Of Titles and Such

As the Chief Druid/Abbess/Priestess of Grēne Harow grove, I wear black robes. Well, I do now.

As a Druid I started with white. I maintained that as Abbess (once I went through the rite), and as an ordained a consecrated Priestess. I did this because the color of Druidry, modern Druidry, is white. Yet I am not only a Druid. I also practice Witchcraft. I am not particularly fond of white; it is easily dirty, difficult to clean, and I look rather like a tall ship under full sail when using it. I do like black, and always have. Dirt does not show so easily, it is slimming, and as something of a loner, it helps keep me that way. It always has.

I had, of course, come across comments that female Druids wore black, or orange, or what have you, anyone studying Druidry at all these days will come across this. I read the refutation; that the text actually says funeral colors and the colors of the funeral in Rome were white at that time (Tacitus). I have never seen anything that refers to orange. However, if we assume Tacitus was speaking only from a Roman perspective, then likely they were robed in white. Further study has me thinking this is not the case. I think he was speaking of the funeral colors of the Celts. Their underworld. Black. Or dark anyway. Black will do.

Further study has simply reinforced this idea. So, black it is. For practicing Witchcraft, for Druidry, even for the Temple and Abbey. One color, all devotions. This is, of course, a personal thing, but it makes a lot of sense for me. If I need other colors, they can be accents. For example, as a Sister of Avalon (this is really dear to me), I'd wear black...and blue, or just black. A bit of blue for the bard I think. I have a tabbard, reversible, white and green. I can accommodate pretty much anything. It makes things easier.

Ritual clothing of black, everyday clothing of black, or at least, predominantly black. I have a lot of black clothing from older days. They did not call me 'the Black' without reason. It also means my Witches hat works with things too. The original one was of leather and made the sorting hat look new. The one I have now I have not often used until recently as I have revisited my Craftwork. I wear it for casting, enchanting, and other workings. It is a very nice hat, made for me by a very nice Witch. The old velveteen cloak of black was also rarely worn. Once or twice at most. I'm going to give it a blue linen lining.

My path to this point has involved a great many different things. It has come full circle. I have begun studying Witchcraft again, going over what I knew, learning new things, and feeling very at home with it. I am also a Sister of Avalon...and I adore this tradition. I am completing my Ovate program with the OBOD.

What am I? Well...I dunno. A Sister of the Avalonian Tradition who practices the Craft and with Druid training to boot. Honestly, thus far the Avalonian Tradition has a lot more in common with Witchcraft than most other things, although the philosophy is similar to Druidry. In the end, I am simply me. I am aware this approach could piss off a large number of people. So be it. I have to do what suits me and as I am directed.

Titles mean little to me on the whole Some that do matter, to one degree or another; Witch. Sister. Druid. To my mind and in my path, only the Gods can make Priests and Priestesses. That She has decided to make me such is an ever-humbling pleasure. Yes, I have been ordained in Orders. It matters little compared to Her regard and service to Her. It matters not at all if another disagrees or disapproves. I answer to Herself and if She is happy, I am good.

As the Sisterhood says, it takes more than schools and courses and ceremonies to make a Priestess. Only the Goddess can do that. Aye.

Silverhair /|\

An Extraordinary Realization

I began reading the book 'The Isle of Avalon' by Nicholas R. Mann. It has some photographs of the Tor...but also some taken from the Tor of the surrounding countryside. It caused a lightbulb to go off in my head. I am surprised it has taken so very long for this realization to happen. Then again, if I have any Wisdom at all, why should I have expected it to come at any other time?

What I am speaking of is the journey of centering I use...which came from the healing and centering ceremony three Witches led me through a long time ago. It went (goes) like this;

'Standing in a meadow. There are wild flowers everywhere and a stream runs close by. Everything is so very green and colorful..as if colors were new made. The air is sweet with scent, the breeze cool on my face; the sun is very bright and warm. There is a constant low hum from the bees and other insects, and the chuckling, bubbling sound of the stream as it goes its way.

