Week 1: Wheel of the Year questions

This is for week one out of the Wheel of the Year:

1.  Why have you chosen to take the first steps on the Dedicant path?
2. Is this a step on your path, or will this become the Path itself?
3. What do you expect to learn?
4. What would you like to get out of this journey?
5. Do you know where this path will take you?
6. If you have just joined ADF, why have you chosen to work on this immediately?
7. If you have been in ADF for a long time, why are you starting only now?
8. Does it look hard or easy?
9. Which requirements appear to be difficult to you now, and which appear to be easy?
10. Do you have doubts, question, or concerns that you need to ask about?

1. I chose this path because all others weren't quite right. I had been raised Christian, Lutheran to be exact, dabbled in Wicca, looked at Trad Witchcraft, Green Witchcraft, and various Brighid groups for flametending duties. It wasn't until I read Brendan Myers's book Mysteries of Druidry that I found a home for my faith. I then looked at OBOD, AODA, solitary, and of course, ADF. This course offers, for me, the best all around study, and I feel at home in the program.

2. I believe this is a step in the Path for me. I know this will be a long journey, and I hope the DP program can help me figure out the steps so I can further my relationships with my Goddess and the world, and the people in it.

3. Anything I can ! I want to learn how to run an ADF ritual, and also how to participate fully within a Druidic community. I expect that this path will never truly end, and I will continue to learn to the end of my days.

4. I hope to keep my love of learning and not burn out.

5. I would like to continue on after finishing the DP and start the clergy program. I feel that I am called to help further the community, and become a teacher.

6. N/A

7. I was going to start when I initially joined in 2016, but that fizzled out due to family, depression, and being solitary. I am now part of 2 Groves: Northern Roots and Banded Iron Proto-Grove, both in the Twin Cities. Having  them to work with me has helped tremendously! We started an actual Study Group (online, but still!), and it is keeping me on task

8. It looks both easy and hard. Until I get used to the schedule set by the study group, it will be difficult, since I am also a mom and a wife, and a crafter.

9. None appear, at this moment, to be any more difficult than any others.

10. At this time, no. This feels correct and right.

Happy Summer Solstice!

  As a northern hemisphere dweller, today is celebrated as the longest day of the year. Obviously, in the southern hemisphere it is the Winter Solstice, so blessings to them as they celebrate the Wheel of the Year turning towards warmer weather and longer days!
  I have made several goals for myself this year, and have actually stuck to a few of them! *gasp* It is very difficult to keep myself on task for long term goals. When a depressive episode hits, it saps all energy to even do basic functional tasks, let alone meditation and ritual prayer. I usually end up borrowing from Peter to pay Paul in the energy department, as I have children and husband and other home responsibilities, but I am very fortunate to have excellent roommates who step up. It helps a lot now that my kids are older, and can handle a lot of their own stuff without me.
  So, here is what I have been able to do with some amount of consistancy:

1. Go to the library once a week.
        - this is a big one; I am currently jobless, and as the only adult in the house not contributing financially anymore, I take care of household chores (with help from boys, who quite frankly need the practice anyway!). Getting out of the house more than once a week is needed, and when I am home it is difficult to concentrate on studying when housework looms. Luckily my local library is only a 10-15 min walk (depending on traffic, etc) away.

2. Share tea with Brighid in the morning
       - I crave ritual, but am unused to actually getting up and doing it. I always fear it isn't "good enough", or what have you. I am usually a coffee drinker, but I now brew a cup of Irish Breakfast Tea, sweeten with local honey, and add some half n half, and share a cup at my shrine with Her in the morning. I did originally start with coffee, and She appreciated that, but gently requested tea for the next share.

3. Work on memorizing daily prayers
       - I have prayers from the Carmina Gaedalica, Clann Bhride, and elsewhere, written in a journal that has been many things, but now is my Prayer Book. I was illuminating some of them, but the soft handmade paper isn't very conducive to it. I almost have a Caim to Her memorized, along with my own hand gestures. I am also looking into making a set of prayer beads, and utilizing the prayers as recorded by Clann Bhride with it. They are a lovely organization, and have very good spiritual practices.

4. Practicing meditative breathing
        - This isn't really easy for me, but I am at least learning how to be mindful of my breath. I found a 3 hour long meditative music thing on YouTube, and I am working on emptying my mind... someday soon, haha!

