family

Woodspriestess: Dawn to Dusk

Posted on March 27, 2013 by Molly

Darkness falls
entering sacred space
stepping from holy ground
to holy ground.
Recognize it.

Owl calls
moon rises
sun sets
small dog sits
leaves rustle
heart beats
blood flows
breathing in
breathing out…

Feeling the world spin
feeling the earth turn.
Watching her weaving at work
in the night.

(12/26/12)

This morning I experienced another woodsfirst. Sunrise. We are late risers usually and I believe this was the first time (even after living here for eight years) that I’ve seen a slice of sunrise from this place in the woods. I couldn’t stay long and it wasn’t that impressive, but I saw it, and it was another new moment in an ever-changing, ever-surprising, familiar place.

After I left, I got this great idea—I’d go back and take a picture at sunset too and, and…also when the moon was rising! Wouldn’t that be a cool series…Sunrise, Sunset, Moonrise, I’d call the post, maybe I’d even have one of those cool moments in which the moon is coming up and the sun is going down and there is a delicious sunsetmoonrise in a Neapolitan sky. Well, since the woods always has lessons for me and they parallel that of the rest of life, that was not actually what happened. We were gone all day taking our youngest to a pediatric dentist out-of-town and then doing some other things while in the city. When we got home, I knew sunset was coming soon, but I let the best moment slip by me while distracted by “catching up” and by the time I went back out, there was nothing visible from the woodsplace any longer—I don’t know that there ever would have been tonight though, because the sky was pretty overcast and the sun sets on the opposite side of the priestess rocks (which face sunrise), so what I usually am able to see in the sky is any long fingers of pink that paint their way along the horizon. And, then, my phone was out of photo storage and I had to stand there annoying myself by deleting pictures instead of watching the remaining trace of sunset from the place out in the field instead in which I could actually see it…

the last bit!

And, then it was way too cloudy to even see the full moon at all, let alone get a sunsetmoonrise type of moment! So, I mined my old recordings for another moonrise night and included my words from that night instead. And, I had a full moon over the greenhouse picture from the same time in December as well…

I did see the full moon last night on my way home from my class and it was gorgeous 🙂 I’m still writing and posting and noticing anyway, even though it isn’t perfect (or even particularly interesting and certainly not what I’d imagined writing about) and as this 30 day experiment comes to close, I do have an overall sense of satisfaction about the process. Being “forced” to write every day is an experience in and of itself. Challenging myself to look closer and see more has been very rewarding. Going ahead and posting anyway, even if I’d expected something different or wanted to do more, or am afraid I’m being boring, or have to rush a little or leave something out or scramble to finish before midnight, or don’t have any striking insights to offer…that is a practice too, and I’ve learned a lot from it.

Categories: family, nature, theapoetics, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Sunday Sabbath: Solitude

Posted on March 24, 2013 by Molly

In entering this space alone
I feel I touch the spirit of this place
and it is in solitude
where I feel most authentically whole
complete
integrated
solid
stable
at ease
secure in my inner wisdom
loved by my own heart
patient with my own soul
studying my own life
and my relationship to the sacred

Being alone is not lonely
it is being alive

When I’m alone is when I feel most real, most solid, most whole, and when I like myself the best. Somehow in relationship to other people, I never quite meet my own expectations, I don’t live up to my own standards, and I don’t necessarily live in complete accordance with my own values. When I’m alone, I’m whole and complete, I love myself, and I’m at peace. Who I am is good company. I’m smart, I’m thoughtful, I’m in tune with my body and with the Spirit. I’m in relationship with the world, to the sacred, to the Goddess. Then the swirl begins again with other people, suddenly who I am is not enough. Who I am is too critical, who I am is flustered, distracted, hurried, too busy, impatient, snappy, hard, selfish, all these things. So which one is it? Which one is real? It is in solitude that I feel most solid. How can I carry that sense of self, that sense of worth, that sense of serenity, that sense of grace, that sense of ease into the rest of my life, particularly into my life with my children? I told my husband the other day, “I think I’m a better writer than I am a person.” 😦

Anyway, I mentioned on my other blog that I recently finished reading Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift from the Sea and I marked a whole bunch of quotes about solitude:

“Woman must come of age by herself…
She must find her true center alone.”

“Women need solitude in order to find again the true essence of themselves.”

“I find there is a quality to being alone that is incredibly precious. Life rushes back into the void, richer, more vivid, fuller than before.”

“How inexplicable it seems. Anything else will be accepted as a better excuse. If one sets aside time for a business appointment, a trip to the hairdresser, a social engagement or a shopping expedition, that time is accepted as inviolable. But if one says: I cannot come because that is my hour to be alone, one is considered rude, egotistical or strange.”
― Anne Morrow Lindbergh, Gift from the Sea

It snowed again today. I took a photo of my little snow-covered labyrinth as well as of the usual rocks!

Categories: family, introversion, nature, parenting, sabbath, spirituality, women | Leave a comment

Woodspriestess: Permission

Posted on March 18, 2013 by Molly

Release
let go
open
flow

be present
be still
be centered

retreat
withdraw
pull back
draw in
turn away
fold up
close

cocoon
center

become quiet
become still

Rest in the sensation
that soaring on this breath
is enough.

Today was a long day and a hard day. I had to let go of things I’d expected to have time to do. I had to release expectations. And, I had to accept information that I didn’t want. I went to the woods twice today, the first time before taking my toddler to the dentist and the second after we returned. I had a powerful sense that I just wanted permission. Permission to not do anything else today.

