Rev Janet Callahan

Priestess and Author

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What is Clergy, Anyway?

January 2, 2019 by Janet Callahan 1 Comment

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about what our initiations mean, and what “being clergy” means when you’re not part of an active, structured worship group (like a coven, or kindred, or church, or whatever). Christian folks use minister, clergy, pastor, and a few other terms almost interchangeably, and priest is only used in a few specific situations….but we’re different.

priestess in a circle of stars and swirling colors

We talk about everyone being a priest or priestess – everyone is capable of reaching out to the divine and interceding for themselves, without someone standing in between them and a specific deity.

We also talk about priests and priestesses serving specific gods, the way temple keepers would have in the old days. It’s a form of dedication to that specific deity, in service to them.

We talk about clergy when we mean, “able to serve as clergy in the legal sense” – weddings, mostly, but sometimes funerals, hospital visits, and maybe house blessings. Sometimes we use the word ordained here, or ordained minister, because it’s “official”…but anyone can be ordained by the ULC, so I often wonder what this word really gets us [1]

Ministers…minister. They tend to the spiritual needs of the flock. They do sick calls, they pray with people, they help people who are struggling with faith.

And as pastor, they’re also the leader of the congregation. That’s a lot of jobs to put on one person, and it’s no wonder that so many Christian groups struggle with finding people who can really do all these things.

One of the things that we don’t talk about is teaching. In most other religions, those who are worship leaders are also teachers of that faith. Our teaching is more decentralized, more squishy. Frequently, students are asked to teach as part of their training – learning how to teach by example, and learning more about their subjects as they teach. Even when our working group teaches, we learn at festivals and at events and go to individual workshops and read books and websites – so many incoming sources of information!

And teaching is one of the things I’ve done a lot of over the years. It’s become a focus of mine over the last few, because I so often feel that those formalized learning opportunities are missing as we Pagan folk become less centralized and more and more solitary with occasional group rituals.

It’s one of the reasons I’m opening Lady Arianrhod’s Magical Academy – teaching is a passion of mine, and while there’s lots of good information out there if you google, you have to sort through and figure out what’s credible (just today, someone asked about runes in one of the groups I’m in, complaining that different sources say different things, and how do they figure it out?)

So, head on over, check out the classes currently available, and consider our introductory offer – I’ll likely do a sale for a year’s worth of membership later this year. There are more offerings coming for members too, which will not be released as separate courses.

This is my focus this year – the Academy and the Magical Moms Club – so let’s make 2019 a great year!

[1] Which is not to detract from the ULC, mind you – they serve an important role, and now that the circle that initiated me as a high priestess, capable of running a circle, and capable of legally acting as clergy no longer exists, I have an ordination from them to help manage the state’s requirements.

Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Filed Under: classes, Essays, Magical Moms Club, MoonDay School

Children and Ancestors

September 19, 2018 by Janet Callahan Leave a Comment

In a recent discussion in one of the business masterminds I’m in, we got to talking about children and various things about raising them in a magical household.

Most days, it’s complicated.

One topic that we’ve actually touched on at home recently that came up was ancestor veneration.

 

 

Have you seen the movie Coco? One of the big features of Dia De Muertos is the ofrenda, the altar that deceased loved ones come to visit as part of the celebration. The idea that we must remember those ancestors is key to the story, and it’s a key to ancestor veneration too, though we can take it a step farther and call on ancestors that we don’t know.

Ancestors are a pretty concrete idea for most kids – they know that their parents also had parents (their grandparents). It’s not much of a stretch to understand that their grandparents also had parents and grandparents, even if they never met them.

So hearing that family tree, and stories surrounding those people, help make their memories come alive. This is why people tell stories. Every year at Samhain I tell my kids stories about relatives who have passed on – relatives they knew, and relatives that they never met. I have grand plans to make a book with photos and everything….but so far it’s a pile of scrap booking supplies.

abstract tree design with arms as the trunk, fingers as the branches, and multi-colored leaves

The question then becomes, how do we talk about veneration with our kids?

