tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-20523591851259995482024-03-12T19:46:43.997-07:00The Shieldmaiden BlogMorpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.comBlogger27125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-1005460032743692532013-01-02T00:06:00.001-08:002013-01-02T00:06:49.040-08:00New blog site: Banshee ArtsIn case any readers here on Blogger haven't found me at my new blog site, I thought I'd post one more note here with the link. I've moved this blog to a Wordpress site. The Shieldmaiden Blog can now be found at http://bansheearts.com/blog/. Please update your bookmarks and feeds!Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-11830900437629395962012-10-30T12:37:00.001-07:002012-10-30T13:10:35.985-07:00Seasons of Death and LifeAs Samhain-tide is here, I have been thinking about the two great festivals of the Celtic year, and how different our modern Neopagan interpretation of them is from their origins. This subject came up for me at Beltaine this year, and has been simmering in the back of my mind ever since. <br />
<br />
You see, the modern Neopagan conventions around these two festivals are so: Beltaine is understood as the season of life, expressed and celebrated through sexual and fertility imagery. Samhain is understood as the season of death, expressed through ancestor worship, death imagery and offerings to the dead. This is at least true of nearly all modern witchcraft revival traditions. Would any of my readers be startled to learn that for the ancient Pagan Celts, this scheme is nearly backwards?<br />
<br />
As in so many other respects, the tendency of modern revivals of Paganism is to suffer from oversimplification of theology and spiritual philosophy. Samhain and Beltaine are a prime example of this effect. <br />
<br />
We call Beltaine the "season of life" because the plants are flowering, fruits are swelling, small animals mating, and the sun is growing stronger. So much is true on the surface of things. For the ancient Celts, however, Beltaine (and summer generally) was a season of great risk, and for this reason, was a season for sacrifices - both animal and human. The primary evidence for human sacrifice (apart from the distorted reports of it recorded by contemporary non-Celtic writers) comes from preserved bog burials such as the <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/Life_and_Death_of_a_Druid_Prince.html?id=SIN-AAAAMAAJ">Lindow man of Wales</a>, and similar remains found on the Continent and Ireland. Remnants of the last meals of these sacrificed people show that in many cases, they were in fact killed in late Spring. Folk culture in these areas preserves many, many references to death and sacrifice in connection to Beltaine; such as Morris dances, scape-goating, effigy sacrifice, etc. <br />
<br />
Why should this be? If the season when the natural world visibly comes into contact with death is the onset of winter, why not make that the time of sacrifices, of propitiating death with offerings? Because the timing is wrong for the magick to work, that's why. For people dependent on natural cycles for their survival, when the threshold of winter arrives at Samhain, the time of greatest risk is already past. Whatever harvest the summer gave you has been gathered in, and you only have to hope for the length of the winter to be merciful. At the onset of summer, on the other hand, everything is at stake. What comes in the months between Beltaine and Samhain can make or break your clan. If there is too much summer rain, and the crops rot in the fields - if there isn't enough, and the grain and calves don't fatten - if any of a thousand things go wrong during the growing season, your people may go hungry when the winter comes. Thus the growing season is the time of greatest risk, and the greatest need for sacrifice to propitiate the Gods. The Celts believed that life had to be fed by the sacrifice of life, and so sacrifices were made. Beltaine is thus the season of life, but also the season of death.<br />
<br />
We're told that Samhain is religiously celebrated as the season of death because at this time cattle were slaughtered that were not being kept (and fed) through the winter. And because the vegetative life of the land is visibly dying as winter approaches. All this being quite true, Samhain is naturally a season of death. However, if you look at the mythology and religious practice of the Celts, a more nuanced picture emerges. Samhain is everywhere linked in the lore with sexual matings; and in particular the mating of the human realm and Otherworld through sexual unions. For example, the tryst of the Morrigan and the Dagda on the eve of battle occurs at Samhain; following their mating, She prophesies His victory over the Fomoire, and offers Her aid in the coming battle. Cu Chulainn, the great hero of Ulster, makes his tryst with the Faery woman Fand at Samhain; likewise Nera, the warrior of Cruachan, also meets and marries his Faery wife at Samhain. In almost every case, the warrior meets an Otherworldly female on Samhain eve, mates with her sexually, and then is sent into battle on her behalf or under her protection. There are countless examples of these Samhain couplings, often linked to battles: Aine and Ailill Olom; the elopement of Etain and Midir, etc.<br />
<br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jimfitzpatrick.ie/images/silver/dagda.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" height="295" src="http://www.jimfitzpatrick.ie/images/silver/dagda.jpg" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://www.jimfitzpatrick.ie/gallery/dagda2.html">Dagda and the Woman, by Jim Fitzpatrick</a> </td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><br /></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
These myths tell something deeper about the Celtic view of Samhain than the simple label, "season of death." They tell that the threshold of winter was also understood as a season of sexuality, both human and divine. That the "veil growing thin" which we Neopagans speak of, does not just permit the dead to speak to us, but opens wide the gates for Otherworldly unions of a sexual nature. That these divine or Otherworldly matings presage and are inextricably linked to battle. As it is among the horned and antlered animals: the stag and the bull, worshiped throughout the Celtic world in the form of Gods such as Cernunnos, mate in the fall, accompanied by ritualized "battles" as the males of the species may lock antlers or horns in displays of strength for mating rights. The sexual attentions of Sovereignty Goddesses such as the Morrigan, if they are linked to a season, nearly always occur at Samhain. For many Celts, sovereignty was conferred through ritual marriage of the human sovereign with Sovereignty Herself, the Goddess of the land. Among the Irish, inaugural rites and other acts related to kingship <b><i>always</i></b> took place at the great feasts that were held annually at Samhain at royal centers such as Tara, Cruachain and Emain Macha. Thus the entire concept of the sacred marriage among the Celts is inextricably linked to the Samhain season.<br />
<br />
These are just a few examples I highlight here for contrast with the prevailing Neopagan conventions about these holidays. In truth both have very complex histories arising from their changing practice across many different tribes and shifting with the tides of history. I suppose what I want to communicate here is not so much that our modern ways of celebrating these holidays are wrong; but rather that I feel something is lost when we simplify them down to equating Beltaine with sex and Samhain with death. There is a deep wisdom embedded in the ancients' understanding that sexuality, fertility, death, sovereignty, and sacrifice were all inextricably linked. That our human work is to understand these linkages, feed them, and find our places within them. There is a potency in celebrating sex and death<i> together</i>, as alternating currents of a single numinous power, perhaps, rather than as separate seasons.<br />
<br />
As we like to sing in <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoruCathubodua">the Coru</a>: <i>Balu! Maru! Balu! Maru!</i> (Sex! Death! Sex! Death!)<br />
<i><br /></i>
<i>(Of course, it should go without saying that I don't advocate a return to ancient practice as it was; I think it is entirely right that we abandoned human sacrifice and find other forms of sacrifice by which we can participate in these exchanges of life.)</i>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-44858619023263807222012-10-25T00:33:00.000-07:002012-10-25T00:33:08.724-07:00The Hollow Place<br />
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UaXvL6jc1F4/UIjmQokoDBI/AAAAAAAAAhM/0BTw6H_WrTc/s1600/22417_10151283691721224_1750897666_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"></a>I've had a post started on the topic of Sovereignty, for the last couple of weeks, intending to return to it and finish it. In the meantime, I went on an epic journey into the Northlands (Pacific Northwestern states and British Columbia), and now find I have something more personal to say about Sovereignty.<br />
<br />
Instead of an educational post about the nature of Sovereignty, I'll refer you to <a href="http://johnfranc.blogspot.com/2012/10/lady-of-sovereignty.html">an excellent blog post on Sovereignty</a> from a couple of weeks ago, by Druid priest and fellow Morrigan devotee <a href="http://www.blogger.com/profile/00875369837359076688">John Beckett</a>. He touches on most of the main points I was going to cover about Sovereignty in my own way.<br />
<br />
That shared, I'll take you on a journey with me. In the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoruCathubodua">Coru priesthood</a>, over the past several months we'd been receiving messages from the Morrigan urging us to look to Sovereignty, both personal and collective; and in particular to make the restoration of Sovereignty a major focus of our work. It stands as a core value underlying everything we are doing. At the same time, we had begun receiving invitations to travel to a few places and bring devotional ritual and teachings of the Morrigan to other communities. Planning was underway for the ritual work in these far communities, as well as for <a href="http://bayarea.pagannewswirecollective.com/2012/10/23/coru-cathubodua-presents-the-feast-of-the-mighty/">Samhain rites in our local community</a>.<br />
<br />
I sat in communion with the Morrigan, seeking guidance about what we should be doing in our public ritual work. She said, "<i>Go to the Hollow Place</i>." And She showed me an image of a lake. (Our local Lake Merritt, to be specific). I sat puzzling with this for some time, and then in conversations with my fellow priests and further communions with the Queen, it started to come together. In fact, the other places we had been invited to travel for ritual also happened to be associated with lakes. And it is from a lake or river that the Goddess of Sovereignty, in the form of the Morrigan or other forms, so often emerges. It was from a lake that the Sword, the tool of authority, was given to King Arthur, in that Sovereignty myth; and it was into the lake again that he must return his sword when he could no longer wield it as a true sovereign.<br />
<br />
We began thinking about the Morrigan's message to us, that Sovereignty has been eroded in our society; how we each have compromised it. How it has been taken from us. How the restoration of that Sovereignty seems to be our overriding mission. We began to dream of taking it back out of the hands of the corrupt elite who are tending to wrest it from us, into our own hands. Of returning Sovereignty to its rightful and natural source - the land and the people, who are one. Thus, the Sovereignty ritual was born. It is this simple thing: in each community where we bring our devotional and educational work, to charge a sword with the blessings and will of that community, and of the Ancestors and the Gods, for the renewal of Sovereignty. And then to take that sword and cast it back into the waters of the lake, in an act that dedicates it to Sovereignty, and also hearkens back to the forms of water sacrifice practiced across ancient Europe by the Celts and other tribal folk.<br />
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The first of these rituals took place at Lake Okanagan, up in British Columbia, where we traveled for the <a href="http://www.westerngate.ca/westerngate/Home.html">Western Gate Samhain Festival</a>. The festival itself, and the journey there, was a whole beautiful adventure that I haven't the space to describe here. (<a href="http://witchofforestgrove.com/about/">Sarah Lawless</a>, another of the fine presenters, <a href="http://witchofforestgrove.com/2012/10/23/western-gate-samhain-festival/">spins a lovely tale in her blog</a>.) <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UaXvL6jc1F4/UIjmQokoDBI/AAAAAAAAAhM/0BTw6H_WrTc/s1600/22417_10151283691721224_1750897666_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-UaXvL6jc1F4/UIjmQokoDBI/AAAAAAAAAhM/0BTw6H_WrTc/s400/22417_10151283691721224_1750897666_n.jpg" width="298" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Meeting Lake Okanagan (photo by <a href="http://www.brendanmyers.net/">Brendan Myers</a>)</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
What I want to talk about is the lake. Oh, the lake. Being newcomers to the land and wishing to introduce ourselves, we walked down to visit the lake ahead of the rituals. We cast our spirits down, greeting the lake, feeling its contours and its being. I felt vast depths, primordial and ancient. I felt at its bottomless depths a kind of doorway or crack that seemed to open into vast Otherworlds: the Hollow Place. One of our priestesses dropped the first offering into the waters, and a wave of power rippled through the lake. Later that night, we returned to make preparatory offerings before the next day's rituals. To our chanting and shrieking, the lake returned a deep, booming call, and drank in our offerings to the Queen of Sovereignty. Over the course of the weekend, I returned to the Okanagan's shores again and again, drawn to its depth and power. The lake became a teacher for me. How vast that numinous power is that upwells within the land. How vast and bottomless the well of Sovereignty.<br />
<br />
There was a sword, donated by a member of the local community. We charged it, all the folk gathered for the ritual, with the Morrigan and all the heroic Ancestors we all carry in our lineages. I have only vague and dreamy memories of that ritual as I was under possession, but I'm told it was potent. I remember looking up at it in the hands of the priest, and I remember seeing the throng of Ancestral spirits pouring through the hearts of the living people present in the circle. I remember the sword growing warm in our hands. The shining of the eyes all around.<br />
<br />
Later that evening, as I stood in the final circle of the night, my own Ancestors whispered to me about the work I'd been brought there to do. One of my family lines (Corey) derives its name from a kind of glacial tarn formed in the mountains of Scotland, and called a <i>coire</i>, which means cauldron or hollow. I carry the Hollow Place too. I too am a vessel for Sovereignty. So are we all.<br />
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In the morning, we walked out again to the lake, and our first sword was cast for Sovereignty (by Sarah Lawless, as it seemed most appropriate to have someone born into that land cast the sword). Into the Hollow Place, the deep well from which the power in the land flows; into the threshold of the Otherworld and the hands of the Goddess to whom it belongs. There was a feeling of exultation, victory as we walked back. Joyous power. Is that what Sovereignty feels like?<br />
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So that is the story so far. It seems it's the beginning of an arc, and we'll be doing this work elsewhere too. The next Sovereignty rite is planned here in Oakland, at Lake Merritt, following our <a href="http://bayarea.pagannewswirecollective.com/2012/10/23/coru-cathubodua-presents-the-feast-of-the-mighty/">Samhain Feast</a>. After that? I do not know which Hollow Place may come next, but we do have New Orleans and Lake Ponchartrain on our horizons for next Samhain...Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-4746482477914293552012-10-08T15:32:00.003-07:002012-10-08T15:43:10.012-07:00Way of the SpearI'm freshly returned from my first armored combat event and thinking about the nature of being a Spear.<br />
<br />
Some months ago when I undertook a new phase of dedication to the Morrigan, She said this to me: "You are my Spear." This touched off a lot of thinking on my part as to what it means to be a Spear in Her hands. As is my habit with messages from my Gods, I turned to history and source text to try to understand.<br />
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The Spear appears earliest in Irish mythology in the hands of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, as written in the <a href="http://sejh.pagesperso-orange.fr/keltia/leborgab/dedannan-r1.html">Lebor Gabála Eirénn</a>:<br />
<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
