The Song and the Flame

I’ve been messing about with this lunar calendar for a while now, and I think I’m really starting to get into the swing of it. This was another one of those months where observing Noumenia was a bit difficult. Life is just overwhelming right now. Not for any specific reason, oddly, but it seems like there’s so much to be done. I wound up not having a chance to really do a full-on ritual, but having to settle for sort of grabbing the libation section from the ritual structure that I use and pouring said libations in the morning.

And sighting the new crescent in the evening. Finally. I started trying to do that months back, but somehow it’s always been too cloudy just after the new moon. Until now.

It was minimal, and it didn’t feel like a Big Religious Moment or anything. Even the crescent sighting wasn’t this big profound thing; it was just kind of “hey, cool, crescent.” And yet over the course of the day I began to notice a subtle shift in my energy. I felt renewed, refreshed, closer to the Gods again. Some of that is the return of my morning almost-daylight, which happens to also be happening right now. I think, though, that it’s also me beginning to align with the rhythm of the religious calendar.

It’s not a perfect alignment, though. Okay, so I respond to the occasion on some level — but I’m still having trouble with the new moon creeping up on me. I totally forgot it was this week until about Sunday. Well, something to work on.

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Because I am easily amused and like filling out memes, even the ones that occasionally annoy me. Swiped from Glaux.

Do you have a magical/Pagan name?

No. Most people reading this blog probably know me as “Star”, but — no matter how “magickal” it might appear — it’s not actually connected to my religion, or to any stage on my religious journey, or to magic in any form. It’s a truncation of a high school nickname with its roots in the name of a Scooby Doo villain, if you really want to know.

How did you find Paganism?

Through the Witch Trials (both in Salem and in Europe). No, really. I was fascinated by them for a while, and you can only do so much Internet research on the subject before you run across a page festooned with spinning pentacles, flames, and red text on black background proclaiming NEVER AGAIN THE BURNING TIMES!!!!!1!1!11!! Which led me to the much more sane Witchvox, where I had that “oh, hey, this sounds like me” epiphany. (It’s been a long road from there to here, but that was the beginning.)

How long have you been practicing?

Practicing what, exactly? It’s been about ten years since the events described above, but as I said, I’ve come a long way. I don’t even remember off the top of my head how long I’ve been on this particular path. I’d have to comb my blog archives, probably, to find out.

Are you out of the broom closet?

Not to my extended family or in-laws; it would cause more trouble than it’s worth. Well, either that or there would be a tiny explosion and then it would never be spoken of again. I’m not eager to find out which. Anyway. I take a pretty relaxed attitude toward broom closet doors otherwise, which mostly means that I don’t make a point of mentioning it, but don’t try to hide it either. Mostly, the subject just never comes up.

Solitary or group practitioner?

Solitary for the moment, at least.

What is your path?

Hellenic Reconstructionism. I suppose I could go with “Hellenic Pagan” or “Hellenic Polytheist”, but… If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, you may as well call it a duck. And the more I lurk on Hellenic lists, the more I realize that yes, I’m pretty firmly recon. I used to think I was on the less-reconny end of things, but more and more I find myself reacting to things with internal questions about why this innovation is necessary or what the historical roots of that practice are… I’m pretty sane about it, but I’m definitely a Reconstructionist.

D E I T Y

What’s your brand of deism?

Hard polytheism.

Who is your patron God?

In the neopagan personal-patron sense, Apollo thwacked me over the head years ago and hasn’t let go (not that I’ve been trying to get away) since.

Who is your patron Goddess?

Don’t have one, not like that. I pay honor to various female deities when appropriate, but none of them has claimed me and I’m not looking to be claimed. Somehow I just don’t connect as well with female deities as with male. Don’t know why.

What Gods do you worship?

The Greek pantheon, exclusively.

Do you fear darkly aspected Gods/Goddesses, or rather respect them?

