My big rosebush is almost blooming!

I roam
sacred ground
my body is my altar
my temple.

I cast a circle
with my breath
I touch the earth
with my fingers
I answer
to the fire of my spirit.

My blood
pulses in time
with larger rhythms
past, present, future
connected
rooted
breathing.

The reach of my fingers
my ritual
the song of my blood
my blessing
my electric mind
my offering.

Breathing deep
stretching out
opening wide.

My body is my altar
my body is my temple
my living presence on this earth
my prayer.

Thank you.

I’m getting ready to start my Thealogy and Deasophy class at OSC and the text for the class is Melissa Raphael’s Thealogy and Embodiment. For the last two years, I’ve been planning to write my dissertation on a similar theme—focusing on Women’s Mysteries and a thealogy of embodiment, with a heavy emphasis on birth as a spiritual experience. After my woodspriestess experiment though, I my focus feels like it is shifting to writing about something to do with Ecopsychology and Theapoetics. This seems to make sense. However, I am still looking forward to digging into Raphael’s book!

I chose items for the main altar that represented travel, the purpose of travel, protection, connection, each family member, and several reminders to carry my own priestess spirit out into the world. In the travel altar, I placed corresponding items connected to the items on my home altar (for example–a shell from the beach we will be visiting is on each, as well as an item created by or representing each family member). The items and purposes are described in the captions in the following photo gallery (to enlarge any photo just click on it and a slideshow of all the pictures will open up from there).

Today, I took my travel box altar and my two candles down to the woods. I lit both candles in the woodspace and then took one back up to the home altar, symbolically forging the link, the circle, between the two altars and the sacred woods. I returned to the woods, where I offered this blessing/prayer upon the travel altar:

These two altars are now blessed and consecrated by this holy woodspace. Witnessed by the air, the earth, the fire, the stones. The breath of my life, the water of my blood. They are energetically linked to each other and to the woods of my home. May they be strong. May they be connected. May they be protective. May they be joyous. May the draw rich gifts, long life, deep love, and great peace to us all. The link is made, it is energetically unbroken. Safe travels, protection, love, harmony, wisdom, guidance.

Remembering that we carry sacred space within, remembering that we carry holy truth within, remembering that our bodies themselves are an altar on this earth, and remembering that our lives each day are an offering. Remembering that we can cast a circle with the physical stuff of our own being.

Let this physical altar serve as a tangible reminder of that which we already carry within.

It is blessed and consecrated, it is witnessed, it is known. May it be so. Thank you. Blessed be.

Ritual and Liturgy is the twelfth class I’ve finished at OSC! I can hardly believe I actually manage to do this along with everything else. It has been a rich and deepening experience so far. I now have about fourteen classes and my dissertation remaining! It is doable after all

Womanrunes: The Two Triangles. Rune of Focus. Analysis. Logic. Rationality.

When you draw this stone, the time has come to be decisive. To take action, to be assertive. To choose wisely, but to choose. Hone your senses, sharpen your awareness, laser in on that which cries out for your attention. Act with purpose, with determination, without apology. No excuses necessary. This is stone of clarity and understanding. A stone with clean edges and sharp vision.

You are safe and connected. You are free. Make your choice.

After recording about this stone, I stood on the rocks for several more moments and dialogued with the space itself. The conversation I had with myself, or with the woods, or with Gaia herself, feels too private or personal or possibly perceived-by-others as “silly” for me to share right now, but right in the middle of my words, I looked down and there was a snake on the leaves at the base of the rocks. I stopped talking and watched it. It moved off a little further through the trees and leaves and then looked back, right at me. And, it stayed there, motionless and watching me as I watched it, the entire time I continued speaking. I glanced down to shut off the recording and when I looked back up, it was gone without a trace. It felt like an almost mystical experience of communion.

Some more variations of color have joined the changing landscape of the forest. Purple and white! I couldn’t get a good picture of these, but I love them. So pretty.

Also, some new forms of white:

I also took yet another picture of the overlook itself so that I could set it as my desktop background while I’m gone.

