Call of the Cailleach: Samhain Reflections

In preparation for Samhain this year, I have been reading a great deal of Scottish lore where I came across the Cailleach Beara--the Winter Crone--Grandmother of Gods and humans. Samhain is the end of the reign of Angus and Brigid and the beginning of Grandmother Cailleach’s reign. What struck me most about this myth is that, although the Cailleach is fearsome, she is also the epitome of wisdom and, I can’t explain this, but I feel from her a certain tenderness. Yes, we are tested in winter by her iciness and incessant howling--by, as the lore goes, the eight hags that serve her and deepen the winter chill--but we do survive and we continue to survive. We learn things in the depths of darkness, we come to appreciate more fully the light, and in those howlings from the dark woods, there is deep, deep magic.

Because my birthday is exactly two weeks before Halloween, this time of year has always been special to me. When I start to see the colorful gourds and jolly pumpkins in the grocery store, I get giddy. I ponder near months in advance what my costume will be. As I drive around town, I drive my family crazy pointing out all the most glorious turning trees. When the first chill of autumn wisps through the air, I feel an awakening--I feel my spirit enliven and my mystical yearnings begin to pulse. I’ve often tried to figure out why this season is so special to me, and the only thing I have come up with is that it strikes me as the last hurrah before the cold of winter--like nature going out in style. It is a time of pure, unfettered fun and every day filled with anticipation for the big sendoff of Halloween.

Every year, decorating the house for Halloween is a big, big deal and, for some reason, my family has always been able to do the decoration with absolutely no stress or squabbling like we inevitably have around the rest of the holidays. We also always cook up some ghoulish treats for the night--like Mummy Eyeballs which are really deviled eggs, or Spinal Cord Spirals, which are really tortilla wraps. Then there is handing out candy to the beggars, parties, and scary movies every night for at least the week before. Funny how, now that I am a Pagan, I enjoy all of these things even more because I know there is a real spiritual significance behind them--and always has been. Now, as a Pagan, I have been able to add to the festivities the decorating of the Samhain altar, writing letters to my departed loved ones, leaving a light in the window for them on Samhain night, and using my poetic gifts to write a ritual to do either on my own or in a group.

Perhaps the autumn magic I always felt in my bones even as a child was the soft yet persistent call of Grandmother Cailleach drawing me to my Pagan path. As the season progresses, the nights lengthen, and her call resounds ever more loudly in my soul, may I have the wisdom to heed her and to follow fearlessly wherever she may lead.

So be it.

Blessed by the Mystery
-M. Ashley

An Autumn Devotion for Mother Eve

Fall

Walking in the luscious shade

of a fine and ancient orchard

unkempt rows of virgin trees 

whisper sway and droop

their red radiant burden

to meet my sunburned fingers

and everything I touch 

     touches back

and everything I taste

     is knowing.

-M. Ashley

Spiritual Desires: What I Want, What I've Got, and What's Still Missing

Yesterday I wrote a post exploring some of my reservations about even lightly reconnecting with the LDS church--the church of my youth. Despite my reservations, however, I do feel strangely drawn to that reconnection, so today I decided to make a list--yes, another list, (it is the lazy bloggers go-to after all)--exploring some of the top things I want from a faith and how my current faith and the one of my childhood compare. In doing this I hope to uncover what I feel is missing from my current practice for which my spirit is searching elsewhere. Here is what I came up with:

1) I want a faith that honors both feminine and masculine divinity equally and offers equal amount of detail about both. 

I have not yet found a faith that meets this quality fully. Paganism tends to honor Goddess over God and offers far less information about the nature of the God in general than it does about the Goddess. Mormonism acknowledges a Heavenly Mother as equal to and in partnership with a Heavenly Father, but there is little information on her or actual working veneration of her. 

2) I want a faith that acknowledges a multitude of Gods.

Both Paganism and Mormonism fit this one, though lately, with their rigorous PR campaign, the LDS church has been much more reluctant to publicly acknowledge this belief. 

3) I want a faith that demands spiritual, ethical and intellectual rigor yet is free of shame.

Paganism is, frankly, not all that demanding of this kind of rigor whereas Mormonism demands it to a point of being shaming should you fall short. In my opinion, there really should be a balance. 

