Pagan Blog Project - week 19 - J – Just Dance!

Pagan Blog Project - week 19 - J#1 – Just Dance!

Oh, Thebes, nurse of Semele, crown your hair with ivy! Grow green with bryony! Redden with berries! O city, with boughs of oak and fir, come dance the dance of god! Fringe your skins of dappled fawn with tufts of twisted wool! Handle with holy care the violent wand of god! And let the dance begin! He is Bromius who runs to the mountain! To the mountain! Where the throng of women waits, driven from shuttle and loom, possessed by Dionysos!
Euripidies, The Bacchae, trans. Richmond Lattimore

Just dance!

I went to a concert recently (ARACDE FIRE) and I danced the whole time. I didn’t care how goofy I looked – a solitary fat sweaty girl in a space dress and a tiara, dancing and singing my heart out. It helped that I was in a different city (hell, a different state) and I thought “gee, I don’t know these people. I’ll never know these people. I don’t care what they think of me.” And I didn’t, and it was incredibly liberating and I had the best time ever.

I’ve been trying to dance more. I’m not very good at dancing. I’m not coordinated and I don’t have rhythm. But I really enjoy it. I really really really love dancing, actually. I love to go to dance parties and to go to concerts and to dance in my car and around the house when no one is home. I try to dance more and more every week, and one day when I have time and money (ha) I hope to take swing dance lessons with my husband so we can learn how to dance for realsies.

Dancing was never really on my radar until I went to a Midsummer ritual a few years ago, with a locally famous circle dance teacher in attendance. We spent hours outside in the heat and with the mosquitoes, dancing to the Cosmos. And while there were about a dozen of us, we were all too busy dancing for ourselves and for our Gods that it didn’t matter how goofy we all might have looked. No one was watching us because we were too busy focusing on ourselves, trying to get the moves right.

When I’m facilitating rituals that involve movement or chanting, I try to reiterate this – that we aren’t doing the ritual for each other, we’re singing or dancing for Deity. It doesn’t matter how bad we think we sound – Deity is just glad that we’re singing and dancing and chanting and sending them love and devotion and energy. And if it’s one thing I’ve learned it’s that the Cosmos have a sense of humor, so even if we look or feel a bit goofy, it’s okay. The Goddess loves to laugh, especially when we are laughing at ourselves.

It’s hard to get into this mindset. Believe me, I know. After years of occasionally crippling social anxiety, it’s taken a lifetime to work up to this point, where I can sing and dance for Deity, that I can have fun with my voice and with my body. But certain Deities who I have been working with in recent years really want their devotees to do these things, so in my love to Them, I’ve been trying to put forth the extra effort. (Which is admittedly much easier when I’m by myself or in Priestess-Mode...)

Dancing can be a lot of fun, and ritually, it does a lot, too. It raises energy on many levels. Your body gets hot and sweaty and that raises physical energy. Your raise your voice as you sing or shout or chant, which is the energy of physical vibrations in the air. You push toward your comfort zones, which can be an act of sacrifice or devotion. It’s like telling the Gods “this makes me kind of uncomfortable but I love you so much I’m gonna push through it.” It’s an emotional exercise, pushing through the anxiety of dancing or on a less-traumatic level, having fun! The emotions of fun and ecstasy create energy, and that energy can be sent out to the universe! It takes mental energy to focus on dance moves, or even mental energy to allow your mind to let go a bit. All of these energies combine to create magical energy, especially if dancing within a magical circle or ritualized setting.

I recognize that dancing isn’t for everyone, but I do feel like most have a lot to gain by dancing a bit, if just around the house or while you’re in the car or at a nightclub or even in your dreams. Dancing might be a bit awkward at first, but the more you do it, the more joy you’ll feel, and the more the Universe will be celebrated. And the more magic you’ll create with your mind, body, and spirit.

Pagan Blog Project - Week 15 - H#1 – Hestia

http://www.majorolympians.com/hestia01L.jpg

a repost from PBP 2013

Pagan Blog Project - Week 15 - H #2 – Hestia

My house is falling down.