–

The first post in my Womanrunes series is available here. The runes and the names of them come from Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Womanrunes system for which there are no written interpretations available other than the name and one word meanings. I’m engaging in a semi-daily practice of drawing one and then going down to the woods with it to see what it “tells” me–basically, creating what I wish I had, which is a more developed interpretation of the meaning of each womanrunestone.

Womanrunes: The Pentacle. Rune of Protection. Holding. Maintaining. Sealing. Magic. Five Elements.

Earth, Air, Fire, Water, Spirit. Gather round, circle up. Call the circle, cast the circle, hold the space. It is time to call in the guardians, to ask for help, to protect yourself with the resources that surround you. Protection. Containment. Safe space. Guard it well, hold it close, create it within yourself and in the environment around you. A circle holds steady. Linked arms are hard to pass through, linked spirits are hard to break. Don’t be afraid to say no, to guard your energy, to guard your safe space within. When you call a circle, so to let it be guarded, from negative words, pessimistic proclamations, or hurtful stories about others. Serve as guardian to the terrain within your mind and spirit, as well as in your home, friendships, and circles. You carry protection and safety with you everywhere, whether you may call it up consciously or not, there is still a seal, a container, surrounding your own true self as well. Earth, Air, Water, Fire, Spirit. Invite them in. Invite them to dance. Revel in the magic of this mystical, containing union and hold it close to your heart. Guard it with your words, your actions, your thoughts, and your choices. We walk on holy ground. Every day is sacred.

5/16/2013

When I recorded the above interpretation a couple of days ago, I then sat in stillness for a while. Again…not sure why I keep doing this…I thought, “I guess I’m not going to see anything different today” and then as soon as I thought it, I saw something new. The woods do talk back to me and they had something to show me…more circles, right there in front of me!

Weird disease or cool message? I think both.

I know it is really some kind of weird “tar spot” fungus disease on the maple leaves, but I once again had that intense sense of symbiosis and of learning so much from this same place every day. I miss my daily “woodpriestess” writing practice. I think it brought something out of me that I needed and I miss it.

In another synchronistic moment, the reading in my Open Mind book for May 16th (the day I wrote the above) was this:

We are the trees of the earth

our roots stretching deep and strong,

the stone of the firmament,

sister to the stars

that gave birth to the soil.

–Alma Villanueva

–

Womanrunes: The Heart. Rune of Love. Passion.

Right here, right now, pause. Rest, and know, that you are so loved. Held in love, supported in love, grounded in love. Draw it up. Draw it in. Breathe easy. You need not do anything. When you draw this stone, take a moment to acknowledge how often you act from a place of deep love. How underneath the surface of hurry and frustration and worry, there is a deep wellspring of love that drives you. And, in the next moment, extend your awareness, your grace and compassion, to recognize how often those around also act from deep love. Love as the ground of being, love as the field of being. This love underlies your living and your interactions. Trust it, know it, be it. It is inexhaustible. It sustains you.

Heart-centered, breathing easy, step forward with courage, resilience, ease, and self-acceptance. This stone is also about love of life, that which is right in front of you, unfolding every day. This is it, this is real. Don’t argue with reality! The Love rune also reminds you to take a turn to receive, to be nurtured, to draw in the love of those around you, to share passion, to remember to laugh. You can receive, you can give. Both capacities are boundless. Walk in love and love will continue to rise up to greet you.

Passion. It bubbles. It boils. It dances and sings. It enlivens your spirit, it animates you. Passion. Juice. Energy. Roll in it, roll with it. Say yes. Drink it up. Laugh, revel, celebrate, create, harmonize. Passion is the elixir of being and it speaks from the heart. Threading through your veins, beating in your chest, lightening your footsteps. Embrace it and smile.

Raindrops on young leaves.

Birthday mini rosebush has opened up in full bloom, the color so bright it almost looks fluorescent!

 Today was a difficult day for a variety of reasons and I really needed a message about love!

–

The first post in my Womanrunes series is available here. The runes and the names of them come from Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Womanrunes system for which there are no written interpretations available other than the name and one word meanings. I’m engaging in a semi-daily practice of drawing one and then going down to the woods with it to see what it “tells” me–basically, creating what I wish I had, which is a more developed interpretation of the meaning of each womanrunestone.

