The Earth Path: Toward the Isle of Birds

So apparently this summer is fast becoming about reading, interpreting, applying to my life and learning; about fixing my hurts and discovering the areas I need to accept, and those I need to work on. But it's also about my faith, and that is based in nature, the earth and the Gods. The Earth Path by Starhawk is a fantastic book that myself and two of my friends have undertaken to reading and discussing each chapter and the different activities that are in it as we do them.

This book is about "many people who call themselves Pagan and proclaim nature as sacred are unclear on the processes by which nature actually works. The Earth Path addresses the profound spiritual and conceptual disconnect at the root of our environmental destructiveness, and shows how we can reroot our spirits, our politics, and our day-to-day life in deep relationship with the Earth," as Starhawk describes it.

So the whole point of our little book club is to read and interpret, discuss how we saw the content and form our own opinions on things. My background has a bit of everything in it: I have a degree in History, some of that degree included Earth Science courses and Political Science courses, I am now in school for Massage Therapy, so I've got a very good understanding of how the human body works and how all our systems interact with each other and maintain homeostasis within us - otherwise known as balance. The first chapter of The Earth Path was very much about balance and how humans have lost our balance with nature. It starts out talking about how the native peoples of California knew how the cycles of the year worked in their environment and their own bio-diverse ecology. They burned their forests every-so-often to make sure that the small shrubberies didn't overtake the larger trees, and the deep roots of the plants would ensure they came back in the spring. Now, however, we don't do that anymore, too many people live in the forested areas, or what used to be forests before clearcutting took away the forests and the footholds of the topsoil (but that's a whole other issue!), and they don't burn, which caused the overgrowth of small dry bushes and shrubs which cause a major fire-hazard. When the natives used to burn regularly, it would be a cool-burn, done and over-with fast and controlled. Now if the forests catch fire it would be a deathly inferno. There was a lot more to it, but the main thing is that we live in an area now more for jobs or pretty scenery but we don't know the land, we don't take care of it as we should, we don't listen to our land, and it has caused major issues with the careful balance that needs to be maintained to have a stable ecosystem.

I thought it was a very good start and I'm excited to get into the rest of the book and on to the exercises and rituals. The end of the chapter says to

"Close this book. Walk outside, if you can, or at least go to a window and open it. Close your eyes and sniff the air. Listen. Who do you hear calling on the wind? Are the birds chattering? Are the tree frogs chanting in chorus? Do you hear the rhythmic throb of city traffic? The cycling trill of car alarms? The cries of children at play? Everything around us is always speaking. We can heal only by first learning to hear, to understand, and, in time, to respond. As we do, the world becomes richer, a more complex and vibrant place. Open your eyes; see the patterns of light and shadow, the play of the wind. You have already begun your education in the language of nature. You have already set foot upon the Isle of Birds, which is always right here, wherever we are."

So here we go.

Aphrodite's Magic: First Cord

Okay so tonight is the first full moon since we started this quest. Meaning that it's the first cord ritual tonight. Well it would've been, but extenuating circumstances caused Saturnine and I to bump it up to 4pm today. I'm a bit behind the times in actually blogging about it all, but I've kept up somewhat, so I'm only a little bit behind. I'll do the catch up and then blog about what it was like.
Prep:
Okay so I was running a bit behind today, but I was talking to a friend about the altar and what I wanted to do with it, and I was kind of torn - I wanted to put it in the gazebo so I could do my rituals outside and still have it protected, I was just going to do something simple, statue of the Goddess, an apple, maybe a red rose and a sea shell. But I can't get internet connection out there, and since in the last post we determined we were going to do it via skype, that means I have to do it inside the house. So I basically took my regular altar and tweaked it. My regular working altar is on my old headboard, which is screwed into the wall of my old bedroom - now my study, and it has the main portion of it as a shadow box for when I competed in dressage shows, I would but my ribbons in there. But I have had it cleared out for a while now, and didn't know what to do with it. So I went online and I searched for a whole bunch of different pictures. I searched for 'Aphrodite' 'Venus' 'sexuality' 'self esteem' 'love' and I found 10 different pictures that I thought helped to express what I wanted to get out of this journey. Then I printed them out and taped them into the shadow box(see close up photo), and hung the cords I already have on the wire inside. Then I closed the plexiglass and my aphrodite altar is now combined with my regular working altar. Ta-da! So this is what it looks like all together (see photo).