5. Bullet journaling
      - specifically, recording temps and moon phases. It's more of a record for me, as I don't really do much with Brother Moon myself, but I like to know when it was full, etc. I haven't been as good at doing this part, but I do try.
Speaking of bullet journaling: I have some photos of how I set my DP journal up.

notebooks

These notebooks I picked up in 2016 when I was originally starting my DP. I let my ADF membership lapse, and didn't even get very far in the DP before this year. A lot of that was due to the fact I was solitary, and I wasn't sure how to go about doing anything. Then, I took a chance on a Druid outing called Druidpalooza with these crazy ladies from Northern Roots Grove. It. Was. The. Best!!! They were friendly, welcoming, and I was immediately at home. I honestly did not know anyone that was there, and when I came home two days later I had a new home for my spirituality. I dedicated myself to the Grove last year, and will rededicate myself this year. Paganican was fabulous with our party suite, and one of the Druids we hosted was Rev. John Drum, the Archdruid for ADF. After Paganicon, I knew it was time, and re-upped my membership in ADF.






So, this is the Index page, and it contains the symbols I use for denoting items to do, finished, etc. It also has a set up for the logs, etc, and what pages they are on. As this is a normal notebook, the pages aren't numbered and so I have been writing the numbers on the bottom outside corners as I use them. After bullet journaling for a couple of years, I have found that if I set the Index up ahead (the monthly pages already listed, without the page numbers), I will actually USE the Index, haha!




This is the Future Log. It is mainly useful for major events, like High Holy Days, etc. I set mine up monthly, with December kinda getting the short end of the stick. If you were to do a full year, you might need 4 pages vs 2 like I used. As I started this one in June, 6 months is good enough. It's kind of a year at a glance thing.

So this is the Monthly set up. I write the day abbreviations and their dates along the side, and then use a single line to write anything specific to the month there during the actual month. It's not like the Future log; this is date specific, and you can add details if needed. The second page of this spread I use as a place to write down goals for the month. It's handy to have those goals written out, so you can't weasel out of doing them, haha!

This is how I do my daily log. Each day has a space, and I put in the tasks I need to complete for that day. It's recommended that you don't actually "plan ahead" with the daily log; you never know how many spaces you may need for a particular day. I do anyway. I leave a bit of space so I can add if necessary, but I often have several things during the week I don't want to forget, so I plan ahead. You get pretty good at figuring out what kind of space you need.

Technically this isn't in my bujo (shorthand for bullet journal), but it is in my notes journal. I marked off the relevant pages with washi tape (when you go to conventions you can get free stuff like that sometimes!), so I can find them easily in the journal. A lot of bujo enthusiasts will really go whole hog and use so many colors/shapes/designs, but really, anything to mark the pages as easy to find is fine. I wrote out the rest of the year, days and dates, and marked out where the moon phase info would go. Then, I started writing out the weather for the day, and the moon phase in the far column. This isn't particularly relevant to my Hearth practice, but I felt it was necessary to try.

This is a spread in the bujo that is about prayers for the prayer beads I want to create. I will mark this on the Index page so I can find it easily when I am ready to start utilizing it in my daily practices.






  So, that is where I am as far as working on my daily practices. I am not able to do it all every day, but I have been rather consistent otherwise. Getting into the habits is always the hardest part.

  I hope you found the bullet journaling aspect of this interesting. Thanks for reading!
Alyssa

Retrospection...Who am I?

  I feel like I should do a "how did I get here?" sort of post. It's been one heckuva journey, for sure. The last couple of mornings I have been sharing tea with Brighid, and Imbas hit me to do this. Of course, I then forgot all about it, and did dishes for an hour (8 people in the house means lots of dishes). So, without further ado, a long post about my faith path.