Shared by ☾ Katharine Krueger ~ Occupy Menstruation
Girls’ Empowerment and Coming of Age http://JoYW.org/

In my Ritual and Liturgy class at OSC, we discussed some simple guidelines for effective ritual. The guidelines from a handout by Deanne Quarrie, and my brief thoughts on each, are as follows:

1. Remember the intention

This is of vital importance. You have to have a purpose and passion, otherwise it becomes hollow, meaningless or rote (many women’s experience of ritual from their childhood fall into the hollow category!

2. Let the myth inspire you.

I am probably less skilled with this guideline than I could be. I do not find that I personally connect with many myths/archetypes, and so I don’t use them very much when planning rituals.  In our fall ritual which involved a Sagewoman ceremony, I drew on the story of Innana’s descent with the woman each passing through several Gates of Initiation and leaving behind items from their pasts that no longer served them.

3. Use your intuition.

Another vital element, I draw on intuition a lot when leading rituals—perhaps I’ve planned something that is taking longer than I thought and so I may rearrange or eliminate another element without ever mentioning it to the group (if you mention it, they feel like they’ve “missed out” on something or feel pressured to “hurry up”). I make additions or subtractions from guided meditations as I go, depending on intuition to guide me. I let intuition lead at the beginning of the meditations as we begin, spontaneously leading the participants through conscious muscle relaxation and breath work before launching into the actually scripted meditation.

4. A ritual should benefit all and harm none.

Of course! I think it is also important to remember though that we can come into circle with and hold sacred space with people who are not necessarily our best friends. Perhaps we have been hurt in the past by someone, in ritual together we can birth new relationship and leave that hurt behind us. Also, the purpose of a ritual should always hold positive intent and be focused on positive change and not revenge or anything like that.

5. Keep it simple.

I have a tendency to overplan and sometimes that can make a ritual drag on/lose energy. By only included what is necessary and essential to the intention, we reduce the chances of energy leaking/flagging or of people getting tired or bored.

6. Stay balanced.

While it is important to balance the energies of the ritual, I also find it important to balance the activities of the ritual—some energy raising with singing and drumming and some time for inner work and reflection through visualization and meditation. Some scripted words and readings and some spontaneous sharing of here-and-now experiencing.

7. Keep in touch with your feelings and with the other people.

This one connects to Intuition above. It is important to feel the climate of the group, the energy of the group, and the responses of other people. I constantly keep my intuitive “radar” tuned to whether the ritual is “working” or not—how are people feeling in this circle and at this time. Also, I try to remember to encourage people to share feelings rather than intellectualizations.

8. Honor the power of words.

In a recent past post, I already excerpted my thoughts on this one…from one of the articles for class: “While it is fine for some rituals to provide space for participants to speak from their hearts, for the most part there should be little extemporaneous speaking. Select poems or write words that mean exactly what you wish to convey, and practice delivering them for the best possible effect.” Reading this made SUCH a difference to me.  I’ve always felt bad about “needing” written material to read from during rituals. I kept thinking that as I “evolve” as a priestess I will “grow up” and not need pre-selected words and readings, but will be able to spontaneously speak and guide the ritual. As I read this, I realized that my process of carefully choosing and selecting opening and closing readings for my rituals as well as poems and quotes during the circles is actually legitimate and possibly very helpful!

9. Keep the imagination alive and 10. Attend to detail.

In attending a large Goddess festival last fall, one of the things I learned is about the importance of creating ambiance, which includes environmental factors/settings that contribute to the sense of magic and timelessness or otherworldliness/altered consciousness. I’ve been holding rituals in my own living room for a long time. After attending the festival, we held our late fall ritual outside in a tipi at night. There is something so magical about a firelit, nighttime ceremony. It really matters! We set up our Gates with candles and then entered the tipi where my large drum was located with (electric) candles all around it. Choosing elements specifically with ambiance in mind makes a huge difference in the feeling and function of a ritual.