<a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMP7ffIM_rY/T-KEVCb71VI/AAAAAAAAAfY/p1IJhbBWwT0/s1600/2012-03-02+15.16.32.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="200" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-vMP7ffIM_rY/T-KEVCb71VI/AAAAAAAAAfY/p1IJhbBWwT0/s200/2012-03-02+15.16.32.jpg" width="150" /></a><i>From Failias was brought the Lia Fail which is in Temair, and which used
to utter a cry under every king that should take Ireland. From Goirias
was brought the spear which Lug had : battle would never go against him
who had it in hand. From Findias was brought the sword of Nuadu : no man
would escape from it ; when it was drawn from its battle-scabbard,
there was no resisting it. From Muirias was brought the cauldron of The
Dagda ; no company would go from it unsatisfied. </i></blockquote>
These, Stone, Spear, Sword, and Cauldron, are known as the Four Treasures of the Tuatha Dé Danaan, the old Gods of Ireland. I began to read everything I could find about them. What does it mean to be a Spear? That must tell me something of the work She wants of me. And if I am a Spear, surely there are other Spear-folk too. And Sword-folk, Cauldron-folk, Stone-folk.<br />
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The Stone is the first mentioned, in almost every case where the Treasures are written about. It is the foundation of Sovereignty. Then, we come to the weapons; perhaps arising from the necessity of defending Sovereignty. First the Spear, then the Sword. And after, to feed the hungry company of the warriors, to restore them at the end of the day, comes the Cauldron. <br />
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In a battle line (at least, from my beginner's understanding of archaic Celtic weapon use), spears are first out to stop as many adversaries as possible before they come within sword-range. Light spears or javelins are cast through the air (as are arrows; small mechanically assisted spears). Long spears or pikes are thrust before the shield-lines to hold them at bay or impale them as they come. And the warrior's first weapon in the fray might often have been the fighting spear. Thrust and cut with your long weapon first, until it sticks in someone's ribs or too many enemies come in close range; then let go of it and draw your sword.<br />
<br />
In ancient times, the common fighter who was not an elite hero and did not possess the wealth of the aristocratic warrior class, might not carry a sword at all. Swords require far greater mastery of metalsmithing to manufacture, and far more expensive high-quality metal, than do spearheads; how many men could be armed with spears from the same metal that would go into the making of a single hero's sword? For this reason, armies were once counted as the number of spears a leader commanded. A man might not be a trained warrior, but hand him a long spear and you can make a soldier of him; he will figure out how to thrust. It is a weapon of instinct. It won't protect him much in a melee, but it weaponizes him. Spears are the expendable resource of an army.<br />
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From these readings, and from noting the patterns common to myself and to other Spear folk I've connected with, I make an observation about Spears: Commitment. A spear once cast cannot be called back. Thus, to be a Spear is to be cast toward one's destiny. Fully given and committed, risking all with fierce abandon. Or, as some of my friends have said of me recently; a zealot. I take that criticism as worthy. Caution seems not to be the way of the spear. We are beings of instinct tending to sense the moment and thrust ourselves forward, past the safety of shields, crying victory. We throw ourselves into the destiny we sense before us, in ways that sometimes seem reckless or mad to our friends. Perhaps we are. It is a way of risk.<br />
<br />
This all came back to me as I was riding home from the war event yesterday. I'm new to <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCA_heavy_combat">armored combat</a> and had only just finished my armor the day I arrived at the war. Thus, I'd had no chance to practice my fighting skills with my teachers while in full armor before going in to the full fray. Little opportunity to even test my armor under another fighter's blows before facing an army of them. I was, truthfully, not ready for war combat - and the marshal who authorized me knew it, and nearly didn't. But I passed, and in spite of significant nerves about not knowing what to do out there, and being smashed to a pulp by hundreds of men three times my body weight, I threw myself into the combat. Trusting, I suppose, that the urging of my Goddess and the sense of destiny that drew me into the fighting arts were not leading me astray. And they didn't: it was one of the most epic experiences of my life. <br />
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<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JxOTrEEToxA/UHNUMjWJDWI/AAAAAAAAAg8/4uT-53oSfsY/s1600/IMG958110.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="320" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-JxOTrEEToxA/UHNUMjWJDWI/AAAAAAAAAg8/4uT-53oSfsY/s320/IMG958110.jpg" width="239" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Showing off my bloody fighting tunic.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>
I was crushed in shield-walls and knocked to the ground. Hammered by swords, pike thrusts. Took a hard thrust to the faceplate of my helmet that split my chin so I bled all over my armor; paused to get it bandaged, then threw myself right back in. I was fighting with a glaive, a type of long-bladed fighting spear wielded with two hands, which meant I had no shield to protect me, and with my lack of experience, I'm not the best at blocking with the glaive, so I took a lot of hits. I've been told by many fighters I should be starting with sword and shield to save myself bruises... but you see, I'm a Spear, and it's the spear that feels natural in my hands, it's the spear I'm called to fight with. It's the reason I'm there at all. So in I went without a shield, madly, gleefully, fiercely, not minding the pounding and the bruises and the blood. Reveling, glorying in them. Why? Because they were initiatory, overwhelming, ecstatic. Because I am a Spear, and I must immerse myself. Because I am a Spear, and I need the risk and immensity of being thrust wholly, body and soul, into my calling, holding nothing back, pouring myself out on the battlefield.<br />
<br />
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I am a Spear that cries out for blood</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
<i>I am the Spear-point that gives battle</i></div>
<div style="text-align: center;">
(<a href="http://celticmythpodshow.com/Resources/Amergin.php">Song of Amergin)</a></div>
Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-75092386673730657222012-09-29T22:26:00.000-07:002012-10-08T15:42:41.501-07:00Battlefield InvocationThe topic of the week has been Sovereignty - several people asking questions about it in response to<a href="http://www.shield-maiden.blogspot.com/2012/09/introducing-coru.html"> the mention of the Sovereignty rites</a> I and the Coru are planning for <a href="http://feastofthemighty.brownpapertickets.com/">Samhain</a>. I'm working on a post delving into Sovereignty more fully, but as it's a very big subject, that post will have to be published another week soon. Instead, I'll respond to another of the questions from readers. I've been asked to share the Gaulish invocation of the Morrigan that I mentioned in my last post. So today I'm sharing that here.<br />
<br />
A few words of explanation by way of <i>Caveat Emptor</i>... First, let me be clear that I have no pretense about the accuracy of the Gaulish language used in this invocation. I am not a scholar of the Gaulish language, or any Celtic language. I am an enthusiastic amateur. Further, the language used here is not exactly ancient Gaulish as it would have been spoken in its contemporary period. I have never been able to find a complete reference on the ancient Gaulish language sufficient to be able to translate a text into Gaulish. What I have used is a reconstructed system called Modern Gaulish, which was developed quite recently by a linguist, to fill exactly that gap. As I understand it, Modern Gaulish uses what is known of the ancient Gaulish tongue, extrapolated using linguistic mechanisms known to other Celtic languages to develop a more complete grammar and vocabulary. Since that was what I could find to use, I've used it. (I'm afraid I can't reference it since the website is no longer online; if readers are curious, I've got the contents of it in PDF.)<br />
<br />
This is a devotional work, not an academic one; what it seeks to do is to speak to the Battle Goddess in something at least having the poetic sound and feel of the language She may have heard from devotees in the Gaulish period, as an act of devotion and of honoring Her history. If a Gaulish language scholar is reading this and can correct my work, by all means I welcome the assistance.<br />
<br />
So here's what I've done. I read a lot of ancient Gaulish inscriptions to get a feel for the kinds of things that were written in votive and magickal texts. Then I wrote this invocation to the Battle Goddess, first in English, and then translated into Gaulish. It was written for use in a specific context: it is the invocation and blessing that I use at combat events, to invoke Her and to ask Her blessing on the fighters and the field; accompanied by libations which are offered to Her and then poured out on the battlefield. <br />
<br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j8s7Gx7owGE/UGfXXV0jxEI/AAAAAAAAAgs/-Ct4lWMdT9w/s1600/528077_10151273029143438_328808664_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="400" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-j8s7Gx7owGE/UGfXXV0jxEI/AAAAAAAAAgs/-Ct4lWMdT9w/s400/528077_10151273029143438_328808664_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"></td></tr>
</tbody></table>
<i>Édhi ni in Coru Crúach Cathubodúa <br />Ávo ni sin iuranoch a no Rígan en brathíon ri in ségiu ródhithu<br /><br />Guthanu mi in Déuan Morrígu, Cathubodúa, tar nemna in Anthúmon<br />Guthanu mi in Rígan Cingethed ganth gwalíon in taránu <br />Morrígan a'n Bodhúed, Morrígan a'n Taránu: Diáiu ni ganth sin supethárion<br />Áchi nemna in Anthúmon a ch'ánon súó cingethed pí en édhi ér sú<br />En ór a'n cath a pé diáiui, éran ach diái ani, Déuan Cathu<br />Rígan Már Cingethed, o pí en canu in caníon cathach, tanu ni ér sú<br />Inth lathúach ach en sathanoch lúied-ni ávo ni sin iuranoch<br /><br />Ganth sin briethéron, techolsíu in ledhíam nerthach, techolsíu in criníon lathúach, bí í cathéronthu dineáion ech ni<br />Ganth sin briethéron, ávo ni briethanoch a'n ségiu <br />Pí lavarthu é ó ánu, dresíu é gwer in lan-cath<br />Pí ré ródhithu é ócríd en cúírel, techolsíu é bélu, ach ré bathithu ó calghíon ganth gwalíon taranu<br />Déuan Cathu, apái nathúech in ségiu a'n cingethed-sin, suo maped ach duthired: Ánéís<br />Nathúeu mi sú tar nemna in Déuan Cathu<br /><br />Déuan Cathu, apái nathúech in criníon gwirth nó namanthed, pan ápisu ís in coru bor suo lathued<br />Ávo ís ledhíam érin, o íuru ni sú in ségiu<br />Desu ni in iuranoch ri Cathubodúa <br />Desu ni nó namanthed ri Cathubodúa <br />Desu ni ís Bodúa<br />Desu ni ís Bodúa<br />Desu ni ís Bodúa</i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
<br />
And here follow the English verses:<br />
<br />
<br />
<i>We, the Bloody War Band of the Battle Raven<br />We make this offering to our Queen in gratitude for victory given<br /><br />I invoke the Great Queen, the Battle Raven, through the powers of the Otherworld<br />I invoke the Queen of Warriors with the force of the thunderstorm<br />Morrigan of the Ravens, Morrigan of the Storm: We come to you with this plea<br />Bring the powers of the Otherworld to inspire your warriors who are before you<br />In the hour of battle which approaches, rise and come among us, Battle Goddess<br />Great Queen of Warriors, who sings the song of battle, we stand before you<br />Fiercely and in fulfillment of our oaths we make this offering<br /><br />With this incantation, the weak shall be made strong, the fearful shall become fierce, doubt shall be cast from us<br />With this incantation, we make the enchantment of victory<br />He who has spoken Her name shall be lifted over the battlefield<br />He who has given his heart in loyalty, his arm shall be made mighty and his weapon strike with thunderous force<br />Battle Goddess, send the charm of victory upon these warriors, your sons and daughters: Protect them<br />I bless you by the magic of the Battle Goddess<br /><br />Battle Goddess, send the whisper of fear against our enemies, when they behold the proud host of your heroes<br />Let them weaken before us, as we offer the victory to you<br />We prepare the offering for the Battle Raven<br />We prepare our enemies for the Battle Raven<br />For the Raven, we prepare them<br />For the Raven, we prepare them<br />For the Raven, we prepare them</i><br />
<br />
If readers are inclined to use these invocations in ritual, I am glad to share them, so long as any use or distribution of them includes attribution of their authorship to me: (c) 2012 Morpheus Ravenna.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-62233597219733153492012-09-21T16:30:00.000-07:002012-10-08T15:42:13.489-07:00Introducing the CoruI thought it was time to give my friends and readers a proper introduction to the Morrigan priesthood group I've been working with, the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoruCathubodua">Coru Cathubodua</a>. Although we've been meeting and working together since spring, we've only begun offering public services very recently, so I've been receiving lots of inquiries about who we are and what we're up to. So here's a little introduction, and some information on how to connect with us.<br />
<br />
The Coru Cathubodua is a newly formed priesthood dedicated to service and devotion to the Great Queen, the Morrigan. I and several other priests in Her service received clear messages around the early part of this year that it was time to gather Her priest-folk and form a cohesive priesthood to better serve Her and to be of help to people in our communities seeking a deeper connection with Her and with the spiritual traditions in which She is rooted. I sent out an invitation to those who were known to me as Her priests and some who She had sent my way, and we began meeting in the spring. Presently, there are nine members of the Coru: <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/ameliaisaverb">Amelia Hogan</a>, Ankhira Swordplow, Druin Heal, Hannah the Storyteller, Moonbird, <a href="http://www.mamarudy.com/">Rudy Heal</a>, Rynn Fox, Scott Rowe, and <a href="https://www.facebook.com/beansidhe.craft">myself</a>. The members comprise a wide range of skills and talents, including priests and priestesses who carry the Queen as a possessory vessel as I do; who serve Her as warriors both in this realm and the Otherworld; who work with spirits, Faery folk and the Dead; who are bards, singers, poets, healers, dreamworkers, artists, and many other skills besides.<br />
<br />
Our purpose, as I would describe it, is to serve the Morrigan through devotional practice and ritual, to share Her teachings of sovereignty, warriorship, and Otherworldly wisdom; and to promote strength, autonomy, and sovereignty within the communities that we serve. We are, of course, just beginning this work. We are primarily based in California, and most of the members reside in the San Francisco Bay Area; however, we will be traveling to connect with communities outside our area as much as funds and schedules allow.<br />
<br />
The name Coru Cathubodua? <i>Cathubodua</i> is the Gaulish name for the Morrigan; it means 'battle raven' (<i>cath</i>=battle, <i>bodua</i>=crow/raven) and is the exact cognate of Her Irish title of <i>Badb Catha</i>. <i>Coru</i> is the Gaulish for war-band, corps, or army. Why this Gaulish name? It's a phonetic language and easier to pronounce than Irish; and since other groups are already using similar titles in Irish (such as Clann na Morrigna, which we also considered), we felt it would help us not be confused with other groups.<br />
<br />
The most common question I've been receiving is, "How can I get involved or join your priesthood?" Since, as I said above, we are just beginning our work, we are not yet ready to invite new members to join the priesthood. I feel confident that is in our future, once we have taken the time to prepare for opening to new members. But we welcome allies now, and we do want to hear from people who are drawn to the service of the Morrigan. You may be able to support us in this work now, and we may be able to support you in your work. You can contact us via <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoruCathubodua">our Facebook page</a>, or by emailing one of the members privately. We hope to have a website of our own shortly, as well as an email list for announcements. <br />
<br />
You can also connect with us at our upcoming public events. Here is what we have planned presently, and more will come soon. <br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.caid-gww.org/"><b>Battlefield Devotional at Great Western War </b></a><br />
<br />
At Great Western War, a medieval reenactment and armored combat
gathering of the Society for Creative Anachronism, Coru priests will be
leading a morning battlefield devotional prior to the start of fighting.