Heartbreak of tooth decay sculpture from fall of last year–mama covers head, not wanting to know and yet holding both baby and the extracted teeth. At her heart is a jewel, because she acts with deep love.

no obligations

rest
just rest
lay on the couch with a book
read
think
imagine

permission to quit for a minute
permission to stop
permission to get off the spinning wheel
permission to say no thanks
permission to say no
permission to say I changed my mind
permission to say I don’t want to
permission not to finish
permission not to do
permission to take a break

draw in
quiet down
listen deep
fold up

My little sculpture helper!

right now is a time to be still
to rest and self-nurture
to snuggle with cuddly babies
sniff heads
lay on a husband’s shoulder
be needy
be nurtured
and receive

draw in
draw closed
retreat
recollect
call your spirit back
and emerge once more
with strength

On the first woods visit in an effort to distract myself from the later appointment, I took some new sculptures down to the rocks to photograph and bless before shipping.

Cesarean and VBAC mamas.

On my second visit to the woods I watched two hawks flying. They swung back and forth through the sky for a period of time and then flew away.

Permission not to write any more tonight.

Permission granted!

Categories: family, nature, poems, prayers, retreat, theapoetics, womanspirit, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

Woodspriestess: Sensory

Posted on March 16, 2013 by Molly

The chair rock has a couple of nice little “shelf” nook on the side of it. I’m always tempted to leave things on it, but I make a habit of not leaving things in or (usually) taking things from the woods. Sometimes I set something on the shelf just during the time that I am out there.

Breathe deep
Breathe peace

Open hands
Open heart
Open mind
Open spirit

This is both my prayer
And my vow

Resting in sheltering stone
Listening to bird song
Feeling the breeze
Seeing the trees against sky
Tasting the very center of life.

A thealogy of embodiment is the subject of my dissertation, so I was very interested to read the Allergic Pagan’s smart and thought-provoking follow-up post to his thoughts about objectivity. He draws the conclusion that it is the body that bridges the gap between the subjective and objective. While I focused on subjective experience and the Goddess in my prior post about objectivity, I actually do find that the Goddess can be interpreted/understood through science as well—some people call it evolution, others call it Goddess and others call it God…subjective experience need not exclude scientific concepts/understanding. As in my breastmilk example from that post, I can understand the experience both objectively and subjectively and, just as John notes, this intersection occurs within the body. I also believe theapoetical language can include both as well. I’m going to explore the question of the place of the God within thealogy in my Thursday Thealogy post next week. I tend to come from the notion that Goddess holds all—and, that Goddess-language is simply a consciously chosen name for unnameable forces of life, the weaving that holds the world, a weaving including but not limited to females and males of all kinds.

Today, rather than standing or sitting on the priestess rocks, I visited the chair rock instead. It is super comfortable and I used to come here to sit after my miscarriages and then during my pregnancy with my daughter and then this is where I brought her one-month-old self to introduce her to the Earth. I used to sit here with her in a pouch or the Ergo and feel our bodies breathing in harmony, chest to chest.

The scenery looks different when considered from the chair rock rather than the priestess rocks. Here is a “slingshot” tree” and behind the big mother tree that I like so much (and that I keep hoping is still alive!)

As I’ve previously referenced, Gloria Orenstein refers to endarkenment as, “a bonding with the Earth and the invisible that will reestablish our sense of interconnectedness with all things, phenomenal and spiritual, that make up the totality of our life in our cosmos. The ecofeminist arts do not maintain that analytical, rational knowledge is superior to other forms of knowing. They honor Gaia’s Earth intelligence and the stored memories of her plants, rocks, soil, and creatures. Through nonverbal communion with the energies of sacred sites in nature, ecofeminist artists obtain important knowledge about the spirit of the land, which they can then honor through creative rituals and environmental pieces” (Reweaving the World, p. 280). This speaks to me because of my theapoetical experiences of the presence of “the Goddess” in my own sacred spot in the woods behind my house, where I go to the priestess rocks to pray, reflect, meditate, do ritual, think, and converse with the spirits of that place.

Categories: embodiment, endarkenment, family, feminist thealogy, Goddess, nature, pregnancy loss, spirituality, thealogy, theapoetics, womanspirit, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Woodspriestess: Surrender?

Posted on March 13, 2013 by Molly

What a sweet, snuggly face.

Surrender…
open up
open wide
surrender
let go…

Is this just another word for
quitting
for giving up?
or is it the type of
intensely powerful surrender
that is required to give birth?
a surrender that is so mighty
and so potent
it is experienced only rarely

That surrender
is that which I can draw
strength from
that surrender
is the pinnacle of my own power
my own magnificence
my own embodied potency
of being
it is that surrender
that motherhood requires

and I have proven
I am up for the challenge.

This morning I struggled a lot with what my kids needed from me and with the other projects I was trying to finish. My boys had planned a party and overnight with a couple of friends for today and I knew when I got up that the clock was ticking in terms of me having any quiet time to work and think. I kept becoming blocked and frustrated and questions and needs were thick in the air. I was trying to pack up orders and bake brownies and do laundry and finish a DVD review and I hadn’t taken a shower yet, and, and, and… As I walked down to the woods carrying my youngest child with me, a word floated through my head…surrender. Part of me thought “oh, yeah! Good idea!” the other part of me thought, “that is just a sneaky way of saying, be a quitter.” So, that’s the concept I reflected on in the woods today. I took a couple more pictures and thought it was somehow appropriate that once in that space with a child, it is that child who dominates my “field of vision” so to speak. That is basically what kids do to your life!

