The Song and the Flame

I managed to get my butt in gear enough to celebrate Mounukhia, somewhat. Not really knowing exactly what to do, I borrowed the basic outline of the Noumenia ritual from Neokoroi and modified it so that it spoke to Artemis rather than the various entities honored at Noumenia. It seemed like a good place to start, at least. I baked offering cakes of wheat and barley, milk and honey, the recipe taken from a back-issue of Drew Campbell’s newsletter The Kerux waaaaay back in July 2000. (Click here, then scroll down maybe about 2/3 of the way to the bottom, to see the recipe.) Noting that there is some talk of this festival honoring Artemis as light-bearer, and that traditionally cakes offered at this festival would have lights around them, I put some birthday candles into it.

It all seems a little haphazard when I say it like that. ::sigh::

This was… a success in that I did what I intended to do. I didn’t feel it so much as I felt the Noumenia ritual, though. I think that’s for a couple of reasons. The first, and probably the more immediately disruptive, is that I had some technical difficulties. Which is to say, I had already gotten started, had processed and purified, and then I went to light the charcoal for the incense, and… it wouldn’t light. I was able to get some from another still-sealed roll and get it to light, but having to deal with it definitely took me out of the ritual frame of mind. Possibly I should’ve just started over at that point.

The other thing is that I had no idea what the hell I was doing, and I knew it and was entirely too conscious of it. And… Really, I think I’m overthinking it there. I think probably, other than technical issues, it was just fine. I knew who to be addressing, I had a good idea of how things should go, I had a suggestion of what would be appropriate. What more is there? Next time, just do it. Right?

If nothing else, though, this was an interesting experience in writing. I have always had a little bit of trouble writing things in honor of the Gods; I feel silly about it, somehow, though I couldn’t say why. And the usual thing is poetry, right, and I’ve had trouble with poetry in general for years now. But somehow, going through the ritual outline and crafting appropriate substitutions to honor Artemis felt much more natural, much more in my element. Which is funny, because the last time I did any liturgical writing I was in high school, still Christian, and modifying our standard church service for Youth Sunday. Which is to say, it’s been a long time and I never did have a lot of experience with it.

Next festival up is Olympeia, honoring Zeus, which… gee golly, is tomorrow. Erp. I got a little too focused on Mounukhia and didn’t plan ahead for this as I should have. I will have to do something, if only a simple libation, I think… but I don’t know if I will manage full-on ritual. Sigh.

Noumenia last night, timing issues meaning I just managed it before sundown. Which makes it sound a little rushed, but it didn’t feel that way, really.

I did some cleaning the night before to prepare, focusing on the areas closest to where I would be worshiping. They also happen to be some of the more neglected areas of the house, so they really needed it. Hopefully in the future I can expand my efforts more, when I don’t have several months’ worth of grime to clean up in one place.

I used Neokoroi’s ritual outline, with minor changes mostly to reflect the fact that I was worshiping solitary. It was a bit awkward, maybe, but that’s only really because this was my first time through it. I had studied it somewhat beforehand, but still had to have papers in hand to read from and still stumbled over things and still double-checked what I was doing a lot. All of these things interfere somewhat with the “feeling” of the ritual for me, but all of them will diminish as I get more comfortable with it over the coming months.

When it was over, and I’d sat there for a bit just being, enjoying the warm fuzzies that the ritual gave me despite my difficulties, contemplating the presence of the Gods, I discovered an unforseen benefit of the location I’d chosen. I’d been a little worried about doing this in the garage that we’ve converted into a sort of rec room, because it felt like maybe I was kind of shoving the whole thing off to one side and not giving the Gods their proper place… But at the same time, I needed a little privacy and quiet to do this, and the garage is the best place in the house for that. The thing I hadn’t thought of, though, is that it’s also the one place in the house where the cats and Natalie are not allowed. What this means is that I could leave my offerings out for as long as I felt appropriate, rather than having to dispose of them fairly quickly lest fuzzy paws or little hands get into them. And the garage is sort of “my space” in the house, though it serves other purposes as well. I think in the end it turned out to be the right place after all.