We will invoke the Battle Raven to bless and inspire the fighters and see them safely through the day's fighting, and to dedicate the battles in Her name. Invocation is given in the
Gaulish language, with English translation.<br />
<br />
When: Saturday October 6, 2012. 9:00 am on the War Field.<br />
Where: Great Western War, Buena Vista Aquatic Recreational Area,
13601 Ironbark Rd, Taft, CA<br />
Tickets and info: <a href="http://www.caid-gww.org/">http://www.caid-gww.org/</a><br />
<br />
<a href="http://www.westerngate.ca/"><b>Western Gate Samhain Festival</b></a><br />
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<span itemprop="description">A festival in celebration of Samhain featuring workshops, rituals and live music, l</span>ocated in the Okanagan Valley, British Columbia. Our aim is to bring
together people practicing diverse aspects of the magical and esoteric
arts. Together we will honor the Ancestors and the Celtic goddess
Morrigan as we journey into the mysteries beyond the world of the
living. Amelia will be presenting Celtic music workshop and performance; Morpheus will be presenting a workshop on Meeting the Morrigan, and a talk on Sovereignty and the Liberation of the Soul. Coru members will lead the main Samhain ritual as well as the morning Sovereignty ritual at the lake.</div>
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When: Friday October 19 - Sunday October 21 </div>
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Where: Unitarian Fellowship of Kelowna<span class="visible"><span class="fsm fwn fcg">, 1310 Bertram Street</span>, <span class="fsm fwn fcg">Kelowna, British Columbia</span></span></div>
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<span class="visible"><span class="fsm fwn fcg">Tickets: <a href="http://www.westerngate.ca/">http://www.westerngate.ca</a></span></span></div>
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<span class="visible"><span class="fsm fwn fcg">Facebook event page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/144568322348928">https://www.facebook.com/events/144568322348928 </a></span></span></div>
<br />
<a href="http://feastofthemighty.brownpapertickets.com/"><b>Feast of the Mighty: A Celtic Samhain Feast with the Gods, Ancestors and Mighty Ones</b></a><br />
<br />
Come
join us at the turning of the year to celebrate the great Celtic feast
of Samhain! Share a Celtic-style feast of ancient foods as we dine with
the Otherworldly host. Raise a glass in honor of your Ancestors, Gods
and those who are to come after us. Join in the tale as the myths of the
mighty heroes of old are brought to life to inspire our lives. Lend
your spirit as we renew the Sovereignty of the land at the turning of
the year.<br />
<br />
This event has two options:
tickets with the full feast are $39 for adults; or you can opt to attend
as a ritual participant without signing up for the feast, for $18; this
option still includes a glass of mead or cider so you can participate
in the toasting. Reduced tickets are also available for children.<br />
<br />
When: Friday November 2, 2012. Doors open at 7 pm; Feast/Ritual begins at 8 pm.<br />
Where: Humanist Hall, 390 27th Street, Oakland, CA<br />
Tickets: <a href="http://feastofthemighty.brownpapertickets.com/">http://feastofthemighty.brownpapertickets.com/</a><br />
Facebook event page: <a href="https://www.facebook.com/events/156515591139520/">https://www.facebook.com/events/156515591139520/ </a><br />
Tickets for the feast are limited and must be purchased in advance, by October 26th.<br />
<br />
<a href="http://pantheacon.com/"><b>PantheaCon 2013</b></a><br />
<br />
<span class="userContent">At next year's PantheaCon, the
Coru will be joining forces with Solar Cross to organize a blood
donation drive at the Con in honor of the Morrigan. We're working with
Stanford Hospital and a bloodmobile will be on site during part of the
Con to receive blood donations. Donors will get a special ribbon, "I
gave my blood to the Morrigan!" (or words to that effect).<br /> <br /> In collaboration with T. Thorn Coyle, we'v</span>e
submitted a ritual proposal for the program following the theme of our
shared humanity and the kinship of blood. Here's what we submitted to programming:<br />
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The Heart is Our Nation: A Morrigan Devotional<br />
<br />
The Morrigan, great Celtic Goddess of sovereignty and of battle, asks
us: What do you love, that you will fight for? How will you find the
strength to fight, to resist? We take strength in kinship, in the
heart's blood that pulses through us all, joining us as one human
family. We shall not be divided. Join us in this ritual as we invite the
power of the Great Queen and our own resolve, to strengthen our hearts
for the battles we face. Step forth and claim what you love. Take your
place in the kinship of all.</div>
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The ritual is not confirmed until acceptance by the programming staff of the convention; schedule information should be out in January to confirm.</div>
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Tickets and info for PantheaCon: <a href="http://pantheacon.com/">http://pantheacon.com</a></div>
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<a href="http://www.neworleanswitchesball.com/"><b>New Orleans Witches' Ball 2013 </b></a></div>
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Morpheus has been invited to lead a Morrigan devotional ritual with the Ancestors at next year's Witches' Ball, and additional Coru members will hopefully be joining to assist with this ritual. Info about the 2013 Ball will not be available until after this year's event, but you can visit their website for general information and details about this year's event.</div>
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<a href="http://www.neworleanswitchesball.com/">http://www.neworleanswitchesball.com/</a></div>
Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-50183017913992919482012-09-07T16:23:00.000-07:002012-10-08T15:41:41.169-07:00Why We FightIn response to my last couple of blog posts, I had a lot of questions/comments along these lines:<br />
"Why do you talk so much about battle and fighting?"<br />
"Your blog seems obsessive/one-sided/scary to me."<br />
"We don't need to fight, we need love."<br />
<br />
So I thought I would expand a bit on this. Why do I talk about fighting all the time?<br />
<br />
The simple answer, or the beginning of the answer, is that this blog is primarily about my devotional relationship with the Morrigan, and is a venue for me to share my thoughts and experiences arising from that relationship. Do I think the Morrigan represents only battle? Of course not. I know Her in many forms: as a shadowy phantom, as a Gateway, as a storm, as druidess, poet and prophetess, as a raven, a flight of ravens, as a Queen, a temptress, a teacher, a hag, as blood in the water, as the tomb itself, as the land and its sovereignty, as a tribal mother, an ancestress, and many other forms besides. But I write as the inspiration comes, and in recent times Her presence and Her messages to me have carried a strong feeling of battle-readiness.<br />
<br />
The Morrigan, you see, is a shape-shifter. This is so in the literal sense - throughout the Irish texts in which She is described, She is often shifting forms within the course of a single story. Heifer, wolf, eel. Maiden, hag, crow, demoness. But I also mean in the larger sense: She takes the form that the times call for. I have long sensed that Her epiphanies must shift in response to the changing millenia and evolutions in the cultural forms and worship given to Her. And it is reflected in the scholarship about Her history. <a href="http://theses.univ-lyon2.fr/documents/lyon2/2009/beck_n#p=0&a=top">Noemie Beck</a> writes that the Morrigan, like so many Celtic deities, was at Her earliest roots a tribal Goddess - a matron and embodiment of the land and its people, and of the identification and unity between the two - that is to say, sovereignty. When the safety and autonomy of the land and its people is threatened, the Sovereignty Goddess takes a martial and protective form, and we know Her as a Battle Goddess. <br />
<br />
This is the form in which She has been most strongly speaking to me. Because, I must infer, sovereignty needs defending. I think this is both a personal and a transpersonal message.<br />
<br />
So to the question, "Why all this talk of fighting?" the first answer is the personal one. Because I trust my Queen, when She told me I needed to, at the beginning of this year, I started fighter training. I study <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCA_heavy_combat">SCA armored combat</a>, primarily with glaive (a type of long fighting spear), and for a while I was also studying <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga">Krav Maga</a>. I soon learned why She required me to fight. Since I began fighter training, profound shifts have been occurring in my internal landscape, in parallel with the shifts in my body's abilities. I lost my fear of conflict, and along with it my willingness to compromise my own integrity in order to buy peace. I had been for years engaging in all those terrible little betrayals of the self: lying to myself or others, internalizing and accepting blame and guilt that I didn't earn; trading pieces of my soul for the cessation of conflict in my relationships. Selling my sovereignty, in other words, simply out of fear of the discomfort of conflict. Learning to fight shifted this irrevocably. I no longer crumble and weep when my autonomy is threatened. I simply do what it takes to hold my ground. Fight, when I need to, or not. I take it as it comes, and I hold my sovereignty.<br />
<br />
Is there a transpersonal message too? Of course. Is there any one of us who does not know at the roots of our being that in the American nation, the sovereignty of the people is under attack? When the process by which we delegate our rulership mandate to our chosen leaders is utterly and profoundly corrupted, so that non-voting corporate 'persons' purchase so much political influence that the voter's mandate is nearly meaningless. When many people are directly disenfranchised from voting altogether. When the fundamental personal sovereignty of the female sex to own her body and choose her sexual life is being denied. When the document that protects personal liberty and human rights, our Constitution, is wilfully disregarded by our rulers - when there is neither sovereignty nor justice, can anyone still wonder why the Battle Goddess would be rising now? <br />
<br />
Of course She urges us to fight for our sovereignty. It is Her very being and nature. But this is not a call to armed insurrection. It is infinitely more subtle than that. Because, <a href="http://www.shield-maiden.blogspot.com/2012/08/the-shield-wall.html">as I said in another post</a> recently, we cannot overcome the forces of empire that are eroding our sovereignty by taking them on physically in literal combat. That is their territory, the domain of the military-industrial monster. What I mean instead is that we become sovereignty itself, reclaim it into our being. We must become inviolable. <br />
<br />
This is why we fight. Because, as all practitioners of the martial and meditative disciplines know, what you practice in the body, you cultivate in the mind. When you practice yoga, the mind becomes supple, centered, energized. When you practice meditation, the mind becomes clear, calm, attuned. When you practice the fighting arts, the mind becomes resilient, resolute, indefatigable, alive with survival instinct. We need all these things.<br />
<br />
I fight because I want to be someone who can think instead of react, who can keep clarity of mind while threats are flying at me. Fighting teaches this. Because it is the fear of pain, discomfort, conflict that holds us paralyzed while our sovereignty is taken from us. I fight because it trains my mind to fear pain and conflict less than I love autonomy and the joyous freedom of motion of the body at its height of power. I fight because to revel in the practice of fighting liberates me from fear and apathy, and coupled with my commitment to sovereignty, that makes me a greater force to be reckoned with. Because she who would uphold sovereignty must become sovereignty, and Sovereignty is a Goddess who stands Her ground.<br />
<br />
And here is my take-home message, friends. In answer to the questions about why I urge us to fight, and whether I am devaluing love by focusing on battle readiness, here is my answer. What I am encouraging - strength in kinship, survival skill, and ability to defend what we love - these things are of benefit whether we ever meet trouble or not. My answer is that to fight for love is love in action.<br />
<br />
<object class="BLOGGER-youtube-video" classid="clsid:D27CDB6E-AE6D-11cf-96B8-444553540000" codebase="http://download.macromedia.com/pub/shockwave/cabs/flash/swflash.cab#version=6,0,40,0" data-thumbnail-src="http://1.gvt0.com/vi/3pN_vrJah3k/0.jpg" height="266" width="320"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pN_vrJah3k&fs=1&source=uds" /><param name="bgcolor" value="#FFFFFF" /><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" /><embed width="320" height="266" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/3pN_vrJah3k&fs=1&source=uds" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-20475562796075298302012-08-31T11:26:00.000-07:002012-08-31T11:32:51.615-07:00EndgameLast night, I went with a dear friend for a night hike to enjoy the nearly-full moon and do some work with the Great Queen. On the way, we found ourselves talking about the feeling we've both had that She is on the move somehow, on the rise. That She's preparing, and preparing us, for <i>something</i>. This observation is one that I have consistently heard from people all over who have made contact with me about working with the Morrigan. It seems She's telling many of us very similar things. So I'm musing yet again on this question. What is She up to?<br />
<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncq29ZvwF3s/UEEDPq9yqGI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/yZHtjHxlXQE/s1600/thunderhead.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Ncq29ZvwF3s/UEEDPq9yqGI/AAAAAAAAAgQ/yZHtjHxlXQE/s1600/thunderhead.jpg" /></a><br />
The overarching messages I've received, and the ones that are consistent with the greatest number of others I've heard from, are essentially these:<br />
<b><i>A storm is coming</i></b><br />
<b><i>Gather your kin</i></b><br />
<b><i>Get ready to fight and to survive</i></b><br />
<br />
There have been many more messages, of course, and much more nuance, but these are the ones that come up consistently from many different people contacting me, and often in nearly the exact words.<br />
<br />
I have tended to think about this as a message of warning for something that is to come; about the many signals of our decaying empire and the possibility of some form of societal collapse. I have tended to think about this as something we were meant to gather in preparation for, almost in waiting.<br />
<br />
Today in my morning communion with Her I found my mind wandering, and asking a new question. What if the storm isn't coming. What if it is here, now?<br />
<br />
We are in the midst of a failing empire. I know so many people who cannot find regular employment, who find themselves slipping down the economic ladder. Most people I know cannot see a doctor for their health care. All around us the social fabric is unraveling, while the elites who rule can seem to concern themselves with nothing but political advantage and wars of conquest. It has begun to seem to me that collapse is here - it's just a slow decaying collapse rather than the kind of cinematic catastrophe that the entertainment industry has taught us to look for.<br />
<br />
And then I wonder, if the storm is here - if what we are feeling now are already its first lashings - how to make sense of these messages about preparation for something?<br />
<br />
A couple of months ago, I was at a spiritual retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains. I found myself sitting up late in the hot tub with a fellow priest of the Morrigan, staring up at the stars between the towering redwoods and talking speculatively about our Queen's urgings and what they might mean. Asking each other that same question: What is She up to? What is the big picture? My friend asked me, "What do you think Her endgame is?"<br />
<br />
I started talking without really listening to myself. Rambling speculatively. Then thought that what I was saying was starting to sound grandiose and mad, and I said, "But really, I sometimes think She's more concerned with specific issues, like restoring proper respect for the war dead. I don't know if She's really out to fix what's wrong with our civilization as a whole." I didn't finish the sentence though. In the midst of it, I found myself speaking into a sudden and overwhelming silence as the entire forest went dead silent on an instant: the million frogs and soft crickets and little night noises that had been all around us, all dead instantly. My friend and I stared at each other, and stared around, unnerved. Then, into that silence and stillness a vast wind came marching, sweeping down between the towering trees, as though the majesty of the sky itself was marching toward us. It approached down the contour of the land and swept over us and I felt Her presence overwhelmingly, the tall, haunting might of Her, vast and mighty as the sky itself, bearing down on us as that wind stalked through. <br />
<br />
After it passed, the crickets and frogs found their voices before we did. Finally I turned to my friend and said, "I stand corrected. I'm pretty sure we just got told,<i> DO NOT UNDERESTIMATE ME</i>."<br />
<br />
Today I'm wondering if perhaps, what She's stirring us to prepare for isn't the storm itself, isn't collapse, but a new society She's seeking to build within the decaying shell of the old one. That perhaps the urgings toward kinship and tribalism, toward self-sufficiency and autonomy, toward fighting ability and survival, are all directed toward making of us the kind of people who can form the kinship units at the core of a more tribal and localized civilization. The one that we all know must come after us. The one in which we hold our sovereignty in our own hands again and live within the capacity of the land to sustain us.<br />
<br />
My friend who I hiked with last night said at one point that the Morrigan seems like a patron deity of our times, and maybe this is so. The great challenges we face are those of sovereignty and survival, of facing down a massive, corrupt, and war-hungry empire in order to restore the sovereignty of the people and of the land. Who better to arm us for this struggle? <br />
<br />
What messages has She given you? What do you think Her endgame is?Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com7tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-51677335086997860742012-08-25T17:50:00.000-07:002012-08-25T18:05:40.103-07:00The Shield-WallFor months now, I've been focusing obsessively on the history of the Celts in Gaul and Britain: their ancient dominion, conflict, conquest and eventual subjugation by the Roman Empire. In part, it's a personal quest to understand a period, culture and language that fascinates me. I'm seeking detail for a sensed personal history there; past life, perhaps, or ancestral memory. The sound and rhythm of the Gaulish language, the look of dress and weapons, place names, votive inscriptions - they stir something in me. I follow the stirring.<br />
<br />
This obsession of mine is also a contemplation of disaster. I'm drawn over and over again to the accounts of battles lost, uprisings crushed, tribes decimated and destroyed by the inexorable tread of imperial conquest. Why this restless recycling of dead stories, dead languages, dead histories? Why this focus on the past, I've been asked by friends. Instinct, I answer. Something haunts me. I sense a crucial lesson buried in these histories; something that matters very much for our time, something we <i>need</i> to learn from the destruction of Gaul. <br />