What I recognized was that I needed to stop…just for a while…and focus on what those around me needed from the day. When I try to “do it all” anyway, I get frustrated and discouraged. If I can have the presence of mind to release for a while, we’re all happier. Part of what was hard for me was anticipating the expenditure of energy I knew today would require from me, having people in the house all day and the chaos and the mess. So, I snuggled with my baby and said…

Gathering strength
for the day

open hands
soft eyes
soft shoulders
smooth face
open hands
open heart
open home

I breathe deep
and let go

preparing to give
to be outward directed today
to put other work on hold
to enjoy my friends
to celebrate my children
to laugh with my company

knowing
that the deep, still
inner place
of rest and rejuvenation
with be there for renewal
when I need it.

I already wrote about this temporary surrender several years ago, so it isn’t a new insight, but it was a good one to revisit. I also spotted another forked stick “augur.” The rock has a nice spot of druzy quartz on it. It was cold today, but nice and sunny. Later when we walked in the evening, the moon was a bright, clear sliver and you could see the shadowy rest of the moon resting in its curve.

Categories: family, nature, poems, prayers, woodspriestess | 2 Comments

International Women’s Day: Prayer for Mothers

Posted on March 8, 2013 by Molly

The world needs you.
Sing your strengths
dance your passions
smile your successes
hug yourself with compassion
for your painful moments
take a second to drink it up
and to rest in powerful certainty
that you are enough

Breathe out
breathe in
soft shoulders
soft belly
strong legs
strong woman

A mother who is seen
who is heard
who is appreciated
who is valued.

In and out
Mama, you’re amazing

(3/8/2013)

Today, on International Women’s Day, when I went down to the woods I spoke (wrote?!) a Prayer for Mothers that I then published on my other blog. After a pause, I added the above words as well.

My children have a “thing” about losing their shoes. Every time we leave the house, it feels like mass chaos of shoe locating, even though we have a specific place where shoes are supposed to be kept. Recently, after scouring the house for ages, giving up, and finally digging out some different, older shoes for my toddler, we then eventually located her shoes in the cupboard with the bread machine. This week, one of those same favorite blue shoes went missing and we haven’t been able to find it anywhere, so she’s been wearing her pink shoes instead. Today, when I stepped out to go down to the woods, the missing shoe was waiting for me at the bottom of the deck stairs.

When I’d headed out to the woods today I’d been thinking, again, about the balance between mothering and “personing” and how difficult it feels a lot of the time to meet everyone in the house’s needs. I persist in thinking it is possible to actually live our family affirmation: our family works in harmony to meet each member’s needs. However, last night and this morning it felt like anything but! So, finding the shoe seemed like a little message. I’d brought out a pendant that my husband made for me using several items of meaning to me. I think of it as one of my priestess necklaces. The moon goddess pendant in the middle is one of a set of matching pendants that I gave to my mom and my friend when we went to the Gaea Goddess Gathering together last fall (I’ve bought some more of them recently to give to the other members of our circle so eventually we can all have matching necklaces). While at the GGG, a lot of issues came up for me about family harmony and I bought matching stone “doughnut” pendants from one of the vendors for my husband, kids, and myself. We wear them during our family full moon rituals each month. My friend and my mom each gave me one of the stone points during a “mother” ceremony at the GGG and during that time I felt very acknowledged and “seen” by my friend in the priestess role I’m growing into with our women’s circle. So, today, it felt like an integrative experience to take a picture of the shoe and pendant together.

Then, when I went to pick my kids back up from my dad’s house, we couldn’t find my daughter’s pink shoes anywhere and had to come home without them!

—

For past International Women’s Day thoughts about birth activism and feminism see this post.

Categories: blessings, family, friends, poems, prayers, priestess, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Woodspriestess: Spiky

Posted on March 5, 2013 by Molly

Spiky
flawed
imperfect
crabby
anxious
scattered
distracted

isn’t noticing this
Zen too?

overbooked
overdone
overdrawn
stretched thin
taut
tight
tense
snappy

I don’t go to the woods to write poetry. I don’t know how to do that. I don’t know anything about poems. I’ve never actually written a poem and yet, here I am with all these poem-like posts, and a proportion of this blog’s followers seem to have become so for the “poetics” in my title, rather than for the Goddess (the “Thea” in theapoetics). I go to the woods for stillness. For quiet. To listen. While I end up speaking when I’m there, it is more like I’m receiving than anything. I think of it almost as a “channeled” poetry, or spontaneous poems that come to my mind and out of my mouth without conscious direction or effort. I record what I say on my iPhone and later I transcribe the recording and a “poem” is the result. I don’t do this with anything else or anywhere else, just there in the woods. Theapoetical experiences? Or, a quietness of being and mind that allows my own inner wisdom to surface or my subconscious mind to speak? Or is it hearing myself think? Hearing myself into speech? Usually, what comes to me in these experiences isn’t crabby or stressed, even if I just felt that way a minute before, because it is in that space that I find silence and peace and in that state of bodymind, I’m not stressed or crabby any longer. However, I do persist in this misconception that to be Zen is to be calm and if I’m not calm, I’ve blown my Zen for the day. Today I was reminded that the Zen is in the noticing. That’s all.

