NaPoWriMo, day 24

I write.

Thoughts pour
from penstroke to page,
a torrent
of nervous rage.

Thoughts jerk
halted by the broken
link, dying
on lips, unspoken.


~~~

I wrote this in response to a prompt in my writing class. The prompt was "I write..." or "Things I'd like to write about..."

I began this way: I write because I have to. Speech just doesn't work. The connections in my brain aren't hooked up that way. Words come to my pen, but never my voice. Maybe that's why I paint. The poem came after, because I didn't want to describe it directly any more.

1977

"Mom, what year did the first Star Wars come out?"
"1977. The same year Uncle Craig was born."
He repeats the year slowly, and I can hear it turning over on his tongue like a molasses ball.
"Nine.Teen.Sev.En.Ty.Sev.En."
Spirit in the Sky plays in the background, pulls us each to our own thoughts.
His thoughts include getting up and dancing about the room, in jerky hops and swinging arms.
"Sit down and eat your breakfast or I'm turning the music off."
He sits, and tucks his feet between the wood chair and that bony butt, toes touching in the middle.
His fingers poke at his egg-and-muffin sandwich.
Soon there's a bite in his mouth and a wiggle in his seat.
"Is it okay if I give the dogs just one of my pistachios?"
"After you're done eating everything else."
"Okay. I'll save one  pistachio for you, and two for the dogs."
He picks up his banana and shoots it, pew-pew.
"Eat it, Bear."
"Okay."
He puts down the banana and takes another bite of the sandwich.
His knees start rising.
Now they're bongos, and his body is perched on tippy-toes, wedged between the table and the chairback.
"Bear!"
"Sorry!" He sits.
"Pew-pew-pew!" goes the banana.
"Put it down!"
"Sorry!" The banana goes down. He snaps his fingers to the music.
"Take a bite."
"Okay."
The banana pulls him up; he takes a bite of it while he sways to the music, his other hand on the chair behind him.  He wiggles and snaps his way over to my chair, leans in, and says very sweetly, "I'm finished."
That hardly seems possible, but it's true.
Don't worry, about a thing, cuz every little thing's gonna be alright, Bob Marley tells me.
Thank goodness.

home blessing ritual, Bones style

Characters
Me
Archer, my husband
Bear, my son
Roxy the Brave, my old dog
Stella-Boo the Neurotic, my young dog
NaaNaa the Lion-Hearted, my deceased kitty
Eric the Joy-Bringer, my other deceased kitty
an assortment of statues: one at (near) each doorway and window, on the inside of the house
my house, including its yard



Ingredients
salt, whatever I have on hand
stone, collected from my yard
cedar oil
bowl
ashes of NaaNaa and Eric
hair from Stella-Boo and Roxy
flower petals, from my yard
some sort of talisman for my house's spirit that I'll come up with (hopefully) before the ritual



Steps

At the home altar, in the heart of the home:

1. mix salt, stone, and oil in bowl
   Salt of the wild Ocean,
   Stone of the desert Earth:
   Keep my home safe and sound.

2. add to the mix: ashes of NaaNaa and Eric
   NaaNaa the Lion-Hearted,
   Eric the Joy-Bringer:
   Hearth-friends, Soul-friends, hear me: 
   Walk these walls, Watch our home;
   Keep us safe, Keep us wise;
   Stand as Guards.

3. add to the mix: hair from Stella-Boo and Roxy
   Roxy the Brave,
   Stella-Boo the Neurotic:
   Hearth-friends, Soul-friends, hear me: 
   Walk these walls, Watch our home;
   Keep us safe, Keep us wise;
   Stand as Guards.

4. add to the mix: flower petals
   As life flourishes around us,
   let us grow, too: 
   undaunted by life's storms,
   nourished by the challenges we face.

Around the outer edge of the yard:

5. annoint each corner and gate with the mixture, creating a circle
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   No illwill can find root here.
   No illwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   Only goodwill can find root here.
   Only goodwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.

Around the outside of the house:

6. annoint each corner and door, creating a circle
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   No illwill can find root here.
   No illwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   Only goodwill can find root here.
   Only goodwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.

Inside the house:

7. annoint each statue and door, creating a circle
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   No illwill can find root here.
   No illwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   Only goodwill can find root here.
   Only goodwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.

8. return to the altar at the home's heart

9. place bowl on the altar, annoint talisman of the Home spirit
   Spirit of this Home, I give you:
   Salt of the wild Ocean,
   Stone of the desert Earth;
   Spirit of this Home, I give you:
   NaaNaa the Lion-Hearted,
   Eric the Joy-Bringer;   
   Spirit of this Home, I give you:
   Roxy the Brave,
   Stella-Boo the Neurotic;
   Spirit of this Home, I give you:
   Petals from your own yard,
   Signs of your life. 
   Spirit of this Home, I give you:
   My dedication to you.
   You are my home,
   and I will keep you
   safe and sound.

   This is Home. This is Mine.
   No illwill can find root here.
   No illwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.
   Only goodwill can find root here.
   Only goodwill can cross this line.
   This is Home. This is Mine.

So mote it be.

I know

I just want
to be held when I fall
not told I shouldn't have tripped
I should have watched my step
I should have known better
I should have known better
I know that
already

oh ritual

I can't tell, when I write "oh ritual," whether I'm shaking my head at the wayward child ("Oh, Ritual, what did you do now?") or uttering an expletive after stubbing my toe ("Oh Ritual! That hurt!").

