The Pagan Experience - "Fire"

http://www.exohuman.com

WK 1 - May 4 – Fire –  What ignites your passionate fires? What fuels your spiritual fires? What rages in fire’s destructive wake within you? And, what has healed from the cauterizing flames? How do you honor fire? How will you embrace its transformative powers?

I panicked a little after I was ordained in 2009.  It wasn’t just my quarter-life crisis/pre-Saturn return.  I literally went through one existential crisis after another.  As soon as I “resolved” one issue, another would arise.  Even now I sometimes find myself looping back to former contradictions and concerns that I thought I had reconciled long, long ago. 

But as we venture further into the labyrinth of this existence, we find ourselves looping back and back again, an eternal ebb and flow.  But we’re always gazing upon the world with new realizations, insights, experiences, and knowledge.  At this rate, we might as well be looking at an entirely new world each and every time we open and close our eyes. 

One crisis I remember quite vividly was over my concern of “how to be a good minister.”  I remember phoning my Bishop (probably in tears), literally freaking out about how I had no idea what I was doing.  I took my ordination very, very seriously, and I had begun to put a lot of pressure on myself to be “the perfect minister” (hah, whatever that is!)  I still recall my Bishop’s voice – calm, patient, gentle, honest, trusting… I could tell he was smiling, even through the phone.  He assured me that he wouldn’t have ordained me if he didn’t KNOW I was going to be a good minister.  But that wasn’t enough for me, and he could tell I was distressed.  I wanted a check-list, a book or a resource for me to refer to:

How to Be a Good Minister

1. Get ordained

2. Study a lot

3. ????

Unfortunately, no such list exists.  Sure, a person can undergo ceremonies and initiations.  My actual ordination was actually quite lovely and incredibly moving to me.  I remember it vividly.  And even to this day, years later, I study and read all the time, trying to gain as much knowledge and technique as I can in regards to “being a good minister.”  But… these things don’t really make you a GOOD minister.  Not really.  There’s more, so much more, and my Bishop knew that’s what I meant when I asked him these questions.  It’s what I needed.

He took a breath and asked me “do you really want to know how to be a good minister?  Really, truly want to know?”

“YES!” I cried out.  “Yes, tell me!”  I was begging with him, pleading.

There was a pause.  I could hear him thinking.  He took a breath.  His voice was very soft and gentle.  He said: “The way for you to be a good minister is to let the light of the Divine shine through you.”

Now it was time for me to be silent.  I was still stuck on the “3. ????” stage of my “Good Minister” checklist.  He could sense my consternation, so he explained further.

https://thesituationist.files.wordpress.com

“Develop your relationship with the Divine,” he said.  “It will start as a little seed, as a little spark, but the more you nurture it, the more it will grow.  And the more it grows the more it will shine, until the fire of God overwhelms you and others have no choice but to be on fire, too.”

Though my Fellowship is no longer a Gnostic church, it started off that way, back in the day.  In one of the Gnostic myths, Sophia messes up and she creates the Demiurge, an imperfect being who is so removed from the Divine that the Demiurge things HE is God.  So the Demiurge, in his own acts of creation, forms humans, but treats them very terribly.  Sophia, compassionate and wise, takes pity on us, and saves us with a piece of herself, which is a piece of the True Divine.  And it is through this spark that we maintain our connection to the Source.

In Orphism, little baby Zagreus is torn apart and eaten by the Titans.  They are destroyed by Zeus’s lightning bolts and turned to ash.  It is out of this ash that humans are created – ash from the corpse of a Titan that ate a Divine child.  Again, we retain our connection to the fires of the Divine.

It is through these archetypal stories that we are reminded of our own Divinity.  These aren’t just myths – they more true than anything else in this world.  I am Goddess, and thou art God, and it is by recognizing this Truth that I am a good minister, that I can be the best minister I can be.  The spark of the Divine that lives within me ignites the spark of the Divine that lives within you, and together we burn bright.  Together we are fire. 

Pagan Blog Project – week 38 – S#2 – Salamander

my mind: ???? (https://lovegodbob.files.wordpress.com)

 

 

Pagan Blog Project – week 38 – S#2 – Salamanders

Salamanders used to confuse me.  I remember being a Baby Pagan and reading about the elemental correspondences to the directions.  I was familiar with the concept of elementalsthrough playing Dungeons and Dragons (true story) and elements and directions are simple enough, but I was confused about the elemental creatures and how they corresponded to the directions and physical elements.  This is especially true with South, fire, and the salamander (and less so with the other three elements, elementals, and directions.)

So, in most traditions, the elemental creature that corresponds to the direction of South and the element of fire is the Salamander.  What confused me was that I associated salamanders, reptiles, amphibians, and lizards with water.  For some reason, lizards and salamanders seemed slimy and moist to me, slippery and fluid, not at all like the fiery, darting, flashing associations of fire.  This really bothered me for a long time.

adorable and moist. My mind: fire??? (http://zolanimals.tumblr.com/)

Throughout this year, one of the Pagan Groups I’m involved in has been teaching workshops and generally focusing on the Spirits of Place.  It was through exploring this topic that I finally began to understand salamanders and their association with fire, and it wasn’t until I did some good old fashioned research that I found out the answer.  (aka Google and Wikipedia).

So, elementals are a common idea found throughout folklore, but it wasn’t until the 16^th century and an alchemist named Paracelsus finally wrote his thoughts down, thus making it “official.”  The reason he and others put salamanders in the south and with fire was because they all thought that salamanders came from fire.  What would happen was that during cold months, salamanders would go and hide in wood piles where things were nice and cozy and protected from the harsh weather.  People would bring the wood in from outside, add the wood to their fires, and then salamanders would go scattering everywhere, as if springing up from the flames themselves.  Because of this, people thought that salamanders came from the fire (rather than coming from the wood that was eventually set on fire) so that is how salamanders become associated with the element of fire, which is associated with the south.

my mind: ah ha! (http://freedomfortooting.files.wordpress.com)

But the more I thought about this, the more I realized how wrong I was about salamanders and lizards and other crawly guys.  I spent my youth in the Southwest, where there are plenty of lizards and not much water.  In addition to having associations with fire and salamanders, many cultures have stories of fire breathing dragons and other majestic, powerful, and fiery creatures. 

The association is simple, really, I just overthink things!  (or don’t  use enough common sense… but the end result is still the same.)  And I’m happy for my new-found knowledge and understanding of South, fire, and the salamander, because finally, the elements are complete to me in a way they were not before!

What’s something really obvious about Pagans that took you a long time to learn or understand that you’re embarrassed to admit?  Don’t hold back!  We’ve all been there!  Share it in the comments and we’ll all laugh together!