Three cauldrons

Walking both the paths of the AODA and OBOD has kept me a very busy man the past year. I needed a break from it all for a while, but now I am refreshed and ready to plow back into my work. I started by doing the three cauldrons exercise in JMG's book of druid magick. The purpose of this exercise as I understand it is to create reservoirs of Nwyvre in the body. These are used for health, enlightenment and more powerful magick. One doesn't just start off doing the three cauldrons either. I have worked up to it. I started by working with the Telluric and solar currents. I have been working with them, that is, bringing them into my body and circulating them around daily for about 9 months. The cauldrons are places in the body where you can have reserves of these energies, combine them into the lunar current and store that as well. I carried out the ritual as per JMG's system. The energies flowing into me were intense. Far more so then anything I felt with my Taoist work of long ago. I can almost feel the cauldrons as physical things within me. I can really feel the difference between the three energy types, and yet, can't seem to find the words to describe them. It really is something that has to be experienced to be understood. Like a sunset, or a water fall deep in the quiet woods. No matter the words, its essence is inexplicable.
After the initial awakening of the cauldrons, there is the daily work. This has felt so good I can understand why it could become almost an addiction. Though I don't know if it's possible to do it to much or to often. I might have to ask the archdruid about that.

breaks over, back to work!

Ok, so I took a two week mental break and sat on my ass. Breaks over and I am back to walking my path and doing my magickal work.

Handfasted!

This past Saturday, my beloved and I became husband and wife. I have to say it feels so good! That catches me off guard a bit. I have been living with this amazing woman for almost three years now (It wasn't supposed to last more then a few months according to my ex wife. ;-)) and I didn't expect things to feel different, yet they do. Perhaps it was the spell put on the rings we now wear or perhaps it's just me, but I can't help but feel different. Some how more complete and content. There is a rightness to it I just can't put into words easily. The whole thing was in its way both simple and yet very complicated. We have been planning the wedding for a year and a half. It was by no means a mega expensive affair, and yet it was the wedding of my dreams. It was very much a wedding of the "tribe". I don't think we had a single friend who didn't play at least some small part in the event. What's more people WANTED to help. They came to us asking! It was a magical event for sure. My hospitality to my parents and children was well received. The ritual itself was as my very neo-pagan with some elements thrown in from the OBOD marriage ceremony. It seems every one had a great time and truly enjoyed the revelries.
The ritual included our children from previous marriages as well as we saw this not just as the marriage of two people, but of two families coming together. Vows were traded to the children as well.
Today life goes on as normal as we get back into the grove. The same yet different.
Gwynt-Siarad
p.s. and yes the picture above is of myself and my bride.

Hospitality

Isn't it amazing how some weeks can fly by so very fast? Well my readers might be wondering at the lack of posts of late. The reason is that I am pretty busy with trying to get things ready for my handfasting which is this Saturday and the arrival of my parents and children. This will be the first time my parents have come to visit me since I moved here. In true pagan fashion I will give them the very best hospitality I can afford. Hospitality I have learned is one of the most important virtues to our prechristian celtic ancestors. It seems to me that it is a virtue that modern america has left in the corner gathering dust and cobwebs, no longer understood or valued...until you need it but can't find it. Hospitality was an outward sign of how honorable a person was. So important was it, that it was essentualy a lack of hospitality that set the wheels in motion that freed the Tuatha de Danan from the Famorians. Bres the beautiful who's sire was a Famorian and mother of the Tuatha came to rule over the Tuatha after Nuada. However he made the Tuatha beholden to the Fomorians and much tribute had to be paid. Yet it was not this that started the war, but it was Bres's lack of hospitality to Bards that finaly set the wheels in motion when one Bard, having had quiet enugh of the poor hospitality wrote the first satire. So scaulding was it that Bres the beautiful broke out with blister all over. The being that the king of the Tuatha having to be physicaly perfect caused Bres to be thrown out (they were just looking for an excuse I am sure) and sent him back to his father's tribe with his tale between his legs.
Another reason why I feel hospitality is so very important to the neopagan community is that it will bind us closely together and thus give us great social and cultural strength despite our few numbers and status as a minority. Hospitality binds people together in magical ways. It creates a sense of caring, love, respect, and goodness between people. When hospitality is so important and can be shared even between people who are enemies, it can go a long ways to lessen hostilities. That is assuming the hospitality is given with a good intent and not used to try and shame another as the Famorians tried to do to the Dagda by giving him super human amounts of food and telling him that to not eat it all would be rude. Like all things Hospitality can be abused.
Hospitality is what tied our pagan ancestors together in the past. Some where along the way the people of America have lost that path, but I am reaching out to those who will listen, neopagan or not, we need to bring it back. It is the ties that bind community together. I do not just talk the talk, but I walk it and I do it as best I can.
Gwynt-Siarad