Changing Paths challenge day 14: my path.
I don’t really describe my path as a spiritual path anymore. I think of it as an embodied path. My practice is to notice the beauty in the everyday: flowers, trees, music, the landscape, the sky, food, and poetry.
As The Charge of the Goddess says, all acts of love and pleasure are her rituals.
Continue readingReblogging Jarred the Wyrdworker who is writing blogposts using the prompts from Changing Paths.
Ritual style preferences: Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 1 of “Changing Paths”
I find all four styles — or at least elements from them — appealing. I certainly like the familiarity of certain liturgical elements whose symbolism and meanings I can fall upon. Yet I’m not big on “avoiding outbursts of emotion” or embracing a total lack of spontaneity. So I prefer repeating a ritual structure that has been carefully thought out and contains deep meaning for me, yet leaves space for moments from the heart and the interjection of Divine (or human) ecstasy into a particular rite as well.
Ritual style preferences: Exploring a journal prompt from chapter 1 of “Changing Paths”
I think Pagan traditions often mix different styles together (liturgical plus magical, or creative + magical). I liked Jarred’s thoughts about ceremonial rituals to create or strengthen community cohesion too.
Just to note that the ritual modes or styles were originally categorized by Ronald Grimes.
Unitarian hymns — specifically the earth-based ones like Peter Mayer’s “Blue Boat Home” (which doesn’t get sung often enough in the UK), “Mother Spirit” by Norbert Čapek, and nature-based ones like “Daisies are our silver” and “Spirit of Life” of course, but also some of the other ones like “Name Unnamed” which is beautiful. And I really appreciate how the Unitarians have defanged some of the classic Christian hymns by removing the obnoxious bits.
Though below me, I feel no motion
Standing on these mountains and plains
Far away from the rolling ocean
Still my dry land heart can say
I’ve been sailing all my life now
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home
Sun, my sail, and moon my rudder
As I ply the starry sea
Leaning over the edge in wonder
Casting questions into the deep
Drifting here with my ship’s companions
All we kindred pilgrim souls
Making our way by the lights of the heavens
In our beautiful blue boat home
I give thanks to the waves upholding me
Hail the great winds urging me on
Greet the infinite sea before me
Sing the sky my sailor’s song
I was born upon the fathoms
Never harbor or port have I known
The wide universe is the ocean I travel
And the earth is my blue boat home
Changing Paths is published by 1000Volt Press and is available from all the usual online stores. Ask your local bookseller or library to stock it!
The goal of the book is to help you decide your own path by guiding you through the perils and pitfalls of the terrain, and asking questions to help you deepen your understanding of the reasons for your desire to change paths.
Candle flames flickering, incense smoke curling in the twilight, standing in a circle of firelight, chanting sacred words. Deep in the woods where everything is transformed by the moonlight. Where the warm summer rain falls softly on the leaves.
The atmosphere of ritual is like no other: electrifying, life-enhancing, comforting. It can jolt you out of your complacency and reconnect you with your deepest desires, your authentic self, sometimes both at the same time.
Continue readingAltruism is good for you. Caring for and about other people is good for you. Loneliness is stressful, and can give rise to those self-critical thought spirals as you lie awake at 4am. The solution? Spend more time creating connection and meaning.
Continue readingThere’s been a discussion on the internet recently about de-baptism.
Here’s an excellent article about it from John Beckett over at Patheos: Debaptism: You Probably Don’t Need It, But It Can Be Done
…you can’t unpour water. The baptism happened and we can’t pretend it didn’t.
John Beckett
But we can reverse its effects.
Further thoughts and resources on de-baptism after the jump.
Continue reading
Changing Paths 