Womanrunes: The Flame. Rune of Fire. R as in “roar.” Energy, vitality, enthusiasm, Amazon. When you draw this stone, rest assured that you can do it. It is time to draw upon your deep, fiery, inner resolve. Let yourself ignite. Approach your task with enthusiasm and vitality. If that which you must do is not serving your vitality, either do not do it, or find a way to light its fire. Call upon your warrior, call upon your Amazon spirit. Step forth boldly, go forth with grand gestures and resolute purpose. At the same time, dance. Put on your warpaint. Adorn your head and body. Dance with your inner fire. Dance with your vision. Dance with your purpose.

Your enthusiasm is what keeps you going. Your energy is what brightens the world around you. Your fire is that which rests within. It is hot, it is holy, and it feeds you.

I got this stone yesterday morning as I was preparing to meet a long day with lots of work and lots of responsibility. It felt like the perfect match for what I needed and a most excellent reminder. This morning, my two-year-old daughter had to have extensive dental work done under general anesthesia at an outpatient surgery clinic two hours from our house. It was another long day and it was hard on all of us, but we made it and we’re home safe and sound. She is tired, but by this evening seemed like her usual happy little self, which was a huge relief—she was so tired, wounded, lethargic, and out of it when we left the city, that I think some part of me feared she’d never perk back up again.

I was so happy to see the woods when I got home! I needed a boost!

What a nice invitation…

Worry melts
fears fade away
burdens dissipate
frustrations ease
peace settles
like a falling leaf
like a mantle of love
like a soft embrace

Breathing deep
breathing easy
breathing peace.

Feeling soothed
calmed
and stilled.

This the wisdom
of woodspaces
this is the meditation
of Earthplaces…

I brought along the little pink box containing her little tooth that couldn’t be saved…

And, I brought this little set of cards my oldest son made me for Mother’s Day:

Goddess of the Earth, Goddess of Love, Goddess of Play, and Lion Goddess.

(*Oops–really written on 5/14/2013, but the clock clicked past midnight before I actually hit publish!)

–

The first post in my Womanrunes series is available here. The runes and the names of them come from Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Womanrunes system for which there are no written interpretations available other than the name and one word meanings. I’m engaging in a semi-daily practice of drawing one and then going down to the woods with it to see what it “tells” me–basically, creating what I wish I had, which is a more developed interpretation of the meaning of each womanrunestone.

Blurry pic, but you can still see its tiny, magical yellow fluff self!

“The deepest secret in our heart of hearts is that we are writing because we love the world, and why not finally carry that secret out with our bodies into the living rooms and porches, backyards and grocery stores? Let the whole thing flower: the poem and the person writing the poem. And let us always be kind in this world.”

–Natalie Goldberg (in Open Mind)

Happy Mother’s Day! Today, I was thrilled to see that one of our broody chicks hatched a baby! What an appropriate Mother’s Day event. Baby chicks are one of my favorite things about life. Witnessing one is like a religious experience for me (see past posts here and here).

One of my very favorite Goddess musicians is offering a free download of her album Lady Moon today–check it out while you have a chance! Yesterday we went to a birthday party at the river and I enjoyed seeing all my children playing and having fun:

Went I got home, I went down to the woods with my youngest and smooched her under the canopy of green trees. It is a good time to be a mother!

Womanrunes: The Sun. Rune of Healing. Rejuvenation, Recreation, Play, Radiance.

When you draw this stone, you know the time has come to be healed. Not healing as in forgetting, or in letting go, but in accepting, opening, changing, and growing. An integration of difficult changes you may have experienced in life. Healing may be physical, it may be emotional, it may be spiritual, it may be relational. Consider in which ways you need healing and rejuvenation. In interpersonal relationships? Physical health? Emotional well-being? Mental health? In your relationship with yourself? In your relationship with your body and with the earth?

Healing is both possible in all there is and available, sourced, through all there is. Healing comes in sharing silences, and sharing stories, and in sharing songs. Healing comes in creation, in offering to others, in opening your heart to the circle with women, in silence with another, in connection with your partner. It is also found in being playful; laughing together. This stone also reminds us that trying again is always worthwhile. Draw upon the resources of the earth. Draw upon the resources of your sister. Draw upon the resources of your own heart. And, in quiet spaces and laughing faces, you will be healed.

