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badstarSo...I've been thinking.
Yeah, I know. Don't do that, it always leads to trouble. Oh well, too late, what's done is done.
Religion. Yeah, I know I haven't written much about that in several months. Not that it hasn't been on my mind...it has, constantly. It never leaves. (Well, maybe it does for a few minutes when...oh nevermind, y'all don't want to hear me bitch about how frustrated I get when something gets stuck in my teeth and I can't get it out and don't have a toothbrush handy or a toothpick or dental floss and OMG I really hate raspberry seeds sometimes...uh, yeah :-P)
Anyways. So it's recently occurred to me that the grove's Lughnassagh ritual is this weekend. No, I lie, I knew that for a while now, but what's just occurred to me is that the next ritual after that is the fall equinox.
I've had myself in a kind of limbo with grove involvement for quite a while now. A year just after the equinox since everything started to go pear-shaped. The last fall equinox ritual was one of the best rituals I've ever participated in, I think only one other is really, truly comparable and that was fall equinox 2005. (For some reason, fall equinox always seems to be a good ritual for me, though those two just really stand apart for a number of reasons which I might or might not get into in this particular ramble.)
So anyway...my whole state of limbo thing began almost immediately after the equinox last year. I remember being almost on a high following the ritual and a few days later finally got word that my Dedicants Program had been approved...nevermind that it had been submitted already approved, but I won't go into that rant again. Then I started down the tedious and seemingly unending process of getting approved for the Clergy Training Program.
Then within about two weeks, a whole bunch of things started to change, suddenly I found myself sitting out the Samhain ritual, for some reason I no longer remember, I thought I was down for three rituals and would come back to that for the spring.
And then I was approved for the CPT on my birthday in early December. And then I ended up getting far more involved in the Yule ritual than expected, which turned out to have some fairly intense moments.
And after the previous Imbolc, I thought I was going to be out altogether for this one, but I ended up participating in the beginning and then walking myself right out with the acknowledgment of the outsiders. A few days before that, I had the crazy idea that I should just drop the clergy training that I had barely begun. I didn't think much of it at the time, dismissed it quickly, though a day or so later it upset me for a bit, then it didn't anymore. A couple of weeks after that, I left for work on a Monday night with everything as it was..by the time I got off the train at the office, I knew that I needed to not do the clergy training anymore. I was really upset then, and felt completely lost even though I knew it was the right thing for me to do. The initiates program was suggested to me, and I rejected it initially, having considered it before, but then I went and took another look at it, and found it the right thing to do. I wrote my essay for the IP and sent it off, received approval within only a few days. I remember writing it in a fury, and sending it off, at the time, all I wanted was for the CTP essay to be down from the ADF website, like it was going to burn me or something to stay there. When I saw that the IP essay had been posted, I was so relieved. It seems silly now that I felt so strongly...I mean, it was going to happen, and it wasn't hurting anything that the one essay was still up for a short time until the other was approved. But I did. Rereading that essay now hits me like a ton of bricks. I haven't been working on the IP lately, but I have plans to pick it up again in the not too distant future, and I still know I did the right thing.
I skipped both Spring Equinox and Beltane at the grove for several reasons, and a whole lot happened around that time. I also went from going to the grove every single weekend to no longer going most weekends right now. I thought I would feel like I was missing something but I don't.
I came back to lead the Summer Solstice ritual. While it went very well (with a few moments of exception), it didn't have quite the spiritual impact to it that I hoped it would have for me.
Then the whole moving process came, and for various reasons I didn't think I would be going for Lughnassagh and until yesterday, I actively planned to not go...at this point it looks like Gavin and I will go, but not participate in the ritual.
Somewhere in all this, not being sure what was going on, what I was doing, all that fun mess, I was thinking about, as I mentioned before, how the fall equinox is always a really good time for me. And then I found out that another grove member put forth the idea of doing a ritual in honor of Hephaestos and Athena. More Greek gods, yay. And other folks seem to be behind it, so I'm very interested in seeing what transpires there and in being involved with that one. So I think I'm going to see how things go up to the fall equinox, but I have a felling that while things are definitely not what they were at this time a year ago, I might be on my way to having my head on straight again. I think I'd like to start getting to the grove a little bit more often though I don't know that I'll get back to every single weekend as I did for almost three years there, excepting only a handful of times when I was out of town, but I think I'm okay with that now, and I'm okay with not being there for every single ritual if it's not right for me to be there. Heck, maybe this weekend I'll make an attempt to stand in the circle and observe (no promises on that one though.)
The Hellenic ritual that we did for Aphrodite a few weeks ago went rather well, I think I'd like to try doing some more in the Hellenic vein and not always stick to ADF format despite my attachment to it.
Ye, gads it's been crazy. I still don't have it all figured out, but I'm a lot more okay with things than I have been in a while.
And if I can manage to get it in before I leave the office, there might be another post on the woo filter to save those who don't care to read such things from rolling their eyes right out of their heads.
