Karen Armstrong - the practice of religion
An fascinating quote from Karen Armstrong's
The Spiral Staircase:-
"He had told me that in most traditions, faith was not about belief but about practice. Religion is not about accepting twenty impossible propositions before breakfast, but about doing things that change you. It is a moral aesthetic, an ethical alchemy. If you behave in a certain way, you will be transformed. The myths and laws of religion are not true because they confirm to some metaphysical, scientific or historical reality but because they are life-enhancing. They tell you how human nature functions, but you will not discover their truth unless you apply these myths and doctrines to your own life and put them into practice. The myths of the hero, for example, are not meant to give us historical information about Prometheus or Achilles- or for that matter about Jesus or the Buddha. Their purpose is to compel us to act in such a way that we reveal our own heroic potential. In the course of my studies, I have discovered that the religious quest is not about discovering 'the truth' or 'the meaning of life', but about living as intensely as possible in the here and now. The idea is not to lath on to some superhuman personality or to get to heaven, but to discover how to be fully human - hence the images of the perfect or enlightened man, or the deified human being. Archetypal figures such as Muhammad, the Buddha and Jesus become icons of fulfilled humanity. God or Nirvana is not an optional extra tacked on to our human nature. Men and women have the potential for the divine, and are not complete unless they realise it within themselves... In the past, my own practice of religion had diminished me, whereas true faith, I now believe, should make you more human than before."
Samhain Altar
A photograph of my paternal grandmother is surrounded with candles. Three runes are placed in front of her photograph - jera, eiwaz, and pertho (representing, for me, the year, death, and rebirth). The oil burner scents the room with rosemary, for rememberance. A dead butterfly is propped against the photo frame. The banksia vase is filled with crow and magpie feathers that I've collected over the past few years.
April Full Moon
Darkness has descended during this month, and it is now pitch black when I arrive home at night. The mornings have become misty, and on certain days our entire suburb has spent the dawn quietly shrouded in cool fog.
It truly feels like autumn now - crisp, cool days, chilly nights, and misted mornings. I have been baking bread, enjoying the taste of a warm loaf spread with melted butter, the soft taste of yeast. This week, we have been brewing dark ale and ginger beer, to be bottled on Samhain, and drunk over the winter.
Samhain is approaching, and I have been reading A
lexei Kondratiev's The Apple Branch: A Guide to Celtic Ritual , which has an interesting and inspirational section on Samhain, dividing the purpose of the festival into five parts, and examining each one. We have a long weekend leading up to Samhain, and I plan to do spend a day doing housecare - throughly cleaning the house, rearranging the altar, making a temporary ancestral altar, and planning our Samhain meal. I do enjoy this time of year - not only because the weather in this part of the country is so lovely, but because I love the celebrations surrounding Samhain and Yule. I haven't used my tarot cards or runes in... well, too long, and I look forward to the divinatory spreads I will use on Samhain, looking at the year ahead.
Dreams
An older Witches Weekly
question:-
"Do you believe dreams are ever symbolic? How do you interpret dreams? Do you feel some are scenes from past lives? Future premonitons? Hidden thoughts and feelings? What do you feel was your most symbolic/meaningful dream?" I do strongly believe that dreams are symbolic - in fact, I think dreams could be defined as symbolic. They're the way our subconscious/Younger Self interprets the world.
I have a lot of trouble interpreting my own dreams. The only time I can interpret them is when they're obviously a simple stress dream - for example, if I'm worried about work, and I then dream about being at work, and things going wrong. On a reasonably regular basis, I have dreams that exist in entirely new worlds, which I find quite strange. Some of these seem so real, I wonder if they are some sort of message, or past/future life, or whether these places actually exist. And sometimes I just wonder at the endless creativity of my mind when my body sleeps.
I went through a disciplined stage of writing down all the dreams I remembered in the morning, and reading back over those is quite fascinating (although not particularly enlightening, in terms of symbolism). I would like to begin to do that again - I think looking back at the dreams of five years ago could be a very valuable exercise, in terms of seeing how my subconscious preoccupations have, or have not, changed.
The Ideal Newbie Book
Witches Weekly asks "If you had to buy a book to give to someone that had no clue about paganism and wished to learn, what book would you pick and why?"
I guess this question is aimed at recommending books for a beginner, rather than someone who wants to know more about what paganism is for information's sake.
One of the first books I recommend is
The Spiral Dance by Starhawk. It's a book that's very relevant to my variety of paganism (and I guess I'd be recommending with a bias towards my own practice - I can't really recommend books that don't resonate with me). I'd give the usual "ignore the history, read the footnotes" spiel, referring to the 20th anniversary edition, and then let them go from there. It's an excellent book that covers the basics but also has the potential for much deeper practice, and it does so with an eclectic approach rather than a strictly Wiccan approach. It's easy and absorbing to read, has plenty of exercises and personal anecdotes, and the footnotes that examine and elaborate on the way Starhawk's own beliefs have changed are great for a beginner to read.