Yesterday, as I was getting ready to set up the altar for our women’s ritual/retreat, I decided to draw my womanrune for the day. I drew it as I was looking at the altar space and thinking about how to make it a “healing altar,”  to bring the energy of renewal in for my mom who gave so much of herself during my grandma’s dying process. I drew the stone and saw the sun on it and immediately knew it was a “healing” rune and it felt like a “blessing” upon this retreat. I was also struggling with a crisis of confidence because several people cancelled at the last moment and the night before I’d been feeling like I shouldn’t bother trying to do this kind of thing any more. I explained to my husband that each time I I plan a retreat I really feel like I’m offering a “gift” to my friends–so, when people don’t come, it is like they are saying, “take that back, we don’t want it!” There is a tenderness and a vulnerability to trying to serve my community in this way. After drawing the womanrune, I then went on a divination feeding frenzy and drew cards from all of my different decks! They were all remarkably connected and had good insights to share about “surrender” and letting things flow and also about new beginnings and new projects, but the best was the Seven of Wands from the Motherpeace Tarot deck which opened with:

“The priestess is challenged by her group…

…anxiety, doubt, and fear may be clouding her ability to stand up for herself…”

This retreat was a combination of rituals. We had a Maiden turning 12 and so we had a coming of age ritual for her. My mom is turning 60 this month and so it was also a surprise birthday ritual for her with an emphasis on healing. We also had a tea ceremony, a yoga practice, and a guided meditation.

My mom went through a lot in the final stages of my grandma’s life. She born witness to her mother’s final journey and it was really, really hard, but she did it. I wanted to hold this ritual for her so she might know that we see her. She offered a deep gift of love and we came together in this space because we wanted to help her rest and restore and to give her back some of the care she shared so graciously with her mom. After she was seated with flowers in her hair and her feet in a footbath, I offered her the body blessing of renewal I wrote for her:

Gratitude body blessing

Head

May your mind be blessed, so that you may be at peace that you were enough.

Eyes

May your eyes be blessed, you saw her through.

Nose

May your nose be blessed, breathe easy now.

Lips

May your lips be blessed, you spoke with love.

Chest

May your heart be blessed, you have loved and been loved.

Hands

May your hands be blessed, you have reached out when you were needed.

Belly/womb area

May your center be blessed, so that you may honor all you have created.

Feet

My mama!

Aromatherapy footbath for maiden!

Triple Goddess cord that I braided for the Maiden to step over as a symbolic threshold into womanhood. I wrote a blessing that goes with it and will post that in a separate post in the future, hopefully.

This interesting, unidentified bone was sitting right in the middle of my path on the way down to the woods shortly before our ritual.

My toddler went with me to bless the ritual items and yelled and complained the whole time. My nine year old was also yelling out the door at me, “you have NINE MINUTES left, Mom! Mooooooom!!!! NINE MINUTES.” I kept going anyway. Such is the mamapriestess life.

–

The first post in my Womanrunes series is available here. The runes and the names of them come from Shekhinah Mountainwater’s Womanrunes system for which there are no written interpretations available other than the name and one word meanings. I’m engaging in a semi-daily practice of drawing one and then going down to the woods with it to see what it “tells” me–basically, creating what I wish I had, which is a more developed interpretation of the meaning of each womanrunestone.

Altar during fall retreat

This Friday is our quarterly women’s retreat and, because we have multiple reasons to be coming together, it is composed of several interlocking rituals. As I prepare the ceremony outline and choose the readings and structure, two perspectives are on my mind. The first, from Ruth Barrett in her classic Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries:

When you are speaking an invocation in a group ritual, remember that you are the conduit between the elemental energies and the will of the women in the ritual circle. You will need to project your voice, speaking out so that everyone present can hear and feel the invocation. This is particularly critical if you are outside, where sound can easily be lost. Personal ritual invocations need not be spoken with such projection, but it is still best to speak them aloud. Speaking aloud gives the elemental forces within you an opportunity to come fully forward. It is a form of self-witnessing. How and what you hear within ritual space may be different than how and what you hear in a state of ordinary consciousness. Try invocation both ways, aloud and silent, to hear, see, and feel the differences for yourself. As you become more sensitive to ritual energy, you will feel the energy in the room shift or drop, depending on what is happening at the time. In some Wiccan traditions, invocations are passed out and read from a printed page. This can have a profound and unpleasant effect on the energy of the ritual, and the invocations can sound and feel flat. Whether you are preoccupied with memorizing exact words or speaking them from a page, there are energetic consequences. If you rely on the left, linear side of your brain completely for delivering your invocation, there won’t be much change in the energy of the ritual space. However, when you be-speak your invocation and you truly embody the essence of the Goddess and the elements, the energy builds rather than drops.

