Walking the Path: Scavenger Hunt!

So I don't consider myself to be a Jungian in any sense of the term (I shudder at the gross over-generalizations of archetypes); however, today was filled with some rather interesting correspondences that may or may not be meaningful.

Despite having only just brushed the surface of my ADF Introduction to the Druid Path, and having spent only about 12 total minutes doing visualization work, and even though I have barely even begun to do the research and study required to truly understand my hearth culture, I decided that I really, really wanted to establish my home altar/shrine. I tend to jump the gun on things like this. Maybe I am just ready to stop thinking and start doing. Over-thinking has had a paralyzing effect on me in the past, and was one of the main reasons why I stopped practicing any path altogether. I have also been impressed by the commonly repeated notion in the ADF that paganism and druidry are far more about "doing than believing." I'm down with that!

So of course I read up on and refreshed my understandings of the basics. I knew I'd need a "cauldron," a "fire," and a "tree," or symbols thereof. Ok, cool. Gotchya. I tried to hunt down two of what I affectionately call "Woo Woo Stores" in my area, only to find that both were closed. Alright then. I decided to settle for Pier 1 and Home Goods. Who cares if said "cauldron" was originally intended as the centerpiece for a soccer mom's outdoor patio table? What matters is intent, not origin*.

So I gathered the raw materials, excited as much by the steps I was taking as by the opportunity to do some shopping and gather "pretty things." (I'm a red-blooded American. Capitalism is as much my religion as Christianity ever was, I'm sorry to say.)

I brought my items home and set them up on the plastic set of drawers currently set in front of my window, for lack of a better space. This is the time to mention that I rent a room in someone else's house, and my room is small. I'd love to use her fabulous backyard setting (complete with an area that would be perfect for ADF ritual), but I doubt she'd appreciate that use of her space. Or, maybe I'm just to nervous to ask!

I checked back in with the ADF guide about how to go about making this sucker (said altar) sacred. (Did I mention I'm sometimes just a little spiritually tone deaf?) Where should the water for the cauldron come from? What kind of "Tree" should I use? The guide suggested I gather the water from three different sources - preferably all from natural, running streams.

Ok. Whoah. Time out. I live in Southern California. There is no running water. If I tried to gather "free water" from three different sources, I'm afraid someone would come up and try to tax me for it. Thankfully, I happen to live in a town with a watershed running through it. There's a pleasant little stream in a little gully that bisects a local park. It was getting close to sunset, but I figured that this was magic time, and I could make it a kind of pilgrimage to gather water from the stream. I haven't gone out to walk in a while, being both out of shape and depressed, so I appreciated the challenge to get outside my comfort zone.

As soon as I stepped out of the house, things started to correspond. Two ravens cried at me as I walked out onto the sidewalk. Now it's Southern California. There are always ravens. But it seemed opportune, considering the grove I joined is called Raven's Cry, and I have  started to form a connection with Odin, whose familiars, Hugin and Munin, were both ravens.

I walked through the neighborhood, happy for once to have my headphones out and my eyes open to the natural beauty around me. Then, in the midst of my path, a freshly dead raven. The ants had just started to get to it. I wondered what it could mean. It didn't shock me, and I didn't immediately take it as a "Bad Omen." *Lightning Crashes in the Background* Rather, I was reminded of the reality of death and change. According to Norse myth, even Odin will die one day, at the Ragnarok. I didn't know why the raven had died, but I was also reminded that most animals in urban and suburban areas die as a result of human impact. If non-human animals are also our Kindreds, then this could have served as a reminder of our responsibility to them, and our failures.

I walked on, and reached the park. The sign stood out to me as another correspondence. Norwegians.

Now, the first Norwegian settlers in the area, whose descendants founded my alma mater and current place of employment, were primarily Lutheran Christians. I started out as a Lutheran Christian. It was one of the reasons I attended that school (just down the road from the park) in the first place. But before that, the ancestors of these settlers (and my own!) worshiped many Gods, acknowledged many Realms, and honored the relationships between them all connected by the great World Tree, Yggdrasil, nourished by the Well of Urd, or Fate.

I passed the sign into the park and down into the gully, where I found a shady spot, not to be interrupted. Of course, the nice man watching his daughter play on the swings on level ground above wanted to say hello and chat. I had to stop and remind myself that humans are my Kin too. I must make space for them and offer hospitality. I opened the bottle I had and prepared to gather the waters.