Today, I noticed my own spikiness…

At some level, I feel like I always have to be “nice” and never get angry. Since I’m human, I fail in this self-expectation multiple times every day. I feel hypocritical to be blogging about spiritual topics and musing about peace on earth, while also being snappy at my kids and family, feeling overcommitted and stretched thin and needing to say NO to expectations and shoulds. What right do I have to call myself a priestess, when I can barely juggle my life, family, energies, and others’ expectations? In the woods today I also said:

It feels hypocritical to call myself a priestess, to come commune in the cold winds of this hillside, but that is life too. It wouldn’t be real if I didn’t sometimes yell and what matters is that I’m willing to keep trying and trying and trying. I’m willing for tomorrow to be a better day. I’m willing to take risks and start things, even though I feel like a failure, I’m willing to offer the service I have to give, even though I’m not perfect.

Earlier in the year when I began my daily practice, I ended up down in the woods with one of my kids’ action figures that I’d brought home from my parents’ house in my coat pocket (I went down to the woods before going back in the house so he went along). It is a Signs of the Zodiac warrior, Cancer the Crab, and his plastic body has a lot of sharp spikes on it. I decided he would be my photo for the day, because that is real life too. It isn’t all Goddess sculptures in the sunshine, sometimes there are warrior crabs around. And, sometimes I, too, feel spiky and crabby, just like this dude:

When I took the pic I thought: he looks like I feel.

It takes a lot for me to keep posting when I people I know in real life are reading what I write, because there is a fear in me that they probably notice that which I also criticize in myself—“hey, what does she mean a peaceful home, I just heard her yell at her kids?!” There is a vulnerability and a courage, of sorts, in continuing to write anyway. And, it is strange really to feel more comfortable with strangers reading than people I actually know.

When I came inside today before leaving to teach, my friend and my mom were at my house and they said, “oh, were you out doing that woods thing?” and I kind of cringed to myself at that. But, in an interesting moment of synchronicity, my mom also said, “do you have wet hair?! It’s so cold out you will have frozen spikes.”

Yep, I’m spiky. And, guess what…

The woods are spiky too
Nature isn’t always nice
She has sharp teeth

The swirl of life’s energies
carries some decided unpleasantness
and very sharp edges

rocks are hard
ice is slippery
wind creates tornadoes
fire destroys

Mother Nature has an edge
a sharp, strong bite
is it really any wonder
that sometimes I bite too.

“The image of the Goddess inspires women to see ourselves as divine, our bodies as sacred, the changing phases of our lives as holy, our aggression as healthy, our anger as purifying, and our power to nurture and create, but also to limit and destroy when necessary, as the very force that sustains all life.”

-Starhawk

Categories: family, nature, poems, priestess, spirituality, theapoetics, women, woodspriestess | 1 Comment

Woodspriestess: Practice

Posted on March 2, 2013 by Molly

“My political activism grew out of my spiritual understandings of the earth as the living Mother, because the Goddess is injured wherever there is injustice, wanton cruelty, poverty, and pollution.”

–Monica Sjoo

I’m still in a bit of a mental funk. Feeling discouraged and down and despairing about the nature of humankind and wondering what I can really do to make any kind of difference. Also, my kids are being difficult lately and I keep thinking, oh. my. word. If I can’t create peace in my own home, how am I supposed to change the world?!

The ground is still snowy and slushy and it was cold in the woods today. I didn’t stay long. And, I didn’t have any particularly fabulous insights or inspiration and found myself thinking…on only day two…why did I think I could do this writing every day thing? Then, I started looking around more clearly and I noticed, robins! Lots of them. I was only in the woods for about five minutes and I saw at least eight robins flying from branch to branch. I didn’t get a picture of any of them, but this means spring is on the way.

And, as I turned to go back inside I had the sudden thought that this is my practice. This is it. It doesn’t matter what does or doesn’t happen, it matters that I’m doing it.

Regime change begins at home…

Categories: family, nature, woodspriestess | Leave a comment

New Moon Ritual

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Molly

This is part of an assignment for a class in Ritual and Liturgy at OSC.

The altar is laid outdoors in sight of the new moon. It contains one candle for each direction as well as a central candle. Symbols are present for each direction as well: a stone and a glass globe for Earth, a feather for air, a bowl and a shell for water, a chalice for fire. Also on the altar is a Goddess of Willendorf and a handmade “Moontime” Goddess sculpture. The altar cloth is a deep green. There is also a candle for each participant.

Participants circle up and place hands on each other’s backs and do a group hum of, “Om” and then toning with a bell.

Using the bell, each person names themselves and is called into the ritual circle (name repeated three times and then bell chimes)

The invocation chosen acknowledges the power of the various phases of the moon as the candles are lit in the appropriate directions (modified by a sun invocation by Luisah Teish in Jump Up):

East: In the East we call upon the power of the New Moon, the bright sliver of renewal. Here we ask for new beginnings and we commit to renewing ourselves.

South: In the South, we call upon the power of the Full Moon, the steady, energetic light that illuminates the world. Here we ask for strength to be with us, and we commit to using our strength for the good of the community.

West: In the West, we call upon the power of the Waning Moon, the deep light that calms the mind at the end of the day. Here we ask for a sense of satisfaction, and we pledge to take care of ourselves.

North: In the North we call upon the power of the Dark Moon and Night Sky, the time of incubation that permits us to rest. Here we ask for the vision of dreams, and we agree to meet our inner wisdom in that place.
Each participant takes a turn lighting their personal candle and sharing something they’re thankful for from the past cycle and then naming something they’d like to bring into this energy of new beginnings.

We will start a CD of flute music (Womanspirit) and engage in a dancing gratefulness prayer described in SageWoman magazine (number 64, page 10).

After the dance, we will join hands again and say a closing prayer to open up the circle:

Open up the circle of healing and trust.

