Ceremonies, Magic and Meanings in my life right now.
This is a long post, because it covers quite a bit of information and experience that has happened over the last 2 weeks or so. i will try and break it up into smaller cuts so you can read (or not) the parts that are important. (I have to make at least one other post today, so my apologies to those who's friends pages this might affect.)
So. Off to the races.
So, on Saturday the 15th, the 5 year anniversary of Tarra's death, I was away at camp. Sex camp...but amazingly enough, the most important parts of it had nothing to do with sex. The 2 most important things that happened that week were the Rope Magic Ritual and my corsetry piercing done the following day. But first the rope ritual.
Earlier in the day there had been a class on Binding Intentions. It was fabulous. Between the way the legend of Grandmother Spider was retold so vividly I could almost picture the web of stars at night in the clear blue sky above me, to the actual meat of the class and learning new things about an area of magical practice I had never used before, it was a great couple of hours.
So the time for the ritual had come. It was a very small group of us, but it worked well. In thinking about the things I wanted and needed to ask for, the things I felt most important in my life...I found it heartwrenching, and yet, almost relieving, that the one thing I thought for sure all day that I would ask for of the universe, I could not. No matter how I tried to phrase it, no matter how I tried to think of it and will it into my soul, I could not ask the universe to give us another child.
It was almost as if someone else were directing my thoughts and feelings in that space.
It may well be that asking for specifics in ritual space is usually the best way to go...because it assures us an answer we expect and takes the Gods sometimes unhuman sense of humor out of the picture. For the life of me that night, in that space, I could not be specific in my dreams, in my wishes, in my very human wants. It was almost as if, I had finally come around, and agreed, that perhaps now was the time to let go and let the universe guide me for a while.
25ish hours later, we burned the dream catcher to send out our magic to the universe. While watching it burn (hemp rope takes quite a while) I was hypnotized by the flames. This didn't really surprise me, as it happens fairly often when I focus on a flame that way. What surprised me, was that the deeper I felt myself go, the more separated my conciousness was from my body, the clearer the images came to me in the fire...always before they were vague and half formed...on that night, they were clear as looking at poster sized photographs.
So as we stood there, and the first image came to me (A frog), I bowed my head to the flames, to the spirit of the Frog. I had the uncanny feeling that something important was being said, but having only really ever learned about my own totem, Wolf, I couldn't have said then what it was, only that something big was going to change.
Almost without my own volition, I felt the urge to move, to study the flames from a different perspective, and without meaning to, I started what looked to be a solemn sort of dance around the flames. As I moved from my spot, so everyone else there shifted around the flames as well. At each stop, I found yet another messenger waiting for me in the flames. After Frog, came Snake, then my own totem Wolf, followed by Bear, and then Gorrilla.
When we had made a full circuit, I expected Frog to be gone, but there he was, slightly blended it seemed with Toad, a bit broader, a bit stronger, as if emphasizing some point...telling me...its all related, but different....urging me on, telling me not to forget.
With a bow to the fire one last time, we broke the circle, and sent out our final wishes to the stars. It was breathtaking. Had there been any more focused energy there that night, I might well have succumbed to it physically. As it was, I did not even feel the walk back to the cabin, my body was blissfully silent, despite the hard climb back up the hill that night.
I think, in the end it was somewhat touched upon, the meaning that is, what those Spirits were telling me was coming, when I did the tarot draw that was posted a couple of days ago. The message was certainly similar. After I got home I looked up the animal spirits that had come to me, using the book "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven D. Farmer. It is by far the most complete work I have on animal spirits (I also have Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, but it did not contain references to all of the spirits I saw that night, so I have only skimmed it.)
I won't post the complete individual meanings here...but the ones that pertained most to me. The overall effect, which both stunned me, and yet, left me feeling like, I knew this, this is finally right...and I can accept it now. (the messages in parenthesis are my take on the message).