I notice a hill in the near distance. It has no trees or bushes on it that I can see from this spot. It is kind of odd in shape, sort of stepped it seems. Curious, I make my way in that direction. After a time of wandering through the meadow and small copses of trees, I come to the base of the hill. There is a path leading upward. I look around, seeing no one at all. Looking back at the path I think a good look at the area around would be beneficial, so I start to climb. It is not long before I realize I am spiraling up the hill. At each turning around an end I pause to look over the lands receding below me. 

After reaching the summit of the hill, I make it seven times 'round to get here, I pause to have a look about. There is a single tree growing here, a bit battered by the wind I think. There is also a cave opening. I amble over the cave, enjoying the grand view of the surrounding landscape along the way. Arriving at the cave mouth, I peer within. I am not so sure I want to go in there. It slopes downward..but there is no knowing how far it goes or how stable it is. I have to struggle with myself for a while.

Finally I enter; the air is cool and moist. I begin to go down. I wonder that I can see easily despite being out of view of the cave mouth. It does not take long for me to realize I am spiraling down as I came up...but at each 'turn' I see a bit of my past played out for me. I watch these 'shows' without judgement, without justification, as objective as possible. I see things I like...and things I do not like. I do not recriminate myself, or berate myself. I make quiet resolve to work at correcting what I do not like. I get younger as I go down, in these images. 

Eventually I reach the bottom. I am in the Center of myself. I know without wondering why that I can get here from now on without having to watch the replays of my life. I can work on myself from here, and be safe in here, no matter what is happening outside. '

This is rather abbreviated and I have left a fair bit out, but this is the gist. The similarities in views from the hill in the journey and in the photographs from the Tor are kind of scary, really. I should have noted the similarities long ago, but I did not. I only noted them a few moments ago.

I still go to that meadow with the Tor in the near distance. Anytime I want to center myself or retreat from things. It was the Tor, I am pretty sure. Or at least, a version of it. After all, it is not exact. The cave the White Spring comes out of is not on the top of the Tor, for one thing. The tree on it in the journey was not a thorn tree but an oak. So differences...but it is the Tor, I am pretty sure.

Dewin Arthes /|\

Song of Healing, Song of Transition

Sometimes we go through fallow periods. Life asserts itself and the cares of the manifest rise up to claim the bulk of our attention. When this happens I keep things going from the spiritual perspective by walks in the forested hills and mountains, or working in the garden, or simple taking the odd bits of time to sit and meditate..and reflect on things. Fear not. Things are still going on inside, deep in the unconscious mind. Lessons are being digested and sorted, absorbed and learned. Eventually the manifest melts back into the place I prefer to be in life and I can focus on my studies and works once again.

So it has been. I began looking to my roots and re-centering and focusing myself, 'reclaiming' my Witchcraft, in a way. I am still doing that. I am also progressing in my Druidry.

I started the Ovate grade of the OBOD with the old course about ten years ago, more like 11 I think, now. The Ovate grade is notorious for taking its own sweet time in getting to the end for a lot of people. When I returned to it a year ago the course had been updated...so I needed the new course material, which I obtained. I got a new tutor/mentor as well.

The thing that tripped me up in the old course was the requirement for a project. I am horrid at coming up with projects that I think are worthwhile to do, or that I haven't already done. When this sort of task is before me, I want to learn from it, not capitalize on something I already did. For me, that is the lazy way out...not a path I take. I couldn't come up with anything, which is when the Manifest rose up and distracted me.

Now I am back on course and I have a project. One worthy of the effort too, and very possibly helpful to others. My tutor has noted before that I seem to have a lyrical nature, as he put it. That is, my correspondences indicated a tendency to flowing ideas and concepts, very Bardic. Previously I had always had the problem of the projects I thought of being more Bardic than Ovate. I had real problems with this. My tutor has indicated that there is nothing wrong with utilizing Bardic skills and tendencies for an Ovate project. Particularly setting something to music, something that has to do with the Ovate grade. An Ovate is a Seer, yes, but also a Healer, and we deal with the Grand Cycle. The upshot is, I will be using my harp as I craft a Song of Healing, and a Song of Transition.

