The Rowdy Goddess

An Ecstatic Vision of the Goddess, dancing in harmony with the Universe.

Archive for the tag “ritual”

06 Apr 2015
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In Praise of the Sweetness of Life

Easter basketWe are just emerging from the cocoon of a cold, cold winter to emerge into the season of mud, cold, and continued snow here in Central New York.  With stunned hoped and distrust, we are now seeing and hearing the signs of spring.  Robins, red-winged blackbirds, mourning doves, finches, and jays congregate greedily at the bird feeder on our front porch.

Another sure sign of spring is the Easter season.  In the past, as a former fundamentalist Christian and then a pagan, I had not been a big fan of Easter.  I remember in the last year of my Christian days sitting in a Bible Baptist church on Easter Sunday listening to a sermon and becoming frustrated by the continued overt sexism and hidden racism of the smug, well-dressed preacher.   That was back in 1976 and I made a vow never to attend such a sermon again.

Since that time, Easter with the store closings and lack of services for the non-practicing Christian always took me by surprise.  It’s like I obliterated it from my mind.  In a more suburban and diverse place like Washington D.C. (where I used live in the suburbs), it was easier to forget about Easter.  Here in Central New York, it’s much harder to ignore the holiday.  I’m not sure people realize how dominate the Catholic religion is in this area.  Holy Week is important here!  Sometimes even state agencies and related entities don’t do work because it’s Holy Week.

At the same time, I love this season.  I love the pastel colors, the baskets, the eggs, and the general sweetness of it.  Spring usually bursts forth in the stores before it’s reflected in the flowers and the trees.  It makes my spirits soar to see all the yellows, pinks, greens, lavender, and blues of the seasons.  It’s a reminder that the Wheel does turn and light and lightness overtakes the dark.   As a quilter, I like bright bold colors and I also like the spectrum of pastels.  The pastels bring a lightness and pleasure not felt with the power of dark and bold colors.

And thPeepsen, there are Peeps.  What is the Easter season without Peeps.  I love Peeps.  I love the pretty pastel colors, the cringing sweetness, and the chewy delights of the marshmallows.  I am instantly transported back to that lightness and delights of our imagined and sometimes real childhoods memories.  Plus, I adore the kitschy, fun, funny part of Peeps.  Every year since 2007, my favorite newspaper, The Washington Post, has a Peeps Diorama contest.  They are too funny.  The internet is full of things that people do with Peeps.  As a librarian, I am honor bound to tell you about the Peeps at the library, one of my favorites.  I am not ashamed to admit that I have a great many Peeps products.  I was going to tell you it only filled a small storage tub but that would be a lie.

More often than not, my circle celebrates this season with a Peeps ritual.  I learned this ritual from Lady Phoenix Medusa and have embellished it with my style.  We gather together to play, sing, dance and do ritual.  It’s all about celebrating the sweetness of life in all its mysteries.  And of course, we eat.  Like all churches, pagans celebrate with food.  We all assume our Peeps names — I’m Lady Creamsicle  take place in circle and make fun.  We make fun of ourselves, we make fun of each other, and we make fun in general.  Through our laughter, rowdiness, our funny clothes, and food we celebrate the joys of our connections with Spirit.

 May you find joy and sweetness today and everyday!

 

Posted in Goddess, Ritual and tagged , , ,
01 Mar 2013
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Blessed Be My Plan B

Business plan - woman drawingPlanning is important and I’m a good planner.  I also like to be flexible so that if an opportunity presents itself, I can take advantage of that spontaneously.

A good example of that in ritual was a big deal ritual my coven did for our tradition-wide gathering.  At the time, we were a brand new coven and while I was not new to group gatherings and leadership, this was a venue where I wanted us to excel and shine.  We would be doing the ritual for the gathering of our entire tradition including our elders and founders.   It was daunting, but I knew we could do it and do it fabulously well.

So we rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed.  Our group was still learning how to be a coven together and how to do ritual so a big one was intimidating.  As part of the learning and rehearsal, we also practiced how to work through mistakes — keep on going and act like it was meant to be that way.    We where rehearsing right up to the last minute.  It was a little tense and we were all a little bit nervous.  Or maybe a lot.

And the ritual went really, really well!  There were a couple of misspeaks and the priestess went through it like it was meant to be that way.  When we finished the spiral dance and raised a lot of energy, an inspiration came to me.  And I said (for the benefit of the well-rehearsed covener), “I’m going a little off script,” and launched into the unofficial chant of our tradition which raised some incredible magic and energy.  And that is an example of good planning and the ability to be open to spontaneous inspiritation.

