Trance with the Bull God is an odd experience, and it's different every time I do it. Tonight, the feeling was akin to one I cherished as a young girl: my father holding my wrists as he spun me in circles, my feet lifting from the ground.
It is a wild feeling, a flying feeling, very in touch with the joyous nature of the God. Knowing that were he to let go, I would be lost, but he holds me fast, and in doing so, allows me to experience joy and abandon beyond what I could hope to experience in the mundane world.
Tonight, for the first time, I saw him in one of his ancient forms: youthful, exuberant, the sun shining, making him glow (or was he glowing from the inside and lighting all around him?). He was the young god of the emerging firstfruits. The vines are beginning to flesh out with leaves and fruit, and he is young again, newly born, newly emerged from the Underworld. He dances among the fields, and where his feet touch springs new life. He is rebirth, he is joy, he is exuberance.
He gave me an oracle: Rho. Wait for a short time. And so I will listen to this mad and joyful god, who spins me in circles and lets me safely back into myself. I will hold my feet, dance the dance I am dancing even now, and when I hear the beat change, then, and only then, shall I move forward.
Sunday, April 20, 2014
Wednesday, April 2, 2014
Community
So my last post was mostly a rambling of all the thoughts jumbled together in my head. I'm going to attempt to make this one a little more topic-focused. Today's thought: community.
Around my neck hangs a triskele. Cast in bronze, it's begun to wear, but there are rarely days when I take it off. It was gifted to me by my grove at our anniversary rite in August of 2012, as a token of having completed the Dedicant Program. Every member of the grove gets some such token for completing that particular study program, and mine is the triskele. I don't have any particular connection to that symbol specifically, but I've grown quite attached to it since the necklace was gifted to me.
A bit of backstory. I first met my grove when I lived, for roughly a year and a half, in Columbus. I was a student there, I didn't have a car, so I only went to a handful of rites. Still, it led me quickly to joining ADF. I shortly transferred to another school and moved about an hour and a half away. I briefly (for roughly a year and a half) left paganism in favor of Catholicism. I didn't go to grove rites for a number of years. A deeply personal experience that I'm unwilling to publicly blog about led to my return to paganism. I started working on my own, I set up a personal altar, I read everything I could get my hands on, but a little voice in the back of my head said to me, "Remember the Dedicant Program that drew you to ADF in the first place? You should really look at that again..."
I didn't still have my study materials, so I renewed my long-expired membership. Part of that renewal asked for Grove affiliation. None, I wrote. And then that little voice again. "They might remember you." I thought about it for a long time. I assumed I would be shamed for having gone the way of Catholicism and then coming back. I assumed there would be snickers behind hands and whispers behind backs about the girl who couldn't make up her mind. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd heard such talk, though it would be the first time I heard such talk from pagans.
Still, I, and my roommate, went to a Samhain rite. The drive was long, and when we arrived, there were over 100 people in attendance. The last rite I'd been to with that grove only had about fifteen! How could so much happen in two years?! (Turns out, there were a number of visiting groves and other pagan groups in attendance... I haven't seen a rite quite that large, except possibly Comfest, since then). Lo and Behold, though... someone walked up to me and said, "Hey! Welcome back. We've missed you." Another grove member came to me and said "Welcome home." Home, I thought... Yes. This is home.
I completed the Dedicant program two years later, having my documentation accepted exactly 1 week after my petition for full grove membership was accepted. My "turkey basting" occurred and I was gifted a token which I will not, under any circumstances, speak more about. I spoke to Teutates not as "the god of the tribe" but as The God of My Tribe. It was warm, loving, and supportive.
When I left graduate school the first time (I'm returning this fall, to COMPLETE my degree), I got myself a Big Girl Job. I moved further south (adding about 20 minutes to any drive to a grove High Day), and started working 5 (sometimes 6) days a week. This meant two things: I now had some money, but I now had no time. My shift has just now changed to allow me to leave work while the sun is still shining, but if it happens on a weeknight, I am simply too far away to join my grove for events. High Days are always on Sundays, usually the one closest to the actual High Day, so I can usually make those. But druid moons, full moons, liturgy and study meetings... I can't go to them anymore. At all. It's simply not possible.
A close friend suggested getting involved with the local grove (yes, there's one closer than my original grove). I have considered this. They're good people, and I could find a home there. Still, the separation from MY grove is exceedingly painful. They are kin to me, not just 'members of my church.' I can't make weekend trips to Columbus anymore, and outside of High Days, I never speak to or see anyone from the grove. It's causing me to question how much of a member I really am. I wonder, sometimes, if anyone thinks of me and wonders where I've been. I wonder if they miss me, if they wish I were closer. I wonder if I ever contributed in any way.
Recently, one of our priests posed a question to Facebook: "If you could give 6 words of advice to new pagans, what would they be?" One of the responses was "Can't find community? Make your own."
