Priestess-in-Training

Recently, I’ve been interested in rites of passage particular in the ritual aspect of it.  These rites include a Wiccan/Naming ceremony where an infant in welcomed into the family and the Craft, a Coming of Age ceremony marks the transition between adolescent into adulthood (this can take place on the onset of puberty or later), Handfasting (marriage), Initiation (into a group or path of Wicca), rites of Cronehood, and funeral rites.  I grew up Catholic and for me the similiarities between Wiccan rites of passage and the Seven Sacraments are obvious.  They each mark a special moment in your life, but every person is not expected to fulfill each rite such as marriage.

Here is a little comparison for my own sake between the Seven Sacraments and the Wiccan Rites.

Seven Sacraments:  - Wican Rites of Passage:
Baptism - Wiccaning/Naming Ceremony
Eucharist
Reconciliation
Confirmation - Coming of Age
Marriage - Handfasting
Holy Orders - Initiation
Anointing of the Sick - Funeral Rites
Croning Rites

It’s interesting to note that Catholicism doens’t have a sacrament for the elderly, however they are based on spiritual growths not necessarily ones based on the transition of age.

I’ve also noticed that there isn’t a Wiccan rite of passage for losing ones virginity.  For a religion that prides its self on its feelings towards sexuality I’m slightly surprised that there aren’t ones floating around the net somewhere.  I’m only slightly surprised though because the average age range for losing ones virginity is late teens to mid-20’s and most people at that time who are pagans are either confined by parental expectations, do not have a partner who is also a pagan, or haven’t come to terms with that aspect of their spirituality yet.

I’m making it a personal challenge to create a ritual/ceremony/celebration for a person who has decided to lose their virginity.  I will probably create a solitary one for a female first (since I am a girl and its the easiet starting point for me), I would eventually like to create one for males as well or at least have the first ritual be easily adoptable.

When I was younger I was devoutly Catholic with an affinity for the Virgin Mother.  I wanted to be like St. Teresa the Little Flower whos every act was for God.  I had passion for service which has carried into my life as a Wiccan.  However, I can not just turn to my Rosary beads any more and lose myself in the mysteries.  I like prayer beads, but nothing is the same to me as the Daily Rosary.

Instead of being a nun or Priest, I am now a Priestess of the God and Goddess.  My small altar in my room is where I can prayer, do ritual, and create spells.  I have this dream of being a Temple Priestess and serving the Goddess through that building and those who come to worship there.  I want to hold rituals, celebrate the sabbats and the phases of the moon, I want to light candles and meditate for her. 

I have a passion to serve her, but bringing that need into modern life is challenging, at best.  I’m not sure if I’d want to be an ancient temple priestess either who used her body to re-enact intercourse between the Great Goddess and her Consort while the Temple pimps collected the monetary transactions.  There must be a way to construct a temple even if the priest/esses are separated by distance.  The community can still exists whether is be online or mail.

Anyone know what I mean?

In my religious definition of myself I am a Wiccan, but I also have taken upon other titles such as pantheist, polytheist, and monotheist.

Pantheism: The belief that God is immanent within the universe aka “God is All”.
Panentheism: The belief that God is immanent within the Universe, but also transcends it.
Monotheism: The belief in the existence of one deity or God, or in the oneness of God.
Polytheism: The belief in or worship of multiple gods or deities.

Although, I don’t consider myself a panentheist I thought it was important to include that definition to distinguish it from pantheism, because I don’t think diety is transcendent.  For me divinity is very much present and physical as much as it is emotion and higher states.  For divinity to be transcendent it has to be independent from the physical world with a consciousness.

Monotheism and polytheism are two terms that seem to be opposites of each other, but I like Dianne Sylvan’s description of soft polytheism:

”Soft polytheism– belief that the gods are manifestations or aspects of other, usually bigger, deities. This was pretty popular in ancient Egypt. Soft polytheism, I have observed, is a lot more popular in American Wicca than in British Traditional, which tends to be hard polytheist.”