We're renting, thank goodness. But since we moved into this place over five years ago there have been serious foundation problems: backed up plumbing, cracks in the wall and ceiling, damp spots on the floor, dirt in the bathroom...

I've had a strange relationship with this house. At first I was indifferent and uncomfortable. Haven moved from a really great place in Texas, North Carolina was weird and foreign. A friend visited with us a few months later and he said "oh, you have such a cute little witchy house!"

Hmm… maybe.

The indifference continued until a few years ago when I decided I hated this place. I was tired of it and all of its quirks. I wanted to leave, to rent or possibly by a new place. So, we shopped around for houses, looking at prices and financing. It was just not possible. Moving to another rental was also not really a good idea, either.

I'm not sure what happened first. Was it cocktails with my girlfriend, or my at-the-time Coven's ritual devoted to Hestia? But something changed in both my perception and relationship with my house. Slowly, but surely, it became my home.

As a group we devoted a ritual to Hestia/Vesta. I did a lot of studying on her before the ritual, and included a little lesson for the ritual itself. Though the ritual was focused around creating foci (in this case, a tool of devotional focus), looking back now I realize something else happened, at least for me. I finally bonded with my home. Most of all, I realized my physical space was not the source of my dissatisfaction, but I was depressed about more meaningful areas of my life. Changing my house wouldn't make me happy. I would have the same old problems but in a different box.

I needed to change the focus of my life.

In the center of my crappy little home is a huge fireplace, and while the Coven did rituals together in my living room, the fireplace was a natural center staging area, with the mantle and hearth serving as the perfect altar tables. I had always decorated the mantle with flowers and kitschy holiday decorations. But I found that over the years the mantle was less of a mundane seasonal piece of home decorating, but had become a seasonal shrine. And at some point I had begun using it as an altar, charging items or creating little charms. Over the years, my Pagan tools and paraphernalia weren't just hidden and tucked away, but were slowly migrating into the house and into my mundane life.

It wasn't just this refocus on my hearth that shifted my perception of my home, but the ritual itself and learning about Hestia. One of the ladies in the group was going through transitions in her own life and had suggested we do a ritual and lesson regarding reconnecting to our habitats, and Hestia was a natural choice for this.

Hestia’s domain is within the home. But she’s not just about cooking and cleaning, but about protection and nurturing energy. She’s about keeping our focus, and she’s about making sure our domestic energy translates easily into our public lives, and vice versa. The Vestal Virgins in Rome were priestesses who guarded the hearth and flame (may it burn forever!). Their energy in both a literal and a magical sense were devoted to the protection of Rome as both a micro and macrocosm, and this devotion and attention is a useful reminder to anyone who might be feeling a little scattered, a little discontented, a little out of sorts. In my experience, Hestia’s energy is useful for anyone who is looking for something with which to devote themselves.

After spending some time to Hestia, a shift happened in my life. I began to reconnect with and love my home. There was magic there now, in ways I hadn't realized. (Though to be fair, it's not like magic came out of nowhere. The magic had always been there. I just hadn’t really noticed it yet.) And an added and serendipitous bonus of working with Hestia was starting communication with Hermes, who is Hestia's total bff forever.

Most of all, this moment was a catalyst for meaningful change in my life. I got a promotion at work. I was given a car. I applied for graduate schools and was eventually accepted. I have a room now devoted to my Pagan tools and altar. Now I might even love my little house, even though the molding is coming down and my bathroom wall is rotting out.

Working with Hestia totally and literally change my focus, and that's powerful magic

Pagan Blog Project – week 8 - D#2 – Dead Can Dance

Pagan Blog Project – week 8 - D#2 – Dead Can Dance

Dead Can Dance is an “English-Australian neoclassical dark wave band” that has been around since 1981. Drawing influences from all of the world and throughout history, this band can be great for ritual or devotional practices.

I was first introduced to this band in high school and I’ve been a fan ever since. Lisa Gerrard’s vocals are hard to forget, and Brendan Perry has his moments as well. Currently they have about eight studio albums and a few live albums and other projects. My favorite album of theirs is Into the Labyrinth, which contains some heavy Dionysus and Ariadne content.

There’s a lot more I can ramble on, but I’ll just let the music speak for itself.