For now, I'll just leave it unpunctuated and undefined.

What does an animist with shamanic tendencies do when called upon to write a ritual?

Well, my first step was to load up the ol' google machine. Which, of course, got me about a bazillion Wiccan rituals that were in no way appropriate for what I wanted to do.

Oh, yeah, I'm trying to write a ritual for a handfasting. My handfasting. With Archer. Which means it has to honor the spiritual paths of Archer and me. Neither of us is remotely Wiccan. We're not really Druids, either. Nor is either of us really Asatru or Heathen, though I wander that way sometimes.

Anyway.

Where are all the animist rituals? (Wait for it...) Oh. Right. There aren't any. I'm starting to realize that none of the animist writers I read talk about doing rituals. This doesn't mean they don't do them, it's just that they're not talking about it. Not in the same way that you see Wiccan rituals all over the internet. The animist writer might mention having done a brief private ritual for this or that, but the ritual is so intensely personal and specific to their purpose that it doesn't translate, or they just can't/won't describe it at all.

Do animists do rituals? Is it just that I haven't found the ones who do?

With the clock ticking on designing this handfasting ritual, I thought about the elements I wanted to include. To shape these elements, I looked at examples of - yes - Wiccan rituals, Heathen blots, and Druidic rites (these were what I could find online and in the texts I own). I didn't necessarily use the forms I found; more often, I used them to craft an outline from negative space (to use an artist's term). That is, the examples of formalized ritual from other paths showed me what I wanted to avoid. Those were what not to do, while still being related somehow to what I did want to do.

To further complicate things, I wanted the ritual to also be meaningful to the other participants: a few of our closest friends and family, who aren't necessarily pagan at all (though luckily, none of them would be in any way offended by our pagan ways).

So here's what I did: I took all the things I did want, and tried to craft them into something that made sense to people not on the same path as either Archer or me, while shaping the intent of the ritual in such a way that it made me happy.

Example A: What to do about the elements? I haven't called quarters for my private rituals in probably more than a decade. I don't feel the need to call them, because they're already here. Always. They're part of me. I don't call my hand when I want to pick up a glass, either. In my way of seeing things, these energies we work with are not distant sprites to be called (or not) on our whim. They're integral to ourselves, to our world, to everything. But I do want to acknowledge the presence of those energies within us, and draw them to our attention because I think doing so strengthens the sense of commitment we will endow in our oath. 

So, if I'm not going to call the elemental energies into the circle (the casting of the circle is another thing I don't do... I'll come back to that) maybe I can call them from within ourselves, thereby bringing our own connections into play, and preparing us individually for making the handfasting oath. Here's what I have come up with, so far, for that:

From Within, we call Air: clarifying our thought and speech.
From Within, we call Fire: clearing the way for new life.
From Within, we call Water: rising from our greatest depths.
From Within, we call Earth: standing solid to house us.  

So that's what I've been struggling with for the past two weeks.
Oh and I'm working on a home blessing ritual that Archer and my son can participate in with me.
Oh and a dear friend of mine asked me to collaborate with a couple other friends to write a ritual for her coven, for Beltaine. Obviously I said I would, because I love her.
It's all rituals and cowbells up in here, folks. And me with no predilection for candle waving.

This morning, I saw the new prompt for the Pagan Experience. It goes, "Ritual - What is your definition of the word “ritual”? What are your rituals- mundane and spiritual? How do they inform each other? Is ritual a necessary component to spiritual practice?"
And I thought, I should write a response to that one. Maybe it'll help me figure out how to write this damn beautiful/wonderous/pile-o-awesome handfasting ritual.

This afternoon, while working on this very post by looking through my blog feed to avoid doing any actual writing, this post from Lupa, one of my favorite modern pagan authors (translation: one of the ones whose path I feel has the most affinity with my own path), came up in my feed. In it, she says, "there are things I’ve left behind me as I’ve carried along my path. Rituals, for example. I no longer do much in the way of formal ritual, unless it’s a very special occasion." And I thought, "Me too!" I remember doing tons of rituals when I was a baby pagan and had just learned of Wicca. I'd be sitting there with candle and Cunningham's in my fists, trying to breath properly and connect with a Lord and a Lady I wouldn't have known from Adam and Eve.

Deeper into Lupa's article, she shares this gem: "When I did formal rituals before, a lot of my purpose was to find connection to the sacred. Now I recognize that I am immersed in the sacred at all times, and my goal is not to find the sacred but to remind myself of it, both in thought and action."

Yes. Yes. Yes. So much YES. Exactly! So if I can just get the handfasting (and other rituals) to reflect that idea, I'll be alright.

(Incidentally, later in that same paragraph Lupa mentions working out of Cunningham's Guide for the Solitary Practitioner in her early days. I lol'd, companionably, with the mental image of that book cover burned into my retinas.) 