Honestly I felt a little scrambled this time because I had such a buildup to the first chord and I was so excited for it, and then at the last minute I was like "OMGs I have so much left to do!" It didn't help that I got up today and my dad gave me a lecture about not helping out, so I had to do all the prep work for dinner tonight, and then find the pictures... I was still taping them into the altar case when Amanda skype called me to start ritual. Then I realized that I didn't have my dedication written out when we were in the middle of beginning. We did the casting the circle, calling the elements/quarters, welcomed the Goddess and God and we finished the chanting to raise energy before I realized I didn't have my dedication done. Ugh. Well fly by the seat of your sarong it is.

Dedication: I dedicate my work both written and spoken to accepting that things I cannot change about myself, changing the things I can, loving myself holistically no matter what I look like, and I offer my love and gratitude to the Goddess in return for helping me work on my self-love and self-esteem.

Looking for Aphrodite: The Goddess of Love is found everywhere that love is present, in the heart, in the mind, in the eye of the beholder, in the bathtub when I'm enjoying a bubblebath, in the bedroom during those more intimate moments, under the full moon, on the beach (she is a water goddess too, after all.

Invoking Aphrodite: I call upon Aphrodite, sea-born Goddess of love and beauty to help me to love myself holistically, inside and out, completely so I may love others more fully as well. Please teach me to see you in myself and other women.

The ritual of the first cord: Saturnine and I, as previously stated, skyped up and then called the circle and all that jazz into order. We chanted "Strong like the Ocean, Gentle like Rain, River wash my tears away, Aphrodite" to raise energy, and then we started in on our 'Guided Journey' Saturnine reading it for me and then I read it for her. Despite the static that broke it up a bit while she was reading, I actually did have a pretty good experience with it. I've gotten to the point where I think I understand how I meditate and I visualize things differently than everyone else. I don't see things with my eyes the way most people do, instead I see things with my sense of touch and hearing. It 'looks' almost as you'd expect a bat to see things, through echo-location, it's almost as if sound is bouncing off everything, and then I interpret it when I hear it. So everything is a bit fuzzy, but I get the general idea of what it's supposed to be, and then I get a gut instinct that clears it up, not so much visually but internally. So when you step out of the time stream into the gardens, my first feeling was that I was standing on lush green grass, surrounded by carefully trimmed rose bushes that formed almost like a labyrinth of living things as I walked towards the Temple. When Saturnine read that I was to look down at the path and notice what I was walking on, I saw the well worn dirt path with the lush green grass next to it, every so often I'd find a 'main path' which was paved with cobblestones, and grass peeking out in between the stones. When I got to the Temple the steps were white marble with gold veins through it, well worn from years of women walking up the steps, sitting on them to read or enjoy the sunshine and the scent of roses from the gardens. There was a fountain with dolphins jumping out of the water, three of them, almost touching and between their noses was where the water poured upward. Inside there were conversation couches, big overstuffed pillows around altars on the outside walls so women could meditate by their candles. Dead center from the entrance of the Temple was a giant statue of Aphrodite, somewhere between the Born of the Sea like in the painting, and the Venus de Milo statue, but like no statue I've ever seen before. Her eyes seemed to look into your soul as you entered the Temple, but her mouth smiled down at you. To either side of this statues was a door. I took the door to the right, and came upon a medium-sided room with pillars forming a perfect circle in the center of the room, a large altar just behind the circle of pillars, blazing with candles and incense. There were big pillows in jewel tones, rich purple and deep red, amber, blues, greens, at the feet of the pillars, making their own circle. I stepped into the circle, said my dedication and called out for Aphrodite. She joined me, but she was more of a glowing presence, and I couldn't see many details other than the general shape of her, a perfect hour glass, not at all the skeletal thinness of todays models, but owning her own sexuality, with full hips, luscious curves and a Girdle, or belt, slung sexily around her hips, seemed to be formed of the heavens themselves. We danced together and she gave me a silver strand from her Girdle, which became solid in my hands, and then I left the inner sanctum, and went out to sit in the main Temple, there were women laughing and talking, children playing with toys of dolphins, running around giggling. I sat in front of a mosaic on the wall, on a purple pillow and felt the radiating energy from the cord in my hand. Then I got up, went outside and noticed an apple tree I didn't realize was there before, picked an apple and started walking back towards the time stream and home.
We concluded after both of the meditations by dancing to 'Aphrodite and Pan' by Kellianna. Then we closed circle, logged off and I danced to some DRD before coming in here to blog about my experience.