I did some searching for pagan communities in the area I'm moving to this fall, which is STILL further from my grove. UU churches have been suggested to me (and I know the CUUPS is a good group, even if they don't have a local branch down here). I tried contacting the few pagan groups I found that were not exclusively Wiccan, and received no response (possibly they're defunct and the website just hasn't been updated; this seems to be a fairly common occurrence with pagan websites). But maybe... maybe it's time to start something. I'll be in that town for a few years. I know there ARE pagans there.
So this is what I'm pondering right now. Leaving a community on good terms, maintaining ties over distance and time, starting fresh, starting something new, and tying everything together to form a lasting bond.
Advice?
Around my neck hangs a triskele. Cast in bronze, it's begun to wear, but there are rarely days when I take it off. It was gifted to me by my grove at our anniversary rite in August of 2012, as a token of having completed the Dedicant Program. Every member of the grove gets some such token for completing that particular study program, and mine is the triskele. I don't have any particular connection to that symbol specifically, but I've grown quite attached to it since the necklace was gifted to me.
A bit of backstory. I first met my grove when I lived, for roughly a year and a half, in Columbus. I was a student there, I didn't have a car, so I only went to a handful of rites. Still, it led me quickly to joining ADF. I shortly transferred to another school and moved about an hour and a half away. I briefly (for roughly a year and a half) left paganism in favor of Catholicism. I didn't go to grove rites for a number of years. A deeply personal experience that I'm unwilling to publicly blog about led to my return to paganism. I started working on my own, I set up a personal altar, I read everything I could get my hands on, but a little voice in the back of my head said to me, "Remember the Dedicant Program that drew you to ADF in the first place? You should really look at that again..."
I didn't still have my study materials, so I renewed my long-expired membership. Part of that renewal asked for Grove affiliation. None, I wrote. And then that little voice again. "They might remember you." I thought about it for a long time. I assumed I would be shamed for having gone the way of Catholicism and then coming back. I assumed there would be snickers behind hands and whispers behind backs about the girl who couldn't make up her mind. It wouldn't have been the first time I'd heard such talk, though it would be the first time I heard such talk from pagans.
Still, I, and my roommate, went to a Samhain rite. The drive was long, and when we arrived, there were over 100 people in attendance. The last rite I'd been to with that grove only had about fifteen! How could so much happen in two years?! (Turns out, there were a number of visiting groves and other pagan groups in attendance... I haven't seen a rite quite that large, except possibly Comfest, since then). Lo and Behold, though... someone walked up to me and said, "Hey! Welcome back. We've missed you." Another grove member came to me and said "Welcome home." Home, I thought... Yes. This is home.
I completed the Dedicant program two years later, having my documentation accepted exactly 1 week after my petition for full grove membership was accepted. My "turkey basting" occurred and I was gifted a token which I will not, under any circumstances, speak more about. I spoke to Teutates not as "the god of the tribe" but as The God of My Tribe. It was warm, loving, and supportive.
When I left graduate school the first time (I'm returning this fall, to COMPLETE my degree), I got myself a Big Girl Job. I moved further south (adding about 20 minutes to any drive to a grove High Day), and started working 5 (sometimes 6) days a week. This meant two things: I now had some money, but I now had no time. My shift has just now changed to allow me to leave work while the sun is still shining, but if it happens on a weeknight, I am simply too far away to join my grove for events. High Days are always on Sundays, usually the one closest to the actual High Day, so I can usually make those. But druid moons, full moons, liturgy and study meetings... I can't go to them anymore. At all. It's simply not possible.
A close friend suggested getting involved with the local grove (yes, there's one closer than my original grove). I have considered this. They're good people, and I could find a home there. Still, the separation from MY grove is exceedingly painful. They are kin to me, not just 'members of my church.' I can't make weekend trips to Columbus anymore, and outside of High Days, I never speak to or see anyone from the grove. It's causing me to question how much of a member I really am. I wonder, sometimes, if anyone thinks of me and wonders where I've been. I wonder if they miss me, if they wish I were closer. I wonder if I ever contributed in any way.
Recently, one of our priests posed a question to Facebook: "If you could give 6 words of advice to new pagans, what would they be?" One of the responses was "Can't find community? Make your own."
I did some searching for pagan communities in the area I'm moving to this fall, which is STILL further from my grove. UU churches have been suggested to me (and I know the CUUPS is a good group, even if they don't have a local branch down here). I tried contacting the few pagan groups I found that were not exclusively Wiccan, and received no response (possibly they're defunct and the website just hasn't been updated; this seems to be a fairly common occurrence with pagan websites). But maybe... maybe it's time to start something. I'll be in that town for a few years. I know there ARE pagans there.
So this is what I'm pondering right now. Leaving a community on good terms, maintaining ties over distance and time, starting fresh, starting something new, and tying everything together to form a lasting bond.
Advice?
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