The Song and the Flame

Feeling better today. Have realized that perhaps the secret of building confidence is to act like I have it. Not in the sense of putting on a mask, but in the sense of stopping letting my lack of confidence show through in my reluctance to make decisions or whatever–just do things even if I’m afraid I’ll screw up. Which probably is a lot easier to say than to do, but at least it’s a starting point.

OK… I feel like I ought to be thinking about beliefs and such, and not just doing relationship-with-deity development, but I literally have no thoughts on anything in my sidebar right now. I mean, I look at the lists and my brain just goes blank. So although I feel lazy for not doing more, I guess I’ll move on with the self-confidence issue.

Not having a clue where to start, I’ve turned to the logical place for a geek with no clue to begin a search: Google. I have no idea how reputable the pages I got as results are… And I have no idea how much that matters. The first result was an article, which I will probably go back and peruse later. The second was a whole site which appears to be dedicated to raising self-esteem, with courses and links and stuff. I felt a little silly exploring it, but did anyway.

Their tips about low self-esteem start out with: “Don’t indulge in self-criticism.” Oh, gee, thanks, I never would have thought of that. *sigh* Frankly, that was how the entire site struck me. It was such an obvious “make yourself feel good” fluff-o-rama that it made me almost feel dirty. And then I realized something.

Isn’t that what self-esteem is about? Feeling good about yourself?

Now how am I supposed to make any progress if the methods of doing so make me feel icky? And the rest of the results were the same… Always the same claptrap, written as though it were as easy as just making a decision to be more confident. Yeah. See, if it were as easy as saying, “I’m not going to beat myself up emotionally anymore,” I would have done that years and years ago, and I wouldn’t be in this trouble now.

I feel lost here, like I’m flailing around in the middle of the ocean trying to get a grip on something but everything keeps floating out of my reach. Some part of me wonders if I’m doing this to myself, if it’s difficult because I’ve convinced myself it is. But I don’t know how to get out from under that either.

Maybe I need to start by examining why I feel so odd about the pages and stuff I saw… If I get to the bottom of that, might I make some progress?

Note to self, a few minutes later: Hydration works wonders emotionally.

That crossroads line hasn’t been hanging around so much these past couple of days. Maybe it was just a figment my imagination latched onto. *shrug*

The promised post about my weekly ritual… It’s kind of really long, sorry. I usually think of this as a pretty simple process, but I guess when you examine it step by step it takes a while to get through.

I usually do this on Friday because that’s when I know I will have the house to myself, interruption-free, for the required hour. I think it also does help to try to do it at the same time each week–psychologically, I tend to work better with schedules than without.

The whole thing begins with actual housework. The areas of the house I will be using must be clean. Generally that means straightening up the master bathroom, wiping down the countertop, sweeping up any stray kitty litter, ensuring that the towels are clean ones, and then making sure that the part of the bedroom where my altar is has also been straightened up. I’ll also pop into the kitchen briefly, but I don’t worry about it as much–generally it’s already been cleaned anyway. I also get out my bathrobe and clean undies and lay them out on the bed.

Once that’s done, it’s time for purification. The methods here are more magical than religious, I think, but the end result ties into the religious part, so… Theoretically this was going to be in the form of a bath now that we’re in the new house with the big bathtub, but I’ve found that it seems to work better in the shower. This is, I think, because I feel like I can do better in the way of physically cleaning myself in the shower, and also because all the gunk (physical or otherwise) goes right down the drain instead of hanging around in the water. At any rate, I begin with the physical cleaning, which is pretty much like any normal shower. Soap up hair, wash face, rinse hair, apply conditioner, use body wash and pouf to clean the rest of me, use apricot scrub on the soles of my feet, rinse out conditioner, shave legs and pits. Not only does this physically clean me up, I also envision it kind of loosening the psychic gunk. Once that’s done, I run the edge of my hands over everything in a sort of scraping motion, starting at the hairline and working my way down to the soles of my feet. As I do so, I visualize a layer of scum being scraped off, revealing bright shiny cleanliness underneath. The scum gets flicked off to run down the drain at appropriate moments.