What on earth is that even supposed to mean? The Gods I worship don’t fall into neat “light” and “dark” categories. Hell, humans don’t — why should the Gods be less complex than we are? Sometimes the Gods I worship do nasty things. I both fear and respect them, with the proportions changing as appropriate to current context. (Most of the time it’s more respect and not really much fear.)

Do you worship the Christian God?

No. I’ve got nothing against him either; our parting was pretty amicable. But he isn’t the deity calling me.

Do you worship animals? Or plants?

No. (Please imagine that delivered in the flattest, most “I get really tired of this assumption” tone possible.)

N A T U R E

I’m going to skip this section because nature is not particularly important to my religious life in the way these questions would like it to be. I like nature well enough, but not like that. I’ll list the questions for anyone who wants to swipe the meme, though.

Do you regularly commune with nature?
Taken a camping trip just to talk to nature?
Describe the moment you felt closest to Mother Earth?
Do you have a familiar?
Have you ever called upon the powers of an animal in ritual?
Or a plant?
Do you hug trees?
Give them gifts?
What are your favorite plants to work with?
What are your favorite trees to work with?

H O L I D A Y S

(This section was originally “Wheel of the Year”, but as I don’t celebrate the Wheel, I’ve retitled it.)

What is your favorite holiday?

I don’t have one. There are several holidays that have their good points, not all of them religious holidays, but I’m really bad at choosing favorites.

What is your least favorite holiday?

That I celebrate? I don’t have one, again. That I don’t? Modern attempts to shoehorn a solstice celebration into a supposedly Hellenic calendar probably come close. I’ve covered that before, though.

Have you ever held a ritual on a holiday?

::scratches head:: Is that a trick question?

Ever taken a day off work to celebrate a Pagan holiday?

No, though I have had days that I’ve had off for other reasons that happen to coincide with a pagan holiday (not always one I’m celebrating).

Do you celebrate Yule on the 21st rather than the 25th?

I don’t celebrate Yule. I’ll sometimes recognize the Solstice, but it’s quasi-religious at best. And it isn’t Yule.

Have you ever felt the veil thin?

Probably at some point.

Ever danced the Maypole?

No.

Know what the Maypole symbolizes?

Yes, of course.

How do you usually celebrate the Pagan holidays?

Depends on the holiday. Theogamia is this week, and I’m planning a ritual to celebrate the marriage of Zeus and Hera. When I do full-on ritual, I usually use Neokoroi’s Noumenia ritual as a template and customize details as appropriate. Some holidays, though, I’ll go the simple route and just pour a libation or recite a hymn or something. It just depends.

D I V I N A T I O N

I’m skipping this section, too, because divination and I just don’t get along well. I have two Tarot decks and have flirted with divination in various forms before, but I’m just not very good at it. (You’d think, with Apollo, Mr. Delphic Oracle, and all… But no.) Again, though, here are the questions for those interested.

Do you use Tarot?
Do you use runes?
Do you use a pendulum?
Do you use dowsing rods?
Do you use astrology?
Any other forms of divination?

S P E L L S

What was the first spell you did?

Consciously? I don’t remember. Probably something silly. Unconsciously? Making a wish and blowing out the candles on my birthday cake when I was little, I’d guess.

What was the latest?

I don’t remember. I haven’t done spell work as such in a long time. (Because there’s some controversy in the recon community over this, I should clarify: I have nothing against it. I just don’t find it relevant to my personal practice.) I do energy work, in less-organized form than spells, far more often. Usually just grounding/centering/shielding, though.

Ever done a love spell?

No. Never felt the need. I was married when I turned to paganism, in no danger of losing my husband’s love (the marriage might have shaken a bit on my conversion, but I never had the impression that his feelings had changed, and we came through that OK–and if I’d had any doubt, this was NOT the time to address that through spell work), and I was not looking around for any more. Nor did I know anyone who had need of such measures.

Would I do one? I don’t know. As I said, I find spell work in general kind of irrelevant right now.

A job spell?

No. This one just never occurred to me, though.

A healing spell?

