Prayer and Patronage

The thread that holds the beads together is weak. The strand is not long enough to wear as a necklace and not short enough to wear as a bracelet. But it is nice to hold the beads in my hand. I suppose the crafting of the beads is an offering, but I think of the act of praying with them as my main gift.

It took a long time for me to call what I do prayer. In my earliest days of polytheism, I associated prayer so much with my Catholic upbringing that I disliked the term. At the same time, I reassured my parents that magic was really just a kind of prayer. Since then I have come to understand that prayer and magic aren't equivalent, and that it isn't as simple as "Christians pray, pagans do magic."

Because I am a pagan, and I pray.

I pray in desperation. I pray in moments of joy. I pray when I want things, even if what I want is just to get closer to my gods and my ancestors. It is something I do often.

So today I made a set of beads for prayer. Prayer to one who has come into and out of my life often. It is perhaps regrettable that the string is probably not strong enough to survive much wear and tear. I cannot imagine myself carrying them with me into battle. But perhaps it is also a reminder that walking Her path is not all about war.

I used to be preoccupied with the idea of patronage. I wanted that kind of special relationship with a deity so badly that I felt that strongly about every deity that I met. Having a goddess directly tell me that that was not the nature of our relationship (and also that I wasn't ready to walk that path, anyway) altered my perception of what patronage was all about. I didn't realize how much having a patron involves having them work through you. No matter what you do, you are doing their work. At least, that is how I have experienced this.

But just because I do not have a relationship of patronage with Her does not mean She is not important to me. It does not mean that I don't feel a rush of emotion whenever She is honored. It does not negate the sense of kinship I feel whenever I am with Her people.

I have a feeling She is returning to my path again. Perhaps we will walk together a while. I'm not sure how long, and I'm not sure how complicated it might get. But through it all, I will remember to pray for Her guidance.

On Wisdom

Today my tea gave me advice.

It was a sachet of Yogi Tea, and printed on the tag were these words: "Knowing others is smart, knowing yourself is wise."

This fits remarkably well with what I was thinking about the virtue of wisdom. It occurred to me when I sat down to write this that wisdom is something we often think comes from people who have lived longer lives than us, or who have had greater spiritual experiences, or a better education. It is rare that we acknowledge ourselves as a potential source of wisdom.

I have found that wisdom does come from experience, and often from people who have more experience than I do. But I have also found myself capable of producing more wisdom than I ever expected. As a young pagan, I have found that sometimes I lean too heavily on the elders of my community, not trusting my own wisdom because I haven't cultivated it. I haven't always put into practice the wisdom that bubbles up from inside of me like water in a spring, and that's a shame.

In addition to studying the nine ADF virtues, I also study a series of virtue pairs that I created, inspired by myths about Artemis. One such virtue pair is pride and humility. While I believe that pride and humility are a pair of traits that need to be balanced, I want to focus on pride for the purpose of this essay. To me, finding wisdom in yourself requires appropriate pride.

In the CedarLight Grove Mentor Manual, wisdom is defined as "simply the ability to know.  Knowing implies an understanding that exists beyond learning as the ability to recognize." Knowing also implies a degree of pride in your ability to understand. At the grove, I have witnessed many members acting with wisdom and appropriate pride when they took on roles in ritual. Seeing this wisdom in action has left an impression on me. Wisdom does not always have to come from hard lessons. Sometimes it comes from the gentle laughter of the divine. And while I have also seen members of the grove acting with wisdom in times of discord, it is during celebrations of the kindred that I see the wisdom the most.

It would be highly convenient if I received a bit of insight like this every day simply by drinking a cup of tea. I'm grateful for this happy coincidence. It has given me a moment to reflect on wisdom, and how I can cultivate wisdom in my life.

An Administrative Note

I will be using the tag "dedicant thoughts" for anything pertaining to the Dedicant's Path program in ADF. I'm not entirely sure how to go about formally pursuing the DP, but I know about the requirements, and I'm already keeping a pen-and-paper journal about my progress in understanding ADF tradition and the Dedicant's Path. This is a place where I'll be posting my thoughts about each of the essay topics, but not the essays I write themselves. I may at some point make a blog dedicated to DP essays, but for now this is just another place to gather my thoughts regarding my pagan path.