What follows that is a sort of mixture of meditation, worship, and further purification. I make sure the water is at a comfortable temperature (to avoid distraction), settle down on the floor of the shower stall, and… Relax. I sing–this is the only time I sing in the shower. In the past, I’ve used a few different tunes and sometimes just made up my own, but usually it winds up being a song I mentioned back in the playlist post–”Breathe” by Maria McKee, as covered by the Harvard Opportunes. It’s a song that I kind of latched onto when I first heard it, and it has since become sort of a religious song for me (although I’m sure that wasn’t the original intent). I’ll often repeat parts of it several times if I need more time, or if I just lose my place in the song. While I’m doing this, I’m just sort of… I don’t know how to explain it, exactly. Clearing my mind, I suppose, and doing a more through, less structured, and less rushed ground/center/shield than I usually do. Concentrating on reaching out to Apollo through the song. By the end I’m pretty much in a ritual frame of mind.

I do have one area left to clean, though–after turning off the shower, getting out, and drying off, I brush my teeth! Then I put on the stuff I laid out on the bed earlier. Note that the bathrobe is not really a ritual robe per se; it’s just something I can be sure is pretty clean, and that’s quick and easy to put on and is comfy–not too warm in summer, not too cold in winter. I know it seems silly to be wearing a bathrobe for this, even though it is black satin, but it’s a practical choice more than anything else.

Having gotten myself all clean, I go to my altar. Standard equipment on top is a fountain, a blue glass cup, two glass candlesticks with palm tapers in them, and a glass half-globe tealight holder with a tealight in it. The fountain is there for my personal spiritual and occasionally magical reasons rather than religious; water is my preferred element. The cup is there for practical reasons, to refill the fountain with as necessary. The tapers, honestly, are there because it’s an altar and that feels like the right configuration for an altar. They serve as more of an indicator than anything–if they’re lit, the altar is in active use. The tealight is for Apollo specifically. The first thing I do is to remove all of these objects from the altar and wipe the top down. The fountain goes back on first because it requires no further cleaning. Then all of the glass objects get cleaned using a small bottle of water/vinegar mixture I keep in an altar drawer just for that purpose, and the candles get wiped down to remove any cat hair or dust that’s built up on them. As each item is cleaned, it’s put back on the altar.

So now the altar is clean. Now I get out anything else I need from the altar drawers–incense burner (which is set down in a pottery bowl with ashes in the bottom), incense to burn as an offering, offering bowl if it’s needed (more on that in a sec), lighter, and currently, my copy of the Iliad. The incense goes in the incense burner and they get put on the altar in front of the tealight. The book and lighter get put off to one side for the moment. I also make sure my hair comb is handy. Then I go to the kitchen to get food and/or drink offering. What this is, exactly, depends on what’s around. I try to make it something special, something I don’t get to have very often, or something that I have a limited amount of. I feel like this gives the offering a little more meaning, to be something that requires me to give up a bit of my own treats. If that’s not possible, I’ll try for something I’ve made myself, or at the very least something that’s brand-new and hasn’t been opened yet. I try never to use leftovers or anything that even might be maybe going bad just a little bit. Apollo gets the first portion no matter what it is, out of respect–food in the offering bowl, and/or drinks in a small glass. I also set out a portion for myself; I see this as kind of sharing a meal (or a snack, or a drink). Both go on the altar–the offering on one side of the tealight, my portion on the other. Also at this point, I refill the glass cup with clean, filtered water.

