Spirituality

I've been going through a cold spell lately. I've felt somewhat resistant about participating in anything spiritual.

Spirituality is new to me. When I was younger, I tried very hard to make myself have faith and believe that there was a God. My older sister, married and with children of her own, would take me to her Southern Baptist church and I would cry and cry. My sister said that I cried because I had not accepted the Lord as my savior. I didn't have the guts to tell her that the real reason I cried was because I didn't believe. I looked around all these people during the service, their faces radiating joy, their faith palpable, and I felt nothing. I envied them.

It's called faith for a reason. Either you have it or you don't. I wondered if I could fake it until I make it? I tried, it didn't really work.

When I first fell into Paganism, I had a lot of issues with the Gods and Goddess part of the faith, but as Cunningham said,

"Any and all religions are real, to their practitioner. Each of us must find our ideal way to attune with Deity."

and

"We don't bow down to them [the Goddess and God], we work with them to create a better world."

I like the idea of working along side the Goddess and God to manipulate energy and bring on the changes we want in our life. To me, this is a lot easier for me to accept...to believe. Slowly, bit by bit, my faith in higher powers has grown. I've worked to add more ritual to my life. My daughter is also inserting herself. I don't force it on her, I don't even ask her to participate, she sees me light a candle and meditate or pray over it and she asks if she can also pray. Then I explain to her why we are doing the ritual and what the candle represents. In the end, it was her interest that brought on the cold spell.

It scares and thrills me that she is interested in Paganism and would probably be a better Pagan than I ever will be. I always said that I'd let my kids chose what religion they wanted to participate in, if any, and she had been exposed to Christianity and said that she wasn't interested in returning after going to Sunday School and services for about 3 months. But with Paganism, she is hungry to learn more, she asks me questions, and I fear that I am putting her on the path for rejection by her peers.

She already thinks differently. She stands out among her peers as a bit "different". She isn't a sheep. This is good and bad. She is going to have to have the fortitude to stand up for what she believes in (and I don't mean spiritually but with everything). I had to take some time to come to terms with this.

That time is up. I miss my ritual, I miss meditating, I miss working alongside the Goddess and God. I pulled out a couple of 7 day candles last night after she had gone to bed. You should have seen her eyes light up when she spotted them this morning. She immediately ran to them, closed her eyes, and said a little prayer or as she put it, made a wish, a small smile on her face.

Anyways, I wanted to post a few quotes from Cunningham about Deities. I know that a lot of people don't like Cunningham, which I don't understand why, of all of the 101 books I've read, his is the best.

Supermoon Esbat Experience

My friend, J, and I attempted our first ritual together. We've been discussing it for months but have yet to actually do something. We were both nervous, for different reasons. I think if I had to explain it I would say that she is more spiritual in her path and I am more into ritual. Not that one is better than the other. That's the beauty of Paganism, to each their own.

So, we're coming at this from different perspectives, which in theory should work together. She should be comfortable in invoking the Goddess and I should feel comfortable setting up the altar and casting the circle.

It didn't quite work out that way. The sage threatened to set off the smoke detector, my hands and voice shook while casting the circle, we stumbled over the words while invoking the Goddess, and I spilled the wine during the offering.

But it wasn't horrible. Not in the slightest. We are both big energy producers. We held hands and played with that a little bit. I may have pushed too much as she ended up tingly and sweaty. Then we did visualization for our "wish." We ate homemade bread and drank wine, and made the offering to the Goddess.

Once it was over, we giggled at the mishaps while bagging up the candles we burned (so I could bury them under the pear tree in my backyard) and then she noticed it. The white candle. The one that was the "Goddess" candle. The one that we carved moon symbols into...the wax had melted off to one side and seemed to have hardened into a likeness of a Goddess or a woman. I didn't bury the candles until the next morning and I had another look at our white candle, the Goddess was there and was beautiful. I wanted to take a picture of it as proof that we were not seeing things but that didn't seem right. This was something sacred between me, J, and the Goddess and that was how it would stay.

Call us crazy. Go ahead. But I'm not one to see things that aren't there. We frequently get worked up over people that think they see faces where it's only matrixing (the brains natural tendency to see faces). We are careful about making such assumptions, but there she was plain as day. Letting us know that she was there for us and listening to our wishes, our prayers.