Not as such, though I have done mild energy work to encourage emotional healing in myself and others, and to promote a mentally healthy environment in my home.

What was the most powerful spell you’ve ever performed?

No idea.

What deities do you usually call on?

Since I don’t do spell work anymore, this question isn’t particularly applicable in that context. I didn’t have a “usual” deity/ies back when I was doing spells; I called on whoever seemed appropriate. When I called on anyone at all, that is. I don’t see magic as something that has to automatically involve deities.

C R Y P T O Z O O L O G Y

Let’s just answer all these in one fell swoop: No. I don’t believe in these things. Glaux offers Otherkin as a possibility under werewolves and shape shifters; I’m unconvinced of that phenomenon, but willing to acknowledge that some perfectly rational people do report those experiences and therefore there might be some basis to it. I’m also undecided on the stuff that actually fits into the mythology I’m following (like nymphs and satyrs); there is a line somewhere between myth and reality, and I’m not sure where they fall in regard to that line. Energy vampires might exist, but bear little resemblance to Dracula and the Cullens. But the rest of this list? No. They’re good stories, but not something I believe in the literal existence of.

Do you believe in vampires?
Werewolves?
Shapeshifters?
Elves?
Fairies?
Dragons?
Nymphs?
Sprites?
Mermaids?
Satyrs?

Ever “seen” any of the above?

No. If I had, I’d be more inclined to believe in them.

Ever used any of the above in magic?

I really, really dislike the word “used” to describe enlisting the aid of another living being (or, er, undead being, I guess) in a spell. If they exist, they are not tools. But no, I have not worked with any of the above, nor have I invited or requested their assistance.

Do you have one of them as a personal guardian?

No.

R A N D O M

Do you see a rabbit, a man or a woman in the moon?

None of the above. I see old craters and dark lunar “seas” — geographical features. I’ve never really tried to make out a pattern; it’s just… The moon.

Own a cat?

Two of them.

When you meditate, what does your happy place look like?

That’s a hell of an assumption. I don’t often meditate, actually (and when I do, again, nothing to do with paganism, it’s just that I find it a good way to relax). I suppose my happy place would be a beach on the Outer Banks, listening to the seagulls cry and the waves crashing on the shore, with the sea breeze in my hair and the smell of salt filling the air around me. Although since I use white-noise tracks based on natural sounds to help me focus, what I visualize changes with the track. Sometimes it’s a quiet porch on a rainy day, with the wind chimes tinkling softly and a stream gurgling nearby. Sometimes it’s a lakeshore at night. The beach is my fallback, though.

Do you work with chakras?

No. The subject interests me (though again not on a specifically religious level), but I’ve never gotten too far in studying it.

Do you believe in past lives?
If so, describe a few briefly:

I have never had any experience to suggest that I’ve lived before. I don’t know whether others have or not. I’m inclined to be skeptical.

Do you believe in soul mates?

I believe that some people are highly compatible with one another. Kindred spirits, you might say. I don’t believe that there is one perfect mate out there who you will eventually find if you just keep trying, or who it is your destiny to be with or whatever, no. I think it’s actively dangerous to pin all your hopes for romantic happiness on this concept. I suspect we create our own happiness, in this as in other things, and I think that relying on the idea of a soulmate undermines that.

Do you have a spirit guide?

No.

Is it always love and light?

…Have you met this world?

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If I were less tired, it might be me.

I had this wonderful plan to be sure to see if I could spot the new crescent tonight. I had a reminder set on my calendar and everything, just so that I wouldn’t forget in the rush of getting dinner on the table. It was a perfect plan, really. Except for one thing.

Clouds. Lots and lots of big, thick, fluffy snow-clouds through which any light source becomes vague and diffuse. See the moon? Not even if it were full and riding high.

…Heh.

And unlikely to clear up in the next couple of days for a “close enough? maybe?” sort of sighting, either. Well. Next time, maybe.