The incense, btw, is Japanese-style stick incense, which I think I must have about a five-year supply of or something. I choose between the three scents I have mostly based on instinct and what seems like the right thing for the day. I don’t think any of the scents (white plum, jasmine, and lavender) are necessarily technically associated with Apollo, but it’s what I’ve got and He doesn’t seem displeased, so I continue to use them. The colors of the candles are likewise based on instinct and what seems right. The tealight is always white; the tapers are currently (and often) green, but I’m thinking of switching them back to white soon too. The palm tapers might almost be considered a sort of offering themselves, in that I use them despite their being several times more expensive than “regular” tapers and having to go way out of my way to get them. They’re higher-quality, and having found them, I wouldn’t feel right going back to the cheapies, at least not for this purpose.

With everything set up, I light the candles and incense. Then I offer an official greeting to Apollo (as opposed to just “reaching out” as in the semi-meditative thing) and say anything else to Him that I feel I need to at that time. Then I sit down next to the altar and… comb out my hair. This is one of the few parts of all this that puzzles me; I don’t know why I do that then, instead of doing it right after the shower or waiting until the whole thing is over. It just… seems like the right time, I guess. After that’s done (and despite the length and thickness of my hair, it doesn’t take long), I sit and read until I can no longer see the burning incense over the rim of the bowl it’s in. The Iliad is my choice of reading material at the moment because I’m trying to get a better feel for the mythology which my Patron is involved in. When the incense is no longer visible, I mark my place and close the book, and consume my portion of the food and/or drink.

That is, essentially, the close of the ritual. I blow out the candles (though sometimes I’ll leave the tealight burning for a while yet) and start the clean-up process. Dirty dishes from my portion go into the sink or dishwasher. If the offering was drink only, I will usually pour it down the sink with running water; if there was food involved, everything goes into a ziplock bag and sealed up before being discarded, to keep it from coming into contact with the ickier things in the trash can. (I used to put offerings outside, but since we’ve moved to a subdivision this doesn’t work as well. I’m working on that and hope to be able to return to that practice.) The offering bowl gets washed out pretty thoroughly and returned to its home. The lighter, book, and comb get put away. I leave the incense burner where it is for a while, even if the incense is all gone at this point; I’ll put it away later. (This is mostly out of paranoia about heat coming into contact with my altar, which is made of wood.)

And I think that’s it. Wow, that took longer than I’d thought.

All right. I’ve kind of been doing little “ooh, shiny” things for a bit. And doing stuff over on Shad’s blog, but not really doing anything substantial here. Time to get back on track. So. I have issues unresolved from previous posts regarding confidence and that line about the crossroads, and perhaps exactly what “housekeeping” is. I could also pick a new subject to ramble about; I may do that later today. The crossroads thing I haven’t got a clue on one way or the other, so we’ll just put it aside for now.

Confidence… I’m having trouble here. The only things I can think of to do sound pretty stupid and preschool-y. Like taking a minute at the end of each day to think of five things I did right. Or looking in the mirror each morning and telling myself that I’m a good person. Do those sorts of things really work? It sounds like the kind of thing they probably told us in that silly self-esteem program in seventh grade… Which clearly didn’t work. But of course the problem there may just have been that what they were doing was rather like treating a burn victim in a hospital that was burning down. Which is to say that it was futile to try to build self-esteem while I was still in the environment that was causing the problem. (Duh, people. Not to mention making it worse by getting me out of class on a regular basis–which just made me more of a target. Great strategy.) So maybe now that I’m out of that situation, these things would work better? They still seem so silly, though.

Housework. I’ve actually jumped back on track with this one fairly quickly, at least to some extent. I was doing it on a very regular basis until we moved, and the disruption in schedule kind of screwed that all up. There are two main components to this… On an every-day basis, I greet the Sun with a smile and blow a kiss. Then on a weekly basis the term “housework” takes on a literal interpretation for what I generally label “altar care”–giving myself a good spiritual cleaning, keeping my altar clean, and also offering something and spending time just… being there. I’ll probably do a whole post on that at some point, breaking down what is done and why–it’s in my list of questions to address. (Actually, that might be a good one for later today. I’ve got it fairly well thought-out, so even if I’m having trouble concentrating I ought to be able to get through it.) The weekly stuff is usually around an hour, give or take. I usually do it on Friday, although for various reasons this week it had to wait until Sunday.