Another aspect of planning is being able to pick up the pieces when things go wrong.  “I always have a Plan B” is a Gailism.  It’s part of my professional training, a side effect of working with technology.  What if you plan a ritual and a key person doesn’t show up?  Plan B.  What if you forget to put water in the chalice:  Plan B is to pretend it’s there.  What if you knock over the chalice full of water?  What if you forget which vial contains water, which contains wine, and which contains oil?  Smell it or pretend [Plan B].  What if it rains on your outdoor ritual.  Plan B.

Sometimes you need a Plan C, D, or E.  Just being willing to be aware that things may change is an important part of planning.  It might not be necessary to have a full alternate plan, but rather to have the ability to draw on the well of experience, creativity, and spontaneous growth.  The new inspiriation is always there.  One time I went to a ritual and the priestess didn’t show up.  It turned out she was ill and unable to get out of bed.  So a group of us, some of whom had driven two or more hours, were ready to go about our business.  Wait!  I had a key to the building, so we decided to do the ritual.

We all went to our cars and pulled out blankets and pieces of this and that and pulled together an altar.  I had a Tarot deck and a traveling altar.  One woman had some pretty nifty Pagan stuff in her trunk.  We put together a really good ritual and the performance by a group of people who didn’t know each other was a very enriching experience.

So be ready with Plan A, B, C, and more.  All we need to do is learn our ABCs and draw on our creative power and good intentful heart.  Blessed Be the Plan B!

Posted in Planning, Ritual, spiritual practice, Wicca and tagged , , ,
05 Feb 2013

The Wheel Turns and We Begin to Awaken

The Wheel turned to Imbolc this first week in February.  It is frigid, snowy, and still where I live in the Finger Lakes region of New York.  As I’ve been leaving for work, it is dark and still, so much so that even the outside lights don’t light up my path.  Yesterday, both Mouse and I noticed that in the east we could see the pinks and lavender of the dawn.  It was very heartening.  It is one thing to know, because the weatherman tells us, that we are gaining more light each day, it is another things to witness and experience it.

At Imbolc, Mother Earth begins to stir and awaken.  Still snuggled warm in her earthy bed, her dreams turn to spring and growth rather than the deep sleep of wisdom and meditation.  There is a deep quickening beneath the soil.  Seeds and bulbs feel the change and begin to stir inside their skins and shells.  The Earth hasn’t yawned and stretched and gotten fully awake, but we know it’s soon.

As humans, we begin to stir and awaken, moving from our hibernating state to awakening.  We feel our creativity comes back and ideas, fresh and new, begin to excite us.  We start by preparing ourselves and our spaces.  One of the customs for this time of year, in honor of Brigid, is to clean our hearth.  We can look at our hearth as our home, our workspace, our hearts, our souls or whatever is full of cobwebs and dust.  Go widdershins around your  spaces and sweep out the stale and outdated so you can welcome in the fresh new life.

Over the years, our circle has done different rituals to celebrate Imbolc.  One of my favorite is to light different colored candles for our wishes and then raise energy for the success of the wishes.  The glow of the candles remind us of the sunlight’s return and the warmth of the fire melts the cold surrounding our hearts.  Another favorite ritual is to tie different colored ribbons to a tree branch, raising energy for their success.  I keep the branch indoors in a sunlit window until Ostara when Mouse and I plant it outside in our garden.  There the weather and the birds take the ribbons as gifts.  At Lammas, the Sabbat opposite Imbolc, we burn the branch and the ribbons, raising energy in thanksgiving for the harvest of our souls.

And on a light-hearted aside, I’m kind of a musical comedy Witch so the holidays often bring to mind a song from a musical.  My favorite for Imbolc is “Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here,” from On a Clear Day.  Since everything is on the internet, you can find a video from the movie sung by Barbra Streisand ; and the lyrics are below because you can’t help but sing along.

May your awakening be exuberant, rowdy, happy, and creative.

 Hurry, It’s Lovely Up Here :

Hey buds below … up is where to grow
Up with which below can’t compare with.
Hurry – it’s lovely up here …
Life down a hole takes an awful toll,
What with not a soul there to share with
Hurry – it’s lovely up here!
Wake up, bestir yourself,
it’s time that you disinter yourself
You’ve got a spot to fill – a pot to fill
And what a gift package of showers, sun and love
You’ll be met above everywhere with,
Fondled and sniffed by millions who drift by,
Life here is rosy – if you’re a posy
Hurry it’s lovely here!
Climb up geranium, it can’t be fun subterran-ium
On the exterior, it’s cheerier
RSVP peonies, pollinate the breeze,
Make the queen of bees hot as brandy
Come give at least a preview of Easter
Come up and see the good we’re giving
Come up and see the grounds for living
Come poke your head out,
Open up and spread out,
Hurry it’s lovely here!
Posted in Wheel of the Year and tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment
23 Jan 2013
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I MEANT to Do it That Way!

polar bear prat fall

My friends call some of my consistent and repeated sayings, “Gailisms.”  My family does too!  One of my favorites is:  I meant to do it that way, or I meant to do it that way, or [louder] I MEANT to do it that way!