Ruth Barrett. Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation (Kindle Locations 2204-2212). Kindle Edition.

I do tend to pass out readings on a printing page, just as she describes and for a while I’ve felt kind of bad about that—like if I was “better” at this, I’d remember everything, OR be able to spontaneous compose fabulous perfection on the spot. However, in the course of my Ritual and Liturgy class at OSC, I read this section in one of our lessons:

“While it is fine for some rituals to provide space for participants to speak from their hearts, for the most part there should be little extemporaneous speaking. Select poems or write words that mean exactly what you wish to convey, and practice delivering them for the best possible effect.”

Reading this made SUCH a difference to me.  Like I said, I’ve felt bad about “needing” written material to read from during rituals. I kept thinking that as I “evolve” as a priestess I will “grow up” and not need pre-selected words and readings, but will be able to spontaneously speak and guide the ritual. As I read the above quote, I realized that my process of carefully choosing and selecting opening and closing readings for my rituals as well as poems and quotes during the circles is actually legitimate and possibly very helpful.

I do appreciate that over-reading can contribute to a lack of life in the ritual and I’m gradually finding a good balance there. I know that in my personal experience of them, our women’s rituals have improved in the feeling like they are working as we’ve continued to refine our approach and choose our words and activities. We moved away from including a time for general talking and discussion and into more structure, which helps “hold” the energy and momentum of ritual, rather than letting it leak out in the form of side conversations or long personal stories. (Conversation.discussion then happens after we end the ritual and have potluck snacks and make a project together.) In another book I just finished reading, Jane Meredith explains the layers of ritual:

Outdoors during overnight sagewoman ceremony.

Firstly there’s the outer layer; which is composed of the actions you take. What matters here is what you actually, physically do. It might include making altars, offerings or dedications; dancing or going out into nature. It might include cleansing in the form of a ritual bath, a fast or a time of meditation and prayer. It is the form of the ritual and functions as a container for the other aspects of ritual. When this outer layer exists on its own, it is sometimes called an empty ritual. Then there’s a second layer. This consists of what is happening within you, and it is encouraged and supported by what’s happening in the outer layer. Being willing, being true, carrying out not just the actions but the intent of your ritual or journey make up this second layer. You may find it helpful to whisper a mantra under your breath, to focus on an image or to chant or drum for a while to take you further inwards. When these first two layers are in concert, the ritual will feel satisfying and alive. There is yet a further layer. This is the mystical one, and may be different every time. It is the moment when the ritual takes off, when you slip across from one realm into another, into the sacred; into the realm of the Dark Goddess herself. In this layer you will feel the divine all around you and within you, and you will sense yourself as being in an altered, perhaps luminous space. This does not happen every time you do a ritual, no matter how well you are managing the other two layers. It is enough to work with the first two layers and invite this third one to manifest. A ritual will still be meaningful without entering the third layer; though it may be more memorable and feel more powerful when you do slip across the boundary into this realm.

Meredith, Jane (2012-05-25). Journey to the Dark Goddess: How to Return to Your Soul (pp. 42-43). NBN_Mobi_Kindle. Kindle Edition.