All in all, I think it went pretty well. I did forget to take any means of calendar/web access with me so that I could review the upcoming month and determine what I was doing, so I’ll have to do that today, I guess.

The Neokoroi ritual contains these lines:
This night,
Beneath the new crescent moon,
We gather
To reinstitute your worship,
To reforge the sacred bond of xaris,
And to renew the hope with which the gods bless humankind.

I really felt that last night, not just in the sense of monthly renewal that it’s actually talking about but also in a more general context. It felt good.

Noumenia is rapidly approaching, and I feel it’s important to get started on this monthly calendar thing even if it’s just a couple of observances per month right now. And this is an obvious one to start with. Problem is, what on earth do I do?

Fortunately, I live in Internetland, where I can easily look up what other people do and what they’ve got to say about it and make some decisions accordingly. It’s not as easy as finding information about, say, how to grow basil, but it’s out there. (And it helps that Sannion was kind enough to drop a link to his post on the subject, which contains many links to other people’s thoughts and rituals — thanks!)

It seems to me that there are two things to be considered here. There are formal ritual observances, and then there are lower-key sort of “things you do on this day”. Sort of like, I dunno, on Easter a Christian might go to the festival service (formal ritual) and then go have lunch with the family and do an egg hunt and stuff (less-formal stuff to be done on the day). Just as a timely example.

The ritual portion — well, I did just join up with Neokoroi, so it seems to make sense to use their ritual for this, especially given it’s the only ritual they’ve actually got posted. It’s a tie to the community as well as something I’m trying to do for myself, that way. This requires some adaptation and thought, though, to be suited to my particular needs. I don’t actually have a household altar, for example, in part because my husband and daughter do not share my faith so it feels odd to have a “household” altar when… really it’s just me. There’s also a time issue, though this particular ritual looks like it shouldn’t be all THAT long, so I suspect this is largely a matter of perception that I just need to get over. I do have a Hestia shrine, but it’s an LED candle for safety reasons, so I can’t exactly light a flame from it. I also don’t fully understand things like the Agathos Daimon, but I’m willing to at least go along with those bits until I can learn more.

As I bring up these issues, my mind throws up answers. Clean off that table in the converted garage/rec room and use it at least as a temporary altar until you can find a better arrangement. No, it’s not an ideal location, but it’s where you’ve got a spot, which is better than nothing. That’s a pretty short ritual, there are times when you could do it. Okay, so you have to light the flame anew each time, that’s OK. And so on. Well, OK, there you go.

OK, so how about the less-formal stuff? A common theme seems to be starting fresh and cleaning up. Makes sense. I don’t think a thorough cleaning of the house top to bottom is practical for me, not in one day, especially not if it’s a weekday and I have to work around being out of the house for nearly ten hours out of the day (plus all the usual daily tasks). I could do some cleaning, though, maybe the worst mess or the “public” part of the house or something. Or, especially this first time, I could do some cleaning around the area I’m planning on celebrating in! This is also a good time, probably, to look at the upcoming month and see what’s happening religiously that I should be thinking about.

…Well. There you have it. I think I have a tentative plan. Or at least a pln. It’s far from perfect in a lot of ways, sure, but it’s a place to start at least.

It’s goal-setting time over at the Cauldron again. Well, actually it’s past goal-setting time, since we divide the “Life’s To-Do List” threads by season at the solstices and equinoxes, but it’s taken me a bit to get a good feel for what I need to be doing, I think. About half of my initial list of goals are either directly related to my religious development or, at least, aimed at learning more about ancient Greece, which seems at least quasi-religious given my Recon focus. I thought I’d post them here. I’ve also posted the rest of my goals (mostly to do with writing) at my main blog, if you’re interested.