<br />
What are the lessons of Gaul? I'm still piecing it together, but I can't escape certain glaring parallels with the struggles of our time. It has seemed to me that we are seeing a conflict within our civilization where the survival, integrity, and sovereignty of the common people are under attack by a ruling elite. This ruling elite - a class of wealthy plutocrats who control the machines of war, the halls of governance, and the mechanisms of finance and industry - maintains its position through subjugating, pacifying, and exploiting populations across ethnic and national boundaries, while extracting their wealth and concentrating it in trans-national centers of hegemony. Does this not sound familiar? It's no secret that the ruling elites look to Rome as their model for a powerful and successful civilization. Why? Because the Romans won. The great Celtic homeland of Gaul with its fierce, indomitable tribes was brought to its knees. At the end of the Gallic Wars, it is estimated that the population of Gaul was reduced to one-third of what it had been. Whole tribes of thousands of human beings were destroyed, slaughtered or sold into slavery in other parts of the empire, while the legendary gold and agrarian wealth of Gaul flowed into Rome. Those who remained were quickly Romanized, their tribal systems dissolved and re-organized into the Roman system of social order. The Gaulish language and its neighboring Celtic tongues died out within a few centuries. <br />
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I am no scholar of history, nor a military tactician. But here is what I see, so far. The story of Gaul is in part a story about tribal sovereignty versus the hegemony of empire. This, I sense, hinges on identity. Our Celtic ancestors held tribal identity above nationhood - the unit of kinship and ethnic identity was the tribe, not the Celtic nation. Thus we see tribes fighting each other at times when standing together might have allowed them to better resist the crush of empire. We see tribes refusing opportunities to collectivize and protect another tribe's lands, because the locus of sovereignty was the tribal lands of one's own kin. We see tribes forming temporary alliances with the forces of empire, maneuvering for advantage against other Celtic peoples as they had done for centuries; while from our hindsight perspective we can see how these alliances invited the march of empire into their lands. <br />
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These apparently self-defeating moves were driven, I think, by the fundamentally tribal nature of Celtic identity. They did not seem to conceive of the notion of a national identity, at least not in the way that the Romans legions did, where personal ties, kinship, and tribe were all dissolved into an allegiance and identity within the state. This difference of identity seems to pervade every aspect of the conflict between Gaul and Rome. I think it was our undoing. They say that the advantage of the Romans, which allowed them to prevail in battle after battle, was their uniformity in action on the battlefield. Celts were known for their passion, their bravery, their ferocity; they could strike terror into an enemy from their fierce, mad, seemingly fearless rush into battle. Their approach to warfare was characterized by individual honor and bravado, by contests of champions, by a fearless personal devotion to winning honor or a glorious death. Romans were known for their uniformity in training, their consistency, their ability to operate under strict discipline. They were known for the effectiveness of their shield-walls, the strength of which depends on every man holding the line, every man holding together as one creature. The technology of warfare.<br />
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So I've been contemplating the shield-wall, as a symbol of empire, and perhaps a key to the lessons of the period. It seems to encapsulate the characteristics of hegemonic empire that were our downfall. I note that in the earlier period of Celtic expansion and dominion in Europe, there were conflicts with Rome - and in most of these, the Celts dominated. In fact, they overran and looted Rome, and this early sacking of their city engendered the grudge that lent fuel and vitriol to the Roman drive to conquer the Gaulish tribes. What was different in the early period, and why did the Celts prevail then as they could not in later years? I don't know, but I suspect the answer is tied up with the evolution of Rome from tribal city-state to Republic to empire. In those later years they had perfected warfare as an institutionalized function of a hegemonic state, and the individualized, honor-driven tribal warriorship of the Gauls could not stand against the shield-wall.<br />
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We face something like this in the present time, don't we? People who wish to stand up for individual rights, for civil liberties, for freedom and justice, for the sacredness of personal sovereignty - we face the shield-wall. The forces of empire have increasing control of the guns, armies, tanks, police forces, communications systems, financial systems, surveillance systems. These mechanisms of control are held tightly together against protest and counter-action, like the shields locked into the shield-wall. How to break through or escape? How to face this overwhelming force?<br />
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I don't have this answer yet either, but the question has been haunting me more and more. Two nights ago, the Morrigan spoke to me again in a dream, and She said,<i> "It is time to resist."</i> How? I ask, again and again. How?<br />
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The only clue She gave me was an image. A tribal group, feet painted blue with woad, like the Picts are said to have done. <br />
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The Picts, and the other tribes of northern Britain, were among the few Celtic groups who were never conqured, never subjugated by the Roman empire. Again, I don't claim to be a historian, but it's my impression that the Pictish and Caledonian tribes didn't survive by prevailing against the shield-wall. Open-field conflicts between massed armies were relatively few in the northern British campaigns. The northern tribes survived by fighting guerilla-style; by taking advantage of their treacherous, mountainous terrain; by picking off targets of opportunity, by making it impossible for the Romans to ever decisively destroy them. At the end of decades of tribal guerilla warfare, the Romans finally decided the cost to subjugate these savage folk was too great, and they built a wall to protect the territory they had taken, and backed off behind it. <br />
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Is this perhaps the lesson of Gaul?<i> Don't meet the shield-wall. </i>Resist fluidly, subtly, invisibly, so you can never be decisively beaten. Disappear and reappear, take them unaware, erode their will to subjugate you. By contrast, I think of Alesia, and the final decisive battles in Caesar's conquest of Gaul. Vercingetorix had managed finally to gather almost all of the tribes of Gaul into a mighty army of the Celtic nation - perhaps the only time in history this was ever done. And he met Caesar on the battlefield, on Roman terms - army to army, shield-walls and siege machines, at the walled city of Alesia. The Romans employed their technological advantages to perfection and utterly destroyed the Celtic national army that vastly outnumbered them. <br />
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I can't help wondering if the lesson here isn't that we cannot win by adopting the form, tactics, and identity of our adversary. That our very strength is that tribalism, that unshakeable personal sovereignty and kinship identity. That we should never have tried to become a great national force like that of empire, because in attempting to remold ourselves into what we are not, we give away our power, and our sovereignty, the very thing we seek to protect. We cannot resist empire by becoming it.<br />
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Still contemplating this, I turn to you, readers.<i> "It is time to resist,"</i> said the Queen. How?Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-21482720770985924142012-06-20T19:24:00.000-07:002012-06-20T19:25:17.090-07:00Notes from the whirlwindHello, friends. Since time for longer writing has been scarce, I realize you haven't heard from me for some time. I have some musings in the works on Sovereignty, and the lessons of Gaul. For now, a few updates on what I've been up to and what's coming.<br />
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During the last few quiet months, I've been busy with a new mandate from the Queen: Gathering Her priesthood. I have brought together a small group of folks who share the faculty of having been chosen by the Morrigan or dedicated to Her service. We are gathering, presently under the name Coru Cathubodua, and marshaling our skills and resources for Her service. For the last few months and through this summer we will be continuing to develop our ritual practice privately. Beginning this fall near Samhain, we will be coming forth to serve the community through public ritual and other offerings. You can look for a Samhain ritual to be offered in service to the Queen and the Dead, somewhere in the Bay Area; and we'll plan on sharing something at next year's <a href="http://pantheacon.com/wordpress/">PantheaCon</a> in February as well. <br />
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Also this fall, I've been invited to teach and bring a Morrigan devotional ritual to the Western Gate Samhain Festival, in Kelowna, BC, Canada. I am excited to be joining <a href="http://www.brendanmyers.net/">Brendan Myers</a>, <a href="http://witchofforestgrove.com/">Sarah Lawless</a> and other fine practitioners at this gathering, including our own <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/ameliaisaverb">Amelia Hogan</a> and other members of the Coru. Along the route, we're looking at arranging stops in Portland and Seattle, where you may be able to catch a performance of <a href="http://www.reverbnation.com/ameliaisaverb">Amelia</a>'s exquisite Celtic song, and meet or attend a workshop with us. For now, the only details set are the Western Gate dates of October 19-21 in Kelowna. I'll post more details as we settle them.<br />
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On the personal level, I've been undergoing seismic changes in my private life, reflected in my devotional practice. I've taken up fighter training and am currently studying spear/glaive fighting in the <a href="http://www.westkingdom.org/">SCA</a>, along with <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krav_Maga">Krav Maga</a>. I've been very drawn to the Spear, as one of the <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Treasures_of_the_Tuatha_D%C3%A9_Danann">Four Weapons of the Tuatha</a>, and have long used it spiritually. It's deeply fulfilling to be learning now how to wield it in the body. And not only for fighting: after my last devotional dance performance at <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Hexenfest">Hexenfest</a>, I received an inspiration to develop a devotional dance with the spear as well. So now both dance and combat movements with the spear are part of my daily practice. I expect to have something ready to perform by next year's <a href="https://www.facebook.com/Hexenfest">Hexenfest</a>, if not earlier.<br />
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Oh, and I had the Morrigan's Spear tattooed on my back. That's been a long time coming.<br />
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Progress on the Morrigan statue continues slowly. My relocation away from Stone City interrupted the scheduled Devotional Days when we had planned to make it available for folks to assist with it, so as a consequence work on the statue has mainly been within the priesthood group. I hope to have another work session on that soon and new photos to post.<br />
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That's all for today. May your days be full of honor and joy, and I'll write more soon.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-33091585339583193492012-03-01T15:27:00.000-08:002012-10-08T15:43:31.228-07:00The Battle Maiden dancesIn my last post, I promised I'd write soon on devotional practices, and I hope to get to that soon. Today I just have a quick post to let you know about an upcoming event.<br />
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One of the ways that I channel the Morrigan is through devotional dance. (OK, so this does relate to devotional practice, after all.) I perform a kind of ecstatic devotional dance with a large set of wings, in what I've taken to calling my "Battle Maiden" dance. I call it that because the form of Her energy that comes through this dance is a Valkyrie-like epiphany, the Battle Maiden who comes in raven or vulture form, dancing over the spearheads, reveling in the blood and chaos of battle, and who gathers the souls of the slain heroes and carries them to the realms of the mighty. I've been developing this dance form in my work with Her for several years now, but opportunities to perform this dance come only infrequently. The photo here is from one of my first performances of it. Each time I perform the dance it changes, as it's partly invocatory ritual and partly performing art.<br />
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I will be performing the newest version of this Battle Maiden dance piece at the upcoming <a href="http://www.pandemonaeon.net/hexenfest.html">Hexenfest</a>, a festival of magick-inspired music and arts next Friday March 9th in Oakland. Hexenfest is a new event that we hope will grow to be an annual festival in support of Pagan and magickal arts and music. It's being produced by the band <a href="http://www.pandemonaeon.net/index.html">Pandemonaeon</a>, the leaders of which are dear friends of mine, powerful ritualists in their own right on top of being very inspiring musicians. <a href="http://www.pandemonaeon.net/index.html">Pandemonaeon</a> plays at <a href="http://www.pandemonaeon.net/hexenfest.html">Hexenfest</a>, along with another band, plus Gothic bellydance by the inimitable <a href="http://anaar.info/">Anaar</a> (from whom I've learned much about ritual dance), <a href="http://www.adarkershadeofpagan.com/podcast/">Jason Pitzl-Waters</a> of the Wild Hunt as DJ, and a <a href="http://www.tombostudio.com/">Tombo Studio</a> fashion show.</div>
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<a href="http://www.indiegogo.com/HexenFest">Details, tickets, and VIP options are here</a>. Even if you can't make the show, you can donate the ticket price and get a downloadable audio recording of the live show, and you'll be supporting a great thing too.<br />
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On the horizon much further out, I am also thrilled to say I've been invited to come lead a Morrigan devotional ritual at the <a href="http://www.neworleanswitchesball.com/">2013 Witches Ball in New Orleans</a>. It is a huge honor to be invited, and even though that's still a long way off, I just had to share because it's damned exciting. <br />
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The Queen has lately been making it clear to me and some of my close kin in Her service, that She wants us to be traveling to other places, seeking power spots and sacred sites as places to do ritual with Her and feed Her presence and power in our world. This invitation supports that path perfectly and I'll be looking for other opportunities to move about the land more and bring Her work and presence to more people.<br />
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That's all for now. I hope to see many of you soon at <a href="http://www.pandemonaeon.net/hexenfest.html">Hexenfest</a> and share my devotional performance with you.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-15780255547670486972012-02-02T12:40:00.000-08:002012-02-02T15:54:17.795-08:00Meeting the QueenRecently I've been seeing more emails from folks who have begun feeling the Morrigan's call for the first time, asking me for guidance on how to integrate Her into their lives and spiritual practice. So I felt it was time for a few posts about that.<br />
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This is what I frequently hear: "I'm being haunted, and I find it both terrifying and compelling. What do I do?"<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://tiobolasdoro.deviantart.com/art/The-Morrigan-145515319" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" sda="true" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-klM09grtxCE/Tyr0TTA6ZVI/AAAAAAAAAeg/1LKv0ej9aNg/s320/The_Morrigan_by_Tiobolasdoro.jpg" width="254" /></a>The Morrigan chooses people. When this happens to us, the experience is like being haunted by something. People often speak of Her coming to them in nightmares, or at least disturbing dreams. Her presence might be felt in waking life as a shadowy, spectral presence that seems to loom over us, and to follow our steps. She is, after all, the Phantom Queen. Her presence can also be channeled into our lives in unsettlingly personal ways: relationship dynamics may take on a charged quality; we may suddenly find ourselves fiercely intolerant of limitations we once accepted; we may find ourselves driven to take a stand on something. Her presence is characterized by compelling attention to certain things: the dead, and death itself; warfare and violence; heroism and honor, kinship and loyalty; and viscerally ecstatic experiences - blood, rage, sex, grief. </div><br />
So the question that I get from people is, "What do I do?" The answer depends on what you want, and what you dare. Being Hers means a lifetime of being haunted, to at least some degree. It means those close to you being haunted to some degree as well. Those She claims may find their lives being reshaped, sometimes painfully, to make space for Her demands. It means you yourself will be reshaped, and this can also be quite terrifying. But here is what She offers in return: She makes a weapon of you. She delves into your soul and finds the strength, the fierce unconquerable will, the heroic heart you didn't know you had. She offers you greatness. And She protects Her own, so Her claim also confers protection on both you and your kin. I could really go on for pages; perhaps that's a post of its own some day.<br />
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People sometimes ask, "Why me?" I can't presume to speak for Her reasons. But from my own observations, I can tell you this. If you think you aren't cut out for Her service because you're not tough or bad-ass enough, because you're wounded, because you're emotionally vulnerable,<em> that may be precisely why She chose you.</em> Experience has shown me that more often than not, it is those with raw hearts and poet's souls that She chooses, rather than the stoic and macho among us. I think perhaps She finds a deep well of emotion provides a lot of raw material for shaping into Her creation, and a passionate heart is more readily sharpened to the fierce joy She cultivates in us. But there are many reasons. Some are chosen because of ancestry and blood. Some for reasons known only to Her and themselves. Some choose themselves and come to Her of their own volition.<br />
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You might have the option to decline the relationship if it does not feel right for you. If this is your choice, my very earnest advice is to be exceedingly respectful in your way of declining Her claim on you. The story of the great hero <a href="http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/cuchulain3.html">Cu Chulainn</a> is a cautionary tale about what can happen: he not only refuses Her protection and guidance, he insults Her; and She brings about his downfall, giving him a hero's death. So if you must refuse Her, do so with reverence and with gratitude for what's been offered to you. And if you've ever asked Her for anything, if you've called Her name with feeling, I don't recommend attempting to refuse Her claim on you. In Her world, you've already offered yourself to Her.<br />