Using harps to heal people is a well enough known idea..that is, playing music to help folk heal or relax. People play harps at clinics, hospitals, etc. Nothing new there. I shall be crafting my songs specifically from an Ovate perspective, and since I have crossed the Veil myself (and still live in that world along with this one), I will also craft a song to assist in the Transition from this world to the Other. That latter would aid me in my Death Watches, for certain.

I have never truly composed anything...yes, I have created simple songs with chords and such, set stories to various short melodies and chords...but I have never actually composed something before. This will be a first. It is a huge project for me in a lot of ways, the least being the newness of the experience. Most importantly is how this could help others. How will I know it works? In the first case by using it on myself and others close to me. In the second...I will simply know. I understand the crossing.

Here I sit, all in black, with my Pentacle and Awen symbols on my breast. When I go out, I use my cloak. I have my staff. I am definitely getting in deeper touch with myself and who I am, as well as the long Path I have walked to get where I am now. There is still a long way to go.

To the Bards' Keep! There is much to do, much to learn. To the Isle of Apples! No place is sweeter and better for the calm of the spirit.

Set fingers to string, let sound the Harp! :)

It is a good day.

Siani

Thoughts

A number of things on my mind of late.

I have been returning to my roots, as it were, revisiting the early years of my paganism. I studied Witchcraft then...as a solo...and went through a lot of silliness and garbage in the learning before I learned to distinguish between junk and treasure. It was worth it. I learned much. However, there were problems. I loved Witchcraft, but being in the Marines, and being at odds with my self to boot, it felt odd. The attraction was real, the desires real, the identification was real...the Goddesses were of course, real. I have always been a follower of the Goddesses. I acknowledge the Gods, yes, but my devotion is given to the Goddesses and always has been.

I always loved the night. The stars, the moon, the shadows within shadows. All of this had to be kept under wraps..although I got caught with tarot cards once and hauled up to face the music while still on active service. Unpleasant...but it did not change a thing.

The few pagans I knew often made comments about my love of nature...said I was more druid-like or a green witch. I'd not heard of modern druidry then. I cam across it first as a book by Nuin of OBOD. The Order was then reviving and was in England and was expensive so it was, at that time, a dead end. I later came across reconstructionist Druid groups; ADF, and later, Keltria. The first was not a good fit at all and I shall not go into why beyond saying their outlook and mind were at odds in a lot of ways. Their scholarship is outstanding..but there is more to it than that. Keltria just felt kind of like Wicca with variant ADF bits tossed in. Mind you, that was my personal reaction to it, I am not saying that is what it is. I found an online group called Whiteoak and joined their email group. I was there for the huge meltdown and met JMG there, Grand Archdruid of the AODA. It was and is an American based Druid Order. I joined up...I am still a member. I had by this time also joined the OBOD and had completed my Bard Grade training and was well into Ovate training. I still have to complete that, by the way.

I read everything I could find on the Druids and modern Druidry. The two are entirely different. The two Orders I belong to are revivalist Druidry, derived from lodge structures of the 18th and 19 centuries. ADF is reconstructionist, that is, they are trying to reconstruct the actual beliefs and practices of ancient Druids, a pursuit I find unlikely to succeed. Druidy of the ancients was not a religion; they were Polytheists. The Druid Class was a group of people who recorded histories and kept the law (Bards), seers and prophets who oversaw sacrifices and dealt with Death (Ovates), and judges and philosphers, pursuers of Wisdom (Druids). They were positions within a class, not a religion. Were they priestes and priestesses? Undoubtedly. Yet they were priests and priestesses of a polytheist system. All we have of them was written by enemies or people from around their culture, nothing from the Druids themselves or from their people. A religion or belief system is cultural..that is, it develops from and culture. Importantly, it also comes from a given environment. As a result, I think all we can really do is create an image of what we believe they might have had in place. We no longer have the culture or environment they had, nor the social weave. So I think reconstruction is fascinating, great at scholarly exploration, but ultimately unattainable. Without a time machine. ;)

Modern Druidry, as a philosophy, a way of nature spirituality and lifepath, is very good. I find it lacking as a religion and I have remained staunchly polytheist. That is my 'religion' if I have to put it that way.

