosely and casually dedicated to a particular deity (or spirit or dead), but there is no ritual. (I don’t consider lighting candles or burning incense ritual offering when they aren’t accompanied by ritual purity and some kind of hymn or prayer; mindfulness does not, to me, ritual make.)

I am currently only a member of TC’s Brighidine Cill; I used to be a member of two others, but one I never quite felt welcomed by, and the other went defunct as far as I can tell. We just celebrated our 3rd anniversary, and I’ve been there from the beginning. I’m one of the SIG leaders, and I really enjoy my time there. But lately I’ve been getting a nagging thought in the back of my head, that keeping her flame is the duty of a priestess. And while I am hers, I am not her priestess.

So this leaves me with two options: become her priestess, or stop Keeping. I don’t like either one, really, but I have yet to think of a third alternative. I’m not going to make a decision right now- it’ll probably be a few months- but it’s nagging the crap out of me at the moment, so I figured I’d get it off my chest.

In other news, I redid my daily cycle yet again. I didn’t like the order in practice, and the Quiet Day wasn’t working for Persephone, and when I incorporated another Hero, well, I decided to give it another try. It’s now a 21 day cycle, which means that my days for Brighid will no longer match up with my cill shift, but that’s okay. This time, instead of playing with ancient associations mixed with UPG, I went with all UPG. The first fourteen days are the Gods’; each of my Many has their own day, in the order that they came into my life, and then one for Persephone (just for this calendar year, I expect) and then one for each of the pantheons. The next four are the Spirits’, in order of personal importance; the last three are the Dead’s, in the order they entered my life. We’ll see how this one works.

I’m in the slow process of restringing my prayer beads. I snagged them on something and broke them a little while back, and decided to hold off on restringing them until I figured out how to not get extra space between the beads over time. My mother solved it for me: a premade bracelet from Joann’s with a magnetic closure, so I don’t have to worry about the beads coming off because I didn’t clamp the bead on the wire tight enough, or whatever. The only problem is that the premade bracelet is a lot thicker than the holes in the beads, so I had to buy a bead reamer to make them bigger. It’s working, but slowly.

I’ve also been working out the details for my altar/shrine. I haven’t made any progress in cleaning or rearranging, but I have figured out that I was trying to force my shrine to be both an altar and a shrine, and they’re supposed to be separate spaces. So I have an altar planned, and then a shrine for the Gods, another for the Spirits, and another for the Dead (though those last two will likely be combined for space).

In blog news, I’ve added a few comment-related plugins; you can now reply to specific comments (which I’ve been meaning to add for months and kept forgetting), you can subscribe to comments pretty easily, and you can use CommentLuv to add a link back to your most recent blog post at the end of your comment here.

I think that’s all the stuff worth sharing, for now!

Juni // Kat

The title of this post is the title of a post on another blog, that may have answered the question for me: why Persephone? I’ve been wondering what this fosterage means, what it is for, what exactly I am supposed to learn from her. I do not know her very well, but all of the things that fall under her domain seemed to me to be also under the domain of the other gods of my Many. I do not presume to think that there is nothing I can learn from a god, but I was left wondering what precisely she was supposed to teach me that the others could not or would not?

And then I stumbled upon this post and I felt a bright dawning realization in the back of my mind. As though a voice were saying “Are you happy now?”. It’s not about her domain. It’s about her. She stepped out of the shadow of her mother and fulfilled the potential that was being wasted. She grew up- she is no longer the maiden picking flowers in a field with nymphs; she is the Queen of Death. She found her role, and she not only fulfilled it but she embraced it.

I have potential. I don’t know how much, really; I think I’m probably the last person that could say. But I do have a role in this world: what it is, I don’t know, and as I don’t think some Hades-figure is going to drag me off and show it to me, I’m going to have to just work and be aware and open. It’s time for me to grow up.

Juni // Kat

I expect any readers must really be getting tired of me by now; I can’t seem to shut up this month! But I think this is a good thing, for me. There are a handful of different thoughts in my head right now, so I’ll do my best to be coherent.

There’s a thread going on over at TC about syncretic religions; I read it a couple of times and debated whether or not I ought to post (I eventually did.) I am doing a Greco-Celtic-Egyptian thing here, but is it syncretic eclecticism, or is it just plain eclectic? I’ve never really thought about it before. I am inclined, at the moment, to go with syncretic eclectic, because I am drawing from a finite and defined number of sources, whereas most purely eclectic practitioners I come across draw from a large and undefined number of sources. Which is certainly not a bad thing- I’m of the belief that if it works, it works. But since I’m only drawing from three cultures- who all had some contact with each other historically, though at varying levels- I’m inclined towards syncretic. Maybe others won’t agree; it doesn’t bother me either way.

But before I came to that conclusion, I decided to reread Darkhawk’s essay On Eclecticism over at TC. I’ve read it before, but it’s been a while, and I had some lightbulb moments. I found my primary motivations for the Path of Mist listed at the bottom of her reasons list: “I don’t know, man, I didn’t do it” and “Pure Synthesis”. There’s also a touch of “Layers and Overlays” in there- I do have a Discordian bent on things, though I don’t really talk about it- but it’s not really motivation as just something else that’s there. I also pinpointed what I think some of my weaknesses are from her weakness list: “Shallowness”, “Personal limitation”, “Transmissibility and generalisation” and “Ritual meaning is hard”. I think the shallowness is purely because I’m at the beginning; I certainly have no desire to be shallow or uninformed, but until I can absorb info through my fingertips it’s going to take some time. I initially thought that “Clarity of thought” might be on my weak list too, but I’m actively trying to articulate the why’s, so I think I’m okay on that front. I think that this was the first time that I’ve read this article and actually mentally applied it to what I’m doing.

Anyway- I had my lightbulb moment down in the reasons list: fostering. I thought to myself, I wonder if this whole Persephone thing is a fostering thing; she’s been heavy on the brain as of late, but I know in my gut that she is not one of my Many (to borrow a term from, err… I don’t recall, actually. But someone.) And the mental lightbulb flicked on. While there is a small sense of relief/accomplishment, that one question is answered at least, it brings up another: why right now, of all times? I feel like the timing is important; whatever I learn from her is something I need to learn now, and maybe if I wait I won’t learn everything I’m supposed to, or it won’t have the appropriate impact, or something. It may not be true, but I’m going to run with it unless I’m told otherwise. So my Quiet Day of the cycle is now hers, for however long she wants it.

Today is An Dagda’s day; I found a pdf file, The Names of the Dagda, which was interesting. I had heard the story of An Dagda and the daughter of Indech before, but I had never come across the version where he lists his name, and makes her repeat them, before he carries her on his back. It’s interesting to see the thunder and lightning associations in an etymological sense; before I had heard them offered simply due to his association with the oak tree and being the All-Father, and it hadn’t particularly convinced me. But the pdf made me rethink some things. I’ve been doing some free-writing on him, as well, to try and get everything I know about him in one place; I intend to type it up and save it, to build off of during the next cycle. I’m also thinking about doing a modern short story involving him, in the vein of Marilyn’s amazing piece The Washer at the Laundromat. Sort of modern myth, and an exercise to get to know him a little better. I think my focus will be his cauldron of plenty, which leaves no one unsatisfied, but will not serve a coward or an oath-breaker; possibly set in a soup kitchen. I may even start working on it today, if I get all of my schoolwork accomplished and still have some energy.

I think that is likely all of the coherent thoughts I have at the moment! That are worth putting to paper (so to speak) anyway.

Juni // Kat