Afterthoughts: I'm glad that I did this, already I feel a bit stronger. I liked the Guided Journey, and I can't wait for the next one, I'm already excited about going back the next time I meditate. I think that I need to figure out a better way to hear, either by calling Saturnine instead of using skype, or something, because the crackling was a bit hard to hear the words while she was talking, but I'm sure we'll figure it out. I also don't think we raised enough energy before beginning, but I'm sure the more times we do it, the more energy we'll get, just from residual energy of the same working over and over. Oh - and the word she whispered to me was 'love'.

Anyways, I'm off to go eat my dinner, so hope this finds everyone in good spirits.

Blessed Be,
Jade

Love...

I love him. Like more than just the cliched high school have to spend all your time with him, obsessed and can't breathe without him type stuff that the movies lead you up to believing is real love... it's like he's the perfect compliment to me. Like there's been a hole in my heart for my whole life and no one was ever the right shape to fill it. Then I met nick and it just clicked, and it didn't have to be the earth shaking, center of my universe kind of love everyone thinks of, but if he ever left, my life wouldn't quite be complete again.

We get each other like no one else I've ever met, and even though it's only been like 5 months since we officially got together, 7 months since we first hooked up- it feels like both less time than that and a lot longer since we've been together. It just feels like Nick is the one I'm meant to be with. Plus a whole bunch of other little things, like coincidences that link up pretty perfectly. He's agnostic/atheist for years, then we start hanging out and he figures out he's really always been pagan but rebelled against 'God' because he always counted it as the Christian god, not the Norse or Native or Greek/Roman pantheons. I bought a set of runes made out of bloodstones like a year and a half ago - I don't know how to read them, and I was never very drawn to bloodstone, but his favourite stone is a bloodstone and he's Asatru. It was like our paths have been joining together for years before we ever met and became friends, and now lovers. That speaks to him being 'the one' more than anything else I've ever seen, plus that whole gut instinct thing.

This has been my girly post of the month. I now return you to your regularly scheduled cynicism. *smirk*

Meditation Update

I've been trying to complete the meditation challenge every night, and once or twice I actually did get into a deep enough trance to ignore the dip in my bed, the snoring of my parents and the refrigerator dripping, and stay in trance long enough to see what I was picturing - it was pretty cool too! The view was like that of a bird flying and looking down on two mountain ridges and the valley between filled with lush forests and a river flowing down the center. It was really relaxing and I got a sense of travel and peace, and then I fell asleep and woke up in the morning. But that was the only time and I haven't been able to 'see' anything again yet.

So today I finally got sick of not being able to concentrate on meditating properly, and I subscribed to a couple podcasts on iTunes that had both meditation music, and guided meditations, downloaded a buttload of them, sync'd them to my ipod and then went outside and sat in my hammock.