1. Develop a monthly calendar. I think at this point I’ve pretty well settled on a lunar cycle, and on not doing weekly stuff. I think I’ll probably fill in annual festivals as I go along and can see what works and what makes sense for me. But then what do I do monthly? As I said, I’ve got a start with the libation for Apollo on the seventh of the month and some attempt at a Noumenia observance, but is there anything else I should be doing? How much do I want to do with individual deity libations and such? It’s time to figure that out.

2. Finish listening to the OpenYale course on Ancient Greek History.

3. Read at least one book that is either primary source material I wasn’t previously familiar with, or a secondary scholarly source. I have a list of stuff to choose from, and it’s about time to stop with the “I’ll get around to it” and actually, you know, get around to it.

4. Attend at least one Pagan Meetup. I’ve discussed it previously, so I won’t bore you with saying the same thing again. The next meetup has been set, I’ve RSVPed and I’m planning on being there. As much as I’m still a bit nervous about it, ultimately I figure this will be the easy goal because all I have to do is follow through on existing plans.

I have just realized that “figure out what to do for Noumenia” should probably be in there somewhere too. I think I might save it for when I’ve gotten through goal #1, though, and just add “figure out what to do for monthly libations/observances” all in one go. Once I’ve figured out what I’m observing, I don’t think figuring out the form of it will be that difficult, though.

Right. I’ve been meaning to write this post for several days now, and not getting around to it. It’s calendar time!

The first thing is to decide what sort of cycles I’m looking at here. This is one that I feel like I ought to be agonizing over a little more, but… It’s really pretty clear to me. In the past, I’ve tried to keep a weekly schedule. I’m dropping that, even in name, because I have no earthly idea why I’m clinging to it so hard. It’s gone. This is a monthly and annual cycle now. Which leaves me with two other questions.

One: Which observances to observe? The obvious one for me is the offering to Apollo on the seventh of the month. I think I should probably start doing something for Noumenia as well. (I’ll get to “what” later. One step at a time.) Beyond that, I’m not really sure. I’m thinking that looking at HMEPA is probably a good place to start. Those two things might be enough for the monthly cycle. I suspect the annual cycle will be a work in progress for a while as I find out what works and what doesn’t.

Two: How to mark the calendar. This is a sort of a toughie for me, because if I’m going all-out traditional I’m going to need to go with the lunar calendar as described on HMEPA. Problem is, the lunar calendar is completely foreign to me. It has nothing to do with my life except for this. In ancient Athens, this is the calendar they used because it was their civic calendar as well — but it’s not my civic calendar, or my any kind of calendar. So do I transpose the dates to a Gregorian calendar, which is the one by which the rest of my life is run? It makes sense to me to do so, but as I get more involved with other Hellenistai who are keeping a lunar calendar of observances, it also throws me completely out of sync with them. In some cases that’s not such a big deal; I’m not particularly worried if I’m not doing libations to Apollo at the same exact time as everyone else, for example. But things like Noumenia, well, it gets a little weird if I’m doing it on the first of March and everyone else is doing it on the seventeenth, as would have been the case this month. And what do I do with the annual festivals?

It does occur to me that other religions operate on a lunar or lunisolar calendar, despite secular life operating on the Gregorian calendar and they do just fine. And while I find the lunar calendar confusing, well, I’ve never really made a good solid go at following it. Maybe as I got more used to it I’d have a better feel for it.

Yesterday was the seventh, and I did sort of a half-attempt at having an Apollo sort of a day. It felt… right. And really, the more I type about this, the more I feel like… maybe it’s time to try the lunar calendar again. If I’m going to do this work on my religious life, then do it and don’t just sit around dithering about it, you know?

Right. Let’s go mark some new moons on Google Calendar. And see how this goes.

I am a creature of habit, and a creature of the Internet. My social life has been largely online, and any interaction with coreligionists definitely has been. I’ve been pretty comfortable with that, and I’ve been able to be pretty comfortable with that because I’ve been able to fool myself into thinking that — particularly as regards religious interaction — it’s my only choice. Oh, I’ve been known to say, I’m solitary out of necessity. There’s no one else closer than… I don’t know, Chicago maybe. (Or Ann Arbor.)

