Welcome To Chrysalis!
Chrysalis is one part online journal with a spiritual focus, one part bully pulpit for my opinions and ideas and observations of and on Paganism and the Pagan Community, and one part page of resources for folks in or interacting with the Pagan Movement.
Feel free to poke around the various pages(links via page titles above ~ a number of them are scheduled for some revision btw...), or to scroll along the links and quotes and link-buttons on the sidebar, or, well heck, even read some of my posts if you want!
Peace, Pax
Dear Friends and Pagani,
So, as previously mentioned, I am working with T. Thorn Coyle’s book Kissing The Limitless recently. The essays and visualizations and meditations and journaling exercises in it have really been helping me to reacquaint myself with, well, myself. I breathe into my Center and pray daily and have been not only acknowledging some of my ongoing issues, but been able to poke and prod and puzzle them out. Not only acknowledging them but actually understanding their history and place in my life in the past and in the present.
Its interesting to me how consciously breathing into my center has gone, in a few short weeks, from an exploratory practice to a habitual or reflexive action. I also am feeling so much more, well, centered – and calm and capable. I am also not feeling nearly as melancholy as I had been feeling lately after the break-up. There’s a point in KTL, where Coyle talks about has as you build your spiritual practice you begin to find a momentum and daily practice builds upon daily practice. I have been experiencing that lately. Inspired by my work with KTL and by some of my past dabbling explorations of my Chakra’s I have also recently picked up and am working with Wheels of Light by Anodea Judith. I have been working with my tarot cards recently, mainly shuffling them and simply spending time with them regularly… not a vigorous study… yet…
I have also been going for walks again, trying to get just a little more excercise and build up to going to the health center/gym in the apartment complex once I can go for a vigorous 30 minute walk without getting winded. Moving again, and feeling like I am finally waking up after the break up. Its like my heart and heart Chakra just shut down in the aftermath of that; a feeling rather like some personal pilot light went out within my soul.
In addition to rebuilding spiritual practices, I have been trying to rekindle my fires by reading my blogs(many of the ones to the right of the screen) and listening to my podcasts and looking for new ones. Here’s a few podcasts that have been helping me rekindle my personal fires.
“SpiritsCast is a (mostly) pagan podcast that is recorded in Southwestern Ontario, but hopes to reach the world with education and information on alternative spiritual practices and beliefs. It is produced by Feithline Stuart, who is the former hostess of “The Dark Side of Fey”.”
So now I breath into my center, and ground myself, and open myself to the inspiration of the Gods, and dive into my spirit and self.
Another long running, and widely distributed Podcast with a discussion format and on occasion a lot of cussing. Some folks have compared this podcast to drive-time DJ’s for the Pagan community. Rarely dull and always informative.
A fabulous Podcast series from renowned Feri Tradition Witch and author T. Thorn Coyle.
Are three podcasts that I’ve been doing a lot of listening to lately in addition to my habitual listening of the Wigglian Way…
A fascinating Canadian podcast entering its 3rd year, Sparrow and Mojo also are the only Pagan Podcast to be included in the religions category of the 2008 Podcast Awards!
So here’s to breathing to our Center’s and rekindling our fires dear friends and fellow Pagani,
Peace,
Pax
Hey folks,
So I have been updating and cross-referencing the Online Pagan Resources page, adding and re-arranging some links and cross referencing the Pagan and Magical resources lists and the Abuse & Domestic Violence and Trouble Makers,Dealing With lists.
If anyone out there has a minute or two to check out the Online Resources Page, and see if you can recommend any additions to the lists or a category I have neglected?!
Peace,
Pax
ps- look for a post on regular spiritual practice and momentum in the next day or so!!!
On this Veterans Day a moment of silence and silent thanks to the Honored Dead; and my heartfelt thanks to their living comrades, both active duty and retired.
Dear Friends and Pagani,
At Samahin many of us Pagans honor the Beloved and Honored Dead, and then (in the U.S.) there’s Thanksgiving and then Yule/Winter Solstice; a smooth and orderly progression within the dark half of the Wheel of the Year, from honoring the beloved and Honored Dead to celebrating and remembering the Beloved and Honored Living.
And then, things like the Fort Hood shootings happen. That this should happen so close to the upcoming U.S. Veterans Day observance (info here and here,) adds another level to the tragedy.
In the face of such terrible acts we can must choose how to respond. We can breathe deeply and consciously, partaking of both the life and energy around us and the interconnectedness of all things, all beings. We can meditate. We can pray. We can strive to move forward within our lives as best we can. We can learn. Prehaps most importantly we can remember.
