Witch or Druid?

You may remember my points from a recent post about what's working me now.  I'm working with a seminary that is unabashedly (and even beautifully) Wiccan. Whole-heartedly Wiccan, from the ritual style to theology to areas of interest (forms of healing humans, herbs, chakras, etc). I love them for being so Wiccan because nowadays it can be hard.

Because Wicca has been one of the more visible traditions (even accused of having privilege!), it's also been one that's often denigrated, sometimes rightfully and sometimes from a place of something kind of ugly. It can be difficult, for example, to go into traditions that value scholarship - sharp, supported scholarship - and claim my Wiccan past. If I do claim it, I am expected almost immediately to discount it. If I don't, then my own scholarship and ability to be discerning is sometimes called into question.

What I'm concerned about lately is whether I have any business representing myself as Wiccan clergy, particularly with the ATC. Why? Because I diverge pretty strongly on my theology of divinity. I moved away from the All, from the Lord and Lady as facets, or interchangeable parts, quite awhile back. And stepping back in has been both familiar and uncomfortable. Familiar because it's a form I know, language that was part of my early spiritual growth. For me, it was the first step away from a monotheistic model of the divine. Uncomfortable because it no longer fits how I experience the divine, and yet it is truly central to Wicca, and particularly to Wicca that is strongly influenced by British Traditional Wicca. How do I honestly teach a class without owning that my own definition of the gods has changed, and the Lord and Lady and the attendant term Consort no longer really work for me.

I also have a problem with the concept of polarity as it is currently discussed. It's not enough to say "Oh, we don't actually mean gender identity" when we use the words masculine and feminine. Those terms are inherently laden with gender assumption. If we truly wanted to explain polarity and take it away from male/female and into a place of gender-neutral discussion, we could. But there's a lot of traditional gender roles woven into the fabric of Wicca. That's not a value statement, it just seems to be something that is and it's not really working for me. In fact, it's always been something that doesn't make sense to me. If we all embody both aspects of polarity (which is a very dualistic perspective, by the by), then why does gender (either identity or cis) enter into the equation? Because it's a fertility ritual? Even in nature gender can be fluid. So the male-to-female or female-to-male components of so many rituals feels a bit contrived and illogical.

And I'm missing the stronger tie to the Earth, to the Mother. While healing people is a fine and weighty thing, I find myself wanting to focus on the Earth, to tie my practice to that. And this is where the Druids come in.

I have always loved the elements of scholarship in ADF. The training is pretty great, and even more so, I imagine, if a person is lucky enough to have a grove nearby. Given my draw to the Irish pantheon, and ADF's room for a broader expression of the divine, it's a great home for me in the very same theological sense that can make me feel out of place with my traditional Wiccan peers. But the balance here shifts towards the dogmatic, and this is the place where it can be a challenge to speak about having a Wiccan background without a lot of assumptions being made.

Druidry and BTW (British Traditional Wicca) share a lot of ritual traits in terms of liturgy. It's more about ritual theater than it is about experiential ritual. While I reserve space for ritual theater, I prefer it to be balanced with ritual that invites me to participate, and moreover, with ritual that allows me to have my own experience through careful use of language and ritual components. So both leave me a little cold in this area, but it feels as though this could be more about needing to spend more time with groups in the flesh, rather than online.

As I'm writing this, I'm thinking it's something I should share with the folks I'm working with at the seminary. And I'm thinking I am probably missing some blinding thing here. I spent a fair amount of time eschewing labels, and I still get that, but ultimately found that what happened is that I just fell away from everyone, away from communities. That's not what I want.

And a third thing to throw in - I am really enjoying my UU interactions. I'm sure the fact that it's in person has a great deal to do with that. I keep hearing there are Pagans there. I'm waiting to meet them. I'm thinking maybe I need to do something to make it so. Certainly in a prior "life" I did a lot of that kind of work and I loved it. Maybe just a discussion group. Gods know I could certainly come up with topics... and facilitate the hell out of them. Because I got THAT out of college if nothing else.

Wuv... Twu Wuv...

For Beltaine, I had to write a short response to love and fertility deities and mythologies. In particular, I was supposed to contrast them with the Adonis myth. I was kind of surprised by what I came up with.