I’m thinking of altering that slightly, or I suppose maybe just adding to it. I’m usually up before sunrise on weekdays–I get up at 5:13am, and according to the almanac I’ve got the earliest sunrise (at least this year) should be around 5:20. So I thought of maybe going out at sunrise to say good morning. The challenge here, though, is weekends and holidays… I was thinking maybe of just going out when I get up (which would usually be between 8 and 9). I can’t decide whether that weakens the meaning of the whole thing or not. At the risk of sounding lazy or whiney, I do kind of need to be able to sleep in on those days…

Well, I ordered a necklace. Not the one I’d mentioned before; click here to see it. (I hope. The link is occasionally getting wonky on me.) It should be here in 1-2 weeks. I’m impatient now; I want it to get here soon!

Inspiration comes from the oddest places. I was watching TV Friday night and this commercial came on… For the psych unit in a hospital in Indy, I think. And there was this line in it–”You are standing at a crossroads. What do you see?” It’s been stuck in my head ever since.

I’m not sure what it means, though. Or if it means anything–maybe it’s just a random wisp of thought my brain latched onto. Still, I’ve been thinking about it… And I can’t come up with the answer. I see… A bright sunny day with a cloudless sky. Two country gravel roads crossing in a perfect X, 90 degree angles all around, in the middle of a field. There’s a tree, a big one, somewhere off on the left somewhere. I can’t really tell which side of the road it’s on, or if it’s maybe even in the road. There’s one of those wooden signposts you see in cartoons and movies stuck into the ground at the crossroads. I am coming in from what would be the bottom right if I were viewing this on a TV screen, and the sign points toward the top right. That’s the mental image I get when I think about the question. But I can’t see what the sign says, or what lies down any of the paths.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. I don’t know.

I’m kind of wondering if it isn’t time to switch necklaces. I always wear this one… But it’s more out of habit than anything else, I think. I’m wondering if something sun-shaped and/or involving amber wouldn’t be better… I just got a raise, so we’re about to have a little extra money anyway–now would be the time to buy it.

There’s some part of me, too, that wonders if I’m overdoing this. It’s difficult to tell at the moment whether this is all just me getting wound up over what’s going on right now, or if it’s suggestions from outside that I’m picking up on. If the former… Well, I do want to honor my patron, but I don’t want to be a fangirl about it!

I found one that feels pretty good (looking at a picture of it anyway) which also comes with matching earrings and isn’t too expensive. I’ve also got to go to the mall tonight anyway, so I’ll look around in a couple of the shops there which might have such things.

In a response to one of Shadow’s essays, I mentioned that I felt like I’d been thwacked by my own words as I was composing said reply. That was unsettling enough; worse was when, minutes later, I got the same feeling as I was replying to (of all people) Gyro. Now there’s a lesson for you. Ugh.

Truthfully, the bit from Shad’s essay was a minor thwack. It was a realization that what I was saying was right–I don’t get to decide whether I am unworthy or not. I had been wondering if that was part of the reason I’d kind of… lost contact… in recent months. The thwack is: Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t. But it doesn’t matter. The point here is not to strive to be worthy of Divine attention; the point is to develop my religion in general and my relationship with Apollo, which may or may not have anything to do with being deserving. Deservedness is irrelevant. (There’s that word. I’ve been looking for it for days.)

With Gyro… He was saying that he only did religious stuff (aimed at a relationship with a specific deity) when he felt moved to do so. I might not have batted an eye at that comment if it had been from any other poster, but I have to admit that Gyro kind of gets on my nerves. So I felt I had to reply and point out that there’s more to maintaining a relationship than just the spiritual equivalent of flowers and chocolates; there’s housework to be done as well. As I was typing this, the fact that I had been ignoring my own “housework” kind of hit me square between the eyes.

