Archive | September 30, 2013

Good thing I was addicted to crunchy peanut butter as a kid. I still love it.

I’m getting excited!

The passage way below is what I wrote to the Heiromum back when we started the Grove when she asked me why I wanted to be a part of it. Now Laura has gone to the Summerlands and on Saturday the three of us left of the founders get to be consecrated Arch Druidesses. I now have to think of the other direction. What do I want to do to go forward?

So here goes:

Continue the Hazelwood Grove. We are about to have 2 new members.

Continue my pursuit of knowledge in Druidry.

Continue to further my connection to nature and the planet and work to heal my small part of her.

Continue to write stories and finish my books. Continue my blog to maybe change my corner of the internet.

Learn as much as I can about everything I’m interested in and venture into new spaces.

We also have to share our deities, not sure mine will be any different from the Grove’s deities that we agreed on in the beginning of the Grove, Brighid, Elen of the Ways and the Green Man. We have to pick an anam cara from nature, : “ trees, insects, reptiles, birds or animals that I have a connection with.”

I think that’s the hardest part. I have a connection to so much in nature that I love. I’m a double Gemini. I should at least get to choose 4, shouldn’t I? A double Gemini born a twin no less. At the moment, I’m thinking Coast Redwood, Incense Cedar or one of the California oaks, there are many or it could be the Egrets I love to watch at Sepulveda Wildlife Refuge.

We have to bring a staff or wand, a chaplet and a lunula to the ceremony. I’m getting excited.

“Thank you, Laura, our beloved Arch Druidess and Heiromum.

When I grow up I want to be an Archdruidess too.

"Laura, our new ArchDruidess asked me yesterday what being a Druid meant to me and why I wanted to be initiated into the DCD ( Druid Clan of Danu) and I felt so inarticulate and disarticulated (As in jumbled up) that I thought I’d try again.

I think it’s human nature for some humans to aspire to higher and greater than they are and spirituality is one of the most basic ways we come to this. When I was 12 I had to study through no choice of my own, the Presbyterian catechism and to join my parent’s church after 10 years of Sunday School and while I didn’t stay there I did pick some principles that define some of my spiritual life. There is a certain austerity and lack of pomp that accompanies my personal preference for spiritual practice. I took the majority of my belief system from what my Grandmother taught me about nature and what our family traditionally did and who we were and are.

When Wicca found me it fit for the most part and I was initiated into it and was ordained in the Temple of Isis/Los Angeles that satisfied the part of my spiritual needs that reach higher and gave me a wealth of love and sisterhood I treasure but I needed something more earth based too. I needed a foundation for that to comfortably rest upon. Wicca and TOILA is more cerebral and more oriented upward than it is earthly oriented and so I studied every book on Druidry that I could get my hands on and it helps answer that need. The rest is what my grandmother taught me and that is heavily linked to it in a much less formal way.

I have a great need to connect with nature. It’s why I worked at camps so many years and why I was Nature Director at some of them. It’s why I got my degree as a Naturalist. It’s why I helped write the Elliott Wildlife Values Project with my co-leader when I was a Girl Scout Professional. It’s why I garden and take walks in wild places and drag my friends along to my favourite sacred spaces here.

I love the green and barked, the fur and feathered and scaled. I love things that slither or walk on two legs, four legs, six legs, or eight legs, not so fond of the ones with more than that I have to admit. I see no difference between those who have leaves than the ones that can move more rapidly and why I would never, ever join PETA and it’s blinkered stance on what is worth protecting. Plants can communicate just as well as any furred or feathered friend you just have to listen differently and be more observant and science has proved that plants do react to pain and harsh stimulus and communicate that pain to their fellows. The very first thing I ever bought with my own money and saved up for when I was a kid was a lifetime membership in the National Wildlife Federation. They’ve been losing money on me for a long time. ;).