In my practice all the God’s that I worship are just manifestations or interpretations of the Universal Force that I call Divinity or God.

How do you definine yourself (or not)?

I’m really intrigued by this livejournal community called Flame Keepers.  On their profile it says that “This a community for folks from the Livejournal community who are interested in keeping the Eternal Flame in the name of the Lady Brighid.” Schedules are created and people takes shifts in lighting a candle in their respective homes so that Brigid’s Flame is always burning.

I think this is just amazing.

I’m hoping to participate in this years Blogathon to raise money for a the Robin’s Hood Community Center, pagan charity.  The date is July 28th, a Saturday, which just so happens to fall on my weekly wicca class/ritual.  Since it is a religious ceremony I will be blogging during the B-schedule, from 9pm that night to 9pm the next night.

My theme for this blog is Goddess.  I’ll be posting something about one of the Goddesses I feel connected to every hour.  It could be a prayer, a neat fact, a ritual, a specific offering, website, or a review.

If you’re interested in sponsoring me, leave a comment! 

I feel like I’m on the verge of something new, something that I’ve been expecting for a long time, but haven’t been ready for.  Maybe this feeling is because I’m going to be taking a weekly class at Magickal Realms Magickal Realms, the store of legendary Lady Rhea.  The classes themselves will be taught by Joe, the high priest of Kyklos ton Asterion.  I took a few lessons from him before in a Wicca 101 class a few years ago at Charmed by Starr.

I’m nervous and excited and have a sudden desire to research Sekhmet.

Lately, I’ve been looking for pagan/wiccan zines, but I haven’t found many.  Maybe that’s because there are so many websites, forums, magazines, and books already devoted to the subject.  Yet other topics like food, crafts, and music have multiple zines about them and just as much presence on the internet.

Does the zine community need a pagan zine or is there a reason why there hasn’t been that many (that I could find)?

I’m interested in creating a pagan comp zine with articles, interviews, and reviews from different people focusing on many different topics.  If you interested please leave a comment.

The New Seminary is an interfaith teaching facilitiy in New York City that has a two year ministerial program.  It’s not like a traditional seminary that focuses on one particular religion.  The program meets one Saturday per month for the full day (I’m guessing 6 hours).

I’m extremely interested in this and the course outline looks thorough.  The New Seminary would definately be something I would like to do.  At the end the students are ordained and made Reverand ministers with the ability to counsel, perform marriages, and fulfil other clergy tasks.

The Summer Solstice, or Litha, is a bittersweet sabbat for me.  Check out the Wild Hunt Blog for a great collection of links about this holiday.

Hopefully, I’ll be performing a ritual later day and then reading a midsummer nights dream.

Have a Happy Litha!

Pantheon.org describes Athena as the “...goddess of wisdom, war, the arts, industry, justice and skill.” With emphasis on honesty and integrity Atticus Finch becomes the perfect modern God of Wisdom and Justice.  Atticus, a lawyer and father, from Harper Lee’s To Kill A Mockingbird is one of the most reknowned literary figures. He represents justice, intelligence, dignity and the ability to face diversity with all three traits.  He has immense self-control and respect for others. 
Tarot: Justice, wisdom, truth, honesty, faithfulness to what’s right, setting an example.
Reverse: Lying, bigotry, racism, denial of truth and justice whether internal or external.

I’ve recently found an amazing blog on livejournal, The Cake Blog.  It shows picturers of wedding cakes that the blogger himself has created.  This got me to thinking about weddings and then pagan weddings.

Eventually, hopefully, I’ll get married although I hope its years from now.  But I’m wondering how exactly will I get married.  If my husband is a Christian I’ll have no problem getting married in the Church.  Actually, that would be easiest since my family expects me too (one of my cousins got married in Thailand to escape a Church wedding).  But I’d also like to get married by having a handfasting as well.  Most likely I wouldn’t tell the marjority of my family about it.

I think a handfasting makes the most sense to me.  Religiously, spiritually, practically.