~~~

Yeah, I'll probably post all about the handfasting when I get it all figured out. No worries, y'all.
And I'll post the ritual I come up with for the house blessing, too.

By the way, I'm sharing this over at the Pagan Experience. Then I'm gonna read what everyone else over there has to say about the subject. Happy reading!

~~~

Oh crap, I forgot to get back to you on the circle casting thing.
Well, basically I feel like every space is sacred, so it's a bit arrogant to say I'm creating sacred space, eh? But there are practical reasons too. For one thing (and Lupa describes this in her article, linked above, too), I just don't need it anymore. I can focus on the sacred without the activities of creating a circle. Also I don't want to cut off the 'outside' world from what I'm doing 'inside' the circle. I'm seeking connection, so why cut myself off? Anyway that's my take on it. 

becoming

“We tell ourselves stories in order to live.”

― Joan Didion, The White Album

And I got it from our prompt over at the imaginary garden with real toads.

 "becoming"

Whisper me your words;

I'll draw them in like silken strings

and wrap them like a fist.

Once to hear you.

Twice to feed you.

Four to see you, again

in my shining eyes. 

Tell me your tales;

I'll take your story for a spin 

and try it on for size.

Once to hear you.

Twice to feed you.

Four to see you, again

in my dying eyes.

Sing me your serenades;

I'll feel them flutter down my throat

and swallow them: whole.

~~~

There's a good chance I'll regret this in the morning. "This" being: publishing the above poem before looking at it with clearer eyes. Meh. Whatevs. That there's a first draft crafted by a sleepy brain that just wants to lay in bed and listen to music. But also write stuff. Mission (mostly) accomplished. Nighty night y'all.