Finding Autonomy, Parts 1-3 (WALK)

WALK.

 

I. BEGINNINGS

(1) In the beginning, there was nothing. Not a single atom, nor a god, nor a sun, a moon, a cell. Nothing was infinitesimally packaged into this universe. Nothing was this universe.

(5) Then came a day when there was something. Nothing exploded into matter and still expands to this day. And although the universe stretches far beyond human imagination, the universe is not our current concern.

(8) All solutions must first have a problem. I do not wax omniscient about your problems, but instead offer the solution. I have found this solution works for all problems, because problems are never first physical.

(11) Sensations turn to perceptions turn to problems. And it is here, in perceptions, that we find the source of all problems. And here, in these words, I offer you the solution to your perceptions.

(14) Walk. If you cannot walk, move in some direction by your own decision. If you cannot move of your own free will, then imagine a walk, a perpetual, decisive motion. And it is here, in this walking temple, that you will find the answers to your problems.

 

II. WORRIES

(1) Your perceptions are the source of all problems. Those who do not think, do not worry. Much of human life is worry. And although other beings are not as cognizant, they too, worry. Without worry, there would be no survival.

(5) Worry must not rule your heart and mind. Deep inside, we all recognize our autonomy. Though we are ruled by law and order, none can rule our minds but us. Chains on our feet are not chains on our hearts.

(9) Worry has its place, but its place is not at your head or in your heart. Worry is your counselor, not your master. Remember your autonomy. Control your movement. Be one with your physical body, and your mind will quiet.

(14) Walk. And while you walk, challenge your heart to know itself in the deepest way. Do not love unwilling, do not know with a blind faith. Control your worry, and you will have peace.

 

III. FINDING SELF

(1) All hide in familiarity. Be it a song or smile or route, we find solace in the perceived fallacy of sameness. Yet, everything we see changes, and everything we hear will never be heard again. Although the message stays the same, the delivery will change, and our perception of its meaning will rise anew each time.

(5) To remember the wisdom of “Walk.” is opportunity to learn your lessons anew. To bring to heart new meanings and discoveries and decisions. To find your way through the darkness and into your light.

(8) Take this opportunity in the morning and in the night. In the high sun and in total darkness. Shod and unshod, clothed and naked, stand before yourself and inquire with an unfettered mind. What makes you? What makes me? What makes the universe?

(14) Walk. And while you walk, open your heart to all things. Challenge your atheism and your faith alike. Emerge from the fire as a new being each day.

Rites of Passage

I’ll never forget reading a book about rites of passage in one of my college classes.
The entire class, in fact, was about rituals and rites and how we humans make sense of the world.  I read about some more culturally disturbing rituals, in which young men are required to “take their elder’s seed” into their mouths to receive the knowledge and strength of their elders (they perform oral sex on their fathers, uncles, and grandfathers).  But overall, the threads of that class — how a ritual is structured, the purpose of a ritual, and all of those things — I see them running through my daily life.

I witnessed a Ph.D. defense yesterday.  Well, the public part. They do the actual defense in private, but I had an opportunity to watch him tell a room full of people about his research. Although much like a normal presentation, an oral dissertation presentation has an additional layer of both nerves and giddiness. It’s not uncommon to hear jokes intended to up the ante, like, “We’ll leave all the questions to your committee,” or, “I’m sure they’ll talk about that later.”

Rites of passage are all around us.  From the training videos at national corporations like Target and McDonalds to the elaborate customs and decorations involved in handfastings and weddings, there are often symbols tied up in our everyday activities.

This line of argumentation or description may be helpful to you in your encounters with the non-pagan world. One of the more common arguments from others is that magic isn’t real, or even worse, magic is evil. Magic, if you remember, is the simple act of demanding change from the world. Any time that someone declares “I do” or “I will” in response to a question or statement, they are engaging in magic. From the court room to the DMV, magic and rituals are all around us. Pagans should not be demonized for calling what they do, what it is. The only difference is that the rituals associated with paganism are less common than the rituals associated with church on Sunday.

Reiki is no religion: Learning Reiki and its value system

Some people, probably not Pagan, tend to shy away from energy healing systems like Reiki because they’re afraid that it’s a religion, not a spiritual practice. If they dig a little deeper, however, they’ll find that they are mistaken.

Reiki operates on a simple principle: Healing energy goes where it’s permitted to go. Under this model, anyone can become a Reiki practitioner. A Reiki practitioner is anyone who has the skills to direct the energy, and who has access to the energy. Reiki has a long history of attunement: every Reiki practitioner can trace their “attunement lineage” back to Mikai Usuo, the founder or “discoverer” of Reiki energy.