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For those who choose to accept the claim and move into the relationship, a few thoughts on that question, "What do I do?"<br />
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The nightmares and the haunting are often Her way of gaining your attention. While being in Her service does mean always being a little haunted, the frightful quality that often comes with the initial contact will usually transform into a more intimate experience once you establish devotional practice. That devotional practice is a whole topic unto itself, so I will delve into that in a future post. For now I just want to close with a bit of advice for those experiencing the initial disturbances.<br />
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Your situation will be unique and personal, of course. Generally speaking, the first act you need to do to ease the disturbances and enter the relationship, is to acknowledge Her claim on you, and communicate your willingness to engage. Second, establish a regular devotional practice, with offerings and time in meditation listening to Her. This gives Her opportunities to communicate Her message to you, and begins to create intimacy. Over time this will tend to refocus Her presence into your devotional practice, thereby easing the nightmares and other uncontrolled manifestations. Third, it helps enormously to have a physical space or vessel for Her presence: a shrine, altar, or other space that you intentionally dedicate and invite Her to occupy. This helps to externalize Her presence so that She does not have to constantly occupy your dreams and waking mind in order to have a foothold in your life. It allows you some measure of control over when you engage with Her and when you choose to focus on other things.<br />
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Finally, a few resources, since people also ask me what they should read to acquaint themselves with Her. Here are my recommendations:<br />
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Source texts: The main source material for Her lore is a handful of Irish texts, most of which were written down in the medieval period by monks, recording a much older stream of oral literature. The texts in which She appears most significantly are <a href="http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/leborgabala.html">the Lebor Gabala Eirenn, or Book of Invasions of Ireland</a>; <a href="http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/1maghtured.html">the First</a> and <a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T300011.html">Second Battles of Mag Tuiredh</a>; and several texts of the Ulster cycle, most especially <a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T301035/index.html">the Táin Bó Cúailnge, or Cattle Raid of Cooley</a>. She also makes appearances in many other texts throughout the Irish literature.<br />
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Analytical/folkloric studies: The most comprehensive work on the Morrigan is <a href="http://books.google.com/books/about/War_goddess.html?id=WRLONwAACAAJ">War Goddess by Angelique Gulermovich Epstein</a>, a folklore dissertation that surveys all Her appearances in medieval source texts, and uses them to analyze Her lore and role in the Irish mythological and cosmological system. Second, I recommend this 19th century essay <a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/celt/aigw/aigw01.htm">The Ancient Irish Goddess of War by W. M. Hennessy</a>.<br />
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Next time I'll post some more detailed thoughts about devotional practice.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-57447251396556110892012-01-19T10:51:00.000-08:002012-01-19T11:17:12.463-08:00Shieldmaiden's Song<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Inspired by the incoming storm and my devotions, here is a new poem I wrote this morning.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><strong>Shieldmaiden's Song</strong></div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Storm front walks the landscape,<br />
Hooded dark in thunderhead, towering,<br />
Massed weight of storm cascading from shoulders,<br />
Sweeping down to cloak the shadowed land in sheets of rain,<br />
Whispering mist trails behind.<br />
In your wake the dead rise<br />
In the mist the dead rise</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Tree tips bare rake the sky<br />
Sharp spear-points glinting wet in the dawn,<br />
A forest of spears, shuddering in the spirit wind,<br />
Ravening for battle,<br />
Massing before you.<br />
Over the spear-points the black wings thunder<br />
Over the spear-points you are winging<br />
Reveling in storm and terror,<br />
Raven-folk gathering,<br />
Tribes of your nation,<br />
We come to you<br />
We rise to you</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Phantom Queen, your hollow eyes pour nightmare<br />
And the deep and endless hunger of the grave.<br />
Kind folk turn from you in awe,<br />
Good folk, hoping never to hear you speak their names.<br />
But I have heard you.<br />
I have heard the haunting cry of your voice<br />
And I cannot unhear it.<br />
I have heard the cry of destiny,<br />
I have heard the war drum thundering.<br />
In the night beating<br />
In my chest beating<br />
And I will open for you<br />
I will open for you the Gate<br />
I will give you this life.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">No other dawn is coming but this one that has come,<br />
The day of calling, <br />
The day in which we live.<br />
And I in my small frame, breathing courage,<br />
No great chieftain I, but all I am is given.<br />
I will heed the war drum<br />
I will heed your calling<br />
O Queen of mine, terrible in your beauty,<br />
Make of me an ardent spear<br />
Lifted by the strong heart of a hero.<br />
I am yours utterly<br />
I am your weapon,<br />
I am yours utterly<br />
I am your shieldmaiden<br />
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</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">In the blood light of dawn<br />
Sky wet with cast droplets, singing blood,<br />
Silence before thunder, harrowing,<br />
Comes the storm Queen,<br />
Comes the great Queen,<br />
Morrigan cloaked in the red dawn<br />
Destiny cloaked in the red dawn.</div><br />
(c) Morpheus Ravenna 2012Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-36124283010294581392012-01-16T14:24:00.000-08:002012-01-16T14:24:29.551-08:00Gathering the tribesHere I am, emerging from a long silence in this blog, to bring you some news. During the late fall and winter, I have been consumed with my devotional work with the Morrigan, and with bringing the vision I received from Her over the past year into being. I needed for a time to focus on articulating the vision and beginning to share it with my kin and community. Now I am feeling the need to share it a little more broadly.<br />
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What we are engaged in is beginning the formation of a resilience network based on strengthening ties of kinship and community, on developing self-reliance and survival skills, and skills for self defense: the Raven Kin. You can read the vision statement here: <a href="http://www.ravenkin.net/">http://www.ravenkin.net/</a>. Since this network is intended to be kinship and affinity-based, the details on meetings of the network are not posted publicly. If you're drawn to this work based on what you read in the vision statement, you can contact me for more information. We will also be holding an open meetup at <a href="http://pantheacon.com/wordpress/">PantheaCon</a>, coming up February 17-20 in San Jose, in the Stone City suite.<br />
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I'm also driven to continue sharing my devotional work with the Morrigan, to help others connect with and serve Her, and to bring Her priesthood and devotees together. Toward that end, I'm establishing regular dates for devotional practice and work on the shrine, open to any interested folks, here at Stone City. These devotional days will be a time for us to engage in shared worship, connect with others who are drawn to Her service, learn from one another, and help build Her shrine. Second Sunday every other month, beginning February 12. The full calendar of devotional days is up on <a href="http://beansidhe.net/calendar/">my website</a>, as well as <a href="http://thestonecity.org/events/">the Stone City page</a>.<br />
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I hope to be writing more regularly in this blog, and I look forward to seeing some of you soon.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-87011488039288877142011-10-16T18:56:00.000-07:002011-10-17T20:22:32.790-07:00The Cattle RaidYesterday, <a href="http://occupysf.com/">I marched on Market Street in San Francisco</a>. Today, I worked on the Morrigan statue, and thought about wealth.<br />
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The protests, which are beginning to take on the character of an uprising, are about wealth, and the distribution of wealth; they are about the apotheosis of wealth, and its demonization. They are about something much bigger and more subtle than wealth. They are about the way in which wealth has become a vehicle for the undoing of a civilization and the debasement of a people.<br />
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I think of wealth, and the symbolism of wealth. From the earliest times, since before domestication, cattle have meant wealth - cattle in fact <i>were</i> wealth before they were a symbol of wealth. They arise again and again in iconography. Wild cattle painted on cave walls. The Golden Calf. The cattle of Catal Huyuk. The Fehu rune. The Irish Cattle Raid. The bull of Wall Street.<br />
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It is the last two that catch my attention today. Working on the statue, contemplating the controlled rage against Wall Street that I had observed, I found myself thinking about the <a href="http://www.ucc.ie/celt/published/T301035/index.html">Táin Bó Cúalnge</a>, the Cattle Raid of Cooley, one of the central texts of the Irish heroic cycle.<br />
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It begins when the royalty of the province of Connacht, Medb and Ailill, send messengers to Ulster to ask for the loan of their great Brown Bull, Donn Cúailnge, the most excellent and most valuable breeding bull in the provinces of Ireland. Medb and Ailill had a petty argument, you see, over which of them controlled the greatest wealth. Medb was losing the contest, so to prove herself the wealthiest, she had to gain control of the Brown Bull. So: nine messengers are sent to Ulster, and they courteously arrange with the Ulstermen to borrow the bull, and to compensate Ulster with a fair fee of fifty heifers, lands and a fine chariot for the year's use of their bull. This being arranged, the messengers that evening are feasted by their hosts. During this feast, as the tongues of the guests are loosened by drink and enjoyment, they begin to boast that it was inevitable that the great bull should go to Connacht, "for if the bull were not given willingly, he would be given perforce," by way of a threat. This arrogance of course outrages the Ulstermen, whose chieftain proclaims, "I swear by the gods whom I worship unless they take him thus by force, they shall not take him by fair means." Thus the bargain was broken between the provinces, and the hosts began massing for war.<br />
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<a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZAyozy2RaQ/TpuIzphUsZI/AAAAAAAAAbc/4uA07NmEBYY/s1600/bull.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="225" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-pZAyozy2RaQ/TpuIzphUsZI/AAAAAAAAAbc/4uA07NmEBYY/s320/bull.jpg" width="320" /></a>Is there a message in this story that is relevant to our times? It struck me so. Not for nothing is the very icon of Wall Street finance a great, brown bull.<br />
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Most people I know do not resent the rich for being rich. Most people I know don't truly envy the rich - we just want enough wealth to live well. We want a social contract within which there is a reciprocity between labor and capital, between workers and employers, between the financial class and the producing class. A fair deal is what we want, and when we feel we have this, we are able to sit down at table together. It is not the wealth of the wealthy that enrages people - it is not class envy or a rejection of their own part in the bargain. It is the arrogance of their position that enrages us.<br />
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If the bull is the wealth of our land and the productive capacity of our people, it was willingly that we would have lent it to them, in exchange for a fair and reciprocal sharing of the benefits it would generate. In an honest agreement we would not have begrudged them the use of the bull, because the sharing of it would enrich everyone. But when they show us that they are willing with a careless disregard to take our wealth and give nothing back - to nationalize losses while privatizing profits - when they laugh at us in our own feasting hall, while dining richly on the best of our land, demonstrating that there was never any intention to negotiate honestly - this is where the bargain breaks.<br />
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And so we march.<br />
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I think that there is a colossal arrogance which has been at play in the halls of finance and government (which are nearly indistinguishable at this point). The actions of these people in disregarding their place in the social contract display an assumption that there is no limit to what they can take from civilization, and no consequence. <br />
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I think they are wrong. We have the position of strength, because there are vastly more of us than there are of them, and what they have forgotten in their arrogance is their dependency on us, our productivity, our courtesy as hosts, and our willingness to allow the taking.<br />
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They are a few, and we are a legion. They are in our house. This is a cattle raid: they have come for our nation's wealth, and <a href="http://youtu.be/tK0O30aFT7g">have defied us to stop them taking it</a>.<br />
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I think they will be surprised.<br />
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<a href="http://blogs.villagevoice.com/runninscared/2011/10/kristen_christian_bank_boycott_bank_transfer_day_occupy_wall_street.php">On November 5, a coordinated day of action is planned</a>, where people everywhere will pull their money out of the big Wall Street banks and move it to local banks or credit unions. What better way to show that we will not let our wealth be arrogantly taken from us while they laugh at us in our own hall? This is not a protest action. It is your right of self-defense. In the meantime, <a href="http://www.occupytogether.org/">the occupations and marches continue everywhere</a>. I encourage everyone to engage.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-65139494831829810822011-10-10T17:11:00.000-07:002011-10-10T17:16:12.238-07:00In Honor of AncestorsIt's the season of the Dead, and I've been thinking a lot about Ancestors. This is partly inspired by the preparations we've been making for the Ancestor Shrine at Stone City, which we have been hoping to build at this year's Samhain gathering.<br />
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It's also inspired by conversations I've been having with my partner about the notion of Ancestor cults. Most of our historic Pagan cultures on which Neopaganism is based practiced some form of Ancestor worship, many of them quite prominently. Yet for most modern traditions (with some exceptions, of course), there is no such practice, or only a vestigial one. It feels like a piece of the reconstruction or revival of Pagan traditions that is not yet complete. Many of us commonly invoke the Gods, work with land spirits, and the like, but many traditions lack a coherent pattern of practice for connecting with our own Ancestors. Here I mean Ancestors in our own family bloodlines - not just spiritual Ancestors such as the Mighty Dead of the Craft, or long-distant generic Ancestors such as "the Celts". And I think perhaps that distinction is part of the reason this practice has not yet been more fully developed: The vast majority of modern Pagans are first-generation. In other words, most were not raised Pagan, and therefore I suspect that for many, their recent family Ancestors may not seem like meaningful spiritual contacts. Why would I want to invoke the presence and guidance of my great-great-great-grandfather, who was a Protestant? Well, here's why: he has a direct, vested interest in seeing his bloodline succeed. And who should we expect to take a greater interest in our personal problems and successes: the Gods, or our own Ancestors? Our Ancestors may have more limited powers and spheres of influence than the Gods, but their wisdom is of a kind that is more directly linked to our human needs and conditions, than the (relatively) vast and timeless powers of the Gods.<br />
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So I've been asking myself this question: What would a modern Ancestor cult look like? I began my practice by adding people from my direct family line to my Ancestor altar, and speaking to them when I make my offerings. Perhaps we can devise practices in which we make honoring our own Ancestors a more regular part of our workings: since most Pagans open ritual space with an invocation or invitation to helping spirits of some kind (Guardians, elementals, etc.), perhaps we ought to invite our own Ancestors at the same time, rather than just honoring them at Samhain. Perhaps we ought to revive folk practices like Decoration Day, or adopt elements from Latin Dia de los Muertes celebrations: visiting cemeteries, caring for and beautifying the graves of our Ancestors, bringing them gifts.<br />
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Lately I am also thinking about Ancestral legacies, and in this I'm also inspired by two other things: the movement toward re-learning and restoring old-fashioned skills and crafts, and the current democratic uprisings taking place all over the world. These movements are both responses to the instability of people's lives in present times, and the degradation of basic security and standard of living of the common people in much of the Western world as the plutocratic elite class strips the wealth of our nations. These movements both strike me as very powerful, perhaps the most powerful, ways of honoring our direct Ancestors. It is all well and good to offer libations and prayers, but I suspect that my great-great-great-grandfather, whose family were farmers and who fought in the Revolutionary War, would be more glad to know that the skills he learned and passed down through generations, and the Constitutional Republic he risked death to establish, were being restored and not dissipated.<br />
