Rev Janet Callahan

Priestess and Author

Libations

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For the last couple of years, I’ve been leaving my libations and offerings in the back corner of our yard – particularly full moon and dark moon offerings, but others as the mood strikes me. It’s piled with large landscaping rocks, and we’ve always left it to grow somewhat wild – though the fire pit is only there because the lawn care crew moved it out of their way:

Back corner of the yard

When we first moved here, the yard was mostly just dirt and rock. Up near the fence line at the front of the house, there are violets – and they’ve stayed there, until this year, when suddenly we had a whole bunch of them here in my offering corner – and while it’s possible they’ve spread the last few years all the way along the side fence, there were virtually no blooms along there this past month – just the cluster at the front of the house, and the cluster back here.

I’m taking this as a good sign, among several others, that the offerings have been accepted and are much appreciated. This is one of two spots in the yard that I think really need some sort of statue or other symbol of the gods, I just haven’t quite figured out what yet.

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Group ritual & regular practices

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Last Friday, I went to my first “group” full moon ritual (actually, my first group ritual of any sort) in over a year.

Between my initiation at Imbolc last year, and the directions my coven was heading at the time, I felt I needed a break to get my own house in order before continuing with that group, much less any group. I’ve done ritual by myself for nearly every full moon and new moon since, but a recent invitation to attend this ritual (and to keep attending if I so choose) was too good to pass up, especially coming nearly a year to the day after committing to a year away from group ritual.

The nice thing about this particular ritual was that it was hosted by my upline – the teachers of my now former high priestess. Most of the women there were people I’d circled with before – and because most of the group consisted of old friends, news of my pregnancy was met with hugs and smiles and love.  It was maybe the most truely Dianic ritual I’d been to for some time before my sabbatical. The two hostesses are older women – partners, grandmothers – and they’ve been at this a long, long time.

While solitary ritual has it’s place…group ritual is good too. Dianic rituals have a feel of bounded chaos, because you never really know what the woman standing next to you or across from you will decide to do; what particular flavor of energy she will call on or bring to the rite, what words or images she will evoke, and where they will take you. And while this ritual had no meditation…I didn’t miss it either. It had connections between people, and a joyful energy that sang through the group, raising both the good and bad of life up as signs that we still live. There was energy drawn for healing – healing for one of the hostesses who has some major complications from chronic illness, healing of stress and angst, and a lot of energy for me and the baby, which brought a lot of joy to all those present. It was a place where this pregnancy could be celebrated without diminishing the times I’ve sat in circle, surrounded by some of these same women, and wept over the journey of infertility – a very healing, very needed experience for me.

I should point out that pregnancy has been quite the spiritual experience for me thus far overall. Mindfulness of the current moment has been a big lesson here – pregnancy changes day by day, so no two days are the same, and it’s made me more attentive to the rest of life around me, and how it too must be savored right now, because the next minute is a different one to savor before it too is gone.

Pregnancy has also become a source of a deeper faith – I received what I was promised, which makes my trust just that much stronger, and I have a new understanding of my primary matron, Arianrhod. I once rejected her because she was just a fertility goddess, then I embraced the fact that she was so much more…and now I see it all from a different perspective, which both blends those two understandings, and invalidates them at the same time. Embracing her as “more” than a mother goddess invalidates that facet of her, just as dismissing her as “just” a fertility goddess invalidated the rest of her.

One of our hostesses drew down the moon, which is something I’d never actually seen done in a group setting, and never really attempted myself. But the experience…was fascinating, and wonderful, and I spent the whole ritual feeling the moon riding point on our journey. One interesting experience as part of drawing down the moon was *feeling* the moon filling me, filling my growing belly, taking that light and reflecting it through me, and incorporating itself into me. Having not done this while not pregnant, it’s hard to say how it would differ, but each part I played in the ritual had a similar effect – a connection I had not really felt before opened up to me. Maybe I wasn’t paying attention before, or maybe I just wasn’t reaching out and grabbing hold of that thread – or maybe it really wasn’t there before. But it’s definitely there now.

At any rate, I think I’m back on the bandwagon when it comes to women’s circles for the full moon, and plan to go circle with them as frequently as is practical. The drive isn’t any worse than any of the various incarnations of my previous coven. The connections are an important part of the energy involved, and community, in some form, is an important part of any spiritual practice. I will most likely still do new moons by myself – it’s a different energy, and one that strikes me as more suited to personal development and personal pursuits.