People have sometimes been “scarred” by past experiences with hollow, meaningless, and rote rituals they may associate with religion and have trouble understanding that a good ritual is evocative of something very different from that experienced in mainstream religion. As I explained in a previous post:

Notice that what is NOT included is any mention of a specific religion, deity, or “should do” list of what color of candle to include! I’ve observed that many people are starved for ritual, but they may so too be deeply scarred from rituals of their pasts. I come from a family history of “non-religious” people and I feel like I seem to have less baggage about ritual and ceremony than other people do. An example from the recent planning for a mother blessing ceremony: we were talking about one of the blessingway songs that we customarily sing–Call Down Blessing–we weren’t sure if we should include it for fear that it would seem too “spiritual” or metaphysical for the honoree (i.e. blessings from where?!) and I remembered another friend asking during a body blessing ritual we did at a women’s retreat, “but WHO’s doing the blessing?” As someone who does not come a religious framework in which blessings are traditionally bestowed from outside sources–i.e. a priest/priestess or an Abrahamic God–the answer felt simple, well, WE are. We’re blessing each other. When we “call down a blessing” we’re invoking the connection of the women around us, the women of all past times and places, and of the beautiful world that surrounds us. We might each personally add something more to that calling down, but at the root, to me, it is an affirmation of connection to the rhythms and cycles of relationship, time, and place. Blessings come from within and around us all the time, there’s nothing supernatural about it.

I also think, though I could be wrong, that it is possible to plan and facilitate women’s rituals that speak to the “womanspirit” in all of us and do not require a specifically shared spiritual framework or belief system in order to gain something special from the connection with other women.

via Blessingways and the role of ritual | Theapoetics.

Rise Up and Call Her Name class in February.

Barrett explores this concept as well:

Sadly, many women describe their previous experience of religious ritual as meaningless. This response is usually derived from experiences of religious traditions that are male-focused, with little to no attention paid to the realities of women’s lives and experiences. When women empower themselves to ritualize passages that they deem as significant and to which they can ascribe their own meaning, like a snake they shed their old skins and emerge into a new reality, a new conscious awareness. The mundane world of the previous moment becomes transformed and they are brought closer to greater understanding of the sacred. Women who create and participate in their own life-cycle rituals are saying that their lives are important, that their stories matter, and that every human life is a gift to present and future generations.

Ruth Barrett. Women’s Rites, Women’s Mysteries: Intuitive Ritual Creation (Kindle Locations 308-312). Kindle Edition.

As I’ve also written before, in keeping with Carol Christ’s work, for me, thealogy absolutely does begin in experience. I do not think that everyone needs to share my personal experience that the Goddess path and the Pagan path are different ones and I do not think the two paths need necessarily diverge to different ends, just that they do exist separately (and, yes, there are scores of different pagan paths as well). It is important to my own mind and experience that a Wiccan path to Goddess is not the only path and I believe that an overemphasis on the Wiccan path can cause some women to turn away from explorations of feminist spirituality.

After I trained as a Cakes for the Queen of Heaven facilitator in 2007, I discovered something every powerful in the resources of the Unitarian Universalist Women and Religion organization. At the conclusion of the training, I had profound sense of THIS is what else there is for me! It was a pivotal moment. I started to realize that my strong draw towards Goddess actually had a place and a home under the UU “umbrella” and that I didn’t have to self-identify as pagan or Wiccan in order to explore a relationship with Goddess. Before, I felt like it was “Wicca or nothing” and Wicca was not a personal match for me for a variety of reasons. Cynthia Eller notes that feminists coming to neopaganism, “often had little patience for the measured pageantry and role-playing that characterized some neopagan rituals…” (page 38, emphasis mine) and this was true from my own experiences too. My brief encounters with Wicca felt “hokey” and inauthentic, my experiences with Goddess felt deeply meaningful and true in my bones. It took a long time for me to realize that it was both acceptable and possible for there to be multiple paths to Goddess. On a related side note, in an article from Brain, Child magazine, the author describes her overall experience at a Beltane ritual and says that she, “can’t deny a sense of detachment as well; the theatrical component makes me feel like I’ve been involved in some kind of interactive Medieval play rather than a genuine spiritual experience. Maybe group ritual isn’t for me.” This immediately made me think of a great series of posts by the Allergic Pagan on the subject of pagan embarrassment. Some of these embarrassing elements are part of why I’ve never embraced the pagan label and instead moved towards Goddess spirituality instead [a move for which I have UU's to thank]. In my own experience, “measured pageantry” is the best description I’ve read of why I fail to click with it, otherwise known in my personal vernacular as: hokeylicious.

So, to read or not to read during ritual, that is the question. What do you think?

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