Let me reiterate, I'm not very spiritual, but this? This changed something deep inside of me.

Astral Projection?

Last week, on the day of the full moon, I attended drum circle. I hadn't been in quite some time and was craving the feeling of the energy draw. The amount of energy I can draw during a drum circle seems to be more than what the average person writes about online or talks about at circle. I try to bring it up, delicately, during circle. I don't want to look like a freak of nature and I don't want it to seem like I'm bragging either.

We pass the sage around, to get rid of the negative and then start drumming...a steady beat. My eyes close and almost immediately I am floating in black. That's how it always is. I'm floating in blackness, my ankle feels like it tethered to something (probably my physical body!) and I just bob around like a balloon on a string.

Now I should mention here that I don't have a lot of experience with astral travel. I haven't even really read up on it all that much. I'm just going with the flow here, working on pure instinct, which is how I roll a good deal of the time. I'm in the black and I wonder to myself, "self, I wonder would happen if I swam up? What would happen if I stretched this cord tethering me to my body?" I push upwards, kicking my legs, as if I'm at the bottom of the pool or the ocean and I'm trying to break the surface. As I get closer I can see light and then a shadow crosses overhead. My first thought is that it's a turtle but as I break the surface I realize it's birds flying low over the water.

I climb from the water and see that it was a creek...but wait it isn't me. It's as if I'm watching a movie. I'm there but I'm watching a girl. A Native American girl, long flowing black hair, which she wrings the water from before she takes off at a run. It's near dusk and growing dark quickly under the cover of the trees in the forest. She's running a path she knows well, leaping over roots, and dodging trees. I'm floating behind her, keeping up with her. She doesn't seem to be aware of me.

As darkness falls, I can hear chanting or singing? I'm not sure if which it is or if it's all one and the same in this instance. She stops to catch her breath, looking up. I follow her gaze and see smoke rising over the trees. She starts running again, but she doesn't go far before she breaks into a clearing and immediately starts dancing, swinging her dark hair around and round. I stand at the treeline, men are playing large drums and chanting around a fire. The chanting is mesmerizing, the beat of the drums shake the ground, the fire seems to move to the beat. I try to find the girl but only catch a glimpse of her as she dances around to the other side of the clearing.

Suddenly, I'm snapped backwards. Quickly trees fly before my eyes and then blackness and then my eyes pop open. I'm back in my drum circle and the session is winding down. There's an older man sitting next to me and is turned looking at me. The leader of the group is also watching me. Were they aware of what I was doing? Where I was?

I bend over and touch my hands to the floor, getting rid of the excess energy. All the drumming stops. The older man next to me asks if anyone else heard the chanting.

Yeah.
And so much more.

Pulchritudinous Opus

pulchritudinous opus = beautiful works of art

I had named this blog so that I could share what I personally considered beautiful works of art. The art of writing, the art of photography, and any other thing of beauty that caught my eye.

Instead I've been posting about other things. Things I had never intended to share with anyone.

My mother died in July 2010. I won't sugarcoat it, it was an awful experience that included having the paramedics bash in her door with a sledge hammer. This is a time when having a photographic memory is not a blessing. That horrible day plays in my head like a movie put on a loop.

Drum Circle

I have a friend (who lives up North) that goes to a yearly retreat where they do a healing and energizing drum circle. I've been her friend for many years, and year after year I have read about her amazing experiences at this retreat and longed to find something like that for myself.

A year or so ago, I found a local metaphysical store that holds different spiritual events. I've been to a few here and there, as time and money allows. One of the things I've always been too timid to attend was the drum circle. These things are twice monthly, for the last few years and I have yet to get up the nerve to go.

Ok, and I fully admit that I'm am skeptical. Not skeptical about their claims and others' experiences. I'm skeptical that I would be lucky enough to experience such things. I'm afraid that I would be disappointed.

I gave myself a mental talking to. I set myself up for realistic expectations. I AM NOT going to have the same experience as others and it's ok if I don't, just relax, and have a good time. Oh and also drag a poor unsuspecting friend along for the ride. Afterall, isn't that what friends are for?

We arrive...drumless...Everyone is holding their Native American Hand Drums or their Djembe Drums. When the leader notices that we are empty handed, he hands me a shaker and a hand drum to my friend. Good enough for me!