To the South, innocence and joy,

To the East, new beginnings,

To the North, cool winds of reason,

To the West, nighttime for dreaming,

Up above, the source of light, the Sky,

Beneath our feet, the womb of life, Mother Earth,

Open up the circle of healing and trust.

Then, we’ll have time for a family drum circle!

Categories: family, friends, invocations, liturgy, readings, resources, ritual, spirituality, womanspirit, women's circle | 1 Comment

Waning Moon Ritual

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Molly

This is part of an assignment for a class in Ritual and Liturgy at OSC…

For this ritual, we are outdoors by the fire circle. There are four guardians established for each of the four directions—each one has a symbol with it, a dancing Pele incense burner for fire, a smooth stone egg for earth, a chalice for water, and a spiral goddess for air. Other than the fire in the center of the ring, there is no central altar.

Participants circle up and place hands on each other’s backs and do a group hum of, “Om” and then toning with a bell.

Using the bell, each person names themselves and is called into the ritual circle (name repeated three times and then bell chimes). They are smudged with sage by the guardian of air as they enter. A heartbeat rhythm with the community drum is begun at this time.

For this ritual, we will use Quarter Calls for Transformation or Initiation from SageWoman Magazine. Each guardian reads one section aloud:

From the East, the wind comes
Air twirls around the circle,
Crisp and cool…
Knowledge and mystery
Blow from beyond the veil.
Welcome, East, Air, Mystery!
Blessed Be!

Southern energy guides our way,
With Fire’s entrancing light
Burning, beckoning…
Flame’s focused intensity
Brings spirit-filled rapture.
Welcome, South, Fire, Intensity!
Blessed be!

From the West, the old ones call
Water transcends the journey.
Shimmering, transforming…
Memories carried in the flow
Pour forth into the night.
Welcome, West, Water, Flow!
Blessed be!

The North holds the land at midnight
Into the Earth, we descend
Dark and quiet
The land of initiation
Holds us deep in her embrace.
Welcome, North, Earth, Initiation!
Blessed be!

Group sings: Air My Breath, Fire My Spirit, Earth My Body, Water My Blood at least three times.

Opening words:

Priestess reads aloud a passage from the 2012 We’Moon datebook:

Song of the End (by Christine Fortuin, 2011)

Mother of twilight
lead us away
from the
destiny of time.
Initiate us
into the ever,
the all,
the breath
of the infinite.
Baptize us with starlight.
wrap our souls
in the shroud
of rapture
and sound.
Create in us
everything which
has been lost
and all
which is unknowable.
Let us speak
in the tongue
of grace,
in which all
vibrations are
one
eternal
song.

Priestess briefly acknowledges that this is a time for letting go. She asks each participant to write down some things they’d like to release…

After a pause for reflection, each person casts the old into the flames, calling out the release if they feel so moved.

Then, the group joins hands and do a reading from Leonie Dawson:

We breathe and give thanks for all that has passed…
We let go and breathe releasing all that is old and no longer serves us…
We open up to the beautiful possibilities blossoming before us…
We radiate in light and joy…all is beautiful and all is well.

Group sings Let All Go As I Will

Let the path be clear before me, let all go as I will
And the past be clean behind me, let all go as I will
And the ones I love beside me, let all go as I will
And the Goddess light above me, let all go as I will
And the Mother Earth beneath me, let all go as I will
And my own true self within me, let all go as I will
let all go as I will
let all go as I will

Open circle:

Open up the circle of healing and trust.
To the South, innocence and joy,
To the East, new beginnings,
To the North, cool winds of reason,
To the West, nighttime for dreaming,
Up above, the source of light, the Sky,
Beneath our feet, the womb of life, Mother Earth,
Open up the circle of healing and trust.

Family drum circle time!

Categories: family, liturgy, OSC, readings, ritual, spirituality, women's circle | 3 Comments

Sun-Oriented Naturalist Invocation

Posted on January 8, 2013 by Molly

Across the field at sunset in July.

East: In the East we call upon the power of the Rising Sun, the yellow light of morning. Here we ask for new beginnings and we commit to renewing ourselves.

South: In the South, we call upon the power of the Sun at High Noon, the bright, orange light that warms the day. Here we ask for strength to be with us, and we commit to using our strength for the good of the community.

West: In the West, we call upon the power of the Setting Sun, the deep red light that calms the mind at the end of the day. Here we ask for a sense of satisfaction, and we pledge to take care of ourselves.

North: In the North we call upon the power of the Moon in the Night Sky, the silvery Moon who permits us to rest. Here we ask for the vision of dreams, and we agree to meet our ancestors in that place.

–Luisah Teish in Jump Up

I am particularly attracted to invocations that use naturalist-based language and that appeal to a wide variety of personal beliefs, while still striking the chord of the sacred within us all. I’m preparing two moon rituals for an assignment and I think I’m going to rework the above into a Moon-oriented invocation…

Another idea from Teish’s book, unrelated to the above, is for an egg wish giveaway for a spring ritual. Children (or others) stir up wildflower seeds while sharing their blessings and wishes for people for the year. Encourage them to create a song, chant, or poem while they bless the seeds. They then fill up plastic eggs with seeds and give these to relatives and friends as a “blessing from future generations.” Nice idea for an equinox ritual!

Categories: family, holidays, invocations, liturgy, nature, ritual | 2 Comments

Connecting to the Maiden

Posted on January 7, 2013 by Molly

This post is part of an assignment for my Triple Goddess class at OSC.