Yeah, I know. Don't do that, it always leads to trouble. Oh well, too late, what's done is done.
Religion. Yeah, I know I haven't written much about that in several months. Not that it hasn't been on my mind...it has, constantly. It never leaves. (Well, maybe it does for a few minutes when...oh nevermind, y'all don't want to hear me bitch about how frustrated I get when something gets stuck in my teeth and I can't get it out and don't have a toothbrush handy or a toothpick or dental floss and OMG I really hate raspberry seeds sometimes...uh, yeah :-P)
Anyways. So it's recently occurred to me that the grove's Lughnassagh ritual is this weekend. No, I lie, I knew that for a while now, but what's just occurred to me is that the next ritual after that is the fall equinox.
I've had myself in a kind of limbo with grove involvement for quite a while now. A year just after the equinox since everything started to go pear-shaped. The last fall equinox ritual was one of the best rituals I've ever participated in, I think only one other is really, truly comparable and that was fall equinox 2005. (For some reason, fall equinox always seems to be a good ritual for me, though those two just really stand apart for a number of reasons which I might or might not get into in this particular ramble.)
So anyway...my whole state of limbo thing began almost immediately after the equinox last year. I remember being almost on a high following the ritual and a few days later finally got word that my Dedicants Program had been approved...nevermind that it had been submitted already approved, but I won't go into that rant again. Then I started down the tedious and seemingly unending process of getting approved for the Clergy Training Program.
Then within about two weeks, a whole bunch of things started to change, suddenly I found myself sitting out the Samhain ritual, for some reason I no longer remember, I thought I was down for three rituals and would come back to that for the spring.
And then I was approved for the CPT on my birthday in early December. And then I ended up getting far more involved in the Yule ritual than expected, which turned out to have some fairly intense moments.
And after the previous Imbolc, I thought I was going to be out altogether for this one, but I ended up participating in the beginning and then walking myself right out with the acknowledgment of the outsiders. A few days before that, I had the crazy idea that I should just drop the clergy training that I had barely begun. I didn't think much of it at the time, dismissed it quickly, though a day or so later it upset me for a bit, then it didn't anymore. A couple of weeks after that, I left for work on a Monday night with everything as it was..by the time I got off the train at the office, I knew that I needed to not do the clergy training anymore. I was really upset then, and felt completely lost even though I knew it was the right thing for me to do. The initiates program was suggested to me, and I rejected it initially, having considered it before, but then I went and took another look at it, and found it the right thing to do. I wrote my essay for the IP and sent it off, received approval within only a few days. I remember writing it in a fury, and sending it off, at the time, all I wanted was for the CTP essay to be down from the ADF website, like it was going to burn me or something to stay there. When I saw that the IP essay had been posted, I was so relieved. It seems silly now that I felt so strongly...I mean, it was going to happen, and it wasn't hurting anything that the one essay was still up for a short time until the other was approved. But I did. Rereading that essay now hits me like a ton of bricks. I haven't been working on the IP lately, but I have plans to pick it up again in the not too distant future, and I still know I did the right thing.
I skipped both Spring Equinox and Beltane at the grove for several reasons, and a whole lot happened around that time. I also went from going to the grove every single weekend to no longer going most weekends right now. I thought I would feel like I was missing something but I don't.
I came back to lead the Summer Solstice ritual. While it went very well (with a few moments of exception), it didn't have quite the spiritual impact to it that I hoped it would have for me.
Then the whole moving process came, and for various reasons I didn't think I would be going for Lughnassagh and until yesterday, I actively planned to not go...at this point it looks like Gavin and I will go, but not participate in the ritual.
Somewhere in all this, not being sure what was going on, what I was doing, all that fun mess, I was thinking about, as I mentioned before, how the fall equinox is always a really good time for me. And then I found out that another grove member put forth the idea of doing a ritual in honor of Hephaestos and Athena. More Greek gods, yay. And other folks seem to be behind it, so I'm very interested in seeing what transpires there and in being involved with that one. So I think I'm going to see how things go up to the fall equinox, but I have a felling that while things are definitely not what they were at this time a year ago, I might be on my way to having my head on straight again. I think I'd like to start getting to the grove a little bit more often though I don't know that I'll get back to every single weekend as I did for almost three years there, excepting only a handful of times when I was out of town, but I think I'm okay with that now, and I'm okay with not being there for every single ritual if it's not right for me to be there. Heck, maybe this weekend I'll make an attempt to stand in the circle and observe (no promises on that one though.)
The Hellenic ritual that we did for Aphrodite a few weeks ago went rather well, I think I'd like to try doing some more in the Hellenic vein and not always stick to ADF format despite my attachment to it.
Ye, gads it's been crazy. I still don't have it all figured out, but I'm a lot more okay with things than I have been in a while.
And if I can manage to get it in before I leave the office, there might be another post on the woo filter to save those who don't care to read such things from rolling their eyes right out of their heads.
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