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

Daily Practice

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So, the practice of religion. It’s an odd thing; I’ve rarely discussed this with anyone before, and it’s actually a little intimidating – so much of what I do is based on my own trial and error, which was based on reading and listening (and a very tiny bit of group ritual experience). I didn’t start out as a newbie Pagan in a Wicca 101 class – in fact, I had been on this path several years before reading anything by Scott Cunningham or Silver Ravenwolf – so my starting point often seems to be on another planet from many of those around me

In fact, my first official starting point was ceremonial magick – it was hauntingly familiar, almost like a favorite old quilt, given my strict German Lutheran upbringing. The archangels and demons were not so familiar (though the concepts were known to me, having many German Catholic friends who I discussed religion with over recess). But I always saw ceremonial magick as something not to be taken lightly, and I wanted to be sure that I understood the situation before actually attempting much in the way of workings. Interestingly, by the time I got comfortable enough with the material to think about actually using it, I’d realized that wasn’t where I belonged.

Before ceremonial magick, there was meditation and astral travel – things I’d done as a young teen interested in ESP. Somewhere along the way, I put all the toys on a shelf due to a bad experience, and I left them there until I was in my early twenties.

But that’s neither here nor there. At this point, what is it that I do, religion wise?

I tried doing daily prayers for a while. I’d keep up with it a few weeks, and then something would get in the way. I also tried for a long while to smudge when I came home from work. While it’s relaxing after a stressful day, getting in the habit of doing it every day instead of getting on with the things I needed to do was really a struggle. I tried doing the LBRP, but I have a really hard time with anything that requires rote memorization, and to this day I have to have a cheat sheet to get all the words correct.

What’s worked best the last couple of months has actually revolved around 2 changes in my life – in December I learned Reiki, and in early January I learned that I was pregnant, after five years of trying and 2 different doctors.

That change required a substantial change in thinking and in how I see myself, because it was nearly incomprehensible after all the time spent working through the infertility mess. My mundane daily routine has had to shift because of this – I need more sleep, I need to eat smaller portions more frequently, and not eat some things that I would normally eat. I have to be more aware of my overall energy levels, and what I’m doing with the energy I do have.

Interestingly, these shifts have included finally getting into a groove when it comes to daily practice. When I lay down to go to sleep at night, I spend some time grounding and centering, and then Reiki myself and the baby (and actually, I saw a green spot in my second chakra about four days before I knew I was pregnant, which I’ve since realized is the baby) – sometimes a full body scan, sometimes just one or two spots that need help. And if I’m still awake by then, some brief meditation and a round of thanks to my matron Goddesses and any others who I ought to acknowledge. It’s working out to be a good way to deal with stress from work, the business, and the crazy body-changing and life-changing events that go with pregnancy.

The other not-quite daily ritual I have revolves around our living room, which is the space that most clearly defines “family” for me. The mantle above the fireplace became a sort of impromptu altar a couple years back, with a pillar candle of some sort, a regular supply of nag champa incense, and a block with spaces for seven tea lights. On a regular basis (at least once a week, and sometimes every day), I light the pillar candle and a stick of incense, with a short prayer asking anyone who’s listening (particularly land/household spirits/minor gods) for happiness and safety for me and mine – my family (both by blood and by choice), and any other minor requests for the household. When the mood strikes, I use tea lights to represent specific requests at the same time.

More on my practices to come in the following weeks.

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

Where I’m Going

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I’ve spent some time thinking lately about how to organize my thoughts in a way that will explain the things I believe. I’ve thought about how I would teach someone else to do what I do. And honestly, I’m somewhat at a loss. This is experiential – it’s not something I can always explain, nor is it the kind of thing where I can just say, ‘believe this, and everything will work out.’

I’ve thought about the religious education of my childhood, to see if there were themes I ought to follow, or logic there to guide me, but as a child, religion came from a book, and this…is not the same. As a child, the story from the Bible was read to us, and we were told what important things we should gain from this story. When I was older, teaching came by way of reading Bible passages, and discussing; we were led by a pastor who told us when we were right or wrong.