As I consider the Maiden, I realize I feel extremely disconnected from the Maiden in my own life. I haven’t actually spent much time giving her any thought. I connect deeply to the Mother and am maybe even too embedded in that archetype. I can even look forward to the Crone with some degree of understanding or anticipation. I have women around me in that stage of life and I feel I learn from watching their experiences and hearing their voices and opinions. The Maiden, however, she’s distant past. If the signature event of the Maiden stage is menarche, I do feel as if I’m starting to reclaim menstruation in my life as a “shamanic event” and as an important biological and even spiritual occurrence, rather than as a nuisance. But, the Maiden goes beyond just menarche (or being virgin), she is a feeling too. A freespiritedness. I’ve been serious for a long time. I’ve been on break from teaching during the past month and a couple of weeks ago I was laughing in the kitchen and being totally silly with my family and I said to my husband, “I forgot that I’m really funny.” I think the Maiden reminds me of this!

I make goddess art in the form of little sculptures of polymer clay. I have only tried to include the Maiden a handful of times in Triple Goddess sculptures and she never turns out quite right. Recently, I branched out into using regular clay for some sculptures and only three from my first batch of seven survived. One of them lost her breasts pre-firing, and when I first looked at the three of them after the glazing firing, I realized I had accidentally created a Maiden Mother Crone triad—the breastless maiden is tall, straight, and unencumbered, the middle sculpture has a slightly rounded belly, full breasts, and open hands indicating receptivity, and the final one is again self-contained…

As I considered this lesson, I went down to the woods and asked a question:

What do I need to know about the Maiden?

She is still within you

She is the one who laughs in the night

Who gets punchy and silly

Who runs to the car

She is the one who loves dolls

And creating art

And being hugged

She is that part of you

That wants to wallow in books

To lay on the floor and take a nap

She is the part that still feels like an awkward nine-year-old

The dawning of a time when you wonder what others think of you

She is the one who skips

She is the one who dances in the kitchen

She is the one who eats chocolate chips by the handful

She is you.

1/5/2012

When I came back, I had the realization that what the Maiden is ready to remind me of is to have fun and to play, to remember to bring those things to the fore and not always be working/getting things done/being productive (though, those things are also often fun for me!). I came into the house all ready to type up my thoughts and observations. My little almost-two-year old daughter, however, was getting out candles and setting up a ritual. She spread out a cloth and set up little goddesses and stones and candles and was tugging at me and calling to me to the light the candles. I was kind of shrugging her off and saying, “not now, honey, I need to do something first,” and suddenly I was like oh my goddess, DUH, this IS THE MAIDEN RIGHT HERE IN FRONT OF ME and she has a plan! And, I’d come very, very close to missing it, and also, flat-out missing the whole point of what I was trying to learn from this lesson.So, my husband and I both sat with our daughter on the floor in the little altar space she had created and we all held our lit candles and spent some sacred, Maiden time together:

After getting her little ritual space set up. I’m really interested by how she sets it all up and arranges things…

This picture was taken last month. Earlier in Dec. I participated in an online winter solstice ritual offered by Global Goddess and Alaina was fascinated by lighting the candle and sitting on the floor with me. Ever since then, she keeps wanting to get out candles and lay out little altars on the floor. So, this picture is from one of those times. Look how pleased she is with herself 🙂

Categories: family, Goddess, OSC, ritual, spirituality | 5 Comments

Priestess Year in Review

Posted on January 1, 2013 by Molly

“May you experience each day as a sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder”

–J. Donohue

“The revolution must have dancing; women know this. The music will light our hearts with fire,
The stories will bathe our dreams in honey and fill our bellies with stars…”

–Nina Simons in We’Moon 2012

Happy New Year!

Two things I’d like to note as 2012 closes out and I welcome 2013: When I became ordained as a priestess with Global Goddess in July of last year, one of the commitments I made as part of ordination was to be of service in some way to the organization and to document my service to my community through the year. And second, after the ordination ceremony and I was all excited and saying to my boys, “I’m officially a priestess now!” they said, “what’s a priestess?” and I explained that a priestess was someone who does a variety of things including planning ceremonies and holding rituals. And, they said, “oh, you already were a priestess.” This might sound casual, but it was really meaningful to me because it affirmed that not only was I on the right path, but that I also wasn’t “pretending” or taking on a new identity or role I wasn’t ready for, I was already doing it–my kids saw it and some important friends in my life saw it also.

So, in keeping with these two things, this is my priestess year in review… 🙂

Wrote articles for each one of the four issues of The Oracle (Global Goddess online publication) following my ordination in July. This was the commitment of service to the organization I made. I already have a couple of articles planned for the upcoming issues as well.
Moderated at my UU church (only once in 2012. I’m on the schedule again for the spring).
Planned at least six family full moon rituals (my own family only).
Hosted winter women’s retreat
Planned, hosted, and facilitated summer women’s retreat
Facilitated a full series of Cakes for the Queen of Heaven classes (five weeks)
Planned and facilitated what we termed a “journeyway” ceremony for a close friend—the ceremony was like our “traditional” mother blessing ceremonies, but had a threefold purpose and involved acknowledging miscarriage, celebrating the friend’s birthday, and holding a house blessing ceremony.
Planned and facilitated a mother blessing ceremony for a new friend.
Officiated at a wedding ceremony and handfasting in October.
Planned and facilitated an overnight women’s retreat and SageWoman ceremony in November. This, for me, was the highlight of my service to my local women’s circle this year 🙂
Officiated at a wedding ceremony and handfasting in December.
Held a small winter solstice ritual for my immediate family and my parents.
Planned and facilitated our first fireside ritual/ceremony and drum circle involving whole families (instead of either just women or just my own family) for New Year’s Eve last night.
Not so much in service or in priestess work, I also had three guest posts published on the Feminism and Religion blog. And, I went to the Gaea Goddess Gathering in Kansas and brought back various ideas and resources for my local community (including the inspiration to purchase a big community/powwow drum).