  I was born in a rural town in WI. Neither of my parents were particularly religious; my dad was Methodist, and my mother Lutheran, Missouri Synod. My mom had my sister and I go to Sunday School at her church, although I don't recall much of it, other than it was a little boring, and we didn't really sing kids songs, just the songs from the hymnal. Dad was a farmer, so church wasn't his priority: getting the cows milked was. Mom had a falling out with the pastor of the Mo Synod church, and yanked us out fast. Mom wasn't one for putting up with judgemental types for long.
  In fourth grade, she asked my sister and I if we wanted to go back to Sunday School at the ELCA church in town, Bethlehem Lutheran. We said "sure!". The only issue: this was the "popular" church. Many of the first families in town went there, including my aunt, who was well off. A lot of the kids there had gone to church there all their lives. I had the wrong kind of bible too: it was my mom's King James version, and they were all using the Good News version. I didn't have new clothes; mostly hand-me-downs from my wealthy cousins in Milwaukee. I knew all these kids; we went to school together for all of our lives, but I felt so out of place. However, I ended up getting into it, as it were, and did Confirmation for 2 years, graduating from it in 8th grade. Confirmation was pointless, by the way. I learned bupkis. I also hated having to do acolyte stuff.
  I wanted to be a part of church (even though I found it weird and boring), so I signed up for the empty slot for teaching Kindergarten class in the fall. For four years I taught the little goobers, only taking time off if I was sick, or it was Prom season. I even got into a fight with the little old ladies who taught the Pre-K bunch (basically Jesus daycare for an hour). They were offended I didn't put Santa Claus up in my classroom, but instead used a drawing I had made of Mary riding a donkey holding the baby Jesus while Joseph walked beside them. That was fun.
  All the while I was there, I was constantly fighting with people, subtly or outright, to keep Jesus in the program. It was a lot of busywork, but it felt so wrong to not really talk about Jesus, and all that we were supposed to believe. And through all of this, I didn't believe in it. Not really. I could sense the presence of Jesus, but it was distant. I went through all the motions, because it was expected of me, but I didn't really give a real crap about it. I did it because it made others proud. So, when I finally left to go to college, I literally quit going to church and believing in anything. I knew there was "something" out there, but honestly, I was agnostic going on atheist.
  Now, a side not that is important here. My mom, whatever issues we had (and we had a lot) always made sure I had art supplies and books. I devoured books, and loved to reread favorites. I always had some kind of book with me, and usually a sketchbook with pencils. She gave me a book in high school called The White Raven by Diana L. Paxson. I read that book so often that it was almost falling apart. I still have it, in fact, and last Paganicon I was able to meet Diana in person, and have her sign it. She said she loves old, well loved books like that. This book introduced me to the concept of a Goddess... and not just any Goddess, but Brighid Herself. Yes, I had studied Greek, Norse and Egyptian mythologies, but none of them spoke to me as being "real".. well, Athena was a constant, but She was more abstract. Brighid's name rang in my mind. The prayers and rituals in the book called to me. No, I never did any of them, but I could see them in my mind's eye just as clearly as I can see this monitor. That connection the characters had with Her was wondrous, and I wanted that so badly.
  So, back to the story. I was engaged after college to my long term boyfriend. ELCA Lutheran raised as well, but like me not particularly into religion. We were not doing so well, due to a lot of issues (my undiagnosed depression making me rather hard to be around, for one), and I met a guy at work. He was tall, had broad shoulders, and was a gigantic nerd. I fell hard. We bonded over Monty Python, Weird Al and Def Leppard. He made me feel special. So, spring of '99 we started dating; by fall we were engaged, and by Sept 16th, 2000, we were married. He was also an ELCA Lutheran, raised in Texas. He was conservative, and a regular church goer. We attended church in Lindstrom MN, where his grandparents were members. I got pregnant, and we had our son's baptism there.
  I cried every week we were there. The church there was dying, spiritually. Everyone went through the motions, but there was no real feel of Spirit anywhere. It physically hurt to be there. After awhile, it became too difficult to drive there every week, and we tried to find a closer church. We had marital difficulties (again, neither of us had our issues diagnosed; luckily that has all changed!). We tried a few other churches around the area, but by the time I was pregnant with our second son, I was done with faking being a Christian. I was depressed, stressed, and crying into the wilderness for relief, and that's when I heard Her. It felt like Mother saying "I am here", gently but persistently.
  I started looking at Wicca, behind my husband's back. I bought books and candles, and tried to quietly do spells. Of course, this couldn't stay quiet for long, and we had a few...it wasn't pleasant, and I don't want to dwell on it. We worked on it, as best we could, for a year or so, and then one day he said to me, "I want to go to seminary". My response: "Good, I knew you needed to go." I didn't know until he said the words, but it made so much sense. He couldn't get work as a lawyer, and was so frustrated with it all. He was Called, and he needed to go. So, off to seminary he went, working full time, while I homeschooled our children and worked part time. I dedicated myself to Brighid after my youngest was born, and tried to keep it together.
  Seminary was, honestly, the best thing my husband could have done. Even though he went to a conservative Baptist seminary, he was becoming more progressive and ecumenical every day. We had hours long discussions of hermeneutics, archeology, history, mythology, ethics, etc. His path wasn't clear though. We weren't backed by any denomination, and bounced from congregation to congregation. ELCA Lutheran, United Church of Christ, independant...none of them fit him. He knew too much. His final paper was on Paganism in the Twin Cities...and he introduced me to his classmates as Pagan. Openly acknowledging me to his peers was a giant step for us both. I worried that my Paganism would stop him from getting work, and he was worried it would hurt me to be "in the broom closet" like that.
  I was solitary for a long time. I was a wandering Wiccan for a long time, using Cunningham, Moura, Dugan, etc as guides, but they didn't feel like "home". Then, I read Brendan Myers book The Mysteries of Druidry.  I already had Isaac Bonewit's book, and John Michael Greer's handbook for OBOD, but never could commit. Myers changed that all. Diana had started the call for me, but Brendan brought me home to Druidism. I have been eclectically studying Druidry for a few years, but finally 2 years ago I found a home in Northern Roots Grove in the Twin Cities. They are an eclectic Grove, not officially affiliated with any flavor of Druidism. They are open, inclusive and welcoming. I also recently re-upped my ADF membership, and started a study group for those in the Grove (and outside!) to work on the Dedicant path. I am also a part of an ADF Proto-Grove called Banded Iron. I am very excited to be a part of all of this. And, so is my husband.
  He is a very active part of my path, and I am in his. He was a pastor for an independent Lutheran church for a couple of years, but after finding out the parish admin (former pastor) was a pedophile, and committing white collar crime, and the church didn't care, he left formal ministry. Now, he is going into the Army as a chaplain, and we are going to be moving forward this year with his career path. It's been long, arduous, but worth it in the end.
  And, that's my story, as it were. Thanks for reading!
Alyssa
 