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No matter where your bloodlines come from, some of your Ancestors likely fought for something equally historic and equally meaningful. How might you honor them and what they worked to establish and to pass on?<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Ehb7vSXIhA/TpOIliZ5RjI/AAAAAAAAAbU/RpRHQR7ibXA/s1600/soldier.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-6Ehb7vSXIhA/TpOIliZ5RjI/AAAAAAAAAbU/RpRHQR7ibXA/s1600/soldier.jpg" /></a></div>October is the season of the Dead. This year, it is also the month that marks ten years of American wars, starting with the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan. Here in the US and most of the Western world, we are coming to grips with the fact that we have been sorely betrayed by our democratic leaders, and that our self-governing process has been fundamentally corrupted by greed and wealth. This month is being observed by worldwide occupation movements in protest of the degradation of democracy and human life. This month, I am honoring my Ancestors with prayers, and with actions. I will be joining the <a href="http://occupysf.com/">Occupy San Francisco rally on October 15</a>, in honor of my Ancestors who contributed to the first American Revolution and so that their legacy might be preserved. And in honor of the life-preserving skills of my Ancestors, I'll also be bringing eggs and produce that we grew here, to help feed the occupiers.<br />
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And maybe, if we remember them and if we honor them in ways that matter, our Ancestors can help. Perhaps we should invoke their spirits to march with us. Perhaps they might bless and help this movement toward re-invigorating the tree of liberty, hopefully without blood this time.<br />
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You can find <a href="http://15october.net/">related October 15 events here</a>. For other info on <a href="http://www.occupytogether.org/">Occupation movements in your area, here</a>.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-18849267324968776512011-08-22T16:16:00.000-07:002011-08-23T11:27:35.638-07:00Answering the CallThis is a quick post to announce the upcoming intensive I will be offering this fall along with my beloved co-priestesses <a href="http://thorncoyle.com/">T. Thorn Coyle</a> and <a href="http://sharonknight.net/">Sharon Knight</a>. <br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j_QKTERlJSM/TlPwEDtd1ZI/AAAAAAAAAbI/TSbb6KBI7mU/s1600/20080121003640-morrigan.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" qaa="true" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-j_QKTERlJSM/TlPwEDtd1ZI/AAAAAAAAAbI/TSbb6KBI7mU/s320/20080121003640-morrigan.jpg" width="250px" /></a></div>We are calling this intensive <a href="http://beansidhe.net/#/battle-goddess/4554528626">Answering the Call: Battle Goddesses in Times of Change</a>. It represents the next stage of the work the three of us have been called to by our Gods. Those who have been reading this blog or were present with us at the <a href="http://shield-maiden.blogspot.com/2011_02_01_archive.html">Morrigan devotional last PantheaCon</a> will be aware that my work with the Morrigan, as with many of you, has been taken "up a notch" in the past year or two. We three, as with many of you, have been hearing an urgent call to rise up, prepare ourselves for times of change, help our communities become strong and resilient. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Two years ago, during our collaboration on the Stone City Samhain rituals and intensive work with the Morrigan, we talked about the strong call we had each felt from both the Morrigan and Freyja in our devotional work. At that Samhain, the Battle Goddess workshops were conceived, which Thorn began offering last Samhain along with her partner Robert, and has continued throughout the year, providing short workshops for self-defense and empowerment training. </div><br />
We came together again for the great Morrigan devotional at PantheaCon, and as I have written here, that ritual was like the unleashing of a dike - it was a call to battle, opening the door for a great force of inspiration and empowerment that many of us in Her service continue to feel. <br />
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This fall's weekend intensive is the next stage in this work. We each feel a strong calling to help mobilize and prepare our people for the challenges of our times, through the guidance and urging of our devotional relationships with these Battle Goddesses. So this is the purpose for this gathering.<br />
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It will necessarily be smaller than the massing of the PantheaCon ritual - our focus here will be on in-depth work and practice with those who feel strongly called to join with us in this work. Attendance at this gathering will be limited to 30. It will be held at Stone City, where my work on the Morrigan statue and shrine are underway, and will provide an opportunity for participants to help with that project. <br />
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Initial details are up on a <a href="http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=239097169465627">FaceBook event page</a>, as well as on <a href="http://beansidhe.net/battle-goddess">my website</a>. Registration will be through Thorn's <a href="http://www.thorncoyle.com/solar-cross/">Solar Cross</a> organization. <br />
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I look forward to meeting you in Her service.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-15665793763099071192011-08-10T16:22:00.000-07:002011-08-11T09:45:54.853-07:00At the end of empireLondon burning. This weekend, along with the rest of the world, I watched the reports coming in with awe, distress, dread. It is not entirely unexpected, but terrible nonetheless.<br />
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<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><a href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6JONwayvKAY/TkMSCZNMs-I/AAAAAAAAAaw/qo52ujOis74/s1600/boadicea3s.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320px" naa="true" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-6JONwayvKAY/TkMSCZNMs-I/AAAAAAAAAaw/qo52ujOis74/s320/boadicea3s.jpg" width="223px" /></a>I am reading that the riots are to be understood as <a href="http://www.truth-out.org/panic-streets-london/1312999377">an uprising motivated by class and racial inequity</a>, by the frustration of an underclass betrayed by ruling elites of the failing empire in which they live, watching the wealth and privilege that surrounds them slip through their fingers as their standard of living degrades. Have we seen this before? Watching London burn, I am irresistibly reminded of <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boudica">Boudicca's rebellion</a> and burning of London during the Roman occupation. The parallel between the two is surely not complete, but I can't help contemplating it. Much of the youth engaged in the riots, I read, are the younger generation of Britain's colonized peoples. Britain may not be their ancestral homeland as it was that of Boudicca's people, but nonetheless both are responses to the inequities generated by empire. It is important to note that the Iceni, Boudicca's tribe, were collaborators with the Roman empire before rebellion; their uprising was motivated by betrayal that pushed beyond the limits of tolerance; it was motivated by a sudden realization that the promised benefits of empire would never be theirs, that the empire was in fact built on their backs. This is not to glamorize either movement, nor to justify the acts committed in them. The youth mobs have hurt innocents and destroyed homes and businesses of their own neighbors who suffered as much as they have; Boudicca's armies killed men, women, and children alike and visited unspeakable atrocities on those in their path. Uprisings may be sparked by real injustice, and in the releasing of that rage and frustration go far beyond the boundaries of justice.</div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>We are witnessing now the decay of our civilization, which is unmistakeably an empire in collapse. Many of you reading this, are, like me, viewing current events from a position of relative privilege and comfort, but it seems clear to me that this privilege and comfort are both built on the backs of others, and cannot last much longer at that. Our own cities may burn with strife some time soon. The unrest in Europe, of which the current riots are only the most recent and severe oubreak, has largely been triggered by forces which are already in motion here in the US as well: Debt/bank default crises, currency collapse, government austerities forced by uncontrollable deficits, abandonment of the poor and needy as services are eliminated, and civil unrest as the disenfranchised by class and race realize they have nothing left to gain by playing within the rules. Every one of these forces is already in motion here in various stages. <a href="http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/08/obama-sides-with-panetta-on-need-to-cut-medicare-over-defense.php?ref=fpb">The President himself announced</a> baldly that austerities will be taken from support services before any cuts to the military budget are considered. This could be a scene straight out of the late Roman Empire.<br />
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Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/joel-weinberger/super-congress-or-star-ch_b_917355.html">representative government in our Congress is being strangled</a> by the new "Supercommittee", which has been set up with little outcry, while we were distracted by the WWF wrestling match in Washington and historic downgrading of the government's credit standing. This new body, in case it has not yet been made clear, gives its 12 members, to be appointed from within Congress without public input, sweeping powers over taxation and use of public funds - the power to select which elements of government will be supported and which will be defunded or discontinued. This while having only the merest nod of responsibility toward Congress itself; our representatives can only respond to the committee's decision via a ratifying vote, yes or no; and even this is a coercive vote where failure to approve the committee's plan will result in disabling cuts to all branches of government. This, my friends, is taxation without representation. From any point on the political spectrum, left to right, this is surely plain.<br />
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The federal government has quietly been laying the groundwork for <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/11/30/AR2008113002217_pf.html/">military troops to be deployed into the streets</a> to quell future unrest, <a href="http://signalnews.com/law-enforcement-facebook-search-warrants-499">increasing secret surveillance of private citizens</a>, <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus-stations-public-transit-systems-yearly">positioning the Department of Homeland Security and the TSA</a> to deal with "threats to national security". I don't think it requires a paranoid person to put all these things together into a rather dystopic picture of our near future.<br />
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Watching London burn it was borne home to me that this is <a href="http://shield-maiden.blogspot.com/2011/06/resistance.html">what the Morrigan has been urging me</a>, urging us to prepare for. This is a call to action, to arms. Not just for those who hold an allegiance to Her, but all people who love their liberty. We are at a juncture in history where corporatist/industrial capitalism is hitting a wall in terms of resource depletion, fiscal and economic decay, and it is dragging democracy down with it. Almost no one now denies that our government serves corporations more than it serves people. Our civil institutions are decaying as the ruling elites consolidate ownership of government in order to protect themselves as they finish looting our society of material, financial and social wealth. When the elites have taken everything they can, what will remain is the shell of a democratic society in which the people will be slaves in all but name. Or, perhaps we will be left to reinvent ourselves in a post-industrial civilization like peasants after the withdrawal of Rome, choosing between autonomy without help versus feudal serfdom under the protection of the remaining elites. <br />
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I think we have some choice about this: we can fight the looting of our civilization, and we can protect ourselves and our kin from the worst effects of it. But I also want to say that much of this change is inevitable. If, as so many of us have been saying for so long, our civilization is unsustainable in its current form, then it follows that the current form will end, and the question really is how to best position ourselves toward what is to come after, and how to minimize the suffering caused by the transition. Thus for me, though the near future looks rather terrifying, I also feel enormous hope and exhilaration about the opportunity for change in the long term. I also feel that I have an obligation both to my ancestors and to those who will come after us, to heed the Morrigan's call to arms and do what I can to help prepare our communities to better weather the storm.<br />
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So what can we do to protect ourselves, to protect the resources we still have? I don't claim to have any new answers to this question. Many thinkers and leaders have put more time into this question than I have. But here is my instinct: power is to be found not just in numbers, but in strength of bonds. That we need both unity and autonomy. I find myself thinking again and again of the cellular pattern of Celtic tribal society. Individual households within clans and tribes, operating locally and relatively autonomously except at times of threat and need, when war leaders were chosen and delegated temporary authority for specific campaigns. I'm drawn to the parallels between this system and the leaderless cellular structure of revolutionary undergrounds and resistance movements.<br />
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I feel strongly and with a near-prophetic force that this is going to require more militancy than most of us are comfortable with. I'm contemplating <a href="http://www.alternet.org/environment/151918/do_we_need_a_militant_movement_to_save_the_planet_%28and_ourselves%29/?page=entire">this article I recently read</a> on the role of militancy in resistance movements. The authors interviewed hold radical views, and I don't endorse everything they say. But I encourage you to take the time to read the full article. The authors bring up some points I think we need to consider. Primarily, the insight that persuasion and reasoned debate have no influence on the drives and incentives motivating the elites - force and money are the things they understand. If this is true then the two forms of action which have the greatest real potential to bring change and to benefit people rather than corporations, are removing our wealth from the economy of empire and investing it in localized tribal economies; and intelligent application of resistance force. In both cases, we have to first be prepared. We have to create the localized tribal economies which will allow us to support ourselves autonomously, and we have to be willing, daring, and skilled enough to make forceful resistance viable. <br />
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Most of my community and probably the great majority of readers are not militant folks. We are soft, urban, sophisticated; accustomed to comfortable homes, costume parties, and the assumption that we can change the direction of civilization by voting, recycling and not buying clothing from the Gap. I know for many of you my views will seem extreme. But I can only speak the truth as I see it, and what I see is that we are nearing the end of <a href="http://nowandfutures.com/us_weimar.html">Weimar USA</a>, and what life requires of us will be different from what we have known before. Even if you are not personally called to active resistance against the elites, you will need the same self-defense and survival skills in order to survive and thrive in the era of instability we are entering. We need discipline, intelligence, preparation. We need to be a skilled people, who can survive together when the trucks aren't delivering enough food to the city's markets or when soldiers or mobs threaten our neighborhoods. We will all need to know who our kin are, whose support we can count on and what each of us has to offer. We need to train ourselves in self-defense, weapons skills, first aid, survival, self-sufficiency. Above all, we need to commit ourselves to <em>honorable resistance</em>.<br />
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I am continuing to think on ways of supporting and mobilizing our communities. For today, please think about making a commitment to yourself in Her name, or in the name of your ancestors and descendents: to begin preparing. As a place to start, think about commiting to beginning training in one self-defense skill and one survival skill: Judo and vegetable gardening, or Krav maga and first-aid, or handgun practice and food storage, or Irish stick-fighting and home energy production. If you are already on your way with skills like these, please consider what you can do to bring others in your community along. <br />
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I hope to have more to share soon; I leave you with this quote from the <a href="http://penelope.uchicago.edu/~grout/encyclopaedia_romana/britannia/monsgraupius/calgacus.html">British chieftain Calgacus</a>:<br />
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<blockquote><em>You have not tasted servitude. There is no land beyond us and even the sea is no safe refuge when we are threatened by the Roman fleet... It is no use trying to escape their arrogance by submission or good behaviour. They have pillaged the world: when the land has nothing left for men who ravage everything, they scour the sea. If an enemy is rich, they are greedy, if he is poor, they crave glory. Neither East nor West can sate their appetite. They are the only people on earth to covet wealth and poverty with equal craving. They plunder, they butcher, they ravish, and call it by the lying name of 'empire'. They make a desert and call it 'peace'. </em></blockquote>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-88068025913838703652011-06-28T10:44:00.000-07:002012-10-08T15:44:25.668-07:00ResistanceThis blog has been quiet lately, in part because my work on the Morrigan statue project slowed this spring while other responsibilities came to the fore. The other reason is that I've been struggling with what to say. I started this blog to share my process with the Morrigan statue, and along with that my observations, thoughts, philosophies arising from my work as Her priestess.<br />
<br />
Since <a href="http://pantheacon.com/">PantheaCon</a>, I've been in a queer state of ambivalence. To those of you who were present for the huge <a href="http://shield-maiden.blogspot.com/2011/02/rising-up.html">Morrigan devotional ritual</a> we held at the Con, it might sound strange to hear that what I came away with was ambivalence. But it's true. <br />
<br />
The ritual work leading up to and in the ritual itself triggered something very big in my relationship with the Morrigan. I think most participants would agree that the ritual tapped into an enormous current of desire and something that I can only describe as urgency. There is a tide rising in our communities, a sense of readiness for a call that we all somehow know is coming, and that we yearn for. The ritual felt galvanizing, transformative. A massing of forces on the eve of some battle. People took oaths. Thresholds were crossed.<br />
<br />
Afterwards, I came home continuing to think about where those thresholds are taking us now. What exactly DID we tap into? What now? <br />
<br />
For what purpose are these forces massing?<br />
<br />