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I think it was Sannion who put the idea into my head of determining Noumenia for myself rather than relying on someone else’s calendar. I’d noticed a slight discrepancy between the calendar I was using (Hellenion‘s, mostly because they have a Google calendar feed) and when I saw other people reporting that they were celebrating Noumenia. Sannion pointed out that the crescent will be visible at slightly different times from different locations. Given that Noumenia is the date on which the crescent is first spotted, the discrepancy might make a difference in what day Noumenia would be observed.

So, I thought, for the next one maybe I’ll try it for myself. This was made easier by the appearance of an Old Farmer’s Almanac on Christmas, which I promptly snagged to look up moon information.

Conveniently, the almanac actually had a small article about people trying to sight the new crescent moon and the specifics of such an activity. According to this article, the newest moon sighting with the naked eye on record since 1900 is something like 15 hours old. At one day old, the moon is wire-thin and only visible practically on the western horizon. I think that will probably make it impossible for me to sight, because there are too many obstructions between me and the western horizon if nothing else. Also, I have no binoculars or anything to aid my sighting, and suspect I might not be able to spot it even if the horizon were clear.

Which puts my most likely sighting on the second day after the new moon, when the crescent is a bit fatter and visible above the horizon about 15 minutes after sunset, which… As it turns out, is exactly when Hellenion’s calendar marks Noumenia. Or, at least, it is for the next three moons, which is as far as I went in planning ahead.

Well, that’s handy, I guess. So it looks like I can pretty much still rely on the calendar. Still, I think I’ll try incorporating an attempt to sight the crescent as part of my observance of the day, even if that doesn’t appear strictly necessary for determining the date. That should be something that I can do (perhaps after some trial and error finding the right spot to look at the right time) even if I have trouble squeezing a proper ritual in, which will also help with my previously-expressed attempt to observe Noumenia actually on time.

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I’ve seen a post or two about this recently, and was thinking about responding in comments on other blogs, but then thought it wouldn’t hurt to just get my own thoughts out here on my own blog instead.

The complaint goes like this:  Pagans should not celebrate Christmas. It isn’t our holiday, we have our own winter holidays, and we’re feeding this huge commercial monster than Christmas has become.  And if that’s how you feel, by all means, don’t celebrate it.  Celebrate Solstice or Yule or Heliogenna or Winter’s Night or whatever floats your boat, or nothing at all.  But I’m going to keep celebrating Christmas.

It is my holiday.  Not religiously, no, but it is no less my holiday for that.  I observe Christmas as a celebration of family, of community, of generosity.  It’s a time of good food and music, of charity and warmth, of strong bonds and helping each other through the long cold darkness.  

Yes, it’s gotten out of hand in some ways, and I try to keep an eye on myself to make sure I’m celebrating sanely.  I try not to go overboard on gifts, and to choose them as thoughtfully as I can rather than just grabbing whatever pretty shiny is being touted as the Next Big Thing.  The point is to express to people that I care for them, and that doesn’t generally correlate to buying piles and piles of gifts.  I try not to feed the crass commercial aspects of the holiday any more than I have to.  But then, that crass commercial “gimme gimme gimme” mindset is not Christmas anyway, not to me.  I know retailers try to tell us it is, but I refuse to take their word for it. I look around at the people I know and celebrate with, and I don’t see that expressed at all.  I see people who want to celebrate love and life with their friends and family, just as I do.

Let’s talk about that assumption that we have our own winter holidays, too. Solstice?  Is no more my religious holiday than Christmas is.  You can substitute pretty much any other “pagan” winter celebration here as well.  Why should I co-opt them?  I’d go on about this, but I believe I already have; see previous post.  I choose to call my winter celebration “Christmas” because it has a long family history behind it, and that is the name by which I know all my cherished traditions.  Some of those traditions have fallen away as I’ve grown away from Christianity; most notably, I never go to the Christmas Eve church service anymore. Most of my family traditions, though, don’t mention religion or Christ, except in the name “Christmas”.  I see no reason to change the name when I’m still doing the same things.  And other than cutting back on the overtly religious activities, I see no reason to change what I’m doing either.