Veterans Day gives any Pagan, but especially those of us who are seeking after the Religio Americana, an opportunity to remember and honor those who have lain down their life for our Nation, and equally important, to remember and thank those who are currently living their lives for this Nation or who have served in the past but are still amongst the honored living. Some Pagans, amongst those that observe Samhain, might say that such Veterans Day observances seem superfluous or excessive coming on the heels of The Feast of The Dead.
I would say that given that the Religious Freedom I enjoy to celebrate Samhain is bought and paid for in the blood, sweat, and tears of U.S. Servicemen and women, that honoring them in this way is the very least we can do!
So light your incense, pour your libations, and create your rites of thanksgiving. Make offerings of incense, and pour libations, and speak poems of praise to the dead. Remember their sacrifices and actions. Take a moment to shake the hands of the living, and say “thank you”. Heck, lets aside our differences and come together across the lines of Traditions and organizations to sponsor feasts and special rituals and observances for Veterans Day and for our own Pagan Veterans.
Who, and what, is remembered lives.
Peace, Pax
So you have probably already heard how Maine voted down a Gay Marriage law. Folks are upset and some folks are already “protesting” on Facebookgroups, although quite frankly marching in the streets and writing your elected officials would help too!
I would love to hear from folks from The Pine Tree State to find out if the Pro-Hate forces spent as much time and money spewing misdirrection, half-truths, and outright lies as they did in the Prop 8 battle in California? There’s a guest post over at Quaker Pagan Reflections that asks some very good questions about how the Pro-Hate forces decide to spend their money and effort.
I am not saddened, I am not angry, I am resolved and more determined than ever to see GLBT and Marriage Equality in my lifetime.
It’s a New Year.
At least in some Trads and for some Pagans… The whole Samhain as the Celtic New Year seems to be wavering out of fashion right now, although it comes and goes in popularity, or so it seems.
So it’s a new year time to scry the mirrors of my contemplation, re-read my blog posts to date, and think about my life and spiritual journey. Where have I been and where am I going? Samhain has always been a sort of turning point for me in terms of turning from activity out in the world to a more introspective time focused on myself and family.
I had set up an Samhain altar, and remembered and though about the Ancestors and Beloved and Honored Dead and the turning of the Wheel, and all that jazz. Despite wanting to pick up my Religious practices as a Witch, one whose path and practice have been largely influenced by Wiccan writers and ideas, and despite my love of the Goddess and God, and my desire to reconnect with Them; I was feeling the need to explore other Witcheries than the Seasonal Mysteries or Connection with the Beloved and Honored’s, or the Lord and Lady of the Neo-Wicca.
Lately the Magic and Witchery that has called to the deepest parts of me has been reconnecting with me, myself, and I.
Partly this is the result of reading and contemplating T. Thorn Coyles Kissing the Limitless. In reading, and doing the journaling and magickal exercises in that book I have begun to not only gain some much needed understanding of self… not just an awareness of my issues and habits and the many aspects of myself that have often times struggled within me and led me astray over the years, but perspective on them, and ways to engage with and deal with and accept and bless them and move on with the living of my life.
I really wish I could have found this sort of wisdom and these sorts of teachings within Witchcraft a long time ago; although admittedly had I found a Coven, I might have. It’s possible that that was not meant to be a part of my Journey as a Witch in this lifetime. I accept that, after all when I chose Witchcraft, and started walking this Wicca inspired road, I gave myself to the Goddess and God and asked them to guide me and to help me find the Mysteries and Teachers. In many ways I think they have, Not that it’s been a quick or easy road, but They have guided me on my journey.
I have also realized that the Neo-Pagan Religious Withccraft stream popularly called Wicca is only one part of my personal journey both as a Witch and as a Pagan. My few years of steady observation of the Moons and Sabbats gave way to less and less practice and observance… still heartfelt faith and a love of the Goddess and God and a deep sense of my own Pagan self, but not much Witchyness for some years. I reached a plateau. At the time I figured it was the lack of Covens and the Lack of local Community that was my big stumbling block… and that is what if felt like… like if I could just find the right something I’d be alright and back on track. This is where a lot of my passion for Pagan community comes from I think.
That led me into some detailed study of Ceremonial Magic/Magick. Not very much practice though because I didn’t have an income to support that habit! From Ceremonial Magick I wandered over into the Kabbalah, at least long enough and deep enough to realize that I was not ready for that work on either a personal level, or in terms of making a time commitment to it. Then I floundered for a few years, and thought I had hit rock bottom when I lost a retail job and was unemployed for a few months… at the same time I was meeting the Ex who would later help me take rock bottom to new lows, I got back involved in the local community.