I came home carrying the sword, the one upon which all those oaths had been sworn. It held a force and vibratory power in it that was clear to the senses of everyone who touched it, and impossible to ignore. For a few days, we had it on the altar in our bedroom (oops). My husband described it thus: "There is a sword, and I have a house around it." Shortly afterward, I took it up to the Morrigan's shrine site, planted it in the ground there with prayers to Her, and left it there for a night and a day to let the power of the oaths pour out of it and be earthed in Her shrine. While I was up there, I prayed and sat and listened and She, still overshadowing me in the aftermath of the big ritual, whispered to me. "Yes. You have brought me the sword. Soon, you will bring me warriors. The time is coming."<br />
<br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
That message left me shaken, and hence my ambivalence. I continue to feel a great urgency from Her, a sense of pressure as if someone were literally leaning against me, or the way you feel when someone is staring hard at the back of your head. I realized then that the big ritual was not the culmination of a process, but the start of one, and I have an obligation to Her to see it through. But I still do not fully understand what "it" is. The hints and whispers I receive from Her continue to point toward mobilizing our people, our communities, in preparation for something. Mobilization, preparation, massing and honing of forces. That's what She keeps whispering. I remain ambivalent about this because whenever I talk about what it is I sense She wants from us, I begin to think I'm sounding delusional, militaristic, or at best naive. And because I can't yet figure out how it is that I, without even any genuine fighting skills to my credit, am going to bring warriors to the Morrigan. Not alone, that's for sure.</div>
<br />
This has been my state for the past few months. Waiting, listening, looking for further insight. Talking to friends and companions. In the meantime, the signs keep coming. I've had messages from both friends and strangers that She has been speaking to others, appearing in their dreams, sending warnings, delivering the call to action. Meanwhile, I continue to watch the distress signals flickering on in the world around us. <br />
<br />
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<a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aXHHzeTjE9s/TgoSZCylnWI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/FQBsozIYLFk/s1600/calimacil_highlights_sword.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; cssfloat: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400px" i="i" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-aXHHzeTjE9s/TgoSZCylnWI/AAAAAAAAAZQ/FQBsozIYLFk/s400/calimacil_highlights_sword.jpg" true="true" width="147px" /></a>Yesterday I spent a little time working on the statue, preparing Her for the next stage of the sculptural process. While I worked, I asked Her again for guidance, and I listened. The word RESISTANCE sounded in my head.</div>
<br />
Today, <a href="http://trueslant.com/allisonkilkenny/2010/03/07/normalizing-the-police-state-and-how-it-ends-with-taser-firing-drones/">this article</a> caught my eye. And <a href="http://motherjones.com/mojo/2011/06/tsa-swarms-8000-bus-stations-public-transit-systems-yearly">this one</a>. Those are just examples - I've seen many of these signs, too many to enumerate. They remind me of that word, <i><b>resistance</b></i>.<br />
<br />
Am I saying that I want to form a militia? I don't think so. I think the forces of authoritarian control would have us hopelessly outgunned, and I think as soon as we limit our thinking about resistance to the level of guns, we have already lost. But I think we need <i><b>something</b></i>. We need resilient networks of community that are decentralized, that provide real, manifest support for their members - not just mental support, but survival skills and material necessities that will allow us the real-life autonomy from which to resist. We need these networks to be in place and vibrant <i>before</i> they become a survival necessity. And yes, I do think fighting skills are among those survival skills we need to cultivate. A person who has the ability to protect themselves and their loved ones, and the means and resources to live autonomously if needed, is a person who cannot as easily be cowed or seduced into toeing the line - or buying the line. It takes a warrior to resist, even if that resistance is not in the form of conventional armed resistance. <br />
<br />
I still don't really know where to begin, and I suppose that is why I'm writing this. Nervously, at that. I want to hear from you. Have you heard the Morrigan's call? What are your Gods urging you toward? What do you sense we are being called upon to do?<br />
<br />
In the meantime, my co-priestesses from the Morrigan ritual, <a href="http://thorncoyle.com/">T. Thorn Coyle</a>, <a href="http://sharonknight.net/">Sharon Knight</a>, and I are planning to hold a weekend workshop intensive focused on this work, in November of this year. It's a place to start. I'll have details to post soon, I hope.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com13tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-44277494402928218242011-05-16T12:07:00.000-07:002012-10-08T15:45:12.522-07:00The Cry of DestinyToday I have some thoughts to share about destiny. This post has actually been brewing for some weeks before I found the time to write it down; if you've read my postings before, you've probably noticed that I'm a writer only after my other vocations, and sometimes the blog goes by the wayside while I'm busy chasing my destiny. So then, on the subject of destiny.<br />
<blockquote>
<i>From Failias was brought the Lia Fail, which is at Tara, and which used to cry out under each king who assumed the sovereignty of Ireland.</i><br />
<a href="http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/jewels.html">The Four Jewels of the Tuatha Dé Danann, the Yellow Book of Lecan</a><br />
<br /></blockquote>
<i></i>We might tend to think of destiny as something rare that belongs to special people, those who are 'chosen' for some greatness that is beyond the reach of most of us. Destiny might feel like a concept for heroes of myth that seems out of place in our ordinary lives. But this is not so. Everyone has a destiny on them. You, reading these words, you have a destiny on you. Simply put, your destiny is that thing you were made for. That thing you are uniquely equipped and gifted to do, that without you will not be complete; and that you <br />
will not be complete without doing. I really want to emphasize this, so I'll say it again: There is something unique and meaningful that only you and no other being can give to this world. I don't care who you are or how empty you may think you are of gifts; this is still true of you. Whatever that thing is, that is your destiny. It may be subtle; it may not be the kind of thing that is recorded in history books, but it is a destiny, and it is meaningful and it is <b>yours</b>.<br />
<br />
Do you know what it is?<br />
<br />
If you don't, isn't it perhaps time you should find out? <br />
<br />
Let me put that question another way. What have you got to do that is more urgent or more important than discovering your life's purpose? If you can answer that, you may already know your destiny. <br />
<br />
If not, here are some things to contemplate. The Lia Fail, the Stone of Fal which was also called the Stone of Destiny, would cry out under the true king, who held the sovereignty of the land. Sovereignty is the holding of power by virtue of right relationship to its source; in the case of an Irish king, the land itself. So ask yourself: In what place does the rightness and truth of your action cause such power to flow through you that your soul cries out? Have you felt that? That was the cry of destiny. If you have never felt that, if till now you have only heard the silence of the stone, it may be time to seek new experiences, try out new ways of serving the world until the cry comes. <a href="http://roguepriest.net/the-heroic-life/">Drew Jacob, in his Rogue Priest blog</a> (which I highly recommend), talks of the heroic path, and his first piece of advice for those who have not discovered their heroic purpose is to travel. If travel seems out of reach because of cost, and it may indeed be for many of us, there is still nothing stopping you from going out of your established routines and experiencing something new. I would add that service is more likely to open us to destiny than pleasure. We find our purpose, paradoxically, by going outside of ourselves.<br />
<br />
The next thing I want to make clear is that destiny is not fate. It isn't predetermined. It's what you're meant for, but you can fail to fulfill it, or you can choose to ignore it and do something else with your time and life energy. We are all endowed with will, and if we're diligent at liberating ourselves from social and media manipulation, we can even aspire to possess free will (or even better, <a href="http://www.thorncoyle.com/kissing-the-limitless-excerpt-2/">be possessed by it</a>). I do not believe in fate, at least not in the fixed sense. <br />
<br />
So - your destiny is not predetermined: It is yours, but it will not just happen to you. That is one way that we differ from the people in story. We must court destiny like a lover, or a muse; chase it like a quarry; most of all, serve it. This is work. Nothing is born without labor, and this thing you have within you may take a life's labor to bring forth. This may be why so many of us prefer the aimless comfort of the consumer life to the purposeful striving of the destined life. It is <b>hard</b>, and it's scary, too. Dedicating yourself to fulfilling your destiny means sacrificing some things you might otherwise put more of your life energy into, things that are easier and more comfortable. Things that are more predictable. Most frightening of all, there is no guarantee of success. You might spend years serving this destiny, only to see it partially born; it may not come to fruition or be recognized for its value until after your death. It is up to you, and the allies and resources you can muster, to fulfill your purpose and give to the world what you have to give. And to do so we have to struggle against not only our own fears of failure (or fears of success), but against very great and subtle forces in our civilization that derive enormous profit from an aimless population accustomed to thinking themselves small, and content to fill their longing for meaning with stuff. For all these reasons, it may be easier not to know your purpose. And as I said, you do have that option. You can turn your face away from destiny. But I will venture to say that it will haunt you until you step into it. <br />
<br />
Why do I care so much and why am I lecturing you about pursuing your destiny? Well, because I myself have been haunted by a growing sense that difficult times are coming. That is to say, difficult times are here already - most of us know at least a few people who are out of work; costs of living are rising faster than incomes; the unsustainable economic and political structures of much of the Western world are beginning to crack; and in the US at least, we are seeing clearer and clearer the emergence of the national security <br />
police state. I have a persistent sense that these are signs of harder times to come soon, that our lives will get tougher for a while before they get better. And my Gods, most especially the Morrigan whom I serve most closely, have been haunting me too, with a message that I need to be doing anything I can to help prepare our people for difficult and transformative times. That we, the spiritual-minded and magickal folk, have something needful to offer the world in these crises, but that <i>we are not ready</i>, and that unless we can get prepared to ride the tides of change, we can't hope to help the rest of the world through it.<br />
<br />
To explain what this has to do with destiny, I will quote <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viktor_Frankl">Viktor Frankl</a>, the Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor. Informed by his experiences observing what inner powers helped people to not only survive in the hells of the concentration camps, but even find the strength to help others, he wrote:<br />
<blockquote>
What man actually needs is not a tensionless state but rather the striving and struggling for a worthwhile goal, a freely chosen task. What he needs is not the discharge of tension at any cost but the call of a potential meaning waiting to be fulfilled by him.<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Man%27s_Search_for_Meaning">Man's Search for Meaning</a>, 1946.</blockquote>
And elsewhere in the same book:<br />
<blockquote>
A man who becomes conscious of the responsibility he bears toward a human being who affectionately waits for him, or to an unfinished work, will never be able to throw away his life. He knows the "why" for his existence, and will be able to bear almost any "how."</blockquote>
In other words, the human being who knows her purpose, who knows she has a destiny to fulfill, carries that meaning within her like a talisman, and through that can find the strength to survive anything. She can bear almost any conditions. She has heard the cry of the Stone of Destiny, and so the strength of the stone is hers, the grounding force of sovereignty. My friends, this is how heroes are made. How kings and queens are made. This simple thing: the knowledge of one's destiny, and a commitment to it. <b>That is all it takes.</b><br />
<br />
Don't worry if you aren't ready. No one ever is. The cry of the stone will carry you, and you'll find a way. <br />
<br />
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Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com10tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-63313388162411722142011-02-23T22:05:00.000-08:002012-10-08T15:46:00.183-07:00Rising up<i>Then the Morrigan the daughter of Ernmas came, and she was strengthening the Tuatha De to fight the battle resolutely and fiercely. She then chanted the following poem:</i><br />
<i><br />
"Kings arise to the battle! . . . "</i><br />
<i><br />
Immediately afterwards the battle broke, and the Fomoire were driven to the sea.</i><br />
--<a href="http://www.sacred-texts.com/neu/cmt/cmteng.htm">from the Second Battle of Mag Tuired </a><br />
<br />
<br />
On sunday night I had the privilege of working with a kickass team of ritualists to create the Morrigan devotional ritual at <a href="http://www.pantheacon.com/">PantheaCon</a>. I came away sore from pushing myself to the limits of my stamina, with a voice a little hoarse from screaming. And feeling gratitude for the courage of the many individuals who chose to join us in answering Her call.<br />
<br />
In the dreamlike flashes of my memories of the ritual, a few images and sensations stand forth. I remember being profoundly overshadowed even before the invocation began. I remember being able to acutely feel the pounding of the myriad hearts as a sensation in my own body, something like the way a great pounding sound too deep to be audible is sensed as a massive vibration in one's bones. I remember feeling the massing of armies in the movement of the many bodies round the space. I remember when the taking of oaths began, feeling Her devouring them as a starving creature might swallow meat, as though I could taste the life force contained in each one. <br />
<br />
I saw the Hero's Light shuddering round the faces and brows of some there who were moved by Her spirit, saw their souls rise up within them, answering the call. <br />
<br />
This ritual represented a new threshold in my relationship with the Morrigan. The first decade of my devotion to Her was observed almost exclusively in intimate coven rituals or private practice. It has only been in the last five years or so that I began working as Her priestess in a broader public context, but until now the largest group in which I had channeled Her had been around 40 people at an open Samhain ritual. So to bring Her to an overflowing convention ballroom of 500 people was unprecedented for me. I will admit that I felt some hesitation about letting Her fully come through in the chaotic, zany environment of the convention. I did it in spite of that because I sensed a particular urgency, a tugging in Her presence during the recent months that said this needed to happen. As we went through the final planning and preparation for this ritual, I felt Her hungering for the big energy of the host. I sense that in these later days, there are few enough moments when human beings gather in the hundreds to chant Her name, let alone the thousands who perhaps once did. <br />
<br />
I cannot help musing on the timing of this working. While we were massed in that ballroom raging and chanting, "RISE UP! RISE!" folk all across the Middle East and North Africa were, and still are, rising up to fight for their liberation. This is not to imply that our little ritual has any causal connection to the uprisings. I think rather what I am sensing is that the insistence with which the Morrigan has been pushing me to share my devotional work with Her beyond the sphere of private practice and into a broader public venue, is in some way connected to the urgency of the times in which we live. Perhaps She feels that the world needs Her especially now.<br />
<br />
I have since found myself thinking on the taking of oaths - there is something very powerful about the act. An oath takes the continuous gradual path of the spiritual life and sets into it a gateway, a threshold separating the road ahead from all that has come before. We challenge ourselves to dare the threshold. We speak our oath in the presence of our Gods and our companions so that there can be no turning back; the gate closes on what has gone before. Once spoken, an oath cannot be undone. It binds us to our own will and to the future we have committed to. We now must rise up and find the power within ourselves to fulfill that oath.<br />
<br />
The keeping of an oath grants strength. An oath is much like that thing known in Celtic lore as a geis, generally translated as 'taboo' or 'prohibition'. A geis is an obligation which is laid on a person, to which they must adhere. The heroic stories teach us that the keeping of a geis grants power; that its protection may be so great as to make the hero undefeatable. To break a geis engenders loss of power and protection, weakness, downfall. The deaths of the great heroes are brought about through clever means of forcing them to break a geis and thus render them merely human, vulnerable to wounding and defeat. The hidden truth here is that, conversely, <i>a geis intact renders one more than human</i>, for it is a magickal bond with the Otherworld, and while it is kept, it wraps one in a mantle of Otherworldly power. And what is an oath but a geis taken under free will? In oath-taking, we rise to meet the destiny that is laid on us; and in return, as we keep the oath we rise up in greater strength and power.<br />
<br />
So to those who took the oath: you have taken a geis from the Morrigan. Guard it well and your honorable name in the Otherworld will make you great in all the worlds. The strength of the kept oath will sustain you. In the words of <a href="http://www.maryjones.us/ctexts/index_irish.html">Cáilte</a>: "I am persuaded that these three things will sustain me in my life: the truth always maintained in my heart, strength of my arms for the honor of my deeds, and in always keeping my word."Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-46569092637645707092011-01-30T16:33:00.000-08:002011-01-30T16:33:02.854-08:00Two roads diverged in a wood and IToday I am writing about the changes occurring in the Feri Tradition community. I imagine most readers of my notes here will already be aware of the tradition; if not, then this post will probably not be of interest to you. For an excellent overview of the tradition, check out <a href="http://pagantheologies.pbworks.com/w/page/13622055/Feri-Tradition">this article by Niklas Gander</a>. The changes in the tradition I refer to are summarized <a href="http://wildhunt.org/blog/2011/01/pagan-community-notes-the-sundering-of-feri-dc-community-center-health-care-reform-survey-and-more.html">here by Jason Pitzl-Waters</a>, <a href="http://www.patheos.com/Resources/Additional-Resources/Sundering-of-Feri-T-Thorn-Coyle-01-24-2011.html">here by T. Thorn Coyle</a>, and <a href="http://faerytradition.org/">here by another group of Feri initiates</a>.<br />