Earth Mother, you offer up your waters to nourish us all.
Forgive us humans for taking more than our share. 
Let these waters cleanse, sanctify, and nourish me 
As they cleansed, sanctified, and nourished our ancestors. 
Let these waters be for me as the Well of Wyrd.
In them let me see my fate unfold, 
Let me see the unfolding Wyrd and shape my life accordingly.

I placed my bottle under a tiny fall created by a lifted root, and filled it with the surprisingly clear water. Then I braced myself against a tree, whose tangled roots were visible and which was nourished by the stream.

World Tree, Yggdrasil, you connect all the realms.
You shade, support, and center all creatures.
Offer us a path between the realms, 
That we might have fellowship with all the Kindreds.

Further on my walk, I gathered plants and flowers I knew I'd offer to the Nature Spirits later. Two different kinds of lavender, some red seeds from a tree I don't know the name of, a pine cone, a sprig of ivy, and, go figure, a raven's feather.

But it was starting to get dark and I had a long walk home. I started to worry, "What the heck am I going to use as a World Tree?" Well, it was a good thing there was a Trader Joe's on the way home! I bought a tiny potted rosemary plant (small space, remember?). It was no "World Tree," nor was it a stately pole with the face of a God carved into it, but it was green, alive, and fragrant. Good enough for me!

I returned home to assemble my pieces. I have decided to wait until tomorrow to continue, as the ADF has an extensive hallowing rite that I want to be able to complete when my mind is fresh. It looks fairly good, if I might say so. Of course, intention and work are what matter, not flashiness or aesthetics. Michael J. Dangler of the ADF wrote about his first home shrine, constructed in his college dorm room, out of "three bowls and a stick." I am sure that the quality of Michael's devotions more than made up for the simplicity of his altar; perhaps his Gods admired his frugality! I don't know whether my own devotions and meditations will be pleasing to whatever Gods and/or Spirits are out there, Odin, Frigga, Baldur, Eris, Athena, Dionysus, or whoever else wants to show up. I only hope that it can serve as a space in which I can learn to kindle in my own heart a true fire of hospitality.

*Notes: Edited. I flipped the two! Fixed!

A New Year, a New Path (Or how the Goddess of Chaos tailgated me until I moved over into the right lane.)

Wow. Why did I abandon this blog? Possibly because I had Tumblr for a while, then I fucked up so badly that I left under a cloud of ignominy. I felt thrashed by the unfortunate situation that caused me to leave, and spent a lot of time agonizing over it. I did not then realize that those events, which I could only see as disastrous at the time, were in fact important omens of things to come.

During graduate school, I had been introduced to the Mysteries of Eris by a good friend. The Paratheo-Anametamystikhood of Eris Esoteric (or POEE) and the Principia Discordia seemed at the time to be silly and just for fun, even if they also offered up a particularly apt and helpful way of understanding Reality. I found appeals to Eris and Discordian philosophy to be helpful as I made sense of the challenges of graduate school, the collapse of my ego after PhD program rejections, and the unique, exquisitely painful realities of adjunct teaching.

I've been teaching undergraduates as an adjunct lecturer for one and a half years now. During that time, the seeds of doubt and confusion planted in me during graduate school began to blossom. I've studied religion for eight years, I told my students, but I still don't a) really know what it is, nor do I b) actually know what I believe. I started out as a Lutheran Protestant. Then, through an academic exposure to Greek & Coptic Orthodoxy, I fancied myself a mystic with a deep appreciation for High Liturgy. (I mean, hey, who doesn't appreciate High Church liturgy?) Discordianism, Existentialism, Process philosophy/theology, and a few attempts at teaching World Religions then spun me around so fast I hardly knew which way was up.

While I taught, many things changed: I had to stop and actually check in with myself, rather than flutter about in the realm of intellectual potentiality. I finally figured out my sexuality. (Asexual!) By extension, my gender-identity came into question. (Agender? Gender-Queer? IDFK.) I suppose the religion question was due to come back around eventually.

Enter Eris.