"This is the start of a slow and steady transformational process for you, a movement from an old life to a new." --Frog
(If this is still the start, then yes, it will be long...as all of this started almost a year ago and I have come full circle along with our year. I think in this instance, slow and steady is a good thing...and I am greatful for the reassurance.)
"You're about to go through some significant personal changes, so intense and dramatic that an old self will metaphorically die as a new self emerges. You'll feel a surge of energy that will...open up new channels of awareness. You'll experience dramatic and unexpected...emotional healing very soon, coming from an unexpected source." --Snake
(Its a little past due, my habit of mini-death. Then again, perhaps not quite so...as I have felt it coming for years now...I am half looking forward to, and half afraid, that this particular cycle of death and rebirth for me, may be one of the hardest ones I've faced, and I've faced some doozies. This one though, will be different from the others I think...always before it was a personal death...a mundane death. This has a different flavor all together).
"Characteristics and behaviors that no longer serve your spiritual purpose are being culled from your conciousness. Valuable insights, ideas, and new teachings are coming your way, so pay close attention. You're being spiritually and psychically protected at all times." --Wolf
(I'm grateful to Wolf for his continued protection. I only hope I am serving him to his satisfaction. I also should add, that I am not a quiet person...and I freely admit now, though I may deny it to my friends later, that I have a great deal of time learning and accepting anything while my mind and mouth are running...some of this upcoming enforced silence will be challenging for me...though no doubt this is why I felt, "but I have to do it anyway".)
"Ask for what you want, whether or not you feel you'll get it. Take time out from your usual routines and spend some time in solitude." --Bear
(Done and Done. And I am thankful the response was given as it was. Both the challenge of it, and the ability to prove myself worthy, will be good in multiple ways. I know it will help to increase the idea that this is indeed where I belong, and it will help me stay focused on my goals in my path.)
"Clear and concise communication is very important at this time, so listen carefully and speak sparingly and articulately. An important teacher is about to come into your life--one who is wise and knowledgeable, yet unpretentious." --Gorilla
(I have finally, semi-formally asked about the possibility of at least one teacher. I am hoping that in the long run, I will meet many more. This message prepared me for the response I was given, and tells me *why* I felt like, no matter how incomplete the experience might seem from the outside looking in, because of limitations set upon it...there is a lesson in me for this....one i could not learn with full participation.)
"It's a good time to withdraw into solitude and contemplate emotional or spiritual matters. This is an opportunity to contact your most primal, instinctual self--the part of you that's the seed of any new personal and spiritual growth. This is a volitile period of change, one where you'll feel unsettled and fragmented, yet one in which a new "you" will emerge feeling more integrated and whole." --Toad
(More growth, more change....a summary really of what all of the other Spirits had already told me. Confirmation. It's a good thing.)
So, emotional and spiritual upheavals, check....I'll get to that in a few minutes when I talk about the pierced corsetry....and already covered some of it, in my inability to ask for a child. Some of the upheaval I haven't discussed save for with 1 person...and then really we only touched the edges of it...but its there.
Slow and steady isn't usually my forte in spiritual arena. Things have happened rather rapidly to this point...but if the upcoming week is any indication, this part of my growth may indeed be slow....which is a good thing. I need a bit more humility in my life sometimes, and I am up for the challenge. I asked for what I wanted (to be able to go and be somewhere I knew in my mind I would not be allowed) even though I didn't expect it to happen. Well, it is happening. Not completely. But it is enough. And I will have, most likely, quite a bit of solitude while there. Overall...I have to say, this is definately looking to be my year of change. And I will soon be thanking the spirits who have shown me the way.
I think I will end this here for now. Its a mini-book all its own...though I am glad I finally got it down somewhere...As insight comes, I may add more elsewhere, but this is good for now. Reliving it as I've typed this out, has left me feeling a bit spaced out of my body...i don't know that I have the energy reserve now to go into the piercing incident. So I will leave that for now and come back to it later. That one I know I will not forget, the importance of it will keep it pure and intact within me for a long time to come.
