(no subject)

[badstar]

Well, the grove's Yule ritual was last night.

I must add another entry to my "what not to do in ritual" list and say Damn, do NOT open the gates without having eaten something during the day. Not in the way I did anyway.

For anyone who's ever had the pleasure of feeling their blood sugar just suddenly bottom out on them...imagine that times about ten. That was the internal feeling. The external feeling was like being at the center of three approaching storms on a collision course...up to and including the point of collision. I've only ever tried it once before on my own, the first time I tried it when I first had the idea. I daresay that the force of it was significantly less that first time. In following instances, it was done in conjunction with two other people. It was planned to be done that way again this time...initially was the intention anyway, but things got shaken up and switched around hither and thither and in the end, there was no chance to practice the whole thing with anyone else.

I also ended up doing the invocation to Heimdall, which had not been the original plan, though due to some uncertainty I had volunteered for backup. (Heimdall would be one of a very few non-Greek deities with which I have any real experiential familiarity, and probably the single most stable and consistent force I have ever encountered in my life. Which makes sense, considering who he is. A couple of yeard ago, he and Freyja showed up not simultaneously, but very close together, for a short period of time. I remember first having the sense of the presence of Freyja while wandering around Fire and Ice (a jewelery store) in Towson and at the time, had never heard of Brisingamen. I learned of that a few months later while talking to Jane Sibley. She laughed, said it sounded like they like me and that I should watch out for them to come back at some point in the future. I've had a vague sense of Heimdall for the last several weeks, though so far I'm chalking it up to the grove ritual and nothing to do with me personally.)

I tried to write the invocation for several days, right up to just before the ritual started. For the first time ever, I was unable to write anything. I had an idea, I lost it. Another idea...and it turned out to sound really dumb. I looked over some of my old gatekeeper invocations for some inspiration and only wound up attempting to cobble together and rework pieces of those....which I didn't want to do.

So for the first time in ages, I decided to wing it. and it went well. Nice, simple...and "good beer". Hehehe (Caryn had said "good beer" so many times in the beginning part of the ritual that it sorta became a running thing.)

So after the invocation and gate opening, I had to run inside and grab something to eat immediately. It took a little bit before I stopped shaking. I had to leave a second time when Caryn asked me if I could grab my runes- which were inside the house in my backpack. The last minute plan was to pull the runes last night and interpret this morning, but Jack and Kat convened in the middle and they ended up reading them then and there (With some conferring with Gavin who set people straight on one of them while I was still getting the final rune pulled.)

Note to self: start working with runes more again.

Many other thoughts having only to do with my own personal religious experience went flying around in my head for a large part of the night. Those I may organize more coherently a bit later.

Comments

[fuego.livejournal.com]

That could explain the lack of animosity.

Animosity from...?

[fuego.livejournal.com]

What was your second impression then?

No...I'm not incapable of interacting with non-Greek deities, the only actual problems I've ever had were the ones surrounding Brigid.

The others simply tend to not cross my radar.

[chronarchy.livejournal.com]

Good to see that the lessons taught you something: I spend lots of time getting schooled in things and not picking up the lessons :)

And yeah: always eat before the rite. That's one I've learned :)

[fuego.livejournal.com]

I often learn the lessons..doesn't mean that I remember to put them to use :-P

I try though.