4) I want a faith that honors other faiths as equally valid in accessing the Divine. 

Paganism fits this to a tee as does Mormonism. Although Mormons do regard their church as the “truest” church, they believe all spiritual roads eventually lead to the same place. 

5) I want a faith that supports the idea of eternal progression--that we continue to evolve spiritually, physically, intellectually and emotionally beyond this life on Earth.

Again, I think both faiths fit here, though I’ll admit I take my belief in eternal progression entirely from my LDS upbringing. 

6) I want a faith that sees the Gods as a higher evolution of our species, not a species unto themselves--a faith that sees Godhood as achievable by humankind.  

From the Pagan side, whether or not this one fits depends entirely on what brand of Paganism you adhere to. I favor Hellenism, which definitely embraces this idea. Once again though, I have taken the entire concept of achievable Godhood from my LDS training. 

7) I want a faith with a rich cultural heritage, compelling rituals and complex history.

My Hellenic leanings favor this one as does Mormonism. Wicca would have this too if more in the community would give up their dubious claims of unbroken lineages and embrace their own unique and compelling history beginning in the 20th century--but that’s an entirely different soap box. 

8) I want a faith that uses its tenets to actively achieve positive change in the community.

I have to avoid my soap box on this one too, but suffice it to say that Mormons have it all over Pagans on this front. It isn’t that most Pagans don’t have it in their hearts to make service to their communities a priority, they just aren’t out there in a large scale actually doing it. Pagan Pride Day is a good example. Instead of organizing a whole day around patting yourselves on the back, selling occult-y things and ranting about how you are not properly accepted in society, why not spend the day getting all the Pagans in the community to express their faith and pride by cleaning up a park, painting over graffiti, planting trees, etc. Put your values where your hands are and do something with them. Did I say I was going to stay off my soap box?

9) I want a faith that acknowledges Earth as a living organism and her cycles, along with the cycles of the heavens, as representative of the cycles of body and soul.

Now here’s one where Paganism has it all over Mormonism. Though LDS doctrine does acknowledge Earth as a living organism, it doesn’t take that to the next logical step of proper veneration or acknowledging the spiritual lessons apparent within her cycles.

10) I want a faith that demands of itself the same intelligent evolution to a higher spiritual state as it demands of its adherents. 

I think both faiths give a good amount of lip service to this without actually achieving it. 

To sum up, apparently the things I am missing in Paganism are truly equal veneration of Goddess and God; spiritual, ethical and intellectual rigor; a doctrine of eternal progression and attainable Godhood; putting beliefs into action; a true and accessible cultural heritage; and honest evolution toward better, more fluent expression of that faith. I cannot in good conscience say I could find all these missing pieces in Mormonism, nor am I willing to exchange the Pagan pieces for the LDS ones. 

So I am left with even more questions: 

What is the balance here? Am I stuck inventing my own faith or have I simply not found the right fit yet? Should I strive for a combination of my old faith with the new and my own ideals? What would the practice and doctrine of such a combination look like? If I cannot create a tenable combination, will I eventually have to compromise on my heartfelt spiritual desires in order to feel accepted within any one group? Is acceptance more important than finding a point for point fit?

As is usually the case in affairs of the spirit, questioning inevitably leads to more questions--and more blog posts. Stay tuned.

Blessed by the Mystery,

-M. Ashley

Reconnecting with Spiritual Cake--and Wanting to Eat It Too

Tonight I was supposed to go to a game night with some ladies from my local LDS church’s Relief Society. I chickened out at the last minute. There is a part of me that really wants to reconnect with this church--the church of my upbringing, the church that my mother still faithfully attends--but yet there is another part that is deeply frightened of the prospect. Perhaps the thing to do is make a short list of everything I’ve been fearing about the reconnection, thus bringing those fears into the light. Fears tend not to survive in the light but breed like rabbits in the dark, so here goes:

1. I am worried I will be reminded too much of an abusive situation I was in with an LDS man--not that his being LDS was the reason he did the things he did, or that the church sanctioned what he did in any way, but it was a big part of his identity nonetheless. 
2. I am worried that if I do reconnect with Jesus, somehow I will have to give away all the deep connections with the Divine Feminine I have made in the five years I have been away from the church. 
3. What I really want is to have a connection with the church that helps me fellowship with good people, have the power and provenance to do tangible good in the community and celebrate the masculine Divine Mysteries while maintaining my spiritual investment in those same Mysteries as they are associated with the Goddess. I fear I will not be able to achieve this balance. I fear that one side or the other will demand my total fealty to the exclusion of all else. I fear that remaining in the middle will cut me off from both sides completely.