I still prefer the night. I like to wear black...I wasn't called 'the Black' for nothing all those years. The tools of Witchcraft and Druidry are essentially the same. Druids have a sickle or boline, but so do some Witches, so there's a lot of overlap. We all grow herbs and other things, care for the natural world, seek harmony in our lives. One of the larger differences would be magic. Some Druid groups practice 'Druid magic'...which isn't really any different from Witch magic, but magic as a practice is far more common with Wiccans and Witches than with Druids in my experience. Druidry tends to be a daylight and pretty open practice, where Witchcraft tends to be of the night and more closed. Witches have Covens, Druids have Groves. Numbers can and do vary.

The two practices have far more in common than they have differences.

Even the wearing of black. There are many Druid groups whose female members wear black. Often, a certain passage in Tacitus triggers this; he described the women screaming and waving torches during the invasion of Mona as wearing funeral colors. That is taken by many to mean black...and that is fine. If taken in Roman context, it is not so clear; white was the color of mourning in ancient Rome, as it is in many places today. Some say women druids wore orange. I have no idea where this came from.

I prefer black. It is not my best color...unless I have my Grim on. However, it is the color I have most preferred over the decades. It has the benefit of not showing dirt so well...try gardening in white for a while...and getting all the dirt out. Yeah, that's a lot of work if it can be done at all. White is cool in sunlight, yes, and it is the mark of purity as well...but I am neither pure nor do I prefer the sun (these days also for health reasons).

I'm a Bard..yes, and that is a Druid. I am an Ovate, yes, and that is a Druid. I am a Druid too. But I am also a Witch, if not one of the Big Witches. What it all comes down to is that I am a Priestess, regardless of the rest of it, and I serve the All Mother and Her Daughters. The rest of it is decoration on that basic truth. I am a Pagan Priestess....She has made me so. I am delighted to so serve.

End of story.

Update

It has been a while. I have been in the Mists, to a large degree, and rambling about the forested hills. There is no better place for contemplation than the wilderness.

Yes, I completed orientation and became a full Sister of Avalon after accepting the dictates and requirements of the Order. It is a fine fit for me, I might add. The Avalonian Tradition is satisfying and very good fit for Druidry and the Temple.

The Temple and Druidry are the day, the sun, fire.

The Sisterhood is the night, the moon, and water.

I am a Cancer with Leo rising....water and fire. I have very clear elements of both in me.

In the Sisterhood I have entered the Lodge of the Lorekeepers and the Lodge of the Guardians. What they are precisely I shall not say, but they suit me well.

My voice will return to me soon and I count this a fine thing and a heavy thing. It returns so that I may begin to use story, myth, and music to float ideas and concepts. It might be though seriously difficult due to my performance anxiety, but I think Jen has the right of it when she opines that it will disappear once my voice returns and it is time.

Already verse and notes gather in my mind and heart, stories form in my thoughts. Change is beginning yet again. So it always is.

I do not worry so much of the future these days. All things in their time and as they are meant to be. I am on borrowed time already, after all. Twice She has sent me back. She could call me now, or years from now. It is not something worth worrying over. I long ago dealt with my mortality...and I live in the Otherworld much of the time as it is. A foot in both worlds, so to speak.

I am getting healthier, hiking the mountain trails, spending time out of doors, meditating deeply, and studying.

Mediation can change a persons' DNA, there is little doubt of that any longer, what with the newer studies. It is not news to me. It requires the kind of mediation few folk do, but there it is..the chance to sort some things is within reach.

I have cocooned my travel harp, Cyfnos Can, in duct tape. She is to receive the first case so that I may begin taking her with me in my camping and rambling trips into the wilderness. When I do this I shall sit down to compose and play and if folk come by and hear, so much the better. This is when the voice will begin to return, I am pretty sure.

I shall take harps to the stone circle and play for the stones and spirits there.

Old interests and hobbies are falling away. It is kind of like shedding a skin.