We started out drumming in 10 minutes sets. He told us that since this was a Full Moon Circle we should meditate on being thankful for the things that we have in our life. We get through three 10 minute sets and I'm feeling nothing. I'm trying really hard to meditate but I'll be honest, I'm not that great at it unless I'm doing a guided meditation (which is a whole 'nother post). It doesn't help that the leader asked if anyone else heard singing and several people chimed in that they also heard it.

I'm stamping down the disappointment, giving myself a peptalk, but I'm also wondering at what point I can leave without being rude. Yeah, the disappointment is winning. I see everyone gearing up to start the next set and I take a deep breath and smile at my friend sitting to my right and then turn and smile at the stranger sitting on my left and suddenly I feel a 1000 times better.

We start into the 4th set and I have my eyes closed and I feel someone stomping on the ground. It feels like it's behind me but I know that isn't possible because we are sitting in a circle. I open my eyes and look at everyone, no one is stomping, yet I can still feel it coming from behind me. I turn around, the stomping stops...no on is there. Then after a moment, the lady directly across the circle from me turns and looks behind her chair. I guess it moved over by her after I scared it off. Don't worry it came back later that night. When that set finished we talked about the stomping and had a good laugh about it.

I felt special. I felt incredible. A spirit chose to dance by me and I felt it. Not only that, but I wasn't scared at all!

Then we started up the 5th set and the leader set a faster pace, a more up tempo drumming. My eyes were closed I was shaking my shaker when suddenly it felt like my chair was hovering a few inches off the ground and I was wobbling. I felt like a balloon, tied to the chair bobbing all around on my string. I opened my eyes and still felt like I was floating so I closed them again and the feeling was still there. Finally, I thought that maybe I might be hyperventilating or something weird, so I put my head down between my knees.

The leader stopped the circle and asked me if I was ok. I told him about the floating feeling and his response was that the beat was a bit too up tempo to cause an out of body experience, but it isn't unheard of.  Out of body experience? huh! I hadn't considered that. I wasn't the only one it happened to either. This other lady had the same reaction. Then we did another set and while it was slower, it was still faster than the first few sets. This time I knew the feeling and didn't fight it. I just kinda floated along. It was so completely exhilarating and so completely freaky!
After that we slowed it way down, did two sets at that speed. The stomper came back, stamped his feet behind me, next to me, and in front of me. All I did was smile. Then I heard a lady singing, well actually I thought it was my friend, so I turned and looked at her and she wasn't singing. Afterwards she asked me if I heard the lady singing. Yep, I couldn't fight the big smile that came across my face, I sure did!

Wow! What an experience!






 

Cooking with Intent

I've always cooked with intent, though I didn't know what it was at the time. When I cook I put all my energy into making it. I think good thoughts, "the kids are going to love this" or "this is the type of meal that will have us sitting around the table telling funny stories." These meals, almost always turn out really well, look pretty, and do indeed make us happy and satisfied.

Other times food has the opposite affect. This often happens when I'm using ingredients or a method I'm unsure about, it makes me anxious, or the food just looks ugly and unappetizing, no matter how tasty it might be. These meals are almost always rejected, noses turned up, I feel sad and unloved because no one wanted to eat it, especially after making something that caused me so much anxiety. This is especially frustrating when I know it tastes good and has a lot of potential.

No, I don't give up on these new menu items. I usually think of something different I can do the next time I make it and then low and behold, I'm happy and confident when I make it and everyone eats it and loves it.

Not too long ago I was flittering around on the internet, which is common for me, and somehow came across a website about cooking with intent or as some called it kitchen witchery.





It was at that point that I started to put two and two together.

Believe what you want but I believe I really was pouring all of my feelings and thoughts and energies into my food.

It makes me think of the book The Secret, that was all the rage a while back. Remember how it was all about sending your will, your intent, your positive energy out into the universe so that it would come back to you? To me this is the same idea. Actually, if you read up on wiccan and witchcraft, a lot of it is the same idea. It's nothing like the witchcraft that is performed on television shows like Charmed or Buffy. It's all about your will and your intent and sending those energies into the universe. I wonder if anyone ever actually connected The Secret with witchcraft?

Looks like I have some more internet flittering to do.