Youth, lust, possession, lack of consent, immaturity, impatience… all things that seem to function in most Western myths related to deities who are considered to be love and fertility deities. Doing the light research for this assignment, that was the first thing I thought (and this may well be related to my own age and position in life vs. watching my newly-minted adult daughter navigate her own relationship waters). The question I had? Why is it always about possession and jealousy and sex? Does sex have to be about possession and jealousy?

As an experienced adult, I think the answer is no. Does sex = love? Nope, that doesn't follow either. In fact, what I see in a lot of these myths are the strains of heterosexual monogamous relationship models where being in a relationship implies some kind of ownership of one’s partner. What I’m interested in knowing is whether this is because we’re retelling them through the society of today, or whether these things have been related since time immemorial. Most people would say that the latter is true, but I’d be interested in some data to back that up.

When I was young, I might have believed these myths were great models for relationships. Now I feel like perhaps they could be great models for what NOT to do in a relationship, whether it be romantic or not. Where’s the love/fertility deity who models great communication skills, compassion, patience, boundaries and consent? Do those things have to be separate from love and fertility? I sure hope not.

If I take a different perspective on fertility - if I take it into the realm of other ways of creating, like writing, art, visioning and one’s own work - that shifts things to some extent, but still… these stories still bring up questions for me around obsession and balance, communication and true devotion and love. How do we act on passion without destroying boundaries? And how do we sustain relationships past the point of conception?

I’m not sure I’m providing much in the ways of answers here, but these have been the questions I’m sitting with as I think about how in mythology, one must dig deeper to find narratives about love and fertility that aren’t deeply entwined with jealousy and “taking” a person (in many ways perpetuating rape culture - yeah, I said it. I went there).  Some of them could stand a good re-telling.

Tell me... what love/fertility myths are the exception to this? Why the conflation of love and lust? Do you think they're the same?

two months? really?

Time gets away if you let it. I've been meaning to get to this blog and post for about two months. In April I attended the Spring Mysteries Festival up in Washington. I've been officially admitted as a graduate student at Woolston Steen Theological Seminary and begin my graduate work in a few short weeks.

I've kind of had my spiritual world rocked, not by mind-blowing newness, but by revelations about my own path that I really should be writing about so as to process. It's that spiral process that we talk about at WSTS - it's the labyrinth walk. Every trek around the center brings a different perspective.

Yet I find that when things are REALLY hard, and I don't have the clarity that brings comfort, I have difficulty writing. I have difficulty exposing the vulnerability. And really, I didn't expect to be wrestling again so soon with imposter syndrome (thanks grad school...), but so I am. I haven't written because I don't even know where to start. There's so much that's good, and so much that's challenging me, and so much that's driving me a little nuts - just so much. Added to that is mundane life, which is also so much in much the same ways. I'm long past overwhelmed.

And still...

I want to talk about the experiences at the seminary and at festival. I want to talk about being called by Mannanan mac Lir. I want to check in to see if I've actually been the priestess I thought I was, or if it was all ego. I want to feel anchored to a shared reality, to feel a little less liminal. Or... to feel a little more at peace with being so liminal.

I miss people who live close, who I can invite over for a glass of wine or a cup of coffee. I miss face-to-face conversation, connection and opportunity to talk through this stuff with someone who knows me and who knows my past story. The problem is that the people who fit that profile are scattered across the country. I can't afford to fly them all here, but I truly wish I could. I would love to sit in a circle of my spiritual brothers and sisters and feel heard... and also to listen to what's going on with them. And by listen, I mean to truly open to understand beyond the blips and bits offered by Facebook. That's such a fragmented view.

And also, I find I wish to connect more deeply with some of my newfound friends, but I'm struggling with feeling all the social anxiety that is so familiar. Most of them are several hours away (and more). Skype and SecondLife are great, but for me, they're not the same as real connection. I think they can be an extension of that, a way to maintain it, but I find it difficult to build that connection strictly online. It's awkward when I can't read someone's  body language and hear the nuance of voice inflection. I guess I rely on that more than I knew.

So I came here today to read someone else's blog, but ended up with an open box in front of me. This is what came of that. I'm pretty sure that everyone who reads this is someone who knows me for real, so tell me - what do you want to know? What do you want to read more about? And what do you most want me to know about what's happening in your world?