Can I get a buzzer sound effect? ::BUZZ:: …Thanks.

It’s recently come to my attention that, in fact, there are indeed other Hellenistai within easy driving distance of me. In fact, they’re planning a Hellenic festival next May an hour and a half south of me. In fact, they co-host the monthly Bloomington Pagan Meetup. In, not surprisingly, Bloomington. Probably ten minutes from my house, in a new local coffeeshop that I find myself really curious about now I know it’s there.

Wow, gee. Um. My excuses just got blown right away.

“Excuses” is a good word here. Athenian religion? Definite community component there. As long as it’s “just me” I can ignore that, and I can stick to my comfort zone, the small and increasingly irregular and informal rituals, the shrine, the quick daily prayers and libations. And all those things are fine, as far as they go, but… There is more, and I’ve been ignoring it.

I have lately felt a bit of a pull to start focusing more on religious work again, bringing my practice back up to speed, doing some research, just… I feel like I’ve fallen down on this, and I need to get back up. I don’t know where this new connection will lead in terms of potential group religious practice. We may only wind up interacting socially, or not much at all — it’s hard to tell at this early stage what will happen. What I do know, though, is that even having the subject brought up feels like life kind of kicking me in the pants and saying, “Hey. You’re being lazy about this. Do something.”

And so. I’ve started doing brushing up on my history, which thanks to OpenYale (freeYalecoursesontheinternetthisissocool), I can do while I’m working. I’ve added some more Hellenic-type blogs to my RSS reader, in an effort to see what other Hellenistai are saying about Hellenic religion. I’ve joined the Neokoroi mailing list and am trying to get back into the swing of things over at Hellenistai. There are books on my to-read list; it may be time for another visit to Wells Library soon (and, again and again and again, thank gods for the university library system). And I’m planning on going to the next meetup, despite being nervous as all hell, and meet people. Because “I’m nervous” is hardly a good reason not to, and it’s really the only one I’ve got right now. Somewhere in the back of my mind is the concept of investigating Hellenion membership and whether that’s a direction I want to go. I have things to think about in terms of shrine-keeping and calendar, at the very least.

I have to remember not to try to do everything at once. That’s a good way to burn out, and burnt out I will be no more effective than I am now. But I think it’s time to start paying more attention to this, and making changes. I keep saying I know where I’m trying to go; well, it’s time to pick up my feet and start moving instead of just standing still.

Renee has said a great deal of very relevant stuff over at her blog, which is what’s touching off this bit from me, so I should begin with a link:
Singing for Apollo

This.

I consider myself maybe a little better-off in the vocal department than Renee describes herself; I think my voice is passable, and was even part of a church singing group when I was still Christian. (And this is a church where they have the congregation sing the Hallelujah Chorus, in appropriate parts, on Easter and they do a bang-up job of it, not one of those where even the choir can’t carry a tune in a bucket. So this does actually mean something.) I’m not making a career out of it or anything, but I manage.

I sing.

I don’t sing around other people that much anymore. Things have deteriorated with age (singing group was, what, nine or ten years ago?) and lack of consistent practice, and as I’ve increasingly withdrawn from an offline social life (more on that later, perhaps) I’ve found that I get more insecure about my offline interactions with other people, where you can’t edit the message or take your time reviewing it before posting or whatever. But I have a long commute twice a day, five days a week. And I have an iPod, and a way to hook it into my car’s audio system. I sing. Not the entire commute, but: I sing.

“I want to sing but I’m a bad singer!” doesn’t make sense to me. You don’t have to be the best singer in the world. You just have to be your best. I sing for Apollo, not for a multiplatinum recording career. You know? And this isn’t like playing an instrument, where you have to figure out the mechanics of how to produce a note and how to change notes and whatnot before you can do anything. If you can speak, you can sing. Maybe sing well, maybe not, but you can sing. And if singing isn’t something that works for you as a way to connect to the Gods, hey, no biggie. But if you want to sing — don’t hide behind the “I don’t have a good voice” excuse. That isn’t the point.