I moved across the country, not finding any immediate contacts in the local Oralando community, I started this blog and got an A.S. degree in Restaurant and Hospitality Management. I did some growing up and learning and opened a place in my heart and life for Hecate and Dionysus and for the Theoi and Hellenic Polytheism. Now I find myself learning about a new stream of Witchcraft from the Feri Tradition.
I am no more a Feri Witch than I am a Wiccan (as is an initiate of one of the Traditions originating in the New Forrest region of Great Britain), I am simply a solitary Witch trying to unscrew the inscrutable.
I am learning a lot about myself and my patterns, and more importantly I am finding guideposts as to how to create new and healthier patterns.
How are you spending the day after Halloween/Samhain my dear Pagani?
Here’s some of how I spent mine…
I light the Ocean Breeze Spa Candle that sits on the bathroom counter. (Why yes, as a cavalier, why do you ask?!)
I light the candle, I turn out the lights and run as-hot-as-I-can-take-it water into the bathtub. I position myself into the typical modern apartment shoe-box of a bath tub as it fills. I add some soap, and I do my best to soak. The steam caresses my lungs with each breath as much as the heat relaxes my flesh. I begin to really breath, deep conscious breaths.
In through the nose and out through the mouth. In and out, deep conscious breaths trying to be as present in the moment and paying attention to the sound and sensations of this life drinking and energy raising breathing. After a few moments I begin to breath the energy and air into my center, somewhere below my stomach and above my pelvis it sits, long neglected. This new way of finding it combined with the deep breathing, long familiar to me for raising energy and getting in touch with my own energies, triggers an energetic sense memory…
After a while I find myself moving my breaths and energies destination to my Root Chakra. Even though I have begun working with grounding exorcises and with my Chakra’s again, I am still very rusty. I take a good long time breathing into my Root Chakra, resisting the temptation to move up through my chakra’s quickly… unlike so many times before I am not doing this as part of some other work, or for grounding centering and shielding… I am breathing life and energy and air into my Center and my energy centers to relax my spirit as I have relaxed my body.
In through the nose and out through the mouth, with great “Shhh-ing exhales” as I breath the energy into my Root Chakra, after a few moments I find myself not only drawing energy through my breath; but I find myself calling to the Earth energy and to the Creative Firey and Feri currents from the Earths Core, drawing them up into the red wheel/lotus at my perineum. Slowly, I feel like I have properly opened and relaxed this Chakra and I move up to the Sacral Chakra… I find myself wondering about the relationship between the Center point and this Chakra, seeming from my own sensations and from what I have learned so far to be so close together. Are they the same or simply very close? Very close I think/feel. I breathe, once more resisting the temptation to simply run up this string of Spinning Lights within me, I take my time.
I take my time with each of them. I empty the tub and go to my computer to listen to the Samhain podcasts, read the posts, and to think about how it is that I find some pieces of my soul blossoming. Samhain has, for me, always marked an inward turning time, coupled with the blossoming cooling to temperate temperatures of a Florida Autumn as we move toward the many fruit harvests of Winter here in the Sunshine State, I suppose it’s only natural that one who seeks to align with Natures rhythms would start to bloom once more this time of year.
Peace,
Pax
“Let us remember that the arc of a moral universe is long
but it bends toward justice.”
~Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. 1962
In this season when so many of us will be remembering our own Ancestors and a variety of Honored and Beloved Dead, casting Circles, dancing in Spirals; it is both funny and synchronous I now find myself contemplating an Arc.
It started as I was surfing through FaceBook the other day, and someone had posted about how they couldn’t believe that they were seeing GLBT folks being added to Federal Hate Crimes legislation here in the U.S. They were surprised, and amazed and overjoyed, to see it happening in their lifetime. I am glad for them, and a little saddened that it should come as such a surprise to folks.
I am really not all that shocked or surprised at this development. As a Pagan and a Gay man I have seen a lot of changes already in my lifetime. I was born in March of 1972. Later that year the American Psychological Association removed homosexuality from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual, its authoritative list of mental disorders and illnesses.
Surprised? No. Gladdened, yes; and heartened, and inspired to pick up some torches I had dropped recently, but not surprised. I AM surprised that it took so many average people of conscience so long to see the rightness of equal rights and human rights, but we humans can be pretty dense sometimes. I am something of an idealist, or so I have been told, and I have every expectation that I will see true GLBT equality, and Gay Marriage, in my lifetime; because these are right and true causes rooted in morality, honor, love, and justice.