I am still working on the harp kit...carving...and I have begun the lyre kit. That lyre is like to travel far with me because it is small and lightweight. It will do until I build a good 6th century lyre.

I visit the Apple Orchards a lot these days, and the Bards' Keep as well.

Siani

Spiritual Work

Avalonian Tradition is a good fit with Druidry, in my opinion. Different, of course, but the basic idea of it fits well.

Avalonian Tradition dictates we strip away everything until our authentic selves are revealed. To work with this, ritual is approached without makeup of any kind, without anything other than jewelry that holds spiritual and ritual significance, and wearing robes of dark blue and cloaks of black, in natural fabrics. This material is in the publicly available book 'Avalon Within' so I am revealing no secrets here. Use of a 'silver branch' is part of it, the branch being made of apple wood with nine silver bells along its length. I have a nice apple wand to which I will append said silver bells.

I am enjoying the discussions on the SoA Orientation list. Those I shall not speak of as that is a safe space and will remain so.

One thing that became rather clear, and which is not confidential, is that this period of Orientation is not to see if we are a good fit for the Order, but rather to see if the Order is a good fit for us. That might seem minor but it is not..in effect, we are testing the Order to see if it works for us. When our applications were accepted we became members of the SoA. This period is meant for us to ensure we really want to go forward. I like this approach.

So far I have found nothing to convince me I should not go forward..but there are 8 weeks remaining yet.

My Bardic pursuits continue, and I admit the blue robe works well with this. I already have a blue cloak of course, although the black one would do well enough I think. I have my new tuner so I may tune the harps to 432 hz, a match for the natural frequencies around us. Far more soothing and healing.

The building of instruments continues as well.

Temple work goes on as well. The painting of silk is part of this endeavor. Some scarves, banners, and 'prayer flags' of a sort. Other projects as well but I shall not speak of those at the moment; it is too early.

My OBOD studies are moving along. I need to contact my Mentor and prepare to complete the course now. :) I am looking forward to the Druid Grade studies. I doubt I can make the East Coast gathering this year, but we shall see.

AODA activities continue as well. The solitary nature of things suiting me well enough.

My spiritual life and philosophies continue on...and I expect the forthcoming AT through hike will have a major impact on some of it. How can it not? Five or six months wandering through the Wilderness (I plan to go into towns solely for resupply) cannot but have a massive impact on me. I look forward to it.

Siani /|\

Harp and Avalon

Orientation with the Sisterhood of Avalon is going along well, I think. I cannot say much more about that...it is, after all, a sort of Safe Space and what is said and done there (the Orientation List) pretty much stays there. Thus far I rather like the Avalonian Tradition.

Very cold this morning, and overnight with a gale of a wind. Cold water pipe is frozen...surprisingly, as it is usually the hot water that freezes and we had both dribbling. Not sure if we can actually thaw this one out. Hot air blower in action.

Making turmeric capsules, off and on, while listening to music or whatever. Vegetable capsules, 100% pure turmeric powder, very small funnel, baby spoon, cork with hole for holding capsules. Working on a framework for the funnel to make it even easier. Not terribly messy as is, but it could be more efficient with both hands available to work rather than one having to hold and brace. A lot cheaper than buying the things.

Harp work is taking a seat closer to the front of things, both building and playing. It is necessary. Fortunately it is not a burden and is, in fact, pleasurable. I could wish all things worked this way.

Woolen clothing; dresses and skirts, as well as a few tunics. Even some things for events to come..including performing with the harp. It is a necessary thing to do and I have skirted it and fought with it off and on. I am effectively out of time and chances on this one so I am going to have to beard the beast, as it were, and get it done.

I have been working with 'The Bardic Handbook' and it has been interesting. Among other things, I have a Bardic Name. It is in Welsh, as close as I can make it, and consists of three elements combined..in a way. Well, two are combined, one separate.

Home is Telynores Plas. Or Delynores Blas, not sure on the mutation bit. I really ought to sit down and get one of those really good courses on the language. Add that to the list. ;)

Work goes on, as it always does.

Creyr Gwerydd Derwydd /|\

(or something like that) ;)