Druidry is the natural organized outlet for my spiritual focus and while it would not be necessary for me to be initiated I would love it. I have wanted it for a long time but I don’t like ADF’s approach and I personally couldn’t stand Isaac and his egotism. OBOD intrigued me but their correspondence course is prohibitively priced for me at the moment. I’ve read all the things on the FOI site about their Druidry group for many years but the nearest group in the US is in San Diego and that’s at least a 2 hour drive if not more to find like-minded souls. So hooray for setting up our own grove! And hooray for joining with my sisters to form this new spiritual entity and if more is needed I attach a couple of songs, one I wrote and one a song that was my favourite at camp.

Epona’s Creed

I believe in rolling seas

I believe in growing trees

I believe things that bloom

I believe in the changing moon

And all of these things I see

Come out of the air I breathe

They come from the fire and earth

These things that I hold of worth

I believe in faerie’s dreams

I believe in elven schemes

I believe that stones can dance

I believe there is more than chance

I believe in my sisters’ songs

I believe they make me strong

I believe the wheel has turned

This time we will not be burned

I believe in the eagle’s flight

I’ve flown with the owl at night

I listen to the raven’s call

There is wisdom there for all

I believe my hand can heal

I believe the goddess in the mirror is real I believe I have to sing That is how my soul takes wing.

Kat

Birthright

We who are born in country places

Far from the city and shifting faces

We have a birthright no man can sell

And a secret joy no man can tell

For we are kindred to lordly things

The wild ducks flight and the white owl’s wing Pike and salmon, bull and horse The curlew’s cry and the smell of gorse

Pride of tree, swiftness of stream

The magic of frost has shaped our dreams No greater vision the spirit fills Who walk by right on the naked hills."

For those with questions on the deck I use for readings

Sep30

In answer to darsword and others. 🙂
Because I have gotten several questions in the last few days, the readings are from Chesca Potter’s and Mark Ryan’s first and best tarot deck in my opinion, The Greenwood Deck. This deck is no longer in print and Mark did a new one with Bill Worthington which while lovely does not have the magic of Chesca’s drawings for me.

No one currently knows where Chesca is, internet rumours of her going fundamentalist, not withstanding. She was a member of FOI for many years and was very well known and loved as a member but she did have some mental health problems. Not even her brother knows her current whereabouts and she may very well have passed the veil but no one knows. Her beautiful deck lives on. There were two websites dedicated to the Greenwood deck. One had Chesca’s interpretations and one had both Mark’s before the break and after the break a little of Chesca’s . Only the second website is currently up and it is the one that I draw from every day. Http://www.greenwood-tarot.com. You can do several spreads on the website and it links to other more popular decks like Rider Waite.

It is the deck we used to do reading when we set up our grove and when we consecrate new members.

I have the deck and love it to death as well as her shaman deck http://www.amazon.com/The-Celtic-Shamans-Pack-Exploring/dp/1852304812/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380578542&sr=8-1&keywords=shaman+deck+%2C+chesca+potter. The Shamanic deck you might actually be able to afford.

http://www.amazon.com/The-Greenwood-Tarot-Pre-Celtic-Shamanism/dp/1855383845/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1380578542&sr=8-2&keywords=shaman+deck+%2C+chesca+potter
I started doing the readings for me but I have found out over the process of posting that they seem to call to other people so if they help you, I’m glad. I have over 60 decks at home but over the years have dropped down to this one, and the Faery Oracle because it’s more conversational and less symbolic, plus I love the Froud’s artwork.
When I read for friends, I use the deck that calls to them. I give them the choice. I no longer read for strangers as I have had too many experiences that were just plain scary or weird. It’s bad enough when it’s a friend let alone a stranger.

I was lucky enough to be given the deck by one of my first Wicca 101 classes and it was autographed by Mark because the class new I loved the BBC Robin of Sherwoid series which I highly recommend as it has Herne the Hunter as a character as well as Mark as the Saracen.