I’ve always resisted ritual; to do it for anything less that a special occasion of great need has usually felt awkward. I’ve always resisted prayer as well, because again, it just felt awkward. Anything that didn’t just come to me and feel natural, I’ve resisted because it didn’t seem right. I’m beginning to see now, though, that these things do have their uses. That doesn’t necessarily mean that I have to start praying over every meal and at bedtime and do ritual every day or anything, of course; I still do have to figure out what works well for my particular situation and mindset. To extend the metaphor, I have to figure out how best to organize my kitchen cabinets so that I can find everything when it’s time to cook dinner. (I think. Does that work? Well, you get the idea.) But it’s time, I think, to consider attempting to integrate some of these things on a regular basis. A purely spiritual “practice” with no real connection to religion might survive on flowers and chocolates, but when you start bringing other beings (i.e. one or more deities) into the equation, the housework has to get done too.

Some time ago I created a CD which bore the label “Apollo Mix”. An offering, of sorts. I play it from time to time, sing with the songs… Music seemed appropriate. The CD itself was an offering; the act of playing it and singing with it is also meant to be something along those lines. However, it occurs to me that some of the songs don’t really belong there anymore (and some probably never did, really), so… Today I had the thought that perhaps it was time to make a new one. A playlist, this time, actually, since I have the iPod. This one will require more thought, I think, than the last. The last one was a spur of the moment thing… I want to think this one through.

So far I’ve not got much of a start. The one song that absolutely has to be on there (it just does) is Maria McKee’s “Breathe”:

At first I was scared when I opened up my head
And the motor that was running was the mind of you
I was scared when I looked at my reflection
And the shine I saw were the eyes of you
I was scared when you touched my lips
And the breath I took was a breath that shook me with a shock
Like a flame
As eternal as the song and the song is you and
I will let you breathe through me
I will let you be with me…

Haven’t decided whether to use McKee’s original recording or the Harvard Opportunes’ a capella version yet. I think probably the latter. The other one that sort of hit me as a “duh” choice when it popped up on my playlist this afternoon was John Denver’s “Sunshine on My Shoulders”:

Sunshine on my shoulders makes me happy
Sunshine in my eyes can make me cry
Sunshine on the water looks so lovely
Sunshine almost always makes me high

If I had a tale that I could tell you
I’d tell a tale sure to make you smile
If I had a wish that I could wish for you
I’d make a wish for sunshine all the while

That’s all I have so far. I’m not sure, yet, what else to use… I guess one way to start is to pay more attention to the songs that come up on my playlist and see which ones are appropriate.

(Edit, days and days later, to finish the last sentence. Now how did THAT happen?)

I did something quite unusual, for me, yesterday.

I was to meet Dad in Third Street Park for walking. I got there early, as per usual. The setup of the middle of the park is kind of hard to explain… There’s a bit of a rise that basically bisects the park, probably around six feet or so from base to top. One side is rather steep, and the other side slopes gently down. Set into the horizontal center of this is a circular courtyard containing a fountain; also, a walkway runs along the top of the rise. I went up to the top of the rise, on the walkway at the edge of the courtyard, and leaned on the railing there. I looked down at the fountain for a while. It was warm, and there was a faint breeze. It was one of those perfect moments–the sun shining down, the air just barely moving in a cool caress, the soft perfume of blossoming trees in late spring, the sound of water falling… I closed my eyes.

And then, because it seemed like the right thing to do, I… prayed. Looking back, it seems like an odd thing to have done. To ask for guidance? To express regret over having let things get to this point? To say I would try to pay more attention? Sure. Conversation is not something I’ve shied away from, I don’t think. But a formal prayer? It’s unlike me. But it was the right thing to do, in that moment, at that place.