On the Ancestors

I've decided to make a post about my ancestors because, when doing a simple daily devotional before my newly-redecorated main altar, I felt their presence very strongly. I'm not sure if it was the apple cinnamon tea I made to toast to the kindred with tonight, or something about today that made them particularly interested in visiting me, but I felt more connected to them than I usually do. It's easiest for me to connect with gods and goddesses, probably because they're what I initially perceived as the focus of my paganism. Since joining ADF, I've restructured my practice to include all of the kindred, but sometimes I still find myself focusing on the deities more than anyone else, and that's a shame, because my ancestors are very important. After all, they are why I am here today!

But perhaps I never really forget my ancestors, even when the shining ones overshadow them in my practice. Although I feel like my hearth culture is Hellenic, I have no Greek ancestry. However, I have Irish, Scottish, Polish, and Italian ancestry. I thought perhaps my Italian ancestry was responsible for my pull towards the Greek hearth culture, since there were certainly many Greeks in parts of Italy. But my family is from northern Italy, and I've been told that it's more likely that I have cultural ties to the Norse pantheon than to anything Hellenic. Perhaps this explains why I feel called to have a small Norse shrine in my room, dedicated mostly to Freyja. It certainly makes sense that I'd need a space for the Irish gods as well. My Irish shrine is mainly to the Morrigan, although at various times I have had candles or symbols for other deities present there as well. So while my ancestors might not be of the pantheon that chose me, I still feel a strong connection to my ancestors when I interact with the Norse and Irish cultures in ritual or in study.

So far I have said a bit about how the ancestors fit into my modern pagan practice. I think it is important to note that my practice is definitely different from the way my ancestors may have done things. I don't think that doing things the way we think our ancestors did them is always advisable. My ancestors have done things I disagreed with, and my pagan ancestors are no exception. So I do remove things from my practice that do not resonate with me, or are not a part of the ADF tradition. I also don't hold the same beliefs my ancestors did about a lot of things. Again, I don't think that this is inauthenticity. I think it is actually a part of carrying on the legacy of my ancestors to adapt when necessary, and to hopefully leave the world a better place than it was when they walked it as living beings.

So who are my ancestors?

There are of course those ancestors related to me by blood. The ancestor I mention the most is my grandmother, who passed away about two years ago, around this time. She had Alzheimer's, and it was very difficult to watch someone who I knew was very intelligent struggle to make us understand what she wanted us to know. My grandmother and I did not see eye to eye about everything, although I doubt she knew it. And sometimes I wonder if she feels uncomfortable when I bring up her name at pagan rituals. However, I felt pretty strongly the day she died that what I needed to do was set out an offering of food for her.

I also count as ancestors those who are not related to me by blood, but who are related to me by common experience. One such ancestor is a girl from my high school who died a few years after graduating. She wrote some excellent poetry and prose for the school's literary magazine. Although I did not know her very well, I admired her writing. I recall thinking of her one weekend, only to find out that week that the day I remembered her name was the day she died. I feel that she is one of those departed friends whose spirit has spoken to me. A group of people who I also consider spiritual ancestors are those who've died tragic and sometimes violent deaths, at their own hands or at the hands of another, because of their sexual orientation or gender expression and identity. I can't speak for my ancestors, and I don't really know if they see me as a beacon of hope for the future, but I often feel like it is my duty to make the world a better place for them by fighting the forms of oppression they faced in life.

Finally, I consider the heroes of history and legend a part of my ancestral line, as well as the ordinary people. In particular, I think of those heroes and common folk of ancient Greece. This might not be in the strictest sense what ancestors are, but in my chosen academic path, I encounter the stories of these people often, and I find myself drawn to them. Whether through a common profession, common gods, or another common experience, I feel a connection, and I feel that my work is often an offering to their spirits. I try my best to remember their stories, and to recall the common people. It is a historical fallacy to think that history is only about those who are exceptional. I try very hard not to project my belief systems onto a culture and a time that are not my own, and in doing so, hopefully I avoid anachronism. It is very important to me to remember these people as they were, and not as we would imagine them to be.

I was not expecting this post to take such a heavy turn when I began writing. I thought mostly of the warmth I felt when toasting my ancestors tonight, but now I am feeling the weight of their legacy. There is still a warmth and a presence there, but there's a challenge as well. I know that the blood of my ancestors flows through me, and that their spirits are never far away. And I know I can call on them when I need. I feel as though they are guiding me to write these words, to make this post, to remember them always. And I think they believe in me. Sometimes it really feels like the world is too unpleasant a place for little bits of hope to thrive. But I also know that the kindred are with us, and I believe we are capable of rising to the challenge of our ancestors.

