|
|
|
September 30th, 2009
11:05 am - More on the Order of the Crane
How on earth is it that in this economy, getting a quote in a timely manner is virtually impossible? If it were only one vendor, I could maybe understand, but nearly all of them?
I know I've spoken much about the ADF Order of the Crane thing that ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) seamus_mcnasty and I have been playing architect on, but I want to touch base a bit more. Bear with me, I'll be thinking out loud.
After receiving the first copies of the Order book, I started digging into the project. So far, I've added about ten pages to the total book, reformatted the text, and rearranged the way things are introduced so that they make a bit more sense. I've been outsourcing work that I'm not so hot with to various Grove members, and think that sometime after this weekend's Clergy Retreat, we may very well be ready to announce the Order of the Crane for folks outside the Grove.
I also started a large chunk of our Grove down the Order's path by doing a "meet the Crane" journey at the last Druid Moon rite. After having read a couple of descriptions of those journeys, I was deeply moved to write a few ritual pieces, which will appear in the book.
One thing that stands out to me is that I want to revise the second level oath. You see, there are three oaths that get taken in the course of the work: the Crane-Following Oath (basic, open-ended, promise to do devotionals and service work), the Crane-Dedicant Oath (dedicating the member to the Crane, still open-ended, and building on the CFO), and the Crane-Initiate Oath (more specific and personal, long-term-y, written with the Clergy Advisor's input). I want the Crane-Dedicant Oath to be fixed, but have not settled on solid, appropriate wording. I have something in place, but keep re-thinking it, and feedback on it has led to greater re-thinking.
In other news, I'm two questions away from completing Trance 2. If I complete by Friday night, I might actually be able to undergo the ADF Initiation with druidkirk on Saturday. The question is, will I have time to do something like that?
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: busy
Current Music: "Off To See the Lizard", -JB
|
May 25th, 2009
09:49 pm - Wellspring 2009: Moving Forward
I have to say, as festival years go, this one seems to be the one with the best feelings and generally the best weather I've ever been involved with so far.
Coming off Wellspring now, I'm starting to see patterns: 1) This year's festivals are smaller, more intimate affairs. 2) The festivals have a different energy, one that has been better across the board. 3) I've seen things getting resolved instead of complicated. 4) Each festival is bringing us closer to resolution on particular items that are organization-wide.
I was happy to hear of a couple of particular patch-ups between people that occurred, actually, and to see some change in activity (though on Sunday night I realized that bad gossip may never go away. . . which is okay, since I created some good gossip of my own. . . ask about how I created electricity in my pants!).
The Annual Meeting was particularly good: it was nice to hear about all the things being done for ADF, as well as hearing solutions presented for issues that have been raised over and over. I look forward to completing several of the items I got to personally address, as well as many items others addressed.
Of course, it's clear to me that I simply haven't done enough with the SP's of ADF: that point is drilled back into me all the time (I actually felt that I wouldn't have anything to say when Raven asked for my report, but fortunately, he didn't ask for a report: instead, he allowed me to elaborate on changes that are in place and that will occur). As Jimmy relates from a bar stool in Captain Tony's Saloon: "There's still so much to be done." It's clear to me that we have a long way to go, no matter how visibly excited I may be about what we have accomplished.
The main rite on Sunday night was powerful and deep, possibly one of the most powerful I've ever been to. Right now, I'm ranking it around #3 in my ADF experience, with the Belenos Rite at Summerset 2005 as #1, and my Consecration as #2.
The best part, though, was the note I found on my windshield just before I left, addressed to me but really for the Cranes as a whole. It seems that we had made one member's experience with ADF brighter simply by being who we are: open, outgoing and hospitable. I'm so proud of my Grove and all we've done, and reading the note made my heart burst with pride.
I read the note to the Cranes at lunch when I caught up with them in Erie, PA. I think they were as touched as I was.
All that said, this year is a year to go to festivals: if you can manage it, please, please do yourself a favour and get to one. And if it's Summerland, so much the better :)
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) cheerful
Current Music: "Tryin' to Reason with Hurricane Season", - JB
|
October 18th, 2007
09:07 am - Ritual Stress, and Unstressing
Yesterday, well: it was rough. Mostly, I had a rite that I really wanted to go well last night, but which I was really, really worried about. I'd spent a lot of time working through songs and trying to get them ready to go, and to learn them, only to end up forgetting melodies and underestimating the time needed to learn them.
Work has put me under more stress than usual, as well: I've been working my ass off for five solid weeks with no end in sight. Combine that with my usual pre-ritual anxiety and you have one basket-case of a priest.
It wasn't until I began to ritually pack the altar items we'd need that I finally started to calm down. There's something about going through the rite and all the stuff that's remarkably calming on me.