I find the bits about the mechanics of singing particularly relevant, too. It’s not just the product, the song that comes out of my mouth. It’s the process, it’s everything that goes into it. It’s the focus on and awareness of breath, of vocal cords, of the way notes interact with each other and progress one to another. It’s not just song; if all I wanted was the passive act of hearing music, I could simply turn on the Pod and let it run. It’s singing, the active involvement in creating this thing, this connection, this offering.

I’m sure I was going to just link and leave it at that… Heh. Well.

In the “Apollonian Epiphanies” portion of his book on Apollo, Kerenyi says that Callimachus in his capacity as poet delivers a lesson to his audience:

…that he who glimpses [Apollo] is great but he who cannot is inconspicuous, a non-entity (litos). Who then chooses not to look?

The last sentence keeps resonating in my mind. Who chooses? Who chooses?

Three years and more ago, I myself wrote:

Belief is a choice, one that I have made long since. I choose to believe when even my own mind refuses to present any evidence to support what I’m believing. … I choose to believe. Consciously, with my eyes wide open, not with full knowledge perhaps but at least knowing my own limits. Somehow this feels like a very powerful thing.

It occurs to me now that belief is not the only thing I could say that of. What I draw from that line of Kerenyi’s is this: A thwap is not only a choice made by the Gods. They choose to reveal themselves to us; we, in our turn, choose whether to look or to turn away. (Admittedly, sometimes turning away just makes them more persistent in their efforts to be seen. But it is still a choice we can make.)

So, once shown, if there is something special about those who are tapped by the Gods (a concept I’m not very comfortable with, but working out my issues with that is another post), then who in their right mind chooses not to look? Think about words like “great” and “non-entity” for a moment. The great people of this world live their lives under microscopes. The non-entities slip by unnoticed, free to go about their business. With great power comes great responsibility, isn’t that what they say? Ignorance is bliss. What would you rather have? There are two sides to the coin. OK, maybe you’re special, but what does that mean? Often you might not even know in the moment; you might have only the great dark unknown in front of you — or be blinded by the light you see, which is another risk you take by looking. Anything could happen. Anything. Dreams and nightmares are equally possible.

It is a difficult thing we do, when we choose to look and to believe. It is a powerful thing. I still believe this.

What I don’t believe is that any of this is going to make any sense… Translating personal epiphanies like this into English never works well. But it’s what I’ve got for now, so I guess I’ll go ahead and post it.

From my reading journal, some thoughts on (the first third of) Allyson Szabo’s Longing For Wisdom: The Message of the Maxims:
Longing For Wisdom

I feel kinda bad for not being better pleased with it. I don’t think it’s at all RevAllyson’s fault as an author; I think that possibly I ignored or did not pick up on clues about the way the book would go that were perfectly well available to me. I want to stress again that I don’t think it’s a bad book, it’s just not what I’m looking for right now. I would certainly recommend it to someone looking for a devotional (which, if I’d been paying attention, is kind of Bibliotheca Alexandrina’s gig; there’s one of those clues).

In other news, this quick-look not-quite-review (I refuse to review a book properly when I’ve not finished it) is the closest I’ve come to saying anything direct about my religion on the two blogs that I consider more-public space — that is, the space my extended family might reasonably stumble upon by following links from various profiles. So I’m a little nervous there that someone will read between the lines and realize what’s going on, and it’ll be a Big Thing. Except, you know, with my family I’m betting it would never actually wind up being a topic of discussion. Gotta love Midwestern American German Lutheran manners; you don’t discuss religion in polite company.