At our house, there are two parts to that answer.

The first is that on a regular basis (theoretically daily, but we’re in a not-daily mode right now), we light a candle and incense, and we ask all the grandmas and grandpas and aunts and uncles, all the nature spirits in and around our home, and our gods and goddesses, to protect us and our home and our extended family.

The second, which has come up more recently, has been asking them for help. My daughter suffers from severe anxiety, and she’s an empath. One thing we’ve talked about during a recent flare up of her anxiety is that she can ask all the grandmas and grandpas to help her be brave, and to help her see which feelings belong to her and which ones don’t. And we’ve talked about how she can ask the grandmas and grandpas to help her carry her big feelings when they’re too big, and to help her let go of feelings that aren’t hers.

It’s big picture. It’s not subtle and nuanced. But right now, it’s working for her, and giving her ways to make the energetic connections, and tools to help her control her anxiety.

How about you? How do you approach teaching your children about ancestors?Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Filed Under: Essays, Magical Moms Club, parenting

Ways to Use Reiki with Kids

February 23, 2018 by Janet Callahan Leave a Comment

If you know me, you’ve heard my stories about using Reiki with my kids – from Reiki in the NICU to Reiki on the little bumps and bruises that kids get to getting my kids to sleep.

Little Miss B, at 6, comes over asking us to kiss every injury – I kiss my hand (because sheesh, it’s always a toe or some other really inconvenient place she wants a kiss) and put my hands over the spot to do Reiki. Within moments, she says, “All Better” and takes off.

One of my goals with my new energy work practice is to do more work with families and children, particularly those with special needs. So, I decided to start looking at what other people were doing with kids out there, and got rather frustrated with the things I was reading.

So, I think I’m going to work on putting some stuff out there on Reiki and children. I’m also prepping a class for parents on doing Reiki on their children.  Interested? Comment below!Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Filed Under: classes, Magical Moms Club, parenting, Special Needs

Review: Rainbow Bodies

February 21, 2018 by Janet Callahan Leave a Comment

Rainbow Bodies book, blue background with a rainbow at the top and the silhouette of a child on a swing

Rainbow Bodies, By Kelly Collins Kascavitch

 

This book is made up of amazingly beautiful photos, each specifically matched, by color, to the chakra they’re talking about in those pages.  Each pair of pages has sentences explaining that charkra, which rhyme (though sometimes, the length of the sentences makes those rhymes more subtle). Some of the first and last pages talk about what chakras are, and how to care for our energetic bodies.

All in all, it’s really a nice little book, and I think we’ll enjoy reading it over and over.

 

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As usual, the opinions expressed are my own, and I bought this book myself.Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Filed Under: Magical Moms Club, parenting, Reviews

Review: Rock On!

February 12, 2018 by Janet Callahan Leave a Comment

So, I’ve been on the hunt for things for us to do as a family on the weekends.  Weekends around here are challenging – the adults want down time, the kids struggle with unstructured time, and we don’t always share the same ideas about how to have a good time.

To that end, I’ve been reading books on doing yoga with special needs children, got certified to teach kids yoga via Pretzel Kids, researching games that are cooperative and less turn-based and less counting based, bringing snow into the kitchen as a sensory bin, trying to figure out how to store all the puzzles the kids have gotten over the years and….trying not to pull my hair out.

One of the games we picked up recently is called Rock On. It’s a geology-based game, but parents could quite easily add on metaphysical properties, and it’s a great teaching tool for stone and crystal identification.

There are different levels of play for kids who are more or less skilled in geography – we’re still working on the easiest “matching” level, which doesn’t require any questions. There are full color charts for both the main unpolished stones and the tumbled stones that are used as markers.

All in all, a fun time all around, and a great collection of crystals to get started learning about them.

 

Rock On game box

 

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As is almost always the case, I bought this product myself, and the review represents my opinion.Check out my new energy work page, http://www.facebook.com/GoodVibrationsEnergyStudio

Filed Under: Magical Moms Club, MoonDay School, Reviews

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