In the end, it turned out not to be the quality of our singing that was vitally important to Cantlos, our "ritual of songs" for this Druid Moon; it was the amusement and joy I saw on people's faces around the fire. Between forgotten words, failed reading of the lyrics, and our Grove's general "I-don't-sing" sentiment, the rite was full of songs and laughter and new jokes. Honestly, it was rather fun.
Props to the Grove for that processional, btw. Definite props.
I wouldn't have ever dared to do a ritual with that many songs and that little rehearsal as a public rite, but as a Grove rite, it was a lot more relaxed and fun. It may not have been as excellent as we could have made it, but we certainly learned a lot from it (like next Sept., we're going to need a meeting where all we do is rehearse songs for this ritual, and write new ones).
And boy, my Trance Journal got a hell of an entry on last night. I'm still not sure what to think of all that, but I see a lot of room for improvement on induction and focus.
We've a long way to go toward excellence with this particular rite, but I think we can manage it well. We have a year to look at it again, and the omens were not at all bad, though I think that the Powers were perhaps a bit confused by the shear number of songs we used, and possibly by the number of people making up songs on the fly, a la druidkirk. The omens are speaking to me more strongly this morning.
A favourite part of the rite last night, though, was after the rite: sitting and singing/listening to karaoke with the Grove. I was there until 11:30 (when I figured our hosts might like to get some sleep. . .)
The next Druid Moon Rite, Samonios, is already in the formal planning stages now; I'll be chatting with the Grove tonight about what they'd like to do at the next Druid Moon. I suspect that removing the variable of *that many* songs will help a lot in the planning (and my subsequent stress). But I'm particularly looking forward to December's Druid Moon Rite, where we get to go back to doing initiations for a night.
That's something I really look forward to doing again.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "What if the Hokey-Pokey is All It Really Is About?", -JB
|
August 6th, 2007
02:09 pm - Tracking numbers and locating stuff you're waiting on
It is true that when you get a tracking number for something, you must check it constantly to see where it is right now and at this particular moment in time. Today, I'm tracking a package that, I hope, will contain a chunk of cool stuff I need for the Three Cranes Druid Moon Rite.
As of 4:57 AM on Saturday, the package was in Maumee, Ohio. Not bad, considering it's being shipped via UPS Ground and apparently departed California at 1:56 AM the same day. That's most impressive because of the time change.
The worst thing about this is waiting, mostly because I had a dream last night where approximately 2/3 of the items I ordered arrived broken and completely unusable. I'm getting really worked up about this rite, and the "secret" nature of it all has me bouncing off the walls with worry.
I think I've said it before, but I have realized just how much I depend on my Grove for feedback through this process. I'm so much enjoying the creation of this ritual as an exercise in creativity, and really, really hoping that it comes off well. Some particularly odd things about this include the placement of the opening and closing of the gates and the addition of mystery workings surrounding the mistletoe. . . A couple of folks should expect an email with a link to the liturgy soon. :)
I'm very excited to see how this comes out. Very, very excited.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Rancho Deluxe", -JB
|
July 23rd, 2007
10:42 am - Three Cranes, Esus, and Tarvos
I've been working on further developing my connection with our Grove's namesake, Trigaranus (aka "Three Cranes", who we usually refer to in the singular as "Garanus" or "Crane"), within my own mind. If these 6th night rituals work out for the Grove, we'll talk about developing this a tad further as a Grove, too.
I started thinking about what names I could refer to each of the cranes as, and I started thinking about the Grove and what the Grove's strongest traits are.
I admit, my conception of Trigaranus is inextricably tied to my conception of the Grove.
As I was thinking about the Grove, though, I began to think about us in terms of the Nine Virtues of ADF, and I started thinking, "Which three virtues do we most exhibit?"
ADF's Nine Virtues are: Wisdom, Piety, Vision, Integrity, Perseverance, Courage, Moderation, Hospitality, and Fertility
Recent events were certainly on my mind, and I began to think about how our Grove is perceived inside and out. The virtue that stuck out most in my mind was Hospitality: we've seen a surge in growth recently, and we're becoming fairly well-known for providing hospitality (the joke has become that we are "Three Cranes Grove Home for Wayward Druids", which is great in our general opinion).
I thought about other virtues, and Integrity was the next to come to mind: not only in our words and actions, but relating back to the previous point of hospitality. We have a way of "integrating" folks into the whole here, and I'd like to see that continue and grow.
Vision was another obvious choice: I speak constantly about the Crane with "one foot on the land, one foot in the waters, and an eye constantly raised to the sky." I do that primarily to emphasize his tripartite nature as a creature of land, sea, and sky, but his eye to the sky could easily be interpreted as "looking into the future" while firmly "grounded in the present and past", if one wished to make a complicated explanation about it all (and this is religion: all explanations are complicated).
I then noticed that I had three functions with three cranes, and I was interested to see what I could do with the rest of the Nine Virtues (having six left over).