Karl Kerenyi, “The Spirit”, Apollo: The Wind, the Spirit, and the God: Four Studies, speaking of Vergil’s description of Apollo possessing the Sibyl at Delos:

In Delos it is Apollo who arrives… And he is at the same time the object of the spiritual experience and of observation by the few who, already chosen for their own worth, are able to have or are worthy of having this experience.

I realize, in transcribing this, that Kerenyi is not saying what I initially thought he was. Initially, I read that as referring to the worth of the Sibyl herself; I think, now, that it was instead intended to refer to those gathered to hear her answers. The thought it provokes is the same either way.

In a community that contains a number of people who feel themselves to be called or chosen by various deities, and also contains a number who do not feel so called or chosen, there is inevitably The Question. “Why?” Why are some called, and some left to find their own way without the intervention of the Gods? Why are some chosen and others left without guidance? What sets us apart? What makes us more desirable to the deities that call us? Are we tools suited to their tasks? Are we favorite playthings, collector’s items? Do they choose followers as we choose friends, according to personal attraction and mutual interests?

All possible. All probable, separately or together. But, reading the above passage, another idea occurred to me.

It occurred because I immediately rejected the idea of “worth” as a determinant. I don’t like that. I suppose it’s not PC enough for me — not that I’m usually all that worried about being politically correct, but it makes me feel uncomfortable to say that I am called because I am better than someone who isn’t called. It feels arrogant. I don’t like arrogance. I don’t believe it, either; I don’t believe I’m more of a special snowflake than Jane Doe over there who hasn’t been personally thwacked upside the head with the spiritual equivalent of a rolled-up newspaper.

So I honed in on the option: able to have…this experience. My gut reaction there was, “Able? No, that’s not the right word.” It’s closer than “worthy”, but it’s still not right. I don’t have a special brainwave, or a hidden organ, or whatever, that makes me able to exerience contact with a deity. “Willing”, perhaps, is more of it. Not that we sit down and decide we’re willing — nothing so conscious as that. If it were so simple, fewer people would have crises of faith, no? Just decide you’re willing and you get tapped; easy, no problem, we’ll put you on His schedule. How’s 3pm next Wednesday work for you? Besides that, I know I’ve heard stories of people trying unsuccessfully to run and hide from such an experience; if it were as simple as giving consent, again, this wouldn’t happen. “Not interested? Oh, OK. Next!”

There’s “I’m willing to do this”, though, and then there’s “my psyche is willing to process this experience”. Which is where it starts to verge on “able”, but I don’t like that word because it seems to imply that some people have no potential for it. I think everyone’s got that potential, but a lot of people quite sensibly put up subconscious resistance to it. Because direct deity experience is a damned scary thing at times. It requires letting yourself go out on a limb, perch on the edge of the rooftop, stand on a bare hilltop in the pouring rain and reach for the lightning in the clouds. Kerenyi, in this essay, shows us through Vergil’s work and through the Christian Bible that experiencing the Spirit appears to be something like being caught in a hurricane. He’s not wrong.

Some people thrive on that, some shrink from it, and as with anything there’s a whole spectrum of responses in the middle. And none of those responses is inherently better than the others, but some will be more conducive to a direct relationship with a deity than others. Those chosen aren’t more worthy than those who are not, just as a water main isn’t more “worthy” than a kitchen tap. Which is to say: Worthy of what? You have a greater capacity, you do more work on this particular task. You have a lower capacity, you do something else that you do have a greater capacity for. OK, I talk to Apollo. I can’t write hymns for shit, I have a fuzzy grasp of theology at best, I have difficulty communicating my experiences and beliefs to others (one reason, perhaps, why this blog is so slow). I crave structure but have trouble putting it in place; I am overwhelmed by instinct and it’s sometimes difficult to translate that into anything more than a feeling. These things are important too. Divine experience is not the end-all, be-all of religion, nor is it a magic cure for any religious issues one might have. If anything, it just creates more issues.

I got tapped because my brain has less of a danger-avoidance mechanism regarding spiritual matters. Doesn’t sound so sexy anymore, does it? Which is just fine by me.