I found that some of them they didn't have the proper system to be recording speech and it sounded like someone with a spitting-when-speaking issue way too close to the microphone and I couldn't get into it. There was another one where it was really good, and I liked the sound of the guy's voice, as well as the fact that they used the newest in relaxation and meditation technology in the bilateral sounds and circadian rhythms to subliminally help with relaxation, but there was only one 'episode' and then they were going to charge money to buy the rest from their website. So that is out. The third time is apparently the charm, because I found this really awesome podcast that is free, has about 40 different guided meditations, some with music, some without, and the woman who guides the meditations really knows what she's talking about! The tone of voice, the timing of the silences, the wording of things, it really helps you get into the frame of mind to meditate successfully. I spent about 2 hours out there in my hammock meditating. I remembered the sun so I used one of my sarongs as a meditation shall, and I really liked the feeling of it. Kept the bugs off of me and the sun from burning me. Good plan, if I do say so myself. ^.^

Now I'm just going to go get cleaned up and ready for Kristen to come hang out, and I'll report back later on. I'm hoping that these meditation tracks will help me to successfully meditate, and then eventually, I'll be able to do it without the guidance.

-Jade

Aphrodite's Magic: A question of logistics

Hey all,

So as I mentioned before, I'm doing a spell in 7 parts with Saturnine starting (or started as it were) on Beltane and continuing each full moon for 7 months. On Beltane we sat down and read through the introduction and prep-work pages, and started to think about what it all means to each of us. She has her answers to the questions on her blog and I'll post mine later, but I also spent some time thinking about how best to do the rituals. Because it is a full moon, esbat, and not a big holiday like one of the sabbats, it's not like we could travel between my house or her parents-in-laws cottage/house to be able to do each ritual and both be there. Neither of us has the time or money for that trip once a month. So instead, I was plotting technological ways to do it. This is what I came up with:

So magic is universal, everything has a bit of the divine, magic, spiritual essence to it.
When you cast circle, you are making a magical space, that transcends time and space and unites everything that is magical together.

So in essence when you cast circle, you can effect the whole universe, and therefore the whole universe is in your circle.

Thus, even if we are in different places physically, if we video skype call each other, and we each take two directions and cast circle together, we are actually casting circle together and making sacred space together. Therefore even though we physically are seperate, the voice and link through the computer combines with the magic of circle, should cast both our own circle surrounding each of us, and the bigger, metaphysically linked circle of the universe with both of us in it, so it's like we're both in the same space, even though physically we're cities apart and magically it's like we're together, casting one circle to do the ritual in.

Pretty smart, right? Yeah - my mind hurts a bit too trying to think about stuff that big and mystical, but I feel kind of proud that I figured it out. Well I did, until Saturnine summed it up in like two words "meeting up in the astral plane" Yup. So that's the plan. I'm kind of stoked about it actually.

On to the Aphrodite questions :)

What does the Goddess mean to me?

The Goddess to me is many things. She is both the feminine aspect of the Divine, the Great Mother, the Earth itself, the Moon, the stars, she is in every living thing; She is that spark of the divine in all things; and she is also all of the goddesses known through each and every pantheon of all the cultures of the world. From the earliest civilizations to the modern world, she is every goddess known and loved, feared and worshiped throughout time.

Do I carry the Goddess within me? How/Where?
I carry the Goddess within me all the time, I pray to her throughout the day, kind of like a steady conversation within my mind, sometimes out loud, mostly just asking for patience, or guidance. I show it on the outside with my Goddess of the Waters necklace, my pentacle ring, and all the time with my tattoo that is the triple goddess symbol with a pentacle in the full moon and my magical name above it. It also shows the balance I see between the Goddess and the God, by having Ivy to represent the God entwined around the moons.