Carry On

So this is a somewhat inevitable post, yet it is one I am having some difficulty writing. "Coming out" sounds like an event- a one-time deal, where you put your soul on display, and prepare yourself for an onslaught of criticism that may or may not come. But it's not an event, it's a process. Maybe your parents know. Maybe people at work don't. Maybe at school you're a completely different person than you are at home. And maybe you have to "come out" several times, possibly even to the same people, because your sense of self is evolving constantly. You are a work in progress. We are all works in progress.

Sometimes I find myself asking, Why me? Why is this the path the gods have made for me? I don't have an answer, and I don't think I'm going to get one anytime soon. I don't like to indulge in that line of questioning, anyway. It's too easy for me to slip back into depression when I begin to feel sorry for myself.

In my journey through modern paganism, I have discovered plenty of men devoted to female deities. But I still think I turn a few heads when I say that I'm devoted to Artemis, and I identify as male. I have seen some pagans insist that Artemis hates men. In my experience, that's not true at all. Artemis came into my life at a time when I was first discovering my gender identity, and she's been with me ever since. When I've been scared that my identity meant that she'd abandon me, she's reminded me that she's still there, in big ways.

I don't like to talk too much about my gender in pagan spaces. More often than not, it's something I find embarrassing to bring up, even among people who know about such an intimate part of me as my spirituality. Revealing something like that about myself is somewhat exhilarating, but also really exhausting. But it's something I often need to talk about, even if I'd really rather not.

Some people will talk about magical names or craft names. I often think that Andrew is my magical name. It may not sound particularly spiritual, but for me, it is. It represents the will to find my own way through the forest, to listen to the voice inside of me that tells me what is right for me, to risk many things for the sake of integrity. What name could be more magical than that?

Right now, I'm uncertain of many things in my life. I don't really know where my journey to a truer sense of self will take me. I know it will probably be a difficult path, but I also know the consequences of not listening to my inner voice will be far worse than any danger I face by listening to it. And I know that I'm not alone. That is the most comforting thing of all.

"Carry on my wayward son, there'll be peace when you are done. Lay your weary head to rest, don't you cry no more." - Kansas, "Carry On Wayward Son"

Devotion

This blog, first and foremost, is an act of devotion to Artemis.

My journey through the woods with her began when I was 18, and a freshman in college. I was looking for a sign, and I came across a mother deer and her nursing baby on a walk through the woods. I continued to see deer for some time after that. However, it wasn't until I found myself face to face with a small altar statue of her that I realized I was definitely being called. Later that same night, I found a card that said "DEER: TRUST YOUR INSTINCTS." I thought I ought to listen.

It has occurred to me that the deer I continued to see might have been sent by another god or goddess- or might not have been signs at all. But since I began worshiping and working with Artemis, I have felt our bond grow stronger. And when I pulled away from her, she sent her deer to remind me of what we have.* It is, of course, my unverified personal gnosis that Artemis has sought me out, and there isn't a very clear way of verifying what I believe. I hesitate to use the word "patroness," though that is the sort of relationship I believe I have with her.

I'm not Greek. I do have Italian ancestry, but we're from northern Italy. So while Artemis has called to me, it's sometimes been more challenging to hear her. I've noticed that the stronger my ancestral ties to a deity or practice, the easier it is to worship and work with that deity or do that practice. Still, I believe that is it in fact Artemis who has sought me out, not any goddess with similar qualities from another culture. And I strive to learn as much about ancient Greek culture and religion as possible; my practice is modern, but my foundation is ancient.

My relationship with Artemis has led me many places. I found my passion, ancient history, by exploring my interest in ancient Greek religion. I decided to major in ancient studies, and I am now learning to read ancient Greek (Attic Greek, specifically). And I have been continuously challenged throughout the past year, as I've learned more about what it means to be one of her chosen.

So I write this blog for her.

*The story of how she interrupted me when I was making offerings to another goddess probably deserves its own post. 


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"...I just let one day move into two, and I'm losing everything except for you. I would sing you a song of devotion, that's what I should do..." - Indigo Girls