The story goes that Usuo discovered the energy while meditating and, along with it, found several symbols meant to “unlock” access and attune others. The symbols help you send energy to a person, even across distance, and also “unlock” someone else so that they, too, can access the energy. 

I was initiated into Reiki sometime in 2008 and became a Reiki master in 2009. I do use it, occasionally, but as part of my push to raise funds for running this and other websites, I’ve begun to offer a Reiki healing service through Fiverr. For just $5, you can get a distance healing session along with free attunement to Reiki and a manual explaining how to use your new energy.

So why is Reiki not a religion? Because Reiki practitioners have one motive: heal. There is no supernatural being involved except in the pantheistic sense of the Universe being sacred and powerful. There is no homage to a specific god, be it Japanese or Judeo-Christian, nor is there an emphasis on theism in order for Reiki to work.

So, even if you’re a little weirded out by energy healing practices, I encourage you to give Reiki a try. The feeling of someone caring for you, if nothing else, is a great way to spend a few minutes. Unlike chakra alignment and other energy healing practices, Reiki has no dogma attached to it other than “Feel better! Now!” 

Early Morning Reflections

I woke up this morning because  my cat kept jumping on me and I couldn’t take it anymore.  You see, she likes things on a schedule and we feed her every morning between 5 and 7.  It was right around seven and so I crawled out of bed to feed her and I saw these dark shadows on the floor. They happened to be dog poop.

There’s an important lesson to be had here, and the lesson is that sometimes, you wake up to find that a dog has literally shit on your floor and your morning.  Now, luckily for me, I own a dog, so all in all, it wasn’t too out of the question to find some shit on the floor.

And in the end, yes. The shit is irritating.  Annoying.  But it’s not necessarily an inherent bad or evil thing.  In the end, it’s just poop.

I guess my point is that we often spend a lot of time being angry at things like dog shit that just happen.  There’s nothing you can do about them, yet you find yourself seething at the gods and universe for the shit on your floor.

Shit happens. Don’t blame the the universe. Just move on.

Invocations of Dionysus and Athena

Great Dionysus, 
Keeper of wine and fruit and merriment
I call upon you, great god of mystery
To join us in our celebration
And bring us down your wisdom, joy, and love
So mote it be.

Lady Athena, 
You who burst forth from your father’s skull
Mother of weaving and wisdom and war
I call to you now and invite you into our circle
And ask for the gift of your loving knowledge
So mote it be.

When God Talks Back (A Review)

I’ve been reading the book, When God Talks Back by TM Luhrmann as of late. I’m not all the way through it, but what I’ve read is interesting. And fascinating.

The author spends a lot of time with evangelical Christians to study how they pray and communicate with God.  What she finds is very similar to the relationships with the sacred described by other spiritual traditions.  Through active prayer and meditation, these people enhance their mental imagery and feel a sense of peace and love and joy come over them, and sometimes experience (hallucinate) god as being real in physical form.

It reminds me of my conversion moment.  I was a child, drifting to sleep, but still awake, when all of a sudden, I was overcome. I felt like I was being hugged by the best invisible force in the world. I was warm and cuddly and the happiest I had ever been.  And I understood that sensation as the sacred power of the universe come to greet me. 

Regardless of what you believe, those “conversion moments” can be powerful and drive you towards a blind faith.  I would offer the following advice: 

You can explore your mind, create a social connection with yourself, and still have divine experiences without attributing it to anything but your brain’s awesome power.  That being said, gods and goddesses and even Jesus are a powerful construct designed to help your brain get there.  So, if a part of you believes, let it go wild. Maybe you’ll feel as though you can “see the words [of prayer] written on their faces” or hear God’s voice behind you. As long as God isn’t telling you to hurt someone, you go on with your fine self!

 

Happy Imbolc 2014!

Our coven actually had to reschedule due to a storm rolling in tonight, but I’m looking forward to celebrating a few weeks from now once we can all get together again.

I hope you had a wonderful Imbolc and lit a candle for Brigid, the eternal blacksmith.  Brigid has always been a favorite of mine because she turns gender roles on their heads.  As someone who views herself as sort of… genderfluid, it’s nice to get some support from the literature.

Genderfluid, by the way, is when you feel like you move easily between the two main genders.  For me, that’s definitely the case.  Sometimes, I am all woman, but other days, I dress, feel, and act like a man.