This talk of tradition should not be confused with nostalgia or obligation, by the way.  It is a connection to my family and my community which is very important to me, not something I hold onto because I feel like I have to or because I like to look back on my childhood through rose-tinted glasses.  Family is important to me.  I do not hang onto my family or the traditions I share with them because of some desire not to rock the boat, or because I’m allowing myself to be blindly swept away with the mainstream.  I love them.  All of them, even the spoiled brat and the aunt who always one-ups everyone else’s stories of woe and the people who I just don’t really understand.  They’re my family.  That means something, and changing religions doesn’t mean I throw that something away. Christmas is a part of that.

Not everyone agrees with all that, I know.  Not everyone has the same priorities I do, or the same sort of connections, or the same sort of expression for those connections.  And in that case, yeah, it’s worth reevaluating whether a holiday called Christmas has any place in your life.  I don’t think, though, that being pagan automatically requires dropping Christmas altogether, and I won’t be doing so.  Tomorrow, we’ll sit around my parents’ Christmas tree and open Christmas presents.  Maybe we’ll sing a few Christmas songs.  We’ll have Christmas lunch, and spend the day relaxing and talking and laughing together. The Advent wreath with a pure white Christmas candle at the center will probably be lit, yes.  That is my mother’s celebration of her religious holiday, and I’ll admit a little nostalgia for it.  (Nor do I feel that I have a need, or even a right, to demand that she curtail her religious observances in my presence just because they don’t match my own.)  It will be a beautiful, delightful, warm, delicious day.  And it will be Christmas.

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Here’s how I see it.

Point 1:  The ancient Athenians did not, to best of my understanding, celebrate the solstices religiously.  They may possibly have used the solstices as seasonal markers?  (I’m guessing here, because they seem like obvious seasonal markers, not because I have a source handy that says so.)  Not as religious events, though.

Point 2:  The culture I live in here and now does not celebrate the solstices.  The closest we come to a widespread cultural solstice celebration is Christmas, and no, that is not the same thing.

Point 3:  I see no compelling reason, therefore, to institute some sort of modern Hellenic festival marking either the summer or the winter solstice.

I’m not against adapting ancient practice to suit modern-day life.  I’m certainly not against creating new holidays to mark the things that have happened (or people who have lived) in the past, oh, two millennia that have become important to us or to our society.  I’m thinking of doing some sort of “heroines of computer science” thing December 9 and/or 10 to mark the birthdays of Ada Lovelace and Grace Hopper, for example.  I think it makes total sense to incorporate Hellenic religious observances into modern holidays like Veterans Day or Thanksgiving which are a part of our lives now despite having not existed in ancient Greece.  However, I just don’t see the need for this one. 

If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.  And this certainly ain’t, so I shan’t.

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I have this problem, which is: I don’t live alone. There are two other adults and a three-year-old in the house, and none of them share my religion.

Doesn’t bother me day-to-day. Doesn’t “bother” me much at all. But it does mean that scheduling religious observances gets a little difficult sometimes. I don’t want my religious choices to intrude on their time, and I kind of don’t really want their presence intruding on my religious ritual either. The best time, practically, is after my daughter’s gone to bed on a night when Tim and Jen are off doing something else.

For a while, it just worked out that such evenings tended to fall just when I needed them to. Occasionally I’d run into issues with a festival, but I didn’t mind adjusting slightly to one side or the other so that the timing worked out. Other religions do this all the time. I don’t feel like it’s a huge deal.

Lately, though, Noumenia has become a problem. It hasn’t fallen on an evening when I have the house more-or-less to myself like that. The space I usually use for ritual is in use by other people for other purposes, and there are, well, other people around. It’s not that these are insurmountable difficulties. It requires a little thought, yes, but that space isn’t permanent sacred space, and I can acquire a little privacy by asking for it or by simply figuring out where people aren’t at right that second and going there. It’s just enough to throw me out of the religious mindset and make me a bit distracted, though, which doesn’t seem like a good option.