What activities could I do to honor the Goddess?
I could do a daily devotional when I wake up or go to bed each night; do ritual for all the esbats and sabbats; leave offerings to the Goddess weekly; I think that these are things that I would like to do if I had the time, but I think that the best thing I could do to honor the Goddess, is to love and honor myself. I don't eat as well as I should, I don't exercise as often as I should and I don't have the self-esteem I should because I don't like my body. I think if I changed my lifestyle choices in honor of the Goddess, and myself, that I could change my body to honor the Goddess, because I know that she is in there somewhere. Your body is a temple, and mine is definitely out of service currently. I think that even just changing my way of thinking about myself would help me to honor the Goddess.

What are my feelings and thoughts about Aphrodite?
Aphrodite was never one of the Goddess' incarnations that I felt particularly drawn to, mostly because I tend to think of myself as a tomboy and not as a girly girl, so I would pay more attention to the more wild and "rougher around the edges" goddess so I never really got attached to Aphrodite. I knew about her, but I sort of lumped her in with the girly girls and didn't put much stock in her unless I was calling on her for love advice or asking for help in my relationships, which could probably explain why I didn't get much help. She's the goddess of love and beauty of the Ancient Greeks, she was both married and unmarried depending on the myth, either way, lover of Ares, mother of Cupid and all around sensuality was her domain. Plus there was something in there about her helping out the Trojans during the great Trojan War.