<br />
I hesitated to say anything public about these changes. I have felt some pain at seeing the process we are going through hit the sphere of internet news and blog discussion at this stage. It's not that I think people shouldn't know about it, it's just that I feel it's premature to try and say anything definitive about what the landscape will ultimately look like. I think that much is still unformed in this process, and I would have preferred to let it settle on its own terms. <a href="http://www.anniedillard.com/books-annie-dillard.html">Annie Dillard, in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek</a>, tells a story about a giant Polyphemus moth emerging from its chrysalis in a schoolroom. In order to display it so the schoolkids can watch, the teacher puts the moth into a bottle while its wings are still wet; but the wings cannot unfold, and they harden in the confined shape given to them by the bottle. Making public statements at this point about the new forms the Feri community is shifting into feels like putting the moth into the bottle. And so, rational or not, I was reluctant. But as I have waited, I see the speculative discussion broadening about the internet, with bloggers who have no direct connection to the tradition announcing opportunistically that we're "falling apart". So I am here to share my own perceptions of the 'split' in the Feri tradition; what it is and what it is not in my view, and where I think we go from here.<br />
<br />
First, I wish to say that what the initiates of the Feri tradition are experiencing is not just another witch war. It is not a petty personality conflict - it is the fruit of long-standing, deep-seated and substantive differences in philosophy and practice. Some kind of change or divergence of paths was probably inevitable for a tradition growing as fast as ours. In the minutia of the process, of course personal conflicts have arisen, but that is not what's really driving this, and I feel like it would be demeaning and harmful to our process to frame this as a Big Personality Conflict between two opposed sides. "The Sundering", as it's being called, is not nearly as severe as that title implies. The reality is, people are still in communication across all sides of the philosophical debate, and the community as a whole is far from divisible into two camps. <br />
<br />
At the heart of the issue is the tension held between our nature as an initiatory mystery cult, and the urge to share our wisdom as widely as possible. The central question, I think, is whether or not it is possible to transmit the Mysteries of the tradition through mass methods, or whether this approach by its very nature alters what is being transmitted into a fundamentally different Mystery than the one that can be shared in a more intimate context. The group of initiates who have announced their separation from 'public Feri' on the new websites, are doing so to demarcate themselves from the most extreme examples and consequences of the open approach, but in fact there are a great many more than two answers to that central question. And not all who disagree about the answer are in conflict over that difference. I think most of us are striving to hold the view that we have become different breeds of the same species, and the stable, peaceful place will be found by acknowledging both breeds for what they are and are not. Thus the 'split', in the big picture, is less a tearing apart than a recognition of divergence. It is primarily a matter of putting a name to what is - this is a Pippin and that is a Red Delicious - so that we need not argue about what an apple should be. <br />
<br />
I think in the long range, after we get through this winnowing or distillation process and the accompanying distress and discomfort, what we will see is the emergence of a nested anatomy within the tradition, like the way a cell holds a nucleus within it. The larger exterior body of practice being an exoteric tradition, which is accessible to the public and can be shared via mass means such as books, websites, distance courses and the like. Within that, there will be an esoteric tradition, a much more occult, closely held and mystery-based practice which is shared intimately via the initiatory method. You see this within various world religions - the Buddhist and Hindu paths, for instance, typically have a more public school and within that a more hidden or Tantric school. Likewise Judaism and the esoteric Qabalah. I am sure there are other good examples.<br />
<br />
In many ways, Feri is very like a Tantra; it is a body of spiritual practice which delves into those things which threaten our power and autonomy - those things that tend to overwhelm, addict, or frighten us, those things which are either obsessions or taboos of our culture. A Tantra is a practice which seeks liberation from a thing's power over us through delving deeply into it, rather than through aversion or negation. This is by its very nature a psychologically and spiritually risky form of practice, and thus in most religions, the esoteric or Tantric form of practice is usually closely guarded and shared under very intimate supervision by the teacher. Feri tradition, until very recently, was so small and hidden that there was no need for an outer and an inner tradition; it might be argued that Feri tradition itself has functioned in some ways as the esoteric school of the broader Craft revival. But this has been changing. In the last half-decade or so the rapid growth of publicly accessible material and mass teaching methods have created a large population of students of Feri who are not on an initiatory path and lack access to a teacher who can provide for them that intimate initiatory context for transmission of the Mystery. Thus we are being pushed toward that two-tiered or nested structure that characterizes the larger religions.<br />
<br />
There is of course more to it than this, in terms of precipitating events, but that is the essence of it from my perspective. As the forecasters say, I reserve the right to be mistaken, and to change my opinion if conditions warrant. For the sake of transparency, here is a bit about my place within the tradition. I have been an initiate for about 13 years or so. I came in through Vanthe coven, which represents one of the smallest and most reclusive lineages within the tradition. My line tends toward the secretive, mystery-cult system and coven structure rather than the public method. However, I have alliances and close friendships among the very public teachers and lines as well, and as readers may know from my involvement with <a href="http://americanmysticthemovie.com/">American Mystic</a>, I am open in some ways myself. I seem to occupy a middle ground or third place and it has become my work to support the initiate community as a whole and try to foster communication and shared culture across lines. I am continuing that work as best I can through the present changes.Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com6tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-2576039347330072612011-01-18T22:35:00.000-08:002011-01-18T22:48:56.115-08:00Morrigan cloaked, and the cost in blood.<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaF5uYQJZI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/3N1nidf7PjA/s1600/morrigan_1-18-11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><br />
</a></div><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">This weekend I started a new phase of the statue: building the cloak. Here is where I begin to depart from the pre-formed structure of the mannequin. I formed the cloak from sheets of metal lath, cut to size, wired on and formed to shape. Then began the long process of layering fiber cloth and resin on to the metal. I make this sound simple, maybe, but it's tricky and awkward and took me most of a day just to get as far as laying on the fiber cloth. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I am inspired to see Her beginning to take shape. I can begin to see a slow convergence between the image in my mind and the object before me; maybe there is a chance that I'll pull this off and manage to create an image that is potent enough to be a vessel for Her presence here.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">S. tells me She looks like Lady Gaga now, between the shiny black material on the body giving it a fetish-suit look, and the white fibrous material on the cloak getting a bit feathery. I am amused by this. Also, determined that by the time I'm done, She will be distinguishable from Lady Gaga. My Queen, I give you my word.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The day was unseasonably warm for January and the hours slipped by me while I steadily wrestled the metal into shape onto the statue. It's hard on the hands; the cut lath is very sharp along the edges like a comb of tiny razors. My hands are nicked and sliced; at one point I have to lean against the edge of the cloak to reach around both sides and wire the parts together. I feel a couple points of the cut lath start to sink in to the surface skin on the side of my neck. I smile a bit when a cut on my fingertip wells up with a few drops of blood that find their way on to the statue. She takes Her offering, and I am glad to give it.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The blood gets me thinking, and I find myself flashing on the quote from Dante that Michelangelo wrote on his sketch for the Pieta: "One does not think how much blood it costs." </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">How much blood does it cost? Your life's work - the destiny that pulls your heartbeat onward like the current of a river. The task that is before you. How much blood will it cost you to bring forth what is in you? Do we dare to find out?</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Here is what the Morrigan told me, and what the heroes of my ancestors tell: It may cost everything. It may cost you your life. The battle that you have before you - whatever that is - the birth struggle of that world that can not come to be except through your unique effort - this will not be achieved without blood. The price of your destiny is your life. To achieve the greatness that is in you requires you to give yourself to that purpose, and this giving will transform you. There will be no turning back. This is how heroes are made; in the simple choice to give. Sacrifice: to make sacred. That which is given in dedication to a greater force is made sacred by the giving. And it does mean giving something up. There is only so much time in a life, so many heartbeats. Giving yourself to the pursuit of your great Work will cost you in opportunities to spend your life more frivolously. And it may cost you much more than that.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Is this why we often shy away from success, from the fullness of our capabilities? Do we sense intuitively that the pursuit of greatness requires the death of the small, safe creature we were accustomed to being? Are we not sure we are ready to spill that blood? </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Perhaps, I thought. And then came Her next answer: It doesn't matter. Because willing or no, death will come to you. There is nothing to fear when the end of the story is known. Your blood will be spilled one day and will flow back into the river that birthed you. The only question will be when, and whether you had enough time yet to pour that blood into something meaningful while it was still yours. Being small will not save you.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">So this is the heroic ethos; this is what Cu Chulainn knew. That a life is best measured in meaning, not in length or comfort. ‘Little care I,’ said Cu Chulainn, ‘nor though I were but one day or one night in being, so long as after me the history of myself and doings may endure.’ And though he was younger than a warrior should be, and people did not think him ready, he took up arms on that day and went to seek his destiny. We have this choice: to wait for an easy moment, staying within the comfort of our ordinary life, and keep the illusion of safety. Or to make the sacrifice, the gift of our very life, to achieve the greatness that is within us. </span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><i><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I would love to kiss you.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">The price of kissing is your life.</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Now my loving is running toward my life shouting,</span><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">What a bargain, let's buy it. </span></i><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><br style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;" /><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">-Jelaluddin Rumi</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaF5uYQJZI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/3N1nidf7PjA/s1600/morrigan_1-18-11.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaF5uYQJZI/AAAAAAAAAWQ/3N1nidf7PjA/s640/morrigan_1-18-11.JPG" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Morrigan statue with cloak structure. Not Lady Gaga.</td></tr>
</tbody></table>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-61526301221837105042011-01-18T22:24:00.000-08:002011-01-18T22:24:27.939-08:00Morrigan ritual details for PantheaCon<div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">What I'm doing at PantheaCon this year:</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Call of the Battle Raven: A Morrigan Devotional</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Sunday February 20, 2011 - 9:00 pm</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Come lend your voice as we call the Morrigan, the great Celtic Goddess of death, battle, prophecy and Otherworldly power. In every heart She conjures the commitment of the warrior and the wisdom of the poet. She teaches us to find the steel within, unsheath our souls for the work that lies before us at this challenging moment in our history. In this ecstatic devotional ritual we will raise power to feed the Great Queen and offer our hearts that She may incite us to greatness.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://beansidhe.net/#/calendar/4535111343" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://beansidhe.net/#/calendar/4535111343</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">With Sharon Knight and T. Thorn Coyle!</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://sharonknight.net/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://sharonknight.net/</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><span style="font-size: small;"><a href="http://thorncoyle.com/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">http://thorncoyle.com/</a></span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaDh8UlqGI/AAAAAAAAAWM/XGbLX07cFr4/s1600/chariot_m.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaDh8UlqGI/AAAAAAAAAWM/XGbLX07cFr4/s1600/chariot_m.jpg" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><br />
</div>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2052359185125999548.post-45180896423422045692010-11-01T22:19:00.000-07:002011-01-20T09:46:56.008-08:00Morrigan, armed and disarmed<div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">After the deep journey of the Samhain gathering, I went out to work on the Morrigan statue today. She was with us in the ritual and through the haunted night, and still very present while I worked, layering resin onto the torso to strengthen it. I listened to the cool November wind in the pines and the calling of ravens, the ting-ting-ting of the hammer on the anvil and thought about ancestors.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">All the things our ancestors made, things we either cherish or forget. Old tools handed down or lost in a junk store somewhere. That tired quilt your mother kept. Old books, houses, handkerchiefs, weapons. Your very bones. The work of our ancestors' hands. You and I, each of us came from a line of ancestors. What did their hands, their minds make? Even if these things were not handed down to you, they are somewhere, whispering a story of the lives that shaped them. That story, and those works, are your inheritance.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">I thought about the work of my hands, this big work of devotional art that I am driven to create. I thought about the work of my husband's hands as he hammered down in the smithy. I thought, I am an ancestor. You, each of us is an ancestor. Even if you never have children yourself, you are part of a generation, and to those who come after, you will be an ancestor. What are the works of our hands? What are we building? Would your ancestors take pride in the works you are creating? Will your descendants?</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">In a little while, Shannon came up from the forge with a spear for the Morrigan, iron hafted on a long copper shaft. I fitted it on to the statue; She was armed.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Then while I bent down to clean my brushes before laying on the next layer of resin, the wind came up and knocked the statue over. She fell backwards against a pile of bricks. The right shoulder cracked open just before the join, and the left shoulder was crushed in where it impacted. I sat down, frustrated. I suppose the statue is getting a bit top-heavy and poorly balanced because of the arms and now an iron spearhead poised out in front; the little base the mannequin came with is no longer adequate to hold it up. I considered stopping work for the day. Eventually I took a long metal stake and pounded it in to the ground in my yard, and slid the hollow leg of the statue down over it. Now She was pretty firmly in place and I could keep working.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><span style="font-size: small;">Start again, just like on day one, reinforcing the shoulder joins. They were the weakest part of the statue to begin with, and I don't know if I can make them strong enough to hold the weight they need to when I start adding the framework for the cloak. I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm doing it anyway. You build, working toward something; sometimes it falls down, or you fall down. You breathe, get up, you keep on working. Our ancestors worked their way through glaciations, famines, wars, emigrations, always moving forward. If anyone in your ancestral line gave up on their journey, that line might not have been carried forward to your hands. We are the inheritors of a heroic legacy. No matter who you are, there are heroes in your line. Human beings who worked, suffered, sacrificed, quietly building your inheritance. Now it's your turn.</span></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaCsrhVM_I/AAAAAAAAAWE/bPXn74MwAaA/s1600/53064_163675683654892_138549466167514_374061_7345950_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaCsrhVM_I/AAAAAAAAAWE/bPXn74MwAaA/s640/53064_163675683654892_138549466167514_374061_7345950_o.jpg" width="480" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Statue as of November 1. Spear crafted for me by my awesome husband Shannon.</td></tr>
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaCumn7t1I/AAAAAAAAAWI/niuhQmXkMaA/s1600/53543_163675653654895_138549466167514_374060_7837037_o.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="640" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_R0tmgWod1S4/TTaCumn7t1I/AAAAAAAAAWI/niuhQmXkMaA/s640/53543_163675653654895_138549466167514_374060_7837037_o.jpg" width="480" /></a></div><div style="font-family: Georgia,'Times New Roman',serif;"><br />
</div>Morpheus Ravennahttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01671537285993199353noreply@blogger.com0