Seminary and Community

It's been about five weeks since I decided to take the plunge and check out Woolston-Steen Theological Seminary. And while I wasn't exactly working on a whim, I wasn't sure what to expect. Regular readers will know I was coming out of a period of intense questioning and feeling lost. And while I chose them for their connection with the Aquarian Tabernacle Church, which is nearby, I wasn't sure how I felt about the primary location for the seminary being in SecondLife, a virtual realm.

Could learning really happen there, or would it be like a chaotic chatroom with avatars? What about ritual? Would it feel like ritual if I weren't physically experiencing it? And while I know that real community can be built online, would it really help me feel supported, and maybe help me find my way further out of the darkness I've been inhabiting? Would I end up with the same lost feeling I've been experiencing so intensely these last few months?

Well. Let me say... yes, yes, yes, and no. I haven't felt so like I made the right spiritual choice since I found Diana's Grove back in 2000.

I've wanted to write about this for weeks now, and even posted a few teasers on FB. But there's so much to say, and I feel such a jumble of things (good things) that putting it out in an orderly fashion is a challenge. But here are some highlights:

• The process of applying and then speaking with people about my spiritual curriculum vitae put me back in touch with many of the women I've shared spiritual space with in the past. That has been an amazing experience of reconnection and love in and of itself. I hadn't necessarily lost touch with them, but communication hadn't been active. It is now. And that's a good thing.
• Writing up that CV reminded me just how much work I've done, how important priestessing is, and how I've been doing it anyway in my current position, without really meaning to. When I remembered and got more intentional, things shifted in a very real, very positive way.
• Because of the SecondLife component, I'm having a noob experience which is a humbling and awesome reminder of how the people I work with on a daily basis often feel when they come back to school.
• The classes (and thus far, I've only experienced first year classes) have far exceeded my expectations. This is the real deal, the teachers are professionals and the work the seminary is doing is amazing, needed and GOOD work.
• I'm in the process of applying to the graduate program at WSTS. I have also put forth that I would really love to use my professional knowledge and experience to help the seminary, and I'm looking forward to seeing that come to fruition.
• For the first time in a very long time, I'm starting to feel like I'm becoming part of a larger community. I am really looking forward to visiting Washington next month, when I will have a chance to physically meet many people I've only met virtually to date.
• I'm embarking on a second initiatory journey as well, and I think I'm getting a sense of who it will be with. It involves a return to my Celtic roots AND the occasional visit to Missouri, a state that hosted a huge amount of spiritual and personal growth for me, a state that is still to this day represented on my personal altar.
• I am back in the process of regular spiritual practice, and I'm sharing it with my daughter. It is a beautiful thing.

And there's so much more, but this is a quick update, and one I'm happy to share.

I am grateful, deeply grateful, to all the twists and turns that have brought me to here. The journey of this life is truly a rich and magickal one. I am grateful for each of you reading this, and for those who don't read but have still in some way deeply touched my spiritual experience.

I'm looking forward to more writing here, more active reflection on what I'm doing. I expect this will especially happen if/when I get accepted into the graduate program and certainly when I start my initiatory work. I hope my spiritual brothers and sisters will continue to follow along with me here, to engage in conversation and my spiritual life, even if it's from a distance.

imbolc 2014

My ritual and working will be a bit late, but I laid the foundation for it last night and this morning.

Imbolc has always been a special holy day for me, given my calling to Brighid many years ago, given that I gave Jasmine over to her Fire with a prayer I wrote, given that it was my first real ritual experience with a hps. It's fitting, then, that this return I'm having would start with Imbolc.

Yesterday my new Brighid statue arrived from Sacred Source. It's the same image of Brighid that we regularly connected with in Central Illinois, and the one you can see in Nina's dedication photo. I left that particular statue with Prairie Fire when I left Illinois, and while I don't regret that decision in the slightest, I have missed the connection. Seems fitting too that I would again feel a connection like this with a deity who straddles the mythos of Ireland and Christ, given where I am with that right now.

This year's working will involve goals, the planting of herb seeds and a tarot focus. I ordered the seeds this morning after choosing them carefully to support my prayers. We have a lovely mud room/entry way with many windows and abundant shelf space; this will become the home for these seeds once they arrive and I plant them. I will include cards with my prayer, votives and the tarot focus for each as I tend them. I'm looking forward to a year of manifesting many things, not the least of which is a renewal of my spiritual life.