Until this month, though, there has been a house-to-myself evening the day after Noumenia. So I kind of fudged a little and just moved my observance back a day. No biggie, right?

…Except the more this happens, the more it feels like a bigger deal. It puts me out of sync with other people celebrating, and I know that it’s the wrong day. It’s good that it’s getting done, but it would be better to do it right. And then this month, Noumenia is tomorrow according to Hellenion’s calendar (though I got confused and thought it was today — sigh, I’ll get this right eventually) but I won’t really have the house “to myself” until probably Monday. That seems like a bit of a stretch. It’s possible I’ll have some time on Sunday, but — the truth is, I’m tired of making it a habit to do this the day after it should really be done.

Then this morning as I was getting up, I realized: I have this time to myself. There are other things I do in this time, but for an important observance some of that can be compressed or put off, as long as it’s not happening every single day. For more than half an hour every morning I’m the only person even awake. It’s not much time, but then I don’t need much.

So I tried it out. Because, as I said, I got confused about which day was which. Sigh. (Although I’ve noted that some people seem to celebrate Noumenia a day before the calendar I’m looking at has it marked, so I feel like I’m still OK there.) It was… I think it would work with a little better planning-ahead. I wasn’t really prepared, so I had to kind of make do with what I had. But I think this could definitely work.

It’s still not optimal, because I don’t have as much time to just sit around and “visit” after the body of the ritual is over, but it seemed to work better than the alternatives. I feel like mindset and focus are really important in carrying out religious ritual, and this solution allowed me to get much more into those things than trying to find a quiet corner of the waking-and-occupied house would have. Plus, it being an insane hour of the morning (about 5:15), there was no noise from outside the house leaking in either. And obviously it allows me to stay actually on-schedule and not just as close as I can get. It addresses both of my major concerns. An evening when Tim and Jen are gone is still even better, because it addresses those concerns and gives me a little more time, but I think mornings (when pre-planned!) will be a pretty workable solution when there isn’t an evening handy.

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We are currently in the midst of the Eleusinian Mysteries. They are the celebration of a mystery cult long dead, dedicated to Demeter and Persephone. I have not the knowledge, the resources, the community, nor the experience to even attempt to recreate them. In a society where the Greek gods are not well-acknowledged and their festivals do not register as reasons for life to pause, I also have not the time to pull off a full week-long event.

What I am saying is that to the best of my understanding, I am incapable of celebrating the Mysteries.

What I am capable of is a ritual recognition of Demeter and Persephone, particularly since the myth of Persephone’s descent is so pertinent to the actual seasonal changes going on where I’m actually living right now. I have no doubt that my little ceremony will pale in comparison to the Mystery celebrations of old, but I must do the best with what I have and hope that my efforts will still be pleasing to the Two Goddesses.

So what do I need for this? I think I shall continue with the general shape of ritual I’ve been using, taking my basis from Neokoroi’s Noumenia ritual. Libations to the Two–but Persephone, cthonic, should receive the choe rather than the sponde. The best hymn for the occasion would be Homeric #2, which tells the story, but it’s pretty long and… well, again I’m working with time constraints. (The Gods are a priority to me, but I have to take care of my daughter as well.) So–write something of my own? I don’t have much time, but I could try.

“I don’t have much time, but I could try.” I’ve felt like that a lot lately. I feel like I’m doing a lot of half-assed stuff this year for lack of planning ahead. In the future, I’ll hopefully have a better feel for things and not just be fumbling my way through quite so much…

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Wargh.

A while back, something about an upgrade to WordPress apparently broke the functionality that e-mails me when people comment on a post. I fixed it… but now it’s happening again, apparently. And I guess has been since late August. There are two comments on my most recent post that I never saw because I was expecting that if I didn’t get an e-mail there were no comments.

I don’t have time to fix it just right now. I’ll try to remember to check manually every few days, but be aware that I might not see stuff as immediately for the moment.

Wargh.

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