If a beginner was interested in druid practices, or had Celtic leanings, I'd send them in the direction of Emma Restall Orr's
Ritual. It's a book with a very broad basis - it can be reading from an atheist's perspective, which I think is good for beginners, as it doesn't assume certain beliefs. I came from an atheist upbringing into paganism, so I enjoy books that discuss aspects of belief and deity, which Ritual does. It's also a fascinating and deeper look at a main practice of most pagans - ritual itself. The ritualistic practices of paganism, and the reasons behind them, are a very useful point for a beginner to start.
Both of the above books assume a certain fascinated interest in paganism. If a beginner is looking for a very basic, "this is what's what" guide, then I would recommend some of the books published by Thorsons, like
Paganism (Vivianne Crowley),
Thorsons Way of Wicca (Vivianne Crowley), and
Druidry (Emma Restall Orr). These are all good basic beginners books that don't go too deeply into aspects a beginner may not be interested in, but also don't skim over the top of important issues.
March Full Moon
Daily temperatures remain in the high 20s to early 30s - I travelled to Melbourne during the waxing moon, and enjoyed their cooler weather, and the luxury of wearing long sleeved tops. It rained for several days while I was away, but generally there has been plenty of sun.
With the onset of autumn, the days are becoming noticibly shorter as we move towards Mabon - at 6.30pm, it is very firmly dusk, and there's not enough light to read by when walking home from the train station. After Mabon, I will begin getting home in the dark, and when we get closer to Yule, leaving home in the dark as well. While I enjoy the cooler temperatures, seeing no sunshine at home during the week is wearying.
Everything in the garden continues to grow with great vigour - the herbs are doing well, and I have planned to do some garden maintenance this weekend, including some much needed mulching as grass and weeds are growing up around the bases of our trees.
I have been somewhat preoccupied with work during this moon, although the full moon came during the midst of what I hope is a lifestyle change - an exercise routine which I've been sticking to, and a healthier diet. Let's hope I stick with it.
Welsh myth
I'm reading Evangeline Walton's
Mabinogion Tetralogy, which is a fictional retelling of the Welsh epic, The Mabinogion. It's fantastic - I find original epics rather hard to read - that style of "So-and-so did this. Then he killed this person. Then he wept rivers of tears, and turned into a goat." It's a little hard to connect with the characters. Walton's version is written like a novel, yet (as far as I can tell) remains close to the original material. Wonderful - I wish more people would re-write myths and legends this way. I enjoy modernised and altered re-tellings as well, but versions that stick close to the original, yet read like a modern novel, are fantastic.
I am fascinated by Welsh and Irish gods and goddesses, and have been reading and enjoying Pwyll's encounter with Arawn, Lord of Annwn, and Rhiannon. Unfortunately, this version doesn't have a pronunciation guide, which is annoying. I do like to make sure I'm reading correctly, and I rarely am. "Pwyll", for example, seems not to be pronounced "pwill", as I have been doing so, but rather "pwith". Now I'm off to find a pronunciation guide for all those other words with no vowels.
(I take that back. More sources seem to go with versions like "pwill", "pooeelh", or "pool". Some guides to Welsh pronunciation are
here,
here, and
here.)
Offerings of food
A question regarding offerings:-
If one is making a food offering on, for example, a Samhain altar, what is done with the food afterwards? Is it buried? Composted? Eaten? It seems wasteful to offer food, then bury it - it also seems strange to offer food, and then eat it yourself, or serve it to others.
What is your practice with regards to food offerings?
February Full Moon
The temperature was noticeably cooler around the full moon, on 12 February, 2006. The sweltering heat of January had dissipated (although it made a reappearance the following week.) There were a couple of days of pleasant rain. The swamp banksia has grown, so that it reaches my shoulders, and the frangipani has put on a few more leaves. I planted herbs in pots during the waxing moon - garlic chives, thyme and basil - and plan to add several more to the increasingly fragrant verandah, including sage, parsley, and rosemary; all for combined culinary and magical purposes.
This month I did more personal growth stuff, as I term it - I made a list of 101 things to do in 1001 days, which includes a lot of adventurous stuff that takes me outside my comfort zone, and did a workshop where I had to present a case in front of an audience and a pretend judge - I felt surprisingly comfortable. In a week I'm flying to Melbourne to visit my grandmother, who is turning 91. I don't think she'll live to see my wedding next year, and I am at peace with that. She is tired. After a period of sadness this month, I am feeling much more cheerful, and looking forward to spending time with my mother in Melbourne, whom I haven't seen for about 8 months.
Names for this moon used in the Northern Hemisphere are Snow Moon, Hunger Moon, Bone Moon and Wolf Moon - not terrible appropriate for the warm weather and long days of our February. From my experiences of February, I would name this moon Planting Moon, Long Twilight Moon, or Grass Moon (because of all the mowing we've had to do this month.)
Blue moon
There are two full moons in June of 2007, and the second one falls on a Saturday - the last day of June.
I simply have to be married on that Saturday. Wouldn't it be wonderful to be married on a blue moon?