Ah well.  Enjoy your weekend!  Throw a snowball 😉

Lynn

A Ritual Grimoire!

Hey guys –

You know how I’ve posted a lot of different rituals on here?  Well, if you like my rituals (a la Western Winds tradition), perhaps you’ll enjoy the full set of 8 sabbat rituals that I’ve released as “Western Winds Wicca Volume 2: Ritual Grimoire.”  Yes, that’s right, I finally got another book out!  The best part?  It’s just $0.99.

Now, remember, when you choose to buy my books, you’re choosing to offset the $100 I spend every year to host this site.  I get about $0.35 from each copy sold, so it’s not much, but if you share with your friends, who knows?  Maybe I’ll break even on this blog 🙂

Oh, by the way: it is a GREAT companion to “Using Wicca to Achieve Your Goals,” because each holiday has a focus on goal setting and review.

Meditations on the Dragon Fly

Dragonflies are amazing creatures. As predators in both their juvenile and adult stages, dragonflies teach us that we must always act, and not sit idly by. Developmentally, dragonflies are unique in that they spend their young stages underwater, and their adult stages in the air. They are top predators in both air and sea, at least as far as the insect world goes. You’ll be hard pressed to find other insects that can snatch ants, bees, and wasps from the air and enjoy a leisurely meal on a fence post. This picture shows the other unique part of dragonflies: their mating. The male “controls” the female by gripping the area behind her head with his rear end. The male’s sperm is actually stored closer to his head, and the female will curl her abdomen around into a “wheel” shape to get it. The male generally holds onto the female until she deposits eggs with his sperm underwater, as you can see this female doing. I’m not sure what life lesson there is in this mating acts, other than to see something through to the end and hold on for all that you’re worth. Happy Monday!

Pagans Eating Well (Part 2)

If you haven’t read part 1, why not do that real quick?

Part 1 focused on our overconsumption, using meat as an example.  To summarize, meat is often expensive for your body, your wallet, and your environment.  This second part is going to focus on something that you can do to improve your nutrition in a much cheaper way.  This is a newly discovered thing for me, and it’s called the “green smoothie.”

The idea is simple.  We don’t eat enough leafy greens.  Gods know that I don’t.  We cover salads, when we eat them, in chemical-laden salad dressings or tons of extras: breadcrumbs, cranberries, cheese.

Green smoothies are a way to get your vegetables in with the ease of drinking them.  I know, I know.  It sounds gross at first, to drink vegetables.  But the miracle is, by blending fruits and vegetables together, you get all the “plusses” of leafy green vegetables with the delicious tastes of your added fruits.

Eight years ago, the only vegetables that I ate were potato chips and french fries.  I went through a phase in college where I began to eat salads, and I slid down the slippery slope into craving broccoli and stir fry.  I mostly like my vegetables cooked, but I’m still exploring and developing my tastes.

My parents got me a new blender for Christmas, a Ninja 1500 system.  This thing is a powerhouse! Now, you don’t need a super blender like my Ninja to make your first green smoothie, but it’ll blend a little smoother if you have one.

I was so scared when I tried it. I barely put in any greens at all, and my greens were just a bit of romaine lettuce.  I felt relieved when I took my first sip and all that I could taste was apple.  My first green smoothie recipe was as follows: 1 chopped up apple, 1 chopped up kiwi (skinned), and a handful of lettuce, with a bit of water and some ice.  My mouth is watering now thinking about it — I may have one of these for dinner!  It tastes just like apple juice, it’s “low-calorie” (if you care about those things), and the fiber from the apple, kiwi, and lettuce keep your stomach occupied for a while so that you can focus on other things.

My most robust smoothie so far has been a strawberry-celery-spinach-dill smoothie that tastes like… sweet celery.  Not overly fruity, but it doesn’t taste like spinach, either.  I’ve made four or five different types of smoothies, and only one of them has been less than stellar (one with blueberries that I made too thick).  I’ve begun taking a quart Mason jar with me to work with my green smoothie in the morning.  My coworkers look at me weird, but that coupled with a good breakfast sees me through to lunch.

I can’t stress how affordable, delicious, and nutritious these are.  It’s such an easy way to eat my vegetables for the day, and it really steers me away from soda, chips, and other things that just “tide me over” until I get home from work and chow down on everything that I can find.

Regardless of whether you take the smoothie plunge, think on this.  Eat well: eat whole foods, not too much, and enjoy life.  There’s no better honor to the gods than that.

Brightest blessings.