A few days ago, I made use of Discordian metaphors in a comical, cultural-critique performed at an eclectic artists' salon in Los Angeles, put on by San Peña Producciones. According to the feedback I got after the show, it worked. It worked really well. Not only was I actually funny (go figure!), but they got it. I started to feel that Eris' chaos-power was a useful way to think and talk about the absurdity of claims to the objective truth-value of particular models of the Order of Reality. Orders (or paradigms, or models, etc.) are never objectively verifiable or "True," but they can be evaluated - by their effects. Some Orders are more beautiful than others. Some are more likely to lead humans to responsible, ethical behavior than other models.

Suddenly, I didn't feel so anxious about picking a model.

Sometimes, it takes an experience of Chaos to push (poke, prod, provoke, prick, etc.) us into adopting more authentic, more genuine, more beautiful models of Order. Sometimes, Chaos bites us in the ass if we linger too long between Orders, refusing (out of laziness) to adopt one. Refusing to adopt an Order doesn't make you more "tolerant" or more "enlightened" than anyone else; it casts you adrift; it removes you from a context; it leads you into apathy; it disorders your relationships with others an the world. Order is as necessary as Chaos. Chaos isn't evil, nor is Order. I tend to value Chaos over Order, generally because I associate Order with domination or control. But this doesn't need to be the case. Only shitty and ill-conceived Orders/Frameworks/Paradigms lead to Domination. The trick is to recognize that Order and Chaos are not separate "things," but potentialities inhering in all human beings. We are the bridges between Chaos and Order, and with those two powers we can make the world. But we most do so carefully, with a deep sense of responsibility for the consequences of that Order, for ourselves as well as for others - human and non-human, as well as for the planet.

....

So what is the Order for me? What Framework will I adopt as I step out onto a new Path, one hopefully characterized by careful, well-intentioned steps, a clear goal, and a sense of responsibility?
I love Christianity. Truly. If this seems in doubt, realize that I've spent the last 8 years studying it, and four of those were spent almost exclusively obsessed with MONKS. Really. I learned two dead languages to try to better understand these amazing people from the past.

But as I've been kicked about by Chaos and its many minions, as I have started to integrate the vast amount of data I have accumulated about religion over the years (that's going to take a while!), I have found that the monotheistic, creedal paradigm just doesn't work for me anymore. I don't know if it ever really did, or if I was just fooling myself. (As a counterpoint, Eris would fart in my face and chortle: "You're ALL just fooling yourselves!")

I had the great pleasure to attend two rituals held by my local Druid grove, affiliated with Ar nDraiocht Fein, or ADF. I went out of sheer academic curiosity during Imbolc and had a ball. The second time was for their Skirophoria ritual, a Greek "first-fruits" celebration. This second ritual happened the day AFTER my Discordian-themed rant at the San Peña salon. A friend of mine from graduate school and her BF were there as well. Unlike me, they have long identified with neo-pagans.

In the midst of the dance offering, one of the offering bowls to the omphalos (axis mundi/World Tree) was overturned. An apple was kicked aside, and I swear, when that apple rolled, it was like a flash bang. It knocked me back, blinded me, deafened me; but in that dark silence there was a ringing in my ears then a faint laughter. Gotchya Bitch! ... Thanks, Eris.

If you know anything about the myth of the Apple of Discord, the apple was the equivalent of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand for the ancient Greek world. It helped kick off the Trojan War. The instant I picked up the apple, I shared a horrified look with my friend. HOLY SHIT. Was this a sign?

Now, if you know me, you know that I don't put much stock in "woo woo" stuff. Really. I'm pretty skeptical. I also happen to be spiritually tone deaf. But in this moment, when the Gates were open and the Sacred Space centered us all within a truly meaningful Cosmos ... I felt connected.

So you know what? Maybe Gods and Goddesses do exist. Maybe they don't. But what I do know is that in my initial studies into the cosmology and assumptions held by the ADF, I finally feel like I've found an Order that centers me. So I'm going to read my ADF guide. I'm going to work with and support my local Grove. I'm going to pray, which is something I haven't done in nearly a year. Not just that, but I'm going to follow the ADF's Order of Ritual for the Solitary as I pray. This former-Protestant is going full Catholic Pagan!

You know what? I'm actually excited. For the first time in a while, I've got a path. Why not walk for a while, enjoy the scenery, and see where it goes?