How can I strengthen the Aphrodite aspect of myself – and what would happen if I did?
I can strengthen the Aphrodite aspect of myself by taking care of my body, treating it right, by eating healthy and exercising, and by learning how to love myself, all of myself - from my insides to my outer appearance, from the parts I love (eyes, smile, breasts) and accepting the parts I don't like (just about everything else). By loving and accepting myself, and strengthening my Aphrodite aspect I could be more in touch with the divine feminine within, be able to dance without fear of rejection or disgust in the eyes of others, I would be more open to love because I would begin to love myself, utterly and completely. Oh yeah, and I might be able to enjoy sex sober, because I would stop thinking about what my partner is seeing and thinking about when they see me naked, and I could just enjoy the experience, and maybe orgasm once or twice, hehe.

~~~~~~~
So that's my question and answer period done, my figuring out how to do the ritual from a distance and my soul bearing portion of the day. Now I'm off to study for my exam tomorrow and possibly take a nice relaxing bubble bath and get some meditation in.

Conspiracy?

I think so!

Okay I don't know why this never occurred to me before, but I think the Conservatives may be in league with the Americans in completing their Manifest Destiny and conquering Canada. They tried to take over Canada by force of arms in 1812. We burned the White House down and won the war. Then they tried politically, by buying our land from the British - they gave up Alaska and some of BC to the Americans and we never had a say in it. Then they seemingly gave up, turned their attentions to South America and Mexico and all the other areas in the world. And Canada became their 'friend' with the Free Trade agreements and all the other North American 'buddy-buddy' relationship we seemed to have gotten in more recent times. What was that old saying? Oh yes - Keep your friends close, and your enemies closer.

Well now that I'm looking back, every time the Conservatives come into power, they put us into massive debt with frivolous spending and start trying to change our political machine into that of the Americans. Maybe it's because the Americans and the Conservatives have a lot in common in the way that they think, act and react to different stimuli (apparently for both these parties the Separation of Church and State never happened, because all of their policies center around a very Christian ideal and moral setup - ie. Anti-Abortion, Anti-Woman's Rights, Anti- Gay Marriage, etc). But maybe they are trying to get Canada into so much National Debt that we would never be able to pull ourselves out of it. Maybe they're trying to get us into so much debt with the Americans that we would have to start selling off things to be able to pay the debt, when those loans come due. Like, say, land titles, products, natural resources, our very people?

Hell the natural resources thing has already started - Harper doesn't believe that clean water is a right of every person - he sent buckets to First Nations Reserves to serve as toilets because he didn't want to install running water for them. When they died of H1N1 outbreak, he sent them body bags instead of getting them immunized. Harper also refused to sign a UN resolution that acknowledges clean water as a basic human right.

Harper put in a motion to purchase from the USA, sixty-five(65) F-35 Fighter Jets, telling Parliament that it would cost about $75 million a piece. However Pentagon Budget Documents list them at $207.6 a piece, more if you want to count research costs, which would set the price tag on the purchase at $134.94 billion dollars. This is after Harper's government has already taken the $16 billion dollar surplus that Canada had when Paul Martin left office, and spending it, adding on another $56 billion in debt. Okay, okay, the whole world went into a recession, but $56 billion? Really... That doesn't sound like sensible spending, that sounds like trying to get us into enough debt that we won't be able to get out of it. Which if he goes through with that purchase, the national debt will be up around $200 billion dollars, and we don't get the maintenance software with the planes, so add upkeep costs to that.

Where exactly is Harper getting this money? We, the middle and lower class Canadians, certainly don't have the money to front the bill, and if the tax payers don't have the money, then is he writing an IOU to the USA for $134.94 billion dollars? If that's the case, then when will the USA see that money? Will it be called out when the USA decides it wants to wage it's next war? Something along the lines of "Hey remember that debt you owe us? How about you cover the cost of this war and we'll call it even, you provide the troops and ammo and we'll throw in that maintenance software for free!" or what about "Hey remember how you're in so much debt that you'll never get out of it? How about we absolve your debt, and you give us Canada?" Cause really, this just sounds like two centuries worth of Manifest Destiny going "FINALLY WE WON!" And we become Americans. The country who has the worst reputation in the world. Dude- you beat out fascist China for the worst rep! Why does the Conservative party seem to want to align itself, and turn Canada into, the United States of America? I don't know for sure, but someone *cough* Harper *cough* is surly getting a big pension out of this when all is said an done. I'm just hoping that something can be done before it gets this far.

- Jade

PS - For those of you who haven't seen it yet. This is where I'm backing my facts up.

Impotent Rage

I watched the elections last night, and watched the votes roll in, the seats of parliament dolled out, and the Conservatives win yet again, this time with the majority, and therefore, pretty much absolute control over the government and I cringed for the world.

If Stephen Harper's last 5 years of office have shown us anything, it is that he is not in the least bit trustworthy. He has broken his word, squandered our resources, broken the law (but hey, if you're Prime Minister, you don't have to follow the law, right?) and set us on a path to massive national debt, destruction or sale of our natural resources, and the silencing of our freedom of speech.

I grew angry. Angry that this man could get away with all of this, right under the noses of the people who supposedly elected him into office, and no one did anything. Said anything. Reacted at all! And then there are the people who stand up for what he's done. HOW?! Seriously, he's royally screwed Canada up and is basically trying to turn us into just another part of the USA. We were once a country who believed in protection of the environment, of people who couldn't protect themselves, of our national identity and pride, of justice and the difference between right and wrong. Now we don't give world aid to anyone, and he has us lined up to purchase fighter jets from the USA. WHAT does a PEACEKEEPING nation have use for FIGHTER JETS?! I'm so full of impotent rage at Harper, the Conservative Party and all the sheep who voted for him. I'm sorry, but if you commit a crime, you don't go back on the streets with your full rights again. You go to prison (if Harper has any say in it, then it'll be a fancy new super prison, guaranteed to ship out the most hardened criminals Canada has ever had) and if/when you get released, you're out on parole. Not back to full rights and privileges again. But this is what Canada just did. He broke the law, which caused the call to vote again, and they voted him back in! Prime Minister, my ass. He's the Crime Minister. And he's shaping up to be the next Adam Sutler and take over Canada the same way his fascist party did England in V for Vendetta, only thus far we have no V to kick his ass back to the stone age.

So this is me. Proud of the Green Party's one seat. Happy that the NDP have the Official Opposition position. Rageful over the Conservative Majority. Disappointed in Canadians and the Canadian Democracy. Going to go meditate, since every time I think about this election I get so angry that, even though it goes against all the rules, I actually considered a curse last night.

May the Goddess watch over us all, because we certainly aren't looking out for ourselves or our future in Canada these days.