The Song and the Flame

I did ritual again Saturday. I don’t know if I mentioned this last time, but I decided to start keeping track of how rituals go. I discovered that my last entry in that notebook was in November. Not nearly often enough.

As I always do, I kind of made it up as I went along–the overall structure is in place, but what I say and things like that, I never know ahead of time and I can seldom repeat again afterward. It’s an organic, inspiration-driven process. This time, inspiration led me down a path far more formal than I had previously been comfortable with.

And it worked.

Color me surprised. I was almost taken aback. As I was writing down my observations about this ritual, a thought began to worm its way through my head. And I don’t know whether it’s external or internal… But it came to me that I’ve thus far gone at “religion” from a somewhat immature perspective. (Not in a negative way, you know, just not developed yet.) And that maybe it was time for me to grow up. To stop just going with “whatever feels right” and start actually figuring out what works. Take notes, refine the process. Stop trying to be “friends” and open myself up to another level of relationship with Apollo–a more formal devotee/patron relationship. I’d thought that was there, and maybe it was on some level… But I don’t think I’ve been as open to the full breadth of it as I had thought I was. If that makes any sense.

I have three observations from this ritual. One is that the more formal phrasing does work, and I probably need to stick to it. Informality is OK in its place, but ritual is a formal setting and my words should reflect that. Two deals with offerings… I had previously been just setting out an offering, like, here ya go! This time I actually tried pouring a libation as a part of the ritual, and that seemed to work better. More like actually offering a portion of what I had, which was the original intent of this part of the ritual. Three is just a phrase… “The song and the flame.” I don’t know how it fits yet. I don’t know where I’m going with it. But it came out of my mouth during ritual and it just really resonated.

I have two things to investigate and/or think about. One is that phrase. One is the act of purification before the main ritual… I discovered that it’s really easy to get really OCD about getting everything in the area clean and “pure”. I have this paradox going on where I feel the need for everything to be perfectly clean (because it’s hard to purify in a dirty room), but at the same time I know that I can’t ever get it there (because, dude, I am only human). There’s a conflict that I need to resolve between the need for perfection and the need to recognize my inability to achieve perfection.

There’s more in my head, too. I just can’t get it all out right now… This is big, I think. I hope I can stick with it and not just get interested for a few weeks/months before dropping it like I have half the projects I take up. *sigh*