I find myself suddenly understanding my grandmother’s statement, back when I was 10, that she couldn’t teach me how to sew, but that she would watch me sew, and then show me how it could be better. I thought it was one of the stupidest things I’d ever heard back then; now I see the truth of the statement.

This is a religion of doing, not a religion of talking, or reading, or sitting back and watching the movie of life play out in front of us. Not that these things aren’t important, but that the action of doing them, and soaking up the information, in a way that it can be put to use, is something more holistic than just sitting and hearing a lecture.

And so, maybe the things I do are the place to start, and explain what’s behind those things as I go.

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Welcome to the Presence of the Goddess

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Or, The Trials and Tribulations of Being a Hard Polytheist in the Modern Pagan World

I generally consider myself to be a hard polytheist: I believe that the various and sundry Gods and Goddesses are separate individuals.

But I believe this for a rather odd reason. I figure if it appears that there are many different Gods, with different personalities and histories and spheres of influence, it’s most practical to act as if they really are separate, until and unless there is some final convincing proof that they’re all from the same source. After all, if there is some single ultimate source, it had a good reason for appearing to be many different deities, so why not play along?

This pragmatic approach to religion disturbed some of my co-workers in the interfaith group when we discussed such things. They asked my opinion on what happened after death, and I said that I generally thought there was some form of reincarnation, except on days where I was feeling particularly skeptical, but that I also wasn’t convinced it mattered. When they asked why, I said, “Isn’t it true that most religions – certainly the religions of every person in this room – teach that we should do the best we can with this life, in order to get the best afterlife we can?” Well…yes…. “Ok, then why does it matter whether I get another life after this to try again, or weather I go to heaven or the summerlands, or some other afterlife – in the end, what really matters was what I did with this life. Everything else is just details for the divine to sort out when I die.”

This general take on things leads to some interesting problems in the community [1] at large. For example, I am a priestess of, and have studied with, a Dianic coven. In typical Dianic style, this group works with the triple-goddess archetype, and while they occasionally invoke (and even channel) specific Goddesses, it’s not done outside of the idea that this is just an Avatar of The Goddess (TM). Note that word “just” – when used this way, it often means, “merely” – nothing more than whatever you’re describing – which takes away the importance of the entire subject of the sentence.

When I started working with this group, a lot of my friends asked: why affiliate yourself with a group you don’t completely agree with?

The first bit of truth: there aren’t any groups out there that I agree with 100%.

The second bit of truth: If there was a reasonably serious recon group that allowed syncretic worship and innovation, and still allowed for the “mystery” and “magick” that Wicca takes as part and parcel, I’d be there in a heartbeat. In fact, if I thought I could get past the bad experiences I’ve had with a handful of more public covens, I think I’d manage to be quite happy and spiritually enriched in a solid BTW coven that allowed for some creativity without being overbearing or too entrenched in “One True Wayism.” I can’t be the only one who wants this type of thing.

Thus far, though, I haven’t found any groups that fit that combination. I’m sure some readers will say that their group is what I’m looking for. I’m open to suggestions, but really, I’ve investigated a lot of groups – recon groups, Wiccanesque groups, umbrella-type Pagan groups that claim to cater to everyone. You either get too fluffy, or too stuffy.

And frankly, those umbrella groups are the worst of the worst: “We are open to all paths!” they insist, but they follow the 8 Wiccan holidays with Wiccan style rituals…which doesn’t seem very interfaith to me, just like I don’t find “interfaith” groups comprised only of Catholics and Protestants to be particularly worthy of the interfaith definition either

So…what benefit is there from a group I disagree with on things, that other people around me consider fluffy? This one focuses on personal growth. It allows for calling specific Goddesses by name. Whether I see them as individuals is not important to the overall function of the group. But the downsides…no Gods. No men. Less than accurate scholarship.

I suspect before this is all done, I’ll end up creating my own little group. Because having walked away from my Dianic coven when they took off in directions I didn’t need to go, I kind of miss the overall group worship experience. And if all I wanted out of my worship experiences was to be with other people, I’d re-join a Christian church – it’s at least as far from my own practices as the average eclectic Wiccan group is these days, and it’s a much more functional community.

[1] and by community, I mean the loosely connected set of Pagan folk out there of various varieties, not that they’re actually a community – community involves shared interests, culture, or location, and I’m not convinced we Pagans really have any of these on a grand scale. But that’s another essay for another day.

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