On priestess rocks, November 2012

Second handfasting of the year

Yule log from family winter solstice celebration

New “medicine healer” ring

Family full moon fun altar

Spontaneous ritual with youngest child. She’s totally into it!

Making a medicine bag at New Year’s Eve ritual.

During ordination ceremony, July 2012

Priestess sculpture

Henna at GGG.

At GGG in September.

Waiting for a happy couple to arrive!

Making a prayer flag at a mother blessing ceremony

Gifts for Sagewomen.

Sistrum

Sagewomen preparing for honor!

Circlets for sagewomen.

New community drum (drum stand made by my dad).

Tipi set up by my dad for the SageWoman ceremony.

First effort at using real clay rather than polymer clay for my sculptures.

Close of ordination ceremony, July 1

Drawing for wheel of the year plate.

Sculptures hanging out in the sunshine!

Cakes “Gaia” logo

;

Handfasting with a lovely bride and handsome groom!

2013 Full Moon Calamandala

Plans for 2013:

Family full moon ritual each month. We meant to do one during every full moon in 2012, but there were various reasons why we didn’t actually achieve this every month. I would like 2013 to include all 13 moons. I am considering inviting other people to participate instead of only my own family.
Facilitate the whole series of Rise Up and Call Her Name classes. I bought this program in 2010, it is high time I use it! I’m envisioning this as a once a month class, spread out over the whole year.
Continue to hold quarterly women’s spirituality retreats, one during each season.
Plan and host four seasonal rituals for whole families (not just women, not just my own family)
Hold a house blessing/blessingway ceremony for a friend who is building her own house.
Continue writing all over the place and taking classes at Ocean Seminary College.

I feel blessed by connection to others, my sense of community experience, a wonderful group of friends, and a supportive family! Welcome, 2013!

“I know myself linked by chains of fires,
to every woman who has kept a hearth.
In the resinous smoke
I smell hut, castle, cave,
mansion and hovel,
See in the shifting flame
my mother and grandmothers
out over the world.”
-–Elsa Gidlow (quoted in The Politics of Women’s Spirituality)

Someday…someday!

Categories: family, friends, priestess, ritual, spirituality, womanspirit, women's circle | 10 Comments

Goddess Wheel of the Year: Winter Solstice Ritual

Posted on December 21, 2012 by Molly

This essay was originally written as part of an assignment for a class at Ocean Seminary College. It was revised into an article for the Winter Solstice edition of The Oracle, the online magazine of Global Goddess and published there on Dec. 18.

Frau Holle feels like a logical choice for me as a Goddess to invoke and celebrate during the winter months. The 12 days of Christmas were traditionally sacred to Holle, so she’s a perfect match for my own Goddess Wheel of the Year. Remembering that, “Even in the darkness, we are capable,” now is a time to celebrate our capacities, our strengths, and our survival instincts. Holle was perhaps a real woman who was persecuted as a witch. Among other aspects, she survives to scatter the snowflakes and to bring out our hidden powers of being.

Holle was historically honored with a feast night on winter solstice and this is a day that my family also honors with ritual as a sacred day. We begin by listening to a song called “Invocation to Mother Holle” by Ruth Barrett on her Year is a Dancing Woman CD. Then, we go outside for our annual bell ringing ceremony—ringing bells to each direction, below, above, and within. After a feast including root vegetables (perhaps a baked potato bar!) and apples, we shut out the lights and contemplate the darkness and the richness of the things that take root in the dark. Then, lighting candles, we walk our traditional “solstice spiral” (made with gold garland laid out in the spiral on the floor, ringed with evergreen branches and candles)—leaving behind our losses and that which we no longer need in the darkness, and carrying forward the bright spark of new possibility that is taking root in our lives for the new year. After exiting the spiral, we place our candles together on the Yule log to represent that which we hope to bring into the full light of dawning year.

In the book Grandmother Moon by Z. Budapest, the very first part of the book discusses the “Cold Moon” and uses Holle as the Goddess who carries the message of this part of the year. Budapest writes beautifully as Holle and her tasks for us:

Frau Holle Speaks: You can find me in the still waters of your wells and the cold depths of lakes. Come, jump in and see! You will not die. The deep cool well that reflects your face like a mirror will show you the way to my house. When you dare to follow me into the depths of the earth, you will find that even though the world is cold, there I have sunshine. My womb-shaped ovens are baking fresh bread, making new bodies for souls. My apple trees are fruiting beautifully. The vitality of my abundance is yours if you harvest them. I am working hard to bring my children good fortune. If you serve me, perform my tasks and accept the responsibilities I bring you, to take out the fresh loaves from my hot ovens, pick the apples from my trees, accept the power that I give you, I will hire you as my personal helper. When you fluff my pillows, the feathers flying will make the ground white with snow. When you water my sacred plants, that action will create the blessed rain that is necessary to sustain the life above. I am all work, you see. I am all striving; I am all that is useful. When the Moon is full, I will come and look at your lifework. What have you woven from the fine threads I have given you? Under the Full Moon, I shall examine your relationships, your accomplishments. I shall inspect your house for order, your loom for neatness. If I find your work in inspired order, I shall bring you gold, because my footsteps turn into gold and the touch of my fingertips turns everything into silver. If your life is a mess when I come by, I may mess it up even more just to force you out of your old patterns (p. 43-44).