I picked up this expression when I took belly dancing for awhile from the marvelous June Seavey.  She is a wonderful dancer and teacher, putting me at ease at once by saying that oriental dance is for every body and every body type.  She’s the leader of a troupe or two and performs exentensively.  And she’s a very kind teacher telling me once that “your hips just want to have fun.”

I am not a graceful person.  While I like to think I’m not clumsy, the fact of the matter is that I trip, walk slow, and generally look dorky in motion.  I don’t care, I love to dance.  My hips do want to have fun!

One session, June did a dance performance for us in full, beautiful costume.  It was wonderful.  Then she started demonstrating some of the pitfalls of live performance and how she recovered from it.  “Oh I dropped my veil,”  and she gracefully danced and picked it up, “And I meant to do it that way!”  And so on through several mistakes!

I have found this very useful in public speaking and in facilitating pagan ritual.  I have stumbled over words, knocked over a chalice spilling water, lost my place in a wedding ceremony,  forgotten essential ritual items, the candles won’t light and so forth.   In order to keep the flow of energy going as well as the flow of attention and intention, it’s important not to dwell on these as mistakes but as a bump that you go over and continue on.  Above all else, it’s important not to stop the ‘action’ and dwell on the error or waste time fixing what can’t be mended.  Thus, the coping mechanism [and comfort] is:  I meant to do it that way!

It is, of course, important to learn from your mistakes and do better the next time. It is not useful to dwell on the errors and castigate yourself. There’s no point in self flagellation and self-loathing, other than to make yourself feel bad. You pick yourself up, clean up and either start over or move on. If you need to apologize, you say so. Otherwise, just act like you meant to do it that way.

May your day be full of self blessing and whatever happens, you meant to do it that way!

Posted in Goddess and tagged , , ,
14 Jan 2008

The Crone Zone

 

Last year at this time, I looked at the calendar and realized that Friday the 13th was smack dab on the dark moon. Lucky day, favorite moon sign. What else was I to do. I scheduled my croning for that day.

If you’ve read this blog from the beginning, you know that I have struggled a bit with the crone designation. I’ve realized, after all, that it doesn’t have to be all that’s left. The Crone offers out a richness and power that is not limited to that one single concept. It was something I wanted to explore.

The ritual was fabulous. Three priestesses, Sci, Phaezara, and Thia Moonstone embodied the Moirae. I had done a number of shamanic journeys, seeking the ancient mothers of the elements and asking their wisdom. In addition, a tarot reading at the Tarot School’s Readers’ Studio gave me a lot more insight into this crone initiation. Each portion of the ritual helped complete the journeys and give me more insight into the Crone.

And as I stepped over the threshold, I was greeted by the Crone herself who gave me a shell necklace in celebration of arriving at this strange new shore. It was a wonderful, personal ritual attended by dear friends and beloved witches. Oh yes, and we danced to “The Golden Years,” by David Bowie.

And so the journey begins. This month, I passed the thirteenth month without a period. The day fell, not surprisingly, on the Dark Moon.

And may the cycles of your life be blessed!!!

Posted in Goddess, Rowdy Goddess and tagged , , , | Leave a comment
19 Feb 2007

A Winter Gathering of the Rowdy Goddesses

Tomorrow is Mardi Gras, but we’ve celebrated it already with “Let the Rowdy Times Roll!” It seems that once a year at Womongathering isn’t enough. So this year, our dear friend Phaezara opened her hearth and home to a gathering. Traveling from Philadelphia, Virginia, and from points across New York, rowdy women gathered to party. Included were women from Womongathering and also some of our friends who haven’t been able to make it to the summer gathering.

We went shopping at Seven Rays in Syracuse and then we went to tea at the White Dove Tea Room. A caravan of six cars is often hard to lead and to follow, but we all made it even after getting double parked in at the Church of the Assumption. Shows what assumptions will do for you…get you blocked in and unable to move forward.
It was wonderful, capped off by a ritual involving the beauty and wonder of our masks. Let’s face it, we have them. They are beautiful, our masks are barriers, and they are our aspirations. More to explore with masks……
May wonder and beauty be yours as you let your Rowdy times roll!!!!
Posted in masks, Rowdy Goddess, tea, witchcraft and tagged , , , | Leave a comment

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