So. Off to the races.
So, on Saturday the 15th, the 5 year anniversary of Tarra's death, I was away at camp. Sex camp...but amazingly enough, the most important parts of it had nothing to do with sex. The 2 most important things that happened that week were the Rope Magic Ritual and my corsetry piercing done the following day. But first the rope ritual.
Earlier in the day there had been a class on Binding Intentions. It was fabulous. Between the way the legend of Grandmother Spider was retold so vividly I could almost picture the web of stars at night in the clear blue sky above me, to the actual meat of the class and learning new things about an area of magical practice I had never used before, it was a great couple of hours.
So the time for the ritual had come. It was a very small group of us, but it worked well. In thinking about the things I wanted and needed to ask for, the things I felt most important in my life...I found it heartwrenching, and yet, almost relieving, that the one thing I thought for sure all day that I would ask for of the universe, I could not. No matter how I tried to phrase it, no matter how I tried to think of it and will it into my soul, I could not ask the universe to give us another child.
It was almost as if someone else were directing my thoughts and feelings in that space.
It may well be that asking for specifics in ritual space is usually the best way to go...because it assures us an answer we expect and takes the Gods sometimes unhuman sense of humor out of the picture. For the life of me that night, in that space, I could not be specific in my dreams, in my wishes, in my very human wants. It was almost as if, I had finally come around, and agreed, that perhaps now was the time to let go and let the universe guide me for a while.
25ish hours later, we burned the dream catcher to send out our magic to the universe. While watching it burn (hemp rope takes quite a while) I was hypnotized by the flames. This didn't really surprise me, as it happens fairly often when I focus on a flame that way. What surprised me, was that the deeper I felt myself go, the more separated my conciousness was from my body, the clearer the images came to me in the fire...always before they were vague and half formed...on that night, they were clear as looking at poster sized photographs.
So as we stood there, and the first image came to me (A frog), I bowed my head to the flames, to the spirit of the Frog. I had the uncanny feeling that something important was being said, but having only really ever learned about my own totem, Wolf, I couldn't have said then what it was, only that something big was going to change.
Almost without my own volition, I felt the urge to move, to study the flames from a different perspective, and without meaning to, I started what looked to be a solemn sort of dance around the flames. As I moved from my spot, so everyone else there shifted around the flames as well. At each stop, I found yet another messenger waiting for me in the flames. After Frog, came Snake, then my own totem Wolf, followed by Bear, and then Gorrilla.
When we had made a full circuit, I expected Frog to be gone, but there he was, slightly blended it seemed with Toad, a bit broader, a bit stronger, as if emphasizing some point...telling me...its all related, but different....urging me on, telling me not to forget.
With a bow to the fire one last time, we broke the circle, and sent out our final wishes to the stars. It was breathtaking. Had there been any more focused energy there that night, I might well have succumbed to it physically. As it was, I did not even feel the walk back to the cabin, my body was blissfully silent, despite the hard climb back up the hill that night.
I think, in the end it was somewhat touched upon, the meaning that is, what those Spirits were telling me was coming, when I did the tarot draw that was posted a couple of days ago. The message was certainly similar. After I got home I looked up the animal spirits that had come to me, using the book "Animal Spirit Guides" by Steven D. Farmer. It is by far the most complete work I have on animal spirits (I also have Animal Speak by Ted Andrews, but it did not contain references to all of the spirits I saw that night, so I have only skimmed it.)
I won't post the complete individual meanings here...but the ones that pertained most to me. The overall effect, which both stunned me, and yet, left me feeling like, I knew this, this is finally right...and I can accept it now. (the messages in parenthesis are my take on the message).