During this ritual, we experience the perfect time to evaluate our lifework, to evaluate our purposes, and the directions of our personal paths. We take time to celebrate the accomplishments of the past year and to set meaningful personal intention for the new year to come.

References: Budapest, Zsuzsanna (2011-02-25). Grandmother Moon (pp. 41-44). Women’s Spirituality Forum. Kindle Edition.

Molly is a certified birth educator, writer, and activist who lives with her husband and children in central Missouri. She is a breastfeeding counselor, a professor of human services, and doctoral student in women’s spirituality at Ocean Seminary College. This summer she was ordained as a Priestess with Global Goddess. Molly blogs about birth, motherhood, and women’s issues at http://talkbirth.me and about thealogy and the Goddess at http://goddesspriestess.com

Categories: family, holidays, resources, ritual | 4 Comments

2013 Moon Calamandala

Posted on November 23, 2012 by Molly

This post is part of an assignment for my Birth-Death-Regeneration: Triple Goddess class at Ocean Seminary College.

First, I considered the relevance of the triple goddess concept and maiden, mother, crone archetypes/stages in my own life. I appreciate the expanded concept of the Women’s Wheel of Life elucidated by Elizabeth Davis and Carol Leonard and find there is more room within their construct for women to identify with the Wheel. The expanded wheel includes:

The Women’s Wheel of Life
(Amazon affiliate link included)

The Daughter
The Maiden
The Blood Sister
The Lover
The Mother
The Midwife
The Amazon
The Matriarch
The Priestess
The Sorceress
The Crone
The Dark Mother
The Transformer

Women’s Rites of Passage: Reconnecting to the Source of Feminine Power
(Amazon affiliate link included)

However, I also find the original Triple Goddess concept is still useful. Why? Simply because in very, very broad ways, they encompass the three blood mysteries of womanhood and serve as clearly recognizable transition points in my own life. My life IS in fact divided into three distinct stages. Before menarche and after menarche are distinctly recognizable in my memory. A couple of months ago I finished working through a Women’s Rites of Passage workbook and in it we were asked to explore our relationship with menstruation. I was surprised to discover and write the following:

I was shocked to discover during the first menstruation meditation that there is a clear division in my bodymind between before menstruation and after and that after involves less happiness and more confusion and angst and altered relationship to my body. In the meditation I saw/experienced myself as carefree and happy prior to menstruation and also eagerly awaiting her arrival. Post-menstruation I recalled the intensely painful cycles I experienced, the feeling as if I was “sick” when I had my period, and no longer feeling in blissful harmony with my body. Giving birth in power and joy helped me reclaim my body joy, but it is only in the last year that I’ve begun to consider that moontime itself might hold sacred wisdom and opportunity for connection…

As referenced, giving birth is also a distinct, transformative and intiatory rite in my own life. As with menstruation, I also observe a definite distinction between before motherhood and after motherhood. And, in many ways, I am not the same person I was before going through this rite of transformation.

Finally, while I’m not to the Crone stage yet, I can sense that this will be similar only it will likely represent the division between life as a mother with children at home and life as a mother with adult children.

I wish to acknowledge that I know that many women do not become mothers for a variety of reasons, so they may in fact feel excluded from the very transitions and distinctions I describe above. That is why I prefer Davis and Leonard’s exploration of 13 archetypes. And, it is not my intention to make any reader feel excluded or overlooked by the Triple Goddess image, just to explain how I am able to see her represented in my own life’s trajectory.

As I have described previously, within my circle of friends, we have been wonderful for some time at celebrating the Blood/Women’s Mysteries. We have Mother Blessing ceremonies for each pregnant woman as well as maiden ceremonies for our girls who are coming of age. My mother and her friends had a coming of age ceremony for all of their daughters when I was 13 (and my sister 11) and it was very meaningful for us. Two years ago, I facilitated a blessingway ceremony for all of my friends’ 10-12 year old daughters follow a series of Meetings at the Moon classes. We also had a new SageWoman ceremony just this month to honor the wise women among us. One of my goals is to have a regular monthly Moon Circle–to bring some of that sense of celebration and power from our Mother Blessing ceremonies more fully into our lives and to celebrate the fullness and completeness of women-in-themselves, not just of value while pregnant. (In January 2011 some friends and I did begin holding quarterly women’s retreats loosely based on the seasonal cycles, with the intention of perhaps having this become a monthly circle, and with the intention of celebrating our lives, whatever the stage or experience.)

As I read the material for this lesson, I was thinking about the wheel of the year and about the woman’s wheel of life and I decided it was time to make my 2013 Moon Calamandala drawing! It seemed like the perfect time! The Moon Calamandala (TM* 😉 ) includes the dates of each full moon in 2013. It also includes a variety of “womanrune” symbols to pictorially explore what our family would like to bring into our lives during each quarter. In the classes I teach, sometimes I encourage my students to think in circles rather than in lines. To me, this is what the Moon Calamandala represents as well. Here, we see the year as a cycle, a circle, another turn around the sun, rather than as a series of linear boxes as a graph, implying a distinct beginning and ending. The four goddess images represent the seasons and the four quarters of the year. Within each quarter are that quarter’s moons and the womanrunes symbols I chose to indicate family hopes, dreams, or plans for that part of the year. The waxing and waning moons are also indicated symbolically.

My 2012 Moon Calamandala (above) and the 2013 drawing ready to go into the frame. You can see a larger image and description of my 2012 calendar in this post, which was part of an assignment for a different class at OSC.