That’s the crux of it I suppose--the fear that I can’t have both in my life and honor them equally--that I have to give up the good of the one for the good of the other even though they are not truly opposed. LDS doctrine makes no bones about the fact that there is a Heavenly Mother--so why is this worry so heavy on my heart? I truly don’t know.

I plan on attending church on Sunday, which is a little less scary as it is a little more anonymous than a purely social gathering like the one planned for tonight. I’ll keep you posted on how some of these worries play out. 

Blessed by the Mystery,

-M. Ashley

P.S.

I thought the picture was appropriate as "CTR" in LDS parlance stands for "Choose the Right," which is exactly what I am attempting to do.

P.P.S.

I just included this 'cause I like the "pp"

Reconciling the Wheel--The "Meat" of Our Creation

I am attracted to the Mother/Father sacred marriage cycle through the Wheel of the Year as is commonly known among witches, but have been thinking lately that I will have to adapt it a bit because, as it stands, it doesn’t entirely make sense to me. Why is it the God is the only one who truly goes through the cycle of death and rebirth? How does the Goddess go from Crone at Samhain, to Mother at Yule, to Maiden at Ostara, etc.?

I don’t know why I am so obsessed with figuring out our Wheel of the Year--that I feel compelled to deal with that before anything else. I think it is because that is the way I work creatively. I like to have a skeleton first on which to hang the “meat” of the creation. I wonder if it was like that for our Divine Parents?

Anyway, the Wheel of the Year gives us a structure for the time in our lives and it also gives us our basic mythology. I truly love the Eleusinian Wheel I created once, but it isn’t entirely representative of my/my family’s beliefs. There are other things mixed in and I was always especially uncomfortable with the male aspect being conspicuously absent from celebrating that way. When I stand outside I see the earth and I think of my Mother. I look at the heavens and the order of the stars and I see my Father. I feel the wind blow and I feel the love and presence of the rest of my Divine Family--Hermes in the wind, Hestia in the warmth of our home, Hecate at the crossroads and Hephaistos in my physical limitations and my greatest creative labor.

I think our Wheel of the Year should be the marriage cycle but with a bit of tweaking here and there because I don't believe all God/esses are an aspect of a single Mother and Father. I believe that just as we are children of our Mother Godess and Father God, so other children of theirs have ascended to become deities of their own, like Hermes, for example. Further, I don’t believe the Earth itself or the moon itself is Goddess, nor do I believe the Sun and Stars are God. I believe these are the things they have designed into our wonderful world to remind us of their presence, to teach us about the nature of our bodies and spirits and also to teach us that they too have gone through these cycles in their form of mortality. I do not believe the Goddess and God were born so. I believe they were born mortal, in separate times, and each went through the mortal cycle because these cycles are eternal. It is as if our Earth is set up so that the story of our Mother teaches us the cycles of our spirit and emotions, whereas the the story of our Father is more the lesson of the cycles of our physical presence--our actual existence and the existence of our souls.

All of that is to explain why the Mother Goddess does not die, nor does she age down or up in chronological order. She teaches us that at any given time in our journey, we are all Maiden, Mother and Crone, or Youth, Warrior and Sage. We cast on our different aspects depending on what is happening within us. I suppose that’s a good shorthand for what I was saying before. The story of our Mother teaches us the cycles of our within, whereas the story of our Father teaches us the cycles of our without. The God, however, represented in the sun and the active principles of growth, much more literally dies and is reborn throughout the course of the year thus, as I said, teaching us the cycles of our actual physical presence in any given plane of existence.

Blessed by the Mystery,
-M. Ashley