"This is the start of a slow and steady transformational process for you, a movement from an old life to a new." --Frog
(If this is still the start, then yes, it will be long...as all of this started almost a year ago and I have come full circle along with our year. I think in this instance, slow and steady is a good thing...and I am greatful for the reassurance.)
"You're about to go through some significant personal changes, so intense and dramatic that an old self will metaphorically die as a new self emerges. You'll feel a surge of energy that will...open up new channels of awareness. You'll experience dramatic and unexpected...emotional healing very soon, coming from an unexpected source." --Snake
(Its a little past due, my habit of mini-death. Then again, perhaps not quite so...as I have felt it coming for years now...I am half looking forward to, and half afraid, that this particular cycle of death and rebirth for me, may be one of the hardest ones I've faced, and I've faced some doozies. This one though, will be different from the others I think...always before it was a personal death...a mundane death. This has a different flavor all together).
"Characteristics and behaviors that no longer serve your spiritual purpose are being culled from your conciousness. Valuable insights, ideas, and new teachings are coming your way, so pay close attention. You're being spiritually and psychically protected at all times." --Wolf
(I'm grateful to Wolf for his continued protection. I only hope I am serving him to his satisfaction. I also should add, that I am not a quiet person...and I freely admit now, though I may deny it to my friends later, that I have a great deal of time learning and accepting anything while my mind and mouth are running...some of this upcoming enforced silence will be challenging for me...though no doubt this is why I felt, "but I have to do it anyway".)
"Ask for what you want, whether or not you feel you'll get it. Take time out from your usual routines and spend some time in solitude." --Bear
(Done and Done. And I am thankful the response was given as it was. Both the challenge of it, and the ability to prove myself worthy, will be good in multiple ways. I know it will help to increase the idea that this is indeed where I belong, and it will help me stay focused on my goals in my path.)
"Clear and concise communication is very important at this time, so listen carefully and speak sparingly and articulately. An important teacher is about to come into your life--one who is wise and knowledgeable, yet unpretentious." --Gorilla
(I have finally, semi-formally asked about the possibility of at least one teacher. I am hoping that in the long run, I will meet many more. This message prepared me for the response I was given, and tells me *why* I felt like, no matter how incomplete the experience might seem from the outside looking in, because of limitations set upon it...there is a lesson in me for this....one i could not learn with full participation.)
"It's a good time to withdraw into solitude and contemplate emotional or spiritual matters. This is an opportunity to contact your most primal, instinctual self--the part of you that's the seed of any new personal and spiritual growth. This is a volitile period of change, one where you'll feel unsettled and fragmented, yet one in which a new "you" will emerge feeling more integrated and whole." --Toad
(More growth, more change....a summary really of what all of the other Spirits had already told me. Confirmation. It's a good thing.)
So, emotional and spiritual upheavals, check....I'll get to that in a few minutes when I talk about the pierced corsetry....and already covered some of it, in my inability to ask for a child. Some of the upheaval I haven't discussed save for with 1 person...and then really we only touched the edges of it...but its there.
Slow and steady isn't usually my forte in spiritual arena. Things have happened rather rapidly to this point...but if the upcoming week is any indication, this part of my growth may indeed be slow....which is a good thing. I need a bit more humility in my life sometimes, and I am up for the challenge. I asked for what I wanted (to be able to go and be somewhere I knew in my mind I would not be allowed) even though I didn't expect it to happen. Well, it is happening. Not completely. But it is enough. And I will have, most likely, quite a bit of solitude while there. Overall...I have to say, this is definately looking to be my year of change. And I will soon be thanking the spirits who have shown me the way.
I think I will end this here for now. Its a mini-book all its own...though I am glad I finally got it down somewhere...As insight comes, I may add more elsewhere, but this is good for now. Reliving it as I've typed this out, has left me feeling a bit spaced out of my body...i don't know that I have the energy reserve now to go into the piercing incident. So I will leave that for now and come back to it later. That one I know I will not forget, the importance of it will keep it pure and intact within me for a long time to come.