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

Water witch

Water is the theme for the week that's for sure. I am on day 3 of no hot water in the house, and my beloved Water witch is up in arms over the oil leak in the gulf. I mean I myself am concerned and upset by it, but my beloved witch is pissed. She has magick is going to weild it this night. I and many others will be there as well. I have never seen her so stirred up. She has been having dreams and messages from her goddess about the issue. I never know exactly what she's going to do in her magicks. she doesn't work off a script in any way shape or form. She works intuitivly. I have seen her perform some amazing magicks this way and can put a spell together in just a few minuets. I on the other hand take my time, looking through books, and carefully planning. I have been known to take a day or more to put a spell together. That being said I have noticed as I have more practice doing magick and finding out what works for me it takes me less time to put things together. Of all the elements I would say water is the most difficult one for me to really "jive" with. I see this reflected in my life in many ways. Mostly in a slight disdain I feel toward it. I am not afraid of it, but I don't care to say..go swimming, or get in a hottub. I'd rather go camping in the woods then go to the beach (even though I really enjoy time at the beach). I can't remember the last time I was in a bath instead of a shower. As a child though, I spent a lot of time swimming and snorkling in the river behind my home. I spear fished and collected cans. I floated the river more times then I can count. Perhaps as I have grown older I have lost that comfort with water I once had. Perhaps I just have more responsabilities. I have done the water ritual twice now, both times with similar results. I get "drawn" into the water and have images of water spirits, though they never talk to me. I'll keep working at it though. I know I need to be more like water in many ways. I'd like to be more like my b'loved water witch, and be able to work from intuition in weaving magick. To help with this goal I have placed the water dragon card from the Druid animal oricle on my alter. I have placed a lovely image of the lady of the lake on my desk top. So off I go to once again scry elemental water.
Gwynt-Siarad

Water water everywhere...

I have done the OBOD Bardic ritual of water. After entering the grove and doing the light body exercise, I looked into the bowl of water before me from the astral. I found myself drawn into it, pulled into the elemental world of water. I found myself in deep deep water. I could see the shimmering light of the sun above me, and deep deep blue nothingness beneath me. I was not alone though. I had the impression of schools of salmon, sharks, whales, and Undines. I hitched a ride on the back of a salmon and pulled along deep following in the direction of the undines. I got the impression of underwater cave like homes in a cliff face. Then I was taken to the surface and when I broke to the air I hand reached down and pulled me onto a boat. There was an old bearded druid and he had pulled me into a small skiff powered by a little prop. He laughed joyfully at his most recent "catch" and we puttered up a river to a lake. There he dumped me over the side and I sank slowly to the bottom of the lake. This caused me to feel some distress. As a child my parents had a cabin on a lake in Oregon. I had several bad experiences there that, had they gone worse could have ended with my death. The lake bottom was full of "seaweed" that was tall and felt very clingy. I hated to swim in the lake because you could always feel it brushing against your skin with its rubbery leaves and stems and I always thought it was going to pull me down and I would drown. Here I was sinking into the stuff. I tried to keep calm as I felt the panic build. Before it got to much, I found myself back in the sacred grove and from there back in my body. I completed the ritual asking for the depth and peace of the water. I used it to purify and cleanse myself and closed the ritual in the usual way. I have gained much to think about in this ritual, and plan to repeat it tomorrow. It seems obvious I have some water issues. I think tomorrow when I do this ritual, I will do it outdoors sitting at the sacred pond I built.
Gwynt-siarad

...and more

So now the pilot light on the water heater won't stay on. Parts have to be ordered. It was very nice of Lugh to let me know that a multitude of problems were coming down the road. It's much easier to not get frustrated with things when you are at least mentaly prepaired for them.
So in other spiritual news, I spent all day Saturday talking with my good friend Frater POS. I never seem to tire talking magick with him. His syestem is very different from mine, and yet at the same time accomplishes many of the same goals. I have talked to him about the idea of trying to invoke the god Lugh. I am still considering it. I have never invoked a god or goddess before. I have invoked animal spirits at times. It's some thing that comes very naturaly to me, invoking animal spirits that is. I learned to do it as a boy, running through the woods pretending to be this animal or that. Later, while playing sports or doing martial arts I Learned that I could invoke animal spirits to help me.
In the OBOD training I am at the point of starting to work with the element of water. There is a ritual I need to perform. I shall do this tonight or tomorrow.
Brighid's bright blessing upon you all.
Gwynt-Siarad