I started thinking about the parts of the myth that get no air play in our Grove: Esus and the Bull, Tarvos. I wanted to include them, as well, and so I set about giving them their own attributes from the Nine Virtues.
I ended up choosing the ones I did because I see Esus as a sort of "caretaker" to the tree: pruning it instead of cutting it down. This takes moderation, perseverance, and wisdom. I primarily see the bull, Tarvos, as a sacrificial bull, and thus connected it with religious action (piety), the continuance of cycles (fertility) and the courage bulls are renowned for.
It ended up looking something like this:
Esus, Tarvos Trigaranus, and ADF's Nine Virtues
| Trigaranus |
Hospitality
Integrity
Vision |
| Esus |
Moderation
Perseverance
Wisdom |
| Tarvos |
Fertility
Courage
Piety |
It's interesting to me to start, in earnest, taking the religion of the Gauls and really doing interpretive work off of it. It's also a bit scary, as I often don't quite know "how far is too far" yet, and the last thing I want to do is jump off the deep end and into fluff. The best I can do is avoid pretending that this stuff is "really the way it was" and say, "Well, if I were practicing Gaulish religion today, what on earth would I be doing?"
It's very interesting to re-imagine the cosmos. Very, very interesting.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: creative
Current Music: "Rancho Deluxe", -JB
|
July 9th, 2007
02:47 pm - And On the Sixth Night, the Druids Harvested the All-Heal
 So, I spent last night working on this ritual.
The Grove requested that we do more rituals at our last business meeting. I am, of course, happy to oblige them, and so I started doing research.
One of the specific requests was that we start doing rituals based on the cycles of the moon. Somehow, I had the brilliant idea of doing a sixth night of the new moon ritual.
Of course, this meant digging through sources, since I was suddenly of the idea that maybe I should try and have some real grounding in what happened in Gaul on said night.
So a problem arose: the original rite, according to Pliny, involves a golden sickle and sacrificing two bulls. As I can't afford a golden sickle and blood sacrifice just really isn't my cup 'o meat (especially a holocaust sacrifice, as it appears was done), I've had to find a way to take the spirit of the rite and translate it into a more modern ritual.
Fortunately for me, I'm feeling inspired recently.
( A bit on the process )
So as I worked on the ritual, I decided that the purpose would be two-fold:
- It would be our welcoming ceremony for new Grove members
- It would also do more inner work (trance and potentially ecstatic work) and help create a stronger Grove identity
I also decided that I would work outside the usual ADF Core Order of Ritual. Because this isn't a High Day ritual, I'm under no constraints, and while I have the COoR to work with for general ideas of structure, I'm completely free to exit it and abuse it (as, I feel, is proper for a list of items).
The rite itself will involve four key things: 1) Gaulish names for months (and variations on themes for them, such as Cantlos [song month] in September/October; this is an adaption from Kondratiev); 2) A more central role for Garanus, the Crane, in our Grove's hearth religion; 3) mistletoe, and actually giving it a strong functionality within our Grove; and 4) an actual mystery that simply can't be described (partially because I am not sure if I'm able to do it yet, though it's all worked out in my head).
I'm doing this whole "welcome to the Grove" thing without any oaths or real ritual terror; I'm not as interested as some folk (and traditions) are in hazing new members, no matter how much in fun it might be to the guy with the knife. Really, I just want us to affirm, ritually, our identity as Grove members, and to give some tangible benefit to those who join.
I'll have to find someone, at some point, to go over this liturgy with me and discuss it. I find, though, that I can't bounce ideas off people in my Grove, because if I'm going to try and work mystery and mysticism into a ritual, the element of surprise is crucial. It interests me how much I truly rely on their feedback in our usual rites, and how much I notice when I don't have it available.
At the next Liturgy Meeting (this Thursday), I'll get more verbose about my plans when I speak to the Grove. But, as a taste, I want all our current members to go through this as a "Grove welcoming", too, so that we obtain that shared experience.
Now, I just need one thing: a source for sprigs of mistletoe. Part of the issue is that I need them before August, when we will do our first of these rites: that's well before the holiday season (where you can sometimes get ahold of it).
Does anyone have a source for sprigs of mistletoe?
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: productive
Current Music: "Frank and Lola", -JB
|
July 5th, 2007
10:12 am - Esus and Three Cranes
Last night, while listening to some drumming CD's, I started free-writing about Esus and the Three Cranes. I came up with the following random bit of sketching:
Three Cranes
Garanus
Trigaranus
| Esus
Furious One
Passionate One¹
| The Bull
Tarvos
The Willow
The Bill-Hook
The Pruning
|
¹ - From Chris Gwinn's derivation from PIE *eis-, which I like, though I think it's a bit fanciful.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/confused.gif) curious
Current Music: "Kick It In Second Wind", -JB
|
|
|