As the example of Dr. King, and the U.S. Civil Rights Movement of the 1960’s shows, when people of conscience and faith gather around shared values they can change the world for the better. We can change the world for the better. So now, in this season of Samhain, when I remember and seek ways to honor the memories and spirits of my Beloved and Honored Dead; I find my mind turning to those causes of equality and justice and rights that some of them lived and died to help bring about. I find myself wondering…
“What can I do? What can we in the Pagan community do?”
(And YES, as a matter of fact I did go there, I DID say that oh SO scandalous “C”-word!)
I have said here before, among other places, that Paganism is a religious, spiritual, and social movement made up of several overlapping and intertwined religious and regional communities. Recently I am debating about that definition with myself. Juniper from Walking the Hedge made some excellent points in An Open Letter to the Pagan Community that, Yes, we are a community actually and could we please stop arguing that point and look at how we could be a better and more functioning one please?
Yewtree over at the dance of the elements bog, in her post on Community among Pagans and Unitarians, makes the point about how Unitarians (British cousins to the Unitarian Universalists) who, like U.U.’s are of many faiths, gather around and covenant within and are unified into beloved community by shared values and principles and moral beliefs. I know that part of why I have become a Unitarian Universalist is that going to Services and seeking to covenant around the Principles of Unitarian Universalism allows me to better act upon and live the virtues and values I have embraced as a Witch. These facts and this ability of U.U.’s to covenant and create beloved community based on shared values was, I now realize, part of what inspired the 2009 IPVBM.
We are a Community and we share similar and interwoven and interconnected values. We do not all share the exact same list, nor should we, but our lists and their key points have enough in common that I think we could engage in a little forgiveness about past infighting and Pagan drama and work together in service of our many Gods, living our values and faiths, and stand up for what is right and honorable and true and loving and good; so, inspired by the example of some of the Honored Dead, what should we do?
Beth Owl’s Daughter reminds us that Freedom of Religion is one of those Rights that is not simply handed to us, we must be willing to stand up and invoke and protect our rights. Even with legal protections in place we can face hardship and injustice simply for our faiths.
In a similar vein, T. Thorn Coyle in her blog post for IPVBM 2009, observed that we in the U.S. have let much of our public policy debates fall to the arguments of (predominantly) Christian Conservatives and Secular Liberals. Where is the diversity of voices one would expect in the Great American Melting Pot?
Here in the U.S. 1 in every 8 people is going hungry, and across the U.S. and the world, poverty and the recession are hitting folks harder and harder.
Then too, there are those who seek to line their pockets and fill their pews while stepping over the blood and bones of children and helpless old women.
What would our Ancestors think of thse things? What DO our many Goddesses and Gods think of that? Do such things serve the All That Is? Most importantly, what are WE as people of conscience, and values, and many faiths; what shall we do about these things?
Hey folks,
This is especially aimed at dear Jonathan, who mentioned he hadn’t seen Fantaisia 2000 !?!
So of course It racked this down online, watched a few times, wept like a baby for a little bit, felt better and now I am going to bed… maybe I need to get a bunch of sad movies and be weepy for a bit? Might do my spirit some good!
and… YES… I KNOW that the Springy vibe might strike some of you as more Beltainey and weird for Samhain (at least in the Northern Hemisphere) but living in this Sub-Tropical Wonderland that is Florida, somehow the Springy vibe fits with themes of Life, Death, and Renewal.
Peace
Pax
So I am eventually going to pass this onto others, once I am back in blogging form… you know with like a topic and multiple paragraphs and all that happy stuff?! Anyhow, a few posts ago I was awarded the Honest Scrap award by Dragon from Pentacles and Pavement.
Thank you!
So I am trying to blog here regularly, and to work through my journaling and self-improvement efforts. I am also trying to pull together an article for Thorn.
…I just have been having trouble finding my creativity or my passion….
I breathe deeply, in through the nose and out through my mouth, taking in breath and energy into my heart chakra and into my Center, somewhere in between my base and my sacral chakras. I see myself in my Witches Cottage, my own special place of imagination and magic… that I sometimes flatter myself to believe is on the Astral Plane. I see myself sweeping and cleaning and moping and picking things up and … somone else is doing some work on the door and part of the roof… as big storm came through but its still there.
…and so am I. So is my creativity… even if I am having trouble reaching into it.
I am also listening to my podcasts, including the new Spiritscast from Feithline Stuart, the podcaster formerly known as Darkly Fey of the Darkside of Fey with her fabulous new podcast…. And I’ve lately been listening to the Pagan Centered Podcast.
… I’ve started taking an interest in things again… been trying to catch the news again, and searching out the blogs… and just trying to get involved in things again. I made it back to services at Church recently, and had a delightful conversation with Mama Rhaevyn recently….
Things are getting better and going good!