...more to come on this topic…

War is still as prevalent today as it was in ancient times and I’m sure there is a modern personification of war, but honestly I’m tired of it.  In favor of ending war, John Lennon is My Modern Gods’ God of Peace.  John Lennon, made famous by Beatle mania, but turned peace-activist later on is a truly iconic symbol.  Although, I’m not sure if he’d like this Godly status, his image, words, actions, and lyrics are still remembered and listened too.  Through his songs people can commune with his message of hope and peace.
Tarot: Inner peace, end of conflict, active need for peace, independence, understanding.
Reverse: Lack of peace either inner or external, conflict, loss of self/independence, lost in a crowd, not standing up for what you believe in.

Tomorrow, I’m beginning my work with T. Thorn Coyle’s Evolutionary Witchcraft.  A book that goes through the basics of the Feri Tradition, with lots of exercises and the principles.  I tried to read this three years ago and although it has alot of information in it, I realize now that it’s very wordy.  Possibly, too wordy for my 17 year old attention span to digest, but I’ve gotten alot better at finding the heart of the words and skimming over the rest.  Her love of this world and beauty and spirituality is quite evident and I enjoy her desire to seek out those things which make her happy and free.

Tonight, I’ll practice the Self-Love Cleansing as directed in the book where you do a self-cleansing while in the shower so that your physical and spiritual being are prepared to do work.  Also, for the next several nights, starting tomorrow, I’ll do a list of practices:

1. Preparing the cast the sphere: Regular cleansing with salt and water (pg 20)
2. Becoming Present and Embodied: A basic grounding and centering (pg 21)
3. Meditation of the Blue Flame (pg 25)

By doing the exercises systematically and going through a few every few days I’ll be able to strengthen my practice by making sure I do them daily.

Also, tomorrow I plan to thoroughly clean my messy room, which is also, my spiritual place of work and being other physical things like kick boxing/jogging 4 times a week and drink 6-8 glasses of water a day.

Artemis from the Greek pantheon and Bast for the Egyptian one are often represented as young, independent women.  Artemis as the lunar virgin huntress and Lady of the Wild Animals and Bast as the solar sexual cat headed goddess, fierce Eye of Ra and protector of Lower Egypt.  Since these two were often linked in ancient times I’m choosing to combine them in this modern interpretation.  I have a great respect for the individuality of these two strong Goddesses, but for Buffy the Vampire Slayer I could not find one goddess that suited her properly.  Buffy, who is already surrounded by the slayer mythology, is the My Modern Gods Goddess who is a strong, independent woman.  She is both lunar and solar, as she fights the forces for darkness with her light, but at the same time is always connected to the night.  She is obviously a protector, not only of Sunnydale, but of the whole world and especially of those who can not defend themselves.  She is neither maiden nor mother and her cult following pushed her into realm of legend.
Tarot: Strength, protection, in between stage of Maiden and Mother, a young sexually confident woman, leadership role
Reverse: inability to cope with responsibilities or reality or Faith aka the Dark Slayer

For a while now I’ve been trying to decide if I’m really happy with being an ecclectic Wiccan.  Since I’m a solitary I haven’t been around many other traditions, except my brief stint with an Ara based group last spring.  Although I love the freedom of being an eccletic I miss the ritual and certainty of Catholicism in which I was raised.  So with this slight dissatisfaction I’ve started researching traditions that I’d be interested in working with.

In the 11th grade I bought a book called Evolutionary Witchcraft by T. Thorn Coyle which goes over the basics of the Feri Tradition.  In the 11th grade I had only been practicing for two years and in my opinion I was too inexperienced and two young to fully grasp the teachings.  But now that I’m looking for a tradition I’m starting to research the Feri Tradition once again (as well as Ara) and seeing the possibilities that they hold.

Shortly I’ll begin writing about my experiences working with Evolutionary Witchcraft, posing questions, and reflecting on any progress that I make.

Wish me luck!