Still Gearing Up

  I went to the library on Wednesday this week instead of today (Friday). Hubby had scored discount tickets for Valley Fair for Thursday, so I knew that I would be too wore out to walk to the library today. It wasn't an easy study day; I am trying to not get far ahead of everyone else, so that we can walk this journey together. I'm just impatient, as usual.
  I am trying to, slowly, build up the bullet journal, so that I can keep myself on task and accountable. I still don't have the habit down yet; I need to, daily, take the time to actually write in it. I had to move my computer to my writing desk (old desk is needed elsewhere), so I have 1/3 of the space for writing that I used to have. Also, sharing the computer room with more than just hubby is something I am not used to yet. Working around 8 people in a house can be daunting!
  I am attempting to have a daily practice. I would like to spend approximately 15 min or so in the morning in learning how to meditate, divining an Oracle, and prayer before my altar. I have several things set up to help...it's just a matter of actually getting out of bed in the morning. Like many, I have depression, and there are many days when I could literally sleep the whole day away. It also is cyclical; it feels like a current down spiral, and I am doing what I can to minimize the effects. Medication helps, but there is no cure, and I just have to ride this out, like so many others. It also exacerbates with pain, and the pain and depression chase each other around like mean puppies. Having lived with the back pain since 7th grade (stress started it, although probably a magnesium deficiency too), it's all par for the course, but it doesn't make this sort of thing easy. So, trying to rewire my brain to be able to do this simple tasks feels grueling. I *want* to do these things... I just have to work on getting the energy together. \
  Making myself do these Friday posts, and walk once a week to the library, is actually very helpful. I may not know what I want to say in these posts, but I will do them. The same with the library; I never know how much studying I will get done, but just physically doing it is helping. So, I am confident that I can get the meditation and prayer done every morning. Well, at least most mornings...I have to give myself a little grace.
  Until next Friday!

Alyssa aka White Raven